using discourse analysis on news media content
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Using Discourse Analysis on News Media Content. Issues and Challenges By Shan Wu. Overview. Defining discourse analysis Discourse and Power Three key discourse analytical frameworks Michel Foucault Teun A. van Dijk Norman Fairclough - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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Using Discourse Analysis on News Media Content
Issues and Challenges
By Shan Wu
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Overview
• Defining discourse analysis• Discourse and Power• Three key discourse analytical frameworks
– Michel Foucault– Teun A. van Dijk– Norman Fairclough
• Flaws of existing frameworks for analysis of news media texts
• Critique of suggested improvements
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Defining Discourse Analysis
• Two main definitions– As social action and interaction between human agents
– As social construction of reality that creates a knowledge system; influences our social practice and relations
• Effective qualitative supplement to quantitative content analysis
• Considers link between media content and wider sociopolitical framework
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Discourse and Power
• Discourse linked to power and social interests
• Language use and social practice framed by institutions– Institutions determine rules and and positions
of agents
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Three Key Scholars
• Michel Foucault’s system of representation
• Teun van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach
• Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis
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Foucault’s System of Representation
• Discourse as system of representation
• Discourse – Knowledge – Power
• Discursive formation can sustain “regime of truth”
• Subjects constructed through discourse
• Opposes Marxist theory of ideology
• Intertextuality and interdiscursivity
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Foucault’s System of Representation
• Criticisms:– No structured and comprehensive methodology– Subject as mere product of discursive practices
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Van Dijk’s Socio-Cognitive Approach
• Reducing textual info to fundamental themes• On thematic level:
– Looks at overall description of text/ macrostructures
– Reduces complicated info to macro-propositions
• On schematic level:– Analyse schematic structures that influence form of the
text
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Van Dijk’s Socio-Cognitive Approach
• Criticisms:– Ignores intertextual relations– Difficult to compare across large number of
texts– Uncritical reproduction of power relations and
ideologies
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Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis
• Discourses influence social relations and knowledge systems through language
• Group together to form discursive order• Discourse analysis = analysis of discursive event +
analysis of discursive order• Three dimensions:
– Analysis of 1) language texts, 2) discourse practice, 3) discursive events as instances of sociocultural practice
• Impt terms: Discourse practice, intertextuality
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Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis
• Criticisms:– Textual-oriented approach– Over-ambitious methodical frame– Questionable linkage between textual
description and interpretation– Lack of understanding of human agency
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Discourse Analysis for News
• Shaping presentation of media texts– Professional ideology of journalists, news
organizations– State and corporate pressures– Ownership of media– Profit motivation of news organization
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Discourse Analysis for News
• Key considerations neglected in current frameworks– Origins of competing discourses– Presence of divergent social accounts– Influence of external factors– Meaning of the text to different audiences
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Discourse Analysis for News
• Other issues– Accuracy of representations– Views included/ excluded in a text– Rhetoric of political stories– Time-sensitivity– Interaction between discourse and social
realities: Circulation of meaning
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Suggested Improvements
• Carvalho (2000)– Textual analysis
• Language and rhetoric• Discursive strategies and processes• Ideological standpoints• (Surface descriptors, objects, actors)
– Contextual Analysis• Comparative-synchronic analysis• Historical-diachronic analysis
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Suggested Improvements
• Pros– Intertextual and contextual– Time-sensitive– Accounts for journalistic intervention
• Cons– Neglects production processes of text and
audience reception
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Suggested Improvements
• Greg Philo (2007), Glasgow University Media Group– Interviews and focus groups with journalists
and audiences– E.g. Coverage of Israeli-Palestinian conflict in
the UK
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Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
• Reports on killing of young Palestinian boy Mohd Al-Durrah in Oct 2000
• Images of him and his father crouched against wall widely shown
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Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
• Israelis issued statement that boy’s death was unintentional
• Israelis focused on “war on terror”: Israel as threatened and “responding” to attacks
• Palestinians rejected this account
• Israeli view dominant in news
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Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
• Influences on UK journalists– Strong support in US for Israel– Close political link between UK and US– Well-organized lobbying and public relations– Views of political and public figures– Aim for balance: Sympathetic, acknowledge
boy killed by Israelis
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Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
• Audience reception of messages– Reproduced content and structure of news
progs • Little reference to Palestinian viewpoint
– Reproduced structure and sequence of accounts based on news reports
• Reorganized memories to give meaning to the event
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Conclusion
• Need to analyze media texts against total system
• Consider processes of production, content, reception and circulation
• Comprehensive discourse analysis: Better understanding of generation and reproduction of social meanings through news media