Using Discourse Analysis on News Media Content

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

• Flaws of existing frameworks for analysis of news media texts

• Critique of suggested improvements

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

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

Three Key Scholars

• Michel Foucault’s system of representation

• Teun van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach

• Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis

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

Foucault’s System of Representation

• Criticisms:– No structured and comprehensive methodology– Subject as mere product of discursive practices

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

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

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

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

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


• 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


• 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

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


• Pros– Intertextual and contextual– Time-sensitive– Accounts for journalistic intervention

• Cons– Neglects production processes of text and

audience reception


• 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

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


• 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


• 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


• 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

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

Documents

Using Discourse Analysis on News Media Content