Newspaper And Discourse

1. AN AM K H AL I D
H I R A FAT I M A
N AB I R AZ A
Newspaper and Discourse

2. Critical Discourse Analysis
 According to Van Dijk;
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a type of discourse
analytical research that primarily studies the way social
power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted,
reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social
and political context.

3. Continued…
 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a branch of
linguistics that seeks to understand how and why
certain texts affect readers and hearers.
 Through the analysis of grammar, it aims to uncover
the 'hidden ideologies' that can influence a reader or
hearer's view of the world.

4. Continued…
 Analysts have looked at a wide variety of spoken and
written texts – political manifestos, advertising, rules
and regulations – in an attempt to demonstrate how text
producers use language (wittingly or not) in a way that
could be ideologically significant.
 Analysts therefore have a role of investigating peculiar
social ideologies that manifest inequality and abuse of
social power to the detriment of the minorities or the
underprivileged in society.
 Their main focus is to present the various ways in which
these inequalities are enacted by the privileged and
resisted by the underprivileged.

5. Media Discourse
 Media discourse refers to interactions that take place
through a broadcast platform, whether spoken or
written, in which the discourse is oriented to a non-
present reader, listener or viewer.
 In other words, media discourse is a public,
manufactured, on - record, form of interaction. It Is not
ad hoc or spontaneous(in the same way as casual
speaking or writing is); it is neither private nor off the
record.
 Media texts are a common subject of analysis in Critical
Discourse Analysis.

6. Types of Media
There are two main types of media:
 Written:
Newspapers and Magazines
 Spoken:
Radio and Television, News broadcasts, Drama

7. Media Focus
Media basically focus on following aspects:
 Immediacy: Specific actions and events
 Drama: Violence, crisis or conflict, extremist
behaviors, outrageous acts.
 Simplicity: Clear-cut opinions, images, major
personalities, two-sided conflicts.
 Ethnocentrism: ‘Our’ beliefs, myths and symbols,
‘Our’ suffering, the brutality of ‘Others’.

8. Media and Ideology
The ideology may be:
 Government supporting
 Anti-government
 Impartial
 To attract public attention for high rating
 To do business
 To educate the masses

9. Newspaper and Critical Discourse Analysis
 In our societies, mass media are the predominant
social field in the creation of the public knowledge
and information, beliefs, values and attitudes which
are necessary for establishing and sustaining
economic, social and political systems and orders
(Fairclough, 2010: 468).
 This suggests that critical analysis of newspaper
discourse may reveal aspects of how hegemony is
maintained.

10. Continued…
 Newspapers are noted for using particular patterns of
language in their discourse to mediate various ideologies,
especially when writing on typical social issues.
 This is contrary to their occupational norms which entail
“reporting something called ‘news’ without commenting
on it, slanting it, or shaping its formulation in any way”
Schudson (2001:150).
 Journalists who have total control of newspaper articles
therefore have the power to use the genre in order to
mediate various ideologies, thereby controlling the
minds of their readers as they wish.

11. NEWS Focus
The main focus of NEWS is on:
 Government conflicts
 Disagreements
 Decisions
 Proposals
 Functions
 Protests
 Crimes, scandals
 Investigations and disasters

12. Organization of Newspaper Articles
The rhetorical organization of newspaper articles
reflects the strategy used by the journalists to control
the minds of the audience:
 Headlines
 Lead
 Body

13. Continued…
 Because headlines are designed to be short and catchy,
and given that most readers often read and recall only
headlines, journalists tend to exploit them to express
their ideological view of the news stories they report (Van
Dijk 1988).
 In the lead, which is the first sentence of the news story,
they introduce the story by advancing some explanations
to harness the view initiated in the headlines.
 The body consists of a series of details, examples,
statistics, etc. that serve as concrete illustrations that
sustain and justify intended ideologies.

14. Example
 Dawn News 16 Nov, 2013 had a headline stating;
“Curfew imposed, Ashura clashes turn Pindi into ghost
town.”
RAWALPINDI, Nov 16

15. Example

16. Critical Discourse Analysis of The Title of
News
The title of the news has beautifully summarized
the whole incident. Title has revealed three different
situations by using three words in a most précised
manner.
 “Curfew”
 “Ashura clashes”
 “Ghost town”

17. Continued…
 Use of the above mentioned words in the title of news is revealing the
incident in a summarized way. Author has used the word, curfew, which
signals towards a situation which compels people to be at home.
 The use of “Ashura clashes” is enough here to reveal the cause of
curfew. Instead of going into details to investigate the reason behind this
curfew, readers can easily perceive it by going through the title.
 Ashura clashes caused destruction and the author used the term
“GHOST TOWN” which is pointing towards the worse situation of the
city and destruction caused by the Ashura clashes.
 Incident in the title has been defined in a sequenced way. The “Curfew
imposed” tells the current situation of the city and that this imposition
was due to Ashura clashes and these clashes brought destruction to the city
as well.

18. Continued…

19. Conclusion
 Elements of exaggeration can be seen in title as
“GHOST TOWN”.
 It gives the impression as if there has been
destruction on a very large scale.
 The use of certain words most of the time horrifies
readers.
 To attract readers and catch their attention and
capture their thoughts media usually creates a
situation like this.