Obesity in the News

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavin Brookes ◽  
Paul Baker
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Diet And Exercise ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Online Comments ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
The Media ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
British Press ◽  
Large Corpus

Obesity is a pressing social issue and a persistently newsworthy topic for the media. This book examines the linguistic representation of obesity in the British press. It combines techniques from corpus linguistics with critical discourse studies to analyse a large corpus of newspaper articles (36 million words) representing ten years of obesity coverage. These articles are studied from a range of methodological perspectives, and analytical themes include variation between newspapers, change over time, diet and exercise, gender and social class. The volume also investigates the language that readers use when responding to obesity representations in the context of online comments. The authors reveal the power of linguistic choices to shame and stigmatise people with obesity, presenting them as irresponsible and morally deviant. Yet the analysis also demonstrates the potential for alternative representations which place greater focus on the role that social and political forces play in this topical health issue.

scholarly journals Metaphor and intertextuality in media framings of the (1984–1985) British Miners’ Strike: A multimodal analysis

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Hart
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
British Broadcasting Corporation ◽  
National Union ◽  
Multimodal Analysis ◽  
Analytical Perspective ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
The Media ◽  
Discourse Studies

The British Miners’ Strike of 1984–1985 represents one of the most pivotal periods in British industrial relations. The significance of media stance towards the miners remains a controversial issue today, as attested by recent publications looking back at the strike (Williams, 2009a, 2014). Here, authors including miners, journalists and other commentators argue that media coverage of the strike followed a consistently anti-trade union agenda in which the media sought to destabilise the strike. An internal British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) report, only recently made public, shows that the BBC themselves had concerns over possible imbalances in their coverage of the so-called ‘Battle of Orgreave’ (Harcup, 2014). Despite the weight attached to media coverage in this context, however, surprisingly little research has been conducted from a discourse-analytical perspective to show systematically and empirically how such an agenda may have been manifested across media texts. In this article, drawing on Cognitive Linguistic Critical Discourse Studies (CL-CDS), I show how one particular metaphorical framing of the strike, which construed the strike as a war between the State and the National Union of Miners, persisted through the year-long period and consider the potential ideological functions of this framing in media strategies of (de)legitimation. I show how this metaphor featured in linguistic, visual and multimodal forms of media representation.

Language ideological debates about linguistic landscapes

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 786-808
Author(s):  
Rachelle Vessey ◽  
Jaffer Sheyholislami
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Online News ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
City Council ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Canadian Context ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
The Media ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Analytical Tools

Abstract In 2013, Richmond city council was presented with a petition calling for the regulation of all language signs, drawing national attention to the amount of Chinese-only signage. The signage debate has become well-known in Canada as a result of the media, which has provided a platform for debate through online reader commentary. By applying concepts from linguistic landscapes, language ideologies and nationalism in addition to analytical tools from SFL, we employ critical discourse studies to examine how representations of and responses to language signage in online news commentary contribute to the construction of in-groups and out-groups in the Canadian context. Findings show that stereotypical representations of ethnicity and culture are represented as a threat to the Canadian status quo. Also, contradictory ideologies of Canadian official bilingualism are employed to justify discrimination against Chinese language speakers. Findings suggest that language ideologies remain deeply tied to understandings of Canadian nationhood and belonging.

The media of the ultra-right

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cinzia Padovani
Keyword(s):  
Active Role ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
The Media ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Media And Communication

Abstract In light of the rise of ultra-right ideologies in Europe, this article offers an in-depth analysis of the discourse on immigration presented by CasaPound Italia (CPI), a self-defined fascist organization in Italy. This case study illustrates the importance of media and communication activism for the promotion of contemporary ultra-right movements. Specifically, the analysis focuses on how CPI reported one of the first widely covered immigration-related disaster in the Mediterranean, on 3 October 2013, and on the audience interactions that followed on the organisation’s website. In this article, I argue that CasaPound Italia’s online communiqué and its members’ comments need to be considered as one discursive event in which the encoding/decoding processes at play can be explored in detail. The examination, which draws from critical discourse studies, reveals audiences’ contributions in unpacking the implicit message contained in the original communiqué and underlines the active role that “rank and file” members play in the promotion of ultra-right ideologies.

scholarly journals The Politics of Voice in the Stereotypical Representation of the Pashtuns: A Critical Study of Khaled Hosseini’s Novels

2018 ◽  
Vol III (II) ◽  
pp. 385-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rab Nawaz Khan ◽  
Abdul Waheed Qureshi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies

The current study is an attempt to critically analyze the role and politics of voice in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns in terms of categorical and stereotypical representation of the Pashtuns. It is a critical discourse study (Norman Fairclough, 1989, 2018) of the selected data. Moreover, the data is viewed from the perspective of critical discourse studies. The novels under study are polyphonic in nature, and the characters belong to various Afghan ethnic backgrounds, like the Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the Hazaras. The study concludes that the novelist's choice of the characters with their respective voices and the roles assigned to them are political, ideological and somewhat biased. The Pashtuns have been stereotypically represented by categorizing them as the social, well-educated and more or less liberal Pashtuns, the tribal and traditionalist Pashtuns, extremist and fundamentalist Pashtuns, like Taliban. Misrepresentation of the tribal and fundamentalist Pashtuns as racists, ethnic nationalists, ideologists, sexists, exclusionists, traditionalists and power-abusers is indicative of the novelist's biasedness and exaggeration.

scholarly journals Trump, memes and the Alt-right: Emotive and affective criticism and praise

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 789-809
Author(s):  
Lyndon C.S. Way
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Authority Figures ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Political Decisions ◽  
The Ideal

Internet memes are the most pervasive and malleable form of digital popular culture (Wiggins 2019: vii). They are a way a society expresses and thinks of itself (Denisova 2019: 2) used for the purpose of satire, parody, critique to posit an argument (Wiggins 2019, see also Ponton 2021, this issue). The acts of viewing, creating, sharing and commenting on memes that criticise or troll authority figures have become central to our political processes becom[ing] one of the most important forms of political participation and activism today (Merrin 2019: 201). However, memes do not communicate to us in logical arguments, but emotionally and affectively through short quips and images that entertain. Memes are part of a new politics of affectivity, identification, emotion and humour (Merrin 2019: 222). In this paper, we examine not only what politics memes communicate to us, but how this is done. We analyse memes, some in mainstream social media circulation, that praise and criticise the authoritarian tendencies of former US President Donald Trump, taken from 4Chan, a home of many alt-right ideas. Through a Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies approach, we demonstrate how images and lexical choices in memes do not communicate to us in logical, well-structured arguments, but lean on affective and emotional discourses of racism, nationalism and power. As such, though memes have the potential to emotionally engage with their intended audiences, this is done at the expense of communicating nuanced and detailed information on political players and issues. This works against the ideal of a public sphere where debate and discussion inform political decisions in a population, essential pillars of a democratic society (Habermas 1991).

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