scholarly journals Social Reality Formation in Media Discourse: Information Ambiguity Strategy

2019 ◽  
pp. 64-75
Author(s):  
Vladimir Ozyumenko
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Modern Media ◽  
News Websites ◽  
Semantic Component ◽  
The Media ◽  
Information Ambiguity

Modern media have become an important ideological tool in conveying and forming a certain view of the world and attitude towards it. While complying with the interests of the power structures, they shape public opinion by means of increasingly sophisticated media technologies and techniques. The article introduces multilevel means of creating ambiguity of a media text: verbs with the semantic component 'without proof', lexical units with semantics of uncertainty, means of expressing epistemic modality, interrogative headings, etc. The regular use of these means observed in the media enables the author to consider ambiguity as one efficient strategy of public opinion manipulation. The data for the study were obtained from quality British and American newspapers and news websites that cover events related to Russia. By using the methods of linguistic pragmatics and sociolinguistics as well as critical discourse analysis, it was proved that the ambiguity is a widely spread method in modern media, it enables journalists to write about unconfirmed facts and introduce a certain attitude towards them into the minds of the audience without bearing any responsibility for unsubstantiated information.

scholarly journals Unruly Gestures: Seven Cine-Paragraphs on Reading/Writing Practices in our Post-Digital Condition

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 190-208
Author(s):  
Janneke Adema ◽  
Kamila Kuc
Keyword(s):  
Power Structures ◽  
Still Images ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Gestural Control ◽  
The Media ◽  
Cultural Power ◽  
Dominant Narratives ◽  
Bodily Movements

Unruly gestures presents a hybrid performative intervention by means of video, text, and still images. With this experimental essay we aspire to break down various preconceptions about reading/writing gestures. Breaking away from a narrative that sees these gestures foremost as passive entities – as either embodiments of pure subjective intentionality, or as bodily movements shaped and controlled by media technologies (enabling specific sensory engagements with texts) – we aim to reappraise them. Indeed, in this essay we identify numerous dominant narratives that relate to gestural agency, to the media-specificity of gestures, and to their (linear) historicity, naturalness and humanism. This essay disrupts these preconceptions, and by doing so, it unfolds an alternative genealogy of ‘unruly gestures.’ These are gestures that challenge gestural conditioning through particular media technologies, cultural power structures, hegemonic discourses, and the biopolitical self. We focus on reading/writing gestures that have disrupted gestural hegemonies and material-discursive forms of gestural control through time and across media. Informed by Tristan Tzara’s cut-up techniques, where through the gesture of cutting the Dadaists subverted established traditions of authorship, intentionality, and linearity, this essay has been cut-up into seven semi-autonomous cine-paragraphs (accessible in video and print). Each of these cine-paragraphs confronts specific gestural preconceptions while simultaneously showcasing various unruly gestures.

Persuasion strategies in media discourse about Russia: Linguistic ambiguity and uncertainty

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana Larina ◽  
Vladimir Ozyumenko ◽  
Douglas Mark Ponton
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
English Language ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Fox News ◽  
The Wall Street Journal ◽  
Structure Evaluation

Abstract The paper explores the role of the media in influencing public opinion from an inferential-pragmatic perspective. It presents preliminary results of the study focused on representation of Russia in Western newspapers. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough 1995,2001; van Dijk 2009) and media linguistics (Fowler 1991, Richardson 2007, among others) the study centres around the linguistic means of construing ambiguity/uncertainty, viewed as a strategy of persuasion. We mostly focus on the semantics of certain groups of words and other textual features such as indefinite pronouns, epistemic modality, passive voice, present perfect tense, interrogative headlines and some other tools used in media texts to construe ambiguity which, in its turn, arguably aims at influencing public opinion. We also look at presupposition, information structure, evaluation and transitivity. Though we have limited our study to the English language sources (The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, news websites of the BBC, Reuters, Express, Politico and Fox News, among others), we are not suggesting that linguistic ambiguity is a feature of Western, rather than Russian, or other languages' media.

scholarly journals Covering Islam in Western Media: From Islamic to Islamophobic Discourses

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bouchaib Benzehaf
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
The West ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Holistic Review ◽  
The Media

<p><em>A fundamental role allocated to the media is the shaping of public opinion about topical issues, thus making the act of obtaining accurate and verified information a major challenge.</em><em> </em><em>In this context, Said (1997) argues that coverage of Islam by the media has always been lacking in subjectivity, and Arabs/Muslims have at best been obscured and at worst “othered” and demonized rather than revealed by the media. The 9/11 attacks have re-triggered an explosion of media coverage of Islam and Muslims with the terms "Muslim" and "Terrorist" becoming synonymous in many western countries. The attacks have been exploited to cause a</em><em> social anxiety/panic toward Islam and Muslim cultures</em><em> leading to Islamophobia which is being further reinforced in Trump’s America. Situated </em><em>within the framework of Said’s Orientalism, which helps us </em><em>understand the relationships between the West and the Muslim world and also framed by agenda-setting media theory, which explains how media manipulate public opinion, this paper argues that Islamophobia results from the way the news stories regarding Islam and Muslims are covered. In particular, these stories are media(ated) and thus distorted. The paper borrows tools from critical discourse analysis, particularly global meanings and lexicalization, to analyse selected examples of media(ted) coverage of Islam and Muslim stories from different media sources with the aim of offering</em><em> a holistic review of the scope and nature of the coverage of Islam and Muslims. In light of the results, we suggest</em><em> interfaith dialogue and intercultural education as measures that can bring about understanding and tolerance between different religious communities.</em></p>

scholarly journals Political and Ideological Tensions in Palestine

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-78
Author(s):  
Rami Qawariq
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
News Websites ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
Ideological Tensions

It is widely accepted that the struggle over media representation within the Palestinian-Israeli struggle is no less important than the struggle on the ground (Wolfsfeld, 1997). Although the role of the media in this struggle has been a focal interest for researchers, the vast majority of studies adopt top-down approaches with macro-level tools of analysis which lead to a dichotomous positive ‘Self’ and negative ‘Other’ representation. This study, in contrast, is a qualitative language-based analysis of three Palestinian news websites, which publish in English, during the 2014 Gaza war. These news websites are indicative of the media landscape in Palestine, and the choice of these outlets is intended to present a range of possible views. The study adds to the effort that approaches media discourse to detect fissures and dissonances, rather than identifying stabilities and symmetries. It aims at revealing some discursive aspects of the way marginal ideologies compete with the dominant discourse in Palestine. This is intended to shed light on the latent change in the Palestinian political culture and how it is discursively articulated. Within the framework of critical discourse analysis, the study takes account of transitivity (Halliday, 1985; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), the social actor model (van Leeuwen, 2008) and referential strategies (Reisigl & Wodak, 2009) to conduct its bottom-up analysis. The study finds that Palestinian news websites subtly exploit representations of actions and actors in their struggle for power, representativeness and legitimacy. More importantly, the results of this study reveal that a marginal ideology in Palestine is growing and competing with hegemonic national narratives. While the hegemonically dominant ideology depends on common public knowledge and backgrounds much contextual information, the marginal ideology mainly functions via the extensive contextualization of events, which takes a bottom-up discursive direction in relation to the prevailing socio-political culture.Keywords: Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory; conflict; Shakespeare; Chinese Daoism; education

DYNAMIC AND COMPETENCE ASPECTS OF THE MEDIA EDUCATIONAL CONCEPT OF DEVELOPING A PERSON’S READINESS FOR LIFELONG SELF-EDUCATION

2019 ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
S. V. Akmanova ◽  
L. V. Kurzaeva ◽  
N. A. Kopylova
Keyword(s):  
Informal Education ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Formal Training ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Educational Concept ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Competence Models ◽  
Scientific Achievements

The harmonious existence of the individual in the modern informational era, which is overly saturated with rapidly developing media technologies, is almost impossible without the developed readiness of the individual for lifelong continuous self-education. The formation and development of this readiness can begin during the formal training at the stage of higher education of the person and continue during informal education throughout his future life. Stages of socialization and professionalization of the person have a great influence on the level nature of this readiness. Based on scientific achievements in the field of self-education of university students, national and world media education, we developed dynamic and competence models of media educational concept of developing a person’s readiness for lifelong self-education. The concept demonstrates interconnection of these two models, as well as consistency with the previously developed normative model of developing this readiness.

Disruptive Fixation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christo Sims
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
New Media ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Middle Schoolers ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
Class Divisions ◽  
Conventional Type

In New York City in 2009, a new kind of public school opened its doors to its inaugural class of middle schoolers. Conceived by a team of game designers and progressive educational reformers and backed by prominent philanthropic foundations, it promised to reinvent the classroom for the digital age. This book documents the life of the school from its planning stages to the graduation of its first eighth-grade class. It is the account of how this “school for digital kids,” heralded as a model of tech-driven educational reform, reverted to a more conventional type of schooling with rote learning, an emphasis on discipline, and traditional hierarchies of authority. Troubling gender and racialized class divisions also emerged. The book shows how the philanthropic possibilities of new media technologies are repeatedly idealized even though actual interventions routinely fall short of the desired outcomes. It traces the complex processes by which idealistic tech-reform perennially takes root, unsettles the worlds into which it intervenes, and eventually stabilizes in ways that remake and extend many of the social predicaments reformers hope to fix. It offers a nuanced look at the roles that powerful elites, experts, the media, and the intended beneficiaries of reform—in this case, the students and their parents—play in perpetuating the cycle. The book offers a timely examination of techno-philanthropism and the yearnings and dilemmas it seeks to address, revealing what failed interventions do manage to accomplish—and for whom.

The Media Conspiracy Behind the Death of Diana, Princess Of Wales: A Study of Critical Discourse Analysis

Metahumaniora ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Indah Mustika Santhi
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Daily Mail ◽  
Daily Newspapers ◽  
Analysis Theory ◽  
The Media ◽  
Material Process ◽  
Social Level

ABSTRAKPenelitian ini berjudul “The Media Conspiracy Behind the Death of Diana, Princessof Wales: A Study of Critical Discourse Analysis”. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskanbagaimana kematian Putri Diana direpresentasikan oleh The Daily Mail dalam artikelartikelpemberitaannya melalui dimensi tekstual dan juga memaparkan cara pandang TheDaily Mail sebagai pelaku media konspirasi pada praktik kerjanya terkait berita kematianPutri Diana dalam dimensi sosiokultural. Objek penelitian ini adalah The Daily Mail, salahsatu tabloid harian terbesar di Inggris. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalahmetode kualitatif, analisis deskriptif. Penulis menggunakan teori analisis wacana kritisFairclough (1995), disertai dengan beberapa teori pendukung lainnya, seperti teori klausasebagai representasi Halliday (2004), teori konspirasi Feaster (2008), Birchall (2006),Barkun (2003), Hodapp dan von Kannun (2008). Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkanbahwa representasi kematian Putri Diana dalam dimensi tekstual didapat melalui prosesmaterial, proses mental, proses relasional, proses verbal, dan proses eksistensial yangterdapat dalam artikel-artikel The Daily Mail. Sementara itu, cara pandang The Daily Mailsebagai pelaku media konspirasi atas berita kematian Putri Diana didapat melalui prosestataran sosial, tataran institusional, tataran sosial pada dimensi praktik sosiokultural.Kata Kunci: Transitivitas, Analisis Wacana Kritis, Media konspirasi.ABSTRACTThis thesis is entitled “The Media Conspiracy Behind the Death of Diana, Princessof Wales: A Study of Critical Discourse Analysis”. This thesis is aimed to describe therepresentation of Princess Diana’s death and The Daily Mail’s perspective as a mediaconspiracy actor through textual and sociocultural dimension. The object of this thesis isThe Daily Mail, one of the widest national daily newspapers in England. The method that isused in this thesis is a qualitative method, a descriptive analytic method. The writer uses thecritical discourse analysis theory of Fairclough (1995) and some other supported theories,such as clause as representation theory by Halliday (2004), the conspiracy theory by Feaster(2008), Birchall (2006), Barkun (2003), Hodapp and von Kannun (2008). The result of thisresearch shows that the representation in textual dimension that appear on Princess Diana’sdeath is derived from material process, mental process, relational process, verbal process, andexistential process. While The Daily Mail’s perspective on Princess Diana’s death is derivedfrom situational level, institutional level and social level of sociocultural practice dimension.Keywords: Transitivity, Critical Discourse Analysis, Media Conspiracy.

Media Representation of the Pandemic: a Metaphorical Image of War (based on American Newspapers)

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (8) ◽  
pp. 69-83
Author(s):  
N. S. Dankova ◽  
E. V. Krekhtunova
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Media Representation ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
War Zone ◽  
Mass Consciousness ◽  
The Media ◽  
Coronavirus Infection ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

The article is devoted to the study of the media representation features of the situation of coronavirus infection spread. The material was articles published in American newspapers. It is shown that the metaphorical model "War" is widely used in media coverage of the pandemic. The relevance of the work is due to the ability of the media to influence the mass consciousness. The methodological basis of the research is formed by critical discourse analysis, which establishes the connection between language and social reality. The article provides an overview of works devoted to the study of metaphor. The theoretical foundations for the study of metaphorical modeling are given. In the course of the analysis, the linguistic means of updating the metaphorical model "War" were revealed. The authors note that this metaphorical model is represented by such frames as “War and its characteristics”, “Participants in military action”, “War zone”, “Enemy actions”, “Confronting the enemy”. It is shown that modern reality is presented in the media as martial law, the coronavirus is positioned in the media as a cruel and merciless enemy seeking to take over the world, the treatment of the disease is represented as a fight against the enemy. It is concluded that the use of the metaphorical model "War" is one of the ways to conceptualize the spread of coronavirus.

Filthy Material

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Forster
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Media ◽  
Twentieth Century Literature ◽  
Modernist Literature ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Radclyffe Hall ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media

Modernist literature is inextricable from the history of obscenity. The trials of such figures as James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Radclyffe Hall loom large in accounts of twentieth-century literature. Filthy Material: Modernism and the Media of Obscenity reveals the ways that debates about obscenity and literature were shaped by changes in the history of media. The emergence of film, photography, and new printing technologies shaped how “literary value” was understood, altering how obscenity was defined and which texts were considered obscene. Filthy Material rereads the history of modernist obscenity to discover the role played by technological media in debates about obscenity. The shift from the intense censorship of the early twentieth century to the effective “end of obscenity” for literature at the middle of the century was not simply a product of cultural liberalization but also of a changing media ecology. Filthy Material brings together media theory and archival research to offer a fresh account of modernist obscenity with novel readings of works of modernist literature. It sheds new light on figures at the center of modernism’s obscenity trials (such as Joyce and Lawrence), demonstrates the relevance of the discourse of obscenity to understanding figures not typically associated with obscenity debates (such as T. S. Eliot and Wyndham Lewis), and introduces new figures to our account of modernism (such as Norah James and Jack Kahane). It reveals how modernist obscenity reflected a contest over the literary in the face of new media technologies.

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