scholarly journals Libya, the media and the language of violence: A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis

2022 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-116
Author(s):  
Safa Attia

The Arab revolution euphoria of 2011 was covered around the clock by different media sites, engaging millions of followers around the world, and eventually turning into discontent in some affected countries. This study examines the outcomes of the Libyan uprising (2011–2015), specifically the topics of civil-war and terrorism, through the lenses of the Arab written media in Arabic (Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya), the Arab written media in English (Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya), and the Western written media in English (BBC and CNN). Through Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis (CADS), integrating discursive news values analysis (DNVA), this study highlights the ideological representations of these media, and examines their similarities and differences in terms of frequency distribution and story content. The findings indicate that the media coverage of the outcomes of the Libyan Revolution, when reporting on the topics of war and terrorism, follow similar directions in the story content and the frequency distribution, with some differences in the latter between the analysed media sites. Also, the collocations, concordances, and DNVA results, especially NEGATIVITY, IMPACT and ELITENESS, prove the emphasis of the media on violent language, making terrorism appear the norm, and thus manipulating the audience and affecting their understanding of the news.

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Thomas ◽  
Amina Selimovic

Purpose – This study aims to explore how two Norwegian national online newspapers, Dagbladet and Aftenposten, have framed halal food in the past 6 years (2008-2014), a period conflating with a rise in Muslim demographics in Norway. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed-methods approach is used. Employing among others a Hallidayan transitivity analysis and other approaches from critical discourse analysis (CDA), clausal semantic structures, collocations and nominalizations were explored with a view toward fleshing out ideological significance. Particular attention was given to the neologism – “covert-Islamization” – popularized by the populist right-wing Progress Party. Findings – The findings reveal that Dagbladet refracts halal food through a discourse of crime and other dubious frames tapping into topoi of Islamophobia. Halal is, in this manner, transformed into a synecdoche for deviance. This is contrasted with Aftenposten’s more “halal-friendly” gaze which inter alia is attributed to greater access for Muslim contributors (over 40 per cent), with nearly all authorship penned in the aftermath of the Breivik massacre of July 22, 2011. Research limitations/implications – As a comparative research that explores two newspapers – albeit with substantial national circulation – there are obvious limitations. Future research could explore the contents of Verdens Gang, the biggest newspaper in Norway, and perhaps incorporate iconic semiotic content. Social implications – The prevalent media discourse on halal in Norway casts a shadow over a fundamental aspect of the identity construction of Norwegians who adhere to Islam, thus highlighting issues of belonging and citizenry in the “new” Norway. National discourses of identity and belonging impact upon the Muslim consumer’s perception of self and ethnicity, and how these perceptions are negotiated in the interstices of a skewed media coverage of halal certainly serves to undermine this self-perception. Originality/value – Several recent studies have broached the subject of the manifold representations of Muslims and Islam in the media using a CDA, but there is a dearth in studies with a specific focus on halal food. This study contributes to the lacuna in the literature in an area of growing importance, not just as a socio-political and religious phenomenon, but a lucrative commercial project in a Scandinavian context.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Sacco

"H1 N1 is a virus that has been sensationalized by the media since the first case was discovered in Mexico during the spring of 2009. People around the world feared that the virus would mutate into something as severe as the 1918 Spanish flu, one of the deadliest plagues in history. However experts had discovered by June of 2009 that the Spanish flu was not comparable to H1 N1. Yet for six months newspaper reporters continued to compare the ew epidemic to the Spanish flu, thus keeping alive the threat of an unstoppable pandemic. One year has passed since the first case of H1 N1 was confirmed. After all of the attention that H1 N1 received, it proved to be not much different than a typical seasonal flu, resulting in a lower death rate (Schabas and Rau, 2010). Recently, a number of investigations have begun to determine if the World Health Organization (WHO) overemphasized the level of risk, resulting in a large quantity of sensationalized media coverage, and citizens in a state of panic.


2003 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Sweet

The media are often not rigorous in their coverage of health and medical issues, and have a tendency towards uncritical amplification of the claims of researchers, doctors and others, including commercial interests. Many journalists are not skilled at evaluating studies and research claims, and news values tend to be driven by factors other than the validity of research evidence. Media coverage of medicines tends to be overly promotional, highlighting the positives and often failing to mention the negatives. Media and public relations activities are a high priority in pharmaceutical industry marketing strategies. Tactics include: using medical opinion leaders and experts to raise awareness of diseases or treatments; generation of ‘new’ medical conditions to expand product markets; sponsorship of conferences; and even funding of journalism prizes. Critical reporting of health, medical and scientific issues could be promoted through appropriate education and workplace training.


Pomorstvo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-23
Author(s):  
Kundharu Saddhono ◽  
Ermanto

The concept of maritime (maritime) is frequently discussed among the Indonesian people, a fact that may be attributed to the emphasis that has been given to maritime issues by President Joko Widodo since his candidacy. This article applies Faircloughian approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA) to understand the coverage of ‘maritime’ in Indonesian online media. This paradigm has been selected because the media does not simply act as a neutral medium through its publication and coverage; rather, media have specific ideologies, which can be described and analyzed through critical discourse analysis. This approach focuses on three aspects when analyzing written discourses: representations, relations, and identities. Representation refers to specific words and grammatical structures to construct reality; relations refer to the connections between the subjects as depicted in the discourse; and identity refers to reporters’ positions in their coverage of online media, including their biases. In general, relations and identities in Indonesian online media coverage have been oriented towards the government and society. The government has been constructed ambiguously by online media, but depictions of government have tended to be positive, with a focus on the success of its maritime programs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-297
Author(s):  
Gregory Perreault ◽  
Newly Paul

This paper examines how religious news organizations in the UK covered the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe. Using narrative framing theory, this paper examines all coverage from 2015 and 2016 published in bbc Religion (a part of bbc News), The Muslim News, and Christian Today to examine shared and disparate narratives regarding Syrian refugees migrating to the UK. Four major frames emerged from our analysis of the media coverage in religious and mainstream publications: a humanizing frame, saviour frame, dehumanizing frame, and, redemption frame. The publications differed in their use of these frames as well as the use of sources, news values, and tone of coverage. We discuss each of these frames as well as the implications of the differing coverage.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Van Aelst ◽  
Rosa van Santen ◽  
Lotte Melenhorst ◽  
Luzia Helfer

AbstractThis study on the role of media attention for the Dutch question hour answers three questions: to what extent is media attention a source of inspiration for oral parliamentary questions? What explains the newsworthiness of these questions? And what explains the extent of media coverage for the questions posed during the question hour? To address this, we present a content analysis of oral parliamentary questions and related press coverage in five recent years. The results show first that oral questions are usually based on media attention for a topic. Concerns about media influence should however be nuanced: it is not necessarily the coverage itself, but also regularly a political statement that is the actual source of a parliamentary question. The media are thus an important “channel” for the interaction between politicians. Second, our analysis shows that oral questions do not receive media attention naturally. Several news values help to explain the amount of news coverage that questions receive. “Surfing the wave” of news attention for a topic in the days previous to the question hour seems to be the best way to generate media attention.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-302
Author(s):  
Emel Ozdora-Aksak ◽  
Colleen Connolly-Ahern ◽  
Daniela Dimitrova

News shapes audiences’ views of people and events beyond their immediate physical environment. Since the mass migration of refugees from Syria represents one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern history, its news coverage necessarily shaped the way global audiences understood the crisis. This qualitative study employs critical discourse analysis (CDA), specifically Van Leeuwen’s Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis (2008) as a social practice approach, to reveal and compare the discursive strategies used in the print media coverage of the Syrian refugees in three European countries: Turkey, Bulgaria and the UK. The findings show significant differences in the discourse used to describe the refugees and different approaches in terms of contextualization, spaces and actions depicted in the media coverage in each country. The study reveals the ongoing dialogue between journalistic practice and political decision making in three countries impacted to varying extents by the ongoing crisis.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksana Levantovych

The article analyses the peculiarities of the coverage of the covid pandemic in the Ukrainian media, the emphasis placed by the media in news, and how the online mode of modern life and social distancing affects the growth of media influence. Special attention is paid to the view of the famous publicist Heorhii Pocheptsov, who does not exclude the possibility that the coronavirus was invented intentionally to control millions of people around the world. Permanently, the world faces numerous challenges of different scales: economic, military, socio-political, environmental, epidemiological ones. In 2020, the largest and the most unexpected event, undoubtedly, was the deadly coronavirus pandemic, which spread from the small Chinese province of Wuhan to the whole world and already took more than one million people’s lives in less than a year. Thus, the media, that in the post-information society actually have an unprecedented impact on people, form a person’s perception of such challenges. As a result, our understanding of the pandemic is directly related to the information we consume from the media. In fact, from the very start of quarantine, the media space began to be captured by analytical materials in which experts from various fields tried to predict what the world would be like after the end of coronavirus. These experts were of two types: some claimed that irreversible changes would deepen the permanent economic and socio-political crisis, and by claiming that they intensified panic, while others argued that any crisis is a chance to restart and grow. The experts put different emphases covering the covid pandemic in the media, but it is important to pay attention to the analysis of the famous publicist, propaganda researcher – Heorhii Pocheptsov, who sees the coronavirus as a tool to influence millions of people. The pandemic will end sooner or later, but no matter whether the virus was artificially invented or not, the processes that have already been launched around the world cannot stop as if nothing had happened. But Heorhii Pocheptsov’s opinion about the possible artificial nature of the virus should make us more vigilant while consuming information from TVs or from the online media, as it is possible that this information might be a part of a great game that we were not warned about.


2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Almeida ◽  
Mark Lichbach

We compare activist-based internet data with four other media sources—Lexis Nexis Academic Universe, The Seattle Times, Global Newsbank, and The New York Times—on their coverage of the local, national, and international protests that accompanied the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Third Ministerial Conference in Seattle, Washington in late 1999. Using the Media Sensitivity-Protest Intensity Model of event reporting, we find that activist-based web sites report a greater number of transnational protest events at the local, national, and international level. We also find that activist-based websites are less positively influenced by the intensity properties of protest events. In the age of globalization, research on transnational movements should therefore combine conventional media sources and activist-based web sources.


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