National open university of nigeria school of arts and social sciences
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| 3.2 Newspaper Discourse Newspaper discourse covers a wide range of issues that are connected with newspaper. It includes such aspects of newspapers as headlines, news reports, editorials, advertisements, announcements, features and so forth. Any of these aspects can be subjected to a critical analysis with the view to knowing how much they reflect the use of social power and the ideologies that underlie their construction. Newspaper headlines are particularly of importance to critical discourse analysts. Headlines are constructed to catch the attention of readers, so they employ the use of catchy lexicon selected to arouse the emotion of the reader to read the news. Any study of different newspaper headlines on a particular issue in the news will note that each newspaper constructs headlines from different points of view. For instance, let us seethe following likely newspaper headlines on an issue 19.1 Kano boils again Twenty killed in Religious Riots 19.2 Religious Riots Erupts in Kano 19.3 Twenty killed in Religious Riots in Kano 19.4 Panic Among non-indigenes in Kano as 20 died in Religious Riots A critical analysis of these headlines shows that all of them set out to arouse the attention of readers, but with focus on different aspects of the news. 19.2 will not arouse much emotion as the other three because it is silent on the number of casualties. In 19.1, the use of the word again is an indication that riots are regular features in Kano. Note the use of dramatic expressions like boils, erupts, panic, etc. 19.4 has another dimension to it by focusing on non-indigenes who are typically the targets of religious riots. This kind of headline may evoke retaliation in other parts of the country by a people against the group perceived to have attacked their own people in Kano. In news reports, biases can also be identified, such biases maybe inform of the manipulation in the choice of expressions to either obscure a group or magnify another. A group may also be painted in bad light, while others area given a positive image. For instance, some scholars have observed that women’s image in the media is not always as positive as that of men. For instance, women are said to be portrayed more as sex objects and dependants in advertisements, while men are often portrayed as breadwinners and strong people. 113 Newspaper editorials are the opinions of the newspaper on happenings in the location where the newspaper is published. They are written with some form of bias, which shows the ideological stand of the owners of the newspaper. An editorial tries to balance issues, but at the end of the day it is still clear where the interest of the newspaper lies. Just like headlines, editorials on the same issues can be critically analyzed to determine the ideological standpoints of each newspaper on such issues and how they have been able to pas across these using some specific linguistic resources. Download 0.49 Mb. Share with your friends:
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