Approaches to Media Discourse
Content
A
Term Paper
on
APPROACHES TO MEDIA DISCOURSE
A Survey of Approaches to Media Discourse Analysis
by
Abhay Kumar Shukla
Ph.D. Semester II, Session: 2013-2016
The English and Foreign Languages University
Name of the Course
Media Discourse
(Seminar Course II)
Name of the Tutor : Dr. Rajneesh Arora
Approaches to Media Discourse
This paper discusses the possible approaches to analyzing media texts. It
intends to cover some of the most important and most developed methods of media
discourse analysis, starting from the early quantitative content analysis, originally
developed by sociologists, social scientists and communication researchers. Then,
critical analysts like Fairclough and van Dijk came to prove these quantitative
methods insufficient. After that, this paper will discuss the approach of other
researchers like Schroder who found gaps in the concepts concerned with the
production/consumption processes. She suggests, along with van Dijk, an empirical,
ethnographic approach to media texts to fill in those gaps.
Introduction
A study of media discourse is important for linguists and scholars working the
area of linguistics as it forms one of the four main registers of the English language
(O’Keeffe, 2006), the present paper will cover some of the key approaches, methods
and tools of analysis of media discourse that analysts can adopt to analyze either
small-scale or large-scale corpora. The quantitative content analysis has been first
adopted to carry out objective observations and interpretations. Many software tools
were brought to the table to serve quantitative and statistical needs. However, these
quantitative tools were later proved inadequate by the other things that smoothed the
path for critical analysts to introduce Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to the world
of media text analysis. A focus on the importance of ethnography in media discourse
2
analysis which is still under growth is also worth mention.
Quantitative Content Analysis of Media Texts
Quantitative content analysis has first submerged in the 1950s as a major
research tool of analysis of media texts in mass communication studies and social
sciences. Lasswell (1948) describes media content analysis as ‘who says what,
through which channel, to whom, with what effect.’ The quantitative research
techniques are used for the conduct of ‘objective, systematic and quantitative’
descriptions of the manifest content of media texts. This makes quantitative content
analysis the most scientific and unbiased method that can be used for the analysis of
media content.
Mass communication researchers have offered a lot to the analysis of media
content. Their findings give clear definitions to the content analysis of communication
events and provide clear outlines to follow, not only for the objective interpretations,
but also for the gathering of media content samples. Neuendorf (2002) suggests seven
elements that will assure that the scientific quantitative content analysis of media texts
will not get ruined by the subjective orientations of the researchers: objectivity-intersubjectivity, a priori design, reliability, validity, generalizability, replicability, and
hypothesis testing. Berelson (1952) suggests five elements of content analysis that
every researcher should focus on: substance of message content, form of message
content, producers of content, audiences of content, and effects of content on
audiences.
As far as the contribution from linguistics in the analysis of media is
3
concerned, van Dijk (1985) admitted that before the 1960s, linguistics had little to
offer to those who were interested to analyze media discourse, and that it is within
social sciences that mass media research has initially emerged.
Implication of Quantitative Content Analysis in Applied Linguistics
Quantitative content analysis is used for large scale corpora to summarize
patterns and regularities in texts. In the 1960s, the analysis of media discourse was
approached through quantitative methods. In the field of applied linguistics, the
importance of the quantitative approach to texts was highlighted by the Gerbner et al.
book and the Holsti introduction. Then, it was further emphasized in the General
Inquirer project, where the help of computers were brought about.
Computational algorithms can help researchers conduct all sorts of
quantitative analyses, from the most limited and automatic, to the most complicated,
e.g. analyzing statistical data and results. The quantitative methods are the best to use
for large scale projects, if the researcher’s aim is to identify widespread language
patterns that could be missed when applying a small-scale analysis. The large-scale
analysis will help researchers to highlight patterns of association so that they unveil,
for instance, the most lexical items that tend to co-occur with keywords derived from
the issues they intend to investigate. Sometimes, without this quantitative approach,
analysts cannot be aware of the existence of some crucial lexical items, due to the fact
that they cannot be observed with the naked eye. Noteworthy, the quantitative
approach was carried out by a good number of researchers, such as Gerbner (1968),
Krishnamurthy (1996), Flowerdew (1997), Fairclough (2000), Piper (2000), Teubert
(2000) and Baker et al. (2013).
Technical Tools for Quantitative Content Analysis
4
Ever since the recognition of the role of computational algorithm in
conducting a scientific objective analysis, a good number of software tools were
created to fulfill the purposes of the texts analysts. A software tool for content analysis
can be divided into three major categories: dictionary-based content analysis (word
counting, sorting, simple statistical tests), development environments (do not analyze
but automate the construction of dictionaries, grammars, and other text analysis tools),
and annotation aids (an electronic version of the set of marginal notes researchers
generate when analyzing texts by hand).
The most commonly used software that has been acknowledged as the most
reliable one by many researchers is the Wordsmith. It is ‘an integrated suite of
programs for looking at how words behave in texts.’ It ‘controls’ the programs it
contains: Concord (makes a concordance using plain texts or web text files),
Keywords (locate and identify key words in a given corpora), and WordList (generate
word lists based shown in alphabetical and frequency order).
Since there are plenty of software tools to choose from, there are some choice
criteria that analysts can follow in order to determine which software will meet their
research studies’ ultimate goals. Some of the criteria are: complexity of analysis,
language constraint, licensing issues and user base, and platforms.
Downsides of Quantitative Content Analysis
Content can be divided into two categories: Manifest content (explicit
information) and latent content (implicit information). Quantitative content analysis
can only be used for the manifest content of media texts. Berelson (1952) says that
using a quantitative method to analyze ‘what-is-said’ will force the researchers to turn
a blind eye to ‘why-the-content-is-like-that’ and ‘how people react’, i.e. the latent
5
content. Therefore, reducing large corpora into quantitative texts, looking for
keywords, and making concordances is not enough to build a complete picture of the
meanings intended from producing the text. Drawing conclusions from mere figures
and simple statistical data is neither the only way nor enough to determine the
intentions of the producers of media texts or the impact of these texts on the audience.
One of the other aspects that a quantitative content analysis of media texts
failed to cover is, for instance, the syntactic analysis of sentences, e.g. agency of
social actions; the use of the passive voice instead of the active voice to withdraw the
attention from the agent of the action. For example, “The man got killed during the
revolution” is different from “Police agents killed the man during the revolution.”
Instead of looking for the most frequent words that co-occur with the verb ‘kill’ in
media texts about the revolution, it seems more important to know the agent of this
violent action. The fact that some media text producers choose to use the passive or
the active voice have different interpretations.
Qualitative Content Analysis of Media Texts
No one can deny the importance of the quantitative method as an ‘objective,
replicable and quantitative’ tool of analysis of the manifest content of media texts.
Ever since the 1960s, much focus had been put on the ‘classical’, ‘quantitative,
American, stimulus-response’ approaches to media texts. Van Dijk (1985) stated that
in order to establish an ‘adequate analysis of the relations between media texts and
contexts’, we need to go beyond the ‘surface’ level of texts to the investigation of the
‘underlying’ meanings. In the same context, Wodak & Busch (2004) spoke of what
some observers like Jensen & Jankawski (1991) labeled “qualitative turn” from the
quantitative content analysis of the study of media texts. By the second half of the
6
1970s, different suggestions of a ‘more explicit and systematic account of media
discourse’ were brought to light primarily by the Glasgow University Media group
which has published ‘Bad News’ (1976) and ‘More Bad News’ (1980), and the Center
For Contemporary Cultural Studies (1980) under the direction of Stuart Hall. Further
contributions were made by Schelesinger & Lumley, Dowing, Husband & Chouhan,
and Hartley & Montgomery.
Discourse Analysis
Richardson (2007) states that there are two main approaches to media texts:
the formalistic approach, also called the structuralist approach, and the functionalist
approach. The formalistic approach deals with the structural level of the media texts,
including these four characteristics: cohesion, narrative, causality and motivation.
Here, discourse analysis deals with ‘language above the sentence.’
The functionalist approach deals with ‘language in use’ rather than ‘language
above the sentence’. The language use and text interpretation cannot be fully and
adequately analyzed without the social component. Both the formalistic and
functionalistic approaches can contribute to a more adequate analysis of media texts,
built upon a consideration of meaning (assigning of sense) and context (assigning of
reference).
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
CDA was first derived from the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) developed by
Halliday. Then, it was further developed by Fairclough (1995), Fowler (1991) and
Boyd-Barret (1994). Despite the similarities, the founding fathers and mothers of
CDA, van Dijk, Wodak, and Fairclough, had a lot to offer to this qualitative approach
7
to media texts. CDA follows the functionalist approach, which advocates the analysis
of texts as ‘language in use.’ Its aim is to ‘link linguistic analysis to social analysis’
(Wodak & Kroger, 2000). It is concerned with: social problems, power relations, how
society and culture are shaped by discourse, and the investigation of texts, their
interpretation, reception and social effects (Titscher et al. 2000).
“Critical discourse analysis (CDA) emerged in the late 1980s as a
programmatic development in European discourse studies spear headed by
Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, Teun van Dijk, and others” (J. Blommaert and C.
Bulcaen, 2000, p.447). It stems from a critical theory of language, which regards the
use of language as a form of social practice (Fairclough, 1997)
and takes
consideration of the context of language use to be crucial (Wodak, 2000c; Benke,
2000).
“The term CDA is used nowadays to refer more specifically to the critical
linguistic approach of scholars who find the larger discursive unit of text to be the
basic unit of communication”(Ruth Wodak, 2001, p.6 ). In general, “it is a study of
the relations between discourse, power, dominance, social inequality and the position
of the discourse analyst in such social relationships” (Van Djik, 1993, p. 283).
“The notions of ideology, power, hierarchy and gender together with
sociological variables were all seen as relevant for an interpretation or explanation of
text” (Van Djik, 1993, p. 283).
The issues of Access, Power and Ideology in CDA
As CDA mainly concerns about language and social relations, the issues
such as language and access, language and power as well as language and ideology
8
are prominent when conducting CDA methodologies.
Language and Access
According to van Djik (2002), “language users or communicators have
more or less freedom in the use of special discourse genres or styles, or in the
participation in specific communicative
events
and
contexts.”(p.256)
The
participant of any kind of discourse may have more or less active or passive
access to communicative events, such as the writing to or speaking to the
professors, boss and etc.
Similarly, participants may have more or less control over their participation in
the discourse activity, such as the planning, setting, organization, register, genre,
topic, or structure of their oral or written discourse (van Dijk, 2002). In the domain of
media discourse, “the access of minorities to the mass media is a critical condition
for their participation in the public definition of their situation. ” (van Djik, 1993,
p.92). Due to the social and economic conditions, many of them do not have the
ability to get access to the mass media especially computer and Television.
Language and Power
“Power is about relations of difference and particularly about the effects of
differences in social structures” (Ruth Wodak, 2001, p.11). When power is related
to language, “language is entwined in social power in a number of ways:
language indexes power, expresses power, is involved where there is contention over
and a challenge to power” (Ruth Wodak, 2001, p.11). In social relations, language
and power is closely attached with each other “Power does not derive from
language, but language can be used to challenge power, to subvert it, to alter
9
distributions of power in the short and long term. Language provides articulated
means for differences in power in social hierarchical structures”. (Ruth Wodak,
2001, p.11). Thus, analysis of language is a great tool to investigate the power
relation such as dominance and inequality in media discourses.
Language and ideology
“The notion of "ideology" is presented --involving cognitive and social
psychology, sociology and discourse analysis”.(van Djik, 2004, p.4). Literately
understanding, Ideology is a set of belief systems constitutes a person’s belief,
value, goals and anticipations.
van Djik (2004) further discussed it by stating: “The cognitive definition of
ideology is given in terms of the social cognitions that are shared by the members of a
group. The social dimension explains what kind of groups; relations between groups
and institutions are involved in the development and reproduction of ideologies”(p.4).
“The discourse dimension of ideologies explains how ideologies influence our daily
texts and talk, how we understand ideological discourse, and how discourse is
involved in the reproduction of ideology in society”(Van Djik, 2004, p.4).
Methodology of CDA
1. Fairclough and his Three-Dimensional Model
Fairclough,
known
as
one
of
the
most
influential
practitioners
in
contributing to the CDA development, holds a more social-theoretical view
towards doing analysis. According to him, the model for CDA consists “three
inter-related processes of analysis tied to three inter-related dimensions of
discourse”(Rogers, Berkes, Mosley, Hui, and Josep, 2005, p.371). These three
10
dimensions of discourses are: text (description: formal prosperities of the text),
discursive practice (interpretation: relationship between text and interaction), and
sociocultural practice (explanation: social determination of the processes of
production and interpretation and their social effects).
According to Fairclough, the first level of the framework is textual-analysis
which includes “the study of the different processes, or types of verbs,
involved
in
the interaction; study on the meanings of the social relations
established between participants in the interaction; analysis of the mood (whether
a sentence is a statement, question, or declaration) and modality (the degree of
assertiveness in the exchange).”(Rogers, Berkes, Mosley, Hui, and Josep, 2005,
p.371)
Fairclough’s second dimension, processing analysis, involves “analysis of the
process of production, interpretation, distribution, and consumption. This
dimension is concerned with how people interpret and reproduce or transform
texts.” (Rogers, Berkes, Mosley, Hui, and Josep, 2005, p.371).
The third dimension–social analysis “concerned with issues of power—power
being a construct that is realized through interdiscursivity and hegemony.
Analysis of this dimension includes exploration of the ways in which
discourses operate in various domains of society.” (Rogers, Berkes, Mosley,
Hui, and Josep, 2005, p.371)
In short, the analysis of the text involves the study of the language structures
produced in a discursive event. An analysis of the discursive practice involves
examining the production, consumption, and reproduction of the texts. The
analysis
of sociocultural practice
includes
an exploration of what is
11
happening in a particular sociocultural framework”(Rogers, Berkes, Mosley,
Hui, and Josep, 2005, p.37) (Janks, Hilary, 2002, p.330 )
To summarize, Fairclough’s model of CDA. Fairclough’s approach draws upon
SFL. Fairclough’s method of analysis is conducted according to: (1) text, (2)
discursive practice, and (3) social practice.
1. A text consists of representations, identities and social relations, cohesion
and coherence. There are two levels of textual analysis: the sentence, and
what is above the sentence. At the level of the sentence, analysts examine
vocabulary, semantics, grammar, and even the sound system and the
writing system. At the level that is above the sentence, analysts examine
cohesion, the organization of turn-taking in interviews during talk-shows,
and the overall structure of newspaper articles.
2. It is at this stage when analysis turns from textual analysis to discourse
analysis. Texts should be analyzed as the ‘outcome of a discourse practice’
for a more competent assessment of the ‘news practice, news values, and
audience role’ (Cotter, 2001). Too much focus on the text will depict
analysts as ignorant of the processes of news gathering, encoding, shaping
of belief, encoding and decoding, etc. Analysts also need to know the
producers’ level of credibility, and the types of relationships they have
with the audience they are writing for and the communities they are
covering (Cotter, 2001). This can deeply affect analysts’ examination of
the meanings of the texts.
3. An adequate analysis of media texts must also include the socio-cultural
practice that is part of the communicative event to be covered. Therefore,
12
the textual analysis and the discourse analysis of media texts must be
linked to the socio-cultural goings where the event took place.
2. Van Dijk’s Model of CDA:
Van Dijk’s and Fairclough’s approach to CDA are ‘similar in conception,’ but
different in naming. However, the former has one special conception, which is the
socio-cognitive model. Van Dijk’s method of analysis is conducted according to:
the structural nature of texts, production processes, and reception processes. His
analysis takes place at two levels: microstructure, and macrostructure. At the
micro-structural level, he focuses on the semantic relations between propositions,
syntactic and lexical elements, coherence, quotations, and direct/indirect
reporting. At the macro-structural level, he focuses on the overall level of
description of media texts, from themes, topics, to news schemata (summary,
story, and consequences).
Van Dijk’s work also gives a great deal of importance to ideology analysis which
is based on social analysis, cognitive analysis, and discourse analysis. The
cognitive analysis consists of mental models, intended to mediate between
discourse practices and the social component. It helps analysts examine the
cognitive processes involved in the encoding and decoding of texts. In order to
reveal the implicitly-stated ideological dichotomy in media texts, van Dijk
(1998b) suggests that analysts must (1) examine the context of the discourse, the
participants and their background, (2) analyze the concerned communities, their
power relations, and conflicts, (3) cover as many opinions as possible about, what
he calls, ‘US versus THEM’, (4) reveal all what is stated implicitly, and (5)
examine the formal structure of the texts.
13
3. Wodak’s Method in CDA:
Discourse sociolinguistics is one of the directions of CDA developed by Wodak. She
developed an approach to analyzing media texts that she called the discourse
historical method, where all the available background information should be included
in the analysis of the audience of written or spoken media texts. There is a similarity
between her approach and the steps that van Dijk suggested in order to unveil the
ideological dichotomy, where he says that analysts must examine the ‘historical,
political, and social backgrounds’ of the main participants in the discourse (the text
producers, the people who were involved in the event, and the audience). Through
many research studies conducted by Wodak and her colleagues, Wodak attested that
the context of the discourse has an important impact on the structure and form of the
discourse.
Ethnographic Discourse Analysis:
The search for the most adequate method of media texts analysis did not end with
CDA or any other quantitative methods or qualitative frameworks. Many analysts
adopted a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to achieve a holistic
analysis, namely Halloran et al. (1970), Hartmann & Husband (1974), Ter Wal (2002),
Backer & McEnery (2005), Backer et al. (2013), etc. However, what some
researchers, like van Dijk, suggest to do is to put into consideration the ethnographic
observations that need to be done ‘about the production and uses of communicative
events […] ‘in’ the media and ‘by’ the media’ (van Dijk, 1985). A general definition
of the term ‘ethnography’ is ‘the description of people and their culture’ (Denzin &
Lincoln, 1994). The concept in relation to content analysis will be broadened in the
following parts.
14
Qualitative Content Analysis and Ethnographic Discourse Analysis
Schroder (2007) criticized what she called ‘the half-hearted holism of CDA’, because
it ‘suffers from a number of self-imposed methodological limitations.’ She states that
at the surface level, CDA is holistic. It examines all of the three dimensions of media
discourse
in
relation
to
each
other:
text,
discourse
practice
(text
production/consumption), and the socio-cultural practice. However, in a statement
made by Fairclough (1995) in which he says ‘[…] the ways in which texts are
produced and consumed, which is realized in the feature of texts,’ Schroder (2007)
draws our attention to the fact that in CDA, discourse practices are not studied
‘independently or empirically.’ They are simply observed through the text. Schroder
supports her argument with a study conducted by Swales & Rogers (1995), where
they state that conducting an ethnographic fieldwork among media text producers and
consumers will increase the validity and reliability of the analysis, and minimize the
subjectivity of the researchers’ analyses. Another argument she uses is that of Cotter
(2001), where he suggests a ‘holistic and ethnographically oriented approach’ that
examines the ‘community of coverage’ as well as the ‘community of practice’. As an
example, Schroder mentions the framework of investigation used by David Deacon,
Natalie Feuton and Alan Bryman. They argue that media production/reception studies
have made it possible for analysts to produce more reliable interpretations, and to
achieve a more objective view of the power relations between the audiences and
producers of media texts. Schroder claims that her approach to media texts is
empirical rather than merely critical, and that critical discourse analysts should start
analyzing the encoding and decoding processes of media discourse in an empirical
manner if they ever want to add more credibility and objectivity to their findings and
interpretations.
15
Conclusion
No researchers from the field of linguistics have approached media discourse directly
or developed theories implicating media discourse to linguistics. Instead, methods that
are originally developed in sociology, social science, mass communication, discourse
analysis, critical discourse analysis, and ethnographic analysis have been adapted to
fit the analysis of media texts. Still, relying on the findings of researchers working on
the later fields will definitely accelerate the process of producing a specially-made
theory of media discourse analysis by linguists.
16
Bibliography
Baker, P. & McEnery, T. (2005). A Corpus-based approach to discourses of refugees
and asylum seekers in UN and newspaper texts. Journal of Language and Politics, pp.
197-226.
Cotter, C. (2001). Discourse and Media. In: D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen and H. E.
Hamilton. (eds). The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. London: Blackwell, 352-371.
E. Richardson, J. (2007). Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical
Discourse Analysis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Herre & Goldman, Susan R. (Eds.), The construction of mental representations
during reading Mahwah, NJ. USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 123-148.
Jan Blommaert and Chris Bulaen(2000), Critical Discourse Analysis, in Annual
Review of Anthropology l29:447-66
Janks, Hilary. 2002. Critical Discourse Analysis as a Research Tool.” Pp. 2642 in Critical Discourse Analysis (Vol. 4), edited by M. Toolan. London: Routledge.
Johnson, S. & Ensslin, A. (2006). Language in the News: Some Reflections on
Keyword Analysis Using Wordsmith Tools and the BNC. in Leeds Working Papers in
Linguistics and Phonetics, 11.
Lowe, W. Software for Content Analysis<<www.ou.edu/cls/online/lstd5913/pdf/rev.pdf>>
A Review.
Retrieved
from:
Macnamara, J. (2005). Media Content Analysis : Its Uses ; Benefits and Best Practice
Methodology. Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, 6(1), 1-34.
Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak (1997), Critical Discourse analysis: A
preliminary Description, in Discourse as social interaction, 1997, 258-284.
Rebecca Rogers, Elizabeth Malancharuvil-Berkes, Melissa Mosley, Diane Hui
and Glynis O'Garro Joseph, Critical Discourse Analysis in Education: A Review
of the Literature, Review of Educational Research, 2005 75: 365.The online
version of this article can be found at: <http://rer.sagepub.com/content/75/3/365>
Ruth Wodak (2001) What CDA is about: A summary of its history, important concepts
and its developments, in Methods of Critical Analysis (ed.) Ruth Wodak and
Micheal Meyer, SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd
Schroder, K. (2007). Media Discourse Analysis: Researching Cultural Meanings from
Inception to Reception. Textual Cultures, Vol. 2, No.2, pp. 77-99.
17
Susan R. Goldman & Jennifer Wiley (2003), Discourse analysis: Written Text,
Literacy Research Methods, edited by Nell K. Duke and Marla Mallette, Guilford
Publications.
Van Dijk, Teun. 2002. “Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis.” Pp. 250-283
in CriticalDiscourse Analysis (Vol. 2), edited by M. Toolan. London: Routledge.
Van Dijk Teun (2004) Ideology and discourse: a multidisciplinary Introduction.
Carocci, Roma Publisher.
Van Dijk, T. (1985). Introduction: Discourse Analysis in (mass) Communication
Research. In: (Ed.) Discourse and Communication , 69-93. (C.5.)
Van Dijk, T. A. 1999. Context models in discourse processing . In: van
Oostendorp,
Van Dijk, T.A. (1993b) Discourse, Power and Access, in C.R. Caldas (ed.) Studies in
Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge (in press).
Van Dijk, Teun, 1996, Discourse, power and access, in: Carmen Coulthard and
Malcolm Coulthard (ed) Texts and Practices: readings in critical discourse
analysis, TJ Press Ltd., Cornell
Wodak, R. Busch, B. (2004). 'Approaches to media texts'. In The Sage handbook of
media studies. London: Sage.
18
Term Paper
on
APPROACHES TO MEDIA DISCOURSE
A Survey of Approaches to Media Discourse Analysis
by
Abhay Kumar Shukla
Ph.D. Semester II, Session: 2013-2016
The English and Foreign Languages University
Name of the Course
Media Discourse
(Seminar Course II)
Name of the Tutor : Dr. Rajneesh Arora
Approaches to Media Discourse
This paper discusses the possible approaches to analyzing media texts. It
intends to cover some of the most important and most developed methods of media
discourse analysis, starting from the early quantitative content analysis, originally
developed by sociologists, social scientists and communication researchers. Then,
critical analysts like Fairclough and van Dijk came to prove these quantitative
methods insufficient. After that, this paper will discuss the approach of other
researchers like Schroder who found gaps in the concepts concerned with the
production/consumption processes. She suggests, along with van Dijk, an empirical,
ethnographic approach to media texts to fill in those gaps.
Introduction
A study of media discourse is important for linguists and scholars working the
area of linguistics as it forms one of the four main registers of the English language
(O’Keeffe, 2006), the present paper will cover some of the key approaches, methods
and tools of analysis of media discourse that analysts can adopt to analyze either
small-scale or large-scale corpora. The quantitative content analysis has been first
adopted to carry out objective observations and interpretations. Many software tools
were brought to the table to serve quantitative and statistical needs. However, these
quantitative tools were later proved inadequate by the other things that smoothed the
path for critical analysts to introduce Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to the world
of media text analysis. A focus on the importance of ethnography in media discourse
2
analysis which is still under growth is also worth mention.
Quantitative Content Analysis of Media Texts
Quantitative content analysis has first submerged in the 1950s as a major
research tool of analysis of media texts in mass communication studies and social
sciences. Lasswell (1948) describes media content analysis as ‘who says what,
through which channel, to whom, with what effect.’ The quantitative research
techniques are used for the conduct of ‘objective, systematic and quantitative’
descriptions of the manifest content of media texts. This makes quantitative content
analysis the most scientific and unbiased method that can be used for the analysis of
media content.
Mass communication researchers have offered a lot to the analysis of media
content. Their findings give clear definitions to the content analysis of communication
events and provide clear outlines to follow, not only for the objective interpretations,
but also for the gathering of media content samples. Neuendorf (2002) suggests seven
elements that will assure that the scientific quantitative content analysis of media texts
will not get ruined by the subjective orientations of the researchers: objectivity-intersubjectivity, a priori design, reliability, validity, generalizability, replicability, and
hypothesis testing. Berelson (1952) suggests five elements of content analysis that
every researcher should focus on: substance of message content, form of message
content, producers of content, audiences of content, and effects of content on
audiences.
As far as the contribution from linguistics in the analysis of media is
3
concerned, van Dijk (1985) admitted that before the 1960s, linguistics had little to
offer to those who were interested to analyze media discourse, and that it is within
social sciences that mass media research has initially emerged.
Implication of Quantitative Content Analysis in Applied Linguistics
Quantitative content analysis is used for large scale corpora to summarize
patterns and regularities in texts. In the 1960s, the analysis of media discourse was
approached through quantitative methods. In the field of applied linguistics, the
importance of the quantitative approach to texts was highlighted by the Gerbner et al.
book and the Holsti introduction. Then, it was further emphasized in the General
Inquirer project, where the help of computers were brought about.
Computational algorithms can help researchers conduct all sorts of
quantitative analyses, from the most limited and automatic, to the most complicated,
e.g. analyzing statistical data and results. The quantitative methods are the best to use
for large scale projects, if the researcher’s aim is to identify widespread language
patterns that could be missed when applying a small-scale analysis. The large-scale
analysis will help researchers to highlight patterns of association so that they unveil,
for instance, the most lexical items that tend to co-occur with keywords derived from
the issues they intend to investigate. Sometimes, without this quantitative approach,
analysts cannot be aware of the existence of some crucial lexical items, due to the fact
that they cannot be observed with the naked eye. Noteworthy, the quantitative
approach was carried out by a good number of researchers, such as Gerbner (1968),
Krishnamurthy (1996), Flowerdew (1997), Fairclough (2000), Piper (2000), Teubert
(2000) and Baker et al. (2013).
Technical Tools for Quantitative Content Analysis
4
Ever since the recognition of the role of computational algorithm in
conducting a scientific objective analysis, a good number of software tools were
created to fulfill the purposes of the texts analysts. A software tool for content analysis
can be divided into three major categories: dictionary-based content analysis (word
counting, sorting, simple statistical tests), development environments (do not analyze
but automate the construction of dictionaries, grammars, and other text analysis tools),
and annotation aids (an electronic version of the set of marginal notes researchers
generate when analyzing texts by hand).
The most commonly used software that has been acknowledged as the most
reliable one by many researchers is the Wordsmith. It is ‘an integrated suite of
programs for looking at how words behave in texts.’ It ‘controls’ the programs it
contains: Concord (makes a concordance using plain texts or web text files),
Keywords (locate and identify key words in a given corpora), and WordList (generate
word lists based shown in alphabetical and frequency order).
Since there are plenty of software tools to choose from, there are some choice
criteria that analysts can follow in order to determine which software will meet their
research studies’ ultimate goals. Some of the criteria are: complexity of analysis,
language constraint, licensing issues and user base, and platforms.
Downsides of Quantitative Content Analysis
Content can be divided into two categories: Manifest content (explicit
information) and latent content (implicit information). Quantitative content analysis
can only be used for the manifest content of media texts. Berelson (1952) says that
using a quantitative method to analyze ‘what-is-said’ will force the researchers to turn
a blind eye to ‘why-the-content-is-like-that’ and ‘how people react’, i.e. the latent
5
content. Therefore, reducing large corpora into quantitative texts, looking for
keywords, and making concordances is not enough to build a complete picture of the
meanings intended from producing the text. Drawing conclusions from mere figures
and simple statistical data is neither the only way nor enough to determine the
intentions of the producers of media texts or the impact of these texts on the audience.
One of the other aspects that a quantitative content analysis of media texts
failed to cover is, for instance, the syntactic analysis of sentences, e.g. agency of
social actions; the use of the passive voice instead of the active voice to withdraw the
attention from the agent of the action. For example, “The man got killed during the
revolution” is different from “Police agents killed the man during the revolution.”
Instead of looking for the most frequent words that co-occur with the verb ‘kill’ in
media texts about the revolution, it seems more important to know the agent of this
violent action. The fact that some media text producers choose to use the passive or
the active voice have different interpretations.
Qualitative Content Analysis of Media Texts
No one can deny the importance of the quantitative method as an ‘objective,
replicable and quantitative’ tool of analysis of the manifest content of media texts.
Ever since the 1960s, much focus had been put on the ‘classical’, ‘quantitative,
American, stimulus-response’ approaches to media texts. Van Dijk (1985) stated that
in order to establish an ‘adequate analysis of the relations between media texts and
contexts’, we need to go beyond the ‘surface’ level of texts to the investigation of the
‘underlying’ meanings. In the same context, Wodak & Busch (2004) spoke of what
some observers like Jensen & Jankawski (1991) labeled “qualitative turn” from the
quantitative content analysis of the study of media texts. By the second half of the
6
1970s, different suggestions of a ‘more explicit and systematic account of media
discourse’ were brought to light primarily by the Glasgow University Media group
which has published ‘Bad News’ (1976) and ‘More Bad News’ (1980), and the Center
For Contemporary Cultural Studies (1980) under the direction of Stuart Hall. Further
contributions were made by Schelesinger & Lumley, Dowing, Husband & Chouhan,
and Hartley & Montgomery.
Discourse Analysis
Richardson (2007) states that there are two main approaches to media texts:
the formalistic approach, also called the structuralist approach, and the functionalist
approach. The formalistic approach deals with the structural level of the media texts,
including these four characteristics: cohesion, narrative, causality and motivation.
Here, discourse analysis deals with ‘language above the sentence.’
The functionalist approach deals with ‘language in use’ rather than ‘language
above the sentence’. The language use and text interpretation cannot be fully and
adequately analyzed without the social component. Both the formalistic and
functionalistic approaches can contribute to a more adequate analysis of media texts,
built upon a consideration of meaning (assigning of sense) and context (assigning of
reference).
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
CDA was first derived from the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) developed by
Halliday. Then, it was further developed by Fairclough (1995), Fowler (1991) and
Boyd-Barret (1994). Despite the similarities, the founding fathers and mothers of
CDA, van Dijk, Wodak, and Fairclough, had a lot to offer to this qualitative approach
7
to media texts. CDA follows the functionalist approach, which advocates the analysis
of texts as ‘language in use.’ Its aim is to ‘link linguistic analysis to social analysis’
(Wodak & Kroger, 2000). It is concerned with: social problems, power relations, how
society and culture are shaped by discourse, and the investigation of texts, their
interpretation, reception and social effects (Titscher et al. 2000).
“Critical discourse analysis (CDA) emerged in the late 1980s as a
programmatic development in European discourse studies spear headed by
Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak, Teun van Dijk, and others” (J. Blommaert and C.
Bulcaen, 2000, p.447). It stems from a critical theory of language, which regards the
use of language as a form of social practice (Fairclough, 1997)
and takes
consideration of the context of language use to be crucial (Wodak, 2000c; Benke,
2000).
“The term CDA is used nowadays to refer more specifically to the critical
linguistic approach of scholars who find the larger discursive unit of text to be the
basic unit of communication”(Ruth Wodak, 2001, p.6 ). In general, “it is a study of
the relations between discourse, power, dominance, social inequality and the position
of the discourse analyst in such social relationships” (Van Djik, 1993, p. 283).
“The notions of ideology, power, hierarchy and gender together with
sociological variables were all seen as relevant for an interpretation or explanation of
text” (Van Djik, 1993, p. 283).
The issues of Access, Power and Ideology in CDA
As CDA mainly concerns about language and social relations, the issues
such as language and access, language and power as well as language and ideology
8
are prominent when conducting CDA methodologies.
Language and Access
According to van Djik (2002), “language users or communicators have
more or less freedom in the use of special discourse genres or styles, or in the
participation in specific communicative
events
and
contexts.”(p.256)
The
participant of any kind of discourse may have more or less active or passive
access to communicative events, such as the writing to or speaking to the
professors, boss and etc.
Similarly, participants may have more or less control over their participation in
the discourse activity, such as the planning, setting, organization, register, genre,
topic, or structure of their oral or written discourse (van Dijk, 2002). In the domain of
media discourse, “the access of minorities to the mass media is a critical condition
for their participation in the public definition of their situation. ” (van Djik, 1993,
p.92). Due to the social and economic conditions, many of them do not have the
ability to get access to the mass media especially computer and Television.
Language and Power
“Power is about relations of difference and particularly about the effects of
differences in social structures” (Ruth Wodak, 2001, p.11). When power is related
to language, “language is entwined in social power in a number of ways:
language indexes power, expresses power, is involved where there is contention over
and a challenge to power” (Ruth Wodak, 2001, p.11). In social relations, language
and power is closely attached with each other “Power does not derive from
language, but language can be used to challenge power, to subvert it, to alter
9
distributions of power in the short and long term. Language provides articulated
means for differences in power in social hierarchical structures”. (Ruth Wodak,
2001, p.11). Thus, analysis of language is a great tool to investigate the power
relation such as dominance and inequality in media discourses.
Language and ideology
“The notion of "ideology" is presented --involving cognitive and social
psychology, sociology and discourse analysis”.(van Djik, 2004, p.4). Literately
understanding, Ideology is a set of belief systems constitutes a person’s belief,
value, goals and anticipations.
van Djik (2004) further discussed it by stating: “The cognitive definition of
ideology is given in terms of the social cognitions that are shared by the members of a
group. The social dimension explains what kind of groups; relations between groups
and institutions are involved in the development and reproduction of ideologies”(p.4).
“The discourse dimension of ideologies explains how ideologies influence our daily
texts and talk, how we understand ideological discourse, and how discourse is
involved in the reproduction of ideology in society”(Van Djik, 2004, p.4).
Methodology of CDA
1. Fairclough and his Three-Dimensional Model
Fairclough,
known
as
one
of
the
most
influential
practitioners
in
contributing to the CDA development, holds a more social-theoretical view
towards doing analysis. According to him, the model for CDA consists “three
inter-related processes of analysis tied to three inter-related dimensions of
discourse”(Rogers, Berkes, Mosley, Hui, and Josep, 2005, p.371). These three
10
dimensions of discourses are: text (description: formal prosperities of the text),
discursive practice (interpretation: relationship between text and interaction), and
sociocultural practice (explanation: social determination of the processes of
production and interpretation and their social effects).
According to Fairclough, the first level of the framework is textual-analysis
which includes “the study of the different processes, or types of verbs,
involved
in
the interaction; study on the meanings of the social relations
established between participants in the interaction; analysis of the mood (whether
a sentence is a statement, question, or declaration) and modality (the degree of
assertiveness in the exchange).”(Rogers, Berkes, Mosley, Hui, and Josep, 2005,
p.371)
Fairclough’s second dimension, processing analysis, involves “analysis of the
process of production, interpretation, distribution, and consumption. This
dimension is concerned with how people interpret and reproduce or transform
texts.” (Rogers, Berkes, Mosley, Hui, and Josep, 2005, p.371).
The third dimension–social analysis “concerned with issues of power—power
being a construct that is realized through interdiscursivity and hegemony.
Analysis of this dimension includes exploration of the ways in which
discourses operate in various domains of society.” (Rogers, Berkes, Mosley,
Hui, and Josep, 2005, p.371)
In short, the analysis of the text involves the study of the language structures
produced in a discursive event. An analysis of the discursive practice involves
examining the production, consumption, and reproduction of the texts. The
analysis
of sociocultural practice
includes
an exploration of what is
11
happening in a particular sociocultural framework”(Rogers, Berkes, Mosley,
Hui, and Josep, 2005, p.37) (Janks, Hilary, 2002, p.330 )
To summarize, Fairclough’s model of CDA. Fairclough’s approach draws upon
SFL. Fairclough’s method of analysis is conducted according to: (1) text, (2)
discursive practice, and (3) social practice.
1. A text consists of representations, identities and social relations, cohesion
and coherence. There are two levels of textual analysis: the sentence, and
what is above the sentence. At the level of the sentence, analysts examine
vocabulary, semantics, grammar, and even the sound system and the
writing system. At the level that is above the sentence, analysts examine
cohesion, the organization of turn-taking in interviews during talk-shows,
and the overall structure of newspaper articles.
2. It is at this stage when analysis turns from textual analysis to discourse
analysis. Texts should be analyzed as the ‘outcome of a discourse practice’
for a more competent assessment of the ‘news practice, news values, and
audience role’ (Cotter, 2001). Too much focus on the text will depict
analysts as ignorant of the processes of news gathering, encoding, shaping
of belief, encoding and decoding, etc. Analysts also need to know the
producers’ level of credibility, and the types of relationships they have
with the audience they are writing for and the communities they are
covering (Cotter, 2001). This can deeply affect analysts’ examination of
the meanings of the texts.
3. An adequate analysis of media texts must also include the socio-cultural
practice that is part of the communicative event to be covered. Therefore,
12
the textual analysis and the discourse analysis of media texts must be
linked to the socio-cultural goings where the event took place.
2. Van Dijk’s Model of CDA:
Van Dijk’s and Fairclough’s approach to CDA are ‘similar in conception,’ but
different in naming. However, the former has one special conception, which is the
socio-cognitive model. Van Dijk’s method of analysis is conducted according to:
the structural nature of texts, production processes, and reception processes. His
analysis takes place at two levels: microstructure, and macrostructure. At the
micro-structural level, he focuses on the semantic relations between propositions,
syntactic and lexical elements, coherence, quotations, and direct/indirect
reporting. At the macro-structural level, he focuses on the overall level of
description of media texts, from themes, topics, to news schemata (summary,
story, and consequences).
Van Dijk’s work also gives a great deal of importance to ideology analysis which
is based on social analysis, cognitive analysis, and discourse analysis. The
cognitive analysis consists of mental models, intended to mediate between
discourse practices and the social component. It helps analysts examine the
cognitive processes involved in the encoding and decoding of texts. In order to
reveal the implicitly-stated ideological dichotomy in media texts, van Dijk
(1998b) suggests that analysts must (1) examine the context of the discourse, the
participants and their background, (2) analyze the concerned communities, their
power relations, and conflicts, (3) cover as many opinions as possible about, what
he calls, ‘US versus THEM’, (4) reveal all what is stated implicitly, and (5)
examine the formal structure of the texts.
13
3. Wodak’s Method in CDA:
Discourse sociolinguistics is one of the directions of CDA developed by Wodak. She
developed an approach to analyzing media texts that she called the discourse
historical method, where all the available background information should be included
in the analysis of the audience of written or spoken media texts. There is a similarity
between her approach and the steps that van Dijk suggested in order to unveil the
ideological dichotomy, where he says that analysts must examine the ‘historical,
political, and social backgrounds’ of the main participants in the discourse (the text
producers, the people who were involved in the event, and the audience). Through
many research studies conducted by Wodak and her colleagues, Wodak attested that
the context of the discourse has an important impact on the structure and form of the
discourse.
Ethnographic Discourse Analysis:
The search for the most adequate method of media texts analysis did not end with
CDA or any other quantitative methods or qualitative frameworks. Many analysts
adopted a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to achieve a holistic
analysis, namely Halloran et al. (1970), Hartmann & Husband (1974), Ter Wal (2002),
Backer & McEnery (2005), Backer et al. (2013), etc. However, what some
researchers, like van Dijk, suggest to do is to put into consideration the ethnographic
observations that need to be done ‘about the production and uses of communicative
events […] ‘in’ the media and ‘by’ the media’ (van Dijk, 1985). A general definition
of the term ‘ethnography’ is ‘the description of people and their culture’ (Denzin &
Lincoln, 1994). The concept in relation to content analysis will be broadened in the
following parts.
14
Qualitative Content Analysis and Ethnographic Discourse Analysis
Schroder (2007) criticized what she called ‘the half-hearted holism of CDA’, because
it ‘suffers from a number of self-imposed methodological limitations.’ She states that
at the surface level, CDA is holistic. It examines all of the three dimensions of media
discourse
in
relation
to
each
other:
text,
discourse
practice
(text
production/consumption), and the socio-cultural practice. However, in a statement
made by Fairclough (1995) in which he says ‘[…] the ways in which texts are
produced and consumed, which is realized in the feature of texts,’ Schroder (2007)
draws our attention to the fact that in CDA, discourse practices are not studied
‘independently or empirically.’ They are simply observed through the text. Schroder
supports her argument with a study conducted by Swales & Rogers (1995), where
they state that conducting an ethnographic fieldwork among media text producers and
consumers will increase the validity and reliability of the analysis, and minimize the
subjectivity of the researchers’ analyses. Another argument she uses is that of Cotter
(2001), where he suggests a ‘holistic and ethnographically oriented approach’ that
examines the ‘community of coverage’ as well as the ‘community of practice’. As an
example, Schroder mentions the framework of investigation used by David Deacon,
Natalie Feuton and Alan Bryman. They argue that media production/reception studies
have made it possible for analysts to produce more reliable interpretations, and to
achieve a more objective view of the power relations between the audiences and
producers of media texts. Schroder claims that her approach to media texts is
empirical rather than merely critical, and that critical discourse analysts should start
analyzing the encoding and decoding processes of media discourse in an empirical
manner if they ever want to add more credibility and objectivity to their findings and
interpretations.
15
Conclusion
No researchers from the field of linguistics have approached media discourse directly
or developed theories implicating media discourse to linguistics. Instead, methods that
are originally developed in sociology, social science, mass communication, discourse
analysis, critical discourse analysis, and ethnographic analysis have been adapted to
fit the analysis of media texts. Still, relying on the findings of researchers working on
the later fields will definitely accelerate the process of producing a specially-made
theory of media discourse analysis by linguists.
16
Bibliography
Baker, P. & McEnery, T. (2005). A Corpus-based approach to discourses of refugees
and asylum seekers in UN and newspaper texts. Journal of Language and Politics, pp.
197-226.
Cotter, C. (2001). Discourse and Media. In: D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen and H. E.
Hamilton. (eds). The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. London: Blackwell, 352-371.
E. Richardson, J. (2007). Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical
Discourse Analysis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Herre & Goldman, Susan R. (Eds.), The construction of mental representations
during reading Mahwah, NJ. USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 123-148.
Jan Blommaert and Chris Bulaen(2000), Critical Discourse Analysis, in Annual
Review of Anthropology l29:447-66
Janks, Hilary. 2002. Critical Discourse Analysis as a Research Tool.” Pp. 2642 in Critical Discourse Analysis (Vol. 4), edited by M. Toolan. London: Routledge.
Johnson, S. & Ensslin, A. (2006). Language in the News: Some Reflections on
Keyword Analysis Using Wordsmith Tools and the BNC. in Leeds Working Papers in
Linguistics and Phonetics, 11.
Lowe, W. Software for Content Analysis<<www.ou.edu/cls/online/lstd5913/pdf/rev.pdf>>
A Review.
Retrieved
from:
Macnamara, J. (2005). Media Content Analysis : Its Uses ; Benefits and Best Practice
Methodology. Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, 6(1), 1-34.
Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak (1997), Critical Discourse analysis: A
preliminary Description, in Discourse as social interaction, 1997, 258-284.
Rebecca Rogers, Elizabeth Malancharuvil-Berkes, Melissa Mosley, Diane Hui
and Glynis O'Garro Joseph, Critical Discourse Analysis in Education: A Review
of the Literature, Review of Educational Research, 2005 75: 365.The online
version of this article can be found at: <http://rer.sagepub.com/content/75/3/365>
Ruth Wodak (2001) What CDA is about: A summary of its history, important concepts
and its developments, in Methods of Critical Analysis (ed.) Ruth Wodak and
Micheal Meyer, SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd
Schroder, K. (2007). Media Discourse Analysis: Researching Cultural Meanings from
Inception to Reception. Textual Cultures, Vol. 2, No.2, pp. 77-99.
17
Susan R. Goldman & Jennifer Wiley (2003), Discourse analysis: Written Text,
Literacy Research Methods, edited by Nell K. Duke and Marla Mallette, Guilford
Publications.
Van Dijk, Teun. 2002. “Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis.” Pp. 250-283
in CriticalDiscourse Analysis (Vol. 2), edited by M. Toolan. London: Routledge.
Van Dijk Teun (2004) Ideology and discourse: a multidisciplinary Introduction.
Carocci, Roma Publisher.
Van Dijk, T. (1985). Introduction: Discourse Analysis in (mass) Communication
Research. In: (Ed.) Discourse and Communication , 69-93. (C.5.)
Van Dijk, T. A. 1999. Context models in discourse processing . In: van
Oostendorp,
Van Dijk, T.A. (1993b) Discourse, Power and Access, in C.R. Caldas (ed.) Studies in
Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge (in press).
Van Dijk, Teun, 1996, Discourse, power and access, in: Carmen Coulthard and
Malcolm Coulthard (ed) Texts and Practices: readings in critical discourse
analysis, TJ Press Ltd., Cornell
Wodak, R. Busch, B. (2004). 'Approaches to media texts'. In The Sage handbook of
media studies. London: Sage.
18
