RSSReview: News Discourse
Apr 10
AUTHOR: Monika Bednarek
AUTHOR: Helen Caple
TITLE: News Discourse
SERIES TITLE: Bloomsbury Discourse
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
YEAR: 2012
REVIEWER: Chrystie Myketiak, Queen Mary, University of London
SUMMARY
“News Discourse,” by Monika Bednarek and Helen Caple, is part of the
longstanding Bloomsbury Discourse Series edited by Ken Hyland that provides
students and researchers with introductions to core topics in discourse
studies. This particular volume consists of nine chapters plus two appendices
that discuss news discourse as it pertains to language and image in news
construction. In addition to providing an introduction to the topic, with a
non-exclusive focus on newspapers, the authors also provide frameworks for
their own approaches to analysing language and image in soft and hard news
stories, drawing from examples across news modalities and forms. The book’s
final chapter is a case study of online video news reporting about the death
of Osama Bin Laden that makes use of material discussed in the book’s
discursive and methodological chapters. Roughly speaking, Chapters 1, 2, 4 and
5 could be seen as providing introductions to news discourse, while Chapters
3, 6, 7, 8, and 9 could be treated as methodological.
Each chapter in the text begins with an introductory paragraph, a list of
objectives, and a section that operationalizes the main terms and concepts
discussed in the chapter. Similarly uniform is the list of suggested readings
at the end of each chapter. The directions for further reading provide
viewpoints both complementary and alternative to the ones presented in the
chapter. The authors also provide a concise summary of each reading to aid
readers.
Chapter 1 operationalizes ‘news discourse’, stating that it is necessary to do
so in ways that prioritise each of the two words in the term. The authors make
clear that for their purposes discourse is multisemiotic and includes language
and image in news construction. They differentiate themselves from those who
focus exclusively on language as well as those who observe discourse as a
reflection of news, rather than as an active construction of it. The chapter
introduces readers to the various types of news discourse that are discussed
over the course of the volume (e.g., print, online, television, radio,
podcasts, etc.) and provides an overview for various approaches to its
analysis. Bednarek and Caple provide descriptions of eight distinct linguistic
approaches to news discourse and another four approaches that are within the
domain of media/journalism and communications. The chapter closes with a
summary and discussion of the book’s structure.
Chapter 2 begins with five objectives that are squarely placed in the ‘how’
camp: how news develops, and is produced, consumed, regulated, and financed.
The authors argue that understanding these five topics is necessary in order
for researchers to contextualise their data analysis. They describe the
communicative context of news as a complex triangle between news discourse,
producers, and audience with energy transferring in all directions. Bednarek
and Caple then provide a sociohistorical context for news discourse,
discussing the development of the print news media in the UK, as well as its
digitization, financing, and regulation.
The topic of news values, as defined by Bell (1991:155), is introduced as the
focus of Chapter 3. Although Bednarek and Caple also provide four other
definitions of news values, they make clear that “what these different
definitions have in common, however, is that news values are said to determine
what makes something newsworthy — worthy of being news” (p. 40). They further
draw on Bell (1991) in their categorisation of news values (Bell’s are in
parentheses): news writing objectives (values in news text), news cycle/market
factors (values in news process), and news values (values in news actors and
events). From there the authors develop a news values summary, which includes
elements similar to other such discussions (e.g., Cotter 2010; O’Neill and
Harcup 2009; Richardson 2007). What follows from this is a short discussion of
whether news values are cognitively or discursively conceptualised. Bednarek
and Caple then consider news values and linguistic devices. This discussion
includes but is not limited to evaluative language, intensification and
quantification, word combinations, story structure, and first-person plural
pronouns. From there the authors turn to news values and image, using some of
the same subthemes as listed above but also incorporating aesthetic elements.
The chapter concludes with a return to their original news value summary. At
this point they provide and discuss examples of news stories as they pertain
to each news value in order to discuss how news values are construed in
discourse.
News discourse as a language variety is the focus of Chapter 4. Bednarek and
Caple outline key lexical and syntactic features that distinguish news
discourse from other linguistic varieties. They discuss the prevalence of
nouns, subsequent nominalisations, and prepositional phrases in print news.
The authors suggest that noun phrases work to evaluate and label news actors
and sources. With respect to verbs, the authors provide data from a corpus of
UK news discourse, arguing that ‘will/would’ are key verbs, and that finite
verbs rarely occur in the passive voice. They argue that time specification is
the most common type of adverbial and that linking adverbials are rare. This
discussion leads into the topic of the structure of the news story, which they
posit can be separated into three parts in most print genres: headline,
intro/lead, and body/lead development. The topic of ‘headlinese’ is discussed
in some detail, including features, verbs, and examples of headlines. Online,
radio, and television news headlines are discussed in the last section of the
chapter.
Chapter 5 shifts attention to still and moving images in the news, including
which images are used and their purpose/s in news coverage. The communicative
function of news images is discussed and is divided into a number of
categories: illustration, evidence, sensation, icon, evaluation, and
aesthetic. The relationship between text and image is discussed, including
image and caption relations, image and headline relations, and image and body
text relations. The final section discusses text and image relations in
sequenced images.
In Chapter 6, the authors provide the first of two frameworks for analysing
language and image in news discourse: a linguistic framework for analysing the
role of language in news stories. Bednarek and Caple discuss various
parameters of their framework: un/importance, in/comprehensibility,
im/possibility and in/ability, un/necessity, emotivity, in/authenticity,
reliability, un/expectedness, evidentiality, and mental state. The chapter
ends with a discussion of other issues for consideration, focusing on
evaluation of the sentiment behind the text: namely, whether or not the
journalist is expressing an opinion, what (if anything) is being evaluated,
the degree of evaluation, and the purpose of evaluation.
Chapter 7 complements the previous chapter, providing a framework for
analysing image composition. Here the authors draw on Caple’s training and
career as a press photographer to claim that news image composition is based
on balance and symmetry. They develop a framework for analysing balance and
composition in news discourse, which includes: image frame, elements, and
visual unit of information. The authors also discuss a number of different
patterns in photographs, the importance of aesthetics, and problematic or
‘ugly’ images.
Chapter 8 applies the frameworks of the previous two chapters (evaluation in
language and image composition) in analysing the topic of the stand-alone
print news story. The authors explain the concept of the stand-alone story and
provide a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis of stand-alones
in the Sydney Morning Herald. The quantitative analysis focuses on composition
and evaluation while the differences between soft and hard news stories are
discussed primarily using qualitative research. Their argument is that images
in this format are of good composition and a high technical standard, and that
the headlines associated with the images tend towards playfulness (e.g.,
through the use of puns, allegories, etc.). They found this to be the case
with both hard and soft stand-alone stories, and assert that this could be
considered inappropriate for some hard news stories, which tend to focus on
material events that affect people’s lives.
The final chapter, Chapter 9, is a case study that focuses on Osama Bin
Laden’s death. As with Chapter 8, the emphasis here is on applying their
frameworks and concepts to the study of news discourse. They discuss the
reason for selecting this example over other global news events during the
same period (2010/2011). They then apply earlier discussed frameworks and
concepts from Chapters 3-5 to their analysis of two video clips approximately
one minute in length from the websites of public news broadcasters in
Australia and the United Kingdom.
The volume also contains two appendices and an index.
EVALUATION
“News Discourse” is a volume on an interesting subject that merges two
important and interconnected topics within news discourse: text and image.
Bednarek and Caple introduce readers to the field while also providing
methodological frameworks to aid in data analysis. The book fills an important
gap in the existing literature in that it considers news discourse in a
variety of mediums, and gives equal weighting to image and text. The volume
will be particularly useful to students or those moving into this research
field as it provides both an overview to the topic and a toolkit for analysing
news.
This is a book that takes on a great deal: it is an introductory text, a
methodological guide, and it covers both image and language. The breadth of
material ensures that the book will be useful to students and researchers of
news texts and images across a range of disciplines. However, as a result of
the ambitious range of approaches and key studies discussed alongside their
own analyses, there are sections where the exposition seems too brief. This is
especially true in some of the chapters emphasising methodological frameworks,
where a topic is introduced and discussed for a single paragraph before the
authors move onto the next theme.
The short sections and subsections that move between distinct ideas allow
Bednarek and Caple to cover much terrain but further elaboration of some of
their themes (and subthemes) and frameworks might have been helpful to
readers. For example, their discussion of cognitive and discursive approaches
to news values might have benefited from further elaboration and/or clarity.
The authors state (p. 44) that the cognitive perspective holds the position
that news values originate in mental assumptions and categorisation, but this
is not taken any further (i.e., how do these assumptions and categories come
into being?). Similarly, “from a discursive perspective […] newsworthiness
is construed through discourse (both language and image)” (p. 44). For readers
not steeped in the discussion already, these definitions provide little
clarification of cognitive and discursive approaches to news values.
Chapters 4 and 7 stand out as providing excellent mixtures of
concepts/frameworks and supporting data. These two chapters will be of
particular interest to linguists researching or teaching in the area as well
as linguistics students. Chapter 4, which focuses on news discourse as a
language variety, includes discussions of linguistic features specific to news
discourse and their functions. Bednarek and Caple provide a broad set of
examples to illustrate their argument as well as a framework to use in
approaching news text. Chapter 7 focuses on composition, balance, and
aesthetics in image composition, which is an important but under-examined area
within the study of news discourse. The authors’ introduction to image
composition and analysis is accessible and provides a wide range of examples
of images to support their frameworks.
It is impressive that the authors balance their treatment of text with image,
and concept with framework. However, the way that this is sequenced in the
volume is somewhat unclear. Although there is a section of the introduction
dedicated to the ‘[s]tructure and summary of the book’ (p. 14-17), it does
not include how the chapters fit together, why the book is structured as it
is, or any clear reason for their sequencing. It may have been helpful to
readers had the authors explained how the chapters follow from each other, and
why the authors favoured this sequence and division of material as opposed to
other equally valid strategies.
One issue that it might have been interesting for Bednarek and Caple explore
is whether text and image must be analysed using separate frameworks, and to
be explicit about where independent analysis joins up again. The authors
structure the discussion of text and image quite separately in earlier
chapters but analyse the two together in the latter chapters. Chapter 8 uses
examples to examine language and image in soft and hard news stories and their
case study in Chapter 9 looks at an online video story (thus combining image
and language). However, the frameworks that they provided earlier in the book
treat image and text rather separately.
“News Discourse” is a valuable addition to the Bloomsbury Discourse series; it
covers an interesting topic in a novel way that will be of interest to a wide
readership. More importantly, the volume does so in a way that is timely both
in the modalities under consideration and the data used. Bednarek and Caple’s
book incorporates an extensive range of material and examines the crucial
interplay of text and image in contemporary news discourse. The book will be
useful to researchers and students interested in linguistic, media, or
discursive approaches to analysing news texts and images.
REFERENCES
Bell, A. 1991. The Language of News Media. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cotter, C. 2010. News Talk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Neill, D. and Harcup, T. 2009. “News Values and Selectivity,” in K. Wahl
Jorgensen and T. Hanitzsch (eds.), The Handbook of Journalism Studies. New
York: Routledge, pp.161-174.
Richardson, J.E. 2007. Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical
Discourse Analysis. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Chrystie Myketiak is a postdoctoral fellow at Queen Mary, University of London
where she works on CHI+MED, a project at the intersection of human-computer
interaction and medical safety. Her research combines media, health, and
discourse in a variety of ways, including: medical errors in incident reports;
the construction of blame in news about medical errors; and online sex talk.
She holds a PhD in Computer Science (Interaction, Media, and Communication)
and Linguistics from the University of London.
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