Chapter 4

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Chapter 4 2
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Language and the 8
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media 10
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Joanna Thornborrow 2
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● 4.1 Introduction 56 4
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● 4.2 The function of the media 56 6
● 4.3 Media, language and power 58 7
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● 4.4 Sources of news 64 9
● 4.5 Media voices: accent and register 66 20111
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● 4.6 Public participation in the media 69 2
● 4.7 Language, society and virtual power 71 3
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● 4.8 Summary 73 5
● Suggestions for further reading 74 6
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 4.1 Introduction
The media (usually understood to refer to the press, radio and television broad-
casting) have become one of the most pervasive phenomena in our culture.
We can also add the World Wide Web to the list of communications media,
but we will be dealing here mainly with newspapers and broadcasting media
(television and radio). The aim of this chapter is to examine how our know-
ledge about the world is mediated through press and broadcasting institutions,
and to suggest ways in which the analysis of language can provide insights
into how that mediation can affect the representation of people, places and
events.
The mass media have become one of the principal means through which
we gain access to a large part of our information about the world, as well as
to much of our entertainment. Because of this, they are a powerful site for the
production and circulation of social meanings, i.e. to a great extent the media
decide the significance of things that happen in the world for any given culture,
society or social group. The language used by the media to represent partic-
ular social and political groups, and to describe newsworthy events, tends to
provide the dominant ways available for the rest of us to talk about those
groups and events. We will be looking here at some examples of these.
Lastly, as access to television and radio discourse is widening, more
programmes, such as the ever-popular talk shows and phone-ins, are being
dedicated to the ‘voices’ of the ordinary public, rather than limited to jour-
nalists, politicians and media experts. Also, with the development of the
internet, a vast amount of information is now available from many different
sources. But does this necessarily mean that a broader spectrum of people and
opinions are being represented as a result, or do media institutions to a large
extent still maintain control of who can talk and what gets said? We will also
be addressing this question here.

4.2 The function of the media

We use the media for many different purposes; for information, for entertain-
ment and for education, through a range of programmes for schools as well

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as university broadcasts. We listen to the news on radio and television for 1111
information about local, national and international events; many people spend 2
hours every week being entertained by a variety of programmes from regular 3
soap operas to weekly quizzes and chat shows. Sometimes, the boundaries 4
become blurred between information and entertainment, and a new term has 5
been coined to refer to programmes which serve both functions: ‘infotainment’. 6
Wildlife programmes, docu-dramas and the growing number of talk shows 7111
could all be described as having a dual role: to entertain as well as to inform. 8
There is also an ongoing debate about what television is for, often centred on 9
the quality of programmes such as the popular ‘reality TV’ series Big Brother. 10
This kind of television gives us another kind of viewing experience, seen 1
positively by some people as an interesting social and psychological media 2
experiment, negatively by others as being voyeuristic and banal. 3
The mass media provide the means of access to much information and 4
represent a potentially powerful force in our society. This is partly due to the 5
fact that the media can select what counts as news, who gets into the papers 6
and on to television and radio and, most importantly for linguists, the way 7
that stories about people and events get told and the frameworks in which 8
people get to appear and talk. However, we must be careful when talking about 9
the media as powerful. Any newspaper story goes through several stages before 20111
it appears on the page, and many different people can be involved at each 1
stage. The same is true of broadcast news stories. Rather than seeing the media 2
as being a group of individuals who control and in some way manipulate what 3
we read or watch, we need to think of each medium as a complex institution. 4
This institution is characterised by a set of processes, practices and conven- 5
tions that the people within it have developed within a particular social and 6
cultural context. These practices have an effect both on what we perceive as 7
news and on the forms in which we expect to hear or read about it. 8
The media are always there, and have come to be taken for granted as 9
an integral part of most people’s lives. Scannell (1988), in an account of the 30
social role of broadcasting, argues that even the language we use to talk about 1
television programming reflects this ordinariness, this taken-for-granted place 2
in our lives. The expression ‘there’s nothing on TV’ has come to mean ‘there’s 3
nothing I want to watch’, rather than describing an actual state of affairs where 4
there is really nothing being broadcast if you switch on your set. The fact that, 5
with the increase of twenty-four-hour broadcasting and multiple channels, there 6
is practically always something on television is now quite unremarkable for 7
most of us. 8
We should not be too quick to see the media as all-powerful, and the 9
public as mere puppets of media control. The relationship is not a straight- 40
forward one. The reading, listening and viewing public can also choose not to 41111

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buy, listen or watch; they can switch off, change allegiances and in some cases
challenge versions of events. For example, as a result of the events surrounding
the Princess of Wales’s death in August 1997, a new set of laws may be passed
in Britain restricting the rights of ‘paparazzi’ journalists to take intrusive
photographs, and this is due in some part at least to the public reaction to her
death. On the other hand, the same public were always ready to buy the papers
and watch the programmes that featured reports of her both when she was
alive and after her death, and in that sense, the media were providing, and
continue to provide, what sells their product.

4.3 Media, language and power

As we noted in the last section, one of the most important and interesting
aspects of the potential power of the media from a linguistic point of view is
the way that people and events get reported. Since the early 1970s, linguists
have been interested in the relationship between how a story gets told, and
what that might indicate about the point of view that it gets told from (Lee
1992; Simpson 1993; Montgomery 1996). This level of language use is called
linguistic representation (see Chapter 2), and we will now look at some
linguistic structures that can determine how events are represented, and thus
lead to different versions, or views, of the same event.
On Tuesday 7 January 2003, the news broke that the previous Sunday
police had raided a flat in north London, where they found a small quantity of
a poison called ricin, and that seven people had been arrested, one of whom was
later released. (Ricin had previously been used in the 1978 assassination of a
Bulgarian dissident, Georgi Markov, on the London Underground. The poison
had been smeared on the tip of an umbrella.) The group was quickly suspected
as having links with al-Qa’ida, and as being part of the terrorist network
responsible for 9/11 and the Bali nightclub bombing in 2002. The next day, the
front pages of many newspapers carried the story of the police raid, but as we
can see from the following articles, they presented the story in rather different
ways. (See Chapter 2 for an analysis of another similar incident.)
The Daily Mail is a daily tabloid newspaper with right-wing sympathies,
which generally disagrees with the current New Labour government headed
by Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Daily Mirror, also a red-top tabloid, tends
to have more left-wing opinions but can also be critical of New Labour.
If we analyse the language used in these articles, we find contrasts in
how the story was told in each newspaper, and what the implications of this
event might be. Looking at the linguistic choices made in the two texts means
asking: what kinds of words or phrases are being used to refer to people or

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places or events, what kinds of actions are involved, and who is responsible 1111
for them? These choices are part of the process of representation in discourse. 2
By examining the way events are represented, we can begin to see more clearly 3
how different points of view, or ideologies, are constructed linguistically. 4
The following are the headlines carried on Wednesday 8 January: 5
6
Daily Mail Daily Mirror 7111
8
POISON GANG ON THE LOOSE IT’S HERE
9
Huge hunt for terrorists armed Deadly terror poison found in 10
with deadly ricin Britain 1
2
The large-print front-page headline from the Mail refers to a ‘poison gang’, 3
who may still be at large and in possession of ricin, foregrounding the people 4
involved and that some of them have still not been arrested. The accom- 5
panying smaller headline expands ‘poison gang’ as ‘terrorists armed with 6
deadly ricin’, and the ‘huge hunt’ refers to police action to find those who are 7
still ‘on the loose’. 8
The large-print headline from the Mirror, ‘It’s here’, foregrounds the 9
substance itself. The phrase is deictic, which means that the reader has to work 20111
out what the pronouns ‘it’ and ‘here’ refer to in this context. This is simple 1
enough given the accompanying smaller headline ‘deadly terror poison found 2
in Britain’, but the use of the deictic phrase is more dramatic than if, for 3
example, we replace the pronouns with a corresponding fully lexicalised phrase. 4
Which of the following is more sensational? 5
6
Ricin in Britain 7
Deadly poison found in Britain 8
It’s here 9
30
The choice in how to summarise this particular story in the headline text is 1
handled in different ways by each paper, with the Mail focusing on the people 2
involved (the gang and the police) and the Mirror on the poison ricin and 3
where it is (in Britain). The Mirror headline focuses on what the police have 4
found, while the Mail headline focuses on what the police are doing. 5
How is the story developed? In the paragraphs that follow the headlines, 6
further differences between the two papers can be seen in the way the story 7
is constructed, and which elements are given prominence. Some of the elements 8
are the same, for example, both texts share the adjective ‘deadly’ to refer to 9
the ricin, but the way the elements are put together makes the emphasis of the 40
story slightly different in each case. 41111

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Britain was on red alert for a Police who raided an Al Qaeda

bio-terror attack last night as poison factory in London fear
a hunt was launched for a gang most of THE DEADLY RICIN is
of suspected Al Qaeda activists missing and in the hands of
armed WITH A DEADLY POISON. terrorists.

The Mail continues to foreground the hunt for the ‘gang of terrorists’, and
tells the story in terms of the action being taken, with the first clause des-
cribing the state of the country, and the second the search for the gang of
activists:

Britain was on red alert for a bio-terror attack

a hunt was launched

The Mirror tells the story with a focus on the whereabouts of the missing
substance, beginning with the main clause describing police ‘fear’ which
develops the sense of suspense and public danger found in the headline:

Police fear most of the deadly ricin is missing and in the hands
of terrorists

Here is the continuation of the story as it appeared in the next five paragraphs
in each paper:

Anti terrorist police arrested seven Britain was on alert last night for
North Africans after the discovery an attack, possibly by aerosol
of traces of ricin, which can send a spray or by smearing the
person into a coma and kill substance on door handles at
within hours. busy public buildings or
One of those held is believed to shopping centres.
have worked as a science teacher. Confined spaces such as a
Security sources said at least three commuter train carriage,
members of the alleged terror cell a Tube station or a lunchtime
were still at large and may be in restaurant were thought to be
possession of the chemical. possible targets of the original
The amount seized is too small plot.
to launch any ‘mass casualty’ Six men and one woman
attacks but the real fear is an were arrested on Sunday in
assassination attack on a major swoops on the ricin ‘plant’
public figure, such as the prime – a flat in Wood Green, North
minister, by spraying the toxin in London – and other addresses in
his face or injecting it. the north and east of the capital.

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It could also be ingested through The males – in their late teens, 1111
the skin after being smeared on 20s and 30s – are all said to be 2
door knobs or handrails. ‘People Algerians linked to Osama bin 3
who come into contact with it will Laden’s network. The woman 4
die,’ said a government source. has been freed. 5
Westminster sources revealed that Up to 30 more confederates 6
levels of security surrounding Tony are feared to be operating in 7111
Blair have been ‘significantly Britain, most of them living in 8
upgraded’ over the past few days. London. 9
10
The following paragraphs appear a little further down in each article. 1
2
Scotland Yard swooped at 10am Armed special Branch officers in 3
on Sunday in a flat above a white chemical warfare suits 4
pharmacy in Wood Green, North smashed their way into the 5
London, after receiving a tip-off rented Wood Green property in 6
over the New Year. the early hours. 7
Up to 20 officers wearing white A small quantity of ricin – 8
protective suits found equipment used in the 1978 umbrella 9
covered in chemical traces and murder in London of Bulgarian 20111
began removing items in protective dissident Georgi Markov – was 1
black bags. found amid a kitchen laboratory 2
for making more of it. 3
4
Who is involved? In the Mail there are a number of phrases used to describe 5
the police involved in the hunt: 6
7
Anti-terrorist police 8
security sources 9
Scotland Yard 30
up to 20 officers 1
2
and to describe government officials and spokespersons: 3
4
Tony Blair 5
Westminster sources 6
a government source 7
8
The Mirror, on the other hand, refers only to ‘police’ and ‘armed special 9
branch officers’. The sources of information are not directly attributed, as the 40
two phrases below use passive sentence construction, where the agent of 41111

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the verb is deleted. In other words, who ‘says’ and who ‘fears’ is omitted from
the account:

the men . . . ARE ALL SAID to be

up to 30 more [. . .] ARE FEARED TO be

The Mail gives official sources:

Westminster sources revealed

a government source said

There is also a difference in the level of certainty expressed by the two papers
with regard to who the arrested people are. The Mail uses a number of miti-
gating strategies which function to distance them from strong claims about the
identity of the ‘gang’:

SUSPECTED Al Qaeda activists

seven North Africans
one [ . . . ] IS BELIEVED to have worked as a science teacher
members of the ALLEGED terror cell

The Mirror however uses the unmitigated phrase ‘terrorists’, and only one
mitigated identity description:

the men . . . are all SAID TO BE Algerians linked to Osama bin Laden

The difference here then, is that the Mail seems to be more cautious than the
Mirror about the identity of the gang. Another difference is the Mirror’s refer-
ence to the attack on Georgi Markov. The attack had a classic undercover
‘secret agent’ spy-thriller character, and adds to the drama being created in
the Mirror’s story.
The Mirror uses three different noun phrases to describe the kitchen in
the north London flat where the ricin was found:

an al Qaeda poison factory

the ricin ‘plant’
a kitchen laboratory

while the Mail describes it as:

a flat above a pharmacy in Wood Green

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What is the effect of these different choices in representation? We could argue 1111
that in line with the headline text, the Mail is placing less emphasis on the 2
substance, and more on what is being done. The Mirror on the other hand 3
continues to increase the semantic load by using phrases which categorise the 4
kitchen as a ‘factory’, ‘plant’ and ‘laboratory’. A similar semantic loading can 5
be found in the description of the clothing worn by the police officers who 6
raided the flat: 7111
8
Up to 20 officers wearing WHITE PROTECTIVE SUITS found equipment 9
Armed special Branch officers in WHITE CHEMICAL WARFARE SUITS smashed 10
their way in 1
2
The Mail’s use of ‘white protective suits’ is made more dramatic and sensa- 3
tional by the Mirror, which describes the clothing as ‘white chemical warfare 4
suits’. 5
The story in the Mail represents the main threat from the ‘poison gang’ 6
as being to public figures (like the Prime Minister Tony Blair). The Mirror, 7
in contrast, sees the main threat as being to ordinary members of the British 8
public, and lists six places where the poison could be used: door handles, shop- 9
ping centres, public spaces, commuter trains, Tube stations and lunchtime 20111
restaurants. The Mail only mentions ‘door handles’ and ‘handrails’, without 1
specifying any places. 2
In these two short articles, we have shown how the same event can 3
generate two rather different stories. Apart from the differences in style, where 4
the semantic loading and reduced level of mitigation tend to emphasise the 5
dramatic nature of this event in the Mirror, there is also a difference in 6
the two papers’ interpretation of what this event means. For the Mail, it 7
is the danger to the establishment (senior public figures), which underlies 8
the urgent hunt for the rest of the gang; for the Mirror, it is the danger to the 9
British public at large which is foregrounded if the rest of the substance is not 30
found. 1
Do these two stories reveal two different ideological stances taken by 2
the two papers? The Mail’s and the Mirror’s reporting of this event cannot 3
be described as an expression of ‘right-wing’ and ‘left-wing’ political opinion. 4
However, the differences that our analysis has begun to reveal do seem to 5
reflect a difference in perspective on this story: a concern with the Establish- 6
ment and the maintenance of order (increasing security measures, hunting the 7
gang) in the Mail, and a concern for the British people (locating the poison, 8
the danger of ricin in public places) in the Mirror. 9
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ACTIVITY 4.1

This analysis has dealt with only some of the differences between the two
texts. To take the analysis further, you could list all the verb phrases that occur
in the two stories and compare them. Would this support the findings that (1)
the Mirror story uses more dramatic language than the Mail, and (2) that the
Mail is concerned with the Establishment while the Mirror is concerned with
the people?

4.4 Sources of news

The attribution of a source is important to the level of ‘factuality’ that can be
claimed for a story. In the following extract from a story about Princess Diana
and British rugby player Will Carling, the ‘facts’ of the case are far from clear.
Although sources are given, the original source of the information on which
the newspaper bases its report is masked by the way this paragraph is written.
A complex series of reporting phrases appears to indicate the source, but effec-
tively succeeds in making it quite difficult to retrieve. These phrases are
italicised in the text below:

The newspaper claimed Mr Carling arranged to take former England

foot-baller Gary Lineker to lunch with the princess at Kensington Palace
earlier this year. A friend of Mr Carling’s is reported as saying: ‘He [Mr
Carling] told me later Gary had bottled out saying, “that woman’s
trouble”.’
(The Guardian, 7 August 1995)

There are four sources of information mentioned in this passage: Lineker,

Carling, Carling’s friend and a newspaper (News of the World). Their reports
range from the direct ‘said’ and ‘told’ to the more mitigated ‘is reported as
saying’ and ‘claimed’, suggesting that the paper is anxious not to claim outright
that this third- or fourth-hand information is absolute fact.
In this section we have shown how the linguistic choices made in a text
can construct different accounts, or linguistic representations, of events in the
world. In doing so, we may have mentioned some terms for linguistic struc-
tures which are not familiar to you, but if you want to find out more about
these structures, and how to use them in an analysis of a media text, you may
find it useful to refer to Fairclough (1989, particularly Chapter 5) and
Thornborrow and Wareing (1998).

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ACTIVITY 4.2 1111

2
Look at two newspapers on the same day and compare two versions of the 3
same story. What differences can you detect in the way language is used? Do 4
these differences influence or affect your interpretation of the event? 5
6
7111
8
4.4.1 Commonsense discourses 9
10
The tendency to represent people, situations and events in regular and 1
predictably similar ways results in the linguistic choices that are used in these 2
representations becoming established in our culture as the most usual, 3
prevailing ways of talking or writing about types of people and events. Once 4
something has been represented in a particular way, it becomes more difficult 5
to talk ‘around’, or outside that representation, to find an alternative way of 6
describing a social group X, or a political event Y. As discussed in Chapter 3, 7
we call these prevailing choices in representation commonsense or dominant 8
discourses (see also Chapter 2, and Fairclough 1989). 9
An illustration of how one event can become the frame for representing 20111
subsequent events is the tendency to refer to any story of American presi- 1
dential cover-up scandal as some kind of ‘gate’. Since Nixon and the Watergate 2
scandal, there has been Reagan and ‘Irangate’, Clinton and ‘Whitewatergate’, 3
followed by ‘Zippergate’, and ‘Fornigate’. While the history and circumstances 4
of each individual situation may be distinct, the use of the term ‘gate’ cate- 5
gorises them according to the notion of an American president deliberately 6
setting out to deceive the American public. The category has also been taken 7
up by the British press and has been used in the context of the British royal 8
family. ‘Camillagate’ was the story of the long-standing relationship between 9
Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, which hit the headlines some years 30
after his marriage to Diana Spencer, when her problems with him and other 1
members of the royal family had entered the public domain. 2
3
4
4.4.2 The power to change? 5
6
If the media are powerful as a site for producing and maintaining dominant 7
discourses, as we have claimed in the previous section, they can also be a 8
possible site for change. One of the most publicly discussed changes in recent 9
years has been the move to use non-sexist language, and to encourage symme- 40
try in the representation of men and women. Sometimes the press can be seen 41111

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to be trying to adopt grammatical forms which are neutral, such as the third
person pronoun ‘they’ or ‘them’ as a non-specified-gender pronoun.
The following extract is from a story about Texan farmers suing the talk
show host Oprah Winfrey for damaging their business when she invited people
on to her show to talk about the risks involved in eating American beef:

And this year the average American will chew their way through 631b
of Texan beef, compared to only 51lb of chicken and 46.71b of pork.
It’s an ill-advised man who stands between an American and his burgers.
(The Guardian, 10 February 1998)

This extract shows the use of the unmarked possessive form their (rather than
his or her) in the phrase ‘chew their way through’ to refer back to the earlier
noun phrase ‘the average American’. So far, so non-sexist. But in the following
sentence, this is not sustained, and we have the marked male forms ‘it’s an
ill-advised man’ (rather than ‘it’s an ill-advised person’) representing the actor
in this sentence as male, and ‘an American and his burgers’, which also repre-
sents the average American as male. (For more on the use of asymmetrical
language in the representation of gender see Chapter 5.)
In this section we have introduced the concept of dominant discourses
within the context of the media, and have suggested that these discourses are
produced by recurring similarities in the way information is represented. We
have looked at some examples of linguistic choice in reporting newsworthy
events, and how different newspapers can represent the same event in different
ways. In the next section we turn to the question of ‘voice’ in the media,
looking at whose voices are represented, and who gets to say what.

4.5 Media voices: accent and register

ACTIVITY 4.3

When you listen to the news on your local radio station, what accent does the
newsreader have? Is this the same as those on the national, or more presti-
gious, radio station? Listen to the television news at different times of the day;
do you notice any difference in the accents of the newsreaders at these times?

In the early days of news broadcasting in Britain, the accent used almost
exclusively by presenters was one called advanced Received Pronunciation

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(advanced RP). This was the accent of the educated and the wealthy, which 1111
gave no indication of what part of the country the speaker came from. This 2
accent gave rise to the expression BBC English, so strong was the link between 3
this accent and the British Broadcasting Corporation. This has now given way 4
to what is known as ‘mainstream RP’, an accent which sounds less formal 5
than advanced RP and is the one that most people in Britain generally hear 6
when they listen to newsreaders on national television. 7111
This established use of mainstream RP is linked to the continuing 8
perceived status of RP as an accent of authority. In radio and television 9
discourse, the occurrence of marked regional variation in accent in the national 10
news tends to be organised according to a hierarchy within programmes: the 1
main newsreaders in the television studio read in standard English, with a 2
mainstream RP accent, while the accents of specialist reporters outside the 3
studio ‘at the scene’ are much less constrained and may sometimes be region- 4
ally marked (for example, one well-known BBC TV journalist and political 5
commentator, John Cole, had a marked Northern Irish accent). Voice-overs in 6
documentaries are also likely to be mainstream RP, while the accents of sports 7
commentators, weather presenters, political commentators and other media 8
‘voices’ tend to be more regionally varied. 9
At one time this difference was especially noticeable on British televi- 20111
sion when a particular sports journalist would modify slightly his accent 1
depending on which programme he was reporting for. On the national six 2
o’clock evening news he would give the sports news bulletin in a mainstream 3
RP accent, and half an hour later, on the local London South East news, he 4
would shift into a more marked London accent. 5
Allan Bell (1984) uses the term audience design for speakers changing 6
their style of speech according to the person or people they are addressing. 7
Bell also suggests that, since radio and television presenters are addressing a 8
distant, unknown audience of viewers and listeners, then they may design their 9
speech according to certain linguistic ‘values’ or norms. In this case, news- 30
readers may be selecting one variety over another according to the 1
conventionally prestigious norms of RP rather than according to the actual 2
audience they are addressing. This is a particular type of audience design that 3
Bell calls ‘referee design’. 4
5
6
4.5.1 Variation in register 7
8
Register has been defined as linguistic variation according to the context of 9
use (Halliday 1972). This means that we expect to find language used in 40
different ways according to the situation it occurs in, and according to different 41111

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types of media. For example, the register of weather forecasting in Britain

depends on three features: its topic or field (the weather around the country),
its tenor (the way it is delivered by the presenter) and its communicative mode
(speech, writing and some visual modes in the form of maps and icons). We
expect a weather bulletin to contain technical vocabulary relating to tempera-
ture, high and low pressure, cyclones, etc., but we also expect the presenter,
unlike newscasters, to address the audience directly, by saying things like ‘look
at this rain moving in from the west here’. On television weather reports, there
is also usually some visual representation of the weather being described, for
example a small sun to represent sunshine, arrows for the direction of the
wind, and snowflakes for wintry conditions. The register of weather forecasting
depends also on the cultural context of the broadcast. The British format has
just been described, but the format can vary from country to country.
The same expectations of linguistic register (language variation according
to context) apply to other media genres, where there are conventions of appro-
priate language use for specific types of programme. When these conventions
are well established, often the form of how something is reported can outweigh
the content, or the information itself.
A famous media hoax used a well-established media format (the docu-
mentary) to broadcast information that was false. A report of a ‘spaghetti
harvest’, broadcast on BBC One’s documentary programme Panorama on
1 April 1957 (1 April being a traditional date for practical jokes) showed
strands of pasta growing on trees, while a male RP voice-over provided a
serious commentary on traditional spaghetti farming in Italy. Radio, television
and newspapers in Britain still successfully play hoaxes on the public on
1 April. Similarly, though unintentionally, misleading was the radio broadcast
in the United States on 30 October 1938 of Orson Welles’s reading of H. G.
Wells’s short story The War of the Worlds. It apparently caused panic among
listeners who believed that New Jersey was being invaded by Martians.
These occurrences demonstrate the potential power of the broadcast word
to be received by the public as authoritative, factual and believable. On the
other hand, research into how audiences react to and interpret news
programmes (Morley 1980, 1992; Richardson and Corner 1986; Moores 1993)
has suggested that the viewing public is not always so ready to believe events
as they are presented through the news media, and has other resources for
interpreting what it sees and hears on the news.
However, it does remain the case that the media are constantly shaping
our expectations about the way different kinds of information are transmitted,
and these conventional formats can play an important part in the way we inter-
pret the messages they contain. Language plays a central role in structuring
these conventions through the association of particular registers with specific

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types of programme, such as the language of documentaries, where voice-over 1111

commentaries can often produce an effect of authority and objectivity in their 2
account of events on the screen (see Fairclough 1995). 3
The effect of an institutional, authoritative, objective voice can be 4
compared to the effect produced by voices which are beginning to be heard 5
on television in new media genres such as BBC Television’s Video Nation 6
slots. These are very short video film sequences, lasting only a few minutes, 7111
made by ‘ordinary’ (i.e. non-institutional) people, about themselves, or any 8
topic they feel strongly about. The growth of public participation programmes 9
and phone-in radio shows also provides a space for lay people to contribute 10
to the variety of voices represented in the media, as we shall see next, although 1
the final ‘gatekeeping’ to decide who gets access, and who does not, remains 2
with the broadcasting institutions. 3
4
5
4.6 Public participation in the media 6
7
Programmes which involve audience participation, such as Oprah Winfrey and 8
Donahue in the United States, Kilroy and Esther in Britain, have been growing 9
in popularity and number, and achieve very high viewing ratings. There is 20111
some disagreement about whether these programmes provide the opportunity 1
for more democratic debate in the media, or whether they in fact depoliticise 2
important issues by presenting them in this format. Some theorists (e.g. 3
Livingstone and Lunt 1994) have argued that these programmes open up access 4
to an important public domain for people whose voices and opinions are not 5
usually heard on television, and that talk shows provide a powerful space for 6
the voices of ordinary, lay members of the public to be privileged over the 7
voices of institutional representatives and experts whose opinions and views 8
usually predominate elsewhere in other media genres. Others (e.g. Fairclough 9
1995) have argued against this view, saying that audience participation 30
programmes are structured in such a way that the discourse of the experts and 1
the institution is still the framing, dominant discourse, while the discourse of 2
lay participants is always mediated and constrained within the institutional 3
format. 4
An example of this can be found in a study of the interaction between 5
host and callers to a London talk radio show. Ian Hutchby (1996) explores 6
the strategies available to participants in argument sequences, and shows that 7
typically the caller ‘goes first’, by stating their position in relation to a partic- 8
ular topic, while the host ‘goes second’, challenging the caller’s opinion 9
without necessarily having to produce one of their own. The following tran- 40
script illustrates this phenomenon: 41111

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JOANNA THORNBORROW

1 Caller: When you look at e:r the childcare facilities in

2 this country, .hh we’re very very low (.) i-on
3 the league table in Europe of (.) you know if
4 you try to get a child into a nursery it’s
5 very difficult in this country. .hh An’ in fa:ct it’s
6 getting wor::se.
7 Host: What’s that got to do with it.
8 Caller: .phh Well I think whu- what ‘at’s gotta d-do
9 with it is . . .
(Hutchby 1996: H:21.11.88:l1.l)

This resource of ‘going second’ in an argument is available to both caller and

host, but in this context is principally used by the host, making them interac-
tionally the most powerful participant through their position as challenger to
a previously stated claim.
Another strategy which also contributes to the interactional power of the
television host over audience participants is illustrated in the following tran-
script of a sequence in a British talk show, Kilroy. Here, the talk of the lay
audience member is directed and to some extent controlled by the host’s inter-
vention and questioning:

1 Host: Tell me about this (.) household

2 Alice: erm well both my parents are very loving (.)
3 very accepting of lots of things (.) and (.)
4 therefore that rubs off (.) on my sister and
5 I – erm
6 Host: – how old are you
7 Alice: nineteen
8 Host: how old’s your sister
9 Alice: sixteen
10 Host: mmm
11 Alice: and erm (1.0) I’ve lived with both separately (.)
12 I’ve lived with Dad for the last couple of years
13 – now
14 Host: – does Dad have a lover
15 Alice: Yes he does (.) – Pedro
16 Host: – You live with Dad and lover
17 Alice: yes
18 Host: How old were you when you lived with Dad and
19 lover

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 LANGUAGE AND THE MEDIA

20 Alice: erm (1.0) I was seventeen when I moved to 1111

21 Melbourne 2
22 Host: cause you problems 3
23 Alice: no 4
24 Host: did you find it strange 5
25 Alice: no 6
26 Host: find it difficult 7111
27 Alice: no it’s just like living with any other 8
28 parent and their lover 9
29 Host: it’s just like living with any other parent 10
30 and their lover 1
(Thornborrow 1997: Adoption/Kilroy/1994) 2
3
In this extract, Alice is asked by the host to tell the story of how she came 4
to live with her father and his male partner. However, she is not left to tell 5
her own story without the intervention of the host. She starts by focusing on 6
the quality of the relationship between her and her parents (lines 2–5), but the 7
host interrupts her several times, asking her questions which elicit certain kinds 8
of information (about her age, her father’s relationship and how she felt about 9
it), resulting in a story which is jointly produced, rather than a story told by 20111
Alice in her own words. 1
2
3
4
4.7 Language, society and virtual power 5
6
To conclude this chapter we look briefly at the development of computer- 7
mediated communication (CMC) over the past two decades. This new form of 8
communication can take a variety of forms, from email exchanges to synchro- 9
nous (real-time) interaction in chat rooms and MUDs (Multi-User Dimensions), 30
to asynchronous (postponed-time) interaction in newsgroups and bulletin 1
boards. David Crystal (2001) provides a comprehensive overview of the lin- 2
guistic features of CMC, and the language we use to communicate on the web. 3
This has been given various names including ‘netspeak’, ‘netlish’, ‘weblish, 4
‘wired-style’ and ‘cyberspeak’, and some of the words and expressions first 5
coined in this context have now become part of the language we use every day. 6
Crystal gives examples of terms such as ‘multi-tasking’, ‘dot.com’, and ‘he’s 7
404’ (2001: 19) which are used ‘offline’ as well as ‘online’. But many of the 8
questions we ask in this book about how language can be powerful apply to 9
social relations in virtual realities just as much as they do to social relations in 40
‘real’ life (IRL). What are some of the issues involved? 41111

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JOANNA THORNBORROW

4.7.1 Social identity

In the early days of CMC it was thought that this new medium would result in
more democratic communication, because a person’s social identity (their gen-
der, ethnicity, age) can be hidden in the virtual world. In cyberspace, people can
also play with identity and present themselves in different personas, so the inter-
net would be a place where social hierarchies become levelled out, and people
could encounter each other in a more equal way. However, this has turned out
to be not quite so simple. As Nancy Deuel found in her study of virtual sex
interactions, stereotypical interpretations of gendered behaviour still prevail:

Sexual aggression is assumed to be a male trait and one participant notes:

‘It seems to me that if a female character shows any bit of intelligence and
sexual recognition, people will think she’s a male IRL. If she flirts shame-
lessly and has a smutty description, people will think she’s a male IRL.’
(1996: 134)

So while it may be possible to disguise your identity on the Net, the people
you interact with will still make assumptions about who you are based on what
you say and how you say it.

4.7.2 ‘Netiquette’

The internet makes it possible for people who are geographically scattered
thousands of miles away from each other to interact either in real time or with
a very small time delay. This has led to the concept of cyberspace as a ‘global
village’ (Crystal 2001: 5) where people who use the Net are members of a
virtual community. As in any other community, rules and codes of behaviour
have developed in order to control the way that members of the community
behave. Entering a chat room as a ‘newbie’ means having to learn the conven-
tions and rules of interaction in that space. Many newsgroups have a FAQ
(frequently asked questions) file which sets out what these rules are, some
even have moderators or ‘wizards’: people who are prepared to spend time
monitoring the use of a group and making sure that rules are kept. Inappropriate
behaviour can get you sanctioned, and possibly excluded from, a group.
‘Flaming’ (aggressive verbal behaviour), ‘spamming’ (sending unwanted long
messages) and ‘grandstanding’ (posting your opinions widely with no respect
for the topic of a newsgroup) are all activities that can lead to sanctions. One
example of this is using a ‘kill file’, a kind of shield which can be used to
prevent unwanted, offensive messages from getting through to you. Kollock

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and Smith (1996) describe this kind of shield as a powerful interactional device, 1111
one that can ‘make invisible any objectionable person’ (120). However, it 2
works only on an individual, not a community, level, and, even if you banish 3
someone from your screen, other users may not, so you will still see future 4
postings if other participants comment on them. What is particularly inter- 5
esting about the rules that attempt to control social interaction in cyberspace 6
is that it is the people who use the Net who establish those rules. Cyberspace 7111
is a community regulated not yet by a ‘top-down’ authority but by a ‘bottom- 8
up’ process developed by internet users. 9
10
1
4.7.3 Cyberspace: a socially powerful community? 2
3
In her study of a community protest, Laura Gurak (1996) explains how a data- 4
base called ‘MarketPlace: Households’ (listing details about millions of 5
American households and produced by a company called Lotus) was prevented 6
from becoming commercially available. The release of this product became 7
the subject of an intense debate about privacy, not just in newspapers but 8
across internet newsgroups and bulletin boards. For two months across the 9
United States, people were posting information about the database, and how 20111
to contact Lotus to complain about the violation of their privacy. The speed 1
and efficiency of this medium resulted in a highly effective campaign to stop 2
the database going on sale. Gurak makes the point that what she calls ‘rhetor- 3
ical communities’, diverse groups of people who participate in protests and 4
campaigns via the internet, can be socially and politically powerful. In cases 5
such as this, CMC can provide a public forum for action and protest, as so 6
many participants can become involved very quickly in a campaign. 7
8
9
ACTIVITY 4.4 30
1
If you regularly use internet sites such as chat rooms, or post to a newsgroup, 2
what are the rules that govern behaviour in these cyberspaces? How do you 3
know what they are, and what happens if you break them? 4
5
6
7
4.8 Summary 8
9
In this chapter we have discussed the power of the media to determine what 40
counts as news, and also how it gets represented. We have outlined the 41111

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JOANNA THORNBORROW

conflicting views of the media, on the one hand as organs of democracy,

providing essential public information and on the other as powerful monopo-
lies which relentlessly pursue their own interests. With the increase of public
access to broadcasting space, and particularly with the arrival of the World
Wide Web, and its potential for unregulated mass communication, these ques-
tions remain central to the debates about the function and power of the mass
media. Are they providing an emerging forum for public debate, or are they
still closely monitored institutions with hierarchies of discourse and systems
of ‘gatekeeping’ which continue to control who gets to say what, and how?
An analysis of the language and discourse used in mediated contexts provides
a valuable way of finding evidence to support or counter these claims.

Suggestions for further reading

Fairclough, Norman (1995) Media Discourse, London: Edward Arnold. This book
covers a wide range of language use in the media from a Critical Discourse
Analysis (CDA) perspective.
Graddol, David and Boyd-Barrett, Oliver (eds) (1994) Media Texts: Authors and
Readers, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. A collection of essays which cover a
range of different themes in media discourse, from the style and structure of
news stories and the role of visuals to more theoretical discussions of the concept
of ‘author’, and the interpretative role of the audience.
Simpson, Paul (1993) Language, Ideology and Point of View, London and New York:
Routledge. This is an accessible account of the relationship between linguistic
forms and point of view in a wide variety of media.
Thornborrow, Joanna and Wareing, Shân (1998) Patterns in Language: An Introduction
to Language and Literary Style, London: Routledge. A practical introduction to
how to approach texts using linguistic tools of analysis. Chapter 7 deals specif-
ically with examples of media language.

Readings on the World Wide Web

Many studies are beginning to appear of the way we use language in CMC.
David Crystal’s book provides an overview of the linguistic features of
‘Netspeak’, while Susan Herring’s collection of articles provides some inter-
esting insights into aspects of the social and cultural issues involved in this new
form of communication.
Crystal, David (2001) Language and the Internet, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Herring, S. (ed.) Computer Mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social and Cross-
cultural Perspectives, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

74