NEWS BROADCASTING DISCRIMINATION

Racism and social discrimination in news broadcasting: an approach from critical discourse analysis

Racism and social discrimination in news broadcasting: an approach from critical discourse analysis

Methodology

Qualitative research seeks out the 'why', not the 'how' of its topic through the analysis of unstructured information - things like interview transcripts, open ended survey responses, emails, notes, feedback forms, photos and videos. It does not just rely on statistics or numbers, which are the domain of quantitative researchers. Qualitative research helps gain insight into people's attitudes, behaviours, value systems, concerns, motivations, aspirations, culture or lifestyles. It helps to inform business decisions, policy formation, communication and research. Focus groups, in-depth interviews, content analysis, ethnography, evaluation and semiotics are among the many formal approaches that come into play, but qualitative research also involves the analysis of any unstructured material, including customer feedback forms, reports or media clips. When faced with volumes of materials, finding themes and extracting meaning can be a daunting task. The qualitative researcher seeks to discover the meanings that participants attach to their behaviour, how they interpret situations, and what their perspectives are on issues. Some students might see school, not as a place for learning but more as an arena for socialising. Some might conform in some lessons, and be disruptive in others.

This paper will present a critical discourse analysis of designated news articles. In the process, the critical discourse analysis will present an elaboration of argumentation and rhetoric. In addition, the paper will also highlight the levels and tools of discourse analysis along with a lexical analysis of the choice of meaning of words of the definite articles above. Referential strategies, predication, argumentation and perspectivization, is given attention in this regard. Areas pertaining to sentence construction such as syntax and transitivity, modality and presupposition, will also be considered. Furthermore, it is imperative to highlight at this point that this discussion will give particular relevance to the following news articles: "Lambeth boasts 25% of youth gangs", by BBC (2008), "London's gang violence scarred us all", by Asthana and Townsend (2007), and "Knife crime and gang violence on the rise as councils reduce youth services", by Topping (2011).

Introduction

In "Lambeth boasts 25% of youth gangs", BBC News considers gangs to be the fundamental cause for increasing crime in the city. BBC states that "Most gang members were African-Caribbean with a few who were white or Asian". Similarly, Anushka Asthana and Mark Townsend in "London's gang violence scarred us all" highlights the role of gangs and the relevance of the realization of gang warfare as a major reason for the increasing homicide cases in the city. Alexandra Topping seconds this notion by stating that "There are fears that deep reductions in youth service budgets, particularly to programmes that divert inner-city youths away from gangs and knife crime, could have a devastating impact on crime levels" (Fairclough, 1989, p. 109). It is clear that all three publications consider gang warfare to be a leading cause of the increasing crime rate in the ...