Political Bias on BBC, CNN, and Fox News - Doria

grammatical and lexical analysis of a text can efficiently reveal ideological
undertones of the writer or even the society is because:
the link between sociocultural practice and text is mediated by discourse practice; how a
text is produced or interpreted...depends upon the nature of the sociocultural practice
which the discourse is a part of...; the nature of the discourse practice of text production
shapes the text, and leaves 'traces' in surface features of the text.
Fairclough 1995: 97
That is to say, the particular textual features and choices of the writer in terms of, for
example, lexis and structure of the text are remnants of the discourse practice which
in turn is determined by sociocultural practices. In other words, structures and
practices of the social sphere (i.e. how the world works) affect the ways in which
texts are created, distributed, and interpreted, and, additionally, through affecting the
way texts are created and interpreted, social structures are in a way encoded in the
features of the text (e.g. in the wordings or grammatical constructions used). This
relationship is reciprocal, as has been discussed in an earlier section in relation to the
media. Consequently, it is the grammatical and lexical features of the text on which
the analysis in this thesis will mainly be based.
Finally, an important concept in terms of Fairclough's CDA is that of naturalization,
as it plays an intricate role in understanding why it is necessary to analyze texts and
uncover any possible ideologies or hidden agendas in them. Naturalization, as it is
understood in CDA, is, very briefly expressed, the making natural of certain ideas
and practices that "can often be shown to originate in the dominant class or the
dominant block" (Fairclough 1989: 33, also Fairclough [1995] 2003: 54). In other
words, perceiving a certain discourse as natural is to see it as common sense
(Fairclough 1989: 33) - something that is considered normal to the extent that
questioning its existence or function is not necessary or often even realized as a
possibility. This kind of ideological power is "a significant complement to economic
and political power" (ibid.) particularly because "it appears to be neutral in struggles
for power" (ibid.: 92, emphasis as in original). Naturalized aspects of discourse
practices include not only grammatical and lexical aspects (e.g. the tu-vous
distinction in French where, in the simplest of explanations, tu is the informal you
and vous the formal alternative), but also the "underlying interactional practices"
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