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

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conceptual obscurity, while necessary to review here because of its importance in the area of CDA critique, will not be further discussed. It is unnecessary in this empirical thesis to delve into what is essentially a philosophical issue because successful analysis of texts is entirely possible despite not engaging in such philosophical debates. Furthermore, due to the vagueness of the term discourse, it is not used in this thesis outside the discussion of CDA theories. Another criticism presented against CDA is that it has an agenda - to expose ideologies and unequal power relations. Fairclough, for example, has declared that he writes "as a socialist" with a goal to free people from socially defined rules that empower others (Fairclough 1989: 5, see also Barkho 2008: 114). Fairclough's stance demonstrates well this particular problem in CDA research, and it has been discussed by many (e.g. Chilton 2005: 21, Meyer 2001: 15, Widdowson 1998: 136, and Wodak 2001: 5). At this juncture, it becomes necessary to acknowledge the fact that objectivity is not a given in any research: the researcher is often too close to the issue at hand to remain absolutely objective, no matter what the subject to be investigated is. In socio-politically flavored research, the issue of objectivity is perhaps heightened, but it still remains that by acknowledging CDA's agenda and consciously attempting to counteract any potential issues caused by it in the analysis and discussion, it is possible to remain as objective as every other researcher. In addition to issues relating to terminology and CDA's agenda, critics have proposed that CDA researchers tend to precede directly from the theory to the results while disregarding the description of the analysis process. As Widdowson explains, analyses in CDA are often "ready-made interpretations which, in effect, serve as a kind of pretextual priming, designed to dispose us to read this text in a particular way" (2004: 142). This issue relates directly to another typical criticism against CDA, one which suggests that the analyst imposes her own views on the material being analyzed - a serious issue that has generated much discussion in the field. Chilton writes that if one's view of the world is truly generated through language use, as CDA claims, then that process must be internal, "taking place in the minds of (interacting) individuals" (2005: 23). Therefore, when an analyst processes her data, 18
it can be argued that her own interpretations will guide her analysis (ibid., see also Widdowson 1995: 164-165 and 1998: 143) - a criticism easily made in relation to much of CDA research. The problem of interpretation has been addressed on a theoretical level. As discussed, Fairclough proposes in his three-dimensional approach that the reception and consumption of texts should be accounted for in analysis. In spite of this acknowledgment that the interpretation of the text by its actual consumers is important, few scholars have included it in their research (Chilton 2005: 22, see also Widdowson 1998: 142) - perhaps due to problems in collecting these consumer interpretations in practice. Fairclough, too, has noted in at least one publication that he does not consider the interpretation by consumers in his analysis (e.g. Fairclough 1995: 9). This thesis also finds that studying the reactions of the readers of the news articles is an insurmountable task in the confines of the limited space allotted - it would have been next to impossible to find and interview those online readers of BBC, CNN, and Fox News who read the exact articles analyzed in this thesis. Finally, Fairclough's criticism of the three-dimensional approach centers around the extensive need for knowledge of the discourse type (Fairclough 1998: 161, also Wodak 2001: 4-5). That is to say, in order to analyze a text and be able to label it ideologically charged, one must consider a wide range of other comparable texts that provide the analyst a background against which to compare the text in question. This presents an issue especially to smaller-scale studies, including the current thesis, that do not have the resources to consider such a wide range of texts. The criticisms discussed in this section are valid to an extent, but they are not insurmountable. Techniques that facilitate the effective and objective analysis in the CDA vein are described in detail in section 7. Before moving on to discussing some of the relevant research concerning my topic of study, it is necessary to clarify some of the political concepts which are crucial for this thesis. 19
Page 1 and 2: "It's Barack Obama Who's Soft" <str
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents 1 Introduction...
Page 5 and 6: 1 Introduction In the past two deca
Page 7 and 8: 2 The news media The news is often
Page 9 and 10: 2.2 An outline of media discourse a
Page 11 and 12: ecomes clearer how newsworthiness (
Page 13 and 14: 3 Critical Discourse Analysis In th
Page 15 and 16: (Wodak 2001: 4). The key linguists
Page 17 and 18: grammatical and lexical analysis of
Page 19 and 20: 3.3 Critical Discourse Analysis and
Page 21: In addition to the distorted view t
Page 25 and 26: One type of conservatism, classical
Page 27 and 28: In their study, Covert and Wasburn
Page 29 and 30: percent respectively; Morris and Fr
Page 31 and 32: transitivity and Theme are not defi
Page 33 and 34: BBC is part of the establishment, a
Page 35 and 36: the United Nations in 1997; ibid.).
Page 37 and 38: initial methodology, an appropriate
Page 39 and 40: in the headline analysis when the s
Page 41 and 42: The popularity of Hallidayan SFG pa
Page 43 and 44: Lexis in general as well as colloca
Page 45 and 46: 8.1.1 Theme in the headlines The ge
Page 47 and 48: As the above examples demonstrate,
Page 49 and 50: Verbal processes result in two Them
Page 51 and 52: CNN, and 8.8 on Fox News (numbers w
Page 53 and 54: all four CNN headlines refer to the
Page 55 and 56: The topic of illegal immigrants 12
Page 57 and 58: highlight the connection between th
Page 59 and 60: The fact that the headline includes
Page 61 and 62: The lack of such explicit presence
Page 63 and 64: Instead, when the police are identi
Page 65 and 66: Finally, to provide a comprehensive
Page 67 and 68: Another aspect of Theme to discuss
Page 69 and 70: Starting with the Theme structure a
Page 71 and 72: When considering the way the law is
Page 73 and 74:
trillion in savings over the course
Page 75 and 76:
ing in more revenue by spurring eco
Page 77 and 78:
mentions taxes 11 times, which cons
Page 79 and 80:
While the BBC article does not cont
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easy access to all types of birth c
Page 83 and 84:
does not refer to the drug in this
Page 85 and 86:
Beyond the instances of supporters
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at all. It could be argued that if
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was not expected to be present at a
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hidden agendas varied considerably,
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irreplaceable, the additional suppo
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maintain, however, that the methods
Page 97 and 98:
Primary sources BBC Online. 116 art
Page 99 and 100:
Chilton Paul and Wodak Ruth (eds) 2
Page 101 and 102:
Harris Paul 2006. OJ 'confession':
Page 103 and 104:
Schoetz David 2010. David Frum on G
Page 105 and 106:
Appendices Appendix 1. Table detail
Page 107 and 108:
Cedillo called Saturday's signing "
Page 109 and 110:
Appendix 3. Finnish summary - suome
Page 111 and 112:
ideologian käsitteisiin (Blommaert
Page 113 and 114:
(Democrats 2008: i). Konservatismii
Page 115 and 116:
kaikenkattavimpia, puolueettomimpia
Page 117 and 118:
(Halliday ja Matthiessen 2004: 64-6
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Obamasta enemmän kuin Fox News (16
Page 121 and 122:
keskuudessa. Yleisesti ottaen demok
Page 123:
mahdollista tämän tutkielman puit
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Political Bias on BBC, CNN, and Fox News - Doria

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