Tuesday, 8 January 2019

van Dijk, Teun A. (1989) “Mediating racism: The role of the media in the reproduction of racism” in Language, Power and Ideology: Studies in Political Discourse (ed.) Ruth Wodak: 199-226. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.


2. Discourse and the reproduction of racism



The news media do not passively describe or record news events in the world, but actively (re-) construct them, mostly on the basis of many types of source discourses. – 203



3. Ethnic minorities in news media



Anti-racist position are often ignored or censored or their coverage by the media is limited to preferably violent demonstration and action. 204-205



Barred from public communication, and hence from persuasive, counter-prevailing power, minority groups are forced into forms of resistance that may attract public attention through media accounts, e.g., disobedience, disruption, or destruction. These will capture the attention of journalists precisely because they are consistent with both news values (negativity, violence, deviance) and with ethnic prejudice (minorities are deviant, violent). – 205



4. Properties of news about the ethnic minority groups



4.1 Presentation



Frequency and size



4.2 Topics and thematic structure



The study of discourse meaning or content may take place at the local level of words and  sentences, and on the global level of topics or themes, which we define in terms of semantic macrostructure. – 209



Thematic structures



4.3 Actor roles



Who is speaking?



4.4 Local meaning, style and perspective



5. Context and conclusions



The media in general and news media in particular play a central role in the very production mechanism of ethnic attitudes and racism. - 220

No comments:

Post a Comment