Gender issue in English newspaper discourse – Critical Discourse Analysis = Vấn đề giới trong diễn ngôn báo chí tiếng Anh - Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán. M.A Thesis Linguistics: 82202

Caldas-Coulthard‗s framework is applied to discover the power relations and access to news discourse between two genders and if there is an under-representation toward the women or not..

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO

GENDER ISSUE IN ENGLISH NEWSPAPER DISCOURSE –

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

VẤN ĐỀ GIỚI TRONG DIỄN NGÔN BÁO CHÍ TIẾNG ANH –

PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGÔN PHÊ PHÁN

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

HANOI - 2017

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO

GENDER ISSUES IN ENGLISH NEWSPAPER DISCOURSE –

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

VẤN ĐỀ GIỚI TRONG DIỄN NGÔN BÁO CHÍ TIẾNG ANH –

PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGÔN PHÊ PHÁN

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

Supervisor: Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm

HANOI - 2017

Hanoi – 2017

Nguyễn Thị Phương Thảo

I would also like to give my sincere gratitude to all of the lecturers at ULIS –VNU, Hanoi for their scholarly knowledge and enthusiasm in their lectures

My profound thanks are also to all my friends and classmates in the cohort 23, who have always stayed by my side, given me constructive

comments and perked me up every time I need

Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to my family for their

immeasurable support and continual encouragement

The Master thesis could not have been fulfilled without them

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ABSTRACT

This study is an attempt to investigate the manifestation of gender issue in online media coverage from October 1, 2014 to October 5, 2014 For this study, the researcher focuses on analyzing some linguistic features – the way men and women are reported in newspaper and how noun phrases are used to decode them in an effort to delineate the difference in the representations of men and women With the purpose of discerning the underlying ideologies of the reporters, Caldas-Coulthard‗s framework (1995) and the power and access theory given by Van Dijk (1995) were used to analyze the articles The research approach is based on critical discourse analysis in combination with methods of quantitative and qualitative content analysis The findings reveal that there was under-representation and inequality mainly towards women in English online newspaper Women had fewer chances to raise their voices and the ones who can be considered as a news sources belonged to powerless categories Moreover, women are often named as new actors with more frequency of first name, family relationship and shorter jobs titles It is suggested that gender equality is still a controversial issue in English newspaper discourse

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Numbers of women and men in the power group 27

Table 2: Nominal groups attributed to women 35

Table 3: Nominal groups attributed to men 35

Figure 1: Representation of the power groups 25

Figure 2: Representation of women in different groups 28

Figure 3: Representation of men in different groups 30

Figure 4: Representation of women and men in political positions 32

Figure 5: Representation of women and men in positions of high officials 32

Figure 6: Representation of women and men in professionals positions 32

Figure 7: Representation of women and men in positions of ordinary people32 Figure 8: Representation of female and male news sources 34

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES iv

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the research 1

2 Scope of the research 2

3 Aim and objective of the research 2

4 Significant of the research 3

5 Research methodology 3

6 Organization of the research 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 An overview of CDA 6

1.1.1 The definitions of CDA 6

1.1.2 Principles of CDA 8

1.2 CDA‘s approaches 9

1.2.1 Van Dijk‘s socio-cognitive approach 9

1.2.2 Fairclough‘s systemic functional grammar approach 10

1.2.3 Fairclough‘s three-dimension framework of CDA 12

1.3 Feminist critical discourse analysis 13

1.3.1 Debora Cameron Error! Bookmark not defined 1.3.1 Carmen Rosa Calsdas-Coulthard Error! Bookmark not defined. 1.4 Overview of related studies 15

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY AND ANALYTICAL PROCEDURES 17

2.1 Data collection 17

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2.2 Research method 18

2.2.1 Power and access 19

2.2.2 Naming new actors 21

2.3 Data analysis procedure 22

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 25

3.1 Power and Access 25

3.2 Naming New Actors 34

3.2.1 Proper names 37

3.2.2 Job titles 39

3.2.3 Kinship words 40

PART C: CONCLUSION 43

1 A summary of the findings 43

2 Limitation and recommendation for further studies 45

REFERENCE 46 APPENDICES I Appendix 1: List of articles from The Guardian, The Independent and The Telegraph I Appendix 2: Categories of men and women whose voices are reported V Appendix 3: Women and men when naming new actors VIII Appendix 4: A sample of an article XII

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the research

Recently, the concern of linguistics in discourse is shifting from the structure

of language to language in use, which means the emphasis is now on how texts can be understood in social processes Language, therefore, is no longer seen as merely reflecting our reality but as central to creating reality As a matter of fact, our words are never neutral because they carry the power that reflects the interests of those who speak or write them (Fiske, 1994; Fowler et.al., 1979)

Media form an important part of social and cultural life Their importance stems not only from their ability to produce a large number of language and at the same time, speak to mass audiences through the press, the radio and the television broadcasting and the Internet, but also from their ability to present news, which is perceived as the center of media content (Bell, 1991:1) Since the production of media language is so large and approached by many, the language of media has been studied by many researchers with a focus on particular types of media

From a general point of view, analyses of media language are carried out within varieties of disciplines, ranging from linguistics and discourse to semiotics, sociology and communication studies (Bell, 1991:5) Those researchers concern themselves with particular issues such as the media‘s influence on language in wider language society, the reflection of wider society and culture in media language, and the effect of media language on attitudes and opinions in society (how it is used for presenting people and issues) (Bell, 1991:4)

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In the case of this particular research, the analysis of media language is restricted only to newspaper language Adopting a gender perspective, the provided research reveals a way of using language for making gender differences

2 Scope of the research

In this study‘s scope, gender issue is analyzed via the number of the women and men‘s voices that were reported and the use of noun phrases to introduce both genders in chosen thirty pieces of news

Caldas-Coulthard‗s framework is applied to discover the power relations and access to news discourse between two genders and if there is an under-representation toward the women or not Then, next section, will explore the use of noun phases listed

In this study, I would give spotlight on the online news reports from October 1, 2014 to October 5, 2014 I am well aware that the wider the range

of data achieved, the more reliable the study result will be Nevertheless, due

to the constraint of time and the limited length of a minor thesis, in this study, not many news reports were probed, but just thirty from The Guardian, The Independence and The Telegraph As this is a pure linguistic study, the author is not, by any means or in any way, expressing her own political point of view

3 Aim and objective of the research

The study primarily aims to analyze gender issues under the light of critical discourse analysis

To achieve this aim, the following objectives were set:

In order to realize these objectives, the study is intended to answer the following questions:

 How differently were men and women reported in the discourse of the news agencies?

 How is gender issue conveyed in term of using of noun phrases to name the actors in newspaper?

4 Significant of the research

This study is expected to provide theoretical and practical benefits In relation to theoretical benefit, the findings of this study are expected to enrich the knowledge about critical discourse analysis In relation to practical benefits, the study and its findings are hopefully useful for the researchers and readers on building critical awareness towards the news which is seen in daily life

5 Research methodology

Approach

The methodological approach is built entirely on the foundation of discourse analysis The research method involves a quantitative and qualitative content analysis Within this area of investigation, Caldas-Coulthard‗s framework (1995) will be combined the power and access theory given by Van Dijk (1995)

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Data collection

This paper takes thirty authentic news reports written in English from British news agencies, among which ten are from The Guardian, and another ten are collected from The Independent and the last ten‘s origin is from The Telegraph The average length of these articles is from 700 to 1000 words The articles in the research are selected in a range of time from October 1,

2014 to October 5, 2014

For further description of the research method, see chapter 2

6 Organization of the research

The study consists of three parts They are:

Part A – Introduction – presents the rationale, scope, aim and objectives, significance, general methodology, and design of the study

Part B – Development – constitutes the main part and consists of three chapters

Chapter 1: Literature review

First, this chapter gives an overview of CDA – its definitions, principles and approaches Then Van Dijk‘s socio-cognitive approach, Fairclough‘s three-dimensional framework and some of feminism critical discourse analysts are concerned in this chapter Finally, the overview of related studies is also presented in the chapter

Chapter 2: Methodology and analytical procedures

In this chapter, the methodology and data analysis procedures are mentioned Chapter 3:

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This sector gives the findings and discussions of the study

Part C – Conclusion – summarizes the main findings of the study, draws the common and different features in terms of power relations and naming Then suggestions for further research are offered

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses linguistic theories consisting of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and feminist critical discourse analysis The researcher mentions the approaches of CDA that are Van Dijk‘s socio-cognitive approach and Fairclough‘s systemic functional grammar approach Furthermore, this chapter provides the previous related studies from research experts

1.1 An overview of CDA

Discourse Analysis (CDA), stemming out from Critical Linguistics (CL), emerged in the 1970s by a group of linguists including Fowler et al (1979) and Kress and Hodge (1979) It was, after that, further developed in the early 1990s by Norman Fairclough (1989), Ruth Wodak (1989), and Van Dijk (1998) Since then it has become one of the most influential branches of discourse analysis, marking a turning point in linguistic research from the purely formal to the functional aspect of language

1.1.1 The definitions of CDA

According to Fairclough (2001), discourse, written or spoken, is not merely created by linguistic structures and orders As language is a social semiotic, it

is, on one hand, affected systematically by social circumstances, reflecting social structures, and social practices (Titscher et al, 2000; Fairclough, 2001; Weiss and Wodak, 2003; Wodak and Weiss, 2004, Jørgensen and Phillips, 2002) On the other hand, it also affects reversely the society to shape, retain, or change social relationships (Titscher et al, 2000; Fairclough, 2001, Wodak and Meyer, 2001; Jäger and Maier, 2009)

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Therefore, CDA, seen as an approach to language analysis, identifies the correlation between linguistic production and social variables, or more specific, the link of power, struggles over power on the composition of discourse Put differently, by means of CDA, the traces of ideologies pertaining to power relations can be exposed in discourse

By CDA I mean discourse analysis which aims to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations, and processes; to investigate how such practices, events and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles over power; and to explore how the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society is itself a factor securing power and hegemony (Fairclough, 2001)

Sharing the same idea with Fairclough but specifying in more details the term power relations in Fairclough‘s definition, Van Dijk, Wodak and Meyer defined CDA as a type of discourse analysis studying how social power abuse, dominance, discrimination and inequality are ―expressed, signaled, constituted‖ (Wodak and Meyer, 2001) as well as resisted in discourse in the social and political context (Van Dijk, 2001) CDA is, as Van Dijk (2008) compared, ―an important diagnostic tool for the assessment

of social and political dominance‖ From these points of view, it can be stated that CDA is an approach to language analysis encompassing the interdependence of language, power and ideology With thorough description, explanation and critique, CDA aims to defamiliarize the ―naturalized‖

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language used in the discourse, then reveal the power or struggles over power

as well as ideologies hidden

1.1.2 Principles of CDA

Although the pioneers in CDA such as Fairclough, Wodak, and Van Dijk contributed different methods for CDA, they all shared the same viewpoints of CDA‘s principles

 CDA‘s primary interest is to address social problems It does not rely solely on any particular discipline or discourse theory but a multidisciplinary approach and methodology to reveal such problems

 Power relations are discursive That is CDA explains how social relations of power are exercised and negotiated in and through discourse

 Discourse constitutes society and culture It means that the language use in discourse can contribute to reproducing and transforming social structures and practice, including relations of power

 Discourse is ideological because linguistic features and structures are not arbitrary but purposeful in a particular social context By means of discourse, power relations are produced, exercised, and reproduced

 Discourse is historical in the sense that texts attain their meanings by existing in specific social, cultural and ideological contexts, time and space

 A socio-cognitive approach is needed to understand how relations between texts and society are mediated

 Discourse analysis is interpretive and explanatory

 Discourse is a form of social action

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1.2 CDA’s approaches

1.2.1 Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach

Van Dijk‘s approach to CDA is a socio-cognitive approach It is concerned with the relationship between discourse, cognition and society

Discourse is not simply an isolated textual or dialogic structure rather it is a complex communicative event that also embodies a social context, featuring participants (and their properties) as well

as production and reception processes.(Van Dijk, 1998:2)

He emphasized the role of social cognition in connecting the discourse structures and social structures, from which social representations, attitudes, and ideologies of social actors are exposed According to Van Dijk, social cognition, or ―mental representations and processes of group members‖, controls how people act, speak or write or how they understand the social practices of others (Van Dijk 1995:2) Therefore, he developed

a socio-cognitive framework consisting of three parts: social analysis, cognitive analysis, and discourse analysis

Van Dijk stated that one of the focal issues when analyzing discourse is to identify how the mental representations ―are often articulated along Us versus Them dimensions‖ He assumed that generally speakers of one group tend to represent themselves or their own group in positive terms Whereas the other groups are depicted in negative terms (Van Dijk, 1995:2-22) From the assumption, he proposed a framework to clarify such an ideological dichotomy in discourse as the following:

1 Examining the context of the discourse: historical, political or social background of a conflict and its main participants

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2 Analyzing groups, power relations, and conflicts involved

3 Identifying positive and negative opinions about Us versus Them

4 Making explicit the presupposition and the implication

5 Examining all formal structures: lexical choice and syntactic structure, in a way that helps to (de)emphasize polarized group opinions (Van Dijk, 1998: 61-63)

Nevertheless, regarding to the methodology, Teun A van Dijk also claimed that CAD is not a method of critical discourse analysis (2013) He believes that being critical, first of all, is a state of mind, an attitude, a way of dissenting, and many more things, but not an explicit method for the description of the structures or strategies of text and talk Methodologically, CDA is as diverse as DA in general, or indeed other directions in linguistics, psychology or the social sciences Thus, CDA studies may do so in terms of grammatical (phonological, morphological, syntactic), semantic, pragmatic, interactional, rhetorical, stylistic, narrative or genre analyses,

experiments, ethnography, interviewing, life stories, focus groups, participant observation, and so on, on the other hand According to him, empirically adequate critical analysis of social problems is usually multidisciplinary

1.2.2 Fairclough’s systemic functional grammar approach

As noted in Jørgensen and Phillips (2002), with Systemic Functional Grammar, Fairclough‘s approach viewed language in a dialectic relationship with society That is, it ―both reproduces and changes knowledge, identities and social relations including power relations, and at the same time is also shaped by other social practices and structures‖ (Jørgensen and Phillips, 2002: 65) In other words, it is socially constitutive and

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socially shaped (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997:258) According to Fairclough (2003), the dialectic relation is realized through three aspects: social events (texts), social practices (orders of discourse) and social structures Consequently, his framework comprises three parts, that is analysis of text, analysis of discursive practice and analysis of sociocultural practice

1 Text analysis is concerned with linguistic analysis pertaining to four criteria: vocabulary, grammar, semantics and cohesion-organization above the sentence level (Fairclough, 2003) Halliday‘s Systemic functional linguistics is exploited for detailed textual analysis

2 As Fairclough (2003) defined, ―discursive practices‖ involves the production and consumption of texts Thus, the second analysis –analysis of discursive practice –is an analysis of how texts are produced, received and interpreted In other words, this stage of analysis depends on background information the participants have, which affects the text production and consumption process

3 The sociocultural analysis is concerned with economy, politics and culture of a communicative event (Fairclough, 2003)

(The detailed framework with three stages will be discussed later in Part 1.2.3)

As can be seen, though the three-dimension framework of Fairclough is quite similar to Van Dijk‘s three dimensions of ideology analysis, Van Dijk considered social cognition mediates between discourse and society while for Fairclough text production and consumption mediate between discourse and the social structures (Wodak and Meyer, 2001)

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Proposing a three-dimension framework with a step-by-step analysis and

a list of detailed, concrete suggested questions for textual analysis, Fairclough‘s framework would help analysts, especially the novice analyze more easily

1.2.3 Fairclough’s three-dimension framework of CDA

Fairclough‘s framework consists of three sections of description, interpretation and explanation

Firstly, the descriptive dimension examines the basic formal properties of the discourse In other words, the description stage presents text analysis It is crucial that Fairclough‘s brainchild is applicable to any kinds of text The term text could refer to both verbal texts and visual texts The semiotic indications including images, signs, colors, sounds are also seen as text (Janks, 1997)

The following dimension is the processes by which the object is produced and received by human subject (Janks, 1997) At this stage, a text is seen not only

as a result of process of production and also as a resource in the act of interpretation The features of text and context serve as cues for being interpreted on the basis of a background of common-sense assumptions

Finally, the explanation dimension attempts to find the relationships between interaction and social context (Fairclough, 2001) As the third dimension involves the socio-historical conditions that govern the process of production,

it can be illustrated as the power behind discourse At this stage, there is an effort to answer questions like how the discourse change or sustain certain social relationship in social structure or what kinds of social practices the object of investigation is interrelated

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1.3 Feminist critical discourse analysis

The aim of feminist CDA is to disclose ―the complex workings of power and ideology in discourse in sustaining a (hierarchically) gendered social order‖ (Lazar 2005: 1) Put differently, feminist CDA examines how power, dominance and access to forms of discourse are produced and/or resisted through discourse, using ―textual representations of gendered social practices‖ (2005: 10) Contexts for studies in feminist CDA range from media and advertising to education, workplaces and government (2005: 1)

In this part of the thesis, Debora Cameron and Caldas-Coulthard are discussed The two scholars differ in their approaches to discourse and language analyses While Cameron studies feminist issues from the point of sociolinguistics and does not specifically focuses on news discourse, Caldas-Coulthard analyses those issues in news discourse using the tools of CDA Despite these differences, the findings of both the scholars are important for this particular research.

In her study Feminism and Linguistic Theory (1992), Debora Cameron

presents her feminist approach to discourse analysis Through a critical analysis of different feminist and non-feminist approaches to analyzing language, she aims to demonstrate how the linguists‘ assumptions and practices are entangled in ―patriarchal ideology and oppression‖ (Cameron 1992: 16), while designating her own approach The main point of her feminist linguistic theory is that the general assumption that women are

‗silenced‘ is ―misleading and imprecise‖ and that this has to be examined from case to case (1992: 210-1)

As it was mentioned earlier, she does not specifically concerns herself with news discourse, but her findings related to the feminist reform leading to the

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creation of nonsexist language are discussed at a general level, and thus can

be also tested against newspapers These findings include her claim that the use of non-sexist language does not guarantee linguistic neutrality (1992: 120-1) For instance, she demonstrates this on the use of the neutral suffix ‗person‘ which was meant to substitute the suffixes ‗man‘ and ‗woman‘ in order to efface the gender implications of those suffixes but instead, the suffix

‗person‘ has become a reference to woman (1992: 121-2)

While Cameron studies feminist issues from the point of sociolinguistics and does not specifically focuses on news discourse, Caldas-Coulthard analyses those issues in news discourse using the tools of CDA She focuses on the representation of women (as opposed to men) in newspaper discourse, more specifically, on the marginalization of women in the press (1995: 239)

In her study Man in the news: the misrepresentation of women speaking in news as narrative discourse (1995), Caldas-Coulthard presents the results of

her research on the different ways of depicting women and men in three quality newspapers, namely The Independent, The Guardian and The Times The methodology of her research is mostly based on a quantitative approach; she examines the frequency of occurrence of women in comparison to men as news sources in the newspapers, compares the frequency counts of various lexical items referring to women and men, etc

The results of Caldas-Coulthard‘s comparative approach show that the number of women quoted or given voice in the newspapers is lower than the number of men and also that the ways the newspapers depict men and women are different (1995: 226)

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Among other issues Caldas-Coulthard examines is the choice of verbs of saying which accompany quotes of women and men She suggests that in spite of the low occurrence of the stage-direction verbs (verbs like cry, yell, scream and shout), their use reinforces gender stereotypes (1995: 235) However, she does not provide an example of such a use from her corpus

As far as the naming of the people appearing in the newspapers is concerned, her analysis of the labels that are assigned to those people indicate that men are commonly described by their professions while women by their marital and family status (1995: 238) According to Caldas-Coulthard, all these findings reflect the fact that women are seen as a minority group who lack access to power (1995: 239)

1.4 Overview of related studies

This study is not the first one dealing with the presentation of gender relations

in the media

The researcher took some similar studies as inspiration for conducting the investigation on gender relationships in the media, especially considering the representation of women

Fowler‘s analysis (1991) of noun phrases used to characterize men and

women in The Guardian shows that most of the expressions referring to men

(for instance, professor, Republican Senator, publisher, architect, deputy speaker, etc.) could be used to refer to women, too, but as he points out, these

expressions ―do not designate women‖ On the other hand, some of the

expressions referring to women (for instance, soprano, actress, etc.) could not

be used with men as they are linguistically gender marked

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Caldas-Coulthard (1995) analysed the content of a sample of American newspapers Caldas-Coulthard found that news items were more likely to be written by men and women and were also more likely about men Furthermore, she also demonstrated that while male speakers‘ nominations are modified by their professional designations in public institutions, women are nominated with reference to their marital status, family relations or age Scarcely are they described in their professional status, and if any, the nominal groups qualifying them tend to be shorter

Sidnell (1999) indicated that in some countries women are constrained to avoid making appropriate linguistic claims, which can be quite acceptable if pronounced by men

Izabel Magalhães (2005) from the University of Brasilia discusses textual and semiotic aspects of adverts according to critical discourse analysis Her analysis was based on the texts taken from the adverts found in a few famous Brazilian magazines, which were analyzed according to semiotic aspects and the notions of vocabulary, modality, cohesion and intertextuality

category of hard news that includes political events, reports of accidents,

conflicts, crimes, announcements and discoveries (Bell, 1991) The category

of hard news was chosen to be the analyzed material and the following

Altogether, the material analyzed was selected because it is presumed to be gender-unbiased, aimed at a wide readership with no preference to either gender, and containing information that is of importance for both women and men

The analyzed articles were collected during a period of five consecutive days (from 1st to 5th October 2014) and were obtained from the following web sites:

2.3 Research method

The method of this research is meant to follow the way Caldas-Coulthard carried out her research In her study ―Man in the news: the misrepresentation

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of women speaking in news-as-narrative-discourse‖ (1995), the methodology

is mostly based on a quantitative approach; she examines the frequency of occurrence of women in comparison to men as news sources in the newspapers, compares the frequency counts of various lexical items referring

to women and men

This research provides the numbers of women and men who are quoted in the newspapers to examine whether women are under-represented in the newspapers Furthermore, it discusses the types of nominal groups (and their frequency counts) that introduce women and men in the newspapers to examine whether there are differences in the characterization of women and men in the press

The researchers will analyze the gender representations in illustrations based

on the following diagram (Caldas-Coulthard, 1995):

2.3.1 Power and access

Among the issues that are often analyzed is the reflection of social power on newspaper discourse and the amount of access of particular people and groups

to newspaper discourse Power in this context is understood as Van Dijk

Gender issue

Power and access (reported)

Number of quotations of men and women

Naming new actors

Proper Names

Job titles

Kinship words

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(1996: 84) depicts it ―in terms of the control exercised by one group or organization (or its members) over the actions and/or the minds of (the members of) another group, thus limiting the freedom of action of the others,

or influencing their knowledge, attitudes or ideologies‖ In such ideological discourse we may observe a positive representation of ‗Our‘ group, and a negative representation of the ‗Others‘ — always depending on the communicative situation, that is, our context models — at all levels of text or talk: topics, lexicon, descriptions, argumentation, storytelling, metaphors and

so on One example of ideological structure of discourse is that Members of ideological groups on identify with ‗their‘ group, and express such

identification in many ways, e.g As a feminist, I/we … Speaking as a pacifist, I/we … Van Dijk (1996: 86) also states that ―measures of discourse access

may be rather faithful indicators of the power of social groups and their members‖ Thus the distribution of power within the social, political and economic structures and its influence on the creation and the form of newspaper discourse is examined Consequently, it is also considered who is reported in the newspaper and what impact it has on newspaper discourse Van Dijk (1995:20) considers access as one of important notions in the analysis of (media) power It can be defined as ―the controlling the means of mass communication is one of the crucial conditions of social power in contemporary information societies.‖ Indeed, besides economic or other social conditions of power, social groups may be attributed the social power

by their active or passive access to various forms of public, other influential,

or consequential discourse, such as those of the mass media, scholarship, or political and corporate decision making For instance, ordinary people usually have active and controlled access only to everyday conversations with family members, friends, or colleagues Their access to dialogues with officials or

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professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, or civil servants, is usually constrained in many ways Although ordinary people may make use of the news media, they generally have no direct influence on news content, nor are they usually the major actors of news reports

Van Dijk also discusses gender in terms of power and access to news discourse He claims that most journalists are men, and women have even less access to higher editorial positions As sources they are less credible, and hence less quoted, and as news actors they are less newsworthy (1995: 25) Given that there is a lack of female voice in the news media, men are in control of news discourse (1995: 24, Caldas-Coulthard 1995: 231) Women‘s engagement in political protest, for example, against nuclear arms, is amusingly reported as long as it is playful, but it is ignored, attacked, or marginalized as soon as it appears to be serious, as was the case for the women beleaguering the U.S airbase at Greenham Common in the United Kingdom

2.3.2 Naming new actors

Every news source as well as every person who appears in newspapers is given a ‗label‘ in order to distinguish who is speaking and what the person‘s connection is to the reported issue Newspapers assign people to different (socially constructed) groups or categories, e.g ―young married women, immigrants, teachers, capitalists and royalty‖ (Fowler 1991: 94-5) The people are then understood in terms of the qualities ascribed to these categories (1991: 92) However, Fowler warns that such categorization can lead to establishing and reinforcing various stereotypes (1991: 92)

This research includes an analysis of noun phrases that accompany news actors, focusing on the differences between female and male ‗labelling‘ The

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analysis is based on the assumption that these expressions reflect categories to which people who appear in newspapers are assigned according to their position in power structures (Caldas Coulthard 1995: 237) Consequently, the noun phrases attributed to ordinary women and men are compared to examine the differences in characterizing women and men and also the assumption that those women are typically referred to in terms of family and marital statuses while those men are predominantly characterized by their professional status

or jobs

In general, there are three kinds of noun phrases are explored in this scope namely proper names, job titles and kinship words

2.4 Data analysis procedure

To answer the first research question, the numbers of women and men in the certain categories were listed and compared to examine the assumption that women are excluded from public discourse due to their lack of representation

of powerful and authoritative positions This is considered as a reflection of the fact that majority of people in powerful positions are men

In the analyzed corpus, instances when different people were given voice (reported in both direct and indirect modes) were counted As the research focuses on gender differences, voices of institutions as well as voices of people whose gender was not specified were excluded If a person was quoted more than once within one article, it was still counted as one instance only If the person was reported in another article, it was counted as one instance again

The people whose voices were reported are divided into the following four groups:

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1 Politicians – heads of states, government and parliament members

2 High officials – managers, directors, chairmen, chancellors and commanders

3 Professional people – policemen, coroners, teachers, priests and various experts

4 Ordinary people (usually their occupation is not mentioned)

This categorization of source types is an adaptation of Bell‘s (1991: 192) classification The accession of the four groups reflects their positions in power structures; the first group is on top of the power structures while the fourth one is regarded as the least powerful one, usually not connected with social, political or economical power The researcher found out if the women who are reported belong to the powerless groups and their appears are under-represented or not

To answer the second research question, this research also includes an analysis of noun phrases that accompany news actors, focusing on the differences between female and male ‗labelling‘ This part of the analysis focuses on the ways people who appear in newspapers are denominated and also the differences between the characterization of women and the characterization of men are discussed When a person appears in newspapers, either as a news source or as an ‗actor‘, he/she is given a label that includes information such as name, age, profession, family status, etc Through these labels, the reported people are categorized, and thus are attributed particular characteristics typical of the categories they are associated with

Consequently, the noun phrases attributed to ordinary women and men were counted in terms of proper names, job titles and kinship words These data were compared to examine the differences in characterizing women and men

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and also the assumption that those women are typically referred to by just first

names and in terms of family and marital statuses while those men are

predominantly characterized by their professional status or jobs

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CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

This chapter is devoted to a critical analysis of thirty news reports from British‘s online news released from October 1, 2014 to October 5, 2014 The ways of reporting men and women in pieces of news are discussed Furthermore, the chapter analyses the messages on gender conveyed through the use of noun phrases to name new actors

3.1 Power and Access

This part shows findings and discussions of research question 1

Research question 1: How differently were men and women reported in the discourse of the news agencies?

Using the method described above, 66 instances of people being given voice were found in the analyzed corpus From these, 18 represent the most powerful group, i.e politicians, 16 instances fall in the group of high officials,

21 voices represent professionals and 11 belong to ordinary people The pie

chart in Figure 1 summarizes the findings

Figure 1: Representation of the power groups

Politicians 24%

High officials 27%

Professions 32%

Ordinary people 17%

POWER GROUPS

Politicians High officialS Professions Ordinary People

frequently accessed group consists of high politicians Examples from this

group are the following: Mr Cameron, Tony Blair, Pope Francis, and The Ministry of Defence in London ( See Appendix 2 for the full list of the

names) The third most frequently reported group consists of high officials

The group is represented by examples taken from the corpus such as Tim Hancock, campaigns director of Amnesty UK; Adam Wagner, a human rights barrister; Gunars Nagels, the museum director; Metropolitan Police commander Graham McNulty. The least accessed group is the group of

ordinary people The following are examples found in the corpus: her mother, Rosalind Hodgkiss; Saida B, 28; Mohamed Abib (see Appendix 2) for the full

list of the names)

On the whole, professors represent a third of all the voices and politicians account for more than a quarter in the corpus Their position in power structures is high or even on the top The highest occurrence of voices from professors (i.e scientists, priests, computer experts, etc.) and political sphere (presidents, ministers, political leaders, etc.) reflects readers‘ need for opinions of authoritarian sources The results say that less than a quarter of the voices belong to high officials (chief officials, judges, chairmen, etc.) These people usually represent powerful public institutions, i.e committees and bureaus Members of this category have significant social and economical power hence they are frequent news sources

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The least frequently accessed group is represented by ordinary people Only

17 per cent of the sources represent professional Members of this group are reported predominantly in context of crimes, disasters and conflicts As being analyzed in the first part of this section, members of this group are major relatives of crimes‘ victims or they themselves are victims of war or conflict

The results indicate that the most powerful groups, professors and politicians, have the best access to newspaper discourse Thus they contribute the most to the creation of newspaper discourse and can influence people‘s attitudes and understanding of the world around them

As this research is aimed at analyzing the distribution of power between women and men, the power structures should be examined in terms of gender

In the analyzed data, women are reported 1 times as politicians, 4 times as high officials, 5 times as professionals and 6 times as ordinary people The pie chart in Figure 2 and Table 1 summarize the findings The results indicate that women as sources most frequently come from the lowest power structures The second most frequent position from which women speak in the newspapers is a high political status There are not many women at the highest political positions

Table 1: Numbers of women and men in the power group

WOMEN numbers

WOMEN percentage

MEN numbers

MEN percentage

TOTAL numbers

TOTAL percentage