Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán tin tức của báo chí mỹ về cuộc bầu cử tổng thống mỹ năm 2008

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
DEPARTMENT OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

LÊ THỊ NGỌC ANH

SELECTED AMERICAN MEDIA COVERAGE
OF THE 2008 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION:
A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGƠN PHÊ PHÁN TIN TỨC CỦA BÁO CHÍ
MỸ VỀ CUỘC BẦU CỬ TỔNG THỐNG MỸ NĂM 2008

M.A Thesis

Code: 60.22.15
Supervisor: Prof. Nguyễn Hòa, Ph D.

HANOI - 2009


TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ............................................................................................................ i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .............................................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... iii
ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................................... iv
LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................... v
LIST OF APPENDICES ................................................................................................. vi

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale .................................................................................................................... 1
2. Scope of the research ................................................................................................... 2
3. Aims of the research and research questions ................................................................ 2
4. Methodology of the research........................................................................................ 3
5. Background information about the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election ............................. 3
6. Design of the research ................................................................................................. 5

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ........................................................... 6
1.1. What is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)?............................................................. 6
1.2. The development of CDA ......................................................................................... 6
1.3. Directions in CDA .................................................................................................... 7
1.3.1. Van Dijk .......................................................................................................... 7
1.3.2. Wodak ............................................................................................................ 9
1.3.3. Fairclough........................................................................................................ 10
1.4. Principles of CDA .................................................................................................... 10
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ................................................................................... 12
2.1. Data.......................................................................................................................... 12
2.1.1. Data source ....................................................................................................... 12
2.1.1.1. The New York Times .............................................................................. 12
2.1.1.2. New York Post ........................................................................................ 12
2.1.2. Data collection and sampling ........................................................................... 13


2.2. Analytical framework and methods........................................................................... 13
2.2.1. Headlines analysis............................................................................................. 13
2.2.2. Full-text news report analysis ............................................................................ 15
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION .................................................. 16
3.1. Headlines analysis .................................................................................................... 16
3.1.1. The New York Times ......................................................................................... 17

3.1.1.1. Representation of Mr. Obama .................................................................. 17
3.1.1.2. Representation of Mr. McCain ................................................................ 20
3.1.2. New York post ................................................................................................... 22
3.1.2.1. Representation of Mr. Obama .................................................................. 23
3.1.2.2. Representation of Mr. McCain ................................................................ 25
3.2. Full-text stories analysis ........................................................................................... 26
3.2.1. Naming referent ................................................................................................ 26
3.2.1.1. The New York Times .............................................................................. 26
3.2.1.2. New York Post ........................................................................................ 27
3.2.2. Lexicalization ................................................................................................... 29
3.2.2.1. The New York Times .............................................................................. 29
3.2.2.2. New York Post ........................................................................................ 33

PART 3: CONCLUSION
1. Summary of major findings ......................................................................................... 36
2. Suggestions for further research ................................................................................... 36

REFERENCES
APPENDICES


iv

ABBREVIATIONS

CDA

Critical Discourse Analysis

CL

Critical Linguistics

P

New York Post

SFG

Systematic Functional Grammar

SFL

Systemic Functional Linguistics

T

The New York Times

U.S.

the United States


v

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Summary of process types ................................................................................. 14
Table 2. Mr. Obama’s roles in percentage in The New York Times ................................. 18

Table 3. Mr. McCain’s roles in percentage in The New York Times ................................ 21
Table 4. Mr. Obama’s roles in percentage in the New York Post ..................................... 32
Table 5. Mr. McCain’s roles in percentage in the New York Post .................................... 26
Table 6. Positivization of Mr. Obama’s activities............................................................. 30
Table 7. Negativization for Mr. McCain’s campaign and activities .................................. 32
Table 8. Positivization for Mr. McCain............................................................................ 34
Table 9. Negativization for Mr. Obama ........................................................................... 35


vi

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1

Headlines from The New York Times

Appendix 2

Headlines from New York Post


1

Part 1: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Everyday we use language, in other words - produce discourse, to negotiate, to give
information, to ask for information or to make choices; in short, to communicate. To
discourse analysts, “discourse” means actual instances of communication in the medium of
language. In the discourse we produce are conventional ways of talking that create and

perpetuate systems of ideologies and sets of beliefs about how the world works. Van Dijk
(1988) points out that discourse, in a wider sense, is a complex unit of language form,
meaning and actions that might best be captured under the notion of a communicative
event or communicative act.
Among many types of discourse produced under different contexts/communicative events,
journalistic discourse has some very specific textual characteristics, specific methods of
text production and consumption, and is defined by a particular set of relationships
between itself and other agencies of symbolic and material power. As Fowler (1991)
pointed out, the language of the news is never neutral, and articles within newspaper must
be regarded as constructed “stories” told from particular point of view. When it comes to
journalistic discourse analysis, the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach is often
employed. CDA is a methodology that enables a vigorous assessment of what is meant
when language is used to describe and explain.
How the media describe and explain things or events and portray people can have a great
influence on the public who often have decisions and choices to make. That explains why
the role of the media in electoral politics is key to the functioning of a democracy, because
now most voters increasingly use the media as their primary source of information.
All the information about discourse and media briefly mentioned above leads the author of
this thesis to the research topic and conduct a small study entitled “Selected American
Media Coverage of the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election: A Critical Discourse Analysis”.


2

2. Scope of the research
Within the limit of a minor thesis, this research focus only on the texts of the news reports
published from 31st August 2008 to 1st November 2008 in the two dailies The New York
Times and New York Post, on the topic of the 2008 U.S Presidential Election. In this
research, 45 headlines and 24 full-text news reports are analyzed. As this is a purely
linguistic study, the author is not, by any means or in any way, expressing her own

political point of view.
3. Aims of the research and research questions
The general goal of this research is to investigate the ideological function of language in
representing the world and constructing certain realities. The main objective is to look into
the ways language be employed by two media institutions to produce discourse to present
the two 2008 U.S. presidential candidates. More specifically, this thesis aims at:
- Providing a textual analysis of the news on the 2008 U.S. presidential election in the light
of Critical Discourse Analysis.
- Giving an illustration of the CDA concepts as well as analysis procedures.
- Conveying a message that CDA provides a useful, systematic way for language users and
language learners to begin raising awareness of the ideologies embedded in discourse, as
language not only reflects and records but also shapes, distorts and even create realities,
both culturally and naturally.
To achieve these aims, the following research questions are proposed:
(i)

What are the representations of the two 2008 presidential candidates, the
Republican John McCain and the Democrat Barack Obama, constructed by The
New York Times and the New York Post?

(ii)

What are the underlying ideologies embedded in the way The New York Times
and New York Post represent the two candidates?

(iii)

How are such ideologies encoded in the discourse of the two newspapers?

3

4. Methodology of the research
Following in this part is a brief summary of the basic steps taken in the research.
The first step is to conduct a literature review. The author searched for reference via the
thesis advisor, Dr. Nguyen Hoa, lectures of related subjects like Research Methods,
Applied Linguistics, etc., books and journals in the libraries and materials from the
Internet.
The second step is searching for data. News reports published from 31st August 2008 to 1st
November 2008 in the two selected newspapers were collected. Then the data for analysis
were sampled through random sampling. Through thoroughly examining of the sampled
data, closely looking into prominent linguistic features in the data, proper analytical tools
were then decided.
The next step in investigating two sets of data – headlines and full-text news reports.
-

Analyzing selected headlines according to transitivity system

-

Analyzing selected full-text news reports according to two discursive strategies of
naming referents and lexicalization.

Through the analysis of the two sets of data, the study attempts to find out the similarities
as well as differences in the way the two newspapers reported on the same topic, the same
people. Based on the findings, further ideologies embedded in the text are discussed.
5. Background information about the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election
The United States presidential election of 2008 was held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. It
was the 56th quadrennial United States presidential election. Outgoing Republican
President George W. Bush's policies and actions and the American public's desire for

change were key issues throughout the campaign, and during the general election
campaign, both major party candidates ran on a platform of change and reform in
Washington. Domestic policy and the economy eventually emerged as the main themes in
the last few months of the election campaign, particularly after the onset of the 2008
economic crisis.
Democrat Barack Obama, then - junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated
Republican John McCain, the senior United States Senator from Arizona. Nine states


4

changed allegiance from the 2004 election. Each had voted for the Republican nominee in
2004 and contributed to Obama's sizable Electoral College victory. The selected electors
from each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia voted for President and Vice
President of the United States on December 15, 2008. Those votes were tallied before a
joint session of Congress on January 8, 2009. Obama received 365 electoral votes, and
McCain 173.
There were several unique aspects of the 2008 election. The election was the first in which
an African American was elected President, and the first time a Roman Catholic was
elected Vice President. It was also the first time two sitting senators ran against each other.
It was the first election in 56 years in which neither an incumbent president (Bush was
barred from seeking a third term by the Twenty-second Amendment) nor a vice president
(Dick Cheney did not seek the presidency) ran. It was also the first time the Republican
Party nominated a woman for Vice President and only the second time a woman was
nominated for Vice President on a major party ticket. Also, voter turnout for the 2008
election was the highest in at least 40 years.
The two candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain are nearly 25 years apart in age. This
is the largest age disparity between the two major party presidential candidates in history,
surpassing Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, (23 years apart in age) who ran against each other in
the 1996 presidential election. On January 20, 2009, Obama was inaugurated to the

presidency at the age of 47 years 138 days. He is the fourth youngest man to be elected
president, after John Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Ulysses Grant, and the fifth youngest
president when inaugurated, after Kennedy, Clinton, Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt.
Polls taken in the last few months of the presidential campaign as well as exit polls
conducted on Election Day showed the economy as the top concern for voters.
In the fall of 2008, many news sources were reporting that the economy was suffering its
most serious downturn since the Great Depression. During this period John McCain's
election prospects fell with several politically costly comments about the economy.


5

6. Design of the research
The study is divided into three main parts:
Part 1 – Introduction: in this part are the rationale, the scope of the research, the aims of the
research, the research questions, the methodology, some background information about the
2008 U.S. Presidential Election and the design of the research.
Part 2 – Development: this is the main part of the research and has three chapters
Chapter 1: Theoretical background: this chapter present related theoretical
background for the research.
Chapter 2: Methodology: this chapter describes steps and procedures of the
research.
Chapter 3: Data analysis and Discussion: this chapter analyzes the data and
discusses the findings of the analysis.
Part 3 – Conclusion: this is a summary of the findings and some suggestions for further
research.


6

Part 2: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1. What is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)?
According to van Dijk (1998) Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a field that is
concerned with studying and analyzing written and spoken texts to reveal the discursive
sources of power, dominance, inequality and bias. It examines how these discursive
sources are maintained and reproduced within specific social, political and historical
contexts.
Fairclough (1993) defines CDA as 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. (p.135). To put it simply, CDA aims at making transparent the connections
between discourse practices, social practices, and social structures, connections that might
be opaque to the layperson.
1.2. The development of CDA
In the late 1970s, Critical Linguistics was developed by a group of linguists and literary
theorists at the University of East Anglia (Fowler et. al., 1979). Their approach was based
on Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). CL practitioners aimed at "isolating
ideology in discourse" and showing "how ideology and ideological processes are
manifested as systems of linguistic characteristics and processes." This aim was pursued by
developing CL's analytical tools (Fowler et al., 1979; Fowler, 1991) based on SFL.
Following Halliday, these CL practitioners view language in use as simultaneously
performing three functions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions.
According to Fowler (1991, p.71), and Fairclough (1995b, p.25), whereas the ideational
function refers to the experience of the speakers of the world and its phenomena, the
interpersonal function embodies the insertion of speakers' own attitudes and evaluations

7

about the phenomena in question, and establishing a relationship between speakers and
listeners. Instrumental to these two functions is the textual function. It is through the
textual function of language that speakers are able to produce texts that are understood
bylisteners. It is an enabling function connecting discourse to the co-text and con-text in
which it occurs. Halliday's view of language as a "social act" is central to many of CDA's
practitioners.
1.3. Directions in CDA
Among the scholars whose works have profoundly contributed to the development of CDA
are van Dijk (1988, 1991, 1993, 1995), Wodak (1996, 2001), and Fairclough (1989, 1992,
1995, 1997).
1.3.1. Van Dijk
Among CDA practitioners, van Dijk is one of the most often referenced and quoted in
critical studies of media discourse. In the 1980s, he started to apply his discourse analysis
theory to media texts mainly focusing on the representation of ethnic groups and minorities
in Europe. In his News Analysis (1988), he integrates his general theory of discourse to the
discourse of news in the press, and applies his theory to authentic cases of news reports at
both the national and international level. What distinguishes van Dijk's (1988) framework
for the analyses of news discourse is his call for a thorough analysis not only of the textual
and structural level of media discourse but also for analysis and explanations at the
production and "reception" or comprehension level.
By structural analysis, van Dijk posited analysis of "structures at various levels of
description" which meant not only the grammatical, phonological, morphological and
semantic level but also "higher level properties" such as coherence, overall themes and
topics of news stories and the whole schematic forms and rhetorical dimensions of texts.
This structural analysis, however, he claimed, will not suffice, for “discourse is not simply
an isolated textual or dialogic structure. Rather it is a complex communicative event that
also embodies a social context, featuringparticipants (and their properties) as well as

production and reception processes” (van Dijk, 1988, p. 2)
By "production processes" van Dijk means journalistic and institutional practices of newsmaking and the economic and social practices which not only play important roles in the


8

creation of media discourse but which can be explicitly related to the structures of media
discourse.
Van Dijk's other dimension of analysis, "reception processes", involves taking into
consideration the comprehension, "memorization and reproduction" of news information.
What van Dijk's analysis of media (1988, 1991, 1993) attempts to demonstrate is the
relationships between the three levels of news text production (structure, production and
comprehension processes) and their relationship with the wider social context they are
embedded within. In order to identify such relationships, van Dijk's analysis takes place at
two levels: microstructure and macrostructure.
At the microstructure level, analysis is focused on the semantic relations between
propositions, syntactic, lexical and other rhetorical elements that provide coherence in the
text, and other rhetorical elements such quotations, direct or indirect reporting that give
factuality to the news reports.
Central to van Dijk's analysis of news reports, however, is the analysis of macrostructure
since it pertains to the thematic/topic structure of the news stories and their overall
schemata. Themes and topics are realized in the headlines and lead paragraphs. According
to van Dijk (1988), the headlines "define the overall coherence or semantic unity of
discourse, and also what information readers memorize best from a news report"(p. 248).
He claims that the headline and the lead paragraph “express the most important
information of the cognitive model of journalists, thatis, how they see and define the news
event. Unless readers have different knowledge and beliefs, they will generally adopt these
subjective media definitions of what is important information about an event” (van Dijk,
1988, p. 248)
For van Dijk (1988, pp.14-16), the news schemata ("superstructure schema") are structured

according to a specific narrative pattern that consists of the following: summary (headline
and the lead paragraph), story (situation consisting of episode and backgrounds), and
consequences (final comments and conclusions). These sections of a news story are
sequenced in terms of "relevance," so the general information in contained in the summary,
the headline and the lead paragraph. According to van Dijk, this is what the readers can
best memorize and recall.


9

Van Dijk (1995) essentially perceives discourse analysis as ideology analysis, because
according to him, "ideologies are typically, though not exclusively, expressed and
reproduced in discourse and communication, including non-verbal semiotic messages,
such as pictures, photographs and movies" (p.17). His approach for analyzing ideologies
has three parts: social analysis, cognitive analysis, and discourse analysis (1995, p.30).
Whereas the social analysis pertains to examining the "overall societal structures," (the
context), the discourse analysis is primarily text based (syntax, lexicon, local semantics,
topics, schematic structures, etc.). In this sense, van Dijk's approach incorporates the two
traditional approaches in media education discussed earlier: interpretive (text based) and
social tradition (context based), into one analytical framework for analyzing media
discourse.
1.3.2. Wodak
Discourse Sociolinguistics is one of the directions in CDA associated with Wodak and her
colleagues in Vienna (The Vienna School of Discourse Analysis). According to Wodak
(1996, p.3): Discourse Sociolinguistics…is a sociolinguistics which not only is
explicitlydedicated to the study of the text in context, but also accords both factors equal
importance. It is an approach capable of identifying and describing the underlying
mechanisms that contribute to those disorders in discourse which are embedded in a
particular context--whether they be in the structure and function of the media, or in
institutions such as a hospital or a school--and inevitably affect communication.

In the discourse historical method approach (similar to Fairclough's) it is believed that
language "manifests social processes and interaction" and "constitutes" those processes as
well (Wodak 1996, p.12). According to Wodak (1996), viewing language this way entails
three things at least. First, discourse "always involves power and ideologies. No interaction
exists where power relations do not prevail and where values and norms do not have a
relevant role" (p.12). Second, "discourse … is always historical, that is, it is connected
synchronically and diachronically with other communicative events which are happening
at the same time or which have happened before" (p. 12). The third feature of Wodak's
approach is that of interpretation. According to Wodak, readers and listeners, depending on
their background knowledge and information and their position, might have different
interpretations of the same communicative event (p.13). Therefore, Wodak asserts that


10

"THE RIGHT interpretation does not exist; a hermeneutic approach is necessary.
Interpretations can be more or less plausible or adequate, but they cannot be true" (p.13).
1.3.3. Fairclough
In this paper, I only present a general overview of Fairclough's work in CDA, and a more
detailed account of his framework for analyzing media discourse.
Fairclough’s theory has been central to CDA over more than the past ten years (Hoa, N.,
2003). Fairclough, in his earlier work, called his approach to language and discourse
Critical Language Study (1989, p.5). He described the objective of this approach as "a
contribution to the general raising of consciousness of exploitative social relations, through
focusing upon language" (1989, p.4). This aim in particular remains in his later work that
further develops his approach so that it is now one of the most comprehensive frameworks
of CDA. Systematic Functional Linguistics (SFL) has been the foundation for Fairclough's
analytical framework as it has been for other practitioners in CDA.
In this approach of CDA, there are three analytical focuses in analyzing any
communicative event (interaction). They are text (e.g. a news report), discourse practice

(e.g. the process of production and consumption), and socio-cultural practice (e.g. social
and cultural structures which give rise to the communicative event). These closely
resemble van Dijk's three dimensions of ideology analysis: discourse, socio-cognition, and
social analysis [analysis of social structures] respectively.
1.4. Principles of CDA
Principles of CDA, outlined by CDA practitioners (Fairclough, 1995; Kress, 1991; Van
Dijk, 1998; Wodak, 1996) can be summarized as follows:
1. Language is a social practice through which the world is represented.
2. Discourse/language use as a form of social practice in itself not only represents
and signifies other social practices but it also constitutes other social practices such
as the exercise of power, domination, prejudice, resistance and so forth.
3. Texts acquire their meanings by the dialectical relationship between texts and the
social subjects: writers and the readers, who always operate with various degrees of
choice and access to texts and means of interpretation.


11

4. Linguistic features and structures are not arbitrary. They are purposeful whether
or not the choices are conscious or unconscious.
5. Power relations are produced, exercised, and reproduced through discourse.
6. All speakers and writers operate from specific discursive practices originating in
special interests and aims which involve inclusions and exclusions.
7. Discourse is historical in the sense that texts acquire their meanings by being
situated in specific social, cultural and ideological contexts, and time and space.
8. CDA does not solely interpret texts, but also explains them.


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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
In this chapter is, firstly, the author provides an account for the choice of The New York
Times and New York Post as the source of database for research. Secondly, basic steps in
the process of data collection and sampling are described. Then are brief description of the
analytical framework for this paper and the analytical tools.
2.1. Data
2.1.1. Data source
The data under analysis are news report on 2008 U.S. Election in The New York Times
and New York Post, from 31 st August 2008 to 1st November 2008. These two newspaper
are chosen because they are both among the oldest reliable newspaper with huge
circulation (thus have great influence on the public) in the U.S.
2.1.1.1. The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in
New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"
- named for its staid appearance and style - is regarded as a national newspaper of record.
With the motto, "All the News That's Fit to Print." (printed in the upper left-hand corner of
the front page), The paper trails in circulation only to USA Today and The Wall Street
Journal. Of all news organizations in the U.S, The New York Times has won the most
number of Pulitzer Prizes – a very prestigious award for achievements in newspaper
journalism, literature and musical composition.
2.1.1.2. New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and
generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continually as a daily. The
Post at this point was the only surviving afternoon daily in New York City, with over
600,000 in daily circulation. Although more famous for its Sport and entertainment
column, politics news on the Post is also much updated and treated as an important part of
the daily. The Post also runs a website version of the newspaper, and this online version
ranks 8th among the online newspaper with most readers.

13

2.1.2. Data selection and sampling
In the first step, news reports published from 31st August to 1st November in the two dailies
were collected. Then, the news under analysis in this paper were chosen randomly. As the
study aims at analyzing news discourse only, all the editorials, comments and opinion
articles were excluded (they belong to different genres thus need different analytical
framework).
Two set of data are under analysis in this minor thesis are 35 headlines and 24 full-text
news reports. Those headlines and full-text news are sampled randomly.
2.2. Analytical framework and methods
In this paper, the author employs a combination of approaches as the framework. This
comprehensive approach has also been used by many CDA practitioners, as the science of
CDA is still in evolution and basing on a single scholar‟s approach is risky for producing
valid study result in CDA.
Also, the analysis in this research is a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods,
focusing on the following linguistic aspects: transitivity in analyzing headlines, and
naming referents as well as lexicalization in full-text news reports. These linguistic
features and strategies are believed to be effective analysis tools in discerning ideologies in
media discourse.
2.2.1. Headlines analysis
In the first step of analyzing the headlines, the framework used is Systemic Functional
Grammar (SFG) of M. Halliday. With his SFG, Halliday provides different approach to
interpret the clause. In this research, each of the 35 selected headlines is treated as a clause.
Since the headlines analysis aims at uncovering The New York Times‟ and the New York
Post‟s representation of the two candidates in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the
Transitivity system of these headlines will be studied and analyzed.
In Halliday‟s SFG theory, the system of transitivity consists of three components which are
process types and their participants as well as circumstances described within text. In
English, there are six process types namely Material, Mental, Verbal, Behavioral,

14

Relational, and Existential Process. These six process types are summarized in the table
below:
Table 1. Summary of process types

Process Type
Material

Category meaning
„doing‟

Action

„doing

Event

„happening‟

Behavioral

„behaving‟

Mental

„feeling‟

Perception

„sensing‟

Affection

„emotive‟

Cognition

„thinking‟

Participants
Actor, Goal, Recipient

Behaver, Phenomenon
Sensor, phenomenon

Verbal

„saying‟

Sayer, Target, Verbiage, Recipient

Relational

„being‟

Carrier, Attribute

Attribution

„attributing‟

Identified/ Token

Identification

„identifying‟

Indentifier/ Value

Existential

„existing‟

Existent

By analyzing the transitivity system, we can understand “who did what to whom, in which
context”. Thus, all the selected headlines in this thesis are examined in terms of transitivity
system. The roles and processes attributed to each presidential nominee, in each
newspaper, will then be calculated to find out the prominent trend of representing the
candidates. In other words, after the transitivity in each headline is studied, we can see how
the reporters represent the two presidential nominees and why they build up such
representations.
The discussion of findings in the headlines‟ transitivity is much influenced by van Dijk‟s
point of view. According to van Dijk (1998), headline is a crucial part of any news report.
Headlines “defines the overall coherence or semantic unity of discourse, and also what
information readers memorize best from a news report... They express the most important
information of the cognitive model of journalists, that is, how they see and define the news

15

event. Unless readers have different knowledge and beliefs, they will generally adopt these
subjective media definitions of what is important about an event.”
Since this thesis is concerned with making transparent the ideologies encoded in The New
York Times and New York Post discourse, in the way they construct the representations of
the two candidates in the 2008 U.S. presidential election – Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain,
the transitivity analysis of headlines is to answer the questions:
-

What are the prominent processes attributed to Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama?

-

What

are

the

roles

assigned

to

these

two

candidates?

(Actor

or

Goal/Receiver/Patient? Sayer or Target? Etc.)
2.2.2. Full-text news reports analysis
Based on the framework of van Dijk, Fowler and Kress, this full-text news reports analysis
realized through the naming referents analysis and lexicalization analysis.
Fowler and Kress (1979:200) point out “the different possibilities of naming signify
different assessments by the speaker/writer of his or her relationship with the person
referred to or spoken to, and the formality or intimacy of the situation”. For them, forms of
addressing people vary according to the degree of formality and respect the speaker/writer
assesses and show to people.
As van Dijk (1988: 27-28) points out, the full text of any news reports provides the whole
story. It is through the full-text reports that the ideologies or bias are more clearly revealed.
News events are presented and reproduced by journalists through “a social and
ideologically controlled set of constructive strategies”. That is, discursive practices can
have major ideological effects.
In this paper, all the naming references that The New York Times and New York Post gave
to the two candidates are listed and counted, to distinguish their ways of addressing people
as well as uncover the bias in their naming choices.
The two dailies‟ wordings/ lexical choice for the two candidates (Mr. Obama and Mr.
McCain) are also investigated, to find out how different their way of covering news about
each candidate are, thus reveal their favorite candidate or who they endorse as the new
president.

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CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter is the analysis of headlines and full-text news reports. In the first stage of
headlines analysis, a detailed description of representation of the Democratic candidate
(Mr. Obama) and that of the Republican candidate (Mr. McCain) from The New York
Times and New York Post will be presented. Later, the full text analysis can provide the
most prominently discursive strategies employed by the two dailies in representing the two
candidates. The findings in the full-text analysis are to strengthen what is primarily found
in the earlier headlines analysis.
3.1. Headlines analysis
Through the analysis of headlines, an attempt is made to answer the following questions:
1/ What are the most prominent processes attributed to Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain by
The New York Times and New York Post?
2/ What are the most prominent roles assigned to the two presidential candidates by the
two newspapers?
3/ Why are the two candidates involved in such processes and roles in the two dailies?
The data in the corpus were taken during the period of two months before the Election Day
of 4th, November 2008. During this period, all eyes are on the two presidential candidates.
Their performance and information about their actions and events during that time would
be crucial to determining the next president of the US. Therefore, looking at the discourse
of election coverage in The New York Times and New York Post in these two months can
reveal their ideological construction of representation of the two candidates.


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3.1.1. The New York Times

3.1.1.1. Representation of Mr. Obama
Table 2. Mr. Obama’s roles in percentage in The New York Times
Process

Material

Mental Relational

Verbal Behavioural

Existential

Role
Agent/Sayer

61.5%

Patient/Receiver

23.1%

15.4%

Beneficiary

Among the selected headlines from The New York Times, all the processes attributed to
the Democratic candidate, Mr. Obama, is either material (84.6%) or existential (15.4%). In
the material process, Mr. Obama occupies mainly the role of the Agent (the actor/doer –
61.5%) and sometimes the role of Patient (receiver of attack from the other candidate –
23.1%). In the role of Agent, verbs attributed to Mr. Obama all denote very positive

actions, showing off his great energy and determination and his busy activities during the
election campaign, for example:
Obama Wraps His Hopes inside Economic Anxiety
Obama Raises a Record $66 Million in a Month
Obama Briefly Leaving Trail to See Ill Grandmother
Obama Appeal Rises in Poll; No Gains for McCain Ticket
Obama Led Opponent in Spending in August
Obama Attacks McCain on Health Care and Medicare, in Some Ways Inaccurately
McCain Attacks, but Obama Stays Steady
Positive events relating to the Democratic candidate and his actions are often covered and
stated right in the headlines, clearly, briefly and simply straight to the point without


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making puns or any use of metaphor. This can create the feeling of an efficient and
dynamic leader in American way. Anyway, Mr. Obama is among the youngest candidates
running for the White House. He is not white, and he is the symbol of change. Changes
need actions. And actions with positive meaning were what readers could always find on
The New York Times headlines about Mr. Obama.
In the existential process, not Mr. Obama himself but often his achievements play the role
of the carrier, as in:
Obama’s Speech Is a TV Hit, With Viewers and Commentators Alike
This headline provides not only the information about the happenings but also the
circumstance ―with viewers and commentators alike‖. By providing a clearly positive
circumstance like this, the good news ―Obama’s speech is a TV hit‖ is more emphasized
and sounds more attractive. Obama is famous for his being a speechmaker talent, which is
not really something new. The real news here is the information about the Receivers of the
Agent – his speech. Ordinary viewers do not count much, but once commentators eagerly
expect the speech, it becomes a lively proof for the intense interest people have for Mr.

Obama, and how convincing he can be as a potential country leader. In fact, more attention
(in a positive way) could lead to more votes.
Almost all the verbal processes (e.g. ―lead‖, ―rise‖, ―attack‖, ―raise‖) seemed to be neutral
and objective as The New York Times surely does not want to be seen as a biased
newspaper. However, coverage headlines of Mr. Obama were clearly favorable. Even
when this newspaper reported about Mr. Obama’s weakness, the headline was written in a
way that reduced the negative meaning, like the following one:
Obama Attacks McCain on Health Care and Medicare, in Some Ways Inaccurately
The New York Times did not state right away that Mr. Obama’s critic was inaccurate. At
that time, while many other newspapers called this ―distortion‖, The New York Times only
said ―in some ways inaccurately‖!
In case the role of Patient was assigned to Mr. Obama, that role still carries a positive
meaning for him, for example:
McCain Tries to Link Obama to Financial Crisis


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In this headline, the use of the material process ―try‖ actually put Mr. McCain (in the role
of an Agent/Doer) in a disadvantage. ―Tries to link‖ carried a subtle meaning that Mr.
McCain did not do very well in what he had intended to do – that was, to link Obama to
financial crisis.
Or in one parallel headline:
McCain Attacks, but Obama Stays Steady
We all understand the omitted Patient/Receiver in ―McCain attacks‖ is ―Obama‖, because
this omission was made clear in the later clause ―but Obama stays steady‖. From the role
of Patient in the first clause to the role of Agent in the second clause with a very positive
process ―stay‖ in this context and the good adjective of ―steady‖, the representation of Mr.
Obama was constructed as a strong, brave and determined candidate – just in a short
headline. Also, what does this headline really convey? Does it inform the truth that

―McCain attacks (Obama)‖ or the reality ―Obama stays steady‖? Clearly, with this
headline, readers are expected to have the greater impression about how ―steady‖ Mr.
Obama is, rather than how ―McCain attacks‖.
In summary, from the transitivity analysis, we can see that Mr. Obama is the agent of
nearly all actions in the selected headlines. With the actions mostly being positive, The
New York Times did build up a favorable image for the Democratic candidate doing his
best to stand strong, pursuit his own dream and practice responsibility to his country.