Suchergebnisse

This book examines the ways in which the 2011 UK riots were reported by the British press, by analysing the linguistic construal of the main participants involved in the protests and their agency. Starting from the assumption that newspapers do not just mirror reality, but rather construct it in discourse through a series of linguistic, stylistic and editorial choices, great attention is paid to how the events were portrayed according to different political, social and cultural stances. Since the linguistic labels employed by the newspapers to identify (and connote) the protagonists of the riots are indicative of their ideological positions, such critical attention to the specialised language of the press proves to be extremely noteworthy. Indeed, the urban unrest that periodically occurs, in the UK as much as within the wider European context, signals governments' failure to deal with persisting social and economic problems. In this regard, investigating the extent to which the media manage or fail to account for the issues that are at the heart of such violent protests, while shaping public opinions, represents an interesting and rewarding endeavour.A corpus of about 1,700 articles, collected from the six British newspapers with the highest circulation rates in August 2011 (Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Sun, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The Times), is therefore analysed with a corpus-based discourse analysis approach, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques. The linguistic depictions of the main social actors - Mark Duggan, the rioters, and the police - reveal the ideological burden affecting power relations between (élite or minority) groups within society

Grassy Narrows (Ontario, Canada) came to public attention in 1970 when it was revealed that an alarming number of the community members were displaying symptoms of the Minamata disease, a form of mercury poisoning. The source of pollution, Reed Paper chemical plant, had dumped between 4 and 9 kg of mercury per day into the Wabigoon river from 1962 to 1970.In January 2017, the Canadian press covered the news again after Grassy Narrows chief urged PM Trudeau to engage the federal government in the clean-up of the river.This paper takes into account the recent developments of this dispute – that bears important consequences for the community and the government – analysing the news reports published from early 2017 to early 2018. The paper compares and contrasts national and local newspapers' construal of the event and the political and social actors involved, to examine how the news was framed in relation to issues of (in)visibility as forms of violence. Special emphasis is further given to the concept of environmental racism which plays a pivotal role in how First Nations communities are treated in Canada. ; Grassy Narrows (Ontario, Canada) came to public attention in 1970 when it was revealed that an alarming number of the community members were displaying symptoms of the Minamata disease, a form of mercury poisoning. The source of pollution, Reed Paper chemical plant, had dumped between 4 and 9 kg of mercury per day into the Wabigoon river from 1962 to 1970.In January 2017, the Canadian press covered the news again after Grassy Narrows chief urged PM Trudeau to engage the federal government in the clean-up of the river.This paper takes into account the recent developments of this dispute – that bears important consequences for the community and the government – analysing the news reports published from early 2017 to early 2018. The paper compares and contrasts national and local newspapers' construal of the event and the political and social actors involved, to examine how the news was framed in relation to issues of (in)visibility as forms of violence. Special emphasis is further given to the concept of environmental racism which plays a pivotal role in how First Nations communities are treated in Canada.

La tesi prende in esame il modo in cui le rivolte scoppiate nel Regno Unito nel 2011 sono state riportate dalla stampa britannica, con particolare enfasi sulle rappresentazioni dei protagonisti coinvolti offerte dai maggiori quotidiani nazionali. Partendo dal presupposto teorico secondo cui le varie testate giornalistiche non si limitano a fare un resoconto degli eventi, ma piuttosto li costruiscono discorsivamente, facendo ricorso ad una serie di scelte linguistiche, stilistiche ed editoriali, grande attenzione è stata posta su come gli eventi sono stati formulati in base al pubblico di potenziali lettori e all'orientamento politico dei giornali. Un corpus di circa 1,700 articoli, raccolti dai sei quotidiani con maggiore tiratura e circolazione nell'agosto del 2011 (Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Sun, The Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian), è stato quindi analizzato adottando l'approccio conosciuto come 'corpus-based discourse analysis', che si avvale di tecniche qualitative e quantitative. I risultati della suddetta analisi hanno mostrato come le varie rappresentazioni linguistiche degli eventi e dei protagonisti siano portatrici delle diverse posizioni politiche, sociali e culturali dei giornali britannici, rivelando le dinamiche che operano a livello ideologico nella definizione delle relazioni di potere tra i gruppi (elitari o minoritari) nella società. The dissertation examines the ways in which the 2011 UK riots were reported by the British press, with a specific emphasis on the linguistic construal of the main participants involved in the events. Starting from the assumption according to which newspapers do not just mirror reality, but rather construct it in discourse through a series of linguistic, stylistic and editorial choices, great attention is paid to how the disturbances were construed according to different potential readerships and political orientations. A corpus of about 1,700 articles, collected from the six newspapers with the highest circulation rates in August 2011 (Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Sun, The Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian), was analysed with a corpus-based discourse analysis approach, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques. The findings have shown that the linguistic representations of the events and the main participants signal the newspapers' varying political, social and cultural stances. More importantly, they reveal the ideological burden affecting power relations between (élite or minority) groups within society.