From Content to Discourse Analysis

I think that the results of the content analysis reveal significant information about the coverage of the 'Seattle story' by the British press. The analysis of the above data allowed for a quite detailed mapping of the reporting, framing and emphasis placed on the story by each of the newspapers. However, content analysis is rather limited to the analysis of the manifest content, not beeing very flexible in the analysis of the deeper layers of meaning embedded in the news texts. Thus, in order to be able to 'see' the ideological dimensions of the coverage (latent meaning of the news text), discourse analysis becomes a necessary 'tool'.

Discourse Analysis Findings

Now, with the help of several discursive analytical tools, I am going to proceed with the presentation of some examples from an indicative pilot study on a small number of articles in the six newspapers.

The focal point of this analysis is the examination of news as ideological constructions reinforcing stereotypical dominant discourse. In order to support this hypothesis, I intend to demonstrate how language in news texts functions to construct and represent ideologically contested meanings that signify the major actors and issues of the 'Seattle story' in specific ways.

The analysis is going to refer to the representation of the demonstrators and the police in the press.

Demonstrators

The portrayal of demonstrators (both in Seattle and Euston) as represented in the British press is rather negative, with the exception of the Guardian which appears more 'friendly' towards them.

I believe that one of the major reasons for this unfavorable framing is the lack of distinction between the 'demonstrators' and the 'troublemakers'. The problem appears to be a definitional one, reflecting the hegemonic ideology which seeks to homogenize and marginalize the 'non-compliants', and present them as the 'villains'.

One very important observation is the use of binary oppositions which is more than evident in the overall reporting of the 'Seattle story'. The dualities WE/US versus THEY/THEM appear in all the papers, especially in the editorial/commentary sections, where the newspapers assume their public voice. What is interesting here, is that while all the newspapers use the 'them' for the demonstrators who oppose to the status quo, and the 'us' for 'all of us', the citizens that approve or comply with the apparatus of the dominant ideology, the Guardian chooses to support a rather opposite view and identify the 'us' with the 'powerless people', the global citizens that fight for a better future, and the 'them' with the 'forces', meaning global corporatism and its 'collaborative' governments. Whatever the case, such use of binary oppositions 'close' the 'reading' of the texts, and attempt to involve the audience and influence its interpretation of the media texts, by delegitimizing and marginalizing those messages opossing to the dominant ideology.

The way that the press represents the demonstrators varies extensively, highly depending on the political and ideological stance of each of the newspapers.

To start with, the inconsistency in the reporting begins with the presentation of the actual number of demonstrators in Seattle, ranging from 10,000 to 150,000 (!) depending on the newspaper.

So, while, on the one hand, the Guardian is rather sympathetic towards the demonstrators, with headlines like 'POWERLESS PEOPLE' (01/12) or 'FESTIVAL OF IDEAS OUTSIDE WTO' (04/12), and more critical towards the WTO and global corporatism.

For the Times the demonstrators are the: 'mob', 'gangs', anarchists', 'hooligans', 'rioters', 'troublemakers', homogenizing the protesters in the eyes of the audience, not letting the real identity of those people to reveal. Some of them were trade unionists, steelworkers, environmentalists, others were students, ordinary citizens that felt the need to get to the streets and protest for labour rights, women and children rights, for the good of the environment and so on. Then, these terms used to characterise the demonstrators were associated with active verbs, suggestive nouns, adjectives and phrases, all adding to the stereotypical and marginalizing portrayal already assigned to the protesters: 'battle', 'barricating', 'burn', 'took over', 'vicious fighting', 'fought running battles', 'trouble flared', 'fueled with lager' 'attacked', set fire', 'led from the angry pack', 'brought violence and terror', 'exploded into ferovious attacks on police', 'vicious street battles', 'chaos', 'rioters ran amok, surrounding the convention hall, stopping traffic, smashing widows and spray-painting stores', 'battle ground'.

The tabloids, along with the Telegraph, appeared even more graphic when addressing the protesters like 'vicious mob' or 'thugs', and got into strongly ideological descriptions, such as: 'the hippies and yippies, with their back-to-nature values, their bedraggled beards and their mobile phones hooked up to the Internet' (DTL 02/12). Such claims seriously distort the reality of the situation, and stereotypically label and homogenize the demonstrators. The use of lexicalization, overwording, assumptions and exaggeration in the text further reinforces the negative portrayal of the protesters, which appear with all the negative -according to the dominant ideology- connotations attributed to the hippies: 70's, flower power, sex, drugs, rebellion, utopia….

In support to the image of 'hippies' mentioned above, strong intertextuality and continues references were made, in all the newspapers, about the similarity of the event with 'Woodstock' or the 'Vietnam' demonstrations in the US, in this way assigning a 'mythic' dimension to the event, along with all the relating stereotypes and ideological discourses.

To continue with the framing of the protesters, the tabloids, along with the Telegraph, seem to place a lot of emphasis on the appearance and expression of the demonstrators, in order to categorize them as 'anarchists' and 'thugs', and this is obvious both from the texts and the accompanying photographs: 'One youth, his head shaved apart from a small bunch of blond dreadlocks, had been standing on the edges of the demonstration trying to spit at police' (DML 01/12), or 'Williams, 20, unemployed, appeared in court wearing his hair in dreadlocks, a dirty white shirt and black boots splatted with green paint' (DLT 02/12), both refer to this person's dreadlocks like something 'bad', something characteristic of 'anarchists', something that does not fit with the standards of the society that we are living in. The Mirror went that far as to publish a "wanted list" with pictures of supposed "anarchists".

The choice of the protesters in the pictures is highly stereotypical: people with saved heads, balaclavas, masks, combats, holding beer cans, showing the finger or shouting, all those characteristics that assimilate to the dominant perception of anti-social behaviour and violence. Everything is carefully selected, the beercans connote public drinkiness, lack of self-control and disorderliness, the hair-style is associated with skinheads, a group highly rejected by society, scarves, masks and combats is a sign for terrorists, open mouth and shouting can be associated to 'yobbish' activity; all these 'codes' and related 'myths' connote ideas of social marginality, political dissafection, deviance and criminal activity.

Police

Regarding the representation of the police in the press, the papers have assigned three major narrative roles to the police officers: the one of the Robocop, the one of the Hero, and the one of the Victim, all juxtaposed with those assigned to the demonstrators.

The Robocop

The Guardian, which kept a more supportive stance towards the demonstrators and a sarcastic one towars the police, portrayed the officers as 'Robocops' or 'Star War cops', a symbolism even more evident in the photographs accompanying the articles. Guardian's headline 'ROBOCOPS FACE DOWN PROTESTERS IN SEATTLE AND LONDON: THE GLOBE'S CITIZENS ARE HELPLESS BEFORE THE FUTURE' (GRD 01/12) put police in first, subject position and expresses that the actor has an agent, prominent role in the action, while demonstrators being the recipients of the violence.

This 'building up' of an authoritative image of the police is also obvious in characterizations like: 'armed gorillas, … hundreds of military-style men in black, bullet-proof vests backed by mounted officers run to block more streets…' (GRD 01/12). Here the police appears again in an active role, and the combination of suggestive epithets, nouns and verbs emphasises a negative portrayal of the police.

The Hero
The rest of the papers though, chose to identify the London police in the face of a 'hero' police officer. With headlines (02/12) like 'AGONY FOR THE HERO PC' (DTL) and 'HERO PC FOUGHT ON AGAINST MOB AFTER SERIOUS SPINE INJURY' (EXP), the newspapers glorify the policeman who 'ignored his damaged neck to stay alongside his fellow officers' and now 'lay immobilised in bed' (TMS). Close-up photos of the injured police officer in hospital, captioned 'VICTIM' (EXP) or 'Smiling through the pain…' (DML), personalize, sensationalize and dramatize the story.

This incident is, of course, used by the press to juxtapose it to the violent 'mob' that brought the 'poor' officer to the hospital bed, thus further emphasising the 'villain' role assigned to the protesters. However, if one follows the story of the policeman closely, is going to realize that this is, again, a case of distortion of the truth by the press, since the officer admits that, because of his protective uniform and helmet, he had not realize that something hit him on the neck, and that is why he continued to fight next to his colleagues. He only understood that he was hurt after the clashes were over, where he removed his helmet.

The Distortion
This case of distortion of reality is directly related to the exaggeration or 'over-reporting' of the actual events. While reporting the clashes in Euston, the Express (01/12) writes:

'A police van was overturned and set alight and a wave of riot officers raised their shields and charged towards the protesters to force them away from the vehicle. …officers surrounded rioters in a small courtyard near the station and charged them with batons and shields.'

However, the Mail, reporting on the same incident, claims that exactly the opposite happened and that 'police guarding the entrance of the station could only watch helplessly as the van's fuel pipe was torn off…'.

Well, if this is not a case of mis-reporting, then what is? The worst of all is, that we can not tell which is the true and which the distorted story…. One of the papers - and I have this feeling that it is the Mail… - is manipulating the facts to present the story in its 'preferred' way.

The Victims
So, as we see from the above example, apart from 'heroes', the police was also presented by the press as a 'victim' in the hands of the 'aggressive rioters'. Headlines like…
'RIOTERS ATTACK POLICE AT EUSTON' (DTL 01/12),
'TRADE PROTESTERS CLASH WITH RIOT POLICE' (DTL 01/12),
'ANARCHY IN THE U.K.: 100 THUGS HURL BOTTLES AT POLICE (DMR 01/12),
'ANARCHY ON THE STREETS AS 1,000 RIOT IN LONDON (EXP 01/12),
'ANARCHY AS RIOTERS PUT LONDON TO THE TORCH' (EXP 01/12),
or 'THE BATTLE OF TWO CITIES: GANGS OF ANARCHISTS CAUSE MAYHEM IN LONDON AND SEATTLE' (EXP 02/12),

… tend to place the protesters in the active subject position, while the police is represented either as the passive recipient of the violence, or as an 'invisible' actor, thus not sharing its part of the responsibility for the clashes. Narrative roles, of the 'villain' for the protesters and the 'victim' for the police, are clearly assigned to the actors here.