CHAPITRE TWO

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.0 Introduction

This chapter provides a review of the literature on some key concepts related to this study.

Discourse Analysis, Discourse Strategies, Ideology, Media Discourse, Mass Media, and News

are examples of such concepts. In addition, we will investigate a variety of approaches that are

relevant to our analysis. In addition, we will look at what some scholars have written about news

around the world and in Nigeria. The few studies discussed serve as examples of research works

on news discourse conducted both globally and in the Nigerian context.

2.1 Conceptual Review

2.1.1 Discourse Analysis and Discourse Analysis

According to Fairclough (1992), discourse is language use, whether spoken or written, as a type

of social practice, whereas discourse analysis is the study of how texts function within

sociocultural practice. For conducting a discourse analysis, Johnstone (2002:9) offers the

following heuristics:

1.The world shapes discourse, and discourse shapes the world.

2.Language shapes discourse, and discourse shapes language.

3.Participants shape discourse, and participants shape discourse.

4. Prior discourse shapes subsequent discourse, and subsequent discourse shapes the possibilities

for future discourse.

5. Discourse is shaped by its medium, and discourse shapes the medium's possibilities.
Widdowson (2004) distinguishes between text and discourse:...identification as a text is not the

same as interpretation. This is where debate comes in, and why it must be distinguished from

text... We achieve meaning through indexical realization, that is, by engaging our extralinguistic

reality through language. The text is inactive unless it is activated by this contextual connection.

I refer to discourse as this activation, this acting of context on code, this indexical conversion of

the symbol. According to this viewpoint, discourse is the pragmatic process of meaning

negotiation. Its product is text.

According to Wodak (2002), describing discourse as a social practice implies a dialectical

relationship between a specific discursive event and the situation(s), institution(s), and social

structure(s) that frame it: the discursive event is shaped by them, but it also shapes them. That is,

discourse is both socially constitutive and socially conditioned; it creates situations, objects of

knowledge, and the social identities and relationships of individuals and groups of individuals. It

is constitutive in the sense that it both sustains and reproduces the social status quo and

contributes to its transformation. She goes on to say that because discourse is so socially

consequential, it raises important power issues. According to Fairclough and Wodak (1997),

discursive practices can help produce and reproduce unequal power relations between, for

example, social classes, men and women, and ethnic/cultural majorities and minorities through

the ways in which they represent things and position people. "Discourse is the place where

language and ideology meet," writes Wodak (2002:23), "and discourse analysis is the analysis of

ideological dimensions of language use, as well as the materialisation in language of ideology."

According to Olateju (2004), discourse analysis is the study of language in relation to social,

political, and cultural formations. She goes on to say that discourse analysis is not only about

language reflecting social order, but also about language shaping social order and shaping
people's interactions with society. It is a crucial concept for comprehending society and human

responses, as well as for comprehending language itself. According to van Dijk (1988a),

discourse analysis is concerned with the analysis of various contexts of discourse, i.e. the

cognitive processes of production and reception, as well as the sociocultural dimension of

language use and communication. Discourse analysis refers to a theoretical and methodological

approach to language and language use, and it is also defined by the object of analysis, which

can be discourses, texts, messages, talk, dialogue, or conversation (van Dijk 1988a).

According to Fairclough (1995a), analyzing any type of discourse, including media discourse,

requires an alternation of twin, complementary foci, both of which are necessary. These are

communicative events and the discourse order. The analyst is concerned with the particular, with

specific communicative events, and with the general, with the overall structure of the order of

discourse and how it is evolving in the context of social and cultural changes.

The tables below, adapted from Cots (2006), attempt to summarize the main differences between

approaching discourse with and without a critical attitude. Table 2.1 shows two possible

definitions of discourse, depending on whether it is viewed critically or not.

2.1.2 Discourse Techniques

According to Haig (2008), text producers employ discursive strategies on multiple levels to

achieve ideological goals. He claims that on a macro level, these strategies are related to

interactional features such as text structure. Strategies at the meso level are concerned with

discursive features such as how arguments are presented, how different voices are combined, and

how different sections of the text are framed. Pronoun usage, nominalization and passivization,

discourse markers, and deixis are examples of microstrategies.

According to Eccles and Nohria (1993), strategy is a type of rhetoric that provides a common

language used by people at all levels of an organization to determine, justify, and give meaning

to the organization's constant stream of actions. Other scholars see strategy as discourse (Giddens

1981, Knights and Morgan 1991, Barry and Elmes 1997). They contended that "strategy" is a

construct that serves to make sense of the world and is replicated by a wide range of texts and

practices. By viewing discourse as a strategic resource, Hardy and Palmer (1999) investigate the

relationship between discourse and strategy. Norrick (2003) discusses the importance of

presupposition, speech acts, figurative language, and entailment in discourse. Many strategies are

used in media messages to influence how members of the audience understand issues and

situations in order to change their actions and behavior.

2.1.3 News Discourse Strategies

Blame transfer, source avoidance, positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation,

authoritarianism, foregrounding of figures and statistics, manipulation, and other discourse

strategies were featured in the OSBC radio news texts. These are explained further below.

2.1.3.1 Passing the Blame

According to van Dijk (1995b), the blame transfer strategy is an ideological construct created

and propagated by politicians and the media to blame the ills of society on others.

2.1.3.2 Avoidance of Sources

Journalists use this strategy to conceal the truth or to conceal negative issues. It appears as a

result of the use of passivisation and agent deletion (Bouzgarrou 2007).

2.1.3.3 Authoritarianism

This is a strategy that relies on officials or elites for information. According to Fowler (1991:21),

this reliance on officials as sources of information is "connected to the media's reliance on the
status quo to maintain ownership and profitability." According to van Dijk (1988b), elite sources

are not only more reliable as observers and opinion formators, but they are also more

newsworthy.

2.1.3.4 Emphasizing

Giving prominence to or emphasizing something in order to draw attention to it is what

foregrounding entails. Words and sentence meaning in discourse may be highlighted by their

position in the semantic structure, as expressed by sentence order in discourse (van Dijk

2006:55).

2.1.3.5 Statistics and Figures

This is used to imply precision and to present facts rather than mere opinions or impressions (van

Dijk 2000b:79).

2.1.3.6 Metaphorism

This strategy is used to achieve figurative meaning and to create different realities in various

situations (Lakoff, 1993). It is used to capture the vividness of phenomenal experiences in order

to influence the cognition of the audience and allow them to visualize the cause and effect of

given situations.

2.1.3.7 Manipulation

Manipulation is a strategy used to exert control over an audience in order to influence their

knowledge, beliefs, and actions. Manipulation, according to van Dijk (2006), entails

manipulating people's minds and beliefs, such as knowledge, opinions, and ideologies, which in

turn control their actions.

2.1.4 Discourse in the Media

The use of language in media texts or news stories is referred to as media discourse (Chiluwa

2007). According to Scollon, as cited by Chiluwa, the main actors in media discourse are the

news writer or journalist and the reader. According to Talbot (2007), the media's importance in

the modern world is undeniable, and the media serve an important function as a public forum in

modern democracies. Fairclough (1995a:65) states:

The representation of discourse in news media can be viewed as an ideological process of

significant social importance, and the finer details of discourse representation, which appear to

be merely technical properties of text grammar and semantics, can be tuned to social

determinants and social effects. It is... critical for linguists to be sociologists must be aware of

how discourse is shaped by and helps to shape social structures and relations, as well as how

social structures and relations are instantiated in the fine detail of daily social practices, including

discourse.

According to Ayodabo (2007), a text should convey meaning while the medium serves as a

processing mechanism. All elements of the processing unit should work together to help the

message achieve the main goal of media discourse, which is efficient and effective information

dissemination. According to Bruck (1989), the media speak in their own unique ways about the

world and produce highly structured accounts (i.e. their own discourses). According to him, the

media use their own well-defined codes and conventions, as well as their own modes of speaking

and editing, of contracting voices and stories. However, the discursive materials they work with

are not their own; rather, the media base their accounts of what happens in the world on the

accounts of others, such as eyewitnesses, police, experts, lobbyists, politicians, business leaders,

and a variety of other social actors.

2.1.5 Media Discourse Approaches

Fairclough (1995a:20-32) identifies several approaches to media discourse. These Linguistic and

sociolinguistic research Social semiotics and critical linguistics and social-cognitive analysis

cultural-generic examination linguistics and sociolinguistic analysis (2.6.1.1):

According to Fairclough, linguists may be interested in how language is used in the media for its

own sake, such as specific types of grammatical structure or intonation patterns. Critical

linguistics and social semiotics - Critical linguistics is founded on systemic linguistic theory

developed by Halliday (1978, 1985). It brings systemicist views of the text to media discourse

analysis—views of the text as multifunctional, always representing the world (ideational

function), seeing texts as built out of choices from within available systems of options in

vocabulary, grammar, and so on. Discourse is viewed as a "field of both ideological and

linguistic processes, and.there is a determinate relationship between these two kinds of

processes; specifically, linguistic choices made in texts can carry ideological meaning" (Trew,

cited in Fairclough 1995a:25). Halliday goes on to say that critical linguistics emphasizes the

role of vocabulary choices in categorization processes. A clause that codes an event (ideally) in

terms of a specific type of process will also assess the truth or probability of the proposition so

encoded, as well as the relationship between producer and addressee (interpersonally) (s).

2.1.7 The Media

Communication media are important tools for conveying or exchanging information between

people. According to Driel and Richardson (1988), the mass media is one of the major forces that

mold and shape our social movements, challenging the established order and prescribing

different paths for change. The cultural consequences of various media products are perceived

based on a view of the mass media as primarily manipulative agents capable of having direct,
unmediated effects on the audience's behavior and world view (Fejes 1981). Because of the large

audience it attracts, broadcast news has been hedged around with a powerful set of formal

requirements, according to Elliot et al (1983).

According to Ross (2004), the media unquestionably operate as agents of public knowledge and

definitional power, and the media are increasingly the real public space in which politics occurs

and citizens comprehend the political process. According to Modena, Massara, and Schall

(2006:97), the media is defined as:

A complex cultural system with a symbolic dimension, characterized by a constant interplay of

signs and meanings. This dialogue's concept includes the (re)construction, storage, production,

and circulation of products that are rich in meaning for both the media that create them and those

who consume them. Because media products are social phenomena that occur in specific

contexts, the media as a cultural system includes a contextual dimension.

2.1.8 Ideology as a Concept

Ideology is a complicated term with varying implications and interpretations depending on the

context. There are numerous definitions of ideology, and there is no single adequate definition.

Eagleton (1991) provides several definitions of ideology, three of which are relevant for the

purposes of our study. The following are examples:

i. Ideology as a body of ideas characteristic of a specific social group or class Ideology

refers to ideas and beliefs (whether true or false) that symbolise the conditions and life

experiences of a specific, socially significant group or class. It is the promotion and

legitimization of such social groups' interests in the face of competing interests (Eagleton

1991:29).
 ii. Ideology as ideas that aid in the legitimacy of a dominant political power a dominant

power may legitimize itself by promoting beliefs and values that are favorable to it;

naturalizing and universalizing such beliefs so that they appear self-evident and

inevitable; denigrating ideas that might challenge it; excluding rival forms of thought,

possibly through some unspoken but systematic logic; and obscuring social reality in

ways that are favorable to it (Eagleton 1991:5-6).

iii. Ideology as a synthesis of discourse and power. Ideology is concerned with the actual use

of language between specific human subjects in order to achieve specific results. To

characterize ideology as "interested" discourse requires the same qualification as

characterizing it as a power issue (Eagleton 1991:10). Ideology can be viewed as a

discursive field in which self-promoting social powers clash and collide over issues

central to the reproduction of social power in general. This may imply that ideology is an

unusually action-oriented discourse in which contemplative cognition is generally

subordinated to the advancement of interests and desires (Eagleton 1991:29).

iv. Ideology frequently implies distortion, false consciousness, and manipulation of the truth

in pursuit of specific interests (Fairclough 1995b). The only way to access the truth is

through representations of it, and all representations involve specific points of new values

and goals. According to Fairclough, "truth" in an absolute sense is always problematic

and a source of much fruitless argument; truth is also a slippery business, but abandoning

it entirely is clearly perverse. According to Balkin (1998:101), a theory of ideology, in

particular, must consider the following questions:

v. Ideology as „false consciousness‟ or „misguided beliefs: According to van Dijk (2000b),

ideologies were forms of false consciousness within Marxism; that is, popular but
 misguided beliefs instilled by the ruling class in order to legitimize the status quo and

conceal the true socioeconomic conditions of the workers. This negative definition of

ideology - as a system of false, misguided, or misleading beliefs - has become the central

element in both commonsense and political uses of the term.

vi. Ideology as a general concept van Dijk (2000b) proposes a more general concept of

ideology that allows for the study of "positive ideologies" such as feminism and anti-

racism in the same way, namely as systems that sustain and legitimize opposition and

resistance to dominance and social inequality. Ideologies do not have to be negative or

dominant. As a result, a general theory of ideology permits a broader and more flexible

application of the concept.

vii. Ideology as a foundation for social practice: According to van Dijk, ideologies as systems

of ideas and social groups and movement not only make sense in order to understand the

world (from the group's point of view), but also serve as a foundation for group members'

social practices. Thus, he believes that sexist or racist ideologies may be at the root of

discrimination, that pacifist ideologies may be used to protest nuclear weapons, and that

ecological ideologies will guide actions to combat pollution. Language use and discourse,

as observed by van Dijk (2000b:9), are important social practices influenced by

ideologies, which in turn influences how we acquire, learn, or change ideologies. He

claims: Much of our discourse, particularly when we speak in groups, expresses

ideologically based opinions. The majority of our ideological ideas are acquired through

reading and listening to other members of our group, beginning with our parents and

peers. Later, we "learn" ideologies by watching television, reading school textbooks,

 advertising, the newspaper, novels, or engaging in everyday conversation with friends

and colleagues, among a plethora of other forms of talk and text (2000b:9)

viii. Ideology as social cognition: Ideologies, according to van Dijk (1995b), are the overall,

abstract mental systems that organize socially shared attitudes; they indirectly influence

group members' personal cognition in the act of comprehension of discourse, among

other actions and interactions. Ideologies consist of socially shared beliefs that are

associated with the characteristics properties of a group, such as their identity, their

position in society, their interests and aims, their relations to other groups, their

reproduction, and their natural environment. Individuals' mental representations during

social actions and interactions are referred to as "models" by van Dijk.

ix. Ideology as social representation According to van Dijk (2000b), ideologies are the basic

social representations of a group's shared beliefs, and they serve as the framework that

defines the overall coherence of these beliefs. Thus, ideologies enable new social

opinions to be easily inferred, acquired, and distributed in a group when the group and its

members are confronted with new events and situations, according to him.

x. Ideology in Politics: A set of ideals, principles, doctrines, myths, or symbols of a social

movement, institution, class, or large group that explains how society should work is

referred to as political ideology. It is concerned with how power should be allocated and

for what purposes it should be used (Blatterg 2009). Political ideology is a set of beliefs

that explains and justifies a society's preferred economic and governmental order. It

provides strategies for its upkeep and contributes to the meaning of public events,

personalities, and policies. Political ideologies are concerned with many different aspects

of society, such as the economy, education, health care, labor law, the judicial system,
 social security, and social welfare. A political ideology is thus a set of ideas and

principles that explain how society should work and provide a blueprint for a specific

social order (Ake 1999).

2.1.9 Awoism: Obafemi Awolowo's Political Ideology

Chief Obafemi Awolowo was a Nigerian politician, lawyer, philosopher, journalist, nationalist,

and the forefather of free education in Nigeria at all levels. In Nigeria, his political ideology is

known as Awoism, and his close followers are known as Awoists. Omoboriowo (1982:11-12)

captures the concept of Awoism thus:

Awoism is derived from the word „Awo‟ – the short form for Awolowo. An ‘ism’ is a doctrine.

It is also a system of a theory. Awoism is the totality of the theories or doctrines associated with

the ideas and teachings of Chief Obafemi Awolowo of Nigeria…. Awoism is a natural and

supra-national political theory which aims at the orderly and rapid transformation of Nigeria and

of Africa - mentally, socially and economically so that Nigeria first and foremost and Africa as a

whole will assume their positions among the developed nations of the world within a record

time. It implies, by definition,… a revolution in our thoughts, our utterances, in our daily work,

in our attitude towards labour and in our inter-personal relationships. In short, it necessitates

complete mental liberation as well as a cultural reassessment. Awoism is a political ideology.

Above all, it is a complete view of life.

2.1.10 Journalists' Media Ideologies

According to van Dijk (2000b:28), journalists' media ideologies influence how they write or edit

news, background stories, or editorials. In his own words:

As a speaker, I and other participants may be classified as members of various groups. As a man,

a sexist or racist, a professor or a student, I may speak.

2.1.11 News reporting ideology

News discourse analysts (van Dijk 1988a, Fowler 1991; Fairclough 1995a) have generally stated

that news discourse cannot provide a completely objective perspective on events; rather, it tends

to construct reality in a way that is consistent with the underlying ideologies. Thus, political

ideology is inherent in news reporting and is reflected in language use. According to Kieran

(1997), it is critical to recognize the significance of the claim that the news media are inherently

ideological. Foucault (1984:60) defines ideology as follows:

lies not in drawing a line between what in a discourse falls under the category of scientificity or

truth and what falls under some other category, but in seeing historically how effects of truth are

produced within discourses that are neither true nor false in and of themselves.

According to Kieran (1997), news media representations and our reactions to them are based on

an ideological assessment of their nature and significance. According to him, we distinguish

between the basis for news reports, such as video evidence and eyewitness testimony, and the

explanation for a specific news report. Normally, we look to sociocultural ideological

explanations only when we believe a news report does not fit the evidence.

2.2 Theoretical Review

Text and talk theories abound, ranging from classical rhetoric to contemporary grammatical,

stylistic, conversational, narrative, and argumentative discourse descriptions. Language use, in

addition to form and meaning, also meant act and action, that is, speech acts, and sociologists

insisted that such language use is fundamentally a form of social interaction, most notably in the

form of everyday interaction. According to van Dijk (2004), psychologists have demonstrated

that discourses and their meanings can only be produced and understood with vast amounts of

knowledge, and that language use should be studied not only as abstract structures but also in

terms of strategic cognitive processes and mental representation. Critical discourse analysis and

systematic functional grammar are two theoretical approaches that we believe are relevant in this

study.

2.2.1 Analysis of Critical Discourse (CDA)

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that

views language as a form of social practice and focuses on how text and talk reproduce social

and political dominance (Fairclough 1989). Kress (1990) identifies CDA as a distinct theory of

language, a radically different type of linguistics, and lists the criteria that characterize work in

the CDA paradigm. Fairclough and Wodak (1997) expanded on these criteria by establishing ten

basic principles of a CDA program (see Wodak, 1996).

Fowler (1991) demonstrates how standard linguistic theories' tools (the 1985 version of

Chomskyan grammar and Halliday's theory of systemic functional grammar) can be used to

uncover linguistic structures of power in texts. Hallidays (1978, 1985) explain his contribution to

critical linguistics, whereas Fairclough (1989) explains the social theories that underpin CDA.

van Dijks (1985) focuses on mass media discourse and communication, bringing together

theories and applications from various scholars who are interested in the production, uses, and
functions of media discourses. Van Dijks (1998) also articulates ideology as the foundation of

group social representations and advocates a sociocognitive interface between social and

discourse structures. Blommaert (2005) defines CDA as a social phenomenon that seeks to

improve the social-theoretical foundation for practicing discourse analysis as well as situating

discourse in society.

A critical approach to discourse seeks to connect the text (at the micro level) to the underlying

power structures in society (at the macro sociocultural practice level) via discursive practices

from which the text was drawn (Thompson 2002). CDA is the uncovering of implicit ideology in

texts; it exposes ideological bias and the exercise of power in text. Fairclough (1993) defines

CDA as beginning with a view of language as a social practice; it is a type of action. It

investigates the connections between discourse and society. He goes on to say that language is

made up of three components: social identities, social relations, and knowledge and belief

systems. Critical discourse analysis has transformed language study into an interdisciplinary tool

that can be used by scholars from various disciplines, including media criticism; it allows for the

adoption of a social perspective in the cross-cultural study of media texts (Dellinger 1995b).

According to Fowler (1981), texts must be probed in order to discover hidden meaning and value

structure. The society is viewed as a collection of groups and institutions organized through

discourse. According to Sheyholislami (2001), one key principle of CDA is that the way we

write and say things is not arbitrary; it is deliberate, whether the choices are conscious or

unconscious.

We need some skills to conduct a critical analysis of discourse; a method that can be used to

debunk the hidden ideological meanings behind the written or spoken word (McGregor 2003).
According to van Dijk (2000a), CDA lacks a unified theoretical framework or methodology

because it is best viewed as a shared perspective encompassing a variety of approaches rather

than a single school of thought. Starting with the full text and working down to individual words,

the layers can be peeled back to reveal the "truth behind the regime" - the profoundly insidious,

invisible power of true written and spoken word (McGregor 2003:7). Palmquist (1999) states that

CDA does not provide answers to the problems but does enable one to understand the conditions

behind specific problems 'and make us realize that the essence of that problem and its resolution

lie in its assumptions; the very assumptions that enable the existence of that problem'.

Wodak (2002) says critical theories are afforded special standing as guides for human action;

they are aimed at producing both enlightenment and emancipation. According to her, these

theories seek not only to describe and explain but also to root out a specific type of delusion. She

goes on to say that, despite differing ideologies, critical theory seeks to make agents aware of

their own needs and interests. In her own words:

Language, according to CDA, does not gain power on its own; it gains power through the use of

powerful people. This explains why CDA frequently takes the perspective of those who suffer

and critically examines the language used by those in power, who are responsible for the

existence of inequalities while also having the means and opportunity to improve conditions. In

agreement with its Critical Theory predecessors, CDA emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary

work in order to gain a proper understanding of how language functions in constituting and

transmitting knowledge, in organising social institutions or in exercising power (Wodak

2002:10). (Wodak 2002:10).

2.3 Empirical Studies

Jensen (1987) carried out a discourse analysis of news programmes in United States network

television. One week of the nightly news programmes of two networks - ABC and CBS were

selected for analysis. From these programmes, broadcast during the week of September 18-24,

1981, a total of 49 segments dealing with aspects of the United States economic systems were

used. The programs were specifically taped and transcribed for the analysis. Four elements in the

structure of news discourse were singled out for analysis. The study was concerned not only with

the traditional issue of connotations, but also with the extent to which interrelationships were

created by lexical choices made by an individual's roles in order to detect the conceptual

categories that the text imposes on the world. Second, the study noted not only which actors were

present but also which agents were missing from the news stories. Third, the structure and

particularly the coherence of the text were established. Fourth, presuppositions revealed the news

text's fundamental assumptions. It was discovered that in the sample as a whole, agents were

typically in accounts of economic processes. It was also observed that the political stories

reflected a variety of assumed social values. The study found that major socioeconomic

developments were attributed to individuals via a specific set of linguistic choices, while politics

and economics appeared to function as logical entities separate from one another. The analysis of

the news suggested that television, indeed advocated a particular vision of society. The elements

of news ideology, including the concept of social spheres, provided us with a systematic

explanatory theory; they highlighted the extent to which news is a social reality construction that

presumes certain economic privileges.

Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) investigated the prevalence of five news frames identified in

previous studies on framing and framing effects: attribution of responsibility, conflict, human

interest, economic consequences, and morality. News frames were conceptual tools used by the
media and individuals to convey, interpret, and evaluate information. The study discovered two

approaches to content analysis frames in the news: inductive and deductive. The inductive

approach entailed examining a news story with an open mind in order to reveal the range of

possible frames, starting with very loosely defined preconceptions of these frames. The

deductive approach entailed predicting specific frames as content analytic variables in order to

validate the frequency with which these frames appear in the news. The findings revealed that in

Holland, responsibility was frequently assigned to the government, implying the importance and

political influence of political culture and context in framing problems and topics in the news.

The responsibility frame was especially visible in serious news outlets in the press and on

television, implying that more serious outlets present more political and economic news than less

serious outlets. Although television news in many countries is episodic, the findings suggested

that the way responsibility was framed in the news was influenced by the political culture and

social context in which the news was produced.

Dixon and Linz (2000) attempted a content analysis study designed to ascertain whether

television news programme present crime in such a way as to perpetuate "misrepresentations" or

"distortions" of African American and Latino citizens' propensity toward criminality in society.

The authors conducted a content analysis of a random sample of local television news

programming in Los Angeles and Orange counties to access representations of Blacks, Latinos,

and Whites as lawbreakers or law defenders. Three indexes of Black, Latino, and White

lawbreaking and defending were applied to television news representations: (a) "intergroup"

comparisons of lawbreakers by race and cultural group; (b) "interrole" comparisons of

lawbreakers versus law defenders within cultural and racial group; and (c) "interreality"

comparisons of law breakers presented on television news with crime reports obtained from the
California Department of Justice, and comparisons of law defenders presented on television

news with county employment records by racial and cultural group.

Dixon and Linz (2000) attempted a content analysis study to determine whether television news

programs present crime in such a way that "misrepresentations" or "distortions" of African

American and Latino citizens' propensity toward criminality in society are perpetuated. The

authors conducted a content analysis of a random sample of local television news programming

in Los Angeles and Orange counties to access representations of Blacks, Latinos, and Whites as

lawbreakers or law defenders. Three indexes of Black, Latino, and White lawbreaking and

defending were applied to television news representations: (a) "intergroup" comparisons of

lawbreakers by race and cultural group; (b) "interrole" comparisons of lawbreakers versus law

defenders within cultural and racial group; and (c) "interreality" comparisons of law breakers

presented on television news with crime reports obtained from the California Department of

Justice, as well as comparisons of law defenders

In his article "The Press in Nigeria: The Challenges of Language and Communication," Abati

(2006) described the general decline in the use of English in the Nigerian press as a historical

phenomenon that could be defined in terms of scope and nature. The article revealed that the

older newspapers of the colonial era and the early post colonial seasons were comparatively

better than today's newspapers. Abati observed that the older generation of Nigerian journalists

had only a higher education, whereas the modern journalist is better educated with a chain of

degrees, with the average qualification being a Master's degree.

A study carried out by Taiwo (2007) looked at how language was used in news headlines to

reflect specific societal ideologies and power relations. The data comprised 300 headlines

collected from six Nigerian Newspapers, four of which were daily news papers, namely: The
Sun, Nigerian Tribune, This Day and The Guardian and two weekly Newspapers – Tell and

Newswatch published between March and August 2004. A critical study of the headlines was

done to identify their ideological leanings and how they reflected power play within the Nigerian

society between those whose interest was being served and those whose interest was being

undermined. The study examined the headlines and the social contexts from which they emerged

and identified the various use editors of news paper make of the linguistic resources to portray

the various existing societal ideological postures and power relations. The headlines were placed

into two categories – categories according to the issues addressed and according to their surface

structures. Findings from the study revealed that a large percentage of the headlines- 31% were

on political matters and 23% were headlines on crime and corruption. The use of speech as

headlines was observed to be very significant because news is woven around personalities whose

speech can be used for sensational news. The study revealed ideological meanings behind the

written words in the media as portrayed in some Nigerian newspaper headlines and how editors

portray ideological postures on national issues through their choice of expressions.

Ayoola’s (2008) study was a critical discourse analysis of the reporting of some Niger-Delta

issues in selected Nigerian newspapers. The study examined the setting, topics and participants

that were projected in the content and context of reports in the Niger-Delta and the salient

linguistic features employed by the writers in their presentations and critically analyzed the

pragmatic and discourse strategies employed by the participants in the news reports. Five to ten

reports that centered on the Niger-Delta issues in three national newspapers – The Punch, The

Guardian and The Vanguard; and three community newspapers - The Tide, Niger-Delta Standard

and The Telegraph from 1999 to 2007 were randomly selected for analysis. Field trips were also

undertaken to selected towns and villages in the region for the purpose of familiarization with the
setting and better understanding of the issues at stake. Findings from the study showed that

discourse participants from different sides of the Niger-Delta conflict often slanted their public

pronouncements in a manner that promoted their positive sides on the one hand, and the

unflattering sides of their opponents, on the other hand. Findings also revealed the context of

domination and its resistance in the morphological and grammatical choices of the discourse

participants. There was evidence of bias and partisanship in the news reports which showed that

the journalists and the media houses they represented played active roles as participants in the

conflict. Also, the Niger Delta participants in order to gain political advantage over their

opponents resulted to the use of certain pragmatic and discourse strategies. These strategies were

the force of logic, the use of figures and percentages, the persuasion of science, interdiscursivity

and intertextuality, obfuscation and flattery, rumour mongering, name calling and dysphemism.

The study concluded that the paralinguistic analytical framework enhanced accurate description

and interpretation of media political discourse and therefore could equip the reading public and

discourse interpreters with the appropriate tools of identifying nuances of meaning that would

otherwise have eluded them.