Key areas of social life are becoming increasingly centred on the media (Fairclough, Mulderrig and Wodak 2011: 359), and this is particularly true with politics. Before, politicians may have found it harder to reach their audience but nowadays they barely have to speak before whatever they say makes it to the front page of a newspaper, on television or onto social media, to be seen by the world. This sort of publicity also provides greater chances of being discredited but the possibilities often outweigh the downsides. In addition, Fairclough, Mulderrig and Wodak (2011: 360) note that the increased importance of language in social life has led to a greater level of conscious intervention to control and shape language practices in accordance with economic, political and institutional objectives. This provides the media an ample opportunity to spin news however they wish, just as the politicians and their assistants do too, and technology has made reaching the audience easier than ever before.
With all the constant input, it has been made necessary for audiences to be constantly on their toes, for it is easy to get lost in the barrage of information.
Typically, mass media material requires a framework, a theory, a vocabulary, and an analytical focus in terms of which the researcher can construct a suitable context for analysis (Krippendorff 2013: 33). Krippendorff adds that a stereotypical aim of mass media analysis is to describe how a controversial issue is ‘depicted’ in a chosen genre as well as analysing the descriptions of how something is ‘covered’, ‘portrayed’ or ‘represented’ in the media (2013:
34). It is, however, important to notice that even with mass media, it is impossible to report everything happening around the world. Depending on the audience, different types of news take the forefront. This sort of selectivity shows that the media take an active part in shaping the world as we see it and our understanding of it, as noted by McCullagh (2002: 15). If particular media are being partial to something, the effect on the readers will be lopsided too, and may define their sense of reality. The interpretation can change if the knowledge of context is limited, but also according to the values and beliefs the readers hold. While
analysing texts, one needs to look not only at the texts but also at their reception and effects, as well as at the context in which they appear in and who the audience is (Fairclough, Mulderrig and Wodak 2011: 370-373) as they reveal reasons for such selectivity.
This pattern of selectivity constitutes a distortion and a misinterpretation of significant events and issues in the world (McCullagh 2002: 16). McCullagh (2002: 16) also states that more often than not both British and American newspapers do not pass as fair media for their type of news coverage is influenced by their political affiliations; thus, their coverage is meant for the part of the audience who share their ideals (2002: 18), and this trait is not limited to just the mentioned two nations. Printed media is not required to be objective if they do not wish to be, and they often offer information with the framing peculiar to the medium. Using particular words to describe events, people and issues clearly calls attention not only to the language but the attitudes too. These practices insert meanings behind discourse that often try to appeal to the emotions of the audience, and the aim of CDA is to make these sorts of meanings transparent for the rest of people by looking at them critically.
Information is also often merely implied. Nonverbal messaging is an important part of communications and, for example, printed media utilises it in the way articles are structured;
some of the key parameters include visuals, page layout, frames, boxed inserts, font, style and size (Mautner 2008: 43). The front page is often what makes people decide to buy a paper.
The bigger and more eye-catching the header is, the better. In addition, where the articles are placed matters too; which articles are given the space to influence the readers, which are put in the last pages with relatively small coverage or even left out. Pictures and photographs, especially now with all the colours, draw attention more than a thousand words will, and for a reason: with a quick glance, they do tell more than the words one does not have time to read.
Cartoons are specifically crafted to make social commentary with minimalistic perfection.
Boxed inserts work the same way, with the enticing quotes emphasizing the main points the authors want their readers to notice. Using figures and charts has also been found a good way to attract attention (Mautner 2008: 38), since numbers are easier to compare than more abstract concepts, for instance immigration issues. Overall, the analysis of printed media aims to identify meaning-making resources on various linguistic levels, focusing in particular on devices used to position readers into adopting a certain point of view (Mautner 2008: 49).
Understanding the effect of different media’s use of language has an important part in understanding the politics of today and the past. In addition, Chilton and Schäffner (2002: 3)
point out that the study of politics and of language in relation to politics involves certain ambivalence with regards to empirical facts and subjective or group values. There are no hard facts that can be picked up from studying political interaction, only interpretations. There is no easy way to define what politics even is. Yet, if the premise that politics is largely language is correct, then there is abundant empirical evidence in the form of text and talk (Chilton and Schäffner, 2002: 4). What limits the data, however, is using context to characterise what is considered political or what is not. Nevertheless, it can be said that politics and the influence of the politicians are based on agreements and, as McNair (1995:
18) notes, the importance of an informed, knowledgeable electorate dictates that democratic politics must be pursued in the public arena. People vote according to what they have heard, read and learnt, and the possibility to do so, and to question politicians’ motives should be freely available in the public sphere. Yet, it can also be debated whether politicians truly want an informed electorate, or if one can even exist.
Events, such as elections, create material that has many political functions and implications, and often different media have their own opinions of things. As Krippendorff (2013: 55) states, citing Klein and Maccoby (1954), differences in news coverage of political campaigns have been correlated with editorial endorsements. Sometimes the bias is questioned, and there have been evaluations made to judge the accuracy of reporting and pure favouritism which can be surprisingly hard to distinguish from each other. Krippendorff (2013: 59) and McCullagh (2002: 23) both note that it is often assumed that journalists and the printed media are committed to being fair to all sides in their reporting, which, in practice, may be hard to follow when papers practise selectivity in ways that may conflict with the journalists’ own beliefs. McNair (1995: 27) adds that for a variety of reasons, the media’s political reportage is subjective and partisan instead of objective and impartial. He suggests that political actors practise a mix of manipulating the public opinion as well as concealing and suppressing inconvenient information, and that these traits are being pursued by media institutions (McNair 1995: 26). Yet, no one can truly say for whose benefit it is because of the selectivity used in the public sphere. When most if not all practise selectivity, it is impossible to know all facts.
The effects media discourse has can be both micro level as well as macro in the sense that they can affect individuals as singular units or as masses (McNair 1995: 28). With linguistic tools of both spoken and/or written texts, media can interfere with the thought processes of
the readers and nudge them to see the point they wish them to see or leave one side of the story unveiled. In a larger picture this may cause, for example, movements of the masses. In micro level studies, the effects of media are more concerned with the individual level, often investigating newspapers, while the macro level studies are more concerned with masses and speeches. Both levels of studies, however, can be used while conducting a study as they do not cancel each other out but rather enhance the other. Interpretation is what media discourse studies is all about, which means that a critical reading of the texts presented for consumption is needed every single day.