Chapter 1

Introduction
1.1 Introduction
Rapid growing and great enhancement of media in our world today as a results of
modernization have vastly benefited the human race in a way that access to information
become effortless. The great exposure towards media at our disposal combined with the
medias enormous power and liberty in determining what information they want the
media consumers to be fed off their media texts (Amir, Kazem, & Hossein, 2013) could
lead us to unconsciously bestow the authority to the media to shape our perspectives
on certain events (Amir et al., 2013). In parallel, Maya, Hafriza, and Ain Nadzimah
(2006) highlighted that society is influenced by the media as people who depend on
media as a source of information often find themselves affected by their images.
Nevertheless, despite the medias self-proclaimed objectivity and bias-free principle in
reporting life events and happenings all over the world, they actually presuppose their
preferred version of reality hence making their targeted readers to view this reality
from their point of view (Alireza & Rahman, 2012). Coesmans (2013) is in agreement
with this view focusing on news as a particular example. He depicted journalism as an
ideological choice-making practice in todays information-driven world. He elaborated
that journalists as the news producers often based their reporting styles on how they
want their readers to decode the reported events and what effects do they want the
news to have on the targeted readers. Thus, this governs which issues are highlighted
and which ones are concealed in the news reports (Coesmans, 2013). Concisely, it is
often far from the truth that news reports are objective and bias-free (Alireza & Rahman,
2012). The notion how news reports could be deviated from the real facts due to news
producers hidden value had been illustrated brilliantly by Caldas-Coulthard (2003) as
well in such following:
News is socially and culturally determined which resulted in it being deviated
from the real facts of the events. Meanwhile, news producers play a role as

social agents whose point of view is conveyed through how they constructed the
news.
Thus, news is hardly the event itself, but just an ideologically constructed report
of the event. (p. 274).

The explanation above highlighted such alleged claim that media or particularly news
create their own version of reality is often motivated by the medias ideology which is
evident in the description of the news itself as it has been described as ideological
choice-making practice and ideologically constructed report (Caldas-Coulthard, 2003,
p. 274). Consequently, this leads to the next logical question that needs to be asked by
every media consumers: how does media controllers or news producers carefully
weave their ideology in their discourses? The answer to this question could lie in
Richardson (2006)s hypothesis in which he proposes that language serves as the tool
to endow meaning to our action. Ultimately, it is the language as well that can be ideally
used as the tool to derive meaning from our action. Thus, this answers the
aforementioned question in which language is deemed as the medium to convey
ideology. In a study analyzing the language use of newspapers, Richardson (2006)
identifies language as a non-neutral element which justifies his hypothesis that it is
through language that media construct their own version of reality thus it is through
language as well that this presupposition of reality by media can be detected.
Richardsons hypothesis found its affinity in Lakoff (2000)s notes on language in which
she highlighted that words are rarely purely neutral as the way we use the language is
often motivated by the meaning that we want to achieve.
1.2 Statement of problem
The medias enormous capacity in influencing the ideology of the public and their nature

as public discourse which denotes their wide, if not unlimited, access to the public
results in the media discourse being one of the popular social practices of what has
been termed as the contemporary form of racism (T. A Van Dijk, 2000). The

contemporary form of racism is differentiated from the old racism in a way that it does
not appear as transparent as the old racism which is often signified by the likes of
physical and verbal violence and forceful segregation. Instead, contemporary form of
racism is characterized as discursive which is expressed and conveyed through text
and talk of various popular mass-mediated formats; news reports being one of them, in
as subtle and as natural it could possibly be (T. A Van Dijk, 2000). Nevertheless, the
power of contemporary racism should not be underestimated. It might not be as radical
as the old racism but it works just as effective in marginalizing and demonizing
particular social groups. In light of this, T. A Van Dijk (1997) inferred biased, prejudiced,
and xenophobic ideology, hegemony practices and demonization of particular social
groups in media discourse as the contemporary form of racism.
Significantly, Fairclough (1995) accentuates that the encryption of the ideology in media
discourse and the mind control by the media would be accomplished effectively under
the condition that the media consumers are not aware of the persuasive and
manipulative functions of the news texts which lead them to believe that the news
reports are true or the journalists point of view is legitimate and making sense. As a
consequence, identifying ideology in media discourse specifically those that could be
regarded as contemporary form of racism such as biased and prejudiced ideology could
be quite tricky and often goes unnoticed by readers especially those who are lessprivileged in education (Nasser & Alireza, 2012). Hence, the juxtaposition of the fact that
news media play a huge role as the social practices of ideological construction
particularly those that are prejudiced and biased and the fact that they have almost
unlimited access to the public discourse, places the media as the main source of
peoples prejudiced and biased ideology especially if they are lack of other alternative
sources of information (Coesmans, 2013). Thus, being in the risk of becoming the
victim of the media abusing their power to impose a particular prejudiced ideology on
our beliefs and understanding, this called for the urgency to equip ourselves with skills
and tool to identify the underlying ideology in media (Nasser & Alireza, 2012).

Therefore, in order to explore the construction of ideology in media satisfactorily,

language use in the media should be addressed as a form of a social practice in which it
has a dialogical relationship with social facets; it is not only shaped by the social but
shaping the social as well. Fairclough (1995) asserts that analysis of language has
certain advantages over other forms of analysis in media studies. This is justified as it
can give detailed account of the mechanisms through which media mediate
sociocultural changes discreetly; the imposition of certain ideology on their consumers
being one of the changes (Fairclough, 1995). However, as we treat the language use
as a social practice, language analysis alone would not make the cut. Language
analysis of media should be carried out as discourse analysis, specifically critical
discourse analysis. This is due to the fact that critical discourse analysis has the
capacity to simultaneously address both facets of the language use; the socially shaped
and socially constitutive (Fairclough, 1995). As a results, by analyzing mass media
linguistically in a critical discourse analysis manner, the questions of representation,
identities and relations hence the ideological work in the media could be explored
satisfactorily (Fairclough, 1995).
In the same light, Young and Fitzgerald (2006) proposes that the skills we need to equip
ourselves in the era of ideological-saturated news media is the ability to utilize our
knowledge, experiences and perspectives to perform a critical [italics in original]
examination on every discourse we encounter. The expression critical is used to
illustrate the reflective and interpretative approach of looking at language. The reflective
approach comprises of finding out the speakers or writers motivation in choosing
particular words and structures instead of others while interpretative approach could be
related to examining the relationship between language use in a society and societal
structures. Ultimately, by acquiring this skills, we could approach discourses as a more
effective reader that goes beyond breaking the code and making meaning instead of
just acting as a passive reader and listener absorbing every piece of information like a
sponge (Young & Fitzgerald, 2006).

Indeed, the discussion above advocates the functional relationship between language
use and the power of media in influencing the minds of people. Thus, in general, this
study hopes to manifest as another prove that the language analysis of the mass media
can make a meaningful contribution to research on sociocultural change (Fairclough,
1995), such as the constitution of social identities of particular social groups hence the
production and reproduction of biased and prejudiced ideology in media discourse.
Specifically, this study hopes to enrich the current literatures on media and its role in the
construction of ideology by demonstrating how language analysis, particularly critical
discourse analysis could unfold the underlying biased and prejudice ideology using the
questions of representation. Subsequently, it is also hoped that this study could serve
as another prove to the readers with the background of language studies and the
readers with the background of media studies that media and language empower each
other and there should be a close amalgamation between these two fields as Maya et
al. (2006) insinuated that language and media share a symbiotic relationship that not
only does language analysis enrich media studies, but media analysis also enriches our
understanding of language (p. vii). Lastly, as the findings of this study could turn out as
another prove that media consumers are unconsciously exposed to medias biased and
prejudiced ideology towards particular social groups, it might serve as a justification to
consider the teaching of critical literacy in our current national curriculum.
1.3 Research purpose and questions
This study aims to linguistically investigate the underlying ideology conveyed by
different Western media namely U.S online newspapers towards Muslims and Islam by
investigating the representation of this social group during the coverage of Charlie
Hebdo attack. In doing so, Critical Discourse Analysis, specifically Wodaks Discourse
Historical Approach would be performed. The research questions pertinent to this study
are as followed:

1.

How do the media construct polarized representation of Muslims and Islam

through the selection of topics in their news reports?

2.

How are these topics thus the polarized representation of Muslims and Islam
constructed through the representation of social actors? What representational
strategies are used by the media to name and refer to the social actors?

3.

What are the social actions attributed to the social actors? What qualities,
features and characteristics are ascribed to the social actors and social actions in
order to create the polarized representation?

4.

How do the media legitimate and justify the construction of the positive selfpresentation and negative other-presentation of Muslims and Islam through the
use of different types of argumentation strategies?

5.

From which ideological positioning do the media construct the representation of

Muslims and Islam? How do the medias representation of Muslims and Islam
compare to the public attitudes towards Islam?

In essence, the analysis in this study mainly involves topic analysis and textual analysis
and a small part of intertextual analysis. The intertextual analysis is carried out as part
of the investigation of argumentation strategies.
The first research question involves the investigation of the discourse topics of different
news media when reporting the Charlie Hebdo attack in representing the Muslims and
Islam.
The second research question addresses how the media name and refer to the social
actors of Muslims and Islam to create the representation of Muslims and Islam as ingroup or out-group (hence Self and Other). In order to answer this research question,
textual analysis would be carried out to investigate the representation strategies at
work

by

referring

inclusion/exclusion

to

Van

Leeuwens

socio-semantic

activation/passivation,

inventory

such

as

individualization/assimilation,

association/dissociation, personalization/impersonalisation to examine how media use

representational strategies to represent Muslims and Islam as in-group or out-group.
Subsequently, in the third research question, the medias polarization strategies of
positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation are investigated by looking at
what qualities, characteristics and features are attributed towards the social actors and
social actions of Muslims and Islam. In order to do this, textual analysis is carried out
focusing on the lexical choices, particularly the medias use of adjectives and adjectival

phrases in describing the social actors and social actions of Muslims and Islam. After
the adjectives and adjectival phrases used by the media in describing the social actors
and social actions of Muslims and Islam have been identified, how the use of these
adjectives and adjectival phrases contribute to the construction of positive selfpresentation or negative-other presentation of Muslims and Islam is explored.
In order to answer the fourth research question, argumentation strategies namely the
incorporation of external voices in the news text and use of topoi are focused on. Thus,
this justifies the use of both textual and intertextual analysis. During the intertextual
analysis, the ordering of the authorial voices and external voices in relation to each
other to legitimate the positive or negative construal of social images of Muslims and
Islam is examined. In the meantime, textual analysis is carried out to examine what
types of topoi are used by the media to justify the construction of social images of
Muslims and Islam in their news reports. In identifying the types of topoi, the list of topoi
from the Argumentation Theory as suggested by Wodak in Discourse Historical
Approach is referred to.
Lastly, the fifth research question is attempted by using the findings of research
question 1, 2, and 3 and 4 to deduce the ideological position of the media. Then, in
order to demonstrate how the media position themselves vis--vis with particular
ideology, attention is being paid to two perspectivation strategies which are the reporting
style and how the media frame the incorporation of the external voices by carrying out
intertextual analysis. Meanwhile, in analyzing the reporting style of the media, the type
of reporting employed by the media and whose voices are included and excluded in the
news reports are examined.
The manner in which the analysis in this study is conducted is summarized below:
1.

A framework is outlined in Chapter 1, 2, and 3 of this study. Chapter 1

established an introduction and background to the study which central
upon the relationship between language and the media as well as the
contexts of the study which are Israel-Palestine conflict. Overview of the
three events as the context of the study is also provided in Chapter 1.
Meanwhile, Chapter 2 provides the detailed review of theoretical
frameworks that governed this study and Chapter 3 illustrated the corpus

of the study as well as the methods involved in the data collection and
data analysis.

1.4

2.

The findings and the analysis of findings which are governed by research
questions 1, 2, 3, and 4 as presented above, are presented in Chapter 4.

3.

Chapter 5 highlights the fifth research question in which the ideological

position of the media is discussed in relation with the findings of research
question 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Charlie Hebdo attack

The incident of Charlie Hebdo attack happened on 11th

January 2015 when two

Muslims gunmen, stormed into the office of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.
Charlie Hebdo is a weekly French magazine known for its publication of provocative
cartoons, particularly those related to religion. For examples, there have been several
publication in which the magazine illustrated the image of Prophet of Muhammad in
their editorials which are prohibited in Islam. Therefore, this has caused rage among the
Muslim community (Philip & Ohlheiser, 2015). Several people who were in the office
during the attack were shot dead including the magazines editor and a few of its
cartoonists. Overall, the attack caused the lives of 12 people including one police officer
and four hostages when the gunmen took a hostage at a local supermarket. The
gunmen self-proclaimed that they have a link with the Al-Qaeda group (Harding, 2015).
The next Chapter discusses the theoretical preliminaries relevant to this study.

Chapter 2
Literature review
2.1 Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to provide the theoretical background for this study as
well as to develop understanding of the ideas with regards to the research aim and
questions outlined in Section 1.3. Therefore, this chapter discusses five main key
frameworks that govern this study:

2.2

Theoretical framework of ideology (Section 2.2)

Polarized representation as ideology in media discourse (Section 2.3)
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Section 2.4)
Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA): Three-dimensional approach to polarized

representation (Section 2.5)

U.S media coverage of Charlie Hebdo attack (Section 2.6)
Theoretical Framework of Ideology

T. A. Van Dijk (1995) posits that the concept of ideology is situated within a triangulated
frameworks of cognitive dimension, society dimension, and discourse dimension.
Therefore, in order to explore the concept of ideology satisfactorily, the theoretical

framework of ideology is discussed from the point of view of the three dimensions
namely:

Ideologies as social cognition (Section 2.2.1)

Ideologies as social practices (Section 2.2.2)
Ideologies in discourse (Section 2.2.3)

2.2.1 Ideologies as Social Cognition

The understanding towards the cognitive dimension of ideology is crucial as it sets the
foundation for further discussion on the link between ideology and two other dimensions
which are social practices and discourse. T.A Van Dijk (2006) defines ideology as a set
of beliefs that determine the shared social representations of particular social groups
(p. 120). In details, the beliefs shared by members of a group are often manifest in a
form of social representations with regards to different areas of society such as
immigration or crime. Therefore, if ideology is defined as a set of beliefs, it is plausible
to deduce that it is the ideology that forms these social representations. T. A. Van Dijk
(1995) emphasizes that not only ideology forms the social representations of the beliefs
but organizes their overall coherence as well. The capacity of ideology as social beliefs
that are shared among members of a particular group also conveniently permits new
social representations or social opinions to be formed and distributed within the group
whenever its members stumble upon new social events or situations (T. A. Van Dijk,
2000). In essence, the basic key point to describe the cognitive definition of ideology is
that it is not individualistic in nature. Rather, it consists of socially shared beliefs that are
fundamental to the existence of a particular group and the construction of their
characteristics. For example, beliefs about how their identity should be portrayed, their
position within the society and how they are represented in comparison with other
groups (T. A. Van Dijk, 1995).

Coherently, in order to understand the root of the ideological beliefs, it is worth to delve
into the notion of relationships between different types of beliefs and different types of
memory. Overall, beliefs that stem from experiences can be categorized as personal
and general (which is shared with others). Personal beliefs which are also known as
episodic beliefs are stored in the episodic memory. This type of beliefs is what T. A. Van
Dijk (2000) characterized as personal, autobiographic, and subjective which registers
our personal experiences (p. 12). However, as this study is focusing on ideology as
shared social beliefs, episodic memory might not play a significant role in the
construction of this ideology. Instead, the notion of episodic memory is going to be
explored with regards to the issue of the influence of ideology on society. On the other
hand, the construction of ideological beliefs can be largely rooted in the notion of
general beliefs (T. A. Van Dijk, 2000). People share general beliefs about an event or
experience with other members of their group or even with members from different
groups. The most prominent example of this general beliefs is what termed as our
sociocultural knowledge which is located in our social memory (T. A. Van Dijk, 2000). T.
A. Van Dijk (2000) further highlights that the sociocultural knowledge shared by the
members of Group X is the knowledge that they believe is true and in which they have
justification on why they believe it is true. However, for the people from the other
groups, this is what they perceive as merely opinions, beliefs, prejudice and indeed the
ideologies (p. 13) of Group X. Subsequently, as the origin of shared ideological beliefs
is prominently rooted in our sociocultural knowledge, it can be assumed that this
sociocultural knowledge serves as the framework for the construction of social
representations as well (T. A. Van Dijk, 2000).
The framework of ideologies as social cognition not only sets the ground for the next
discussion on ideologies as social practices and in discourse, it also sheds light on two
important issues with regards to ideologies which are: how do ideologies determine or
control what type of interpretation of the world we build and how do ideologies dictate
how we construct certain representations in order to manipulate the readers
interpretation of the world. The first question is explored through the notion of mental
models while the latter is discussed using the notion of context models. Conclusively,

these two types of models serve as an evident that ideologies not only may control
what we speak or write about, but also how we speak or write (T. A. Van Dijk, 2000, p.
28).
T. A Van Dijk (1995) describes a mental model as a mental representation or
perspective or understanding of an event. This mental representation is actually the
representations stored in our episodic memory as highlighted in the aforementioned
discussion. As noted before, the notion of episodic memory might not be relevant in
discussing the origin of ideological beliefs. However, the construction and reconstruction
(through modification and updating) of episodic representations or better known as
mental models are pivotal in discussing what dictate our interpretation and perception of
events (T. A. Van Dijk, 2000). As our interpretation and perception of the world stem
from the mental models, it is essential to note that it is knowledge, attitudes and
ultimately ideology that play a role in influencing the contents and structures of the
mental models of particular events. Given the fact that ideology is shared and general,
the role played by ideology in influencing the mental models implies that we are able to
translate general ideologies to personal opinions or experiences embedded in mental
models (T. A. Van Dijk, 2000, p. 22). For example, if our attitudes towards the
immigrants are controlled by racist ideology, our mental models might comprise of
personal perception that immigrants prone to commit crimes and are thus dangerous.
Thus, this is one way of how the ideology forms or modifies our mental models.
Another way of how ideology influences our mental models is by forcing us to alter our
mental models so they would align with the mental models of the other members of our
group. Despite the fact the mental models are personal and subjective in nature, T. A.
Van Dijk (2000) also rises an important point that there is still a trace of socially shared
ideology during the construction of mental models at the same time. This is justified
using two arguments. First, in order to be able to communicate and comprehend each
other in a group, we need to have at least some shared social knowledge despite our
personal individual mental models. Second, members of a particular group might have
different mental models of an event, but we know that in order to function effectively as

the member of a particular group, we have to share others mental representations

which leads to a situation where we often say or do different things than what we would
like to say or do, in order to accommodate the mental models of others. Hence, the
presence of the fragment of socially shared ideological beliefs explains why, despite the
so-called personal and subjective mental models, we are still able to categorize social
actors or speakers using ideological labels such as racist, feminist, or conservative ( T.
A. Van Dijk, 2000). T. A. Van Dijk (2000) also emphasizes that if mental models are
influenced by ideological-based opinions, then such mental models are deemed biased
as ideological-based opinions imply that the event is perceived from the ideological
perspective of a group.
Thus, the discussion above highlights how ideology dictate or modify our mental models
hence determine how we interpret or derive a meaning from a discourse. T. A. Van Dijk
(2000) asserts that mental models are the most important interface between ideology
and discourse. This argument is further strengthened by the fact that not only mental
models mediate how ideology influence our understanding of the discourse but they
also serve as the basis for the production of the discourse itself. For example, this can
be illustrated through the production of media discourse. Each media controller,
producer or journalist has a mental model of each reported news event which stems
from their ideological belief (T. A Van Dijk, 1995). Therefore, in order to reproduce these
ideological beliefs through the media texts, it is the pivotal aim of the media controllers
or the journalists to manipulate the news texts in such a way that would facilitate the
media consumers to form a mental model of a particular event that is at least almost
similar to that mental model of theirs (T. A Van Dijk, 1995). Conclusively, manipulating
the mental model of the media consumers is the key to the production and reproduction
of biased ideology in media. Thus, the relationship between ideology, mental models
and discourse is dynamic as illustrated in the Figure 1 below:

Discourse

Episodic
Memory

Social
Memory

Mental
Models
Knowledge
Attitudes
Ideology

Figure 1: Relationships between ideology, mental models and discourse

(T. A. Van Dijk, 2000, p. 25)
Another significant interface between ideology and discourse apart from mental models
are the context models. As mentioned earlier, the notion of context models provides a
framework to explain how ideology being conveyed in text and talk. For example, how
do speakers or writers know what information to make explicit in discourse and what
information need to be concealed. Context models can be described as a
representation of what is relevant-for-discourse in the current communicative situation
(T. A. Van Dijk, 2000, p. 26). In more details, in order to construct a discourse that is
socially appropriate, we need to adapt the style of our discourse to the current
communicative context. In order to understand the current communicative context, it is
vital to gather information about the social beliefs of the target recipients as well as
know who these recipients are. Thus, the model that we build to govern the production
of discourse as well as determine the language use based on the information we gather
is what described context models. For example, the context models help to determine
whether we should use more formal or casual tone or which deictic expression is
suitable to be used. Meanwhile, the information about what the recipients already know
helps to determine what information should be provided in the discourse and what is
presupposed (T.A. Van Dijk, 1998). In essence, context models serve as some kind of a
control mechanism in discourse processing. This is due to the fact that context models
provide us with the information of what we believe our recipients know already, what
kind of social situation we are in, what time is it, what is our relationship with the

recipients and so on. In the discussion pertaining to mental models before, it has been
mentioned that mental models can be biased in nature in a case where it is influenced
by ideological beliefs. Similarly, context models may share the same ideologically
biased nature (T. A. Van Dijk, 2000). This is illustrated as my ideological beliefs will not
only influence what interpretation I have (my mental models) towards a particular event
or people, but they also affect my style of speaking about that event or people. For
example, if I build prejudiced mental models towards the members of Group A, not only
I might say bad things about them but my tone and my choice of words when speaking
to them might be rude too. Hence, now that we know that context models also serve as
an essential interface between ideology and discourse, the notion of ideology as social
cognition is summarized in Figure 2 below:

Discourse

Context models
Episodic
Memory

Mental models

Social
memory

Knowledge
Attitudes
Ideology

Figure 2: Ideology as social cognition

(T. A. Van Dijk, 2000, p. 29)
2.2.2 Ideologies as Social Practices
Although the earlier discussion explores the concept of ideology from the cognitive
dimension, there is a presence of the emphasis that ideology is social as terms such as

social cognition, social memory and social representations are used to characterize the
ideology. Thus, T. A. Van Dijk (2000) proposes that in order to understand the concept of
ideology in greater depth, it is reasonable to discuss ideology not only from cognitive
aspect; that is, studying the representations of its structures in the mind of people when
they act as members of a particular social group, but also from social perspective. In
general, the social perspective of ideology accounts for its social functions such as the
role of ideology as the foundation for the social practices of members of a particular
social groups (T. A. Van Dijk, 2000).
In order to discuss the social dimension of ideology systematically, the notion of
ideologies as social practices is often organized in terms of how ideologies manifest
themselves at micro-level and macro-level of the society. When studying ideologies at
the micro-level of the society, it is common to observe ideologies manifest themselves
when social actors participate in the social practices of everyday life. These social
practices can be reflected in different forms of interaction, be it monological such as
through media texts or dialogical such as during face-to-face interaction (T. A. Van Dijk,
2000). These different forms of interaction are what constitute discourse. For examples,
gender ideologies such as feminism might be evident during the interaction between
women and men while the interaction between members of different ethnic groups
might exhibit racist or prejudice ideology. Another example can be observed as
politicians and nature activists might have different ideologies when it comes to the
issues of urbanization and development. From these examples, it is evident that
ideologies manifest in the social practices as soon as people associate themselves with
a particular social group such as men, women, politicians, activists, and so on.
In the meantime, the discussion of ideology at the macro-level of society often involves
the notion of power and dominance. The notion of power is described in terms of social
power in which it highlights the power one group has over another group. Specifically,
the notion of social power is often translated into how a group, for example, Group A
controls the actions of the members of different group, which is Group B. As discourse
is a form of social practices which has been mentioned earlier, discourse and its

properties such as its topic, its style, and its context serve as one of the most prominent
medium for the exercise of this control (T. A. Van Dijk, 2000). Given the capability of a
discourse in influencing the minds of its consumers, it is plausible to deduce that the
group in powerful position who uses discourse as the vehicle to exercise control over
another group, will indirectly possess the power to influence the minds of the discourse
consumers as well. This can be illustrated by taking the power of the journalists as
members of a particular group as an example. In the construction of media discourse,
the journalists present the information or manipulate the media texts by taking a role as
a member or a particular social group. As such, the journalists might exercise their
power through the construction of media discourse to delegitimize other social group
and legitimize their own group. The exercise of power is executed by using the
structures and the contents of the news texts as the vehicle to manipulate the structures
and contents of the mental models of the media consumers as to ensure the
synchronization between the consumers mental model upon reading the news and the
ideological beliefs of the journalists. Subsequently, repeated exposure to biased mental
models could lead to equally biased attitudes such as ethnic prejudices and overgeneralization towards particular social groups. Once these ethnic prejudices are firmly
established, they will in turn control the future formation of mental models of the media
consumers upon reading any news related to the same particular social groups (T. A
Van Dijk, 1993a). Accordingly, the medias ability to shape the mental models of a
particular event of the media consumers bestows them the power to control, to some
extent, the minds of the public and indirectly their attitudes.
2.2.3 Ideologies in Discourse
The above discussion which explores the concept of ideology from both cognitive and
social perspective exhibit the manifestation of another important notion in studying
ideology, namely discourse. In fact, the goal of understanding the cognitive and social
theoretical framework of ideology is to eventually understand the role of ideology in the
construction and interpretation of discourse. T. A. Van Dijk (2000) purports that the
reason why the notion of discourse seems to be very crucial when discussing the theory

of ideology is because discourse serves as among the most significant and common
social practice influenced by ideology.
However, identifying ideology in text and talk is not a clear-cut task. This is due to the
fact that, given the complex structures of discourse, ideology can be embedded in
various ways at different levels of discourse structures. Therefore, in order to adopt a
practical method to investigate ideology in discourse, T. A. Van Dijk (2000) suggests that
we shall refer back to the basic characteristic of ideology; it commonly organizes people
and society in polarized terms such as US vs. Them and in-group vs. out-group. As
such, the typical strategy of most ideological discourse is:

Say positive things about Us

Say negative things about Them
Do not say negative things about Us
Do not say positive things about Them
(T. A. Van Dijk, 2000, p. 44)

This typical strategy is also termed as positive self-presentation and negative otherpresentation. As this strategy is deemed as too general, Oktar (2001) mentioned that a
more solid framework for positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation
which is called ideological square has been formulated, also by Van Dijk and his
associates. The principles of ideological square are as follow:

Emphasize positive things about Us

Emphasize negative things about Them
De-emphasize negative things about Us
De-emphasize positive things about Them
(Oktar, 2001, p. 319)

The next section discusses the manifestation of ideology as positive self-presentation

and negative other-presentation specifically in media discourse.
2.3

Polarized Representation as Ideology in Media Discourse

Fairclough (1995) hypothesizes that the investigation of ideological work in the media
could be asked through series of questions involving representation, identities or
relations such as why one representation is selected over the other available one or
why a particular identity is constructed in one way rather than the other, where does this
representation come from and why is it represented in such as way. Similarly, Croteau
(2014) proposes that the construction of these social images or representations can be
explored through questions such as what standards or guidelines used by media to
determine what is acceptable and what is unacceptable? What makes certain
representations appropriate and inappropriate in the media? What are justice and
injustice? What are the underlying messages in media content and which parties do
this messages favor? Fairclough (1995) further elaborates that in the process of
producing the texts, text producers choose a number of representational strategies from
the whole array of strategies available to them and thus, these choices become
ideologically motivated as they construct the versions of reality desired by the text
producer. Oktar (2001) supports this view as he highlights that media controllers convey
their versions of reality through their selections of representational strategies during the
construction of the discourses which is governed by their social positions, objectives
and intention Therefore, a representation analysis in a discourse centers on this choice
of representational strategies that text producers make. Correspondingly,

Adampa

(1999) highlights representation of social actors as one of the manners in which specific
attitudes, ideologies and standpoint are encoded through language in discourses.
Thus, this justifies why studies of ideology particularly in media discourses are
commonly drawn on social actor analysis. For example, Nasser and Alireza (2012)
study the representation of social actors involved in Irans nuclear activities to identify
conflicting ideology in four western newspapers with regards to the issue of sanctions
on Iran. By examining how social actors are represented in the four different
newspapers using Van Leeuwens representational strategies, the study finds out the
reporting of Irans nuclear activities in the four newspapers had covertly imposed
ideological bias in representing the Iranian side on their readers (Nasser & Alireza,

2012). Meanwhile, Zuraidah and Alan (2013) analyze how Irans top leader, Ali
Khamenei, is represented in pro government news media. The finding shows that the
way Ali Khamenei is represented has ideological motives in which to elevate his
authority by manipulating the religious belief of Iranian people. This was done
discursively for example, by positioning him as Gods representative on earth, the
discourse producers subtly imply to people, who by any chance, believe this, should
have undivided faith towards him as they would have towards God.
In the meantime, T.A Van Dijk (2006) studies the ideology in discourse not just from the
aspect of representation, but he specifically emphasized that ideology in discourse can
be traced when actions or actors are illustrated as extra or less positively or negatively,
governed by the mental models possessed by the discourse producers. Following this
idea, T.A Van Dijk (2006) further makes one important note pertinent to this study, in
which he mentioned that the construction of ideology in terms of positive and negative
construal of social actors and action is a common phenomenon for all discourses that
illustrate particular happenings and actions including news articles, opinion editorials
and narratives about personal experiences (p. 121). Therefore, it is reasonable to
deduce that an ideology is usually engrained in the relationship between the group and
Others in terms of us versus them in which us are linked with positive values and
them are subtly presented in negative light (T.A. Van Dijk, 1998).
Correspondingly, analysis of representation of in-group and out-group has been one of
the popular method of analysis for many studies focusing on biased, prejudiced, and
xenophobic ideologies as well as hegemonic relations. For example, KhosraviNik (2010)
in his study of a representation of social groups in discourse, explores the construction
of the representation of immigrants as out-groups. Meanwhile, in order to investigate
biased reporting of Iran Nuclear Program, Iran Sanctions, and Syria Crisis in Western
printed media, Amir et al. (2013) explore how these three events were represented in
the headlines and lead paragraphs of various UK and US newspapers such as
Independent, the Daily Mirror, The Guardian,the Daily Telegraph, the New York Times,
the Los Angeles Times, and the USA Today. The investigation of the biased reporting by

Western media towards the three events was generally governed by the polarization of
Westerners and Iranians as We and Others. For example, the analysis of the lead
paragraphs of the newspapers with regards to Iran sanctions demonstrate that Iran or
Iranian nuclear programs was depicted as the Others through negative lexical choices
such as inferior, trouble-maker, irrational, stubborn, and potentially dangerous (Amir et
al., 2013).Similarly, Zuraidah and Lee (2014) study the ideological standpoint of political
elites in Malaysia towards immigrants by investigating how immigrants were
represented as Others, specifically as illegals, threats and victims through the
incorporation of the voices of these political elites in Malaysia newspapers.
The positive and negative representation to investigate the production and re-production
of ideology in media (T.A Van Dijk, 2006) can be theorized using Social Identity Theory.
Therefore, the following section explicitly explains the role of Social Identity Theory as a
framework for examining the polarized representation as ideological construction in
media which is applied in this study.
2.3.1 Social Identity Theory
Social identity theory is one of the theoretical frameworks that has greatly benefited the
study of ideology in media (Matu & Lubbe, 2007). For example, Matu and Lubbe (2007)
use Social Identity Theory to investigate how Kenyan political groups in the run are
portrayed in three different newspapers which ultimately demonstrate how newspapers
construct conflicting ideological positions in election reporting. Meanwhile, Social
Identity Theory is also used as a framework in a study carried out by Oktar (2001) to
examine how two Turkish newspapers of different ideological orientations construct the
representation of social groups in secular and anti-secular discourse. In his study,
Oktar (2001) explains that Social Identity Theory was developed by Tajfel and Turner
and their associates during mid to late 1970s. Social Identity Theory is grounded in a
premise that the structure of hierarchy of social groups in society is organized with
regards to the notion of power and status. Each level of the hierarchy provides the
members of its respective social group with a social identity. Thus, this social identity

defines who one is and offers a description and evaluation of this definition (Oktar,
2001).
The evolution of social identity theory leads to the derivation of Self-categorization
Theory. According to Self-categorization Theory, people in a society categorize one
another into groups due to the presence of conflicting objectives and intention. Peoples
individualized objectives and intention hence provide the basis for their self-concept.
Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that this self-concept is what motivate
categorization. As a results, categorization yields intergroup phenomena in a society,
which constructs the notion of in-group and out-group. Achugar (2004) states that with
regards to this intergroup phenomena, each group has its own representation of
defining features which is contextually constructed by the people of the society. Thus,
the decision of whether to regard one another as in-group members or outgroup
members is made based on this defining features. Oktar (2001) claims that self-concept
often results in in-group bias as in-group members will fancy their own group compared
to other groups as it is a humans nature to enhance their self-esteem by making social
comparisons. Thus, in order to achieve the positive self-esteem, in-group members
would position themselves along the positive values continuum while portraying the outgroup using negative features. Concisely, people are more likely to embrace positive
aspects of the group in which they are ascribed to (Oktar, 2001).
Thus, the attitudes in which people are inclined to emphasize the positive qualities of
their own group while accentuate the negative traits of the out-group stem from their
ideology. This justifies why Social Identity Theory is largely used as a framework in
studying ideology. In light of the notion of in-group and out-group, T.A. Van Dijk (1998)
describe the categorization of social groups as us versus them in which us refers to
the in-group while them refers to the out-group. Consistent with the in-group and outgroup stereotyping, the members of a social group create an ideological representation
of us (themselves) through positive presentation while them (others) through
negative presentation (T.A Van Dijk, 2006). It is observable that the framework of
studying ideology as proposed by Social Identity Theory shares similarity with the

strategies of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation outlined by the

ideological square as highlighted before in this study.
The next section discusses the general framework for the investigation of ideology in
discourse which is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA).
2.4

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

As this study aims to disclose media ideology by looking from the angle of
representation as explained earlier, the notion of polarized presentation of own group
and Others can be rooted from the idea of power and dominance as well. Thus, by
taking into account the idea of power and dominance, this could justify clearer why CDA
is chosen as the medium to understand the ideology at work of different media.
Dominance is referred to as the execution of social power by elites, organizations or
groups. (T. A Van Dijk, 1993b). For example, in the context of this study, dominance is
referred as the enactment of social power by the media controllers or producers. As this
social power comprises control, it is not merely confined to action but cognition as well.
In fact, the most effective power is mostly in a cognitive form which is often
operationalized through persuasion, disguise or manipulation in order to influence the
mind of others to conform to ones own interest or ideology. Thus, a powerful group may
not only regulate the freedom of action of other groups but affect their thoughts as well
(T. A Van Dijk, 1993b).
The consequence of this dominance or the exercise of power is in turn evident in social
inequality such as political, cultural, class, racial and gender inequality (T. A Van Dijk,
1993b). T. A Van Dijk (1993b) highlights that inequality in a discourse can be justified
and understood using two discursive strategies which are positive presentation of own
group and negative presentation of the Others which could subtly be implemented
through arguments, narratives, semantic manipulation and other structures of
discourses such as daily conversations, political speeches, academic books and news

articles. Thus, this is where the notion of representation as ideology intersects with the
notion of power and dominance. The action of influencing the minds of others through
the use of dominance and power to construct social inequality is indeed a function of
text and talk. Wodak and Meyer (2009) are in agreement with this as they emphasized
that texts are often serve as the medium for competing for dominance which manifest
through opposing discourses and ideologies.
Therefore, it is at this critical point, where the notion of text and talk is brought in,
particularly, that language is identified as the ideal vehicle to articulate power or to
challenge power, that justify the pivotal role of Critical Discourse Analysis in examining
the ideology, power and dominance. In particular, Critical Discourse Analysis enable
explicit investigation on how discourse structures are constructed in order to portray
social representations in such a way that sustain dominance. More specifically, the role
of Critical Discourse Analysis is to find out what discursive structures are
operationalized, in a case where powerful speakers or groups manage to persuade or
influence their audiences. Thus, according to T. A Van Dijk (1993b) the discursive
reproduction of dominance involves two point of views which are production and
reception. These point of view can be summarized in a way that the discursive
reproduction of dominance is rooted from the social cognitions of the people in power, in
the context of this study, the ideology of the media controllers and subsequently, the
discourse structures affect the thoughts of the consumers of the discourse i.e. how the
readers or consumers construct their understanding of the discourse.
Ultimately, T. A Van Dijk (1993b) summarizes that the focus of CDA is the (re)production
and challenge of dominance in a discourse as what has been elaborated in the above
explanation. Meanwhile, although still in parallel, Young and Fitzgerald (2006) describe
Critical Discourse Analysis in a more simpler term: CDA approach discourses through
language analysis in order to disclose any misconception, inequality or power
imbalance. In the same light, Sahragad and Davatgarzadeh (2010) highlight that CDA
focuses on internalizing the ideological mechanisms at work in discourse and aims to
provide a critique on how discourses function as a platform to convey certain agendas.

Ultimately, Wodak and Meyer (2009) simply concluded that it is the revelation of
structures of power and disclosure of ideologies that lie at the heart of Critical Discourse
Analysis.
One important note made by T. A. Van Dijk (2001) is that CDA itself is not an
approach. Preferably, it attempts to provide an alternative manner or point of view
of theorizing, analysis, and application of what it aims to discover in a discourse ( p.
352). As such, Critical Discourse analysts often differ in terms of their methods and
theoretical frameworks as CDA constitutes various approaches. Thus, in order to
investigate the ideological positioning of Western media towards Muslims and Islam
hence to attempt the research questions satisfactorily, this study borrows the discursive
strategies of Wodaks Discourse-Historical Approach to explore the representation of
this social group in their news reports.
The next section discusses three approaches of studying polarized representation
proposed by Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA).
2.5

Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA): Three-Dimensional Approach of

Polarized Representation

The DHA analysis of representation in discourse is interdisciplinary in which DHA

suggests three-dimensional approach:
1.

Identification of the discourse topics

2.

Investigation of discursive strategies

3.

Linguistic means and linguistic realization of the discursive strategies

The following sub-section explicitly elaborates the three-dimensional approach of DHA.

The second and third approach, which are the investigation of discursive strategies and
linguistic means and linguistic realization, are elaborated hand-in-hand as to clearly
illustrate how the discursive strategies are realized through particular linguistic means.

2.5.1 Identification of the Discourse Topics

T. A. Van Dijk (2000) points out that the meaning of discourse is not solely ingrained in

its sentences or lexical choices. In fact, the global meaning of the discourse also plays
an important role in shaping the interpretation of the discourse. This global meaning is
often supplied by topics or themes of the discourse. Topics of discourse often indicates
what information is deemed as valuable or important by the discourse producers in their
discourse. Consequently, topicalization may also be an indicator of ideological
positioning of a discourse (T.A Van Dijk, 2006). For example, it is not surprising for ingroup discourse producers to de-topicalize information that opposes their interests or
might jeopardize their positive self-representation. Understandably, they might
foreground the information that will projects or exposes the negative construal of the
out-group as the topics of their discourse. Concisely, in-group discourse will not
topicalize topics that could lead to the construction of undesirable interpretations or
mental model detrimental to their positive image. For example, an analysis of topics of
discourse during a study of a written interview of President Vaclav Klaus on climate
change, a Czech politician, yielded a finding that topics of neo-liberal and policy-related
dominated the discourse while scientific topics were de-topicalized. This is expected as
the selection of topics were aligned with Klauss political stance and perspectives which
are said to be neo-liberal, anti-communist and anti-environmentalist (Reisigl & Wodak,
2001).
2.5.2 Investigation of Discursive Strategies and the Linguistic Realization
DHA determines the investigation of discursive strategies as the next step in studying
the positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation after the identification of
the discourse topics. Reisigl and Wodak (2001) interpret discursive strategies as
systematic ways in using language which are located at different level of organization
and complexity (p. 44). Accordingly, the DHA underlined five types of discursive

strategies involved in the analysis of positive self-presentation and negative otherpresentation as follow:

1.

1.

Referential strategies

2.

Predicational strategies

3.

Argumentation strategies

4.

Perspectivation strategies

5.

Intensification and mitigation strategies

Referential strategies and Predicational strategies

Referential strategies refers to the ways in which a person or a group of people is

named and referred to linguistically. The use of referential strategies imparts insights on
the construction of representation of social actors as in-groups and out-groups.
Subsequently, after the in-groups and out-groups have been constructed or identified,
the predications given to the social actors, either as individual, member of a group of as
group itself are identified. Specifically, predications comprise of the attributions, traits,
qualities and characteristics. Thus, these are what termed as Predicational strategies.
Reisigl and Wodak (2001) assert that the role of Predicational strategies are to construe
the representation of social actors as more or less positive or negative.
Although the investigation of Referential strategies and Predicational strategies often
seems like they are supposed to be carried out independently as they serve different
purpose and fulfill different needs of the analysis, Reisigl and Wodak (2001) affirm that it
is difficult to completely separate the Referential strategies and the Predicational
strategies from each other. In fact, they might be overlapping with each other. For
example, some of the Referential strategies also play a role as specific forms of
Predicational strategies due to the fact that the identification of Referential strategies
very often simultaneously comprise of the examination of the positive or negative
labelling of the social actors. Coherently, in order to carry out the analysis of Referential

strategies and Predication strategies satisfactorily, Van Leeuwen (1996)s Sociosemantic Inventory of Representation of Social Actors is borrowed.
The following discussion clearly illustrates the categories of representation of social
actors as proposed by Van Leeuwen (1996) and the linguistic realization for each
category.
Van Leeuwans sociosemantic inventory of representation of social actors
Van Leeuwen (1996)s model of representation of social actors offers systematic
theoretical bases for studying representation in discourses as described by Fairclough
(1995). In approaching the question of how social actors are represented in discourses,
Van Leeuwen (1996) in his framework, attempted to begin his analysis of representation
of social actors in unconventional way as linguists would commonly do where they tend
to launch linguistic operations in performing the analysis. Having said so, instead of
starting off from linguistic point of view, he began approaching the representation of
social actors in discourses from sociological point of view in which he described as to
demonstrate the sociological and critical significance of the classifications (p. 32).
Hence, the categories here refer to his systematic sets of representational strategies
in his framework that he termed as sociosemantic inventory. In light of this, Van
Leeuwen (1996)s framework would exhibit the manifestation of sociological categories
such as nomination and agency instead of linguistic classifications such as
nominalization and the omission of passive agent.
Nevertheless, despite his unconventional approach, Van Leeuwen (1996) states that his
framework of representation of social actors still have a trace of variety linguistic
elements. Thus, Van Leeuwen (1996)s model of representation of social actors is
actually two-tiered with the first level draws upon the sociosemantic inventory available
in the system network as what have been described above. Hence, it is the second level
of his framework that provides an evident of linguistic operations in which he seeks to
find out how a particular representation is realized linguistically soon after he performs

the sociosemantic inventory (Van Leeuwen, 1996). Van Leeuwen (1996) quoted, each
of the representational choices I shall propose will be tied to specific linguistic or
rhetorical realisations (p. 34). This is evident as Van Leeuwen (1996) explains the
operation of the sociological categories in the system network using variety of linguistic
and rhetorical phenomena such as nominalization, adjectivalisation and transitivity, just
to name a few.
For the purpose of this study, five sets of sociological categories from Van Leeuwen
(1996)s sociosemantic inventory are used to analyze the representation of social actors
in the reporting of Israel-Palestine conflict by two U.S news media in order to
deconstruct their underlying ideology respectively. Those five sets of categories are
inclusion/exclusion,

activation/passivation,

individualization/assimilation,

functionalization/identification and personalization/impersonalisation.

Van Leeuwen (1996) highlights that discourse producers include or exclude the
representation of social actors in their discourse to achieve the desired effect that they
want their choice to have on their targeted readers. On one hand, the exclusion of social
actors could be bias-free as when the text producers presupposed that the text
consumers are already well-informed about the particular details or the details are
believed to be irrelevant to the readers. Conversely, exclusion could also be
ideologically motivated as the text producers used it to achieve a particular agenda ( Van
Leeuwen, 1996). Van Leeuwen (1996) further categorized exclusion into suppression
and backgrounding in which he described suppression as radical and backgrounding
as less radical. When social actors are suppressed, there would be no trace of the
social actors anywhere in the text while when social actors are backgrounding in
describing particular activities, readers might still be able to identify who they are by
making inferences based on their inclusion in elsewhere in the text although they are
not mentioned during the illustration of the given activities related to them. Thus, in light
of this, Van Leeuwen (1996) highlights that the social actors are not blatantly being
excluded, but it is more accurate to say that they are being de-emphasized and
positioned in the background (p. 39). Linguistically, suppression could be realized

through passive agent deletion, non-finite clauses and nominalization. Meanwhile,

ellipses in non-finite clauses can be used to background the social actors.
Moving onto activation and passivation, Van Leeuwen (1996) asserts that social actors
can play either active roles or passive roles in representation. Activation is described as
when the social actors are portrayed as the operating forces of the activity while
passivation is when the social actors are represented as being affected by the activity.
Hallidays systematic functional grammar particularly transitivity (Halliday, 1985) is the
linguistic device that could realize this particular set of representation categories.
Browsing further Van Leeuwen (1996) sociosemantic inventory, individualization and
assimilation is another set of categories that is used to represent the social actors. In
light of this, social actors thus can be denoted as either individuals which indicates
individualization or as groups which indicates assimilation. Thus, singularity signifies
individualization while plurality signifies assimilation. Assimilation can be achieved using
a noun symbolizing a group of people. For example, this nation in Is he entitled to
believe that this nation, which only recently shed White Australia Policy, is somehow
impervious to racist sentiment? (p. 49) might refers to the citizens of Australia or the
policy makers. Van Leeuwen (1996) further breaks down the notion of assimilation into
aggregation and collectivization. Aggregation quantifies groups of participants while
collectivization does not. According to Van Leeuwen (1996), as it is socially sanctioned
in our society that the majority rules, aggregation is often utilized to ideologically signify
unanimous opinion. as Aggregation is described as quantifies groups of participants, it
is often realized through definite and indefinite quantifiers.
With regards to the next set of representation categories, Van Leeuwen (1996)
distinguishes functionalization and identification in such a way that functionalisation
happened when social actors are referred to their action, occupation or role. There are
three ways of how functionalisation is realized linguistically. Firstly, by a noun formed
from a verb with the addition of suffixes such as er, -ant, -ent, -ian, or ee. For
examples, speaker, employee, driver. Secondly, by a noun formed from another

noun with the addition of suffixes such as ist and eer. For example, motorcyclist.
Lastly, by the compounding of nouns denoting places or tools closely associated with an
activity and highly generalized categorization such as man, woman, person, people.
For example, cameraman and chairperson (Van Leeuwen, 1996, p. 54). On the other
hand, identification happens when social actors are represented by who they are,
instead of what they do. Identification can be broke down into classification, relational
identification and physical identification. Concisely, classification refers to when social
actors are represented by major categories which are used by a particular society to
distinguish between classes of people. This includes age, gender, economic status,
race, beliefs and others. Meanwhile, relational identification occurs when social actors
are represented by their relationship with each other which is realized by set of nouns
denoting the relationship. For example, friend, aunt, and mother. Lastly, physical
identification happens when social actors are described in terms of physical
appearances which gives unique identity to them in a particular context. Linguistically,
physical identification is signified through nouns indicating physical features such as
blonde and redhead or through adjectives such as disabled and thin (Van Leeuwen,
1996, p. 57).
All those categories above which represent social actors as human beings are actually
indicate personalisation of social actors. Thus, Van Leeuwen (1996) emphasizes that
social actors could also be impersonalised in which impersonalisation occurs when
representation of social actors are realized by non-human element. Van Leeuwen
(1996) introduced two categories of impersonalisation which are abstraction and
objectivation. Abstraction of social actors can be seen in the sentence of Australia is in
danger of saddling itself up with lot of unwanted problem (Van Leeuwen, 1996, p. 59)
where the phrase unwanted problem is actually impersonalized the migrants. As Van
Leeuwen (1996) highlighted that abstraction occurs when quality is used to illustrate a
social actor in a discourse, thus, in the example above, the quality of being problematic
is used to represent the migrants. Meanwhile, objectivation happens when social actors
are represented by a place or object they are related with or in terms of the activity that
they are currently associated with (Van Leeuwen, 1996). For example, when

Australians are substituted by Australia, this indicates objectivation in the form of

spatialisation. Another example of objectivation in the form of instrumentalisation is
showed in this sentence A 120 mm mortar shell slammed into Sarajevos marketplace
(Van Leeuwen, 1996, p. 60). In this example, the attacker is represented in terms of an
object which is the instrument used to accomplish the activity, a 120 mm mortar shell
(Van Leeuwen, 1996). In addition, somatisation is another type of objectivation in which
body part is used to represent the social actors such as She put her hand on Mary
Kates shoulder (Van Leeuwen, 1996, p. 60). In this sentence, Mary Kate is
represented in the phrase Mary Kates shoulder instead of just directly Mary Kate.
The last common form of objectivation is utterance autonomisation. Utterance
autonomisation is signified when utterances are used to represent the social actors.
Thus, the report and surveys in This concern, the report noted, was reflected in
surveys which showed that the level of support for stopping immigration altogether was
a postwar high (Van Leeuwen, 1996, p. 60) are actually impersonalised the social
actors who actually carried out the report and surveys. Thus, it can be deduced that
the claim that immigration is in urgent need to be stopped can be rooted to these social
actors instead of the report and survey. Hence, as explained above, objectivation
can manifest in five different forms namely spatialisation, instrumentalisation,
somatisation, and utterance autonomisation.
The following part contains the explanation of another two more significant linguistic
means pertinent to the analysis of Referential strategies and Predication strategies.
Metonymies and Metaphor

Apart from the linguistic realization of Van Leeuwen (1996)s socio-semantic inventory of
representation of social actors as discussed above, metonymies and metaphor are also
another two linguistic means through which Referential strategies and Predicational
strategies manifest.

Metonymies are described as substitution involving two semantically adjacent fields of

reference (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001, p. 57) in which instead of depicting the name of the
real referent, another referent is used to replace the real referent which embed a
particular ideological implication. For example, by substituting the people by the place
they are living in as in America condemns the act of terror. In this sentence, the real
referent which is the citizens of America are replaced by their country. This might be
used to indicate collectiveness in the condemnation.
While metonymies are substitution between two semantically similar fields of referent,
metaphors are connecting two different semantic fields namely the semantic feature [human] and the one that embodies the semantic feature [+human] (Reisigl & Wodak,
2001). This can be observed in various study of discourses on immigrants in which the
metaphors are often used as the referential and predication strategies. For examples, in
a study of a representation of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants in British
newspapers, the word flooding was used to described the immigration in which flood
has negative connotation as it is regarded as a natural disaster. Hence, this contributed
to the negative presentation of the immigrant (KhosraviNik, 2010).
The next part discusses the second discursive strategies which are the argumentation
strategies and the linguistic means to realize these strategies.
2.

Argumentation strategies

Argumentation strategies play a role in justifying the construal of positive selfpresentation or negative-other presentation of the social actors (Reisigl & Wodak,
2001). In other words, Argumentation strategies are used in a discourse to legitimate
the Referential strategies and Predicational strategies.
Blackledge (2005) highlights that the key feature of argumentation strategies lies in
Wodaks notion of topoi. Among the category of topoi highlighted by Wodak are topoi of
advantage/usefulness,

danger/threat,

definition/name-interpretation,

burdening/weighting down, law/right, culture, abuse, authority, finance, equality, human

rights and responsibility. Thus, topoi provide a tool to identify discriminatory arguments
that serve to construe own self positively while emphasize the negative quality of Others
which are traceable in the discourse (Blackledge, 2005).
The

upcoming

discussion

explains

the

third

discursive

strategies

which

is

Perspectivation strategies along with the linguistic means to accomplish these

strategies.
3.

Perspectivation Strategies

The objective of Perspectivation strategies is to position the media producer or the

journalists point of view with the ideological stance conveyed through the discourse. In
essence, it is to find out from which perspective is the Referential strategies,
Predication

strategies,

and

Argumentation

strategies

expressed.

In

addition,

Perspectivation strategies also provide information on the media producer or journalists

involvement or detachment from the ideological positioning (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001).
Thus, the information below highlights two strategies of involvement and detachment
that are used to investigate the Perspectivation strategies used in a discourse.

Strategies of involvement and detachment

Framing and discourse representation are among two strategies used by discourse
producers to indicate their distance with the ideological positioning conveyed in the
discourse.
Framing can be illustrated as how the content of the text is presented as well as the sort
of angle or perspective the discourse producer is taking when producing the discourse.
The investigation of framing is closely related with the notion of foregrounding and
backgrounding. Therefore, in identifying the framing of an event, it is worth to consider

what concepts and issues are projected or emphasized and what are concealed or
made implicit (Paltridge, 2012).
With regards to discourse representation, the incorporation of different types of
quotation can signify the degree of involvement of the discourse producers with the
ideological stance of the discourse. The use of quotation can be classified into three
types which are direct quotation, indirect quotation, and free indirect speech. In brief,
indirect speech is an indication of detachment while direct speech and free indirect
speech often express the involvement of the discourse producers which invites the
involvement of the discourse consumers as well upon reading or hearing the discourse
(Reisigl & Wodak, 2001).
Next, the last discursive strategies which are Intensification and Mitigation strategies are
depicted.
4.

Intensification and Mitigation Strategies

Lastly, intensification and mitigation strategies can be defined as the strategies used to
strengthen or alleviate the illocutionary force of utterance (Wodak & Meyer, 2009). In
other words, the analysis of intensification or mitigation strategies look into how the
intention or ideology of the speakers or writers is articulated in the discourse, whether
implicitly or explicitly. Blackledge (2005) highlighted that intensification or mitigation
strategies can be used to express involvement in, or detachment from the sense of the
text (p. 25). For example, it is the mitigation strategies that are often used by speakers
or writers to find their way to the mainstream discourse to convey what is typically
regarded as unacceptable idea (Blackledge, 2005). Mitigation strategies can be realized
through lexicalization such as the use of phrase such as I think, I assume, it seems
as well as the use of mitigating verbs such as probably, fairly quietly and others,
just to list a few (Blackledge, 2005).

The next section reviews the coverage of Charlie Hebdo attack by several U.S media
outlets.
2.6

U.S Media coverage of Charlie Hebdo Attack

Manohar (2008) describes media coverage in terms of how they present a particular
part of information either as news, entertainment or as infotainment. Manohar (2008)
further elaborates that media coverage can be distinguished based on two crucial
aspects namely type of mass media used and the style of coverage. Type of mass
media can be divided into four main categories which are newspaper coverage,
television coverage, radio coverage, and internet coverage. Meanwhile, the style of
coverage of media is generally categorized as biased coverage, un-biased coverage
and interactive coverage. Basically, biased coverage refers to the biased manner in
presenting information in which the coverage is in favour of a particular idea or against a
particular idea. On the other hand, un-biased coverage refers to a manner in which the
media do not take any particular stance with regards to a particular idea. Interactive
coverage is the type of coverage that present an information and taking audience views
at the same time in the presentation of the information hence making the coverage
interactive (Manohar, 2008).
Coherently, in the event of Charlie Hebdo attack, a few U.S media were criticized for
their bias and prejudiced reporting generally by positioning the act of the perpetrators as
Islamic terrorist attack, linking terrorism and violence to Muslims and the faith of Islam
rather than depicted the perpetrators as crazed, misguided bigots who acted alone
(Mohamad, 2015, p. 2). For example, CNN has come under fire when one of its
reporters, during an interview with a Muslim human rights lawyer, asked if he is a
supporter of ISIS even after the lawyer has publicly condemned the Charlie Hebdo
attack (Mintz, 2015). Thus, this incident demonstrated how terrorism has become a
stereotype and prejudice towards all the practitioners and believers of the Islamic faith.
As a repercussion, Muslims are not only being bombarded with this stereotype and

prejudice but are made obliged to answer for those so-called Islamic terrorist attacks
(Mintz, 2015).
Correspondingly, Podugu (2015) accentuates that the representation of Muslim
perpetrators in Western media, including during the Charlie Hebdo attack, is rarely
constructed independent of their religious belief which resulted in the strengthening of
the association between the act of terror and the faith of Islam and its believers, the
Muslims and this is the representation of Muslims and Islam that has been fed to
Americans predominantly since the 9/11 attack, almost to the extent that Islamic
terrorism is the only kind of terrorism that Americans are being exposed to through their
media (Podugu, 2015). As a consequence, the word terrorists and terrorism are
started to become synonymous with the faith of Islam and its practitioners due to the
frequent association between the acts of terror with the religious belief of the suspects
during the media coverage of events involving Muslim suspects.

Chapter 3
Research Methods
3.0

Research methods

This chapter comprises of three essential components that constitute the methods of
this study. The first component discusses the data (Section 3.1). The second
component discusses the methods of data collection (Section 3.2) and the third
component discusses the methods of data analysis (Section 3.3).
3.1

Data: Background and Justification of the Selected Corpus

This section entails the description and justification of two aspects pertinent to the data
of this study which are:

News reports as corpus (Section 3.1.1)

News sources (Section 3.1.2)

3.1.1 News Reports as Corpus

The corpus for this study comprises of news reports from a few U.S online newspapers.
The fact that news is often deemed as ideological-laden texts thus can hardly be a
value-free reflection of facts (Alireza & Rahman, 2012; Caldas-Coulthard, 2003;
Coesmans, 2013; Jung Min, 1997) justifies why the news reports discourse is selected
to study how language plays a role in the construction of a particular ideology;
specifically how the language is manipulated to create a particular representation of
Muslims and Islam in the reporting of Charlie Hebdo attack. Additionally, Jung Min
(1997) points out that as the processes involved in the production of news comprise of
selection, interpretation, and presentation of events to the news consumers, this leads
to the construction of the version of reality aligned with the underlying ideologies of the
news producers and might as well align with the ideology of the target consumers.
Hence, the meanings produced through the news reports construct the ideological
representations of the social world (Jung Min, 1997, p. 155).
3.1.2 News Sources

Correspondingly, the selected news reports are accumulated from three U.S news
websites Google News, Huffington Post, and Fox News. The chosen of these three
news websites are driven by two factors; their high estimated unique monthly visitors
and their political ideology spectrum.
Google News, Huffington Post and Fox News are selected as the news sources for this
study due to the fact that they are listed as among the ten most popular and most
visited U.S news websites as of April 2015 ("Top 15 most popular news websites,"
2015). The number of unique monthly visitors of each news websites and their ranking
tracked by Alexa Global Traffic Rank and U.S Traffic Rank is outlined in Table 1 below:
News website
Estimated unique visitors
Ranking
Google News
150 000 000
2
Huffington Post
110 000 000
3
Fox News
65 000 000
6
Table 1: Estimated unique visitors and ranking of three chosen news sources
The high number of unique monthly visitors indicates that these media and their
contents have the capacity to reach more people. T. A Van Dijk (1995) highlights that
the more people affected, the larger the scope of the enactment of discursive power
(p. 13). Larger scope of the enactment of discursive power entails that the news
producers would have wider access to the public thus might be able to influence more
media consumers with their ideology. Thus, as these media sources have more power
in influencing the media consumers compared to the other media sources due to their
high number of readership, it is even more crucial to investigate how these media
outlets influence the consumers interpretation of their media texts (Ang, 2010) which
could simultaneously shed lights on how these powerful news outlets produce and
reproduce ideology through their news texts.
Another factor that governs the selection of these three news sources is their political
polarization. According to Engel (2014), Huffington Post is deemed as a left-leaning

media (Democratic) while Fox News is skewing towards the right (Republican).
Meanwhile, Google News is placed in the almost neutral spot along the political
ideology continuum. The political polarization of these news sources is taken into
consideration during the selection process due to the fact that the view and attitude
towards Islam and Muslims can be characterized by the political ideology of an
individual. A poll investigating American views on Arab and Muslim Americans finds out
that Americans views towards Arab and Muslims can be grouped according to the
respondents political ideology. For example, Republicans have more unfavourable
attitudes towards Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans compared to the Democrats
(Siddiqui, 2014) as shown in the Table 2 below:
Republicans (%)
Democrats (%)
Arab-Americans
54
30
Muslim-Americans
63
33
Table 2: Unfavourable ratings towards Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans
Correspondingly, Republicans are more likely to hold a view that Arab-Americans and
Muslim-Americans are unable to hold a position in the government without being
influenced by their ethnicity or religion. On the other hand, Democrats believe that ArabAmericans and Muslim-Americans would be able to do their job without being
influenced. Similarly, a poll conducted by Arab American Institute finds out that
generally, the Democrats are more likely to have a positive attitude towards Islam and
Muslims compared to the Republicans. This is reflected in the responses of the
respondents leaning towards either one of both parties on a few questionnaire items as
listed in the Table 3 below:

Questionnaire item
Islam teaches people to lead good and decent lives
Islam is a religion of peace
Islam teaches hate
Muslims tend to be religious fanatics

Agree responses (%)

Republican
Democrats
s
33
16
74
60

71
62
22
21

Table 3: Political divide of American views towards Islam and Arab and Muslim
Americans
(Zogby, 2010)
With the political ideology as one of the variables that differentiate the Americans view
towards Islam and Muslims, I believe that it is interesting to investigate whether the
analysis of the news reports from three political ideologically different news sources will
reflect the findings of the aforementioned polls.
3.2

Methods of Data Collection

The newspapers reports are collected from the archives of chosen news websites
respectively. The time frame of the collected newspapers reports starts from 7 January
2015 which marks the day of the attack until two weeks after the killing of the suspects.
Then, the newspapers reports are classified and labelled into general themes namely
the attack, the suspects, the events happened when suspects are still on the loose and
the unity march.
3.3

Methods of Data Analysis

The analysis of the news reports is mainly governed by Wodaks three dimensional
approach of Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) (see Section 2.5 for detailed
explanation). KhosraviNik (2010) asserts that a CDA study involves a dialogical
interaction between critical textual, macro-structural analysis (topic analysis) and microlinguistic analysis (textual analysis) that realized and control the ideological macrostructure. As such, adopting the three dimensional approach of DHA and its five
discursive strategies (see Section 2.5.2 for detailed explanation), the representation of
Muslims and Islam in the selected newspapers reports is studied from the perspectives
of three aspects of analysis as outlined below:

Topic analysis (Section 3.3.1)

Text analysis (Section 3.3.2)
Intertextual analysis (Section 3.3.3)

3.3.1 Topic analysis

In order to answer research question 1, each newspapers report is examined to identify
its discourse topic. Then, two most common topics emerged from the reports of each
news media are selected to be presented in this study. Subsequently, presentation of
these discourse topics are substantiated by the findings from the textual analysis to
justify how these topics are constructed hence contribute to the polarization of the
representation of Muslims and Islam.
3.3.2 Text analysis
The text analysis comprises of the investigation of how the representation of Muslims
and Islam is constructed in the news reports, specifically how the discourse topics are
built

through the five discursive strategies proposed by DHA namely referential

strategies, predicational strategies, argumentation strategies, perspectivation strategies,

and intensification and mitigation strategies. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning here
that these strategies are hardly treated as discrete units. In fact, the perspectivation of
the representation of certain social groups is reflected through the interaction between
the referential strategies, predicational strategies and the argumentation strategies itself
(KhosraviNik, 2010).
Thus, corresponding to the referential strategies, predicational strategies and
argumentation strategies, the text analysis is carried out in three levels:

Level one: Representation of social actors

Level two: Representation of social actions
Level three: Argumentation strategies

Table 4 below summarizes how textual analysis is carried out to answer research
question 2, 3, and 4 respectively:

Research question

Discursive

Level of text analysis

strategies
2. How are these topics thus the polarized
Referential
Analysis of social
representation of Muslims and Islam constructed
strategies
actors
through the representation of social actors? What
representational strategies are used by the
media to name and refer to the social actors?
3. What are the social actions attributed to the
Predicational
Analysis of social
social actors? What qualities, features and
strategies
actions
characteristics are ascribed to the social actors
and social actions in order to create the polarized
representation?
4. How do the media legitimate and justify the Argumentation
Analysis of
construction of the positive self-presentation and
Strategies
argumentation
negative other-presentation of Muslims and Islam
strategies
through the use of different types of
argumentation strategies?
Table 4: Three-level framework of textual analysis

The explanation of the discursive strategies employed to construct the discourse topics
hence the polarized representation of Muslims and Islam is taking into account the
linguistic means or mechanisms of the discursive strategies. Therefore, while
conducting the analysis of the discursive strategies, the linguistic means or mechanisms
as outlined in Table 5 below served as the guidance and markers.

Discursive strategies
Referential strategies
and

Linguistic means
Van Leeuwens socio-semantic inventory
Metonymies and Metaphor
Adjectives and adjectival phrases

predicational strategies
Argumentation strategies
Topoi
Table 5: Linguistic means of discursive strategies
3.3.3 Intertextual analysis

Aside from studying the medias ideological position from the perspective of the threelevel framework of text analysis, intertextual analysis can also impart insights on the

medias involvement or detachment in representation they are constructing. In other

words, Fairclough (2003) emphasizes that one important contrast between reports
which are relatively faithful to what is reported, quoting it, claiming to reproduce what
was actually said or written, and those that keep a strong and clear boundary between
their authorial account and attributed voices that they are reporting (p. 49). Thus, this is
how intertextual analysis yields insights on the medias involvement or detachment in
the ideological representation they are constructing. Reporting style can be categorized
into four ways as listed below:

Direct reporting
Quotation of actual words used.
Indirect reporting
Summary of the content that is being said and no quotation marks are used.
Free indirect reporting
Intermediate between direct and indirect reporting
Narrative report of speech act
Reports of someone is making a statement but without mentioning the content of
the statement
(Fairclough, 2003, p. 49)

In summary, the methods of analysis of this study is summarized in the Table 3 below:
Analysis
Topic analysis

Description
First, I analyze the discourse topic for the
selected

newspapers

reports.

After

examining the discourse topic for each

newspapers

report,

two

most

common

discourse topics are identified from each

Text analysis

news media.
The text analysis is governed by the
discourse topics. I analyze the referential
strategies,

predicational

strategies,

and

argumentation strategies that contribute to

Intertextual analysis

the construction of the discourse topics.

The discussion of the discourse topics is also
substantiated

by

the

findings

from

intertextual analysis as I analyze how the

media use attributed voices to indicate their
distance with the ideological positioning
conveyed in their reports.
Table 6: Summary of methods of data analysis

Limitations
This study cannot be generalized to all U.S news media or all events involving Muslims
social actors as the findings of representation of Muslims and Islam in this study are
confined to three U.S news media pertinent to the Charlie Hebdo attack only. Thus, a
study beyond this scope might yield different findings. Also, as I am the sole researcher
of this study and I happen to be a Muslim myself, this could trigger biasness. The
biasness could cause me to over-sensationalize and overstate (Ang, 2010, p. 121) the
content of the news reports as well as misinterpret the sincere intentions of the
journalists to merely deliver facts about the attack. Fairclough (1995) has cautioned
discourse analysts that a text can be simultaneously sincere and ideological or
manipulative. Therefore, any suspicion of ideologically biased representation presented
in this study could serve as a caution towards potential manipulations or harmful effects
during text interpretation and consumption. It is hoped that this could raise awareness
among media consumers about the importance of approaching media texts in a critical
manner. Finally, this study does not attempt to prove any bias or injustice towards any
particular social group or to fight for the injustice, but merely describes the event from
my point of view and more importantly to demonstrate the power of language in
influencing the peoples mind and ideology.

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