List of concepts

Advocacy journalism assigns journalists the role of active interpreters and participants who
speak on behalf of certain groups, typically those groups who are denied powerful
spokesmen in the media (Janowitz).

Agenda setting is the transfer of salience from the news media to the public (McCombs).

Agenda setting is the process of mass media presenting certain issues frequently with the
result that large segments of the public come to perceive those issues as more important
than others (Coleman et al., H11).

Agenda setting is the process by which problems and alternative solutions gain or lose
public and elite attention (lecture).

Civic journalism refers to organized groups that use the news media to influence reporting,
and ultimately, affect public policies (Waisbord, H26).

Connotation refers to the cultural and historical meanings that have attached themselves to
the literal meaning over time, often operating unconsciously and therefore helping to
naturalize socially constructed representations of the world (ideology) (lecture).

Content bias refers to consistently slanted framing of media communication that promotes
the success of a specific interest, party or ideology in competitions to control government
power (Entman).

Critical discourse analysis combines language analysis and language use with analysis of
social structure and cultural practice, identifying certain discursive repertoires and how they
structure and order society whilst doing this, establishing connections between discourse
practice, text production, and sociocultural practice (lecture).

Decision-making bias is the influence of journalists belief systems on the texts they
produce (Entman).

Denotation is the literal meaning on the level of formal language; it refers to the meaning as
we would find it in a dictionary (lecture)

With diagesis, the poet (i.e. writer) himself is the speaker and does not even attempt to
suggest to us that anyone but himself is speaking (Socrates, in Huisman).

A Discourse is the language used in representing a given social practice from a particular
point of view (Fairclough).

A Discourse type is a relatively stabilized configuration of genres and discourses within the
order of discourse, standardly involving configurations of genres rather than a single genre
(Fairclough). Think of: party political broadcast or chat.

(Journalistic) Form is the articulation of a certain news style in textual characteristics,

including the things that are traditionally labeled layout and design and typography; it also
includes habits of illustration, genres of reportage, and schemes of departmentalization
(Broersma, Barnhurst and Nerrone, lecture).

Framing involves selecting a few aspects of a perceived reality and connecting them
together in a narrative that promotes a particular interpretation (Entman).
A genre is a use of language associated with and constituting part of some particular social
practice, such as interviewing people or advertising (Fairclough).

Hegemonic power is the ability of a group to convince societies of a particular right way of
thinking that is in their particular interest (Gramsci, lecture).

An Icon (semiotics) refers to the relation between sign and object where the sign looks like
the object (Huisman).

Identity is a social and historical construct rather than a universal state of being, being both
what distinguishes us from other people and being about identification with others whom we
assume are similar to us (lecture).

Ideology addresses a set of ideas reflecting beliefs, interests and social needs of individuals,
groups, classes and cultures, being a necessary prerequisite to form groups and the basis of
the (positive) self-image of a group (lecture).

An Index (semiotics) refers to the relation between sign and object where the sign is
associated with its object (Huisman), or correlates with and thus implies or points to an
object (lecture).

Heteroglossia means that interpretation takes place on the basis of ones previous
experience of language, the word knows where it has been (Bakhtin, in lecture).

Inter-media agenda setting explains how elite media transmit their agenda of important
issues to other media (Coleman et al., H11).

Intertextuality means that interpretation takes place through relations to other texts, as one
text echoes others (Kristeva, in lecture).

Metanarratives are the grand master stories dominant in a culture and the stories or myths
through which a culture tells itself its ideology (Huisman).

A Narrative is a form of representation, meaning to structure lived experiences, consisting of

a specific form and relying on various linguistic means, being a sequence of signs that
develops in space and time and is told from a specific perspective (lecture).

With Mimesis, the poet (i.e. writer) tries to give the illusion that another whom we might
call a character speaks (Socrates, in Huisman).

Priming is making certain issues or attributes more salient and more likely to be accessed in
forming opinions (Iyengar & Kinder).

Schemata are cognitive structures that represent knowledge about a concept or type of
stimulus, including its attributes and the relation among attributes (Taylor & Fiske).

Second-level (or attribute) agenda setting focuses on the attributes or characteristics that
describe issues, people or other topics in the news and the tone of these attributes (compare
with framing) (Coleman et al., H11).

A sign is observable and represents something that is not there: the semiotic object (which
can be anything) (lecture).
Slant appears when a news report emphasizes one sides preferred frame while ignoring or
derogating another sides (Entman).

(Journalistic) style expresses what news is and how a journalist should act, reveling the
structural characteristics of news. There are three main styles: the reflexive style with the
journalist as a mediator between readers and reality, the story model style that aims to be
emotive, descriptive and explanatory, whereas the information model favors the ideals of
objectivity, balance, fairness and neutrality (Broersma).

A Symbol (semiotics) refers to the relation between sign and object where there is an
entirely arbitrary association of sign and object (Huisman), or obtains meaning from cultural
conventions (lecture).