The language of news media

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

The language of news media

Allan Bell

(Language in society, 16, 17)

Blackwell, 1991

  • : hbk
  • : pbk

Available at  / 86 libraries

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Note

Bibliography: p. [254]-268

Includes index

Series no. changed to 17 in 1994 printing

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

: hbk ISBN 9780631164340

Description

An account of the language of the news media written by a man who is both a linguist and journalist. In Western countries we hear more language from the media than we do directly from others in conversation, and within the media, news is the primary language genre. The aim of this book is to explore this pervasive language, to ask what the patterns of media discourse tell us about language itself and what that language tells us about news and the media. The book emphasizes the importance of the processes which produce media language, as stories are moulded and modified by various hands. It stresses indeed that journalists and editors produce stories, not articles, with structure, order, viewpoint and values. It is concerned too with the role of the audience in influencing media language styles, and in understanding, forgetting or misconceiving the news presented to it. Located in the frameworks of sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, this book draws together research literature and adds its own observations based on the author's experience as both journalist and researcher.

Table of Contents

  • Media and language
  • researching media language
  • the production of news language
  • authoring and editing the news text
  • the audience for media language
  • stylin' the news
  • talking strange - referee design in media language
  • telling stories
  • make-up of the news story
  • telling it like isn't
  • (mis)understanding the news.
Volume

: pbk ISBN 9780631164357

Description

Written by a linguist who is himself a journalist, this is a uniquely informed account of the language of the news media. Based in the frameworks of sociolinguistics and discourse analysis its concerns are with the notion of the news story, the importance of the processes which produce media language and the role of the audience.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables. Editor's Preface. Introduction and Acknowledgements. 1. Media and Language. 1.1. Why Study Media Language?. 1.2. Media Language Research and the disciplines. 1.3. Themes of the book. 2. Researching Media Language. 2.1. Universe and sample. 2.2. What's news: defining genres. 2.3. News outlets. 2.4. News outputs. 2.5. Pitfalls, shortcuts and the wrong way round. 2.6. The media react to research. 3. The Production of News Language. 3.1. Many hands make tight work. 3.2. Producer roles in news language. 3.3. The news assembly line. 3.4. Embedding in the news text. 4. Authoring and Editing the News Text. 4.1. Constructing the news text. 4.2. How news is edited. 4.3. Why edit?. 5. The Audience for Media Language. 5.1. Disjunction and isolation. 5.2. Multiple roles in the audience. 5.3. Audience embedding. 5.4. Communications as audience. 6. Stylin' the News: Audience Design. 6.1. Style in language. 6.2. Style and audience status in the British press. 6.3. Audience design in New Zealand radio. 6.4. Editing copy for style. 7. Talking Strange: Referee Design in Media Language. 7.1. Taking the initiative. 7.2. The referees. 7.3. Television advertisements as referee design. 8. Telling Stories. 8.1. News stories and personal narratives. 8.2. News values. 8.3. News as stories. 8.4. The structure of news stories. 9. Makeup of the News Story. 9.1. The lead. 9.2. Headlines. 9.3. News stories and actors. 9.4. Time and place in the news. 9.5. Facts and figures. 9.6. Talking heads. 10. Telling It Like It Isn't. 10.1. Approaches to media miscommunication. 10.2. Misreporting: the climate case change. 10.3. Misediting international news. 11. (Mis)understanding the News. 11.1. Recall and comprehension. 11.2. The public misunderstand climate change. Notes. References. Index.

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