22 - Language and the media

Summary

This chapter indicates three major approaches to media that demonstrate connections to a broad sociolinguistic enterprise: semiotics, critical discourse analysis, and conversation analysis. Semiotics can be used to consider media language as part of a sign system, or as a process of communication with complex social and cultural influences affecting how media texts are produced and understood. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) offers insights into the ideological workings of the media, especially around questions relating to power, equity, and social change. Conversation analysis (CA) looks at routine practices of social interaction evident in the media. The output of media can be described in terms of different forms or genres. This type of generic classification enables comparisons to be made across different media, permitting, for example, print news to be compared with broadcast or internet news, radio interviews with television interviews, or print advertising with advertising in other media.