Cronología

Textual discourse analysis includes conversations, interviews, observations, and written materials, according to Linda Philip (2007), which are considered to be a hybrid of linguistic and social theory that focus on discourse within social practice. The discussion surrounding discourse analysis is very much based on the grounds that there are inter- relations between language, power and ideology, and between how the world is signified in texts, and how people look at their world (Stubbs: 1997).

Based on Stubbs’s assertion on the inter-relation between language (lexical choice), power (actors) and ideology (action), the analysis of AJA text (two programmes and interviews) will be constructed.

Power, by and large, is linked to any discourse, and is not initiated by language itself as ‘language is not powerful on its own – it gains power by the use powerful people make of it’ (Weiss and Wodak: 2003, p. 14). This means that the ideology of power represented by ‘actors or agency’ is very much determined by the selection of language which defines someone’s identify and then is transformed into action(s).

Media (as a form of power) are used as a mediation power (an actor) according to Pasha (2011, p. 60), through which social meanings are produced, stored, distributed and consumed on a mass scale: ‘what the media are actually doing is offering their audience selective presentations of selective events’. Pasha (2011) presents Fairclough’s view (2001, p. 41) who suggests that mass media discourse involves hidden relations of power: text producers in mass communication address an ‘ideal subject,’ construing their own notion of their ‘ideal reader,’ and by these means may succeed in influencing audiences to accept particular social realities in accordance with their ideological scope and view of it. Hartley (1982, p. 47) explains how the news takes the discourse form it does as something determined by ‘the way the news-makers themselves act within the constraints’.

The process of ideology is best explained by Van Dijk (1998,p. 6), who notes that groups with certain ideologies such as communism and anti- communism, socialism and liberalism, Islamism and secularism, and so on, are largely governed by their specific beliefs about the world, their interpretation of events, and understanding of their social practices. This type of ideology generates polarisation of people into ‘us’ and ‘them’, and the audience begins to produce and consume discourse in terms of a ‘we’ and ‘they’ dichotomy.

This process of polarisation leads to what Van Dijk describes as an ‘ideological square’ which clarifies the dichotomous character of the fundamental discourses in societies. This ideological square, according to Van Dijk, separates the ‘in-groups’ from the ‘out-groups’ through both emphasis and mitigation: ideological discourses categorically emphasise the good ‘self’ and the bad ‘other’ and instantaneously mitigate these two concepts. Van Dijk (1995) asserts that the articulation of ideologies is often based on several forms of the ideological square:

I. Emphasises positive things about us; II. Emphasises negative things about them; III. De-emphasises negative things about us; IV. De-emphasises positive things about them.

The forms of Van Dijk’s ideological square and the process of emphasising the good ‘us’ or the bad ‘them’, moves the discussion to the ‘framing’ process, in which framing different actors or actions is based on a specific ideology. Framing, according Robert Entman (2009), refers to the process of selecting and highlighting (or emphasising and mitigating) some aspects of a perceived reality, and enhances the salience of an interpretation and evaluation of that reality; at the media level, journalists’ framing of an issue may be influenced by several socio-structural or organisational variables (Scheufele: 1999). Framing helps to deepen the theoretical insight more generally into the political influence of the news media and into the relations among elites, media, and the public (Entman: 2009).

It is in this selection and highlighting process (emphasising some aspects and de-emphasising others) that the influential role of power or social factors can be explained, in which language, power and ideology are represented in the targeted data in this study. There are two types of framing models ‘distance framing’ and ‘empathy framing’, according to Pier Robinson (2002). Robinson explains that the way an action is framed defines the standpoint of the actors. The selection or emphasis of some adjectives or verbs assigned to actors such as; ‘kill/killing’, ‘dictate/dictating’, and ‘loot/looting’ generally suggest ‘distance framing’ with negative implications, whereas, adjectives and verbs such as

‘reform/reforming’, ‘suffer/suffering’ and ‘support/supporting’ suggest ‘empathy framing’ with positive inferences.

Departing from the ideological square and the framing model, AJA’s text regarding its coverage of different actions (different electoral moments) and actors (the MB and the Mubarak regime) at different times will be scrutinised. This process will enable this research to identify adjectives and verbs incorporated in the text and the different roles assigned to actors at different times.

Three important features, in line with discussions on language, power and ideology, are central to the rhetorical strategies in the sample texts: verbal mode, agency and time space, according to Chouliaraki (2006, p. 77), and will be examined below.

Verbal Mode

Language usage or verbal mode is represented in the transcripts of each episode, and performs fundamental classificatory activities. It includes and excludes foregrounds and backgrounds, justifies and legitimises the content, and separates ‘us’ from ‘them’ or the model of good ‘self’ and ‘bad others’.

This research raises the following questions regarding language in the analysis of the text:

 What is the main idea or topic?

 What are the actions and story behind it?

 What is the verbal mode (adjectives and verbs) that are used to emphasise the description of the MB and the Mubarak regime?

 How was the actor framed?

Agency (Actors)

It is important to trace the assigned power relationships that existed before and after the 2011 Egyptian revolution, at different electoral periods, in order to analyse the position held in connection with the social context: how the two programmes represented different actors regarding the MB and the Mubarak regime (the Egyptian people, opposition parties, the Military Council, Women, Copts, and so on).

The process of language representation is very much related to the discussion of ‘transitivity’, which suggests a distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs associated with participants and the circumstances (Halliday cited in Pasha: 2011, p. 117). Transitivity incorporates the relationships between the process (verbs) and the participants involved with it (subjects and objects). Transitivity includes identifying who is set as

agent (‘doer’ or ‘sayer’), what is set as a goal (upon whom the action is performed), and the processes (doing or saying).

The assigned role of actors (agency) aims to promote or condemn the particular ideology of that actor: for example, victims or persecutors, democratic or dictatorial, Islamic or secular. The incorporation of humanistic enquiry in the analysis of journalism could contribute not only to unravelling how the authority of this profession is constructed, but also to the journalists’ authority in constituting the social world as a discursive practice (Zelizer: 1993/1997; Fairclough: 2002, p. 309).

Journalists deploy a range of strategies as a means of distributing power among the different agents, therefore, when discussing the role of different actors several questions will be asked, including:

 How this agent was represented?

 What are the adjectives and verbs associated with this agent?

 What role or actions was this agent assigned in the text?

 How is this agent represented in terms of the ‘ideological square’ and ‘framing?’ - Positive things about ‘us’ and negative things about ‘them’.

Time Space

Time space, as a third rhetoric strategy, is imperative in the analysis of AJA’s text, in order to uncover the presentation of language and actors at various times.

1. How were the different actors assigned in the text, namely the MB and the Mubarak regime, represented in the past, the present and the future?

2. How the ideological square of emphasis and mitigation was used on the positive ‘us’ and the negative ‘them’ to represent different times?

3. How did the construction of language and actors change from one time to another?

The thoughts resulting from the set of questions raised in the three strategies will assist in detecting common themes that emerge from selected text.