Crime news in British press: Expressing positive and negative status of core participants

Renata Jančaříková

Crime news in British press: Expressing positive and negative status of core participants

Vol.3,No.1(2010)

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The paper presents a study of naming and referring strategies as they were manifest in crime news reports in four British national dailies (both broadsheets and tabloids). The focus is on the representation of victims and murderers, achieved mainly by attributing and projecting positive and negative status to core participants. It is shown in our study that in addition to providing information, newspapers also present and promote views and attitudes, which are communicated mainly via the language used. The same event or participants may be presented in different ways. The ways that people are referred to in newspaper discourse can, at least to a certain extent, infl uence the reader’s perception of the participants as well as the events described, together with the reader’s view of a particular issue. This contribution endeavours to demonstrate how messages and views can be incorporated in the text of newspaper reports by foregrounding of certain characteristics of the participants. The analysis suggests that the choice of naming and referring strategies helps enhance a particular intended effect determined by the type of audience at which the newspaper is targeted, although whether the effect is really achieved or not depends solely on the reader, since it is highly individual what inferences the reader will make.

Keywords:
naming and referring strategies; newspaper discourse; victim/criminal dichotomy; tabloids; broadsheets

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