Week 10: Media Discourse
May 27, 2009
Macken-Horarik, M. “The children overboard affair” Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 26.2 (2003), 1-16
Various aspects of media are always in communication and interaction with each other in order to create specific meanings and interpretations intended by the composer of media texts. This media interaction and dialogue can be referred to as ‘discourse’, where the politicisation of language and images interact as a larger media text. Macken-Horarik’s text discusses how a particular event, the children overboard affair in 2001, was shaped through media discourse to influence a particular interpretation of how asylum seekers are viewed through the Australian media. She focuses on the dependence of news on a multimodal interaction between stories and photographs, stating that the writers of the texts she examines have placed their own ideologies into the language and the discourse and dialogue between modes of media as a means of ‘othering’. The way that language is used and how photos are matched up with such language is definitely a significant aspect of the critical understanding of media, and I think that Macken-Horarik presents this in a very convincing manner.
However, in having an understanding of politicised meaning, I am somewhat skeptical of part of her argument though, which states that particular categorisation and naming has been purposely done by the writers as propaganda to ‘other’ the asylum seekers. While I agree that language is very carefully used by journalists to craft particular meanings, her own political ideologies play a significantly dialogic role in the way she presents her argument, which I believe affects the validity of some of her argument. For example, she argues that categorisation and individualisation of leaders in government was a key aspect in the political propagande against asylum seekers. Her argument may be true to some extent, but individualising well-known leaders is far more realistic and practical for the journalists, and restrictions in interacting with the asylum-seekers must be taken into account.
Her overall discussion of discourse though, allows a much stronger understanding of how discourse can clearly be seen within the media, and affect the interpretations made by the audience on particular issues in the news. Images and language are not without ideological meaning, and the interaction between various aspects of media create meaning from this discourse.
