Book Review: The Language of Journalism: A Multi-genre Perspective, by Angela Smith and Michael Higgins

Abstract

The Language of Journalism: A Multi-genre Perspective. Angela Smith and Michael Higgins. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. 152 pp. $29.95 pbk.Angela Smith and Dr. Michael Higgins explore the media's use of language to purposely and inadvertently maintain the societal status quo. Smith, a Reader in Language and Culture at the University of Sunderland, United Kingdom, and Higgins, the Director of the and Creative Writing program at the University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom, use Critical Discourse Analysis to examine how journalistic language reflects and shapes social realities and how it articulates values. CDA's explicitly political agenda seeks to raise awareness of the ideological frameworks that inform language choice, and the construction, representation and positioning of its subjects in discourse. In other words, they look at how language is used in different media outlets and how these choices reflect political values.After outlining their method and framework, they divide the rest of the book by media genre: broadcast, magazine, newspaper, sports, and online. In the broadcast section, for example, they talk about language as a means of establishing informality (e.g., anchors referring to each other by first name) and a close broadcaster-audience relationship (e.g. using the pronoun you when talking to the viewers). They talk about newspapers' lack of space necessitating news headline register-or the American headlinese-which causes headlines to lack the nuance of the articles. Across all outlets, they discuss verb tenses quite a bit, in terms of using present tense to convey a sense of immediacy, while using past-perfect tenses (i.e., had said) to distinguish recently conducted interviews from background information. The book provides a unique application of critical discourse to an analysis of popular media.The Language of Journalism is accessible for seasoned researchers and undergraduate students. The introduction provides clear definitions of terms used in critical analysis for those unfamiliar with them (e.g., discourse, ideology, intertextuality). The introductory chapter could stand alone as a text for introductory students. The chapters also are clearly organized with plenty of subheadings throughout and a labeled conclusion, which, again, could be helpful for students. The book also uses relatively modern media examples, such as references to twenty-four-hour networks, Twitter, and reality television. They also make good use of journalistic artifacts, including broadcast transcripts, newspaper articles, photos, and magazine pages. Although some of the British media references might not be familiar to some, the book has a clear and simple tone that makes it accessible for readers across countries. …