Strategic Functions in CNN’s Media Discourse An Ideological Strategy To Win People’s Support A Critical Discourse Analysis Study

Abstract

The present study investigates the possibility of utilizing the four strategic functions of political discourse initiated by Chilton and Schaffner (1997) to analyze media discourse. The paper is concerned with how Cable News Network (CNN) employs the four strategic functions within its media discourse to convey its media message to its readers, reflecting the concept of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’. Hence, this research contributes to the realization of strategic functions notion in media discourse, in general, CNN’s news discourse, in particular, by analyzing presupposition and the hidden ideologies behind. It seeks to answer the following question: Can strategic functions be established and utilized within the media discourse to convey ideological media message to the recipients? van Dijk’s theory of Ideological Square (1998) will be utilized to clarify CNN’s presentation of positive ‘Self’ and negative ‘Other’ (in and out groups). Wodak’s historical discourse approach for CDA (2009) will be integrated to provide the readers with the needed background information to understand the text. Fairclough’s 2-dimentional approach for CDA (1995) will be employed to organize the process of analysis. The linguistic analysis of CNN’s news text that concerns with Arab-spring Yemen approves that the strategic functions concept can be detected within media discourse.