English-speaking Media Research Articles

Metaphorical nominations of national leaders of the past as a phenomenon of actual political communication

The article is devoted to the analysis of the metaphorical nomination of the subject as an instrument of deep-datified mediatization of a political incident of a special nature - the death/departure from active politics of a political leader on a national scale. The theoretical basis is the theory of deep mediatization, the cognitive theory of metaphor and the sociology of memory. The authors prove that the analysis of the metaphorical nominations of outstanding statesmen who left this world makes it possible to identify the public's attitude to the current state of political problematization and the structural profile of current political conflicts. Media texts and user-generated content in foreign English-language media were selected as empirical material for analysis. The resulting dataset is analyzed on the basis of the theory of metaphor in political discourse. The article shows that the death/departure from active politics of a political leader of the distant or relatively close past acts as a significant information event that generates the actualization of the political discursive field in a datatized online environment. English-language online media or online versions of traditional media were selected by the monitoring method in the system Semanticforce.ai : Associated Press, Bloomberg News, Reuters for the period 08.30.2022 ‒ 09.10.2022. A total of 12320 texts were taken into account. By means of lexical and semantic analysis, the nominations were selected from the texts and their classification into lexical and thematic groups was carried out. As a result of the study, it is shown that the death/departure from active politics of a political leader of the distant or relatively close past acts as a significant information event that generates the actualization of the political discursive field in a datatized online environment. - English-speaking online media assess the personality of Mikhail Gorbachev in a generally positive way: one of a kind, democrat, peacemaker, etc. - The thematic group of lexemes with the meaning of paradoxicity and inconsistency in English-speaking media is one of the most representative in the analyzed media discourse. - The paradoxical nature of personality assessment is linked to the counter-predictive assessment of Mikhail Gorbachev's activities during his presidency in European and Russian politics.

The Geopolitics of Peace in a Post-Western World – Special Invited Lecture

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AS A PRESCRIPTION FOR PEACE We are in the midst of an extraordinarily dangerous and destructive hot war in Ukraine, and there is now daily talk about the prospects of a US-China war in Asia, perhaps over Taiwan. Such an expanded war is too horrific to contemplate, and yet it has become the casual discourse of US op-ed columns almost daily. The people who write these columns are not thinking straight, are not knowledgeable, and indeed are utterly irresponsible. We cannot afford a continuation of the current war, and we cannot afford a war between the US and China. That would be the end of civilisation. There is also the idea that the Ukraine war will not spiral into a nuclear war. The English-speaking media, especially in the UK and the US, tells us not to worry, and that it is unlikely that Putin will use nuclear weapons. The media tell us not to be afraid. Let me tell you: Be afraid. The world is not in safe hands right now. The governments in the United States, here in the UK, and around the world, are truly dangerous to our health and wellbeing. It is our responsibility to think clearly because our lives depend on it. I have been thinking a lot about the Ukraine war, and I am very concerned. This is a war that is extraordinarily dangerous and should never have happened (see the Addendum). This is not simply a war that Putin decided to launch, unprovoked, on February 24, 2022. That is nonsense for anyone who has been around. I was an adviser to President Mikhail Gorbachev; I was advisor to President Boris Yeltsin; I was advisor to President Leonid Kuchma, the first president of independent Ukraine; and to others. What you’re being told about this conflict and others is simply not true. I say that based on firsthand experience of more than 30 years.

Coverage of the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine in the English-Speaking Media as an Antidote to the Soviet Disinformation Policy

Coverage of the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine in the English-Speaking Media as an Antidote to the Soviet Disinformation Policy

The Pronunciation of the Capital of Ukraine in English-Speaking Media

Speaker identity is one of the factors that might play a role in the realisation of sounds. Previous studies have observed that phonetic variations, alongside the formation of speaker’s identity, can index political meaning. This article aims at analysing a politically conditioned variation in rendering the name of the capital of Ukraine. Though the change from ‘Kiev’ to ‘Kyiv’ precedes the beginning of the Russian war in Ukraine, the analysis shows 24 February, 2022 has accelerated the process. Contrary to the general tendency for a language change to manifest first in the spoken mode and then proceed to writing, the findings indicate faster shift from ‘Kiev’ to ‘Kyiv’ in written English.

EUPHEMISM TRANSFORMATION IN THE CONTEXT OF MILITARY LANGUAGE

The article analyzes modern approaches to the interpretation of military euphemisms moreover understanding the difference between political correctness and hybrid war. The article presents the study of the functioning of military-political euphemisms in modern English language on the example of war in Ukraine in the means of mass communication. Significance of the given research is stipulated by the vivid interest to the matters of euphemism, in the context of military terms, penetrated into all areas of activity, especially in mass media language style. The results reflect the general state of achieving the goal and performing tasks in clarifying the concept of “euphemism”, besides this determines the functional and pragmatic features of military-political euphemisms, linguistic means of countering the manipulation of the recipients’ consciousness by using military-political euphemisms in the media space under the conditions of a hybrid war. The article focuses on the importance of euphemism formation and its overcoming: an exposure of “language corruption” as one of the manipulation types, as well as, detection of the so-called “foreign meanings” in the war language. The research deals with the theoretical background on the usage of military euphemisms not only in English-speaking media. Ukrainian example is taken into consideration

NON-VIOLENT UKRAINISATION: MODERN FREEDOM WEARS YELLOW-AND-BLUE

The paper addresses the issue of frame analysis of discourse fragments related to the high-scale war in Ukraine started by russian federation on the 24th of February 2022. The article outlines the peculiarities of Ukraine/Ukraine-related mentions in English-speaking media online discourse, the presence and accumulation of which, gives the grounds for them to be united under the notion of UKRAINISATION. The work prioritised 1) the collection of the corpus of Ukraine-connected mentions in the online available English-speaking media; 2) the selection and analysis of the basic schemas of evoked as well as invoked frames; and 3) the description of the current frames connected with Ukraine and Ukrainians. The elements of frame analyses in terms of onomasiological and semasiological approaches were used to identify the basic frame serving as a construct of the information that pertains to a particular event or a notion associated with Ukraine and Ukrainians worldwide. The corpus of the discourse fragments was retrieved from online English-speaking media; it underwent the sorting out based on the aspect its constituents appeal to. Such aspects as: expressing admiration, support (both verbally and non-verbally), showing solidarity, demonstrating sharing of same values, seeing and understanding of russian war in Ukraine. In the paper the model of non-violent Ukrainisation is offered, which supports the idea that Ukrainisation has become an embodiment of supporting modern democratic values shared by democratic societies.

Analysing Russian Reaction to 2021 U.S. Capitol Riots

On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. was attacked by a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump. More than 70 countries and international organisations expressed their concerns over the 2021 United States Capitol attack and condemned the violence. While governments around the world have expressed outrage and sadness over rioting that engulfed the U.S. Capitol, some media (for example, VOA) reported that ‘Russia took a different view -- namely, vindication with a bit of gloating’ under the headline ‘As US Reels From Capitol Violence, Russia Enjoys the Show’. What was Russia’s reaction to the events in Washington? Russian high-ranking politicians responses to the U.S. Capitol rioters were widely quoted in English-speaking media. But the angle offered for foreign audiences did not always coincide with the media narrative developed for domestic consumption. This paper examines media interpretation of the U.S. riots which was offered by the Russian media for Russian-speaking audiences. The paper follows the discourse of pro-Kremlin media during the period of 1 month after the protests began, analysing discursive frames which represented different interpretations of the events, particularly within the context of comparing the suppression of opposition protests in Russia with the prosecution of the U.S. Capitol rioters.

DEVELOPING MEDIA BY USING JENGA FOR TEACHING SPEAKING TO 10TH GRADE AT SMA GAJAH MADA MEDAN

This study aims to develop media of teaching speaking to 10th Grade at SMA Gajah Mada developed by using Jenga. The research was conducted by using developmental research, the research will be used to develop new products and procedures. This study was conducted through six phases of Research and Development (R&D) design; data collection and data collection, data analysis, material design, expert validation, revision, and final product. The data were gathered by conducting an interview to English teacher and distributing questionnaire to 22 respondents to get the students’ needs. The results of the interview and questionnaire indicate that students need English-speaking media that can inspire and enable students to speak English actively. The board game and other Jenga equipment such as blocks, dice, and cards were the result of the product. Experts have validated the products. It can be inferred that the media was valid with the maximum score was 140 for the excellent result. The results showed 92.1% or 129 from the first validator and 90% or 126 from the second validator, and it was classified as important, appropriate and possible to use as learning media for students.Keywords: Jenga for Teaching Speaking, Speaking Media, Research and Development (R&D)

Ecological consciousness of the XXI century human and the ways of its verbalization in the media discourse environment

The paper aims at studying and analyzing the language implementation of the development of peoples ecological consciousness in the present-day Russian and English-speaking media discourse environment. The modern media discourse has become an important source of various environmental lexical units which can affect peoples consciousness and change their behavior in a more eco-friendly way. The research is based on two parallel and opposite scientific approaches integrated in the media discourse which are ecologisation and anthropocentrism. The study is built on the analysis of the language models of ecological issues in different popular national and international media editions of Russia and English-speaking countries; in TV documentaries; on YouTube channels; in eco-friendly bloggers speeches and texts. The findings of the research showed that the media discourse environment is actively inculcating green ideas into peoples consciousness today both in Russia and abroad. More people are trying to follow the conscious consumption lifestyle. The media language is also becoming an important tool in introducing new environmental lexical units - neologisms - which are easily disseminated in the media discourse space and are actively being adopted by society. Overall, this research has confirmed the idea that the present-day language of the media discourse space is a powerful mediator of a new life sustainable development philosophy which helps human consciousness evolve in an eco-friendly way and try to make our planet a safer, healthier and more comfortable place for living.

Ideology in the Translation of Political Speeches during the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Ideology plays a central role in people’s lives and thus in shaping politicians’ decisions and translators’ choices. This role becomes clearer and more active in the context of the Middle East political domain, due to the constant ideological conflict in the region. This paper aims to analyse the translations of political speeches delivered by the Hamas and Hezbollah leaders during two Arab-Israeli conflicts: Lebanon War 2006 and Gaza War 2008/9. These translations often took the form of news reports that included translated excerpts from the speeches. The study suggests that there was a degree of distortion in the translation and editing processes by key English-speaking media outlets. Certain ideological strategies and devices were used by news outlets to manipulate the translation of the messages embedded in the speeches. The study investigates the role of the translator as well as the patron in deciding the outcome of the translation process.

The Language of Power in the Present-Day Digital Media Discourse and Its Effect on Young People’s Consciousness

This study focuses on the notion of power as a way of conceptualisation, representation and functioning in the Russian and English-speaking media discourse and its role in the life of the younger generation of the third millennium. Power and its language have always remained an actual research question of interdisciplinary scientific analysis. However, studying young people’s linguistic and paralinguistic perception of power in the era of digitalisation becomes extremely important due to an empowering role young adults have started playing in modern society employing new media and their discursive communication there. The study regards the theoretical background of the phenomenon of power, based on A. Gramsci’s hegemonic approach. The authors of the research suggest that the media discourse is a hegemonic form of power that maintains its position through the elaboration of a particular worldview, which makes a significant impact on young individuals, the so-called net-generation. The study relies on free-associative and graphic experiments to analyse and perceive “power” concept and its influence on young individuals’ consciousness. Results indicate that both Russian and English-speaking media discourse represents “power” through the prism of anthroponyms as well as toponyms. Besides, the findings of the free-associative experiment, conducted among young adults, demonstrated the dominance of the lexical units belonging to the same grammatical class of words as the stimulus word “power”. Furthermore, a graphic experiment revealed young people’s emotional evaluations of power in media discourse communication. As such, the results suggest that “power” is a natural, complex and multifaceted linguacultural and social phenomenon realised through a variety of linguistic and paralinguistic means, and it produces a dualistic effect on young people’s consciousness through their interaction in the media discourse space.

English-language media discourse in the digital age: psychological mechanisms of functioning

The article raises the problem of the English-language media discourse which in its interaction with the basic psychological mechanisms of human consciousness (goal-setting, attitude and reflection) at the age of digitalization has created a new form of media discourse environment providing communication and influence on both native English speakers and non-native ones. The theoretical, as well as statistical and content analyses conducted in the research, allowed identifying two media blocks (two types of media discourses) in the English-speaking media world that have different goal-setting mechanisms, attitudes and reflection levels. The findings of the study based on the example of a political theme zone frequently circulated in the English-language media discourse demonstrated how the interaction and mutual influence between the psychological mechanisms and the media discourse are changed and depend on whether the information flow is generated by the institutional English-language media discourse or it is presented and promoted by individual media actors.

“Everyone Deserves a Smartphone?”: Understanding the Media’s Legitimation of Mobile Technology Use by Syrian Refugees

This study investigates English-speaking media’s legitimation of smartphone uses by Syrian refugees to explore how “otherness” is negotiated through technologies. Qualitatively examining the media coverage of the Syrian refugees’ use of smartphones between early 2015 and early 2017, we identified rhetorical devices and narrative strategies. The findings indicated a gradual shift in mediated legitimation strategies. In this process, two major themes emerged: (1) strategies to legitimate uses of technology and (2) demystifying refugees. The first theme identified that media articles focused on refugees’ instrumental uses of smartphones over the emotional uses as a legitimation strategy, utilizing metaphors and referencing third parties. The second theme showed media coverage further debunked conflation over poverty and precarity while negotiating otherness. Over time, the media coverage started to fall into the “humanitarian imaginary” of refugees by keeping them at the margins as people who need aid, largely limiting their legitimated mobile phone use to pragmatic uses. The findings contribute to understanding how media coverage can shape the way people make sense of the refugee population at a moment in time of technological appropriation amid ongoing political crises.

Increasing brain-computer interface media depictions: pressing ethical concerns

ABSTRACTThis article explores how brain-computer interfaces (BCI) are depicted in the English-speaking media, especially by news outlets. We use the FACTICA database to analyze depictions of BCIs from the first time the term appeared in the media (1993) up until 31 December 2017. We found a sample of over 4064 articles on BCIs. Results indicate that 76.91% of articles portrayed BCI positively, including 25.27% that were overly positive, while 26.64 % of the total articles contain claims about BCI-enabled enhancement. In contrast, 1.6% of articles had a negative tone and only 2.7% of articles flag issues explicitly related to ethical concerns surrounding BCI technology. We propose: 1) A proactive effort by the scientific community to push-out to the media stories focused on the limits and actual capabilities of BCIs, separating science from science fiction; 2) More influence should be brought to bear on the technological risks and process of informed consent.

Dispatches from Haiti, 2010

Haiti is a country that appears fleetingly in the English-speaking media, when stricken by disaster or more recently by epithets. Perhaps few are aware that Haiti was the first independent nation in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the world’s first black republic—independence declared on January 1, 1804—in a revolution led by former slaves who defeated Napoleon’s 40,000-strong colonial forces. Or that, when others abandoned the independence wars against Spain, Simon Bolivar appealed to Haitian president Alexandre Petion and with Petion’s troops and material aid, went on to free slaves across Spanish-held colonies in Latin America. Over the centuries, the Haitian people have indeed been beset by disasters, both natural and man-made. But they have also stood against daunting odds and have received solidarity from their hemispheric neighbors, Cuba among the countries allied with Haiti’s attempts to provide for its people. In this Retrospective, MEDICC Review reprints excerpts from a blog by Senior Editor Conner Gorry, who, during February and March 2010, was embedded in the disaster-response medical team sent from Cuba after the January 12 earth-quake. The team reinforced nearly 500 Cuban health per-sonnel already on the ground long term in 120 communities. Some 700 of the 1300 new arrivals were students or graduates of Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine from 27 countries. Haitian graduates now number 1044. The international contingent (named after Henry Reeve, a Brooklyn-born general in Cuba’s own independence struggle)—became the largest medical relief effort assembled after the quake. The vivid stories here take us back to the urgency and chaos of those first weeks and months after disaster struck. But Haitian, Cuban and other Cuban-trained doctors dedicated to Haiti’s recovery—its long-term health care needs and strengthened public health system—provide an example of commitment to social equity and human solidarity in the face of enormous challenges. And their work with those from other countries proves effective cross-border, cross-cultural collaboration can work. Today, there are 664 Cuban health professionals collabo-rating in Haiti, 175 of them doctors posted throughout the country. In 2017 alone, they carried out 2.64 million patient consults, performed 40,842 surgeries, and delivered 5788 babies (many times working with local midwives). They labor in 21 community reference hospitals built with funds from Venezuela; 31 rehabilitation centers, also built after the 2010 earthquake; 14 health centers; and 29 sentinel sites for epidemiological surveillance (mainly for cholera and vector-borne diseases). A national workshop for orthotics and prosthetics was also established to assist earthquake victims, with equipment and other resources provided by Cuba. The Editors

Dispatches from Haiti, 2010.

In this Retrospective, MEDICC Review reprints excerpts from a blog by Senior Editor Conner Gorry, who, during February and March 2010, was embedded in the disaster-response medical team sent from Cuba after the January 12 earthquake. The team reinforced nearly 500 Cuban health personnel already on the ground long term in 120 communities. Some 700 of the 1300 new arrivals were students or graduates of Cuba's Latin American School of Medicine from 27 countries. Haitian graduates now number 1044. The international contingent (named after Henry Reeve, a Brooklyn-born general in Cuba's own independence struggle) became the largest medical relief effort assembled after the quake.

“Reservoir of rage swamps Wall St”

AbstractOriginating on New York’s Wall Street, the Occupy movement was “an international network of protests against social and economic inequality that began in [September] 2011 in response to the downturn of 2008” (Thorson et al. 2013, 427). Whilst there has been research on online activity in relation to Occupy, the scope of linguistic analysis to date has been somewhat narrow. Furthermore, the focus on new media has indirectly led to an absence of analysis of institutionally-endorsed traditional media texts. We adopt a mixed-method approach of corpus analysis and discourse analysis of national newspaper articles to answer questions such as ‘Is Occupy associated with a semantic field of violence and aggression?’ and ‘Who is represented as having agency?’ Our results indicate that, in our small corpus of media texts, Occupy and its supporters were predominantly portrayed negatively at the movement’s height; even though protesters are reported to have been peaceful in their majority, the English-speaking media we analysed still aligns them with language suggestive of aggression, conflict and even violence.

Quantifying the Intersection of Democracy, Ethics and Media: A Comparative Assessment of Democratic Values in Journalistic Ethics Codes from Leading Democratic Nations

Given the capacity for public opinion to be swayed by media organizations, it is highly important that such organizations are ethical in their decisions as to which aspects of public life to expose, the context in which they situate them within, and the source of data being presented as fact. Hence, this study examines the relationship between a nation’s level of democracy, and the emphasis of democratic values expressed in such country’s most prominent media ethics codes. In specific, this paper will address three preeminent and interrelated questions: (1) Does the breadth and depth of democratic values in media ethics codes of the world’s leading democratic countries correlate to any marginal difference in its level of democracy? (2) Which values do media ethics codes, overall, adequately emphasize and on which values can they improve? (3) Is there great variance in the democratic values expressed in media ethics codes’ between those created by third sector associations and private sector publications in democracies with significant English speaking media? This study finds that (i) marginal democracy is correlated to the strongest private sector publication within its jurisdication and thus ethics codes remain important, (ii) that values relating to opinion poll citations, digital ethics and understanding media's role on society are widely excluded from codes and (iii) that ethics codes created by publications themselves are much more comprehensive than their third sector counterparts.

Celebrity, Diplomacy, Documentary:Javier Bardem and Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony

This article examines the ways in which Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony, the 2012 documentary directed by the Spanish filmmaker Alvaro Longoria and produced by the Spanish actor Javier Bardem, makes use of celebrity activism and diplomacy in order to reach an international audience and directly pressure the United Nations to intervene in what the film frames primarily as a question of human rights and freedom from oppression. Despite Senator Edward Kennedy’s sympathy to the Sahrawi cause and the attention devoted to it by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, it was a little-known issue in the U.S. before Bardem began to talk about it on a variety of talk and news shows while promoting the James Bond thriller Skyfall (2012). Michael Renov has argued that, although we generally think of documentary in terms of social activism and the discourses of sobriety, desire and the unconscious may play an important role in this genre as well. In this case, Bardem’s ‘sex appeal’ draws viewers to his viewpoint, and his considerable fame within the English-speaking media world, in which actors are expected to share personal tidbits as they pitch their latest projects, gives him a platform to present this issue as an extension of his charming persona.

‘Who can tell, mon ami?’

French stylization can frequently be observed in the English-speaking media under the form of faked French accents or performed personas as is the case with Poirot’s TV character. In the popular ITV drama adaptation of the well-known eponymous novels of Agatha Christie, dialogues in English are peppered with French words. This paper will analyse the functions of these tokens of bilingualism and will show that they are used as a form of ethnosymbolism (Haarmann 1986). In this article, I argue that the actor’s performance is a representation of the foreign language and culture for a mainly monolingual audience. For Androutsopoulos (2007: 222), it is a matter of ‘styling ethnic otherness for majority audiences’. I relate the staging of salient linguistic traits to folk linguistics and more particularly to the beliefs a speech community carries on another speech community and its ways of speaking. In order to identify popular conceptions regarding transfers from L1 French, the lines of the Belgian sleuth are analysed on lexical, pragmatic and syntactic levels.