Representations of the ethno-gender group ABORIGINAL WOMEN in Australian media discourse
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Introduction 4
Chapter I. Exploring Mass Media Discourse: Gender, Ethnicity, and Image Representation 7
1) Overview of Mass Media Discourse 7
1.1 Mass Media Discourse 7
1.2 Methods of Studying Media Texts 9
1.3News Reports as a Mass Media Genre 11
1.4 Structure of News Reports 12
1.5 Semantic Macro-structures 21
2) Exploring the Role of Image in Various Contexts 23
2.1 Interpretations of Category of Image in Various Fields 23
2.2 Media Image 29
2.3 The Construction of Media Image 32
3) Representation of Women in Mass Media Discourse 33
3.1 Gender vs Sex 33
3.2 A Brief History of Media Research on Gender Images 34
3.3 Stereotypes in Representation of Women in Mass Media Discourse and Consequences 37
3.4 Linguistic Means of Expressing Women in Mass Media 42
4) Investigating Ethnic Diversity in Australian Media Discourse 43
4.1 Representation of Australian Ethnic Minorities in Mass Media 43
4.2 Representation of Aboriginality in Modern Australian Media 46
4.3 Linguistic Means in the Representation of Aboriginal People in Australian Media 48
Conclusions to Chapter I 51
Chapter II.Unveiling the Portrayal of Aboriginal Women in Australian Media 52
1) Aboriginal Women behind the Headlines 52
1.1 Lexis of the Headlines 53
1.2 Thematic groups 61
1.3 Social Roles of Aboriginal Women in the Headlines 64
1.4 Key Words 65
1.5 Syntactic and Semantic Roles 68
2) Investigating Aboriginal Women in Leads 72
2.1 Representation of Aboriginal Women in Leads 72
2.2 Lexis in Leads 73
2.3 Strategies in the Representation of Aboriginal Women 77
3) Cognitive, Discourse and Frame Analyses of Media Portrayals of Australian Aboriginal Women 84
3.1 Methodology 84
3.2 Negative Representations of Aboriginal Women in Australian Media Discourse 86
3.3 Positive Representations of Aboriginal Women in Australian Media Discourse 101
Conclusions to Chapter II 111
Conclusion 112
Appendix 1 113
Analysed Materials 116
References 123
Chapter I. Exploring Mass Media Discourse: Gender, Ethnicity, and Image Representation 7
1) Overview of Mass Media Discourse 7
1.1 Mass Media Discourse 7
1.2 Methods of Studying Media Texts 9
1.3News Reports as a Mass Media Genre 11
1.4 Structure of News Reports 12
1.5 Semantic Macro-structures 21
2) Exploring the Role of Image in Various Contexts 23
2.1 Interpretations of Category of Image in Various Fields 23
2.2 Media Image 29
2.3 The Construction of Media Image 32
3) Representation of Women in Mass Media Discourse 33
3.1 Gender vs Sex 33
3.2 A Brief History of Media Research on Gender Images 34
3.3 Stereotypes in Representation of Women in Mass Media Discourse and Consequences 37
3.4 Linguistic Means of Expressing Women in Mass Media 42
4) Investigating Ethnic Diversity in Australian Media Discourse 43
4.1 Representation of Australian Ethnic Minorities in Mass Media 43
4.2 Representation of Aboriginality in Modern Australian Media 46
4.3 Linguistic Means in the Representation of Aboriginal People in Australian Media 48
Conclusions to Chapter I 51
Chapter II.Unveiling the Portrayal of Aboriginal Women in Australian Media 52
1) Aboriginal Women behind the Headlines 52
1.1 Lexis of the Headlines 53
1.2 Thematic groups 61
1.3 Social Roles of Aboriginal Women in the Headlines 64
1.4 Key Words 65
1.5 Syntactic and Semantic Roles 68
2) Investigating Aboriginal Women in Leads 72
2.1 Representation of Aboriginal Women in Leads 72
2.2 Lexis in Leads 73
2.3 Strategies in the Representation of Aboriginal Women 77
3) Cognitive, Discourse and Frame Analyses of Media Portrayals of Australian Aboriginal Women 84
3.1 Methodology 84
3.2 Negative Representations of Aboriginal Women in Australian Media Discourse 86
3.3 Positive Representations of Aboriginal Women in Australian Media Discourse 101
Conclusions to Chapter II 111
Conclusion 112
Appendix 1 113
Analysed Materials 116
References 123
Issues of gender and ethnicity have become a topic of theoretical concentration in the linguistic research agenda over the past decades. The proposed study, which seeks to examine the media portrayals of Aboriginal women in Australian press, is consistent to follow this research trend.
The first chapter of the thesis is theoretical and devoted to the definition of such categories as image, media discourse, media image, gender, etc.A brief history of media studies and gender, ethnic and media studies is indicated. Also, linguistic means for representation of women and ethnic groups are identified.
The second, practical chapter provides an analysis of Aboriginal women in the headlines, leads and in the main bodies of the articles. A comparative analysis is carried out in order to identify the differences in representation of Aboriginal women in different newspapers on a lexical, syntactic and sematic levels. The main strategies for representation of Aboriginal women were examined. Frame analysis was applied to extract the repetitive scenarios in which the target group is encountered. Content analysis was used to get some quantitative results.
The conclusion contains summary of the thesis, as well as prospects for further study of the topic and the possibility of practical application of the research results.
The subject of the current work is language representations of ethno-gender group ABORIGINAL WOMEN.
The focusof the study isAboriginal women in Australian media discourse.
The aim of the study is to explore the image of Aboriginal women in Australian media publications and identify the key linguistic strategies involved in the media construction of Aboriginal women as a social group.
Objectives are the following:
• to provide an overview of the key linguistic approaches to media discourse;
• to establish the theoretical and methodological foundations for analyzing representations of social groups in media publications;
• to present the theoretical framework for the construction means of gender and ethnic identity in media discourse;
• to investigate lexical units in the headlines and leads for representation of Aboriginal women;
• to explore syntactic and semantic roles;
• to identify thematic groups and key concepts;
• to analyse linguistic strategies involved in the representation of Aboriginal women;
• to examine negative and positive representations of Aboriginal women through the frame analysis, critical discourse analysis.
The following research methodswere applied:discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, methods of text linguistics, gender analysis, frame analysis, content analysis.
The relevance of the study is determined by the connection of the proposed research with the anthropocentric paradigm as well as the active development of discourse research in modern linguistics and the ever-increasing interest of modern scholars in problems of intersections between gender and ethnicity on the one hand and language and discourse on the other.
The theoretical significance of the study lies in deepening the construction of the image of Aboriginal women through various linguistic means, for example, the use of stereotypical lexical units or occasionalisms, emotional and evaluative markers.
The materials and results of the study can be used to develop university courses in gender linguistics and linguo-cultural studies of Australia, which yields practical significance to the proposed research.
Novelty. No systematic review of media representations of female First Australians has been undertaken until now, which adds novelty to this study. The study findings will hopefully deepen our understanding of gender and ethnicity representation.
Data sources are regional and national quality press, tabloids:
• The Age;
• The Guardian. Australia;
• The Australian Financial Review;
• The Daily Telegraph.
As material for the study, 100 articles from Australian newspaperThe Guardian. Australia were collected and analyzed. Also, it has been examined 160 headlines of the articles about Aboriginal women from TheDaily Telegraph, Australian broadsheetsThe Age and Australian Financial Review. 141 leads from 3 newspapers were analyzed: the Age, The Guardian, Australian editionandthe Financial Australian Review. The work examines the period from 2019 to 2024. Acontinuous sampling method was used to select fragments containing the technique under study.
The introduction reflects the relevance of the study, its scientific novelty, theoretical and practical significance; the theoretical and methodological basis of the study is described; the object and subject of research are named; the purpose and objectives are indicated, as well as the methods used in the work; the research material is indicated; the content of the work is given and described.
The list of used literature consists of 76 titles, 46 of which are sources in a foreign language.
The first chapter of the thesis is theoretical and devoted to the definition of such categories as image, media discourse, media image, gender, etc.A brief history of media studies and gender, ethnic and media studies is indicated. Also, linguistic means for representation of women and ethnic groups are identified.
The second, practical chapter provides an analysis of Aboriginal women in the headlines, leads and in the main bodies of the articles. A comparative analysis is carried out in order to identify the differences in representation of Aboriginal women in different newspapers on a lexical, syntactic and sematic levels. The main strategies for representation of Aboriginal women were examined. Frame analysis was applied to extract the repetitive scenarios in which the target group is encountered. Content analysis was used to get some quantitative results.
The conclusion contains summary of the thesis, as well as prospects for further study of the topic and the possibility of practical application of the research results.
The subject of the current work is language representations of ethno-gender group ABORIGINAL WOMEN.
The focusof the study isAboriginal women in Australian media discourse.
The aim of the study is to explore the image of Aboriginal women in Australian media publications and identify the key linguistic strategies involved in the media construction of Aboriginal women as a social group.
Objectives are the following:
• to provide an overview of the key linguistic approaches to media discourse;
• to establish the theoretical and methodological foundations for analyzing representations of social groups in media publications;
• to present the theoretical framework for the construction means of gender and ethnic identity in media discourse;
• to investigate lexical units in the headlines and leads for representation of Aboriginal women;
• to explore syntactic and semantic roles;
• to identify thematic groups and key concepts;
• to analyse linguistic strategies involved in the representation of Aboriginal women;
• to examine negative and positive representations of Aboriginal women through the frame analysis, critical discourse analysis.
The following research methodswere applied:discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, methods of text linguistics, gender analysis, frame analysis, content analysis.
The relevance of the study is determined by the connection of the proposed research with the anthropocentric paradigm as well as the active development of discourse research in modern linguistics and the ever-increasing interest of modern scholars in problems of intersections between gender and ethnicity on the one hand and language and discourse on the other.
The theoretical significance of the study lies in deepening the construction of the image of Aboriginal women through various linguistic means, for example, the use of stereotypical lexical units or occasionalisms, emotional and evaluative markers.
The materials and results of the study can be used to develop university courses in gender linguistics and linguo-cultural studies of Australia, which yields practical significance to the proposed research.
Novelty. No systematic review of media representations of female First Australians has been undertaken until now, which adds novelty to this study. The study findings will hopefully deepen our understanding of gender and ethnicity representation.
Data sources are regional and national quality press, tabloids:
• The Age;
• The Guardian. Australia;
• The Australian Financial Review;
• The Daily Telegraph.
As material for the study, 100 articles from Australian newspaperThe Guardian. Australia were collected and analyzed. Also, it has been examined 160 headlines of the articles about Aboriginal women from TheDaily Telegraph, Australian broadsheetsThe Age and Australian Financial Review. 141 leads from 3 newspapers were analyzed: the Age, The Guardian, Australian editionandthe Financial Australian Review. The work examines the period from 2019 to 2024. Acontinuous sampling method was used to select fragments containing the technique under study.
The introduction reflects the relevance of the study, its scientific novelty, theoretical and practical significance; the theoretical and methodological basis of the study is described; the object and subject of research are named; the purpose and objectives are indicated, as well as the methods used in the work; the research material is indicated; the content of the work is given and described.
The list of used literature consists of 76 titles, 46 of which are sources in a foreign language.
This study presents an overview of mass media discourse. Methods for studying media texts (critical discourse analysis, frame analysis, content analysis, etc.) were identified and described. Also, as far as the aim of our research was to explore news articles, structures and macro-structures of news reports were examined.
Our next step was to explore the concept of image in mass media and compare the different approaches to this concept in philosophy, psychology, cognitive linguistics and other disciplines. The next objective of the current research was to analyse gender representations in mass media. The most widespread stereotypes and their linguistic expressions were discussed.
The last paragraph of the Chapter 1 explored representations of ethnicity in Australian media discourse; key ethnic stereotypes were characterised.
Chapter 2 was dedicated to the exploration of images of Aboriginal women in Australian newspapers. The first paragraph demonstrates that Aboriginal women are represented differently in the headlines (positively and negatively). It can be explained by the fact that material was taken from different sources.
Strategies for representing Aboriginal women in leads were identified.
In the main bodies of mass media articles women are mostly depicted in a negative way as victims, perpetrators, oppressed people. At the same time, in 24% of the articles they were represented as professionals and activists: politicians, artists, rappers, etc.
All in all, Aboriginal women are represented very differently. At the same time, there is a tendency to portray these women in a negative way and to investigate only negative images. Investigation into positive images of Aboriginal women may become a valuable contribution to the study of this subject.
Our next step was to explore the concept of image in mass media and compare the different approaches to this concept in philosophy, psychology, cognitive linguistics and other disciplines. The next objective of the current research was to analyse gender representations in mass media. The most widespread stereotypes and their linguistic expressions were discussed.
The last paragraph of the Chapter 1 explored representations of ethnicity in Australian media discourse; key ethnic stereotypes were characterised.
Chapter 2 was dedicated to the exploration of images of Aboriginal women in Australian newspapers. The first paragraph demonstrates that Aboriginal women are represented differently in the headlines (positively and negatively). It can be explained by the fact that material was taken from different sources.
Strategies for representing Aboriginal women in leads were identified.
In the main bodies of mass media articles women are mostly depicted in a negative way as victims, perpetrators, oppressed people. At the same time, in 24% of the articles they were represented as professionals and activists: politicians, artists, rappers, etc.
All in all, Aboriginal women are represented very differently. At the same time, there is a tendency to portray these women in a negative way and to investigate only negative images. Investigation into positive images of Aboriginal women may become a valuable contribution to the study of this subject.
