ICOM101 Major Essay Does Media Discourse Reproduce Social Inequality?

Student Name : Pratama Robin Rachel

Discourse denotes to the various forms of representation, codes, habits, conventions associated with language are responsible for producing specific culturally and historically located meanings. Media discourse can be described as an interaction through a media platform with the help of verbal or non-verbal communication. It has been found that media can potentially influence the public. The objective of this essay is to find out the role of media discourse in reproducing social inequality. In order to meet this objective, in the following sections the concept of discourse is explained vividly along with its style of operations. A relationship between media discourse and social inequality will be established in this essay. Discourse can be referred to the manner or way of communication between individuals or group. Discourse plays a major role in determining how an individual will understand and interpret a specific thing based upon ideas, thoughts and beliefs. According to Michel Focault, discourse is an entity of sequences, codes and signs in that they are enouncements. Media discourse includes various media outlets such as radio, television, newspaper, magazine, internet etc. The inevitable power of media has been discussed in discourse studies. Many research studies have shown that media plays an important role in influencing the thought process of individuals. A multidisciplinary approach will helps to elucidate the relationship between media discourse and social inequality explicitly. Discourse is one of the most crucial social practices. The major roles of discourse are to reproduce the social representation such as knowledge, attitude, rules, ideology, values etc. It can be said the discourse is an interface between the society and its social as well as cognitive dimensions of inequality. Discourse can be a social practice which promotes discrimination and leads to negative representations of society. It is reached to the society and influences the social practices. Media discourse is considered to be very significant these days as it influences individual to generate various ideas and develop perspectives. Media is treated as a primary source for understanding the world. In other word, media helps in building the global perspective of an individual. It has been observed that discourse plays a major role in constituting the understanding of people and it clearly describes the power of media discourse. In today’s modernized world, media serves a major role in the public

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forum Journalists are entitled to express their opinion with the help of diverse sources by following the democratic principles of the government of that particular country. The significant engagement of public with the media has great implication in terms of social practices and understandings. Media discourse is not a product, it is a process. The media and its people encode a message and send it through various media channels in order to reach the audience. The audience receives the message and decodes it. This decoded message influence their understanding and perspective. Thereafter, they send feedback to the media. This is the process of media discourse. But there are many factors included in different media discourses that lead to various results by influencing people in different manners (Matheson, 2005). Media discourse includes complicated factors which have an impact on the social decision making. Different style of media discourse has different impact on people. Media discourse can be classified into two types: verbal and non-verbal. The broadcast media like television and radio deals with verbal discourse. On the other side, newspaper, magazine is non-verbal or found in written form. Television is an audio visual media and people can easily relate to it and get motivated by the imposed ideas and thoughts of the media person. Newspaper and magazines are major elements of media which are extensively responsible for developing the perspective of individual. In case of written discourse the framework can be elucidated by the following:

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Author

Text

Reader

The author writes a text which reflects his personal opinion and when the reader reads it he gets influenced by the text (O’ Keeffe, 2014). Thus the newspaper and magazine articles has great potential to move the readers. As it was stated before, discourse can be explained by multidisciplinary approach, in this essay the media discourse should be explained with the linguistics, psychology, sociology, studies of ethnicity, communications studies, socio-linguistic studies etc. In case of print media, the linguistic analysis is very important. It has been observed that language plays a crucial role in representing a message. Language is given most importance in print media as it has the capability to distort reality by subtle manipulation of language and words. The formal languages provide a neutral perspective while the print media tends to use words which express interpersonal features in order to discriminate the importance and intensity of news. Nowadays, the print media is also changing. The online newspapers has incorporated video links, audio clips etc. Moreover, there is an option to revert to the media people by sending messages regarding a particular news or article. So, the role of reader is no longer restricted to reading. The reader can mail it to others or post it to the social networking sites which also generates huge response. So, the reader is no more a passive recipient of message and can join in the process of media discourse.

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This has enabled the two way communication. So, the new framework of written discourse can be explained by the following (O’ Keeffe, 2014):

In case of broadcasting media such as radio and television the framework of media discourse is slightly different. Radio supports only audio while television is an audiovisual broadcasting platform. Language is also important for spoken media but the research studies have shown that more importance needs to be given on sociological studies. The programs can potentially influence its audience as they can easily connect with the verbal communication. In this case the audience plays the role of receiver. The radio or television program is the encoded message sent by the media people. These programs influence the thought process of an individual or group which is also reflected in social practices. The pattern of communication, selection of subject and the structure of the program are the main components which motivate the audience. It has a great impact on social interaction. The discussion or communication between the presenter and guest leads to generation of ideas and it reflects the though process of these people. The audience follows their ideas and style of communication which penetrates their own perception. Sometimes, their perception gets strengthen by these programs or sometimes it gets completely changed. The following diagram will help to elucidate the basic framework of the spoken discourse:

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The spoken media discourse is changing with the evolution of media. Social media is emerging and it plays an important role in changing the framework of spoken discourse. Earlier the audience was a passive element who used to receive the encoded message and decode it. It helped to change its understanding and influence their thought process. But, now with the help of internet the role of the audience is changing. The radio and television shows can be broadcasted again. The social network sites connect with large number of audience where they can exchange their own ideas, thoughts regarding a particular issue, show, news, debate etc. The audience can send their feedback through e-mails and social network sites. So, the scenario of media discourse in case of both verbal and non-verbal communication is rapidly changing and the framework of discourse is getting reoriented. The following diagram will help in describing the present framework of spoken discourse (Tannen and Trester, 2013):

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From the above section an idea about the media discourse and its framework can be understood. The potential and power of media in controlling the though process and activities of an individual and group is observed. In the next section the focus will be given on the role of media discourse in generating social inequality. The strong impact of media on individual is described and it can be both positive and negative. Sometimes the media discourse gives right news to the public which helps in right decision making. But sometimes biased opinions or intonation can mislead a person and generate undesired result. It has been observed that media discourse leads to social inequality. Social inequality can be generated by group dominance by a social power, racism, gender biasness, isolation of social groups etc. Media discourse is extensively responsible for promoting social inequality. There are some aspects of media discourse which leads to the social inequality. The major aspects are discussed below: Selection of topic in media is a significant aspect. It has been observed that topics related to ethnicity or racism is not free. When a person belonging to ethnic minority group or immigrant participates in a conversation or he comes in a conversation the socio cultural difference is often pointed out. The deviation of the ruling or established norms are recognized which creates a negative impact on the audience. The media stories are also responsible for creating social inequality. It has been observed that the narrative programs, talks lead to an argument which is most likely to be negative. The 7

cognitive representation of ethnic events discussed by media do not give emphasize on finding solution. It focuses on pointing out the problems created by the minority groups that affect the other people of society. The semantic moves of the media involve too much use of disclaimers. The style of representing an issue is not always same. A tinge of biasness is observed in the representation and that also demonstrate a significant social inequality. It is often observed that while referring to ethnic minority group, the media people use the term ‘they’ which implies a distance. The differentiation made during the media discourse leads to social inequality (DIJK, 2014). Racism can be explained by the ethnic dominance against minor ethnic groups, immigrants, refugees etc. Abusing social power is not legal and this practice basically leads to social inequality. The social discrimination is made based on income, employment, knowledge or education, respect etc. It has two dimensions- social and cognitive. The social practices exclude the ethnically different groups from accessing the social resources and human rights. Cognitive dimension of social inequality is consisted of stereotype, beliefs, prejudice, ethnic ideologies etc. It is observed that when media is covering an event or issue of the ethnic minorities it do not write about the ethnic group, its culture and positive things. The newspapers along with other media points out the incident of violence, conflict within the ethnic groups and problem created by them for the rest of the society. Crimes committed by the ethnic minorities such as theft, drug dealing etc are covered by the media. The immigration issues and its problem receive more attention from the media houses. This creates a negative perception of the ethnic minor groups among the public. In the editorial the biasness and the ideologies of the press gets reflected which is undesired. Discrimination and racism is promoted by the media by choosing offensive and words and rhetoric of the newspaper reports (Bell and Garrett, 1998). Apart from racism, media discourse leads to other social inequalities in terms of gender and class. The male chauvinism is depicted in mass media. Though there is an increase in female employees in media, it is observed that there is a slow acceptance of the major demands of the feminist movements. Women are discriminated in the media houses and gets less access to the higher editorial posts. Even today, it is observed

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that most of the journalists and employees are men. As a result, it is found that the major topics are male-oriented. Many media houses give less importance to the gender issues unless those are fait divers. The issues associated with feminism are largely ignored and problematized. It is assumed that the readers are male and the news is represented in that manner. The audience is not getting aware of these issues as the media houses are less interested to enlighten feminist activities. Thus the media discourse leads to social inequality by promoting gender biasness (Richardson and Burridge, 2011). Media pays more attention to the elite class and issues related to them while minority group and women receive less attention from them. It has been observed that the business news focuses on the elite class of the business and ignores the workfloor. Though the working class contributes most to the growth of the economy, the media houses tend to ignore them and they are taken for granted. The major issues of health hazards, safety issues in workplace, exploitations are underreported except some major cases which are noted as big incidents. Thus, being biased media promotes social inequality by discriminating (Talbot, 2007). From the above discussion the concept of discourse can be understood. The major objective and types of media discourse is discussed in the above sections. The framework of media discourse is changing due to emergence of internet and social media. It is found that the media has great impact on the social decision making of individual and groups. Media can easily influence public. So, it should cautious about its activity and discourse. It can be concluded that there are certain aspects of media which are responsible for promoting social inequalities. The social inequalities such as racism, gender biasness, class differentiation is created by the approach of the media persons. The negative attitude towards ethnic minority groups, less coverage of feminism issues, ignoring the problems of working class are found to be the main reasons of social inequality promoted by media discourse.

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Reference:
Bell, A. and Garrett, P. (1998). Approaches to media discourse. 1st ed. Oxford: Blackwell. DIJK, T. (2014). DISCOURSE AND INEQUALITY. [online] www.discourses.org. Available http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/Discourse%20and%20inequality.pdf [Accessed 19 May. 2014]. Matheson, D. (2005). Media discourses. 1st ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press. O’Keeffe, A. (2014). Media and discourse analysis. [online] www.dspace.mic.ul.ie. Available at: http://dspace.mic.ul.ie/bitstream/10395/1681/2/O%E2%80%99Keeffe,%20A.%20(2 011)%20%E2%80%98Media%20and%20Discourse%20Analysis%E2%80%99(Boo k%20Chapter).pdf [Accessed 19 May. 2014]. Richardson, J. and Burridge, J. (2011). Analysing media discourses. 1st ed. London: Routledge. Talbot, M. (2007). Media discourse. 1st ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Tannen, D. and Trester, A. (2013). Discourse 2.0. 1st ed. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. at:

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