So I decided I would check out an article from a New Zealand newspaper to apply Fairclough's elements of media studies. Relative to the United States, I discovered that New Zealand is also going through an election season and the topic of the recent wallstreet woes is of great importance. I chose this article because it writes about a topic we Americans face in the newspapers daily, not to mention read about everywhere on the internet. I don't think many Americans realize how much it is influencing the rest of the world, and that is exactly why I wanted to read about their perspective.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/vote08/4719479a28479.html
This article definitely is written as a form of information for the public sphere (of New Zealand I guess, to be more specific). When analyzing the representation I noticed that the article included lots of talk about the two parties and their political actions on this situation in relation to the election and subsequently the people of New Zealand. This included lots of talk about tax cuts (the main point of the article), the fall of the dollar, and the many other negative consequences that New Zealand is suffering. What I noticed was excluded was the fallout itself, who is affected and how, and maybe their opinion of what caused it. These things are usually mentioned in the American reports of anything mentioning Wall street and stocks these days.
I'm not sure if I'm using presupposition accurately but I find that this article assumes that the economy is done for and it scared me. I think its the way the author suggests the downfall of their entire economy and offers up solutions or situations that seem so final and pessimistic. The vocabulary used adds to this effect by painting such a dark mood. Using words like "grim", "knife", "carnage", "stunned", "diving", "bare", "crisis", and "one light on the horizon".
The event in this article is the definitely the fallout and the resulting tax cut solutions while the action in this event surrounds the government and the political parties. The author nominalizes both the National and Labour parties and in many instances provides active duties for them such as "National reins in tax cuts" or " National has taken a knife...". There are many other examples within the article.
Through the article the author tends to use more formulation style writing when mentioning specific people's opinions. Rather than quote them, he always does a he says/she says style of reporting opinion that shows he is not directly quoting and probably choosing how and what he wants them to say to accommodate the article's purpose. If you see toward the end he mentions a Mr. Key and a Miss Clark but offers no direct quotes.
I also wanted to note that I found it incredibly interesting that they only mention the United States once and that is when they mentioned the price of oil in terms of the US dollar. I didn't realize how hard other countries were taking hits in regards to this financial crisis.
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2 comments:
Kehau,
I really liked how you found an article that was another country's view on what is happening in the US. I think Americans presuppose that what is affecting us here is not of much importance to those around the world (probably because Americans tend to not pay attention to the rest of the world). You did a good job analyzing what was foregrounded and presupposed.
When I was in New Zealand this summer the people I stayed with seemed very interested in how our economy was doing and said that it mattered because of their own elections. I was on the South Island and it was interesting to see the what they said versus what the national news reports were saying. The South Island in general was a lot more conservative, and I think the presuppositions made by the media in New Zealand were geared to a more Northern Island audience.
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