THE BRITISH PRESS COVERAGE OF THE NORTHERN IRELAND ISSUE AND THE WAR OF IRAQ (2003)

Abstract

There is no doubt that biased news stories resulting from the non objective portrayal of power relations, dominance and hegemony, regional and international conflicts and wars, social injustice and inequality, discrimination and racism, and so forth are daily embedded in the print media. More importantly, the press reaches large segments of population who are, to some extent, still unconscious of the implicit ideological maneuvers incorporated in the legitimization of certain polarized viewpoints. Since language is the medium whereby ideology is crafted, the critical study of language therefore becomes a cornerstone to any purposeful examination of the underlying processes and mechanisms of the ideological persuasion in the written discourse. Although the study of ideology is an old subject, the authentic challenge to this field has come from the findings of Critical Discourse Analysis which paved the way for a more critical based approach.

This research work examines the ideological perspectives of the British quality newspapers with regard to the Northern Ireland issue and the War of Iraq (2003) using Critical Discourse Analysis as a methodological tool. In the frame of this research work, views and contributions of some leading scholars like Teun A.Van Dijk and Roger Fowler, which are central tenets in modern CDA, specifically in the study of news discourse, form the backbone of the adopted methodological approach.