Persuasive power of news - mere fiction?

Poster presentation by Theresa Trögl at the 11th AILA-Europe Junior Researcher Meeting in Applied Linguistics, September 26-28, 2019 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

In recent years, researchers have become increasingly interested in the way language is used in the context of news. However, less attention has been paid to the possible effects evaluative language in news articles could have on assessments made in responding user comments. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the way journalists evaluate political decisions in news reports affects the way readers assess these actions online.

To approach this issue, Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal framework, an extension of the linguistic theories of M.A.K. Halliday and his colleagues, has been applied which provides an elaborate structure for the in-depth analysis of evaluation in English. Results show that evaluative choices in user comments could be related to evaluative choices in hard news reports regarding the categories of Judgement (i.e. the reasons for Judgement), but not with respect to the polarity of Judgement (i.e. positive or negative Judgement). Further, the results reveal that the expected trend of negativity in online comments could be confirmed, and an extreme amount of US related negativity could be detected in comments responding to the news reports. Moreover, the results provide strong support for Jullian’s (2011) notion of the power of quotations as attributions could be identified as indirect means of Appraisal for the journalists who produced the reports. Based on the findings of this research, it is suggested that the influence journalists have on the positive or negative assessment of political actions in responding user comments is rather limited.

Trögl, Theresa. 2019. Evaluative choices in hard news reports and user comments: an Appraisal analysis. Diploma Thesis, University of Vienna.