Discourse and Manipulation in the Representation of the Russian Military Intervention in the Syrian Civil War

Abstract

<p class="1"><span lang="X-NONE">This article is concerned with exploring conflicting media positions as reflected in the discursive patterns of news headlines and leads. Using Halliday’s transitivity analysis, this study examines how the Russian Military Intervention in the Syrian Civil War was socially, discursively and linguistically represented in the CNN and RT coverage of the event. The analysis examines the process of news making, role of ideology, and types of relationships between the news agencies and the political institutions in the United States and Russia. The aim is to show the discursive power of news agencies in creating different realities of the same event through language use. Results indicate that media are a political actor in the dissemination of both Russian and American views on the Syrian conflict. Although RT and CNN write about the same issue, the language choices made and underlying ideologies are different. The conflicting ideologies of both CNN and RT were highlighted by the use of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation in order to support self’s ideological positions and distort other’s political stances.</span></p>

Understanding the ideological construction of the Gulf crisis in Arab media discourse: A critical discourse analytic study of the headlines of Al Arabiya English and Al Jazeera English

“…Findings of this study also support findings from other studies on Arab media discourse (e.g. Abdulmajid, 2019;Abdulmalik Ali and Omar, 2016;Ethelb, 2016;Zeng and Tahat, 2012) and confirm that AAE and AJE have been (and are still) two important media tools heavily employed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar respectively to gain political leverage; seek regional consensus around their policies; and advance their ideological, political and economic agenda. In addition, The analysis of the headlines of AAE and AJE has empirically demonstrated how headlines can be a site where contending ideologies (ideas in Gramsci's sense) are manifested and where the discursive construction of the crisis is manipulated to covertly mobilize support for the geopolitical interests of the different states involved in the conflict.…”

“…As such, the scope of this study falls within the purview of critical discourse analysis (CDA) studies of media discourse and shall, therefore, contribute to the scholarship generated in this regard so far and shall also enrich the burgeoning body of literature on Arab media discourse (e.g. Abdulmajid, 2019;Abdulmalik Ali and Omar, 2016;Al Nahed, 2016;Badreya, 2014;Bazzi, 2009;Bosio, 2013;Damanhoury and Saleh, 2017;Doui, 2019;El-Nawawy and Catherine, 2012;Ethelb, 2016;Fahmy and Al Emad, 2011;Hafez, 2001;Lahlali, 2011aLahlali, , 2011bZayani, 2005;Zeng and Tahat, 2012).…”

Media Bias: A Corpus-based Linguistic Analysis of Online Iranian Coverage of the Syrian Revolution

“…Following the same categorization scheme of analysis, Ali and Omar (2016) examined the discursive patterns in the reporting of the intervention of Russian forces in Syria during the current civil war. They employed Halliday's transitivity model to examine the headlines and the leads of CNN and RT (i.e.…”

Semantic Framing of JIHAD in the Holy Qur’an and Selected Web Narratives: A Contrastive Discourse Analytic Study

“…Kenzhekanova et al (2015) focus more precisely on manipulation in political discourse of mass media, highlighting the tools of speech manipulation (TSM) on the phonographic, lexical, grammatical as well as lexical-pragmatic levels. Ali and Omar (2016) investigate the role of manipulative discourse in media representation of Russian military intervention in Syria, with special focus on headlines and lead stories. Results of the study show how the linguistic structures used in the Russia Today (RT) and the CNN reflect the different ideologies presented by both cable networks towards this intervention.…”