Media deliberation on intra-EU migration. A qualitative approach to framing based on rhetorical analysis

Abstract

In this paper we investigate how the model of deliberation proposed by Isabela and Norman Fairclough can be used for a better clarification and understanding of the framing processes in media -especially in opinion articles. We thus aim at integrating theoretical contributions from critical discourse analysis and argumentation theory with standard approaches to framing, originating in media studies. We emphasize how a rhetorical approach to framing can provide analytical insights into framing processes and complement the typical quantitative approaches with qualitative analysis based on textual reconstruction. Starting from an issue-specific approach to framing, we discuss a particular case of framing of intra-EU migration, analyzing four opinion articles selected from a larger corpus of Romanian, British and French media. We highlight, along our analysis, various methodological options and analytical difficulties inherent to such an approach.

Using Frame Analysis to Operationalize Discourse Theory for Critical News Media Research

“…Work to date on our larger project (see section 5.1) has made clear that it is necessary to adjust the categories of the analytical framework to take account of the particular rhetorical purposes embedded in each newspaper genre. So, for example, we do not include in this version of the framework a category referring to analysis of explicit argumentation, since that is a text characteristic that is avoided -or suppressed -in a news report (unlike in, say, editorials or opinion pieces), Consequently, we do not draw here on an otherwise valuable article using frame analysis, Cârlan and Ciocea (2014), since its analytical focus is specifically on the argumentation strategies of opinion pieces. On the other hand, the version we have fashioned for analysis of a news report focuses heavily on the selection and treatment of sources, matters of high prominence and importance in the reporting of news, but much less salient in the sub-genres overtly concerned with the expression of opinion.…”

Development vs peace? The role of media in the Law of Victims and Land Restitution in Colombia

“…Cârlan and Ciocea (2014) applied a qualitative ‘model of deliberation’ to analyse rhetorical construction of framing in four opinion articles on intra-EU migration from newspapers in Romania, France and Britain. This model analyses rhetorical resources in support of the claims and counterclaims made about the issue of migration.…”