Analyzing evaluation in broadcast news
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| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | When delivering news to a mass audience, presenters of broadcast news are expected to preserve objectivity and avoid evaluating. Nevertheless, previous studies (e.g. Montgomery 2007) have shown that evaluation plays a significant role in certain parts of the broadcast. In my research, I focus on the following structural elements of TV news – headlines, news kernel, in which a news item is introduced, and live interview with the reporter/correspondent, who provides additional information. These sections are searched for instances of evaluation, which are later classified according to the framework developed by Bednarek and Caple (2012), and the attention is paid to linguistic resources (both lexical and grammatical) for expressing evaluation. The aim of this research is to examine functions of evaluation in news discourse and to assess the subjectivity of the selected material. In addition, the role of evaluation in constructing newsworthiness is debated. The data used in the analysis were taken from American TV news programs, especially ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir. In order to assure variation in news content, the material was collected using ‘constructed week’ sampling. Elements of news kernel and live interview, which are subjected to the analysis, were identified in each broadcast and subsequently transcribed. |
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