Contextualization in Newspaper Articles: A Sequential Analysis of Actors' Quotes on the PATCO Affair

Abstract

Newspaper articles on social conflict are mainly constructed from direct and indirect quotes from actors involved in the conflict, combined with statements made by the editor. The selection of these statements represents a specific range of different viewpoints concerning some `newsworthy' event. But the preferred meaning of a news article as a whole depends not only on the selection but also on the presentation of these selected statements in the text. The pivot of journalistic montage practice may therefore be defined as the way in which these elements are combined in sequential patterns within a specific news discourse. This article explores the possibilities of analysing this practice of contextualization by means of a sequential analysis of different statements on a particular news topic, within the newspaper articles. The results of the sequential analysis show that the way in which viewpoints are presented strongly depends on the editorial definition of the news event. We conclude with a methodological discussion on the perspectives of this method of sequential analysis for the analysis of news discourse.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bakeman, R. and J.M. Gottman (1986) Observing Interaction: An Introduction To Sequential Analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Dijkstra, W. (1990) `SEQUENCE: A Program for Analysing Sequences of Events', unpublished manuscript, Department of Social Research Methodology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.

Hall, S. (1980) `Encoding and Decoding', in S. Hall , D. Hobson , A. Lowe and P. Willis (eds), Culture, Media and Language. London: Hutchinson.

Northrup, H.R. (1984) `The Rise and Demise of PATCO', Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 37(2): 167-184.

Sackett, G.P. (1974) `A Nonparametic Lag Sequential Analysis for Studying Dependency Among Responses in Observational Scoring Systems', unpublished manuscript.

Sackett, G.P. (1979) `The Lag Sequential Analysis of Contingency and Cyclicity in Behavioral Interaction Research', pp. 623-649, in J. Osofsky (ed.), Handbook of Infant Development. New York: Wiley.

Shostak, A. and D. Skocik (1986) The Air Controllers Controversy; Lessons from the 1981 PATCO Strike. New York: Human Sciences Press.

Van den Berg, H. and C.G. van der Veer (1986) Ideologie en Massamedia (Ideology and Mass Media). Amsterdam: Free University Press.

Van den Berg, H. and C.G. van der Veer (1989) `Ideologies in the News: On Measurement of Ideological Characteristics of News Reports', Gazette, 14: 159-194.