A Corpus-Assisted Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Newspaper Reports
This project was my thesis for my Master of Arts degree in English Language Studies at the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School. It received a Benemeritus distinction during the defense. In addition, it was awarded second place in the 1st Loretta Makasiar Sicat Prize for the Social Sciences by the Philippine Social Science Council.
Supervisor: Dr. Rachelle B. Lintao
Committee: Dr. Marilu R. Madrunio (Chair), Dr. Alejandro S. Bernardo, and Dr. Eden R. Flores (External Reader, De La Salle University)
The reporting of both terrorism and conflicts is extensively investigated in past media discourse studies across contexts. However, a dearth in the literature exists regarding newsworthiness and its establishment in various forms of news discourse. Based on this niche, this thesis sought to closely examine how the 2017 Marawi City siege is constructed in print news reports as newsworthy. Specifically, it was aimed at determining (a) the linguistic and visual resources used to construe newsworthiness, (b) the news values used to construe the event’s newsworthiness, and (c) the existing multimodal relationship between language and images. Sixty news reports from three Philippine broadsheets were analyzed using Bednarek and Caple’s (2017) discursive news values framework. This multimodal corpus was examined with multiple methods, namely: (a) collocation analysis of MARAWI and its top three first order collocates, (b) manual analysis of verbal and visual devices utilized for each news value, and (c) the verbal and visual relationship in terms of each discursive news value. A scrutiny of the corpus reveals how local broadsheet journalists constructed the crisis as newsworthy. Firstly, MARAWI is associated closely with collocates that establish Proximity, Negativity, Eliteness, Personalization, Timeliness, Positivity, and Consonance; through collocates city, said, and Maute, recurring second order collocates of Negativity and Eliteness were largely identified. Regarding the manual analysis of texts and images, a range of verbal and visual devices were identified to construct news values except for Aesthetic Appeal. Secondly, an intrasemiotic assessment of news value trends in both verbal and visual data reveal that while the former constructs a concrete set of news values (i.e., Proximity, Timeliness, Superlativeness, and Eliteness), images appear to lack this feature. Lastly, when assessed for their multimodal relationship, texts and images appear to exhibit harmony, where texts and images complement news values with each other. How the crisis’ newsworthiness is constructed in the corpus is believed to have implications on news reporting principles and the role of the media in shaping public awareness of events.
Keywords: Marawi City, terrorism, news values, news discourse, corpus-assisted multimodal discourse analysis (CAMDA), press photography
Extended Abstract (PDF): This extended abstract was submitted to the Philippine Social Science Council for the 1st Loretta Makasiar Sicat Prize for the Social Sciences. It contains more information about the paper itself. Feel free to read it!
Thesis (PDF): This is the digital copy of my thesis. You can download this work in my ResearchGate and Academia.edu profiles as well. If you will cite this paper using the American Psychological Association (7th edition) style, please use this:
Gapas, W. G. A. (2020). The newsworthiness of an armed conflict: A corpus-assisted multimodal discourse analysis of selected newspaper reports (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of Santo Tomas, Manila.
Kaleidographic View of the Corpus: Click this link to view the multimodal study’s Kaleidographic visualization. Please note that the link to this visual differs from the one provided in the paper.
If you would like to obtain a copy of my corpus, please contact me by email. I cannot post my data publicly due to potential copyright issues.