THE REPRESENTATION OF EGYPTIAN AND SYRIAN GOVERNMENTS IN BBC AND CNN TEXTS REGARDING THE CIVIL WARS IN EGYPT AND SYRIA.

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THE REPRESENTATION OF EGYPTIAN AND SYRIAN GOVERNMENTS IN BBC AND CNN TEXTS REGARDING THE CIVIL WARS IN EGYPT AND SYRIA

A Research Paper

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Sarjana Sastra Degree.

Written by:

Khaerul Ma’ruf 0906932

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION

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Oleh

Khaerul Ma’ruf

Sebuah skripsi yang diajukan untuk memenuhi salah satu syarat memperoleh gelar Sarjana pada Fakultas Pendidikan Bahasa dan Seni

Mei 2014

Hak Cipta dilindungi undang-undang.

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PAGE OF APPROVAL

APPROVED BY:

Main Supervisor

Iwa Lukmana, M.A., Ph.D. NIP. 196611271993031002

Co-Supervisor

Ruswan Dallyono, S.Sos., M.Pd. NIP. 197008032005011002

Head of English Education Department Faculty of Language and Arts Education

Indonesia University of Education

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Khaerul Ma’ruf, 2014

The representation of egyptian and Syrian governments in BBC and CNN texts regarding the civil wars in egypt and Syria

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu

ABSTRACT

This research probes the representation of social actors in two prominent

Western mass media and examines ideologies behind such representation by using

social actor classification (van Leeuwen, 2008) and Transitivity (Halliday and

Matthiessen, 2004). The Egyptian and Syrian governments are the focuses of this

research. The data of this research were taken from two Western mass media, namely

BBC and CNN. The research is descriptive qualitative in nature. The data include the

online news articles published in official sites of BBC and CNN. The analysis

examines how social actors are excluded and included in the texts. The findings

showed that BBC and CNN mostly represent the Egyptian and Syrian governments

negatively. It was discovered from the excessive use of predicates with negative

semantic load attached to the Egyptian and Syrian governments. Such excessive use

of predicates implicates that BBC and CNN were likely to expose the bad sides of the

Egyptian and Syrian governments to the world citizen. This practice appears to reflect

how the two media view the two national governments. Furthermore, the findings

also showed that (im)partiality, democracy, and consumerism were the ideologies that

appeared in the texts.

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2. 1. List of Verbal Process ... 24

Table 4. 1. Distribution of Inclusion and Exclusion in BBC and CNN that Represent

the Egyptian Government ... 31

Table 4. 2. Distribution of Inclusion and Exclusion in BBC and CNN that Represent

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Table 4. 3. The Distribution of Types of Exclusion of the Syrian Government in BBC

and CNN ... 33

Table 4. 4. Distribution of Included Egypt Government in BBC and CNN ... 36

Table 4. 5. Distribution of Included Syrian Government in BBC and CNN ... 38

Table 4. 6. Distribution of Category of Included Egyptian Government in BBC

... 50

Table 4. 7. Distribution of Category of Included Egyptian Government in CNN

... 50

Table 4. 8. Distribution of Category of Included Syrian Government in BBC .. 51

Table 4. 9. Distribution of Category of Included Syrian Government in CNN .. 51

Table 4. 10. The Distribution of Personalization and Impersonalization in BBC and

CNN which represent the Egyptian Government ... 52

Table 4. 11. The Distribution of Personalization and Impersonalization in BBC and

CNN which represent the Syrian Government ... 53

Table 4. 12. Distribution of Personalization-Determination of the Egyptian

Government in BBC and CNN ... 54

Table 4. 13. Distribution of Personalization-Determination of the Syrian Government

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Table 4. 14. Distribution of Personalization-Genericization/ Specification of the

Egyptian Government in BBC and CNN ... 62

Table 4. 15. Distribution of Personalization-Genericization/ Specification of the

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides general information about the research. This chapter

gives the information about the background of the research problems, research

questions, aims of the research, scope of the research, significance of the research,

clarifications of terms, and the research structure.

1.1. Introduction

The rise of Arab Spring started to spread to major countries in the region of

Islamic Middle East and North African (MENA) countries following the occurrence

of Green and Jasmine movements in Iran and Tunisia. The movements were to

dethrone the long-standing dictator and elites from their chairs for the establishment

of democracy. They happened because the citizens did not have their voices heard.

The Green and Jasmine movements were the milestones for the continuation of effort

to establish democracy in MENA countries, where they were presided by the

long-standing dictator and elites. Although they happened in different lands and cultures,

what these countries have in common was the movement goal that was to have the

democracy upheld where it was indicated by society’s defiance, massive

demonstration to streets, and movement calling for democracy (Shirazi, 2012). Most

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not to mention the civil wars in Egypt and Syria had become the major attention for

the world citizens.

The civil wars in MENA regions have become the attention for the world

citizens because of the humanity’s infringement. Western mass media vie for

reporting the situations which happen there to disseminate information about the

occurrence of the events to the world citizens. It means the mass media represent the

events and the actors participated in their own manner. Such representation may

contain ideologies which are hidden in the text. Critical Discourse Analysis is a

handy study to delve and unmask mass media representation and its ideologies. Van

Dijk (2001, in Machin and Mayr, 2012) describes CDA to be a study used to unravel

implicit and hidden messages in a text. Western mass media produce news articles

containing information about the occurrence of civil wars in MENA countries which

are disseminated to the world citizens. Henceforth, Western mass media have

indirectly shaped the world citizens’mindset about civil wars in MENA countries

through the news articles produced. News articles are the communication tools to

create the particular discourse. Van Leeuwen (2001, in Wodak and Meyer, 2001)

defines discourse as manners of acknowledging some reality aspects which are

socially constructed.

Western mass media play a significant role in shaping the world citizens’

mindset about civil wars in MENA countries, thus they make them have leverage

over the world citizens.Western mass media disseminate their ideology, such as

democracy, to the news articles of civil wars in MENA countries. The problem is that

they might have certain intentions in the manner they produce news articles, and such

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occurrence of bias in the political press is the result of failure in acknowledging the

interdependence of media, elites, and audiences.

This research investigates how the social actors in civil wars in Egypt and

Syria (the samples of MENA countries) were represented in the online news from

United Kingdom and United States. The representation was probed to unveil the

ideologies behind such representation. The tools exerted in the analysis of

representation are CDA (van Leeuwen, 2008) and Transitivity (Halliday and

Matthiessen, 2004). Van Leeuwen’s theories were used because the theories provided

the classification of social actors in details. Meanwhile Transitivity was used because

Transitivity was a supportive tool to conduct the analysis of social actors. Transitivity

concerns the representation within clauses (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004).

There are series of relevant research to this research, those are the political

representation (Wenden2005; Dobson, 2007), and media discourse study (Shirazy,

2012). In political representation research, Wenden (2005) investigated the

representational strategies Al Aqsaa Intifida in Al Jazeera’s special reports. The

research examined the recurring themes appearing in the reports by the use of theme

and rheme analysis. Dobson (2007) examined the representational strategies of British political leaders’ election manifestos in 1990s. The research analyzed the language use in British political leaders’ manifestos which reflected political standing of theirs in each election. The research examined such manifestos by the use of

textual analysis approach, intertextuality, metadiscourse, discourse representation

(Fairclough, 1992), and presupposition. In a media discourse study, Shirazi (2012)

examined the discourse which was created through the use of social media in Middle

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provoking the movements which happened in Middle East and North Africa

countries. The research analyzed the arguments posted in various social media, such

as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and Youtube which provoked social action, social

movements to oppose the dictatorship regime in Middle East and North Africa

countries. The arguments posted were examined from its validation, namely

comprehensibility, truth, legitimacy, sincerity.

Different from those research mentioned above, this research focuses on how

the Egyptian and Syrian governments are represented in news online published by

CNN and BBC. The research seeks to discover the ideologies behind the

representation of social actors in civil wars in Egypt and Syria. To achieve such

purposes, van Leeuwen’s (2008) social actor classification and Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) Transitivity were used in doing this research.

1.2. Research Questions

The problems of the research are formulated in the following questions:

1. How are the Egyptian and Syrian governments represented in BBC and CNN

online news?

2. What are the ideologies behind the representation?

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The research aims to investigate how BBC and CNN represent the Egyptian

and Syrian governments in the occurrence of civil wars in Egypt and Syria and

unmask ideologies behind the representation.The research is addressed to those who

are interested in representation studies of social actors.

1.4. Scope of The Study

The research focuses on the analysis of BBC and CNN’s representation of the

Egyptian and Syrian governments in civil wars in Egypt and Syria by using both

CDA and Transitivity, therefore the intertextuality is exerted in the research. The

analysis was conducted in two BBC and CNN text published in Internet on the year

of 2013. News articles produced by them were analyzed to seek the ideologies behind

the representation by using CDA proposed by van Leeuwen (2008) and Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) Transitivity.

1.5. Significance of The Study

The research is designed to probe the representation of the Egyptian and Syrian

governments in BBC and CNN. The research is expected to make contribution to the

representation studies of social actor included in CDA research.

1.6. Clarification of Terms

To avoid the misconception and misunderstanding that might occur, there are

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Representation

Fairclough (1992, as cited in Dobson, 2007) believes that

representation refers to the construction of a discourse within particular text.

People can examine a text from the way they characterize people, events, and

actions.

CDA

Wodak and Mayr (2001) define CDA as a study delving the social

phenomenon which is necessarily complex and therefore it needs a

multi-disciplinary and multi-methodical approach.

Mass media

Mass media is a tool to spread the information to the people. Luhmann

(2000) elaborates the notion of mass media. He suggests that mass media are

the organizations which take advantages of technologies to establish

communication.

1.7. Organization of Paper

The research is divided into five chapters. The chapter one gives the

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clarification of terms, and organization of the paper. While, the chapter two provides

the information about literature review exerted in doing the research, including the

theory of representation proposed by van Leeuwen (2008), and Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004)Transitivity. Chapter three is about the research methodology. It provides the general framework, data collection, instruments, and steps to conduct

analysis. Chapter four includes the analysis of research, findings, and discussion. The

last chapter is about the conclusion of the research and suggestion for the impending

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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the research methodology which describes the

mechanism or steps in doing this research. This chapter includes research design, data

collection, and data analysis. This research purposes are to discover how the

representation of social actors in civil wars in Egypt and Syria are constructed and to

discover the ideologies behind the representation.

3.1. Research Design

This research is qualitative in nature. It is qualitative because this research

focuses on the description and interpretation. This research is also possible to develop

and establish the new concept or theory (Hancock, Ockleford, and Windridge, 2009).

Another nature of this research is expanding people’s understanding of particular

things in the world. Therefore, this research is expected to make people have more

profound understanding about the media’s representational strategies.

This research exerted one of CDA approaches proposed by van Leeuwen

(2008) and Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) Transitivity. Both of those approaches

were combined to make the analysis of social actor representation more detailed. Van

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analysis of representation. On the other hand, Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004)

Transitivity was also used because Transitivity concerned representation in clauses.

The analysis of text was aimed at scrutinizing United Kingdom and United State

media representation of social actors in civil wars in Syria and Egypt. It also

unmasked the ideologies behind representation.

3.2 Data Collection

The data of research were the four selected news articles taken from two

different prominent news agencies in the world, i.e. BBC and CNN. BBC (British

Broadcasting Corporation) is British public service broadcasting statutory

corporation. BBC is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London (BBC, 2014).

Meanwhile, CNN (Cable News Network) is American public service broadcasting

under the ownership of Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner (CNN,

2014). The sources of material research are best taken from United Kingdom and

United States media with great leverage to international public, not to mention the

media are the best representatives of Western countries. Therefore, BBC and CNN

are taken as the sources of material analysis.

Selected articles taken from BBC and CNN gave the information about the

occurrence of civil wars which happened in both of Egypt and Syria. This research

exerted four articles because the research did not only aim to explain representation

of social actors in civil wars in Egypt and Syria, but also compared such

representation. Thus, the research required even number of articles to alleviate the

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The first article was taken from the official site of CNN news. The article was

published on the Internet on 9th July 2013. The article provided the information of

hostility between the Egyptian government and rebel forces which killed more than

50 people. The second article was taken from the official sites of BBC news

published on the Internet on 18th August 2013. The article gave the information about

the endeavor of Egyptian government to persuade its people to rebuild Egypt

together. The third article was also taken from the official BBC news. The article was

published on the internet on 21st August 2013. The article gave the information about

the using of chemical weapon by the Syrian army which killed hundreds of people.

The fourth article was taken from the official site of CNN news. The article was

published on the internet on 24th September 2013. The article gave the information

about the allegation of Syrian Chemical Weapon use to Syria government.

3.3. Data Analysis

This research was CDA which uses one of its approaches proposed by van

Leeuwen (2008). The analysis was aimed to unravel the ideologies behind media

representation of social actors in civil wars in Syria and Egypt. The first step of

conducting the analysis was the analysis of Transitivity to discover the representation

of actions in the text. Then, the social actors in the texts were probed and analyzed to

be classified into particular representational strategies based on van Leeuwen’s theory

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to unmask and reveal the ideologies behind representation. The steps of research

conduct are listed as follow:

a. Reading the whole text to have profound understanding.

b. Identifying social actors and social actions in the text by dividing the data

into clauses or clause complexes. The clauses or clauses complexes were

then identified to scrutinize the representation of social actors and actions

through Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004) Transitivity.

c. Grouping the representation of social actors to see how United Kingdom

and United State represent them. The social actors were classified into

representational strategies based on van Leeuwen’s theory (2008).

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This chapter presents the conclusion of the research and the suggestion for

impending research on social actor representation. The first section is the resume of

the answers to the research problems and inference regarding to the research.

Meanwhile, the second section is the suggestions for upcoming research.

5.1. Conclusions

This research probes the representation of the Egyptian and Syrian

governments in accordance with the civil wars transpiring there. This research

examines two research problems, i.e.(1) how BBC and CNN represent the Egyptian

and Syrian governments in the news articles, and (2) what ideologies lies in the texts.

According to van Leeuwen’s social actor classification (2008), it was found that the

Egyptian and Syrian governments are more represented in inclusion rather than in

exclusion. It is signaled by the gap wide between the occurrence of inclusion and

exclusion. Not to mention exclusion is only discovered in the text representing the

Syrian government. It means that the text represent the Egyptian and Syrian

government explicitly. In inclusion, the Egyptian and Syrian governments are more

represented in activation-participation-personalization rather than in

passivation-participation-impersonalization.

Meanwhile, in accordance with Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004)

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used in representing the Egyptian and Syrian governments. It is indicated as actor,

goal, and sayer are types of participant with the most appearances in inclusion.

Second, in accordance with the analysis, it is found that (im)partiality, democracy,

and consumerism are the ideologies appearing in the text.

Based on the findings above, it can be deduced that representation of social

actor is a crucial aspect to probe how media construct the image of particular social

actors through the choice of language. This lexicogrammatical choices causes

different effects. Representation itself is the ramification of social construction of

reality in linguistic form. The construction of reality must be influenced by the

ideologies harbored. Therefore, representation and ideologies are inseparable.

Ideology has become one of major component in CDA because ideology has become

the life value for particular society.

5.2. Suggestions

There are several suggestions which are expected to expand the scope of the

upcoming related research. The first, this research probes the representation of social

actor by using the approach of van Leeuwen (2008). For the upcoming research, it is

suggested that further research would examine the representation by using other

approaches or to probe another representation such as social event representation.

Second, this research is also used Systemic Functional Linguistics in which

Transitivity analysis to attain better results. For the impending research, it is advised

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Nominalization. Therefore, the representation can be probed from the other

perspectives.

Third, the research solely chooses four texts from two sources as the material

of analysis. It would be much better for the upcoming research to choose more texts

from a myriad of sources to make the result more accurate. Moreover, the research is

expected to compare the representation of two social actors from two different

resources. Although the sources are different, yet they are still on the same page.

Therefore, it is worth trying to take the data of analysis from the sources with very

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