1. BACKGROUND AND ORIENTATION TO THE STUDY 1 INTRODUCTION
2.3 QUALITY OF SOUTH AFRICAN TABLOIDS NEWS REPORTING
2.3.2 Language approach of tabloids
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technology has revolutionised the acquisition of images either from camera, scanner or the internet, and the manipulation of those images for inclusion in hard copy or web-based publications (ibid).
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• Word play
Humour is never far from the top of the tabloids’ list of priorities. Even though far from being the sole preserve of the tabloids, they take word play into areas of irreverence and mockery inconceivable for the more serious-minded newspapers.
Playing with words features strongly in their armoury and therefore witticisms are prominent among the rhetorical devices used. It is important to stress that humour calls upon a very active involvement from their readers which is very much in keeping with the traditional irreverence of popular culture though the ages (Hodge &
Kress, 2003:210).
• Letters and interaction with readers
The language of the letters’ pages is one of the most explicit sites for the celebration of the assumed community of the tabloids, providing an ideological link between the newspaper institution and the readership. This language is centred on a nationally specific set of priorities. For example, in the Daily Sun, the letters to the editor feature is not only where readers air their opinions, but also provide a forum which the newspaper claims as its own version of a blunt catchword. Each of the main tabloids has its own way of locating the identity of their ideal reader on their letters’
page. They each portray a tone and a set of semiotic triggers which locate the attention of their own community of readers. The letters’ pages can be used to explicitly support the views and campaigns of their main tabloid on national issues (Conboy, 2002).
• Familiar names
Familiar names and nicknames are used in the tabloids as a bridge of familiarity, connecting readers to a world outside the confines of their lived experience. Yet in media terms, they are familiar with these people because of their presence in the news and other media. Such language reinforces the linkage between the tabloid news agenda and broader aspects of popular culture including television, film and popular music. Such intertextuality is what assists in the broad ‘cultural discourse’
(Dahlgren, 1988:51). The framing of such characters in the language of familiarity helps to establish the ‘naturalness’ of the presence of these people and their affairs in the pages of the newspaper while at the same time helping the popular press
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justify how it side-lines more serious issues about the contemporary world in favour of what it claims its readers want (Conboy, 2002).
• The politics of slang
One of the more obvious ways in which the tabloids attempt to reinforce their relationship with their readership is by employing colloquial expressionism and slang.
This strategy appears to allow the newspapers to talk to a readership in its own, informal manner and further extends the explicit appeal of these papers to be on the side of the people, leading discussions in an editorial version of the language of the people. The implication of this language is that the tabloids are on the side of the people as readers and opposed to the interests of the power block (Fiske, 1994). For example, the Daily Sun newspaper uses simple language that resonates with the majority of its readership. The paper uses colloquial words such as “tsotsi” (thug),
“gogo” (old lady), “madala” (old man) et cetera, which is language that most of its readers associate with.
• Noun phrases and scripts
Because of their ability to compress information, noun phrases are frequently used in newspapers. They have the added advantage of having a discrete ideological function as they can also be linked to provide simple references to certain categories which reinforce established preferences on particular newspapers. An example is from Daily Sun’s, 06 June 2016 news report titled “Nyaope addicts given lifeline”.
This provides short semantic or visual signals to readers which are drawn from an archive of preferred meanings which consciously or unconsciously predispose the reader to a particular range of interpretations of the information before them. They provide semantic and syntactic short cuts to the accumulated views of the newspaper on certain issues. They provide the nudge and the wink of abbreviated opinion or ideological pact in that they assume that we share the same view of the world as them (Entman, 2003).
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• Metaphors and politics
Politics is often depicted in metaphorical terms in newspaper language in general. It is a tendency which calls into question the objective and neutral claims of newspaper language, given the emotive nature of much metaphorical association. Some linguists claim that non-literal language, including metaphors, is the rule not the exception. Lycan (2000) considers metaphorical language as having the structure of a bridge between the factual world and ideological persuasion, and according to this hypothesis, metaphors have an important role in establishing common associations within newspaper texts. Tabloids draw upon a range of metaphors which is very much in keeping with the other popular references of their coverage.
• Use of stereotype
Representation through language, in some contexts and to a certain format, can make use of stereotypes. According to Barrat (1986:42), “the concept of stereotype, as a kind of ‘blinkered’ mental attitude, is a notion imported into media studies from psychology. The stereotype notion is clearly linked in some ways to the sociological notion of deviant labels. Deviant labels are descriptions or versions of behaviour that undermine and devalue that behaviour. By contrast, stereotypes frequently attempt to validate certain roles and behaviour of readers. Far from being necessarily negative (though some are), they often present positive models of behaviour to emulate” (Conboy, 2002:173). With reference to this understanding, and with regard to tabloid representation through language used or in use, deviant labels are always negative and stereotypes can be positive or negative and this depends on the social and cultural contexts of stereotyping (ibid). In the context of this research, the representation is not about the physical images of nyaope addicts but about the textual representation of nyaope consumption in the two South African newspapers.
2.4 CONTEXTUAL ROLE OF TABLOIDS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY