Oktar, Lutfiye (2001). The ideological organization of representational processes in the presentation of us and them. Discourse & Society. 12(3) 313-346.
Oktar researches 44 editorial articles from February and March 1997 from two Turkish dailies, one pro-secular and one anti-secular, to uncover how social groups construct “us versus them” dichotomies through discourse. The articles all present arguments between pro-western secularists and pro-Islam anti-secularists in Turkey.
Through critical discourse analysis, he looks at how transitivity, modality and theme work to legitimate “positive self presentation and negative other presentation.” He also utilizes social identity theory, which claims society is hierarchically structured and people construct their identity in relation to an other. Oktar chooses to study news discourse because he believes news is necessarily ideologically biased because ideology comes into play whenever reality is constructed through language. Also, the press has a particularly potent ability to influence the ideologies of its readers through reinforcing or challenging beliefs due to its claims of objectivity. Clauses are categorized into relational – those that identify, attribute or describe circumstance and actional – those that demonstrate an actor and their goal, a sensor and a phenomena or someone saying something. Oktar isolates the clauses and analyzes them to see if they are constructed to present a positive description of “us” and a negative version of “them.” He finds that the editorials on both sides use the same exact methods to construct a positive us and a negative view of them through actional and relational clauses.
Although Oktar’s article focuses solely on editorial or opinion pieces, his methods for uncovering the “us versus them” frame through an analysis of grammar is pertinent to studies on conflict reporting. Social identity theory is also relevant in that it answers to why the “us versus them” frame is employed so frequently in conflict reporting.
Abstract by Meghan Maskery
Missouri School of Journalism
MA ‘07