Stamou, Anastasia, G. (2001).  The Representation of Non-Protesters in a Student and Teacher Protest:  A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Reporting in a Greek Newspaper.  Discourse & Society, 12(5), 653-679.

Within the Critical Discourse Analysis paradigm, Stamou looks at the way a protest between students and teachers over an education reform bill was portrayed in 30 news stories taken from the Athens News, a Greek daily published in English.  Although Stamou studies a conflict between two sides in a local protest, the article delves into the ways in which critical analysis can uncover unequal balance between the coverage of two opposing actors in a conflict situation where one side’s concerns are legitimated, and the other side’s concerns and methods are delegitimated.  Stamou’s article does not concern an ethnic conflict or war as every other theorist thus far has done.  It is interesting to understand how bias operates similarly in all conflict reporting whether the conflict is between age groups, political opinions, ethnicities, or two warring nations.  Like the other critical discourse analysis researches, she uncovers how bias operates through grammar ant the news story schema.  Unlike the others who primarily look at us versus them dichotomies, Stamou focuses on how one side’s concern are legitimated over the other.

Abstract by Meghan Maskery

Missouri School of Journalism

MA ‘07