Critical discourse analysis of BBC and CNN political news’ headlines on the Christchurch Mosque Massacre in New Zealand

Abstract

This study aims at investigating the language of politics in news headlines regarding the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand from a Critical Discourse Analysis perspective to examine how power and ideology reside in texts. The data of this study consist of 39 headlines extracted from the BBC and CNN online news agencies. The data were analyzed utilizing the socio-cultural approach of Fairclough (2013). Representative examples were discussed in terms of the three stages of Fairclough’s approach. The results of the study revealed that the reporters tended to use the passive voice structure in headlines that describe the attacker in conformance with the New Zealand policy, which states that his identity should not be revealed. However, they used the active voice structure while referring to the victims, their families, and the New Zealanders at large in order to emphasize their way of dealing with the attack. In addition, the role of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in her legal capacity was highlighted by shedding light on her pronouncements to fight against terrorism. It was also found that the use of the metaphor as a figurative device entails that terrorism is a rare phenomenon in New Zealand.

Keywords

• critical discourse analysis
• political discourse
• news headlines
• christchurch mosque massacre