2012 Volume 14 Issue 2 Pages 31-44
This paper analyzes a television news report of the suspension of fishing operations conducted throughout Japan in July 2008, and seeks to clarify how interpretive frameworks are constructed by the news discourse. Using critical discourse analysis as an analytical method, it examines elements of the news discourse such as the selection of information, rhetorical features, lexical items, syntax, telops and visual elements, in order to expose how these elements construct specific interpretive frameworks. The analysis revealed that although the news item is about the fishermen's strike designed to make people aware of their plight, it constructs, utilizing various discourse elements, interpretive frameworks based on market, retailer and consumer viewpoints. It also showed that interpretive frameworks produced by news discourse can be elucidated by examining the following points: 1) attributes attached to participants of events, 2) aspects of the events placed importance on, and 3) causal relationships formed in the events.
