Cover not available
Part of
Representing the Other in European Media Discourses
Edited by Jan Chovanec and Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 74] 2017
► pp. 1–22

Media representations of the “other” Europeans

Common themes and points of divergence

This introductory chapter explains the rationale and the objectives of the collection focusing on the choices taken to frame the project in a coherent manner despite the apparent diversity of approaches, materials and scopes. First we highlight the role of the national media in European public spheres in sustaining, but also reconstructing, collective identities. Then we proceed to explaining the key concepts permeating all contributions, namely “the other” and othering, distinguishing between two of their key discursive functions – differentiation and discrimination. Next, we provide reasons for looking to semi-public media environments for a more calibrated analysis of othering, arguing that – following the rise of participatory media technologies – the public sphere has been extended to encompass new actors and non-elite voices. We also justify this choice with the reference to the ideological plurality of the contemporary public spheres in Europe and the fact that (critical) discourse analysts have been trying to grasp this complexity by resorting to a range of methodological approaches. We specify the research questions that guide our research, or any research aimed at documenting the diverse discursive forms of othering in media-related contexts. After an overview of the individual contributions, the chapter suggests that a multidisciplinary approach is needed to explore diverse forms of othering. We argue that the exigency and merit of this line of research has become particularly acute in connection with the recent social and political developments throughout Europe.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Europeans and the national media
  • 2.“The other” and discursive othering
  • 3.Othering in public and semi-public contexts
    • 3.1Deconstructing othering through discourse analysis
    • 3.2Towards a research agenda
    • 3.3The current relevance of the research
  • 4.Overview of the volume
    • 4.1Part I: Othering as political and media practice
    • 4.2Part II: Othering as interpersonal and interactional practice
  • 5.Future perspectives
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 23 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.74.01mol
References
Agamben, Giorgio
(1998) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict
(1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Atifi, Hassan and Michel Marcoccia
(2015) Follow-ups and dialogue in online discussions on French politics: From Internet forums to social TV. In: Fetzer, Anita, Elda Weizman and ‎Lawrence N. Berlin (Eds.) The Dynamics of Political Discourse: Forms and Functions of Follow-ups. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 109–140. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bauman, Zygmunt
(1995) Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bolander, Brook
(2013) Language and Power in Blogs. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cap, Piotr and Urszula Okulska
(Eds.) (2013) Analyzing Genres in Political Communication: Theory and Practice. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chilton, Paul
(2004) Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chovanec, Jan
(2012) Implicit meaning and racism in political advertising. In: Dontcheva-Navratilova, Olga and Renata Povolná (Eds.) Discourse Interpretation: Approaches and Applications. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 55–78.Google Scholar
(2017) Participating with media: Exploring online media activity. In: Cotter, Colleen and Daniel Perrin (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Media. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 505–522.Google Scholar
in prep.) Irony as counter-positioning: Reader comments on the EU migrant crisis. In: Jobert, M. and Sandrine Sorlin Eds. The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter Amsterdam and Philadelphia John Benjamins
Diez, Thomas
(2005) Constructing the self and changing others: reconsidering ‘Normative Power Europe’. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 33(3): 613–636. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duszak, Anna
(Ed.) (2002) Us and Others: Social Identities across Languages, Discourses and Cultures. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dynel, Marta and Jan Chovanec
(Eds.) (2015) Participation in Public and Social Media Interactions. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Norman
(1989) Language and Power. London: Longman.Google Scholar
(1995) Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Longman.Google Scholar
(2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fetzer, ‎Anita, Elda Weizman and ‎Lawrence N. Berlin
(Eds.) (2015) The Dynamics of Political Discourse: Forms and Functions of Follow-ups. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fowler, Roger, Bob Hodge, Gunther Kress and Tony Trew
(1979) Language and Control. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Galasińska, Aleksandra
(2009) Small stories fight back. Narratives of Polish economic migration on an internet forum. In: Galasińska, Aleksandra and Michał Krzyżanowski (Eds.) Discourse and Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 188–203. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Galasińska, Aleksandra and ‎Dariusz Galasiński
(Eds.) (2010) The Post-Communist Condition: Public and Private Discourses of Transformation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Galasińska, ‎Aleksandra and Michał Krzyżanowski
(2009) Discourse and Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giddens, Anthony
(1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Hart, Christopher
(2010) Critical Discourse Analysis and Cognitive Science: New Perspectives on Immigration Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hart, Christopher and Piotr Cap
(Eds.) (2014) Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies. London and New York: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Hülsse, Rainer
(2006) Imagine the EU: The metaphorical construction of supra-nationalist identity. Journal of International Relations and Development 9: 396–421. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johansson, Marjut
(2015) “Bravo for this editorial!” Users’ comments in discussion forums. In: Weizman, Elda and Anita Fetzer (Eds.) Follow-ups in Political Discourse. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 84–107. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Koller, Veronika
(2009) Analysing collective identity in discourse: social actors and contexts. Semen: Revue de sémio-linguistique des textes et discours 27, [URL]
Kress, Gunther and Theo van Leeuwen
(1996) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał
(2010) The Discursive Construction of European Identities. A Multilevel Approach to Discourse and Identity in the Transforming European Union. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał and Bernhard Forchtner
(2016) Theories and concepts in critical discourse studies: Facing challenges, moving beyond foundations. Discourse and Society 27 (3): 253–261. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Landert, Daniela
(2014) Personalisation in Mass Media Communication: British Online News between Public and Private. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lepper, Georgia
(2000) Categories in Text and Talk: A Practical Introduction to Categorization Analysis. London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Machin, David
(2008) Introduction to Multimodal Analysis. London: Hodder Arnold.Google Scholar
Machin, David and Andrea Mayr
(2012) The Language of Crime and Deviance. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Molek-Kozakowska, Katarzyna
(2014) Rooting for the federation: Linguistic markers of consensuality in J. M. Barroso’s 2012 State of the EU address. In: Babilas, Dorota, Agnieszka Piskorska and Paweł Rutkowski (Eds.) Face to Face, Page to Page: PASE Papers in Literature, Language and Culture. Warsaw: Warsaw University Press, pp. 527–536.Google Scholar
(2015) Revising the traditional model of journalism in the context of digital media. In: Czemiel, Grzegorz, Justyna Galant, Anna Kędra-Kardela, Aleksandra Kędzierska and Marta Komsta (Eds.) Visions and Revisions: Studies in Literature and Culture Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, pp. 299–306.Google Scholar
Myers, Greg
(2010) The Discourse of Blogs and Wikis. London and New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Okulska, Urszula and Piotr Cap
(Eds.) (2010) Perspectives in Politics and Discourse. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reisigl, Martin and Ruth Wodak
(2001) Discourse and Discrimination: Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Richardson, John
(2004) (Mis)Representing Islam. The Racism and Rhetoric of British Broadsheet Newspapers. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Robinson, William Peter
(1996) Social Groups and Identities: Developing the Legacy of Henri Tajfel. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.Google Scholar
Seargeant, Philip and Caroline Tagg
(Eds.) (2014) The Language of Social Media: Identity and community on the Internet. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Simmel, Georg
(1955) The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Trans. and ed. by Kurt H. Wolff. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri
(Ed.) (1982) Social Identity and Intergroup Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tekin, Beyza C.
(2010) Representations and Othering in Discourse: The Construction of Turkey in the EU Context. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Triandafyllidou, Anna, Ruth Wodak and Michał Krzyżanowski
(Eds.) (2009) The European Public Sphere and the Media: Europe in Crisis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Dijk, Teun
(1991) Racism and the Press. London: Sage.Google Scholar
(2001) Multidisciplinary CDA: a plea for diversity. In Wodak, Ruth and Michael Meyer (Eds.) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, London: Sage, pp. 95–120.Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, Theo
(1996) The representation of social actors. In: Caldas-Coulthard, Rosa and Malcolm Coulthard (Eds.) Text and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge, pp. 32–70.Google Scholar
(2007) Legitimation in discourse and communication. Discourse and Communication 1(1): 91–112. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weizman, Elda
(2015) Irony in and through follow-ups: Talk and meta-talk in online commenting in the Isreaeli context. In: Fetzer, Anita, Elda Weizman and Lawrence N. Berlin (Eds.) The Dynamics of Political Discourse: Forms and Functions of Follow-ups. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, pp. 173–194. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth
(2001) The discourse-historical approach. In: Wodak, Ruth and Michael Meyer (Eds.) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage, pp. 83–94.Google Scholar
(2008) Discourse studies: important concepts and terms. In Wodak, Ruth and Michal Krzyżanowski (Eds.) Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the Social Sciences. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 1–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth and Paul Chilton
(2005) A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, Rudolf de Cillia, Martin Reisigl and Karin Liebhart
(2009) The Discursive Construction of National Identity, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth and Bernhard Forchtner
(2014) Embattled Vienna 1683/2010: Right-wing populism, collective memory and the fictionalisation of politics. Visual Communication 13, 231–255. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, Majid KhosraviNik and Brigitte Mral
(Eds.) (2013) Rightwing Populism across Europe. Discourse and Politics. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth and John E. Richardson
(Eds.) (2013) Analysing Fascist Discourse: European Fascism in Talk and Text. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

Al-Khulaifi, Afra & Dorien Van De Mieroop
2023. Othering the expat majority: Qatari junior academics’ identity work at the interface of migration and institutional reform. Language and Intercultural Communication 23:2 ► pp. 167 ff. DOI logo
Chovanec, Jan
2018. Chapter 9. Irony as counter positioning. In The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter [Linguistic Approaches to Literature, 30], ► pp. 165 ff. DOI logo
Chovanec, Jan
2021. ‘Re-educating the Roma? You must be joking. . .’: Racism and prejudice in online discussion forums. Discourse & Society 32:2 ► pp. 156 ff. DOI logo
Elmerot, Irene
2021. Income, Nationality and Subjectivity in Media Text. Journal of Linguistics/Jazykovedný casopis 72:2 ► pp. 667 ff. DOI logo
Wawrzyczek, Irmina
2017. Racist and neo-Nazi panic in the Euro 2012 coverage by the British press: a discursive failure in interculturalism. Brno studies in English :1 ► pp. [89] ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 november 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.