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Part of
Crisis and the Media: Narratives of crisis across cultural settings and media genres
Edited by Marianna Patrona
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 76] 2018
► pp. 59–84

Chapter 3
Expressions of blame for the Global Financial Crisis in US, UK and Australian opinion texts

The Global Financial Crisis has had a devastating effect on many economies, with reverberations still being felt today. While the media has focused on the Crisis in affected regions, there is a surprising lack of research on the actual discourse used by key players to express blame and responsibility for the Crisis. This chapter provides an in-depth comparative analysis between the expressions of blame in American, British and Australian newspaper opinion texts, written by authors from differing political backgrounds. It finds that communication strategies of blame are directly and indirectly attributed, rather than resisted or avoided. The chapter is developed from a larger discourse study by Cope (2016), and looks specifically at the relationship between political authors and positioning.

Keywords: crisis communication, discourse study, financial crisis, attribution of blame, blame and responsibility, positioning, communication strategies, opinion texts, political authors
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Blame and relevant concepts
  • Methodology and preliminary analysis
    • Procedure of data analysis
  • The findings
    • Finger-pointing of Blame : Direct Blame
      • The US texts
      • The UK texts
      • The Australian texts
      • Summary of Direct Blame examples
    • Finger-pointing of Blame : Indirect Blame
      • The US texts
      • The UK texts
      • The Australian texts
      • Summary of Indirect Blame examples
  • Summary of the main findings
  • Concluding discussion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 February 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.76.04cop
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Cope, Jen
2020. Quoting to persuade. AILA Review 33 ► pp. 136 ff. DOI logo

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