Personalisation in Mass Media Communication

British online news between public and private

Daniela Landert | University of Zurich

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027256454 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027270832 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00

It seems to be a truism that today’s news media present the news in a more personal and direct way than print newspapers some twenty-five years ago. However, it is far from obvious, how this can be described linguistically. This study develops a model that integrates and differentiates between the various facets of personalisation from a linguistic point of view. It includes 1) contexts that involve the audience by inviting direct interaction and through the use of visual elements; 2) the focus on private individuals who are personally affected by news events; and 3) the use of communicative immediacy, for instance in the form of direct speech and first and second person pronouns. This model is applied to data from five British online news sites, demonstrating how individual features contribute to personalisation, how different features interact, and what personalisation strategies are used by news sites of different market orientations.

[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 240] 2014. xiv, 294 pp.

Publishing status: Available
Published online on 16 January 2014

https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.240

Table of Contents

List of tables | pp. ix–x

List of figures | pp. xi–xii

Acknowledgements | pp. xiii–xiv

1. Introduction | pp. 1–8

2. Personalisation in mass media | pp. 9–36

3. Data collection | pp. 37–58

4. Feedback and interaction | pp. 59–92

5. Visual elements | pp. 93–124

6. News actors | pp. 125–160

7. Direct speech | pp. 161–198

8. Personal pronouns | pp. 199–244

9. Conclusion | pp. 245–256

References

Appendix A: List of articles | pp. 271–280

Appendix B: Statistical tests | pp. 281–290

Author index | pp. 291–292

Subject index | pp. 293–294

“Brilliant! Highly readable and thought-provoking. Landert’s theoretically, methodologically and empirically sound contribution provides a comprehensive reflection of personalization in online news media. Its multi-leveled model of analysis captures the technological, topical and linguistic underpinnings of online news and represents a much welcome synthesis of traditional and contemporary approaches to their linguistic description. Written in a direct and personal style and endowed with a rich wealth of examples and carefully worked-out analyses, this study should appeal to both scholars and students alike, especially to linguists, journalists and media studies majors.”

Wolfram Bublitz, University of Augsburg

“In this accomplished topical study, Landert demonstrates the potential of engaged, linguistic criticism. She also plays an invaluable role in bringing Anglophone and German scholarly traditions into dialogue. From a technological perspective, the book provides much sage advice on the deployment of digital searches and records. The presentation of data is impeccable, allowing for a compelling analysis of personalisation as a multifaceted discourse.”

Martin Conboy, University of Sheffield

“The main contribution of this volume is, then, its methodological proposal for a multilayered analysis of personalisation phenomena. Moreover, Landert offers a very nuanced comparison between up-market and other papers, showing that adding a qualitative dimension to quantitative data is paramount.”

Barbara De Cock, Université catholique de Louvain, in English Text Construction, Vol. 8:2 (2015)

“The great strength of the book lies in the methodological commentary and innovation. During the process of pointing out problems and limitations of existing research methods, Landert shows her considerable expertise in revising, integrating and redesigning them. Each step of her methods is introduced in such a lucid and accessible way that it will pose no problem for others to follow. Another strength worth mentioning relates to Landert’s academic background because it offers a marvelous opportunity for readers to be informed of German scholarly traditions. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, this volume will prove valuable to anyone who is interested in the relationship between media and language and all those who want to ‘do’ serious analysis in this field.”

Song Guo, Tianjin University of Commerce, in Discourse Studies Vol. 18:1 (2016)

“The book has convincingly demonstrated the growing importance of personalization in mass media communication, from older to new sources and from down- to up-market; it does this in a comprehensive way, which makes it a work that may be recommended to anybody who is interested in news texts, Internet media, and communicative strategies.”

Shu-Kun Chen, Sun Yat-Sen University, in Pragmatics and Society Vol. 7:1 (2016)

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