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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 1580 - 1589
International Conference on Current Trends in ELT
Towards (De-)legitimation Discursive Strategies in News Coverage of Egyptian Protest:VOA & Fars News in Focus
Bahador Sadeghia *, Mohammad Taghi Hassanib, Vahid Jalalic
a C!slamic Azad University, Takestan Branch, Department of English, Takestan, Iran bImam Hossein University & Islamic Azad University, Takestan Branch, Takestan, Iran
Abstract
This article aims at conducting a critical discourse analysis on discursive strategies of legitimation applied in VOA and Fars News, two news agencies with fundamentally distinctive ideologies, to represent the single event of Egyptian protest as a legitimized action and Hosni Mubarak's regime as the delegitimized other. In order to represent how these two news agencie s employ the legitimation discursive strategies, including four main strategies of authorization, evaluation, rationalization, and mythopoesis to legitimize Egyptian revolution, Van Leeuwen's (2008) model of legitimation strategies was applied. This article also delves into how these two opposite news networks tried to delegitimize Mubarak's regime by using Van Leeuwen's legitimation strategies. The research will discuss how employing certain discursive strategies of language can be used for the purpose of brainwashing. The study shows that VOA emphasized mainly on delegitimizing Mubarak's regime, whereas Fars News put more emphasis on legitimizing Egyptian revolution than delegitimizing Hosni Mubarak's regime. As well this study investigates to what extent these two news agencies try to show Egyptian nation's revolution as an Islamic movement or economic movement. This article also investigates how the guidelines and interests of the news networks can affect their approach in using different legitimation strategies.
© 2014 TheAuthors.Published by ElsevierLtd. Thisis anopenaccess article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Urmia University, Iran.
Keywords: CDA; legitimation discursive strategies; Fars News, Egyptian revolution; Mubarak's regime
1. Introduction
In the modern world, media play an important role in everybody's life. These days, media is not used only as a means of informing people about what happens around the world. The essence of the news has changed. Discourse of the news has moved beyond the surface level of the language structure (Brown & Yule, 1983, p. 1). News articles can be analyzed to disclose the underlying intentions hidden behind the discursive construction of them. So it can be derived that one of the other purposes of the news producers is to manipulate the facts systematically and feed them to their audiences in a way that can be in line with their interests. For this purpose, developing specific
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: bahsad@gmail.com
1877-0428 © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Urmia University, Iran.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.581
representations has made it feasible in the discourse of political issues by using legitimation discursive strategies (Chilton, 2004). The representative news agencies of different countries try to deliver pre-packed news in a way that their readers would trust in what their favorite government gives them as realities happening around the world. Bacue and Burgoon (2003) say that one of the time-honored canons of persuasion is that establishing ethos or credibility facilitates social influence. The more favorably a communicator is regarded, the greater the opportunity to influence others". So, there should be a bad other to give reason for the actions carried out by the lawful side. The governmental news networks, such as VOA and Fars News, write in a way in which stances of governments affect the way a global news event is represented.
According to Van Leeuwen (2008), a single event, as that of Egyptian Revolution, can be shown as positive (legitimized) or negative (delegitimized) through several categories and subcategories. In Van Leeuwen's framework (2008), there are four main (de-)legitimation categories- (1)authorization, (2)evaluation, (3)rationalization, and (4)mythopoesis- and also these main categories include some subcategories. Using (de-)legitimation Van Leeuwen's discursive categories, the present research investigates some news articles published in VOA and Fars News networks to see how these two news agencies have applied legitimatory discursive strategies to show Egyptian Revolution as the legitimized action and Mubarak's regime as a delegitimized party, and to what extent each of the news agencies is legitimizing Egyptian Revolution as an Islamic movement or an outcome of a bad economy.
A. Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical Linguistics (CL) is a field of study in discourse which has been receiving lots of attention since 1970s.There were lots of theoreticians who put enormous endeavors in applying CL in their studies. Halliday as a "Critical linguist", one of the influential scholars in making modern theories of linguistic, is one of those theoreticians who delved into underlying aspects of language structure and constraints. Halliday (1989) indicates that grammar consists of both formal syntactic rules and "patterns of experience" which leverage the human to feel reality and their experience of life (p. 101). Van Dijk (2007) indicates that "CDA was originally introduced in a seminal book by Roger Fowler, Gunther Kress, Bob Hodge and Tony Trew, Language and Control (1979), and later developed by Norman Fairclough (1989) in the UK, Ruth Wodak (1989) in Austria and Teun A. van Dijk (1993) in the Netherlands (for introduction, see, e.g., Wodak & Meyer, 2001)".Also Van Dijk, in Handbook of Discourse Analysis (Tannen, Schiffrin, & Hamilton, 2001, p. 352), expalins CDA as "a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power, abuse, dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context".
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is such a broad domain that cannot be defined within just one definition, a theory, or a branch of investigation. CDA takes discourse and its contribution in production, reproduction, and maintenance of power relationships into account. More exactly, as van Dijk (1989) points to CDA, critical discourse analysis examines and discovers the method through which structures, semiotic strategies, characteristics, text, and communication have shares in the reproduction of power and domination in social interactions. If we explain power, authorization, and domination as the ways through which centers of power control their audiences' access to discourse through spoken, written, and visual modes, then, we can clench the link between the imbalances in society and the discourse production.
On the other hand, CDA is not a method only related to linguistic matters but rather a multidisciplinary method which shares interests with other social groups and structures, like sociology, anthropology, politics, and so on that van Dijk (2007) defines it as a cross-discipline that compromises the analysis of text and talk in virtually all disciplines of the humanities and social sciences (Bloor & Bloor, 2007, p. 2). CDA emphasizes language as a cultural mediator for relating the power and freedom in bodies of knowledge, social interactions, and institutions (Bourdieu, 1977). Another criterion about CDA can be a new approach to analysis applied in the works of researchers such as Van Leeuwen (2008) by using different models of CDA. In this way of analysis, the researcher puts attempts to use CDA models and principles and discursive strategies to go beyond the written and spoken construction and other semiotic dimensions of the language in order to decode them and discover underlying reality of them.
B. Critical Discourse Analysis in Media
Generally speaking, in modern times, Media and especially published ones play an essential role in our life and they affect what is being shaped in our mind. News and media can be supposed as prepacked pieces of information identical to its writer or producer's taste. Everything from quality to the quantity and nature of the news and media production has changed in recent decades. The published news is set to achieve special goals and interests. Caldas Coulthard (2003) defines news as culturally and socially determined phenomenon. News producers are social agents in a network of social relations who disclose their own stance towards what is reported. News is the partial, ideologically framed report of the event (p. 274).
Discourse analysis can be used to analyze the news critically. Representing in a simple way to be perceived (not to say simplistically) as an analysis of illustrations of "language in use" (Brown & Yule. 1983. p. 1) beyond sentence level, discourse analysis with its surplus analytical tools and theoretical orientations deals, inter alia, with what is occurring in the discourse of news and news making. There is considerable evidence that discursive strategies have a considerable effect on the presentation of realities.The present study tries to seehow a news agency applies the specific discursive devices of (de-)legitimation to represent good and evil.
C. Legitimation
Legitimation, one of the discursive strategies applied for changing the presentation of a single event in a way that serves the news network benefits, has become one of the crucial issues in critical discourse analysis, and many scholars do their research in this field. Legitimizing one other requires implicitly or explicitly delegitimizing the opposite other in order to put them against each other and persuade the readers to follow on them (Jan Chovanec, 2010, p. 62). Weber and Habermas say that legitimacy is the connection of the facts (facto validity) and norms (normative validity of values) (Steffek, 2003). Some scholars as Habermas, Wodakand Weber are famousin the fieldof legitimacy. However, other authors like Van Leeuwen have worked on the concept of legitimacy in modern world and developed frameworks for this purpose. News networks also use the same way to represent the Egyptian Revolution as a right or wrong action and Egyptian nation as good or bad, and Hosni Mubarak and his government as good or evil. Van Leeuwen's (2008) categories of (de-)legitimation (authorization, moral evaluation, rationalization, mythopoesis) have been used in this study to analyze the news published by VOA and Fars News about Egyptian Revolution to see how these news networks have applied such strategies to show good and evil in this single event.
D. CDA in language teaching
Based on the role discourse plays in pedagogical subjects, as pointed in Cots (2006), one can see the critical approach which is applied in classroom settings in line with a view of education which aims at expanding of students' capacity to investigate and judge about their surrounding world and, if necessary, to make appropriate changes. However, this view of language and education is often absent from foreign language programs. Rahimi and Riasati (2011) believe that CDA has been applied as a fundamental regulation in education.
2. Method
A. Instruments
The materialfor this analysis consists of some 40 pieces of news published by VOA and Fars News during the eighteen days of Egyptian revolution (from 25th January 2011 to 11th February 2011).20 pieces of them were collected from VOA, and the other 20 pieces were collected from Fars News for being analyzed in Van Leeuwen's framework.The news agencies were chosen because of the fact that the news agencies are true representatives of two opposite governments' views on world's issues. As the US has the leading role in western issues, VOA news agency was chosen as a representative of western media, and since Islamic Republic of Iran is the permanent opposite side to American and western policies, Fars News agency, a governmental news network with anti-western point of views, was selected as a representative of Iranian media.
B. Procedure
For the purpose of comparing different ways of representing Egyptian revolution by VOA and Fars News, 20 pieces of news were chosen randomly from VOA and 20 pieces of news were chosen randomly from Fars News.The analytical framework of Van Leeuwen (2008) isapplied to elucidate the representation of Egyptian Revolution in the above mentioned news agencies.
C. Data Analysis
Various categories of (de-)legitimation have been analyzed and counted to determine their frequencies to find which one of these strategies is used most frequently.and to investigate the degree to which organizeduse is made out of these different strategies of (de-)legitimation.
In this study, four categories of discursive strategies in (de-)legitimation were employed. Each of these four categories has some subcategories. All of the legitimation subcategories were taken into account in conducting the study. Discursive strategies in (de-)legitimation proposed by Van Leeuwen (2008) are defined as in the subsequent sections of this chapter.
Authorization:
Personal authority: Considering personal authority "legitimate authority is given to people because of their status or role in a particular institution (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 106). Then here the answer to the ''why'' questions like ''why we should do this?'' is a statement such as ''because I say so,'' or ''because so-and-so says so'' in which some kind of authority is vested in ''so-and-so'' (Van Leeuwen 2008). (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p.106).
Example in FARS NEWS agency; to legitimize Egyptian revolution: ¿J j Oj^i L | ¿¿"J 3 '¿U^ ¿1 j ij^ ^-p-1^ ^jl A1-"» J5" " ^¿^ ^o*«" ¿¿J ¿■"'k
(Fars News, 89/11/05) —U^
Here, Mohammed ElBaradei as an authority is expresses that he will support people in Egyptian revolution.
Expert Authority: With regard to expert authority ''legitimacy is provided by expertise rather than status'' (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 107).
Example in in FARS NEWS agency to legitimize Egyptian revolution:
(Fars News, 89/11/05). ¿¿¿jS f-*i j^S" ¿¿l j p-S^- ¿lj-~il <^5" 3j*JL^ j5-^5" ¿¿l 3 j.« j« ¿I3l^-s JUi^l jJjJsi*« ¿l
Here, 'analysts' as a group of experts show Egyptian revolution as the movement against the current autarchy, so they are delegitimizing Mubarak's regime by calling it autarchy.
Role Model Authority: In the case of role model authority, people follow the example of role models or opinion leaders. In a familiar way ''role model authority plays a particularly important role in advertising and lifestyle media'' (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p.107).
Example in FARS NEWS agency; to legitimize Egyptian revolution:
(Fars News, 89/11/05) .j^jS f-*i ¿¿l j ¿ljiil ¿¿L 3j*JL^ 3*; [ j...« ] ¿¿l
Here, it is said that Egyptian revolution is the consequence of Toones latest events against autarchy, so Toones movement is known as a role model for Egiptians.
Impersonal Authority: Here the answer to the unspoken "why" question is then "because the laws (the rules, the policies, the guidelines, etc.) say so." (Van Leeuwen, 2008: 107). In his book 'Ethics of Coercion and Authority', Timo Airaksinen (1989) notes that the difference between personal authority and impersonal authority is simply that the agent is either an individual or a structural placeholder (p. 142).
Example in VOA news agency; to legitimize Egyptian revolution:
The military announced on the state television it supports the "legitimate demands of the people". (V OA news, 09/02/2011)
The Authority of Tradition: Bearing in mind the authority of tradition, the implicit or explicit answer to the "why" question is "because this is what we have always done". (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 108).
Example in FARS NEWS agency; to legitimize Egyptian revolution:
.Oil ¿-^¿-A^iil^^ j jlj^l 3 jf J-i jlj*^ '-"j-ft' ^^¿J-^ j.« 1« A5* JJIJ J-j— Oil JL.« «> j5"l 3 j.--j-Aj jjS j^i.-.« 3 j.« J.« J.-J-0.& ¿Isl^^
(Fars News, 89/11/20)
Here, it is pointing to seven thousands-year history of Egyptians that they always insist on their demands patiently.
The Authority of Conformity: Concerning the authority of conformity, finally, the response to the "why" question is "because that's what most people do." (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 109).
Example in VOA news agency; to delegitimize Hosni Mubarak and his regime:
.... thousands of anti-Mubarak protestors camping on Cairo's Tahrir Square say they will not abandon their fight until Egypt's leader of nearly
30 years leaves. (VOA news, 06/02/2011)
Moral Evaluation:
Evaluation: In evaluation we have to do with values and that evaluative adjectives are very important in this area. For example we have adjectives such as ''normal,'' ''natural,'' ''golden,'' and so on to legitimize actions (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 110).
Example in FARS NEWS agency; to legitimize Egyptian revolution:
(Fars News, 89/11/18) .^¿jb jj j. 3 ^ jJj J¿ ¿5-Sl -«
Here the adjectives ''national and real'' are used to describe Egyptian revolution positively.
Abstraction: We use ''abstraction'' by ''referring to practices (or to one or more of their component actions or reactions) in abstract ways that
"moralize" them by distilling from them a quality that links them to discourses of moral values'' (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 111).
Example in VOA news agency; to delegitimize Hosni Mubarak and his regime:
Mr. Biden also called for restraint by all sides and argued that credible, inclusive negotiations begin immediately for a transition to a democratic government. (VOA news, 02/02/2011)
In this mentioned example, Mr. Biden is asking for a transition to a democratic government. It shows that the former government was not a democratic one and it has negative values for Mubarak's regime.
Analogies: Comparisons made in discourse nearly always have a legitimizing or delegitimizing function. Here, the implicit answer to the question "Why must I do this?" or "Why must I do this in this way?" is "because of its similarity to another activity related to positive values". (Van Leeuwen, 2008, pp.111_12)
Example in VOA news agency; to legitimize Egyptian revolution:
The U.N. High Commissioner says change is coming to Egypt, as it has come to Tunisia. (VOA news, 03/02/2011)
Rationalization:
Goal-oriented instrumentality: In the case of goal-oriented instrumentality '' purposes are constructed as "in people," as conscious or unconscious motives, aims, intentions, goals, etc.'' (van Leeuwen, 2008: 114) and ''the formula is "I do x in order to do (or be, or have) y" (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p.114).
Example in FARS NEWS agency; to delegitimize Hosni Mubarak and his regime:
(Fars News, 89/11/15)
Here asserts that Egyptians will continue their protests in order to pull Mubarak's regime down.
Means-oriented instrumentality: In means-oriented instrumentality, the purpose is constructed as "in the action," and the action as a means to an end. The formula is then either "I achieve doing (or being, or having) y by x-ing," or "x-ing serves to achieve being (or doing, or having) y," which does not. (van Leeuwen, 2008: 114)
Example in VOA news agency; to delegitimize Hosni Mubarak and his regime:
The people want to bring down the regime. It is not them (protestors) causing this (economic) damage. The damage is caused by (an) irresponsible ruling gang. (VOA news, 05/02/2011)
Effect-oriented instrumentality: Here ''purpose is the outcome of an action,'' and ''there is no identity between the agent of the action, whose purpose is to be constructed, and the agent of the action that constitutes the purpose itself'' (van Leeuwen, 2008; 115 ).
Example in FARS NEWS agency; to delegitimize Hosni Mubarak and his regime:
(Fars .o.Mil aaIjI jl 3 £ja a" pt^** ^a jl a La ¿jIj jJ 3 Jjj jl -aI ©jb-S* OjjJ jl .aaI^^ ^a aS" ^a i_TjL.a
News, 89/11/17)
Here the current existing chaos in Egypt is the outcome of the action (continuance of Mubarak's regime) which is the fundamental reason for the existing disorder among people.
Theoretical rationalization:
Definition: Definition, in which one activity is defined in terms of another, moralized activity. For a definition to be a definition, both activities must be objectivated and generalized, and the link between them must either be attributive ("is," "constitutes," etc.) or significative ("means," "signals," "symbolizes," etc.).(van Leeuwen 2008: 116)
Example in VOA news agency; to legitimize Egyptian revolution:
...What we are asking for is not just economic prosperity, but civil rights, equality, freedom, justice and freedom of speech and freedom of election. (VOA news, 06/02/2011)
Here VOA is defining nation's demand as legitimized action looking for civil rights, equality, freedom, justice and freedom of speech and freedom of election.
Explanation: Here the answer to the "why" question is: "because doing things this way is appropriate to the nature of these actors." Generality is again essential. Explanations describe general attributes or habitual activities of the categories of actors in question (van Leeuwen 2008, p.116).
Example in FARS NEWS agency; to delegitimize Hosni Mubarak and his regime:
(Fars News, .¿jS" Ij ¿^^ OtJl^s ©jj.,..** Jl-jJ a 3 ¿jl«j o^jj^a j^j ts^-S" (jl^-Jl* ¿S" ly> jl3*y oLl^xjl «5* jtt* aS p.t&l^'^A La
89/11/20)
Here people are willing to change the government because in their opinion, the current parliament has started its work with cheating people and is not legitimized any more.
Prediction: Although predictions have a ring of authority about them, they are meant to be based on expertise, and they can therefore be denied by contrary experience, at least in principle'' (van Leeuwen 2008, p.116).
Example in VOA news agency; to legitimize Egyptian revolution:
Earlier in the day, Egyptian military officials and members of the ruling party said Mr. Mubarak will "meet protestors' demands". (VOA news, 09/02/2011)
Mythopoesis:
Moral tale: ''In moral tales, protagonists are rewarded for engaging in legitimate social practices or restoring the legitimate order'' (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 117).
Example in FARS NEWS agency; to legitimize Egyptian revolution:
(Fars News, 89/11/22) —a ^Jl^^ j ^¿^ ^Tjl-a
Here joy and happiness as the result of Mubarak's destruction is the reward of Egyptians' revolution.
Cautionary tales: "Cautionary tales, on the other hand, convey what will happen if you do not conform to the norms of social practices. Their protagonists engage in deviant activities that lead to unhappy endings'' (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p. 118).
Example in VOA news agency; to delegitimize Hosni Mubarak and his regime:
The demonstrators will not accept the latest government concessions saying the only way out of the crisis is for President Mubarak to step down and face possible prosecution for his nearly three-decade authoritarian rule. (VOA news, 05/02/2011)
Single determination: Regarding mythopoesis, when we have a narration which represent events (whether to legitimize or delegitimize them) in a fairly straightforward way, then we are dealing with single determination (van Leeuwen 2008: 118).
Example in FARS NEWS agency; to delegitimize Hosni Mubarak and his regime:
(Fars News, 89/11/12).jJj.^> j^s" ¿¿1 y ^jl-a ■-> ¿,LL jli^l^- oija-^ -j j-^a ^j^a iao^-La
This statement has no personal narrative and only is stating that millions of Egyptians from all around the Egypt are demanding the end of Mubarak's regime by protesting.
Overdetermination: Overdetermination includes ''inversion'' and ''symbolization'' as its subcategories.
Inversion: In ''inversion'' we have ''actors and/or actions inverted in terms of specific semantic features'' (Van Leeuwen, 2008, p.118).
No example was found.
Symbolization: In the case of ''symbolization,'' stories/narrations ''use symbolic actions, specific actions that can nevertheless represent more than one domain of institutionalized social practice'' (van Leeuwen 2008: 119).
Example in FARS NEWS agency; to delegitimize Hosni Mubarak and his regime: . (Fars News, 89/11/17)aal
Here the use of the word "foreign affair minister of Egypt" who is delegitimized by "ElHalbavy" symbolizes all those individuals who are present in Mubarak's government and Mubarak himself.
3. Results and discussion
This article seeks to achieve two goals. The first goal investigated in this study is how Fars News agency attempts to legitimate the Egyptian revolution. The second one is how Fars News agency attempts to delegitimate Mubarak's regime. The texts of 20 pieces of news about Egyptian revolution were read and analyzed by applying 20 subcategories of legitimation frame work of Van Leeuwin (2008). Number of each these 20 subcategories of legitimation were counted in order to show the frequency of each category used by Fars News to (de-)legitimize such a single event. The result of this analysis is shown in table 1.
Table i:
FrequencyOfEachVanLeeuwen'sLegitimationCategoryUsedByvoa andFarsNewsIn4oPiecesOfNewsAboutEgyptianRevolution
Rows (De-) legitimation categories Legitimation of Egyptian revolution Delegitimation of HosniMubarak's regime
voa Fars News voa Fars News
1 Personal 10 23 11 12
2 Expert 4 12 3 6
3 Role model 0 5 0 2
4 Impersonal 1 0 0 3
5 Tradition 0 3 0 4
6 Conformity 7 7 8 9
Total 22 50 22 36
7 Evaluation 12 9 0 9
8 Abstraction 4 15 21 10
9 Analogies 4 6 1 1
Total 20 30 22 20
10 Goal oriented 0 3 9 4
11 Means oriented 2 3 1 5
12 Effect oriented 0 0 2 2
13 Definition 2 3 2 3
14 Explanation 1 5 6 2
15 Prediction 4 5 6 4
Total 9 19 26 20
16 Moral tale 0 6 0 0
17 Cautionary tale 0 0 3 7
18 Single determination 0 0 19 8
19 Inversion 0 0 0 0
20 Symbolization 0 3 5 2
Total 0 9 27 17
Overall 51 108 97 93
Table 1 shows the frequency by which each category of legitimation is employed in collected news texts. By analyzing the news texts in the framework of discursive strategies of legitimation developed by Van Leeuwen (2008), according to the results shown in table 1, VOA news agency has legitimized Egyptian revolution with the overall frequency of 51 and delegitimized Hosni Mubarak and his regime with the frequency of 97, whereas table 1 shows that Fars news has legitimized the revolution with the overall frequency of 108 and has delegitimized Mubarak with the frequency of 91. It means that VOA has tried more to delegitimize Hosni Mubarak and his regime than to legitimize the revolution, while Fars News has put more attempts in legitimizing Egyptian revolution than delegitimizing Mubarak's regime. It seems that Fars News agency is going to delegitimize Mubarak regime by presenting theEgyptian uprising as a legitimized action. On the other hand the difference between frequency of the revolution legitimation (51) and Mubarak's regime delegitimation in VOA corpus (97) was significant; it can be inferred that VOA has not shown much tendency in legitimizing the revolution. At the beginning days of the revolution VOA shows few signs of (de-)legitimation, and it tries to intervene and solve the problem between Egyptians and their government by discussion, but later for keeping its interests and maintaining its positive status in Egypt, it has preferred to shift his position gradually from the government front to the nation front and started to benefit from legitimation approach more than the beginning days of revolution. On the other hand, analyzing Fars News corpus shows that it has benefited legitimation discursive strategies on behalf of Egyptian nation and against Mubarak's regime from the beginning days of the revolution.
Considering table 1, in employing (de-)legitimation 4 main categories, VOA has benefited from 'authorization' more than the other three categories. And among the legitimation sub categories, VOA has mostly used 'evaluation' for legitimizing the revolution and 'abstraction' for delegitimizing Mubarak's regime. While, some categories were not taken in to account at all by VOA, as 'role model', 'authority of tradition', 'moral tale', and 'inversion', or they had few frequency, as 'impersonal authority', 'means oriented' and 'effect oriented' rationalization, and 'cautionary tale'. So, in VOA idea, 'authorization' and 'moral evaluation', with little difference in frequency, are the most effective categories of legitimation which can be used for the U.S. vested interests.
According to table 1, the most frequent category of legitimation used by Fars News agency in representing
Egyptian revolution and Mubarak's regime is 'authorization' with the frequency of 84. And among the subcategories of legitimation, 'personal authority' and abstraction are the most frequent ones for both legitimation and delegitimation purposes. And strategies as 'inversion', 'effect oriented', and 'impersonal authority' have the least usage in Fars News corpus. Hence, in Fars News, 'authorization' is the most influential discursive strategies of legitimation which has more effect on its audiences.
One similarity between these two news agencies in applying discursive strategies of (de-)legitimation is that both of them have not benefited from all categories with the same frequency. A common issue between them was using 'authorization' as the most frequent strategy and 'mythopoesis' as the least frequent category of (de-)legitimation. And some categories, as 'mythopoesis', have the least usage for both of them. An interesting thing about the applied 'mythopoesis' in VOA was that it was employed only for delegitimatory purpose, and also in somehow similar way it was used mostly for delegitimation purpose in Fars News. Using some categories less than the others means that such discursive strategies have less or no effect on the audiences to serve the news agencies vested interests and consequently to serve the governments vested interests. So there is no reason for news agencies to focus on strategies which have little effect on the news readers.
This study also delves into whether VOA and Fars News have legitimized Egyptian revolution as an Islamic movement or as a result of bad economy. The entire gathered corpus was also analyzed through this point of view. The result of this analysis is shown in the form of frequency in table 2.
TABLE 2.
FrequencyOfDiscursiveStrategiesOfLegitimationEmployedInVoa andFarsNewsCorpusToLegitimizeEgyptianRevolutionAsAnIslamicMovementOrAsAResultOfBadEco
Rows (De-) legitimation categoriess Legitimation of Egyptian revolution as an Islamic movement Legitimation of Egyptian revolution as a result of bad economy
VOA Fars News VOA Fars News
A Authorization
1 Personal 1 11 1 0
2 Expert 0 2 2 0
3 Role model 0 1 0 0
4 Impersonal 0 0 0 0
5 Tradition 0 0 0 0
6 Conformity 0 1 1 0
Total 1 15 4 0
B Moral Evaluation
7 Evaluation 1 3 0 1
8 Abstraction 0 6 5 1
9 Analogies 1 5 0 0
Total 2 14 5 2
C Rationalization
10 Goal oriented 0 0 0 0
11 Means oriented 0 0 0 0
12 Effect oriented 0 0 0 0
13 Definition 0 0 0 0
14 Explanation 0 0 0 0
15 Prediction 0 0 0 1
Total 0 0 0 1
D Mythopoesis
16 Moral tale 0 0 0 0
17 Cautionary tale 0 0 0 0
18 Single determination 0 0 0 0
19 Inversion 0 0 0 0
20 Symbolization 0 1 2 0
Total 0 1 2 0
Overall 3 30 11 3
One of the crucial issues argued in American media and Iranian media was the reason of Egyptian revolution. American medias have done their best to show Egyptian revolution as a result of bad economy and democracy seeking. On the other hand, Iranian medias have put an attempt to represent this revolution as a national Islamic movement.
Egyptian revolution as an Islamic movement in VOA and as a result of bad economy in Fars News could be hardly Table 2 shows the opposite views of America and Iran in the reason of revolution clearly. Table 2 shows that VOA has mostly legitimized Egyptian revolution as a result of bad economy with the frequency of 11, while Fars news has strongly legitimized this revolution as an Islamic movement with the frequency of 30. On the other hand, the evidence for presenting found. In table 2 also, it is shown that VOA has mostly benefited from 'moral evaluation', and Fars News has applied 'authorization' with larger frequency. In this study application of discursive strategies of legitimation developed by Van Leeuwen (2008) in presenting Egyptian revolution and Mubarak's regime by two opposite news networks of VOA and Fars News was investigated and analyzed. The results of analysis showed that each of these two news agencies put their best attempt to use discursive strategies of legitimation systematically in order to draw their audiences' attention to what they like.
4. Conclusion
In recent years one important event happening in Arab countries has been Islamic awakening. Some of the Arab countries suffering from tyranny have had a political transition. Egyptians as Tunisians and Yemenis complained about their opinionated president and his government having ruled for thirty years in Egypt. Different news agencies around the world reflected this national movement against Hosni Mubarak and his regime which led to Mubarak's resignation. Also, some academic studies were conducted on discourse of media published exploring Egyptian revolution. The studies were about the relationship between the revolution and media, ideology of different news networks in presenting one event, influence of social media as Facebook on this revolution and so on. However, there were no studies conducted on presenting the legitimacy of Egyptian revolution and Mubarak's regime through discursive construction of language.
This study explored (de-) legitimation discursive construction of Egyptian revolution and Hosni Mubarak's regime through randomly gathered pieces of news published by VOA news agency and Fars News agency during Egyptian revolution. To do so, the analytical legitimation framework of Van Leeuwen (2008), which includes four broad categories and twenty subcategories of legitimation, was applied to analyze the provided corpus analytically. Two main questions were analyzed and discussed in this study.
The first question discussed in this research was how legitimatory discursive strategies have been applied in legitimizing Egyptian Revolution during the revolution by VOA and Fars News networks, and to what extent each of the news agencies is legitimizing Egyptian Revolution as whether an Islamic movement or an outcome of a bad economy.The results of the study showed that VOA put less focus on legitimizing Egyptian revolution in comparison with Fars News. Moreover, these two news agencies had some similarities and eye-catching distinctions in using legitimation categories and sub categories. For the purpose of legitimizing Egyptian revolution, VOA and Fars News have mainly employed 'authorization' among the main categories of legitimation, but in subcategories of
legitimation, 'evaluation' had the most application for VOA and 'personal authority' was the most applicable strategy for Fars News. Besides 'mythopoesis' and its subcategories had no use for VOA, but some of subcategories of mythopoesis were applied in Fars News texts.
For presenting the Egyptian revolution as an Islamic movement or an outcome of bad economy, these two news agencies having different ideologies and opposite opinions had distinguished approaches. VOA as a representative news agency of America had little tendency in showing this revolution as an Islamic movement, but did its best to represent it as a result of bad economy. In contrast, Fars News presented the revolution as an Islamic one in which the bad economy situation had little influence.
The second question of this study argued how legitimatory discursive strategies have been applied in delegitimizing Hosni Mubarak and his regime during the revolution by VOA and Fars News networks? The results of the study manifested that VOA put more emphasis on delegitimizing Hosni Mubarak and his regime than Fars News. Also here, some similarities and differences in using legitimation categories and subcategories were observable. For the sake of delegitimizing Mubarak and his regime, VOA has mainly employed 'mythopoesis' with little difference from other categories but Fars News has made the most use of 'authorization' among the main categories of legitimation, but in subcategories of legitimation, 'abstraction' had the most application for VOA and 'personal authority' was the most applicable strategy for Fars News. According to the answers to research questions, It can be concluded that Fars News used discursive strategies more systematically. This study also ascertained that when a single event as that of Egyptian revolution is represented by various news agencies, according to those news agencies' ideologies there are different ways to do so and these different perspectives on the same event are not constructed unsystematically, but based on an specific design e.g. while VOA mainly applied abstraction or evaluation in its use of (de-)legitimatory strategies, Fars News mainly employed personal authority.
Finally, it could be concluded that state-run news agencies are representatives of their governments to serve their vested interests. In this research VOA and Fars News were the representatives of America and Iran respectively. Their side takings in legitimizing Egyptian revolution as an Islamic movement or a result of bad economy proved this issue. They use discursive strategies of language to manipulate the facts then feed them to their audiences in a believable and favorable manner.
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