Abstract
Political discourse occupies a prominent place in the news media’s information stream. According to many scientists, it is a complex phenomenon that blends institutional and public communication. In this space during the competition of social actors, different political products, issues, evaluations, and commentaries are born, and ordinary citizens have to choose what to support. This paper analyses an important news media discourse component – representations of social actors. Applying the content analysis method, we investigate the ways in which certain social actors are represented and the activities or social positions that are assigned to them. For our empirical research, we use the full-time teacher pay reform discourse in Lithuanian news media. Our data show that the discourse of this reform was a battleground for various social groups. Representatives of the state and authorities, as well as teachers represented by the trade unions, were the most active social actors’ groups. The first category of actors was actively pursuing the campaign to promote the reform, meanwhile, the second was seeking to draw attention to the shortcomings of the reform and calling for its improvement. This study is part of the Policy Issue Life Cycles in Lithuanian Media project funded by the Research Council of Lithuania (grant no. S-MIP-20-14).
Presenters
Jurgita JurkevičienėSenior Researcher, Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania Paulina Budrytė
Lecturer and researcher, Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Social Actors, Representations, News Media Discourse, Political Problems
