A Critical Discourse Analysis of UK Newspaper Reporting on the Investigatory Powers Act 2016
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Mass surveillance or licence to operate: a Critical Discourse Analysis of UK newspaper reporting on The Investigatory Powers Act 2016. Stephen Reid January, 2018 Submitted in partial fulfilment of MSc in Library and Information Science, City, University of London !1 Abstract Introduced in parliament in November 2015, the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill was the most recent version of legislation written to provide a statutory basis for a range of powers providing police and security services with various means of capturing or intercepting electronic communications. Previous efforts at legislating for these powers attracted widespread criticism, and provoked political and legal opposition, and this Bill reprised concerns over what some felt to be the excessive scope of the powers included. This research seeks to examine UK national newspaper reporting of the legislation, published around the dates of the publication of the draft version of the bill, and when the legislation passed into law as The Investigatory Powers Act 2016, in order to evaluate the quality of this reporting. Using the methodology of Critical Discourse Analysis to examine reports from a representative selection of UK national newspapers, the study aims to identify the dominant ways in which the issues are constructed in the news, and the range of sources which are drawn upon to demonstrate the disparate perspectives available. Working from the basis that newspapers represent a significant source of public information on important contemporary social issues, the research seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of newspaper reporting in providing a full and informative depiction of such matters. !2 Table of contents Introduction 5 Aims and objectives 10 Methodology 13 The search for research data 14 Conducting the analysis 16 Selection of excerpts 18 Research validity 18 Research ethics 20 Literature review 21 Investigatory Powers legislation 21 Newspaper framing 22 Sources in the news 24 Surveillance 27 Analysis 32 2015 33 Discourse of need for the powers 33 Discourse of harms and risks 38 Discourse of government concessions 40 Discourse of oversight and safeguards 45 Exceptions to discourses 50 2016 55 Discourse of insufficient opposition 55 Discourse of privacy and rights 59 ECJ ruling: discourse of need 62 ECJ ruling: discourse of justice 65 Discussion 68 Limitations 74 Implications 76 !3 Reflective statement 77 Conclusion 79 References 80 Appendices 86 1. Articles for 2015 86 2. Articles for 2016 281 3. Themes and sources of 2015 436 4. Themes and sources of 2016 439 5. Research Proposal 442 !4 Introduction In the United Kingdom today, there are a significant number and type of sources that may be relied upon, or expected to provide information on subjects or issues of current importance. Social media platforms as a source of information are still in a state of relative immaturity, while radio and television have been a part of our society for decades, and newspapers in one form or another have persisted for centuries. Across these channels of dissemination, whether new or old, there exists a broad range of information which contributes in some way to keeping the population informed, although this differs considerably in its depth, its relevance, and its integrity. There is much talk, and growing concern over the apparent spread of dubious information on the Internet, specifically amongst social media output, and while this is certainly an issue of interest to all with a concern for information and its influence in society, it is important that we not let slip the shortcomings of more longstanding information channels when considering the quality of information available through mass media. In the same way that information accessed on newer digital platforms can benefit from evaluation or analysis, rather than receiving ready acceptance, the output of what we now think as traditional media channels such as broadcast and print, should also bear due consideration, especially around contentious or divisive issues. While newspapers and their respective online presences are generally absent the most egregious abuses of validity and quality that Facebook, as an example, has been found to enable, it is important to understand the various forces, factors, and decisions which can influence how newspaper reporting is constructed (Curran and Seaton, 2010; Conboy, 2011; Broersma, den Herder and Schohaus, 2013), and what this means for consumers of newspapers, as well as what it might imply for society more broadly. !5 Though it is difficult to accurately measure the direct influence that a particular news media story or discourse exerts on public beliefs or attitudes (Happer and Philo, 2013), it is evident that when attempting to gauge the reported reach of various types of media, newspapers remain a key source to which people turn for information on contemporary issues. While the media by which people access news reportedly differs according to age, with television claiming a wider influence amongst older groups, newspapers - including their online presences - still feature more prominently as a source than social media (Newman et al., 2017). In light of this, it can be taken that newspapers form some meaningful part of the information landscape of current affairs, and therefore represent a fair indicator of the breadth of viewpoints offered on a particular issue. It is from this perspective that the current research set out to examine the reporting on the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA) as it appeared in a selection of UK national newspapers. Before further detailing the aims and the scope of the research, however, it will be useful to provide a brief outline of the legislation itself, and its context. The bill was first published in draft form and presented to Parliament on the fourth of November 2015, and following the usual process of debate and amendment in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, was enacted into law on the twenty-ninth of November 2016. The Act placed on a statutory footing a series of powers relating to the collection and storage of communications data, including the metadata of the emails, text messages (SMS), and mobile phone calls of UK citizens, as well as obliging Internet Service Providers to store the Internet connection records of their customers for twelve months. In addition, the Act also provided a legal basis for the security agencies to remotely interfere with digital communication devices such as computers, tablets and phones, with the legal requirement for third party companies to assist where necessary (Draft Investigatory Powers Bill, 2015). Some of these powers were covered in some form by previous legislation, such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000, !6 while related capabilities had been used despite the absence of laws allowing for their use; this latter misuse being well documented in the information first released by Edward Snowden in June of 2013 (MacCaskill et al., 2013) A previous attempt to pass similar legislation, The Draft Communications Bill, which was given the moniker of 'The Snooper's Charter', provoked sufficient political opposition to be defeated by the Liberal Democrats in April of 2013, while in coalition government with the Conservatives. The following year saw the passage of the Data Regulation and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 (DRIPA), which provoked a legal challenge by two MPs, ending with a 2015 High Court judgement that two sections of the Act were unlawful and were to be suspended. This lead to the need for renewed legislation, the result of which was the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, and while it passed both Houses of Parliament with relative ease, in this case the European Court of Justice subsequently declared the provision for generalised collection of data to be unlawful. The ramifications of this decision for the powers covered by Act is unclear, especially in light of the UK's decision to leave the European Union, though recent developments suggest that some changes will have to be made in order for the legislation to comply with the ruling (Travis, 2017). In an attempt to determine the nature and the breadth of information on the IPA that the British public potentially had ready access to, this research will use reporting from a selection of UK national newspapers as its source material. Through the analysis of this material, it is hoped that several questions of interest might be addressed, and that issues for future consideration and action can be identified. The first question the research sets out to ask, is to what extent did newspaper reporting of the legislation include a diverse range of voices, or express different !7 perspectives on the issues at stake? Any attempt to answer this question, inevitably leads to a consideration of how effective newspapers were in informing the public, a role which they have commonly been ascribed (Curran and Seaton, 2010; Matei, 2014; Lischka, 2016). This function of the press has been variously contested and questioned (Curran and Seaton, 2010; Hastedt, 2016) , but the idea that news ought to fulfil some informative role in society remains a valid starting point, provided that one takes into consideration the broader context. In an idealised view of newspaper reporting, we would expect coverage to include a healthy diversity of voices and perspectives, particularly in the reporting of divisive or contentious issues, where differing explanations are likely to exist (Philo, 2007; Happer and Philo, 2013). While the availability of diverse information in itself is no guarantee of diverse viewpoints amongst a population, the absence of diverse information seems to be obviously problematic, due to the limiting effect it may have on the ways in which an issue can be understood, represented, or discussed (Fowler, 1991). The second question which the research will aim to address is the existence of differences in reporting that occur between the different newspaper outlets: i.e.