Constructing Meaning from Broadcast News

University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons

GSE Faculty Research Graduate School of Education

January 2000

Video, Politics, and Applied Semiotics: Constructing Meaning from Broadcast News

Stanton Wortham University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Wortham, S. (2000). Video, Politics, and Applied Semiotics: Constructing Meaning from Broadcast News. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/72

Reprinted from International Journal of Applied Semiotics, Volume 2, Issue 1-2, 2000, pages 131-141. Publisher URL: http://www.atwoodpublishing.com/journals/journal.htm

This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/72 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Video, Politics, and Applied Semiotics: Constructing Meaning from Broadcast News

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between verbal and visual semiotic cues by analyzing how semiotic cues position speakers interactionally and communicate implicit evaluative messages in one television news story. The paper summarizes an analysis of this news story that my collaborator and I have done based solely on verbal cues (Wortham & Locher, 1996). Then the paper analyzes the visual cues that accompany this television news report. The research question is: Do the visual cues contribute to the interactional positioning accomplished by the verbal cues? The analysis shows that visual cues in this case both reinforce the interactional positioning that gets done by verbal cues and create a pattern of interactional positioning that is independent of the verbal cues.

Comments Reprinted from International Journal of Applied Semiotics, Volume 2, Issue 1-2, 2000, pages 131-141. Publisher URL: http://www.atwoodpublishing.com/journals/journal.htm

This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/72 Video, Poli tics, and Applied Semiotics: Constructing Mean ing from Broadcast News

Stanton Wortham Univer sity of Penn syl va nia

Abstract: This pa per ex am ines the re la tion ship be tween ver bal and visual semiotic cues by an alyz ing how semiotic cues po sition speak ers interactionally and commu ni cate im plicit evaluative mes sages in one televi sion news story. The pa per sum ma rizes an analy sis of this news story that my col labo rator and I have done based solely on verbal cues (Wortham & Locher, 1996). Then the paper ana lyzes the visual cues that accom pany this tele vision news re port. The research ques tion is: Do the visual cues con trib ute to the interactional po si tion ing accom plished by the ver bal cues? The anal ysis shows that visual cues in this case both rein force the interactional po si tion ing that gets done by ver bal cues and create a pat tern of interactional po si tion ing that is in de pendent of the verbal cues.

Intro duc tion This paper ex am ines the rela tion ship between ver bal and vi sual semiotic cues by ana lyz ing how semiotic cues posi tion speakers interactionally, and thus com mu ni cate im plicit evaluative mes sages, in one tele vi sion news story. First, the pa per sum marizes an anal y sis of this news story that my col lab o ra tor and I have done based solely on ver bal cues (Wortham & Locher, 1996). This analy sis of verbal cues ar gues that the newscast ers’ speech simul ta neously accom plishes two functions: it de notes the polit i cal events being reported, and it posi tions the report ers, in evaluative ways, with respect to the polit i cal can didates they are cov ering. In summa riz ing this earlier analy sis, the paper sketches how one can sys temat i cally ana lyze the interactional po sition ing ac complished through speech. Sec ond, the paper an alyzes the vi sual cues that accom pany this tele vi sion news report. The re search questions are: Do the vi sual cues contrib ute to the interactional posi tion ing ac complished by the ver bal cues? Do the vi sual cues com ple ment and re in force the interactional posi tion ing that gets accom - plished by the verbal cues? Or do the vi sual cues contrib ute to some other — either un re lated or diver gent — interactional posi tion ing that the re porters may be do ing?

International Journal of Applied Semiotics Vol. 2, no 1-2 131 Con structing Meaning from Broadcast News

Verbal Po sitioning Speech com mu ni cates more than denotational con tent. As Goffman (1959, 1974) and many oth ers have shown, speak ers in ev i ta bly adopt interactional posi tions with even the most mundane ut terances. Knowingly or not, speakers posi tion themselves with respect to others in the in ter ac tion and with re spect to im plicit moral standards from the culture at large. This holds for newscast ers as well. Despite at tempts at ob jec tiv ity, newscast ers adopt interactional po sitions to ward and at least im plicitly eval u ate those they cover (Verschueren, 1985; Waugh, 1995). Wortham and Locher (1996) use concepts from Bakhtin (1935/ 1981, 1953/1986) to an alyze the interactional posi tion ing ac complished by news- casters dur ing televi sion cov er age of po liti cal candi dates. This arti cle draws on two cen tral Bakhtinian con cepts. In his theory of the novel, Bakhtin de - fines voice as an identi fi able social role or po si tion that a char ac ter enacts. Nov el ists por tray charac ters as “speaking with differ ent voices” by de scrib- ing them and putt ing cer tain words into their mouths — the words of a long- shoreman, a but ler, a pol iti cian, etc. Novel ists also ventriloquate their char ac ters when an “authorial voice” enters and takes a po si tion with re - spect to a charac ter. Ventriloquation is an au thor “speaking through” a charac ter by align ing or distanc ing him self or her self from that char ac ter. Bakhtin claims that, when ever an author presents the voice of another, he or she inev i ta bly takes some evaluative posi tion on it. Any speaker talking about others occu pies a po si tion partly anal o gous to a novel ist’s. Like novel ists, speakers present oth ers as if those others speak with certain voices. Espe cially when they rep re sent oth ers’ speech, speak ers cast oth ers in spe cific so cial posi tions. Speakers also ventriloquate those they talk about. By giv ing them partic u lar voices and plac ing them in types of social events, speak ers evalu ate those they de scribe (Besnier, 1992; Parmentier, 1993). Like other speak ers, news cast ers portray their subjects as people who speak with iden ti fi able voices. And they themselves ventriloquate these voices and thereby eval u ate those they cover. Pre vi ous work on me dia discourse and media bias has estab lished that “news is deter mined by values, and the kind of lan guage in which that news is told re flects and expresses those val ues” (Bell, 1991, p. 2). Bell describes how news texts are mul tilay- ered products, and he thus makes clear that most implicit values ex pressed in news casts are com plex and not fully in tentional. Nonethe less, as Da vis and Walton (1983) and others have shown, news casts do often ex press co - her ent evaluative po sitions that can be uncov ered by system atic analy sis of semiotic cues. In or der to an alyze the interactional posi tion ing and evaluative mes - sages in televi sion news discourse, we need a more sys tematic semiotic framework. Describing a verbal in terac tion relates two events of lan guage use, the narrat ing and the nar rated (Jakobson, 1957/1971). Many contem - porary analy ses of lan guage use have shown the util ity of this dis tinction (e.g., Schiffrin, 1996; Silverstein, 1976; Verschueren, 1985). A news broadcast is a nar rat ing event. The an chor and corre spon dents speak among

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them selves and to the au di ence. The events dis cussed as the news story — e.g., polit i cal can di dates’ statements — are narrated events. Bakhtin’s claims, put into this ter minol ogy, are that a speaker’s descrip tions of a narrated event inev i ta bly (a) at tribute social posi tions to those described, and (b) ex press, in the narrat ing event, the speaker’s own social posi tion and at- titude with re spect to those described. In other work, I have laid out a sys tem atic technique for iden tify ing such attri bu tions and evalu a tions in dis course (Wortham, 1996; 2001; Wortham & Locher, 1996). First, the ana lyst iden ti fies all to kens of certain textual de vices that speak ers commonly use to voice and to evalu ate their sub jects (for a list of cues, cf. Wortham, 1996; 2001; Wortham & Locher, 1996). Then the ana lyst iden ti fies pat terns in the use of these de vices or cues. As we will see, for in stance, a news caster might use sev eral metapragmatic verbs (Silverstein, 1976) to quote a given speaker, verbs that char ac ter ize or “voice” that speaker as like a crim i nal — e.g., say ing that Bush “de nied,” “claimed,” “changed his story,” “ap peared to admit,” etc. From these pat terns in the cues, the ana lyst goes on to in fer the evaluative mes sage or interactional posi tion ing that the speaker is doing. In this case, the re porters may be present ing Bush as a liar and setting them selves up as the guardians of the truth. This approach is not a mechan i cal method for identi fy ing voicing and ventriloquation. An ana lyst can not sim ply compute the voicing and ventriloquation af ter identi fy ing partic u lar de vices. In stead, to kens of the de vices pro vide clues, from which the an alyst must infer an inter pre ta tion of the voicing and ventriloquation. As in any herme neu tic pro cess, all such inter pre ta tions are open to chal lenge and revi sion. To summa rize, this in - ter pre tive process involves asking three ques tions: Given the de vices or cues used by the speaker, what voices are being attrib uted to the char ac- ters? Given these tokens, what type of interactional event is the speaker estab lish ing for the nar rat ing event? (In the CBS news cast an a lyzed below, for instance, the narrat ing event is a mock trial.) What role is the speaker playing in this nar rating event, and what is his or her po si tion with re spect to the vari ous char ac ters?

Verbally Cued Po si tioning on the News The news cast data an a lyzed in this paper come from a larger study of net - work news cover age from the 1992 U.S. pres i den tial campaign (Locher & Wortham, 1994; Wortham & Locher, 1996, 1999). My colleague and I re - corded vir tu ally every net work news broad cast between Labor Day and Election Day on ABC, CBS, PBS, and the CNN Spanish-language broadcast (called Telemundo/CNN at the time), and we have done var ious analy ses of these data. I fo cus here on one partic u lar news story. On Oc tober 30, 1992 — four days before the presi den tial elec tion between then Pres i dent George Bush and then Gover nor Bill Clinton — a spe- cial prose cu tor re leased notes writ ten in 1986 by Caspar Weinberger (Ron ald Rea gan’s Sec re tary of Defense). The notes were re leased as part of a grand jury indict ment that alleged Weinberger had lied to Congress while

133 Con structing Meaning from Broadcast News

attempt ing to hide the fact that both Rea gan and Bush knew be forehand and had approved of the ille gal 1986 U.S. gov ernment sale of mis siles to Iran. The notes were a lead story for tele vi sion news that eve ning be cause they contra dicted Bush’s repeated state ments that he did not know of the arms sale ahead of time. CBS’s cover age of this in ci dent dif fers dramat i cally from that of both CNN and ABC, both in structure and in voicing and ventriloquation. CBS gives the story much more space — al most 1300 words, which is more than twice as much as ABC and four times as much as CNN. The struc ture of the report is also differ ent. Instead of the anchor report ing the issue and then going directly to the campaign corre spon dents for re sponses, an other cor - re spon dent reports the bulk of the story be fore they get to the indi vid ual cam paign responses. This initial cor re spon dent is the CBS news “law cor - re spon dent” — which tells us something impor tant about the frame CBS places on the story. The news cast is orga nized as fol lows: • An chor in troduc tion • Law cor respon dent re port of the facts, includ ing clips from jour- nalists and Bush’s own past claims • An chor in tro duces cam paign corre spon dents • Bush campaign corre spon dent, in clud ing clips from Bush and his cam paign staff • Clinton cam paign cor re spon dent, in cluding clips from Clinton and his campaign staff • Perot campaign cor re spon dent, in clud ing clip from Perot • Re port of poll on whether pub lic trusts Bush or Clinton more The anal y sis de vel oped in Wortham and Locher (1996) shows that the se lec tion of the law corre spon dent is no ac cident. This newscast en acts a defi nite trope: George Bush is put on trial. The law corre spon dent, Rita Braver, acts like a pros e cu tor, and she calls “ex pert witnesses” to make her case against Bush. The anchor himself (Dan Rather) enters as a sort of wit- ness and warns us about Bush’s lies. The Bush campaign corre spon dent then provides an uncon vinc ing rebut tal. Next, Clinton and Perot get to “tes- tify” against Bush. The seg ment ends with a vote from the “jury,” a poll that shows the pub lic dis trusts Bush far more than it distrusts Clinton. Thus, the “trial” ends and Bush is “convicted.” In this paper I will focus only on the first two sections of the story, Rather’s in troduc tion and Braver’s re port. From the begin ning, Rather presents this story as a legal matter. In the in tro duc tory seg ment, which briefly sum ma rizes the top stories of the day, Rather’s first words are: “A se cret arms deal with Iran. A grand jury sees evi dence contrary to what Pres i dent Bush re peatedly has said … “ (an un der line here in di cates stress). So already we have “grand jury” involve ment that in dexes a le gal frame. As Rather presents it here, it even sounds as if the grand jury might be indict ing Bush him self. We do not learn un til the third sentence of the law corre spon dent’s report (120 words into the story) that the grand jury is in dict ing Weinberger and not Bush.

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After the titles, Rather begins the news cast as follows: Dan Rather report ing. There is new written ev idence tonight con- cern ing what Presi dent Bush knew and when he knew about the secret deal that sent some of Amer ica’s best mis siles to the Aya- tollah Khomeini. The grand jury evi dence raises new questions about whether Mr. Bush is telling the truth. CBS News law cor respon dent Rita Braver has details on this dramatic turn of events. Note first the em pha sis on “new” evi dence. Rather uses this word twice, and other cor respon dents pick up on it later. And at the end of this passage, Rather la bels the Weinberger notes a “dra matic turn of events.” Later on, other CBS cor respon dents use the terms “bombshell” and “reve lation” to de scribe the notes as well. So CBS frames the story as very se rious new ques tions about whether Bush has been telling the truth. Rather makes these questions even more se ri ous by using terms that in dex the ter ri ble mis take that was made: it was a “se cret deal,” the sort of ar range ment crim i nals make; it sent our “best mis siles,” not just ge neric arma ments; and it sent them to the hated “Ayatol lah Khomeini” (Ameri cans par tic u larly de tested Khomeini for his role in kidnap ing U.S. hos tages in 1980, so much so that “Nuke the Ayatol lah” was a com mon bumper-sticker slogan until his death). Rather fur ther re inforces the seri ous ness of Bush’s pre dic a ment by para phras ing the le gal question as “what Presi dent Bush knew and when he knew.” These same words were used in the in ves ti ga tion of Nixon dur ing Water gate, and Nixon was forced to resign because of the charges against him. All of this makes the questions about Bush seem ex - tremely se rious. The genre CBS uses to inves ti gate such questions is le gal. Rita Braver, the law cor re spondent, presents the evi dence against Bush. (In her re port she cites An thony Lewis, a New York Times journal ist who fol lowed the Iran mis sile scandal closely.) Braver: An embarrassing rev ela tion for George Bush. Evi dence released for the first time today contradicts his previ ous statements that he was out of the loop on the Rea gan ad- minis tra tion’s deal to ship arms to Iran in ex change for Ameri can hostages. New charges re turned in the on going case against former de fense sec retary Cas per Wein- berger detail Weinberger’s handwritten notes of a meeting George Bush attended Jan uary 7, 1986. Weinberger writes that Pres i dent Reagan decided to approve a scheme to release hostages in return for the sale of 4,000 TOW mis siles to Iran by Israel. Weinberger opposed. Others, including Vice Presi dent Bush, favored the deal. Lewis: This is further, very strong evi dence that George Bush knew all about the trading of arms for hostages, which he has consis tently denied. Braver: For years, over and over again, Mr. Bush claimed nei- ther he nor Pres i dent Reagan knew the details.

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Bush [12/3/86]: The Presi dent is absolutely convinced that he did not swap arms for hostages. Braver: Presi dent Bush has changed his story sev eral times, and in fact ear lier this month ap peared to ad mit that he knew something about the deal. Inter viewer [10/13/92]: You knew about the arms for hostages. Bush [10/13/92]: Yes. And I’ve said so all along. Braver here picks up Rather’s use of the term “deal” to refer to the arms sale, and she also uses “scheme.” Both of these words often in dex crim i nal acts. She uses the metapragmatic verb “contra dict” to em pha size the new evi dence that Bush has been lying. She also pres ents de tails of the notes, and thus re inforces their objec tiv ity: the notes are “hand written,” they de scribe a meet ing on a specific date, and they specif i cally men tion 4,000 mis siles. She leaves no doubt that Bush attended the meeting Wein- berger’s notes describe. Braver then proceeds to call a “wit ness” and pres ent evi dence. An- thony Lewis in dicts Bush bluntly, as one would ex pect a pros e cu tion wit - ness to do — by putt ing the verb deny in Bush’s mouth, and by claim ing that Bush re ally “knew all about” the deal. Then Braver illus trates Bush’s “claims” with his own words (like “deny,” “claim” is a metapragmatic verb of ten as soci ated with le gal de fen dants). She produces, as an ex hibit, a tape of Bush de nying that Rea gan knew of the swap. Like a good pros e cu tor, she then pro duces more ev idence — again an exhibit in Bush’s own words — that he “has changed his story” (along with “ad mit,” this is an other type of predi ca tion asso ci ated with le gal defen dants). The contra dic tion between the two Bush quotes is blunt, and it leaves the clear impres sion that Bush must have been ly ing at some point. Braver contin ues her case by call ing on Lewis once more: Braver: But in that same in terview the presi dent also denied being at key meet ings, in clud ing the one in the note released today, where Weinberger opposed the trade. New York Times colum nist An thony Lewis, who’s been track ing the presi dent’s Iran-Contra connection, says it’s ironic George Bush is trying to make Bill Clinton’s truthful ness an is sue. Lewis: It’s the president of the United States deliberately, knowingly, forcefully telling you an untruth, year af ter year, month after month, that’s going to destroy our faith in our po liti cal sys tem. Braver: The inde pend ent coun sel insists the release of the note was timed to meet the s chedule for Caspar Weinberger’s trial, not to em bar rass the presi dent in the fi nal days of the campaign. Rita Braver, CBS News, Wash ington. Note that, in intro duc ing Lewis, Braver uses the phrase “the pres i- dent’s Iran-Contra con nection.” The term “connec tion” is yet an other

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as so ci ated with crim i nal activ ity, and thus she rein forces her voicing of Bush as a crim i nal de fendant fac ing seri ous charges. Lewis contin ues along these lines by claiming that Bush has been repeat edly lying. He also iden ti- fies the vic tim of the crime: our polit i cal system is losing cred ibil ity be cause of Bush’s lies. As de scribed more exten sively in Wortham and Locher (1996), I ar gue that Rather and Braver are stag ing a mock trial of Bush in this re port. They char ac ter ize him as being like a crimi nal de fendant — the kind of person who lies, changes his story, and strug gles to cover it up. And Braver posi- tions her self interactionally as a mock prose cu tor who is press ing the case against Bush. This sort of interactional po sition ing conveys im plicit evaluative messages about the protag onist in the story — in this case, a mes sage that Bush is not to be trusted.

Vi sual Cues The anal y sis so far, and the more com prehen sive analy sis in Wortham and Locher (1996), re lies ex clu sively on ver bal cues. As a televi sion news story, how ever, this re port con tained both the ver bal text and accom pa ny ing visu- als. The visual in forma tion contains semiotic cues just as the speech does, and these vi sual cues might contrib ute to the interactional posi tion ing that Rather and Braver enact and the im plicit evaluative mes sages that they send. In the rest of this pa per I will con sider the re lation ship between messages com mu ni cated by the visual cues and the ver bal cues. It might be that the vi sual cues co here with and rein force the interactional mes sage that we have found in ana lyz ing the ver bal cues. It might be that the visual cues present a sep arate mes sage, or thogo nal and un related to the interactional mes sage com mu ni cated verbally. Or it might be that the visual cues present a di vergent mes sage, one that contra dicts the one commu nicated verbally. Space limi ta tions make a com pre hen sive analy sis of the visual cues im pos si ble. But even a brief look at the pic tures shows that more than one mes sage seems to be commu ni cated through the vi sual cues in this case. In places, the vi suals seem to rein force the interactional posi tion ing that Rather and Braver do through ver bal cues. At the begin ning of the news cast, for in stance, several visual cues seem to ac com plish epistemic modal- ization (Silverstein, 1993). That is, these vi sual cues estab lish the differ en- tial epistemic access en joyed by the re porters Rather and Braver and their sub ject George Bush. By showing visu als that in dex their own greater ac - cess to hard ev idence, Rather and Braver posi tion them selves as warranted in their claims and as more trustwor thy than Bush. At the be ginning of Braver’s story, for in stance, when she de scribes the contents of Weinberger’s note, the picture shows an il leg ible page of typed text. As Braver quotes pieces of the Weinberger note, differ ent pieces of the text move into the foreground and be come leg ible — each time a piece with the di rect quote given in quo ta tion marks. We know from Braver’s own story that the notes were hand written, so this vi sual rep re sen ta tion does not ac curately rep re sent the notes them selves. But the visual, nonethe less, in dexes Braver’s epistemic author ity and trust worthi ness be cause it seems

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as if she is reading directly from the evi dence it self. In another vi sual, shown as Braver presents a video clip of Bush’s past state ments, CBS su - per im poses the ex act dates these clips were recorded. This rein forces Braver’s point that Bush must be ly ing because we see him say ing appar- ently contra dic tory things only a couple of weeks apart. The visual text con- taining the date does not in it self suffice to posi tion Bush as a liar, but it does re in force the verbal cues reviewed in the last section. In some re spects, then, the visual cues pre sented in this news story rein force the interactional po sition ing and evaluative mes sages that Rather and Braver com mu nicate through verbal cues. In other aspects, however, the vi sual cues seem to commu ni cate a more au tono mous mes sage — one that works along side but does not simply rein force the mes sages com muni- cated verbally. We can see this pattern by look ing at Ta ble 1. Through out this whole news story, the visual im ages al ternate in a striking way. At least six differ ent times, CBS pres ents an image of Bush smiling and looking self-assured while cam paign ing or do ing his offi cial du- ties. Then, im medi ately fol low ing each of these more posi tive im ages, co - mes a more om inous image that re minds view ers of the seri ous threat the Weinberger notes pose to Bush’s pres iden tial cam paign. Five of these pos i- tive-then-ominous visual pairs are repre sented in Table 1 — in seg ments 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 7 and 8, 9 and 10, and 14 and 15. When Braver begins her re port (at seg ment 3), for in stance, the visual shows Bush smil ing on the campaign trail. This visual seems to conflict with her voiceover, which discusses “an em bar rass ing rev ela tion” and new evi dence that “contra dicts” his re peated claims. A few seconds into her report, how ever, the visual shifts to a grim-faced Caspar Weinberger, flanked by his law yers, ex iting a limou sine and ascend ing the courthouse steps. This two-part se quence of visual cues — go ing from an appar ently happy, confi dent Bush to an omi nous, threat en ing image — oc curs four times dur- ing Braver’s re port alone. It also occurs two or three times more in other parts of the news story. I in terpret this se quence as an icon of Bush’s polit i cal for tunes at the moment of the news cast. The sequence reminds one of the famous scenes in the movie Jaws, where the camera placed above the water shows happy swim mers splash ing and playing, then the film cuts to the un derwa ter camera that shows the shark about to eat their legs. The visual se quence with Bush com muni cates that Bush is heading for a fall. At the time of the newscast we did not know whether the Weinberger notes would be im portant. Bush had been gaining in the polls, but there were only four days left before the elec tion. The message I get from CBS’s repeated sequence of posi- tive-then-ominous images is that Bush’s campaign will be derailed by the Weinberger ev idence. This pat tern is con gruent with the messages com mu ni cated by the verbal cues. If Rather and Braver are stag ing a mock trial and voic ing Bush as be ing like a crimi nal defen dant, it makes sense that his campaign might be de railed by the Weinberger ev idence. But the visu ally com mu ni cated pat - tern adds some thing distinct to the over all message here by giving the audi- ence a sense of Bush’s impend ing de mise.

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Speaker and Topic Vi sual Im age

Rather: A secret arms deal with Iran ... George Bush smiling at a meeting. Cap tion: “OUT OF THE LOOP?”

Dan Rather report ing. There is new writ ten Rather talking head. ev idence to night con cerning what Presi dent Bush knew and when he knew ...

Braver: An embar rass ing reve la tion for Bush smiling on the cam paign trail. George Bush.

… New charges re turned in the on go ing Weinberger ex iting limou sine with grim case against former de fense sec retary expres sion, sur rounded by lawyers, going Caspar Weinberger ... to arraign ment. … Weinberger writes that Pres ident Reagan Il leg i ble page of typed text. Legi ble excerpts decided to approve a scheme... brought into foreground: “to release our hos tages in return for sale of 4000 TOWs to Iran,” “I opposed,” “VP favored.” Lewis: This is further, very strong ev idence Lewis talk ing head. Cap tion: “Anthony Lewis that George Bush knew all about ... New York Times.”

Braver: For years, over and over again, Mr. Bush smiling at a meet ing. Bush claimed ...

Bush [12/3/86]: The Presi dent is abso lutely Bush talking at a press confer ence. Cap tion: con vinced ... “Decem ber 3, 1986.”

Braver: Presi dent Bush has changed his Bush campaign ing on a train, with story several times, ... self-assured facial ex pression.

… and in fact, ear lier this month ap peared Bush being in ter viewed by another re porter. to admit ... Braver: But, in that same inter view, the Bush being in ter viewed by another re porter. Presi dent also denied...

… being at key meetings, includ ing the Weinberger in an office, walk ing out with one ... a folder of papers.

New York Times col umnist, Anthony Lewis, Lewis talk ing head. ...

… who’s been track ing the Pres i dent’s Iran- Bush smiling on the cam paign trail, Contra con nection ... au di ence cheering him.

Lewis: It’s the Presi dent of the United States Lewis talk ing head. de lib er ately, knowingly, forcefully telling you an un truth ... Braver: The inde pend ent coun sel in sists the Braver talking head. release of the note was timed...

Table 1: Verbal and visual cues in the newscast

139 Con structing Meaning from Broadcast News

Con clu sion The brief analy sis pre sented in this ar ti cle has prom ise in two dif fer ent ways. First, it draws on Bakhtin (1935/1981) and more system atic contem- porary work in lin guis tic an thropol ogy (Parmentier, 1997; Silverstein, 1993; Wortham, 2001) to ana lyze interactional posi tion ing and im plicit evalu a tion in me dia discourse. By fo cus ing on the interactional as well as the denotational mes sages com mu ni cated by ver bal signs, this ap proach can provide system atic ev idence about the types of iden ti ties speak ers adopt and the types of interactional events they en act in vari ous kinds of dis course. The approach can also pro vide a semiotic account of me dia bias (Locher & Wortham, 1994; Wortham & Locher, 1996, 1999). Sec ond, the analy sis has be gun to explore the in terre la tions between visual and verbal semiotic cues. From this anal y sis of verbal and vi sual cues in one tele vi sion news story, of course, we cannot make any gen eral con clu sions about multi me dia semiotics. Un doubt edly, the rela tion ship between mes sages com mu ni cated verbally and messages com mu ni cated visu- ally var ies, de pend ing on the genre involved and on the partic u lar context. Nonethe less, this case il lus trates how visual cues can re in force interactional or evaluative messages that are com mu ni cated verbally. And it il - lus trates how vi sual cues can com mu ni cate messages distinct from those com mu ni cated ver bally — even if the vi sual and verbal messages ulti mately com ple ment each other. Using this meth od olog i cal ap proach, fu ture research on mul ti me dia semiotics should be able to explore how verbal and visual semiotic cues com ple ment and perhaps contra dict each other in differ ent contexts.

Ref er ences Bakhtin, M. (1935/1981). Dis course in the novel (C. Em er son & M. Holquist, Trans.). In M. Bakhtin (Ed.), The dialogic imag i na tion (pp. 259-422). Aus tin, TX: Univer sity of Texas Press. Bakhtin, M. (1953/1986). The problem of speech genres. In M. Bakhtin (Ed.), Speech gen res and other late essays (pp. 60-102). Austin, TX: Uni versity of Texas Press. Bell, A. (1991). The language of news media . Cambridge: Ba sil Blackwell. Besnier, N. (1992). Re ported speech and affect on Nukulaelne Atoll. In. J. Hill & J. Irvine (Eds.), Re spon si bil ity and ev i dence in oral dis course (pp. 161-181). New York: Cam bridge Univer sity Press. Davis, H., & Walton, P. (Eds.). (1983). Lan guage, image, me dia. New York: St. Martin’s. Goffman, E. (1959). The presen ta tion of self in ev eryday life. New York: Doubleday. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analy sis. New York: Harper and Row. Jakobson, R. (1957/1971). Shift ers, ver bal cat ego ries, and the Russian verb. In R. Jakobson (Ed.), Selected writ ings, Vol. 2 (pp. 130-147). The Hague: Mouton.

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Locher, M., & Wortham, S. (1994). The cast of the news. Pragmatics, 4, 517-534. Parmentier, R. (1993). The po lit i cal func tion of repre sented speech. In J. Lucy (Ed.), Reflex ive language (pp. 261-286). New York: Cambridge Univer sity Press. Parmentier, R. (1997). The prag matic semiotics of cul tures. Semiotica, 116, 1-115. Schiffrin, D. (1996). Nar rative as self-portrait. Language in Soci ety, 25, 167-203. Silverstein, M. (1976). Shift ers, lin guistic cate go ries, and cultural de scrip tion. In K. Basso & H. Selby (Eds.), Meaning in an thro pol ogy (pp. 11-55). Albu- quer que, NM: Univer sity of New Mexico Press. Silverstein, M. (1993). Metapragmatic dis course and metapragmatic func tion. In J. Lucy (Ed.), Reflex ive language . New York: Cambridge Univer sity Press. Verschueren, J. (1985). In ter na tional news report ing . Phila del phia: John Benjamins. Waugh, L. (1995). Reported speech in journal is tic dis course. Text, 15, 129-173. Wortham, S. (1996). Mapping partic i pant deictics: A tech nique for discov er ing speakers’ foot ing. Journal of Pragmatics, 25, 331-348. Wortham, S. (2001). Narra tives in Action . New York: Teachers College Press. Wortham, S., & Locher, M. (1996). Voicing on the news: An an alytic technique for study ing media bias. Text, 16, 557-585. Wortham, S., & Locher, M. (1999). Em bedded metapragmatics and lying poli ti- cians. Language & Com mu ni ca tion, 19, 109-125.

Corre spon dence Stanton Wortham, Uni ver sity of Pennsyl va nia, Grad u ate School of Ed u ca- tion, 3700 Wal nut Street, Phil a delphia, PA 19104-6216 USA. Phone: (215) 898-6307. Fax: (215) 898-4399. E-mail: [email protected] .

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