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The Cast of the News University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons GSE Faculty Research Graduate School of Education 12-1-1994 The Cast of the News Michael A. Locher Stanton Wortham University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs Recommended Citation Locher, M. A., & Wortham, S. (1994). The Cast of the News. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/ gse_pubs/105 Suggested Citation: Locher, M.A and Wortham, S. (1994). "The Cast of the News". Pragmatics, Volume 4, Issue 4, December 1994, pages 517-533. Publisher URL: http://ipra.ua.ac.be/ This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/105 For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Cast of the News Abstract In this paper, we analyze a newscast for the narrative perspectives within it, using the work of Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin on voicing. A Bakhtinian analysis of a newscast offers a richness rarely found in studies of media bias, for reasons we discuss in the body of the paper. Our question is not, "How do we eliminate perspectival news reporting?" (which is impossible), but "How do we analyze perspectives in the news?" and "Why does news reporting nevertheless seem objective?" Comments Suggested Citation: Locher, M.A and Wortham, S. (1994). "The Cast of the News". Pragmatics, Volume 4, Issue 4, December 1994, pages 517-533. Publisher URL: http://ipra.ua.ac.be/ This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/105 Pragmatics4:4.517 -533 InternationalPrasmatics Association THE CAST OF THE NEWS] MichaelA. Locher StantonE.F. Wortham 1. Introduction In this paper we analyzea newscastfor the narrativeperspectives within it, using the work of the Russiancritic Mikhail Bakhtin on voicing. A Bakhtinian analysisof a newscastoffers a richnessrarely tound in studiesof media bias,for reasonswe discuss in the bodyof the paper. Our questionis not, "How do we eliminateperspectival news reporting?" (which isimpossible), but, "How do we analyzeperspectives in the news?"and "Why doesnews reportingnevertheless seem objective?" 2. Modalitiesof text We must distinguishseveral modalities of text, understoodas temporally inscribed structuresof linguisticforms (what follows is given a detailedtreatment in Silverstein 1993).A discttrsiveinteractiott, the primary datum an analyst must explain (or a speaker-participantmust interpret), is any real-time social event centrally involving language.(A conversation,the readingof a book, and the watchingof a television newscastare all discursiveinteractions.) A denotationaltext is a discursiveinteraction understoodto cohereas a structureof referenceand predication.It describesstates-of- affairsin the world, and answersthe question, "What was said in this discursive interaction?"By contrast,an interactionaltext is a discursiveinteraction understood to cohereas a structureof indexicalpresupposition and entailment.An interactionaltext is boundto its context of production,and answersthe question,"What was done through this discursiveinteraction?" Denotational and interactional texts, while analyticallyseparable, are interrelatedin discursivepractice: What is said constrains whatis done,and vice versa. As an illustration of the differences between these modalities, consider utterancesin any of the European languagesthat have two second-personsingular personaldeictics (see Brown and Gilman 1972).Any verbal exchangecontaining these 1 Specialthanks for comments anclsuggestions to Michael Silverstein,Adam Rose, Douglas J. Glick.and Meredith Feltus. 518 Michael A. Locher and Stanton E.F. Worthant personaldeictics is a discursiveinteraction. The denotationalcontent of the utterances constitutesthe denotational text, and remains the same no matter which personal deicticsare used(both second-personpersonal deictics denote the samething, namely, the interlocutor of the speaker).However, the interactionaltext ditfers dependingon the usagepatterns of the personaldeictics, because they index (more specifically,create or entail) particularsocial relationships between the interlocutors.While symmetric exchangeof one form indexesinteractional equivalence (either as intimates or high- status equals),an asymmetricpattern indexessocial difference. (The utterancesqua interactionaltext may do other thingsas well.) Auditors of a discursiveinteraction (as in audiencereception of a newscast) must entextualize(construe as at least one modality of text) it. A single discursive interactionmay yield many entextualizations,both denotationaland interactional.(In the example above, an interlocutor may entextualizea particular utterancesolely for its information-content,solely for its socialindexicality, or for both together,depending on circumstancesand personal predilections.)From an entextualizeddiscursive interaction we can produce a text-artifacr,which is a physicalrepresentation of a text. The transcript presented below is a text-artifact,as is this paper. Aithough this terminologymay seemcumbersome, it greatlyfacilitates the analysisof language-in-use. Our object of analysis(one segmentof a newscastlasting two minutes,forty-five seconds) is complex. Using the terminology introduced above, political speeches (discursiveinteractions) are entextualized(interpreted, we might say)by reporters,who representthe original discursiveinteractions in their newsreports. These reports are themselvesdiscursive interactions that are entextualizedby an audience.Our interest is in the seconddiscursive interaction, the audiencereception of a newscast,particularly as it can be entextualizedas an intentionallyperspectival representation of the original discursiveinteraction. 3. Voicing and perspective The work of Mikhail Bakhtin (1981, 1984,1986; Volo5inovz t9lZl has generatedan extraordinaryamount of scholarship,most tocussingon his concept of "voice'." Part of the appeal of this conceptseems to be its Rorschach-likequality: Scholarssee very different things in his suggestivebut unfortunatelyunsystematic writings. Bakhtin's concept of voice derives from his musical master-metaphor:In a musicalscore with more than one melodicline, a voice is a singleone of thoselines. Various instrumentsmay pick up the line and drop it, but the line perdures.Voice, in a novel or newscastas well as in a piece of music,is fundamentallya property of the composition,one of severalrelationally-constituted lines that runs through the work. 2 Folowing Clark and Holquist (1984: 146-L70),wetake VoloSinov's(I973)work to havebeen written (at least in substantialpart) by Bakhtin. 3 Bukhtin used other terms to refer to the same phenomenon: "accent,""perspective," etc. The cast of the news 519 As Bakhtin describesthe phenomenonfor novelisticdiscourse, voicing is the perspectivalsocial positioning of charactersin a narrative(the representedworld) by a narrator (the representingworld). Narrators are necessarilyin particular social positionsand have particular interests with respect to characters"(If a narrator describesa particularcharacter as "haughty,"this judgment is spokenfrom a particular socialposition, and showsacceptance of a particularbehavioral standard.) A voice is an inhabitableperspective on a representedworld, whichresults from a mapping across a representingworld and a representedworld (see Silversteinn.d.). Importantly, Bakhtin'sinsights about narratives apply to textsin general.In many texts,we can learn as much about the narratorsas about the representedworlds. There is at leastone perspectivein everyinteractional text. Perspectivesderive from narrators'interested social positions.A voice is the perspectivallyprojectible spatiotemporaland sociallyevaluative landscape of a narrator. It is the way the world- to-be-representedlooks from a particular,interested, point of view. Voice and emplottedspeaking character are not coterminous:A numberof charactersmay inhabit the samevoice, and the samecharacter may inhabitdifterent voices (in keepingwith Bakhtin'smusical metaphor). One of Bakhtin's(see 1981:324-33I, 1984:190-199, 1986: 108-110)most importantcontributions to literary theory is the concept of double-voicing.Double- voicingis "an orientation toward someoneelse's discourse" (Bakhtin 1984: 199) immanentin a speaker'sreproduction of that discourse.In suchcases, two perspectives arein play at the sametime: That of a speaker,and that of a narrator who reproduces the speechof that original speaker.The voicescorresponding to these perspectives coexistin the reproduceddiscourse. Bakhtin (1984:195) writes: Someoneelse's words introduced into our own speechinevitably assumea new (our own) interpretation and become subject to our evalua(ion of them: That is, they becomedouble-voicecl. Another'swords are made to serve a narrator's purposes,without, however,wholly losing their original perspective.Bakhtin was at pains to point out that not all representationsof another'swords are double-voiced.If a narrator's perspectiveis congruentwith a representedspeaker's, so that no perspectivaldifference arises, the discoursemay be single-voiced.(In suchcases both the representedand representing speakersinhabit the samesocial position.) 4. Objectivifyand objectivevoicing Real objectivity,the unattainableideal of pure expositorydiscursive practice, would require"perspectivelessness," whereby the narratorwould existcompletely outside the narratedworld (and consequentlyproject no voice). Although realization of perspectivelessnessis impossible, its trope exists.We must distinguishreal
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