| IJELC |
International
Journal of English Literature and Culture |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
International Journal of English Literature and Culture Vol. 5(4), pp. 108-116, June, 2017 ISSN: 2360-7831 DOI: 10.14662/IJELC2017.029
Review paper
Focusing and Ideology in Political Media: An Investigative Study of Themes in Nigerian Newspaper Editorials on Political Issues in Nigeria
Bukola Y. Akindele and Aminat K. Lawal
Department of English, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. E-mail: bukolaflourish@gmail.com; neeneehorlar@gmail.com
Accepted 14 June 2017
The study examined how the messages in the editorials of three
prominent Nigerian newspapers (The Punch, The Nation and The Guardian),
on burning political issues between 2014 and 2016, were conveyed. Close
attention was paid to the ideological implications of the choices of
marked and unmarked themes in those editorials. The theoretical
framework on which the work was anchored is the Halliday’s Systemic
Functional Linguistics (SFL).The findings showed that the use of
unmarked themes was more prominent than the marked ones across the
editorials. From the 313 thematic choices identified in the data, 193
were unmarked while the remaining 120 were marked. The marked themes
were used by editors to place emphasis on crucial points relating to
certain political issues, criticise and ridicule the corrupt practices
of political leaders, capture the attention of readers and also help
editors to present their views, opinion and suggestions in a way which
may not attract criticism. The study concluded that the preponderance of
unmarked theme was because editorials are meant to be presented as clear
and succinct as possible. Cite This Article As: kindele BY, Lawal AK (2017). Focusing and Ideology in Political Media: An Investigative Study of Themes in Nigerian Newspaper Editorials on Political Issues in Nigeria. Inter. J. Eng. Lit. Cult. 5(4): 108-116 |
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
