Articles: Department of Humanities

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Browsing Articles: Department of Humanities by Subject "Discourse"

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    Syntactic Structures used in the Discursive Construction of Covid-19 Pandemic in Kenya’s Newspaper Headlines
    (UoEm, 2024-10-16) Mulonzi, Brian Munyao; Ngumo, Cyrus Mugambi; Omoke, Lillian Kemunto
    Media scholars have noted that texts are loaded with ideologies and are therefore never neutral. Yet, the way media texts were used to communicate COVID-19 information in Kenya has been given little attention. Thus, this study examines how syntactic structures in The Standard and the Daily Nation newspapers were used to discursively construct the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya. Using Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study reveals the syntactic structures employed by the newspapers serve important discursive functions. The grammatical processes used in the headlines largely seem to give agency to COVID-19, while Kenyans are presented as grammatical patients. Giving COVID-19 agency, is a way of warning Kenyans against taking the pandemic lightly. The article also shows structures like modality construct the newspapers as having overwhelming authority over readers. Through these syntactic choices, the media wields immense power, and may influence the way people think and act concerning the pandemic.
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    Themes Used to Discursively Construct the COVID-19 Pandemic in Kenya’s Newspaper Headlines
    (UoEm, 2024-09) Mulonzi, Brian Munyao; Ngumo, Cyrus Mugambi; Omoke, Lillian Kemunto
    This study investigates the themes that discursively construct the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya’s newspaper headlines, specifically focusing on their role in structuring communication related to the COVID-19 pandemic. While prior research has examined news discourse in various contexts, thematic analysis in Kenya’s news reporting has received limited attention. The study examines 59 COVID-19-related headlines drawn from The Standard and the Daily Nation newspapers. The methodology draws from the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model, and specifically employs the Top-Down Approach of sampling texts as espoused by Mautner. Van Dijk argues that those who control discourse indirectly manipulate people’s thoughts and actions. This observation is corroborated by the study’s findings which reveal that Kenya’s print media shaped the COVID-19 discourse through the choice and framing of themes such as bondage, death, economy, education and COVID-19 research and search for vaccines. The analysis shows that Kenya’s print media largely constructed the themes in a negative way and this created a sense of crisis and fear among the populace. These feelings of fear and crisis were heightened because the themes encapsulate the things that are dear to Kenyans and which were under threat because of COVID-19. Proactive measures such as online learning during the pandemic were almost wholly excluded from the COVID-19 discourse. The media created unequal power relation with the readership by constructing itself as the reservoir of knowledge about COVID-19. The reader was positioned as subordinate and in dire need of guidance. This was an important discursive strategy for legitimizing the authority of the media about the pandemic. It is hoped that this study will make significant contribution to the fields of discourse, communication and media, as it reveals how media discourse plays a key role in shaping our understanding of pandemics.