THE IMAGE OF RUSSIAN ECONOMY IN BRITISH MEDIA: USING CORPUS-ASSISTED DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN EXTRACTING NEWS FRAMES

THE IMAGE OF RUSSIAN ECONOMY IN BRITISH MEDIA: USING CORPUS-ASSISTED DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN EXTRACTING NEWS FRAMES

Author:  D.B. Izmailyan

Affiliation:  Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)

Abstract:  The major objective of this case study is to discursively assess the UK press coverage of the economic climate in Russia in the early stages of the geopolitical crisis of 2014-15. The empirical material constituting a 730-thousand-word corpus derives from UK national newspapers and the Financial Times online archive.
Applying techniques of corpus-assisted discourse studies, an inductive framing analysis seeks to detect the underlying cultural frames employed by British journalists to construct news content about Russian economy and invite readers to interpret the news in a particular way. The methodological approach consists of successive analytical stages that involve moving back and forth between quantitative and qualitative techniques of analysis that lead to the emergence of conceptual categories, or frames.
The analysis produced four dominant frames and two alternative counter-frames, all of which are logically formed in clusters of framing and reasoning devices and integrated in a frame matrix. Each cluster in the matrix conveys a coherent overarching idea that represents the frame. The inventory is represented through a broader cultural scenario of a classic fairy tale in which a villain, victim, hero, friends and foes interact in the context of crime and punishment. The dominant scenario reinforces the negative image of Russian economy by portraying Russia as a villain bearing moral and financial responsibility for its aggressive behavior.
The alternative scenario invalidates the dominant frames by crediting Russia with political and economic virtues. It is then suggested that a more resolute use of counter-frames in communication about the Russian case might mitigate the negative image of Russia in the British news media. The findings also demonstrate that corpus linguistic techniques integrated in a qualitative framing analysis can lead to a more reliable identification of loci for both privileged and unprivileged discourses, thereby providing evidence for both popular and unpopular forms of understanding the issue or topic covered in the media.

Keywords:  frame, framing analysis, corpus-assisted discourse studies, news media, UK press, Russian economy.

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For citation:  Izmailyan, D. B. (2023). The Image of Russian Economy in British Media: Using Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis in Extracting News Frames. Voprosy Kognitivnoy Lingvistiki, 2, 63-75 (In Russ.).

Pages:  63-75