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STUDYInG THE IMAGE Of A COUnTrY – THrEE THEOrETICAL PErSPECTIvES

Elena TArASHEvA (new Bulgarian University, Bulgaria)

Резюме. Статията представя преглед на литературата по въпроса за изграждане на образа на дадена страна. Обхващат се теоретичните направления на медийни изследвания, изследвания на културата и анализ на дискурса. Разграничават се подходите, свързани с критично отношение към явления като неравнопоставеност и дискриминация. Търсят се взаимовръзки между богатство, контрол върху информационните потоци и влияние върху широката публика. Стремежът е да се установят подходи, подходящи за анализ на имиджа на нации и държави.

Introduction. WhencoveringDebatesattheeUparliament,theanchoroftheBBCprogrammeThe Record Europe,ShirinWheelerheardoneofherinter-vieweessaythatBulgariaandromaniahavemetthecriteriatojointheSchengenzone.Withasourface,sheretorted“Yes,butsomepeoplehavemisgivingsaboutthese countries” and cut short the turn. The attempt to see more about the incident broughttoaBBCpagewhosecontentwas‘unavailableforyourregion’. NotonlyisBulgariatheobjectof‘misgivings’,butitspeoplearealsobannedfromtakingpartinthediscoursesaboutit.Caseslikethisarenotinfrequent,soIde-cidedtolaunchastudyoftheimageofacountry–whattheoreticalperspectivescanshedlightonthewayacountryispresentedtotheworld.

Terminological disambiguation.aquery inGoogleScholarwith searchtermIMaGereturnsabout3,180,000hits.Mostoftenthetermrefersto“bodyimage” – mainly associated with adolescents, girls, boys, dieting, masculinity etc. Secondly,IMaGeisassociatedwithtouristdestinations.referencesto‘image’in the sense: ‘a mental representation due to any of the senses (not only sight) or to organic sensations’ (Oxford English Dictionary 5а) are used in reference to the statureofmentallydisturbedpeople,ofvariousprofessionsandonlyrarely–tothe imageofethnicgroupsorcountries.Whenever the imageofaplace is re-searched,moreoftenthannottheplaceisafricaanditsinhabitants.

ThetermrepreSeNTaTION,foritspart,returnsfewerhits–1,460,000.MostofthemrelatetoculturalidentityandthemostquotedauthorisStuarthall.Notsurprisingly,theidentityunderscrutinyismainlythatofpeopleofcolour.

Quiteafewauthorsfromsociology,culturalstudiesanddiscourseanalysistake up Baudrillard’s (1994: 11) claim that the dramatic changes in the technol-ogyofreproductionhaveledtotheimplosionofrepresentationandreality.In-

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creasingly representation becomes dominant as “simulacra” are substituted for a realitythathaslittleornofoundationinexperience.hedrawsacontrastbetweensimulationandrepresentation.Whereasrepresentationattemptstoabsorbsimula-tion by interpreting it as a false image, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representationasasimulacrum.Thusmediabombardpeoplewithimagestherebysubconsciously sowingattitudes,while the audience ismanipulated tobelievethesearetheirownimpressionsoftherealthing.

At the recipient end – decoding the media message, Hall (1982) claims that peoplearenot‘culturaldopes’,passivelyreadingtextsastheproducersintendedthem to be read. However, educational initiatives (The Media Literacy Online Project, Centre for Media Literacy, to mention but a few) exist to teach mem-bersofthepublictoanalysetheconceptofrepresentation,toachieveacriticaldistancefromwhatisshownonTvandwhatisprintedinthemedia.Therefore,establishingthatwhatpeopleseeinthemediais,infact,animagedeliberatelycreatedforthemandnottherealthingrequiresaneffortanddoesnottakeplaceautomatically.

The process of representing people involves a specific type of re-contextu-alisation (van Leeuwen, 2009: 148): a social reality is transposed into a discourse constrained by the specific angle of vision of the medium with its political views, economicentanglementsetc.Theseimagescomplywiththepoliciesprojectedbythebroadcaster/publisherandhaveoftenbeenshowntoapplysemiotictoolsofpoweranddomination.

InthisstudyIemploythesecondmeaningofimage–amentalpictureofacountrycreatedthroughmediapublications.Iconsidertheterm‘image’syn-onymousto‘representation’,althoughthecasecanbemadethatanimageistheresultof representations.While ‘representation’harks to cultures andnationalidentity,myagendaherebearsacloserconnectionwithwhatimpressionsaboutacountryaudiencesareleftfromexposuretomediadiscourses.

A nation’s Image.Theoldest lineofdiscoursesaboutpublic imagesbe-longs to Public Relations and Political Science. According to Kunczik (1990: 44) “animageofanationconstitutesthetotalityofattributesthatapersonrecognises(or imagines) when he contemplates that nation.” He goes on to explain that such animageconsistsofthreeanalyticallydistinguishablecomponents–acognitivecomponentrelatingtowhatweknow,anaffectivecomponentrelatingtohowwefeelaboutthenation;andanactioncomponentthatrelatestoactualbehaviourtowardsthenation.

According to Scott (1965: 72) the cognitive component is a person’s sub-jectiveknowledgeaboutanation;theaffectivecomponentishisorherlikeordislike,approvalordisapproval,orlevelofhostilitytowardanation;andthebe-haviouralcomponentconsistsofaperson’sactiontendenciestowardsanation.

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National image, then, is defined as the cognitive representation that a person holdsofagivencountryanditspeople,whatapersonbelievestobetrueaboutanation.Ofspecialimportancetopoliticalactionisthebenevolenceormalevo-lence imputed toothernations in the images,aswellas thehistoricalcompo-nent of the image. Feelings about a country’s future are also important (Kunczik 1990: 10).

The importantquestion for this research ishow imagesareproducedandbroadcast to the world. Kunczik (ibid) further says that neither folk learning nor sciencecanshapeadequateimagesofanation,inhisopinion–becauseofthecomplexityoftheworkingsoftheinternationalsystem.By‘adequate’scientists,heclaims,meanarealisticimageofthenation.

Dutta-Bergman (2006: 104) suggests that images result from a deliberate ef-fortonthepartofgovernmentalagencies:

publicdiplomacyinvolvesthecommunicationofagovernmenttothepeopleof another nation with the goal of influencing their image of the sender nation. To the extent that public diplomacy attempts to influence the perceptions and opinionsof themembersof the target statewith respect to the imageof thesource (nation), it embodies a form of public relations.

Studies of representations/Images. Over the years, several researchershavesoughttostudytheimageofcountries,communitiesorissues,exploringavastarrayofmethodologieslodgedindifferentresearchparadigms.amongthisrich variety, three strands can be discerned, classified here according to the theo-retical frameworks that inform them.Firstly,MediaStudiesdevelopelaboratemechanismswhichexploreseveralaspectsofmediacoverage:theintentionsofthecreators;themeanstheyemploytohighlightissues;audienceresponsetome-diacoverageofissues,suchasecologicalproblems,negativelyrepresentedso-cialgroupslikeimmigrantsetc.Theanalyticaltoolstheyemployinclude‘frameanalysis’, ‘priming’and‘agendasetting’,whichdrawattentionto thefact thatthemediause–moreorlesseffectively–techniquestohighlightissuesandsetpublicagendasinfavourofproblemstheyseeasimportant.Mediatheoristsas-sociateimageswiththepowerofthemediatosetthepublicagendaandthrowinto the limelight issues for discussion. predictably, some are connected withelectoral campaigns, while others highlight ecological problems, the status ofscienceonthepublicarenaetc.Withtheenhancedtrendofmigrations,variousmigrantgroupscomeunderscrutinyfor theimagetheycut in thehostsocietyortheimageofthehostsocietyinrelationtotheirattitudestothemigrants.Yetotherresearchersseektocontributetoapublicpolicyofcreatinganimageforacommunity,aprofessionalorethnicgroup.

Secondly,CulturalStudiestackleissuesofimagesinrelationwithwhatStu-art Hall (1997) calls representations. They are defined as “the way people make

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sense of reality”. This means that representations are subjective and proceed from identities. Thus, boundaries are drawn in relation to a significant Other, where the representationstandsinameaningfulrelationtobothsubjectandobjectofrep-resentation.Itisimportanttorecognizethepowerofrepresentations:thewaysinwhichpeoplearerepresentedhaverealconsequencesasfarastheirlives,rightsandpositionsinsocietyareconcerned.

Finally,CriticalDiscourseanalysisconstruesimagesfromtexts,exploitingan array of techniques to collect and analyse data, and to triangulate the findings. In the basis is the complex concept of Discourse and its specific relation to lan-guageandsocialrealities.emphasisisgiventoqualitativeresearchwhichanaly-ses phenomena deeply engraved in language but which bear impact on socialstructures.Theresearchersfocusonmediarepresentationsofethnicorprofes-sionalgroupswherebiasisexpectedtoexist,thusgivingtheanalysisapartisanslant.

Belowisareviewofeachofthethreeresearchapproachesandthemultitudeofmethodsemployedbythepractitioners.

Media Studies. Weaver (2007: 3) describes frame studies as an area of sub-stantialgrowthaftertheyear2000,whenresearchesusingthismethodologyhavemorethandoubledcomparedtothepreviousyear.Frameanalysisisamethodborrowedfromsociologyandpsychologytoexplicatethewaywelookatreality.This method stems from the work of the social psychologist Goffman (1974: 11), who defines frames as “principles of organisation which govern the subjective meaning we assign to social events”.

McQuail (2000) identifies two main meanings attributed to the term “frame”. One refers to the way in which news content is typically shaped and contex-tualised by journalists within some familiar frame of reference and accordingto some latent structure of meaning. The second sense concerns the effect offramingonthepublic.Theaudienceisthoughttoadopttheframesofreferenceofferedby journalistsandsee theworld inasimilarway.Thisprocessaffectsagendasetting.

Goffman (ibid. 83) describes frames as comprising three parts:primaryframeworks–naturalorsocial:guideddoings–subject tosocial

appraisal.Keysandkeying–akeytransformsonetypeofmeaningintoanother,e.g.

anexpressionoffeelingintosarcasm.Designsandfabrications–induceafalsesenseofreality.“Intentionaleffort

ofoneormoreindividualstomanageactivitysothatapartyofoneormoreotherswill be induced to have a false belief about what it is that is going on.”

Framesareobviouslyseenasformativefactorswhichshapepeople’sper-ceptionofreality.Thewaytheyshapemediacoverageisdemonstrated,forin-stance, in Gamson and Lasch (1983). The authors describe five framing devices:

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(1) metaphors, (2) exemplars (i.e., historical examples from which lessons are drawn), (3) catchphrases, (4) depictions, and (5) visual images (e.g., icons). They are complemented with three reasoning devices: (1) roots (i.e., a causal analysis), (2) consequences (i.e., a particular type of effect), and (3) appeals to principle (i.e., a set of moral claims). In addition to those basically linguistic and argu-mentativefeatures,theauthorsalsostudymediapractices,suchasacceptingorrejectingcomments,usingillustrationetc.,actionsbysponsorsandthereactionof the audience. Gamson (1989) reviews discourses on nuclear energy by looking at what he calls “media packages”, which again include metaphors, catch-phrases andothersymbolicdevicesemployedinthediscourseaboutthenuclearenergy.

Itappearsthatattitudestoobjectsaredecipheredmainlythroughthelanguageused to write about them. Avraham and First (2010) suggest that media analysis contributesfactorsthataremainlyquantitative.Theycollateframeanalysisandculturalstudies,whichtheyconsidercomplementary.“...Oneofthetheoriesre-lies on the discussion of representation (Hall, 1997), while using the ideological andsemioticanalysisofthetext;theotherusesquantitativeindicatorstomea-sure the representation.... The analysis was undertaken with an understandingoftheexistenceofadialecticalrelationshipbetweenmediaframesandmodeofrepresentation.” The data comprise quantitative analysis of various types of TV coverage,ofthevoicesthattheTvchannelsselecttobroadcastandaqualitativeanalysisofidentityformationissuesandmotifswhichoccurinthecoverage.TheauthorsconcludewiththemethodsusedforthesymbolicextinctionoftheOther,suchassuppressingcoverage,includingtheminrolesofpatienttotheverbalac-tion,lesserexposureetc.

fairer representation of poor nations.Withinmediastudies,butwithaclose relation to Internationalrelations,stands theUNeSCOinitiative for theNew World Information Order (NWICO). It starts with studies of the image of africaandposesthequestionaboutthecorrelationbetweenwealthandaccessto public image.researchers –mainlyofafricanorigin– track the imageofAfrica (Okigbo 1995, Ojo 2002, Salawi 2006). Not surprisingly, they reveal that mainlytopicsofwars,famineandvariousotherdisastersprevailinthecoverageofthecontinent,metaphoricallyreferredtoastheDarkContinent.Thestudiesarelargelypartisan,proceedingfromtheassumptionthatafricatendstobemisrep-resented,accordingtotherespectiveresearchers.

The initiative New World Information Order (NWICO) (MacBride, Sean et al. 1980) was purportedly aimed at a fairer representation of the developing nationsinthemedia,butdevelopedintoamultifacetedtheoreticalandpoliticalmovementwithseriousrepercussionsontheworldatlarge,suchasBritainandtheUSaleavingtheUNeSCO.TheNWICOdebatewasinfullswingthroughoutthe 1970s and 1980s of the twentieth century and reflected activities of the United

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Nations,andparticularly–withinUNeSCO.Oneofitsbasicassumptionswasalinkbetweeneconomicprogressandtheavailabilityofinformation.Brown-Syed(1993) writes:

...liberal theoristsmaintainedthatnationalculturesandsovereigntywerenotthreatenedby informationconcentration,while structuralist and socialist an-alysts argued that they were. In particular, the NWICO proponents, mostlydrawnfromtheranksofnon-alignednations,claimedthatWesternownershipandcontrolofboththenewsmediaandtheirdistributionchannelsconstitutedaformofculturaldominancewhosecovertgoalwascapitalisteconomicexpan-sion.Thisargument,playedoutinforasuchastheNon-alignedMovementandUnescoconferencesdrewsupport fromtheSovietUnion,andhostility fromWesternadministrations.Itwaspartlyduetofearsofthegrowing“politiciza-tion” of Unesco that the United States and Great Britain withdrew from that organisation in themid1980s... TheNWICOmovementbeganasaprotestovertheconcentrationofprintandbroadcastmediaownershipamongdefactocartels,anddevelopedintoanargumentabouttheculturaldominanceofpoornationsbywealthyones.

Withreferencetothecurrentstateoftheworld,Brown-Syedmaintainsthattheproblemofunevenworlddevelopmenthasnotdisappearedwiththedissolu-tionoftheSovietUnion.Inhisopinion,“indeed,weintheWestareprovideddailywithampleevidencethatawholesegmentoftheglobe–easterneurope–is almost as badly off as the so-called “developing” nations.” Although he does nottakethesteptosaythatthistranslatesintoanewasymmetryinthespreadofinformation,severalargumentsinhistextleadustobelieveso.

Themethodologiesofthoseresearcherswhoseinterestisafricaarebasedon frame studies. In one of the recent samples of this strand, Ogunyemi (2011) explorestherepresentationofafricaonaspecialisedBBCwebsite.hecontraststwoparadigmsintherepresentationsofafricaaccordingtotheattitude:largelynegativeandmostlypositive.Byexploringtheframesofreferenceoftheusersandmoderatorsofthewebsite,thesourcesoftheinformationandtheeditorialpoliciesforallowingandrejectingcomments,Ogunyemiconcludesthattheweb-siterepeatstheframeofreferenceof‘mainstreammedia’.hesuggeststhatifthewebsitedevelopsanimprovedunderstandingforafricaanditsculture,itwouldbebetterabletoshakeoffthetendenciessuggestedbythe‘mainstreammedia’.

Theresearchersinthisveinseemtosplitthemediaintotwolargegroups:‘mainstream’–americanoreuropean–opposedto‘local’,african.Semanti-cally, theantonymofmainstreamshouldbe‘peripheral’.Butthentheconceptclasheswiththefactthatiftheobjectofrepresentationisafrica,thenafricanmediawouldbecentral,notperipheral.Suchdiscourse,ineffect,grantsfocalsta-tustoeuropeanandamericanmedia,andtacitlyendorsesthefactoftheirwider

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influence over world audiences, creating the ‘mainstream picture’ of the world. Brown-Sayed (1992) actually articulates it that being in control of the major in-ternationalmedia,theWestbroadcastsanimageoftheeast–beittheOrient,or Eastern Europe – which reflects its own semiosis of what the East represents. How that fits in with the self-evaluation of the East and what significance it has for the self-definition and progress is the issue at stake for this research. Such type ofrepresentingothersisinthebasisofdiscriminationandsocialinequality.

Theargumentforamuchmorebalanced–andlessbiased–representationofpoornationswasdismissedattheendoflastcenturyasaninfringementonthefreedomofspeechoftherichnations.however,myresearchappearstoraisethe question again: is it true that a bad image befits a poor country and are richer nations in their right to broadcast negative images of those less affluent than themselves?

Cultural Studies representations.Thesecondstrandofimagestudiesisinformed by Cultural Studies and the concept of “representation”. The researches presentwhatimagescomeacrossasaresultofmediapublicationsaboutcountries,professionalandethnicgroupsorissuesinpubliclife.Forexample,theSwedishresearchprojecton‘MediaandeuropeanIdentity:NationalorregionalMediaPerceptions of the USA?’ (Hammarlund and Riegert 2011) traces the discursive image of the USA in the elite media of five European countries: France, Finland, Sweden,Germanyandrussia.ItstudiesmediapublicationsthroughtheperiodoftheColdWarunderpresidentreaganuntilsixmonthsaftertheinstallationofpresidentObama.Thepurportedaimoftheprojectistoestablishaeuropeanidentity evolving in comparison to a significant Other (America) and as a con-sciouseffortofmediaorganisations.Themediaarepresentedas“fodderforiden-tity processes”, which plays a key role in the production and circulation of ideas, nurturinglocal,nationalandtransnationalcommunities’senseofthemselves,of-tenthroughidentifyingthosewhotheyarenot.Themethodisqualitativecontentanalysis,where the textualanalysis isbasedonaschemacategorizingvariousaspectsofthejournalisticdiscourse.Theresearcherslookatmetaphorsusedtodescribe america, such as ‘the Space Cowboy’, ‘the gum chewing americansoldier’, ‘thebenignbenefactor’etc.recurringthemesarealsoanalysed,suchasthecoldwar,disarmamentetc.additionally,theresearchersassesshowactiveorpassivetheUSaappearsinvariouscontexts.predictionsandconsequencesofeventsamericaisinvolvedinarealsoexplored.Inadditiontothese–ineffect,analysesofmostlylinguisticphenomena,analysisoftheargumentationschemesisconductedaswell.linesofargumentforandagainstpoliticaldoctrines,suchas multilateralism, multiculturalism are traced in the publications. Public figures suchaspresidentsareanalysed,androlesattributedtotheiractionsthroughdif-ferentjournalisticgenresarediscussed.Theresearchmechanismsmakeitpos-

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sibletodiscerntheexplicitorimplicituseofsymbolsandnarrativesadoptedbywritersandpoliticalactorstocharacterisetheUSaanditspresidents.Theco-ordinatorsconcludethat“althoughfewclearsignsofacommoneuropeanpublicsphereareobservedandsomecountries’mediaare‘moreeuropean’thanothers(Risse 2010; Wessler et al., 2008), taken together, the broad similarities in the paradigms and characteristics used to depict the USA seem to affirm a European identity,butalsoanimageofamericawhichismultifacetedandinformedbydif-ferent beholding eyes”. An interesting feature worth mentioning in view of the subjectofthecurrentresearchisthefactthattheresearchonallthecountriesforthestudyisconductedbyscholarsnativetothecountryunderscrutinywiththeexceptionofrussia,whichisstudiedbySwedishinvestigators.

Theimpression,then,isthattheresearchexploressimilar–ifnotidentical–languageunitstoframeanalysis.Imagesareseenasprojectedbythelanguageofthepublication,includingmetaphorsandrhetoric.Italsoseemsthatthevalid-ityofstudiesofthiskinddependsontheselectionandsamplingofthematerialandonthejudgementoftheresearchers.TheclosestCulturalStudiesresearchgets to verification is that opinions from two or more raters are compared to get anobjectiveevaluationofapieceofmaterial.

Discourse Analysis/Studies. Firstly, I discuss semantic threads in the defi-nitionsofdiscourse,allofwhichfeed intoaframeworkofdiscussing images.One strand (Schiffrin 1994: 41) claims that discourse is a layer in the hierarchic organisationof language activity,with small units like lexemes at the bottomand discourse – at the top. Another semantic thread in the definitions places this basically linguistic phenomenon within several socio-linguistic concepts suchasgenres,situationalcontexts,participantsand their roles.Therebydiscoursespresenttheinterplaybetweenlinguisticandsocialfeatures.Fromthemultitudeof definitions, Fairclough’s is the one embraced by Discourse Analyists (2009: 164): ‘Discourses are semiotic ways of construing aspects of the world (physical, social or mental) which can generally be identified with different positions or perspectivesofdifferentgroupsofsocialactors’.

To a certain point, this reiterates Foucault’s (1972: 109) definition – or nar-rativedescription–thatdiscoursecompoundsallthedocumentsinsocietyaboutacertaintopic.Thisaspectofdiscoursehighlightsthefactthattodetectattitudes,theresearcherneedstocollatedatafromvarioussourcesanddocumentsasoneinstance may be misleading. Reisigl and Wodak (2009: 93) also make the point thatdifferentmaterialsneedtobeanalysedinordertoshedlightonanaspectofsocial life.additionally,Wodakplacestherequirementfordifferentanalyticalmethodstobeemployedinordertoachievemaximalreliability,soastojuxta-posedataderivedthroughdifferentanalyticalprocedures.Inthisway,thedatacanbeusedtoreinforceorrejecttheconclusions.Thusdiscoursesarethevehicle

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of expressing attitudes and forming images which are analysable through thelinguisticshapethatcarriesthem.

Fiske (1996:3) points out that discourse analysis differs from linguistic anal-ysis in focusingonwhat statements aremade rather thanhow theyaremade.Discursiveanalyses, therefore,donot tracetheregularitiesandconventionsofdiscourseasasignifyingsystem,butwith“analyzingwhatstatementsweremadeandthereforewhatwerenot,whomadethemandwhodidnot,andwithstudyingthe role of the technological media by which they were circulated.” He suggests thatdiscourseshouldneverbeabstractedfromtheconditionsofitsproductionandcirculation.

Thus, the various levels of language, combined with the specific context of producingthemadduptocreateapictureof theworldencodedindiscourses.Discourseanalysisthenneedstodelveintothelayersanddiscoverwhatlieshid-den. Wodak (1995:204) claims that Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) takes up thetaskofunravelling‘opaqueaswellastransparentstructuralrelationshipsofdominance,discrimination,powerandcontrolasmanifestedinlanguage’.Thisisthe reason why the specific type of discourse analysis dealing with such relation-shipsispartofCriticalScience.SocialinjusticeisinthefocusofCriticalSocialScience. It presents social reality as ‘conceptually mediated’ (Marsden 1999), wherethemediationofthoselessluckyislessfavourablethantheycanexpect.Fairclough (2009) specifies that CDA targets social ills such as inequality, ma-nipulation and discrimination. Van Dijk (2006:362) claims that symbolic elites suchaspoliticians, journalists, scholars, teachers andwriters are in controlofmost influential public discourses, that is, play a special role in the reproduction ofdominantknowledgeandideologiesinsociety.prejudiceissociallyacquiredandthesymbolicelitespromoteitsacquisitionthroughpublicdiscourses,wherethe source of shared ethnic prejudice and ideologies lies (Van Dijk, 1993). There-fore, CDA is characterised with a specific partisan position – taking the side of thosediscriminatedagainst,thoseoppressedanddominated.

But how is language seen to perform ideological, as it were, functions?Firstly,atypicalapproachtoanalysinglanguageforthepurposesofDiscourseStudiescomesfromFunctionalanalysis.MoreoftenthannotCDaanalysesthelinguisticaspectusingSystemicFunctionalGrammar.hallidayandMatthiessen(1999:1) claim that language seen as meaning and not as knowledge construes humanexperienceasasemanticsystem‘sincelanguageplaysthecentralrolenotonlyinstoringandexchangingexperiencebutalsoinconstruingit.’halliday’stheoreticalmodelthroughwhichlanguagerepresentssocialrealityincludesthreemetafunctions: the ideational, textual and the interpersonal (ibid:8ff). The com-parison with Chinese elicits a fourth function – the experiential (ibid.:315), sub-sumedundertheideational.Theideationalmetafunctionanalysestheclauseasconstruingexperiencebycategorisingthetypeofpredicationandtheparticipantsinvolvedintheprocess.Theinterpersonalmetafunctionenactstherelationship

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betweenthespeakerandtheaddressee,asseenwiththemodalitiescharacteris-ing thesituation.Through the textual function theclause is representedas theinformationcontainedwithinasamessage–highlightingsomethingasneworoldinformation.

Thegrammaticalsystemincludesontheonehand,thesyntacticrealisationoftherespectivecomponent–predicate,Subject,ComplementsandCircumstances;ontheotherhanditexploresthesemanticrelationobtainingbetweenthepartici-pants (Eggins 1994: 228). Below I exemplify these relations with illustration from corpora comprising texts about Bulgaria on a BBC Website (Tarasheva 2012):

Table 1.processtypes

aCTOr MaTerIalprOCeSS

GOal CIrCUMSTaNCe

Bulgaria and Romania

Joined the EU in 2007

SeNSer MeNTalprOCeSS pheNOMeNONBulgarians and Romanians

see the government’s programme as a fantastic opportunity to cash in on the plentiful supply of work

verBaGe SaYer verBalaCTION‘The amount I earn here on the farm in a week would take me four weeks to earn in Bulgaria’

she (Marina from Bulgaria- E.T.)

Says

Bahaver BehavIOUralprOCeSS

pheNOMeNON

She Reflects on how lucky she feels to be working in the UK

exISTeNTIal exISTeNTThere are 65, 000 Bulgarians and Romanians

TOKeN relaTIONalprOCeSS

valUe pheNOMeNON

Bulgarian and Romanians are free to enter the UK

valUe relaTIONalprOCeSS TOKeNOne worker who has been granted a work permit

is Marina Georgieva from Bulgaria

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TheanalysisofthetextsaboutBulgariashowthatthecountryisrarelyintheroleofagentinthesentencesandmoreoftenthannot–patientoraffectedpartic-ipant.presentingacountrypredominantlyasanaffectedparticipantdowngradesit in the vision of the audiences. Analysing a different text, Fowler (1991:144) writesthat“thepoliceandthegovernmentareoverwhelminglyintheagent rolein transitivity,while themarginalisedandattackedgroupsarealwaysaffectedorpatient...”Thistechniquehasbecomeknownasagency,wherethesemanticroleactorassociateswithauthority,whiletheroleofaffectedparticipantcon-fers lesser importance, or the status of a dominated participant (Conboy 2007:58, among the numerous researchers who have made this observation).

Otherauthorsbelievelexistoberevealingabouttheideologicalaspectsoflanguageandrepresentations.asamajorcomponentoftheideationalstructureof language,vocabularyamounts toamapofobjects,concepts,processesandrelations among them, specific for social strata, cultures or professional groups. Itisprojectedinthelanguageofmediaassemanticgroupsrelatingtoonesphereofsocial lifeoranother,butmoreimportantly ithasbeenshowntoperformafunctioncalled‘over-lexicalisation’.Thishappenswhenatextissaturatedwithquasi-synonymous terms for entities and ideas (Fowler 1991:85). Such prolifera-tion is indicative of a preoccupation with one specific sphere of life. For instance, BulgarianworkersarepresentedwiththefollowingphrasesinanarticleontheBBCWebsite:

to carry out seasonal agricultural worktemporary workers in agricultureto work in agriculturemigrant labour to harvest seasonal cropsinsufficient seasonal labour to pick and harvest crops

ThusBulgariansaregiventhetitle‘agriculturallabourers’throughtherep-etitionsofthesesemi-synonymousterms.Fowleralsomentionsaprocesswhenanewtermisintroducedassignifyingapurportedlynewconceptinsociallife.Thisisknownasre-lexicalisation.Inoneofthearticlesweseetheterm“SeasonalAgricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS)”, which is later picked up for reference astheacronymandevenchangesitsmorphologicalclass:“thenumberofSaWSpermits”. Thus the status of Bulgarian workers in the UK is institutionalised as SaWSworkersandittakessomeefforttogobacktothefactthattheseareagri-culturalworkersallowedinthecountryastemporaryseasonalworkers.

A pioneering work in the ideology of language by Hodge and Kress (1993:26) pointstodeviceswhichgiveanideologicalperspectivetomediatexts.amongthe specific devices are: passives, nominalisations and negative incorporations. Thepassivetransformationissaidtohavethefollowingeffects:

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a–itinvertstheorderofactorandaffected–effect:thethemechangesfromactortoaffected;

b–theactorisnolongerdirectlyattachedtotheverb–effect:thelinkbe-tweenactorandprocessisweakened;

c–theverbbeisintroducedandthemainverbischangedfromaprocesstoa finished result – effect: the process is presented as a state, not action;

d–theactormaybedeleted–effect:thecauseoftheactionishiddene–thestructureisnottransactive,butattributive–effect:thesentencefunc-

tionstoclassify,nottoshowaction.Thenominalization transformation, e.g.Picketing will stop deliveries, be-

stowsthefollowingcharacteristics:a– itdeletesparticipants from themodel–effect: the interest isdirected

fromtheparticipantstotheprocess;b–anewnounisformed–effect:processissubstitutedforstate,activityfor

object, specific for general, concrete for abstract;c–nominalizationsarenotmarkedtotenseormodality–effect:speakers

avoidindicatingwhenorhowlikelyanactivityis;d–complexrelationsarecollapsedintosimpleentities–effect:tohidethe

complexityofanactualsituation;e–thenewnominalsacquiretheirownexistence–effect: thisfurtherin-

creasetheopacityofnominals.alsosimplecausesaresubstitutedforcomplexones;

f–thenewnominalsmaybecomestableentitiesandevenenterdictionaries–effect:changeintheperceptualandcognitiveinventoryofthelanguage.

Negativeincorporation–e.g.Miners ban overtime–havethefollowingef-fects:

a–thenegativeparticleispartoftheword–effect:thewordisperceivedasa single unit, the negation is hidden (compare: Miners do not allow overtime);

b–thewordcanbepartofpassive–activetransformations–effect:refrain-ingfromactionisseeninapositivelight.

FrameanalysiswasmentionedaboveasatypicalapproachappliedbyMe-diaStudies.WealsoshowedthatCulturalStudiesmakesuseofframesaswell.In fact,Discourseanalysis also employs frameanalysis todealwithpoliticaldiscourse. Van Dijk (1998) recommends Gamson’s (1992) approach, because themediaplayacentralroleinframingpublicissues.Mediaframesare“largelyunspokenandunacknowledged,organisetheworldbothforjournalistswhore-port it and, in some important degree, for us who rely on their reports”. In effect, framesappear tobe analysedvia forms that are either linguistic–metaphors,catchphrasesetc,orrhetorical–premisesandconclusions.Thatiswhytheamal-gam of media frame analysis and discourse studies is particularly beneficial and practisedbyanumberofresearchersandresearchteams.

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Van Dijk (2003) believes that creating images is done through two sets of instruments:techniquesforpositiveself-presentationandnegativeother-presen-tation.Itincludesthefollowingcomponents:

OverallinteractionstrategiesMacrospeechactsSemanticmactro-strucutres–topicselectionlocalspeechacts:accusations,statements,queriesetc.localmeaningsGivemany/fewdetailsBe general/specificBevague/preciseBeexplicit/implicitlexicon:SelectpositivewordsforusNegativewordsforthemlocalsyntaxactivev/spassivesentences–tode-emphasizeresponsibilityNominalizations–tode-emphasizeagencyRhetorical figureshyperboleseuphemismsMetonymsMetaphorsSoundsandvisualsVan Dijk (2008: 233) exemplifies the overall interaction strategies with the

ideologicalpolarisation inTonyBlair’sspeech,where thepoliticianstructuresthediscoursespaceintoUs–democraciesandThem–dictatorships.Formally,socialactorrepresentationcanbeeffectedthroughpersonalpronounsandotherdeicticdevices.Inhis‘sociosemanticinventoryofhowsocialactorscanberep-resented’, van Leeuwen (1996: 32) points out that social actors do not necessarily mapontogrammatical actors; for instance, impersonalised actors canbenon-humanentitiesthatarestillrepresentedasengagedinparticularactions,beitasactiveactororaspassivegoal.

Semantic macro-structures, according to van Dijk (1977: 10) “make explicit theimportantintuitivenotionoftopicofdiscourse:theyspecifywhatadiscourse,asawhole,isabout,inanon-trivialway,i.e.notbyasimpleenumerationofthemeanings of its respective sentences.” The topics are evolved through semantic operationssuchasgeneralisation,deletionetc.

anotheradditiontotheamalgamofmultidisciplinarymethodsishistoricalDiscourseanalysis,wheremedia coverage is compared tohistorical evidence(Reisigl and Wodak 2009). The trustworthiness of the researches is based on the

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factthatdatafromseveraldifferentsourcesareanalysed,usinganeclecticmixofanalyticalprocedures–thediscourseinbrochures,interviewswithparticipantsand witnesses of the processes etc. This approach was first developed in order to tracetheconstitutionofananti-Semiticstereotypedimage,or‘Feindbild’asitemerged in public discourse (particularly press reporting) in the 1986 Austrian presidentialcampaignofKurtWaldheim.

Thehistoricaldimensionofdiscursiveactsinhistoricalandpoliticaltopicsandtexts is addressed in two ways: first, the discourse-historical approach attempts tointegrateallavailableinformationonthehistoricalbackgroundandtheorigi-nalsourcesinwhichdiscursive‘events’areembedded.Second,itexploresthewaysinwhichparticulartypesandgenresofdiscoursearesubjecttodiachronicchange,ashasbeenshowninanumberofpreviousstudies.

In another study Wodak and Meyer (2001: 72) conclude that four types of discursivestrategiesareassociatedwithnationsandnationalidentities:construc-tive, helping create or consolidate national images; preservative or justificatory strategies;transformativestrategies,aimingatchanginganexistingimage;anddestructivestrategies.analytically, three interrelateddimensionsareexplored:(1) contents/topics; (2) strategies; (3) linguistic means and forms of realisation.

particularlyuseful is the conceptof topoi.Topos is a term introducedbyAristotle in his Rhetoric (Roberts 1994). Its translation and definition are a con-tentious issue because Aristotle never defined it properly. For the purposes of CDA, Wodak and Meyer (2001: 82) use topoi as the premises for arguments, quoting Kienpointner (1997). They claim that the topos of burdening, for in-stance,canbereducedtoaconditionalofthetype“ifapersonisburdenedbyaspecific problem, then they should be relieved of them”. They use Aristotle’s list oftopoitoillustratetheimageofforeignersintheaustrianpress,e.g.foreignersrequirehousing,healthcareandeducationbuttheaustrianStateshouldnotbeburdened–asseenfromthetoposabove,thereforetheyaresubjecttoOtherisa-tionandexclusion.

Itisoftenthecasethatdiscoursestudiesincorporatequantitativeanalyses.Pietikäinen (2003: 8) sounds the alarm that the way news media represent ethnic minorities“isseentocontributetoracism,thefragmentationofsocietyandpre-ventsfullparticipationbycitizensfromvariousethnicgroups.Opportunitiesfordialogue and communality are lost.” Her methodology explores the ordering of topics (news values), terms of reference used for the Sami people, quotation pat-ternsandgrammaticalagency.Quantitatively,shecomparesthenumberofsto-ries about the Sami to stories about other ethnic groups to establish a significantly smallernumberofnewsitemsabouttheSami,wheretheindigenouspeoplearerarelyquotedandoftennamedwithderogatoryterms.at thesametime,actor

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rolesaremoreoftenattributedtoFinnsthantoSamis,suggestingthattheactiveroleinsociallifeisnotalwaysattributedtotheSami.

A study of the image of doctors in Slovenia (Kovaèiè and Erjavec 2011) alsoenmeshesthequalitativeanalysiswithquantitativetechniques.ratherthansimplycountarticles,Kovaèièanderjavecsplitthemintothreegroups:positive,negativeandneutral anddiscuss theprevalenceof each type.This,of course,begs the question what if the article develops a balanced argument, includingbothpositiveandnegativeaspects.

Some of the discourse studies are based on corpus research (Gabrielatos and Baker 2008), which allows for a wider scope of material and a principled narrow-ing down on significant aspects of the language or topics. The synergy between CDA and Corpus Linguistics (CL) is seen as particularly beneficial. Language is studiedthroughstructuredforms,suchascorporawherecareistakentoensurerepresentativeness,sizeandunbiasedessence.TheraSIMprojectmadeuseofa140-million-wordcorpusofarticlesaboutrefugees,asylumseekersandimmi-grantsintheBritishpressoveraperiodof10years.Throughkeywordsandcol-locations,theresearchersestablishwhattopicsaretackledintabloidsandbroad-sheetsconcerningthepopulationunderscrutiny.Thestudyofcollocatesyieldsverbs associated with these people: fleeing, sneaking, flooding – all conveying negativeattitudestotheagentsoftheactions.ThisresearchisanexampleofhowClandCDajoinforcestoanalyseideologiesprojectedthroughtexts.

Conclusion.Fromtheaccountabove,itbecomesobviousthattheimageofa country is a term clearly defined by International Relations. However, research-ersdonotaspiretopinpointhowtruthfultheimagescreatedareindeed.Severalpublicationsemphasise thatgovernmentshavea role toplay in theprocessofcreatingtheimageofacountry.Mediastudiespurportedlyemploymorequan-titative thanqualitativedatawhen studying the imageofnationsorgroupsofpeople. They explore the specifics of the media, such as methods of highlighting issues,audienceresponseetc.language,however,isseentoplayacentralroleinshapingimagesasthephenomenaunderinvestigationareinvariablymetaphors,sayings,exemplarsetc.Initsturn,culturalstudiesviewrepresentationsaspartoftheprocessofidentityformation,wheretheSelFemergesincontrastwiththenearbutdifferentOTher.Thereisnodenyingthatwithinthisdisciplineaswellamajorfactorinimagebuildingliesinlanguage.likeMediaStudies,Cul-turalStudiesfocusonmetaphors,rhetoricdevicesandotherlanguagephenom-ena,which,however,arenotseenasthecomplexsystempresentedelsewhereasdiscourse.Discourseanalysis,foritspart,seesmediaasanarenawhereidentitiesareshapedandcontested.languageisviewedbydiscourseanalystsasasystemintegratedinaconceptofahigherorder–discourse.Theinterplaybetweenso-cialrolesandcontextsandthelanguagethatdrapesthemistheveryessenceof

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discourseanalyticalprocedures.Thewealthofanalyticalproceduresincludestherhetoric,thegrammarandthelexicon,aswellasquantitativemethods,suchascontentanalysis.CriticalDiscourseanalysis,foritspart,seesasitsobjectivetounmaskinequalityanddiscriminationvestedinmediatexts.FromtheNewInfor-mationalWorldOrderweinherittheconceptthattherichcountriestendtocon-trol information flows and this can be seen as a factor distorting the presentation ofpoorernations.Theattempttostudytheimageofacountryfelttobeunder-representedcandrawfromframeanalysis,identityissuesanddiscourseanalyti-calprocedures.Thelessonsofalltheresearchdisciplinesreviewedherearethatcross-fertilisationofmethodologieshelpestablishandverifyrealisticdata.

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