Semiotic analysis with Daniel Chandler (Part 1)

** commented on Shi Jun's and John's blog (29/6/14)

    - suggested definition and reading material, respectively

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As promised, I'm here to tryout one of Daniel Chandler's semiotic analysis methods on the two newspapers.

Social semiotics

1. What does a purely structural analysis of the text downplay or ignore?

2. Who created the sign? Try to consider all of those involved in the process.

3. Whose realities does it represent and whose does it exclude?

4. For whom was it intended?

5. How do people differ in their interpretation of the sign?

6. On what do their interpretations seem to depend?

7. Illustrate, where possible, dominant, negotiated and oppositional readings.

8. How might a change of context influence interpretation?

I chose social semiotics as my analysis method because 

1. The Guardian and Sin Chew Daily have similar writing style

    - being a Berliner (an alternative to a broadsheet) and a broadsheet respectively, it is easy to find similarities (formal, serious and sophisticated approach, with the usage of complex sentences and statistics...) but is hard to identify their differences unless when compared to a tabloid (informal, uses puns, alliteration, colloquial language, short sentences, focuses on human interest and often exaggerates for effect)

2. I feel that in order to understand a news as a whole, one should not just focus on its end-product (the news itself) but also the process of production 

    - how did this news end up using this particular structure or in other words, why did the newspaper apply this specific structure to the news?

    - in this case, audience interpretation, authorial intentions, cultural , social, economical and political context come into play

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I'm not very sure what a purely structural analysis of text is. However, I found out about news frames from Semetko and Valkenburg as well as Yong and Ahmad Ishak and I think it should be suitable for me to use these news frames: responsibility, human interest, conflict, consequences, moral and others to answer Daniel Chandler's social semiotics questions.

In the following tables, I should be able to answer Question 1, 2, 7

* translated from Chinese to English

- both newspaper used this frame quite frequently, however, responsibility was attributed differently

- in The Guardian, responsibility was attributed somehow vaguely to the government (not only towards Ultraman but also the Catholic church issue) while Sin Chew Daily suggested a shared responsibility between the translator and the government (solely based on the Ultraman issue)

* translated from Chinese to English

- both newspapers used the human interest frame to "emotionalise" the news, but in a very subtle manner, this tendency correlates with other broadsheet format newspapers which do not personalise or dramatise news
- both newspapers applied the human interest frame to generate different emotions
- The Guardian appeared wanting the readers to sympathise the non-Muslims (in this case, the Catholic church in Malaysia) and Ultraman as well as generate doubt as they were affected by the Printing Presses and Publication Act
- The Guardian also expressed some kind of sarcasm by reporting responses from social media, including the youth and sports minister, Khairy Jamaluddin (note the sentence "...widespread ridicule... including")
- Sin Chew Daily also mentioned Khairy but because of the words used in the sentence, the paper appeared wanting to express the people's confusion rather than sarcasm
- Sin Chew also wanted to generate the feeling of disapproval towards the translator's use of Google Translate or Google Translate the programme itself, at the same time, sympathy towards Ultraman 

* translated from Chinese to English

** both newspaper did not use the moral news frame

- similar to most serious and sober newspapers, both newspapers used the conflict and consequences frame regularly in their news

- the Catholic church case weighed heavily in The Guardian (5 out of 13 paragraphs were about the case), being mentioned in all four news frames, why? 

- Sin Chew Daily tend to report from a more local, Chinese community perspective: the voices of disagreement from Chinese political figures, the effects on local bookshops following the banning of the Ultraman comic book

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References:

Chandler, D. (2013) D.I.Y. semiotic analysis: advice to my own students. Semiotics for Beginners. [Online] Available at: http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/Documents/S4B/sem12.html [Accessed: 15 June 2014].

Gambles, H. (1998) A semiotic analysis of a newspaper story. [Online] Available at: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/hlg9501.html [Accessed: 15 June 2014].

Semetko, H.A. and Valkenburg, P.M. (2000) Framing European politics: a content analysis of press and television news. Journal of Communication. 50 (2). pp. 93-109. 

Yong, L.F. and Ahmad Ishak, MD.S. (2010) Covering religious conflict in Malaysia: how Sin Chew Daily framed the Lina Joy controversy. Malaysian Journal of Media Studies. 12 (2). pp. 11-22. [Online] Available at: http://jpmm.um.edu.my/filebank/articles/2728/JPMM2010_No2_FinalYongLaiFong.pdf [Accessed: 6 July 2014].