NEWS & EVENTS
Appliable Linguistics Seminar 52
(Seminar on Language Science and System Science 118)
Time: 15:00, 16 May 2018
Venue: #304, School of Foreign Languages
Speaker: Dr. Huan Changpeng
Title: The spirit of communitas lost but not regained: Attitudinal Positioning in the aftermath of the Bangkok Blast
Abstract: Disasters especially those cause considerable casualties are not only newsworthy events that have a strong tendency to inflame emotions but also symbolic moments that inspire reflection on fundamental societal values. This article sets out to explore pragmatic functions and rhetorical power of journalistic attitudinal positioning in traumatic news event. To do so, it utilizes the APPRAISAL framework to examine how the Bangkok Post and the New York Times present and represent attitude of different news actors in news reporting on the Bangkok blast. Analytical findings show that news coverage of eventually fails to unify the society but instead turns the event into a blame game. This is mainly because the issues of risk and responsibilities, which are central to news coverage of disasters, opens up a space for flows of feelings to unify as well as to divide. Specifically, while public grieving and mourning in both newspapers serve as attempts to unify the society, insufficiently mediated public hatred towards the villains, complete absence of capable and dependable heroes, and heightened judgement of incapacity upon Thai government function to divide Thailand in the aftermath of the Bangkok Blast. Cultural variability in attitudinal positioning of different news actors has been found and discussed in relation to divergent ideological positioning of these two newspapers, as well as their need to attend to diversified readership.
