CDA: Qatar World Cup in Newspaper Headlines in the Times and Jutarnji List

Introduction

Football has become the most important sport in the world, it has permeated all spheres of people’s lives, politics, economy, culture. Mainstream media around the world, including The Times and Jutarnji list, have reported on the 2022 World Cup from various angles. The Times is a British daily newspaper, one of the greatest newspapers in the country. Jutarnji list is a Croatian daily newspaper, one of the most respectable newspapers in Croatia. Both newspapers have reported on the World Cup and focused on various topics, such as football matches and results, match analysis, team managers, players' professional and private lives, referees, football associations, some interesting facts related to the World Cup etc. Media discourse, newspaper articles in particular, have been subjected to analysis from different perspectives in various research. Since critical evaluation of media content has become a priority for many researchers, the approach which has all the necessary methodological tools for such complex analysis is Critical Discourse Analysis. This interdisciplinary approach has been frequently applied to media discourse since it takes into consideration different social factors like ideology, power relations, globalization, etc. and investigates their relationship with discourse. (Peterlicean, Berariu 2020, Ulum 2016). The focus of our research are topics presented in headlines of articles that deal with the 2022 FIFA World Cup. We have conducted thorough analysis of discursive practices of headlines based on Fairclough ‘s (2010) three-dimensional conception of discourse and van Dijk's (1989) approach to discourse.

Theoretical Background

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary discipline with very challenging theoretical framework, which has been the focus of attention of many prominent researchers, such as Norman Fairclough (2001), who uses sociocultural approach, Teun van Dijk (1988, 1989), who uses sociocognitive approach, and Ruth Wodak (1996), who adopts sociohistorical approach. According to van Dijk (1988) there are three major aspects of discourse: sentence forms, meanings and speech acts. The author (1988) differentiates levels of textual descriptions with the focus on syntax and semantics. Furthermore, there’s a major distinction between micro- and macrolevel of descriptions. Microlevel deals with sounds, words, sentence patterns, and their meanings. Macrolevel, on the other hand, focuses on whole parts of discourse or entire discourses.

According to Fairclough (1995: 24) text analysis is a part of discourse analysis. The following table depicts the method of discourse analysis, which is the most important tool for analyzing different types of discourses.

The three-dimensional conception of discourse (Fairclough, 2010: 133)

The author (2010: 132) sees discourse as a spoken or written language text, then discourse practice, which refers to text production and interpretation, and finally sociocultural practice. This corresponds to three stages of critical discourse analysis: description of text, interpretation of the relationship between the discursive processes and the text, explanation of the relationship between the discursive processes and the social processes.

Van Dijk’s approach to media analysis is similar to Fairclough’s in their basic tenet that news is primarily analyzed as a type of discourse. Van Dijk (1988) focuses more on structural features of newspaper discourse, which distinguish them from other types of discourse, and on cognitive processing of news, both in their production and understanding. Both authors emphasize the fact that a complete and thorough analysis of discourse involves examining the use of a discourse in relation to social and cultural contexts. In van Dijk’s (1989) approach to discourse, cognitive dimension is included as well. Ours is a small-scale research that focuses on topics in headlines, sentence predication (passive sentences), and modes of discourse representation.

Media Discourse

Media discourse in all its complexity can be analyzed from various aspects, semantic, syntactic, stylistic, rhetorical and semiotic. Media discourse should be considered as "the site of quite complex and often contradictory processes" since media function ideologically, and at the same time entertain people, keep them informed about relevant social and political issues, and also reflect and contribute to "shifting cultural values and identities" (Fairclough, 1995: 47-48). Media language has significant power since it represents things in particular ways (Fairclough, 1995: 2). The author claims that analysis of media language is an important part of research on contemporary processes of social and cultural changes. Within the CDA approach to media language analysis, the focus is on the linguistic and discoursal nature of media power. CDA analyzes news texts to discover how social power is linked to language. This approach has brought into focus the fact that newspaper discourse is ideological since it shapes representations of people and events.

Headlines

Headlines represent a very important part of newspaper articles since their function is to summarize the content of an article and attract readers' attention. The words that are used to communicate the message in a headline frame the story in direct and unavoidable ways (Richardson 48). Halliday (1994) claims that newspaper headlines are a typical example of "little texts'' and are often perceived as "a riveting short-cut to the contents of newspapers". According to van Dijk (1989: 103) newspaper articles consist of conventional categories or schematic forms that contain overall or macrostructural meaning of a discourse, and headlines contain a topic or summary of the overall meaning of the text. Topics pertain to macrolevel of discourse description (van Dijk, 1988: 27, 31). ''At the global level of semantic analysis, headlines and leads were seen to express underlying macrostructure, the topical organization of the news discourse. It is not surprising to find that newsworthy, powerful actors tend to be prominent also through their occurrence in macropropositions. The same is true for their actions" (van Dijk, 1989). Furthermore, van Dijk (1988) asserts that headlines depict the unity of discourse and are a source of information which is easily memorized by the reader.

Methodology

This paper makes a thorough analysis of newspaper headlines that report on the 2022 FIFA World Cup, based on Fairclough's three-dimensional framework and van Dijk's approach to news discourse. Headlines selected for the analysis are published in The Times and Jutarnji list from 01 December to 21 December, 2022. Both newspapers are very respectable, among the highest circulation newspapers in their respective countries. Total number of headlines from The Times is 267, and 254 from Jutarnji list. Text analysis is organized under four main headings: ’vocabulary’, ’grammar’, ‘cohesion’, ‘text structure’ (Fairclough 1992: 75). This paper focuses on one aspect of grammar, passive sentences, with the aim of determining if there are any differences between American and Croatian newspapers in presenting similar topics in headlines with reference to voice. Action expressed by the verb in a sentence may be structured as an active or passive sentence. In passive, agent introduced with by may not be expressed at all, in which case causality and agency are unclear. Reason for this may be to avoid repeating the agent, if it’s already mentioned in the text or to obfuscate agency and causality (Fairclough 1989:124). Active or passive sentences may express prominence of news actors that can be presented as agents or patients (van Dijk 1988). Research conducted by Fowler (1987) showed that those with power, like the authorities usually appear in first subject position and perform the role of semantic agent, when they perform neutral or positive actions. When negative actions are involved, agents are expressed in passive construction, or they are not expressed at all. Grammatical features as well as all the other aspects of text analysis do not carry any significance in themselves, but have certain functions in relation to their role in reproducing or resisting ideology and social power. At the level of interpretation modes of discourse representation in headlines are analyzed since our study investigates how newspaper discourse is interpreted and produced. They are broadly classified into two types: direct and indirect discourse (Fairclough 1992a: 107). Therefore, our analysis focuses on direct and indirect speech used in headlines. According to van Dijk (1989) ''literal quotation may express deference, respect and truthfulness with regard to powerful actors and speakers, but it may also signal distance and doubt when "controversial" actors or speakers are mentioned." According to Fairclough (2010: 132) at the explanation level the relationship between discursive processes and social processes are in focus. Thus, there are a number of levels at which a piece of discourse is embedded in relation to sociocultural practice: the immediate situation, the wider institution or organization, and a societal level. The focus of our study is the analysis of newspaper discourse at a societal level, with particular focus on similarities and differences of discourses in two different sociocultural contexts.

Analysis of Newspaper Headlines in the Times and Jutarnji List Based on CDA

This paragraph analyzes newspaper headlines reporting on Qatar World Cup based on van Dijk's approach and Fairclough's three-dimensional framework.

Van Dijk’s approach

Following van Dijk’s approach, topics of articles, with the focus on headlines are analyzed. The following table shows the occurrence and the number of World Cuprelated topics in headlines from The Times.

Table 1 World Cup- related topics in The Times

Topics of the articles are grouped in two major categories: national and international ones. There are 101 (37%) articles that deal with national footballrelated topics. Furthermore, each of these categories can be subcategorized. Thus, among national topics, 55 (54.4%) articles deal with football, their prevalent focus are football matches, results, match analysis (e.g. How England have become the masters of tournament football), 16 (15.8%) articles focus on the team manager (e.g. Gareth Southgate may be relaxed but he is heading into defining week of his career), 12 (11.8%) deal with players, in relation to their professional life, performance and career (e.g. Jude Bellingham will be the world's best midfielder, says Phil Foden), 7 (6.9%) articles are focused on fans (e.g. ‘Lack of alcohol’ fuelling England fans’ good behaviour at Qatar World Cup), 6 (5.9%) articles deal with different aspects of players' private lives (e.g. The good, the bad, and the ugly- the ultimate England football tattoo quiz). There are 2 (1.9%) articles dealing with some interesting facts about the World Cup (e.g. Robbie Williams defends Qatar concert), 1(0.9%) article dealing with referees (E.g. The referee’s a …terribly mistreated tragic figure), 1 (0.9%) article deals with the football association (e.g. Gareth Southgate: FA hopes players’ backing will persuade England manager to stay) and 1 (0.9%) with footballers' wives and girlfriends (e.g. WAGs back on land- and players off the leash at World Cup).

166 (63%) articles deal with various international topics. Among them, 80 (48.1%) focus strictly on football (e.g. World Cup 2022: How Croatia became serial overachievers), 38 (22.8%) articles deal with players' professional lives (e.g. Lionel Messi has nothing left to prove but deserves World Cup coronation), 13 (7.8%) focus on fans (e.g. Qatar World Cup: Morocco fans' party became an organized attack, say French police), 7 (4.2%) articles deal with players' private lives (Moroccan star’s mother dances her way into World Cup history), 7 (4.2%) focus on some political aspects of football (e.g. Fifa bans Ukraine president Zelensky’s ‘appeal for peace’ from the World Cup final), 5 (3%) articles focus on team managers (e.g. The Morocco manager who has got his fighters thinking like winners as Spain showdown looms), 5 (3%) articles deal with FIFA (e.g. World Cup: Fifa delivered on promise to grow game in a new part of the world), 4 (2.4%) articles focus on some accidents (e.g. World Cup chief dismisses question about migrant worker’s death), 3 (1.8%) articles focus on referees (e.g. Wilton Sampaio could referee the World Cup final as Michael Oliver sent home by Fifa), 3 (1.8%) on some general interesting facts (e.g. Qataris get dream World Cup final – for $200bn), 1 (0.8%) article deals with footballers' wives and girlfriends (Where are France’s WAGs? Kylian Mbappe brings his mother and lawyer to World Cup matches).

The following table shows the occurrence and the number of World Cup- related topics in headlines from Jutarnji list.

Table 2 World Cup- related topics in Jutarnji list

164 (62%) articles from Jutarnji list deal with national topics. Among them, 59 (35.6%) articles deal with strictly football (e.g. Kraljevi! "Vatreni" će drugi put zaredom igrati u polufinalu. Utakmica je na rasporedu u utorak u 20 sati/ Kings! "Vatreni" will play in the semi-finals for the second time in a row. The match is scheduled for Tuesday at 8 p.m), 50 (30.5%) articles focus on players' professional lives (e.g. Kako je Luka postao vođa/ How Luka became a leader), 26 (15.8%) deal with fans (e.g. Navijači s Kolindom u Dohi pjevali i razvili zastavu dugu 200 metara/ Fans sang with Kolinda in Doha and unfurled a 200-meter-long flag), 10 (6%) articles deal with the team manager (e.g. Dalić je mislilac, čovjek s puno vrijednosti/ Dalić is a thinker, a man with many values), 6 (3.6%) articles deal with the association (e.g. Nova injekcija: "vatreni" priskrbili Savezu još četiri milijuna eura/ A new injection: "Vatreni" provided the Association with another four million euros, 5(3%) articles deal with players' private lives (e.g. Sanjali su…a sada žive svoj san, Sosa je stojećki pisao ispite iz fizike i matematike, Gvardiol je vikendima prodavao ribu, a Livaković i Vrsaljko, kao klinci su se iza zgrade zajedno igrali loptom/ They dreamed… and now they live their dream, Sosa wrote physics and mathematics exams while standing, Guardiol sold fish on weekends, and Livaković and Vrsaljko, as kids, played with the ball together behind the building), 5(3%) deal with some interesting facts about football (e.g.Ma kakve ‘’kockice’’, ono što mi trebamo brendirati su hvadrati / ‘’Squares’’ are history, what we need to brand are ‘hvadrati’), 2 (1.2%) articles with economy (e.g. Trijumf nogometaša u Kataru diže hrvatski BDP za četiri milijarde kuna?/ The triumph of football players in Qatar increases Croatian GDP by four billion kuna?), and 1 (0.6%) with church in relation to football (e.g. Fratri za "vatrene", a papa Argentinac, "Kad igraju naši u Kataru, bolje da s nama ne gledate utakmicu. Mogli biste svašta čuti čak i od nas svećenika"/ The friars are for the "vatreni", and the pope is an Argentinian, "When our team plays in Qatar, you’d better not watch the game with us. You could hear all kinds of things even from us priests."

International topics are found in 90 (38%) articles. Among them, 38 (42.2%) deal with football (e.g. Maroko drugi put u povijesti izborio osminu finala/ For the second time in history Morocco reached the World Cup's final eight), 25 articles focus on players' professional lives (27.7%) (e.g. Mnogi ga mrze, većina mu se divi, ali ponovno igra sjajan nogomet/ Many hate him, most admire him, but he is playing great football again), 8 (8.9%) articles deal with team managers (e.g. Van Gaal podnio ostavku, naslijedit će ga Koeman?/ Van Gaal resigned, will Koeman succeed him?), 8 (8.9%) articles focus on players' private lives (e.g. Gue-sung Cho ne može spavati zbog rasta popularnosti/ Gue-sung Cho can't sleep because of his rising popularity, 5 (5.6%) on some interesting facts related to football (e.g. Nogomet se ne vraća u Englesku, ali se zato vraća mačak Dave/ Football isn't coming back to England, but the cat Dave is), 3 (3.3%) articles deal with fans (e.g. U navijačkim neredima u Francuskoj uhićeno 167 osoba/ 167 people arrested in fan riots in France), 2 (2.2%) with FIFA (e.g. FIFA predstavila Al Hilm, novu loptu za utakmice polufinala i finala/ FIFA presented Al Hilm, a new ball for semi-final and final matches), and 1 (1.1%) with a referee (e.g. U sjeni loših sudaca, Posljednji Messijev SP želimo pamtiti po majstorijama/ In the shadow of bad judges, We want to remember Messi's last World Cup for his mastery).

Description of newspaper headlines

At the level of description textual analysis of headlines is conducted. Linguistic features of headlines are examined through analysis of passive voice used in selected headlines. The following table shows the occurrence of passive structures in selected headlines from The Times and Jutarnji list.

Table 5. Passive structures in headlines in The Times and Jutarnji list

There are 27 (10%) instances of passive structures in selected headlines from The Times, and 7 (2%) in headlines from Jutarnji list.

Out of 27 examples of passive structures, 13 have agents expressed with by (e.g. Last dance for Brazil as they are stunned by Croatia in shoot-out). 14 passive structures do not have semantic agents expressed with by. Out of these 14 examples, the agent is known from the context in 11 passive structures (e.g. England vs France: Kylian Mbappé is tamed, but this hurt). Agent is unknown only in 3 passive sentences (e.g. Macron mocked for World Cup speech to defeated French players). There are just 7 (2%) instances of passive structures in Jutarnji list. There is no agent expressed in any of these structures, but it is known from the context in all these examples (e.g. U navijačkim neredima u Francuskoj uhićeno 167 osoba/ 167 people arrested in fan riots in France)

Interpretation of Newspaper Headlines

In the second stage of Fairclough’s framework, reporting modes of discourse representation are analyzed. Since newspaper articles express what people have said, reproduce their opinions and comments, they contain various examples of direct and indirect quotations. These are also found in headlines. Direct speech refers to the speaker's exact words included in text with quotation marks. Indirect speech reports the speaker’s words without directly quoting them, thus indirect discourse is realized by a subordinate clause. The proportion of direct and indirect speech found in selected headlines from The Times and Jutarnji list is presented in the table below.

Table 6. Direct speech in The Times and Jutarnji list

There are 22 (8%) instances of direct speech and 9 (3%)instances of indirect speech in The Times. There are 68 (27%) instances of direct speech in Jutarnji list. There are no examples of indirect speech. Specific feature of headlines in newspaper discourse is that quotation marks are frequently omitted in the examples of direct speech. The following examples of direct and indirect speech are from The Times:

Gareth Southgate: Why do I stay sitting down? Because I trust my England players

England World Cup star Jordan Pickford had it all aged 17, says Scotland hero Craig Gordon

The following examples of direct speech are from Jutarnji list:

Zlatko Dalić: Protiv Kanade smo digli letvicu i kriterije. Brine me samo što je ovo "biti ili ne biti" (Zlatko Dalić: We raised the bar and criteria against Canada. I only worry about the fact that this is "to be or not to be")

Branko Strupar: Emile Mpenza i ja komunicirali smo osmijesima! (Branko Strupar: Emile Mpenza and I communicated with smiles!

Explanation Stage

This paragraph deals with the analysis of social determinants of discourse considering societal contexts.

Societal Context

According to recent research the UK is ranked as the world’s ‘global power’, the second most powerful country in the world according to its economic, political, scientific and cultural influence (UK Defence Journal). Football in the UK has an enormous impact, it’s more than a way of life, and an integral part of the UK culture and history. Its popularity has lasted for centuries. Since it was invented by the English in 1170, who established the rules of the modern game, it can be said that it’s England’s national sport. The Football Association was created in 1863. England has more than 40,000 registered football clubs, the biggest ones are in the Premier League. Furthermore, it’s one of the biggest sources of income since the Premier League attracts tourists from all over the world (GB Mag). Football is an internationalized sport, it connects people of different socio-economic backgrounds. In Croatia football is also the most popular sport. The Republic of Croatia is a small European country that gained independence in 1991. Rich history of the Croatian Football Association started in 1912 (HNS-cff). Development of football in Croatia is closely intertwined with the political situation (Lalić, 2018). From the very beginnings of its independence football had a very important role in promoting the country and its people (Sipus 11). In Croatia, just like in England, football has permeated all spheres of people’s lives, it has become a part of cultural heritage, Croatian identity has been formed through football. All this shows that football plays a major role in Croatian people’s lives. Croatia’s national football team played a major role in international football, they announced a new era of world football (Doyle 1). The team achieved enviable results by finishing second in the FIFA World Cup in 2018, and third in 1998 and 2022. It was during the 1998 FIFA World Cup that the whole world learned about Croatia.

Both newspapers deal with similar topics in relation to the World Cup. The most conspicuous difference is in the proportion of national vs. international topics. Thus, the proportion of national topics in The Times is 37%, and of international topics 67%. On the other hand, in Jutarnji list the numbers are almost exactly the opposite, 62% deal with national topics, and 38% with international ones. An important feature of CDA is that media discourse reflects cultural values and identities, and our results confirm that. The UK has a longer and richer history of football than Croatia. Moreover, football was invented by the English. Therefore, it's not surprising that their interest extends beyond national topics, so more articles are dedicated to international World Cup- related topics. On the other hand, Croatia is a much smaller country that gained its independence 32 years ago, and Croatian identity has been created through football. This is reflected in the higher number of articles that deal with national World Cup- related topics. For such a small country, with quite modest sources of financing sports in general, in comparison to many other bigger countries, it's been an enormous success to finish second and third in previous World Cups. Consequently, national fervor, identity and enormous pride are intertwined with football. For this reason, the team manager and players are generally held in enviable respect by people in our country. This is also reflected in the number of the examples of reported speech in Jutarnji list. 27% of all headlines are instances of reported speech, mostly quotations of what current and former respectable national team players, and the team manager have said. People in Croatia generally feel enormous pride because of our team's success, therefore players and the team manager are always in focus of attention, which is reflected in newspaper discourse as well.

Discussion and Conclusion

This paper focuses on the differences and similarities between newspaper discourses that are framed in two different socio-cultural contexts. A critical discourse analysis is conducted through Fairclough's three stages of description, interpretation and explanation, complemented by Van Dijk's approach to news discourse. The results of our analysis have revealed certain differences as well as similarities between the two newspapers. Both the UK and Croatia can be described as football nations whose identity and emotions are closely linked to football. This is also reflected in the number of articles dealing with the 2022 World Cup in selected newspapers, there is an insignificant difference between them in the total number, 267 in The Times and 254 in Jutarnji list. Overall analysis of topics related to football has revealed some interesting findings. The most noticeable difference between the two newspapers is in the proportion of national and international topics. The proportion of national topics in The Times is 37%, and in Jutarnji list 62%. International topics are found in 63% of headlines in The Times, and 38% in Jutarnji list. These 2 categories have been further divided into topics that deal with football matches and results, players’ professional and private lives, fans, some general facts about the World Cup, football association, WAGs, politics, FIFA, accidents. There are some differences in proportion of these topics in The Times among national and international categories. Thus, the three most frequent topics among national categories are the ones related strictly to football (54.4%), to the team manager (15.8%) and players’ professional lives (11.8%). Among international topics, the three most frequent ones are related to football (48.1%), players’ professional lives (22.8%), and fans (7.8%). We can conclude that The Times focus more on their national team manager than on foreign ones, and also shows considerable interest in foreign players’ professional lives. Other topics are not so frequently present in the selected sample of articles in both categories.

Among national topics in Jutarnji list the three most frequent ones are related to football in general (35.6%), players’ professional lives (30.5%) and fans (15.85%). Among international topics the three most frequent ones are related to football (41.1%), players’ professional lives (27.7%), team managers and players’ private lives (both 8.8%). We can conclude that fans in Croatia are, besides football in general and players, frequently represented in newspaper articles, their opinion and comments also tend to be included in headlines. At the description level, passive structures have been analyzed. There are 10% of passive sentence forms in The Times, and only 2 % in Jutarnji list. Out of 27 examples of passive structures in The Times, agent is unknown only in 3 examples, and in other examples it's known either from the context, or it is introduced with by. In all the Croatian examples agent is known from the context. We can conclude that in both newspapers passive structures are not used with the aim to obfuscate agency or causality, but simply to put semantic patients in focus. At the interpretation stage results of our analysis show that there is a considerable difference between The Times and Jutarnji list in the instances of direct and indirect speech used in headlines. The proportion of direct speech in Jutarnji list is 27%, and 8% in The Times. Indirect speech is not found in Jutarnji list, there are 9 (3%) examples in The Times. The examples mostly refer to what Croatian professional players have said, then the team manager’s words and opinion, fans’ words are also quoted. Football players and the team manager are generally highly respected in Croatia, and this is reflected in news discourse, both through topics and examples of direct quotations. They are very powerful in the domain of football, thus represent relevant sources of information, consequently a high degree of truthfulness is achieved which can also attract more readers’ attention. Newsworthy and powerful actors, like the team manager and team players are also quite frequently represented in The Times, but more through journalists' words, as topics of articles, rather than with direct discourse. We can conclude that two newspaper discourses reflect cultural values and identities of their respective countries, as well as shape representations of a major football event, and at the same time entertain people and keep them well informed.

References