“Exploring how the news serves to linguistically and discursively construct the identities of individuals and groups.”

The media constructs the way in which individuals and events are perceived by larger societies. The media does this by selecting what is reported on and which words to use when reporting on these events. These help the construction of how a particular event took place and what we believe are the personalities of certain individuals. This essay will therefore explore how the news serves to linguistically and discursively construct the identities of individuals and groups. Looking at the New York Times article, one can note that the identity of the newsmakers are portrayed in certain way and thus contributes to the perception of these individuals. In an article by Loseke (2007) she introduces one to the notion of how different narratives play a role in the construction of identity. These narratives are described as the cultural, institutional, organisational and personal narratives. Exploring each narrative gives one insight as to how these narratives actively play a role within societies and how individuals perceive themselves.

According to MacIntyre (1984:216 in Loseke 2007) the human being is a “story-telling animal”, it is through the use of story-telling that human beings add meaning to their lives and therefore make sense of their lives and of others around them. The concept of this “story-telling” was previously criticized as being “ambiguous” and being an “imprecise way of representing the world, however, as scholars progressed they felt unhappy with the methodological and theoretical frameworks being the back bone of their research. Later, this concept was praised for illustrating how human beings construct and make meaning in their daily lives, this includes how human beings construct identity. Narratives thus “create identity at all levels of human social life” (Loseke 2007: 661). These levels are the macro (cultural identities) and meso-levels (institutional identities). These two levels form the different characteristics of individuals in the world and then what is taken into account when a policy is drawn up.
The meso-level also is also made up of the organisational identities; these identities are created by popular organisation groups in business, this therefore structures personal identity. A last level to consider is that at the micro-level, there are stories which fabricate personal identities; these stories create a sense of “self-understanding” about the notion of the “self”. Narratives that produce the concept of identity are produced at an intuitional, cultural, individual and organisational level within an in individual’s social life. The following paragraphs will explore the concepts of intuitional, cultural, personal and organisational narratives in relation to the New York Times article: “Editor Resigns Over Berlusconi-Tied Accusations”. Relating to the New York Times article the identity of cultural and personal narratives mostly apply when analysing the article.
Stories that constitute cultural narrative identity draws on stories which have concepts which include topics such as: age, gender, citizenship and religion, story themes, race/ethnicity and identities of nationality. With relation to sexual identities, it has received the category of being the “victim” or in need of repair or being “troubled” (Elderman 1974 in Loseke 2007:668). These narratives may be called “formula stories” or even “public narratives”, “cultural stories”, “schematas” and “cultural stories”. These terms all refer to actors or individuals partaking “in typical behaviours with typical plots leading to expectable moral evaluations”. It is interesting to note that the identities of the mother, father, son, daughter and even that of the typical citizen were constructed and observed through stories or narratives; this is done through leading social institutions. Cultural narratives observe individuals’ stories of politicians, social activists, the media; it is through their “stories” and construction of identity that societies naturally adhere to.

Relating to the New York Times article, one can see that through the choice of words, individuals are portrayed in a certain way to the reader and the reader therefore perceives these people in a way that might not even be the truth of that particular individual. Looking at the article, the simple word choices of: “spicy personal life”, “a homosexual”, “culprit” and “weak flesh” all contribute to how the situation and individuals are perceived without the reader knowing them personally. Relating to the topic of word choices to the article, Loseke (2007) examines what makes a particular story newsworthy; it is the narratives of the disadvantaged, the survivors of heinous crimes that are often ignored. News that is most likely to make headlines is news that revolves around political biases and those containing “drama and splash” (Schudson 1979 in Loseke 2007).

Formula stories that are accepted as believable and essential by societies are those stories that have certain authors, story forms and plot lines. According to Alexander 1992 in Loseke 2007) “narratives reflect widely circulating symbolic codes”, which are also known as cultural codes and semiotic codes (amongst others); these terms have reference to how the world should work and how it works presently. These “symbolic codes” forms part of “collective conscious”. Some of these codes include: ethnicity, race, gender capitalism and family. Symbolic codes of identities form part of cultural narratives because they embody: norms, rights, responsibilities, expectations, how individuals respond to these expectations. It can therefore be noted that, in a western world, one identity is constructed in contrast to another (Coles 202 in Loseke 2007). The broad circulation of cultural narratives of identity can also shape the world socially. These narratives, however, will sometimes provide insufficient images of “real people” it is thus that in these cases, culture is represented as a “superstructure of mental life,” that becomes “sewn into the fabric of the economy, society, and the state” (Starr 1992:264 in Loseke 2007). Narratives that produce symbolic distinctions become part of institutional narrative identities.

Institutional narrative identity refers to the fact that this particular identity is involved in the policy making process. In the policy making process, the result of these policies are due to causal stories and the need for a policy in order to deal with the problem. The texts that produce institutional narrative identity are those which are titled “welfare mothers”, “women victims” etc. It is therefore that institutional narratives step in as a means to effectively inform policy making. Another narrative identity is the organisational narrative identity, that can be explained as “organizational narratives of identity are created by the organizers and workers in ongoing organizations, programs, and groups designed for people who evaluate themselves, or who have been evaluated by others, as having troubled identities in need of repair” (Loseke 2007). In other words this particular narrative identity involves places such as: counselling centres, schools, the workplace, prisons and rape crisis centres. Each organisation is thus formulated in a particular way to cater for the formula stories produced by social activists, this in turn creates identities. Organisational narrative identities can also be the result of books dealing with identities, not just from the social environment. Loseke (2007) notes that “narratives of organizational identity therefore shape social services”, she also notes that: “to achieve desired services, or to avoid undesired punishment, clients must tell the right story, and clients’ refusals to do so can have dire consequences”, narratives of organisational narratives therefore drive the way of how individuals think they aught to believe what their identity is.

The last narrative identity that Loseke (2007) mentions is the personal narrative identity. McAdams (1996:297 in Loseke 2007) states that “experiencing a sense of continuous and individual self-hood” in this era is challenging”, identities are no longer founded in family, religion and community, through modernity separates the human life into various sectors. This can be seen from the fact when individuals find themselves in different countries; they also find themselves among other identities too. Holstein and Gubrium (2000 in Loseke 2007) states that “social actors want a sense of coherent identity”, and that “most social actors do experience a more or less coherent sense of personal identity over time”. Relating Loseke’s work to Allan Bell’s, the following can be noted.

According to Allan Bell relating to the Loseke’s (2007) article, stories are at the basis of human nature, stories that are told by individuals are part of their social identity. The media is an essential social institution, they present politics, culture and social life, it is therefore that journalists write stories and not articles; these stories contain values, order, viewpoints and structure. The media, as will be explored later, contributes to the “character of society”. Allan Bell points out that it is essential for one to understand how the news works in order to understand the performance of language in society; this enables the reader to compare stories and the news. Allan Bell examines what news stories are actually telling the reader, in other words, what these news stories say what happened and then concentrating on the factuality of the story. Allan Bell then focuses on attribution and how this not always made explicit.
Relating this to the New York Times article, the story has attribution, an abstract, a headline, a lead (which covers the central event of the story and a body (which contains one or more episodes, this expresses the setting of the place and time. It may also have unequivocal attribution to an information source. In the New York Times article, Rachel Donadio is the journalist who wrote the article “Editor Resigns Over Berlusconi-Tied Accusations, the name of the newspaper “New York Times” is situated at the top of the article, followed by the date “September, 4 2009”, and the place can noted in the abstract “Rome”. Throughout the article, the journalist makes reference to individuals with direct quotes, for example: “said Giuliano Ferrara”, “Vittorio Feltri, the editor of Il Giornale, wrote”, by using phrases like this it portrays the event as being more “real” to the reader. By the use of quotes, this journalist also gives attribution of those in the article. Allan Bell also makes reference to the category of background which covers the events that happened prior to the current action.
Where the background category can be identified in the article, it can be noted from the fact that the article has a story line. For example, the article begins with “for months the staid newspaper”, proceeding to “last month”, “on Thursday” and then “late last week”, this shows the progression of time, as well as the sequence of events that lead up to the current action. Berlusconi’s brother’s newspaper attacked Mr. Boffo and the partly owned newspaper of his wife, the editor provided commentary on the situation. The reason for the start of Berlusconi appearing in the newspaper was due to the fact that “readers complained that maybe a Roman Catholic newspaper had a moral duty to denounce divorce, consorting with teenage girls, naked poolside parties and being caught on tape telling a prostitute to wait for him in “Putin’s bed” while he showers”, it was therefore that Mr. Boffo decided to take action. Analysing this article according Allan Bell, the headline “Editor Resigns Over Berlusconi-Tied Accusations” summarises what the article is about, the editor being Mr. Boffo resigning from his job as editor, proving what was mentioned in the article that “no one can mess with Silvio Berlusconi”. The lead of the article: “ROME — For months, the staid newspaper of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, Avvenire, steered largely clear of the major topic of conversation here: the spicy personal life of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi”, introduces the location of the event as well as some background prior to the actual event. The lead suggests that the rest of the article will be about the “spicy life of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi”.
As mentioned before, in the body of the article, the events, showing the progression of time start to unravel. For example, one can note that the article begins by stating that “for months” Mr. Boffo decided not to report on the life of Berlusconi, it was until the readers complained that he had a moral obligation to fulfil that he started to take action, following this action, Berlusconi’s brother’s newspaper Il Giornale attacked Mr. Boffo and then soon after fired at the Catholic Church. The article proceeds by indicating to the reader that Berlusconi “enjoys wide support” and then later how he becomes worried as his popularity drops amongst the people. The article then comes to a close by leaving the reader with the state of financial difficulty that the country is in. Looking at the Headline, lead and the actual story, one can see a definite link between them and how each complements the other. This article, as mentioned before, makes use of attribution, the journalist is named and the sources that are used are made direct reference to by use of quotations of speech. These quotations are also linked to the news actors who have taken part in the event. Even though there are other news actors, the news actors provide commentary on the individuals and the situation at hand; for example: “Gossip isn’t enough to crucify someone,” Vittorio Feltri,” and “He has an ego, not a plan,” said Giuliano Ferrara”; the main two news actors are of course Mr. Berlusconi and Mr. Boffo.
Observing the article according to Loseke’s (2007) points on narrative identity, the New York Times article can be associated with a cultural narrative identity. This identification can be made due to the fact that one can see how cultural norms have constructed how individuals perceive how the Prime Minister aught to behave as well as how priests of the Roman Catholic Church should behave. The Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi in this article, is portrayed as a man in a position of power, a man who feels that he is free to do as he pleases, for example: he “joked about the allegations”, he says “I’m no saint” and “he still enjoys wide support” and yet “no one can mess with Silvio Berlusconi, not even the church”. The identity of Silvio Berlusconi is thus received as a man who rules with a sense of dictatorship, which is later, suggested by Mr.Boffo: “what will the future be for free and responsible information?” due to the fact that Mr. Boffo being in the journalism industry was silenced. For the fact the Berlusconi’s brother attacked the Catholic Church suggests that they have a disregard for religion, or rather that of the Catholic Church.

On the other hand, the response of Berlusconi’s brother on Mr. Boffo portrays Mr. Boffo as “a homosexual known to the Italian secret services” and “the culprit in a sexual harassment suit.”, Mr. Boffo later comments on the written attacks as: “Mr. Feltri’s attack, which he likened to stepping on dog droppings, had debased journalism. “Congratulations,” he added”. From this, one can deduce that Mr Boffo is somewhat innocent of the accusations. Relating to what is explored in this article by Loseke (2007) and Allan Bell, this particular article suggests that it forms part of a cultural narrative identity, depicting how society perceives those that are to lead and the roles of the church. Allan Bell brings to light how the headline, lead and abstract as well as the body contribute to the perception of how identities of these individuals that the reader has not even met should be perceived. In conclusion, through these tools (what is introduced by Loseke (2007) and Allan Bell) the media functions in constructing a particular identity of certain individuals.
REFERENCES

Loseke, D. (2007). The study of identity as cultural, institutional, organisational, and personal narratives: Theoretical and Empirical Integrations. Department of Sociology- CPR 107. University of South Florida

Allan Bell article provided