This paper examines the role of the language used in
reportage on major events relating to minority groups, compared to how it is
used to represent more dominant social groups.
It uses a corpus linguistic, case study and
comparative methodology to generate and interpret a dataset with a view to
finding out how this feeds into the discourse about representation of
minorities and the implications this has for those groups.
S
pecifically, it uses the example of the coverage of a
fire in which several members of the Traveller community died, compared to the
coverage of a similar event which affected members of the settled community in
an Irish context.
It finds that there are differences in emphases,
terminology and article structure and presentation that dehumanises and creates
a high level of detachment from one community, compared to the other, which
have implications in terms of how journalists should approach their work in
these types of scenarios.