Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

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Author: search.filters.author.Phelan SSubject: search.filters.subject.discourse theory

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    Critiquing “Mainstream Media” on Twitter: Between Moralized Suspicion and Democratic Possibility
    (USC Annenberg Press, 2023-06-30) Phelan S; Maeseele P
    How can we understand the critique of mainstream media (MSM) in a political moment where intense suspicion of media and journalism has been normalized in reactionary discourses? This article addresses this question from a discourse theoretical perspective that is supported by a corpus-assisted interpretivist analysis of how the terms “MSM” and “mainstream media” were articulated in a January 2021 sample of more than 11,000 tweets from different time zones. We begin by clarifying the political stakes of our argument and situating the historical emergence of “mainstream media” as a discursive category. Our Twitter analysis highlights the “logic of equivalence” established between mainstream media and other identities and the normalization of a moralized representation of media as a corrupt ally of government. We conclude by speculating on how we might affirm a radical democratic conception of media critique in a cultural context where anti-MSM rhetoric can float easily between different discourses and ideologies.
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    'Just doing their job?' Journalism, online critique and the political resignation of Metiria Turei
    (SAGE Publications, 18/03/2019) Phelan S; Salter LA
    Abstract When Metiria Turei resigned as co-leader of the Green party of Aotearoa New Zealand in August 2017, there was clear disagreement about the role played by journalism in her resignation. The controversy began after Turei confessed to not disclosing full information to the authorities about her personal situation as a welfare recipient in the 1990s. Journalists insisted they were simply ‘doing their job’ by interrogating Turei’s story, while online supporters accused the media of hounding her. This article examines the media politics of the controversy by putting Carlson’s concept of metajournalistic discourse into theoretical conversation with Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, especially their concept of antagonism. We explore what the case says about traditional journalistic authority in a media system where journalism is increasingly vulnerable to online critique from non-journalists.