Political discourse in the media: Cross-cultural perspectives

Anita Fetzer and Gerda Eva Lauerbach, Eds., Political discourse in the media: Cross-cultural perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 2007. Pp. viiii + 379. ISBN 978 90 272 5403 0.

Political discourse in the media addresses the phenomenon of media communication seen from a cross-cultural perspective, with particular focus on political discourse on television (political interviews, debate, public address or a complex media event). The cross-cultural approach pursued in this collection of papers is two-folded: on the one hand, it includes the description and comparison of culture specific discourse practices of journalists and politicians who conceive their discourses to meet the needs of a culturally homogeneous audience, and on the other hand, it engages in the ways international broadcasting caters to a culturally heterogeneous audience (p.3).

The book is structured into four parts, the first being an Introduction by the editors, G.E. Lauerbach and A. Fetzer, who present an overview of political media discourse across cultures, by first investigating the elements involved in the analysis of political discourse from the perspective of the theory and method of constructivism, and second, by analysing the relation between politics, the media and the public sphere. From a constructivist point of view, social phenomena are achieved or produced through the dynamic interaction of the members of the respective social domain. On the other hand, in a cross cultural discourse analysis, the results of research carried out in a specific culture are confronted with cultural phenomena of another culture, and thus challenges its underlying assumptions, by 'de-naturalising' the dominant readings of one culture (p.7).

Departing from the traditional view of culture seen as an "autonomous, homogeneous territorially confined unity, 'contained' within the boundaries of a nation state", G.E. Lauerbach and A. Fetzer adopt a different stance, which considers three main aspects involved in the communication processes between the members of a culture: 1) shared knowledge about symbolic sign systems, especially language; 2) shared knowledge regarding pragmatic principles and social practices, especially verbal interaction; 3) shared systems of knowledge about the physical, social and subjective world, including cultural artefacts. Moreover, members need to have shared knowledge of how these systems interact and of the normative conditions governing appropriate interaction in all three dimensions mentioned above (standards of social tact and politeness and of...