A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Direct Reader Address in Health-related Online News Articles: Imposing Problems and Projecting Desires for Action and Change onto Readers




AuthorsAndersen EM, Gronning A, Hietaketo M, Johansson M

PublisherROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

Publication year2019

JournalJournalism Studies

Journal name in sourceJOURNALISM STUDIES

Journal acronymJOURNALISM STUD

Volume20

Issue16

First page 2478

Last page2494

Number of pages17

ISSN1461-670X

eISSN1469-9699

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2019.1603080

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/40256020


Abstract
The digitalisation and commercialisation of the news mean journalistic practices are changing. Traditionally, readers are not addressed in written news stories. This study documents practices of direct reader address in online news headlines on health topics from three Nordic countries. The study focuses on the linguistic means of constructing the reader and journalist-reader relationship through forms of direct address. For this purpose, we take pragmatic-interactional and discourse-analytical approaches. Building on a discursive view on news values, the paper analyses three practices of addressing readers in headlines, outlines how news values are discursively constructed through these practices, and examines how journalists construct their target audience discursively by imposing problems and projecting desires for action and change onto readers, indicating assumptions about the readers' knowledge. We argue that, by using such practices, journalists construct journalistic authority.

Downloadable publication

This is an electronic reprint of the original article.
This reprint may differ from the original in pagination and typographic detail. Please cite the original version.





Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 22:04