D.A. on NEWS COMMENTARY on 11/18’s UC DAVIS Pepper-Spray Incident
Approaches chosen: C.D.A. and The Ethnography of Communication
Approaches chosen: C.D.A. and The Ethnography of Communication
Critical Discourse Analysis
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ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK and REFERENCES
- Use of AVAs
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- Jargon
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- Topicalization / Framing
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- Foregrounding
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(F)
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- Backgrounding
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(B)
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- Omissions
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(O)
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- Presuppositions
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(P)
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- Insinuations
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- modality
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- Agency
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- Stress and Pitch Change ↑
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- Figurative language
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- Tone
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TV host introduces the Kelly Files segment.
A picture of the incident at UC Davis is shown.
Hi there, we’re Bill O’ Reilly and the Kelly File Segment. Tonight, on Friday the Occupy Wall Street people demonstrated at the University of California in Davis, where they refused to leave the campus. At first stand-up police broke out the pepper spray. (O; B)
Video recording of the pepper-spray incident is showed. After video, pictures of the Police Chief and the Chancellor at UC Davis are showed. Title reads: “U n d e r F i r e”
Well, now the chancellor at UC Davis and the police chief there, are both being called to resign (F) And now, our attorney in Fox Megyn Kelly; we see you at 1.00 p.m. each weekday.
Megyn Kelly nods to the camera to greet the audience. Uhm, first of all : pepper spray (F) That just burns your eyes, right?
Right. I mean, it’s like a derivative of actual pepper - it’s a food product, essentially, but, a lot of experts are looking at that saying “Is that the real deal?” or “Has that been diluted?” (F)
Screenshot pictures which show the students sitting in a row with their heads down (P) while the policeman sprays them are showed on screen. Yeah, that should have... they should have had more of a reaction than that... (F) Yeah, but, uhm... that’s really beside the point, I mean, it was something that was obviously abrasive [and intrusive and (.) and... several went to the hospital.] [(.h) And, they, they wanted them to... Right] They just wanted them to get out of there, stop blocking what they were blocking, they wanted to scatter them.
This was on the Chancellor’s orders. The chancellor ordered the police to go in and force these students to disperse. [And it is... ]
[That’s Linda... Katali, or... Katehi] (F)
Picture of the Chancellor of UC Davis and her name are shown on the screen.
Yes. And, it is... it is a crime, that they were charged... many of them were charged with unlawful assembly and failure to disperse because they were posing a...you know, a sit-in, a student’s protest. And you can do that, that’s very American, but it may also happen to break the law (O ;B ;P)
A scene from the video in which students are pepper-sprayed by the policeman, who looks very quiet, are showed.
Well, uh, they wanted to get this people off the campus and they didn’t want to lay hands on them...
Right.
See, there’s two ways to do this, see you can do pepper-spray, uhm, or then... you know, you can physically drag them out of there =
= Then they did, then they did lay hands on them.
I know, but you don’t ↑ wanna ↑ lay hands on somebody =
= No, but what I’m saying is: the police would respond by saying: you pepper spray first...
A scene from the video in which the police and the demonstrators are confronting – not too violently - is showed.
Yeahp.
...to allow the hands-on part to be less confrontational, because you’re gonna get a less... you’re gonna get less resistance when you got somebody who just got pepper-spray. Listen, I know this scene looks bad, I agree it looks bad. All I’m saying is that from a legal standpoint, I don’t know that the cops did anything wrong, we’re gonna have to learn more about the facts, but the cops are allowed to use some reasonable force to affect compliance with an arrest (F ; B)
Yeah.
It does look like these students were failing to disperse and were in some cases unlawfully assembling and perhaps even resisting arrest. Here there’s even some...we even showed it on the tape – for when the cop goes to grab one of the students and you can see she puts her arm back, (commentator puts her arm back as if she was preventing someone from grabbing her) you can see she’s not letting him grab her. It looks that these cops have had room to argue that this is not using excessive force; does that mean they should have affected the arrest in this way? That’s a moral [discussion we need to have.]
[Yeah but I don’t think] we have, we have the right to Monday-morning-quarter-back the police; and particularly in a place like UC Davis, which is, (T.V. host swings his head from left to right while moving his hands) you know, (shoulder shrug) a fairly liberal campus, and they’re not, you know, running around.
The shot shows Megyn Kelly’s back, who nods along as Bill O’ Reilly speaks.
They, they even came to a point when she said, as you said, the Chancellor said: (T.V. host reinforces meaning by means of gestures while shaking his head from side to side) look we gotta get them out of here (T.V. host nods his head and reinforces meaning by means of hand gestures) we can’t operate in college like this, and so, well get them out! Now, the, uh...police chief was placed out in administrative ↑leave↑, ↓°right°↓? =
= Yes!
For obeying ↑orders! ↑ isn’’t ↓ [that nice? ↓]
[Yes! Yes.] And the Chancellor is refusing to step down; meantime, she’s the one who gave the order go in and =
Picture of the Police Chief and her name is showed.
= Why didn’t she put the police chief, I think there’s a police chief, right? = = Because...I think it is because this woman, well, she was overseeing the police who did this, first and foremost, and se[cond...when she came out…] [But she was ordered by the] Chancellor to do it! =
Picture of UC Davis’ Chancellor and her name is showed.
= Right! And secondly she came out and then defended her officers by saying... look – there is a little bit more to her story –
The scene from the video in which the policeman is pepper-spraying the students is showed again.
- look, they felt surrounded, the students were around them, they felt under thread. I don’t know that the tape shows that. I mean, do the cops [look like they feel threatened right now?]
[Well, that’s what ↓the cops↓ say so we have to give them the presumption of the innocence °as well° ] =
= Really? Does this guy [ look like he feels threatened? I don’t know ]
[ But we don’t ↑know though↑, we can’t see what’s ↑behind↑ ] and what’s ↓being said↓.
I ↓know↓, but, uh... Here’s my instinct, here’s my instincts as I have been in practice law for as long as I did; she felt the need to say something in their defence, she just made something up rather than sticking with the facts, which is; you are allowed to use some reasonable force to affect an arrest =
Right =
= and pepper spray is, even though it looks [shocking allowed. So...]
[Alright, so.] We’re going to follow the case and find out what happens to the police Chief and to the Chancellor (F; B; o; p)
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The Ethnography of Communication
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SPEAKING GRID
Setting and Scene of Speech
Setting: New York City, Fox Studios, November 21st 2011.
Broadcasted by Fox News at 8.00 p.m.
Scene: After the viral spread of a video which showed an incident involving sit-in protestors and the police at the University of California in the city of Davis.
Participants and their Roles
- Bill O’ Reilly. TV Host. Addressor and addressee. American television host, author, columnist and political commentator. He currently hosts “The O’Reilly Factor” on TV. According to Fox News, he’s “probably the most controversial and most frequently discussed TV analyst today”.
- Megyn Kelly. News Anchor. Addressor and addressee. American journalist and news anchor She currently hosts America Live from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM EST and appears weekly on “The O’Reilly Factor” in a segment entitled “The Kelly File”.
-The audience. Addressees. Mainly American but the audience also includes international viewers.
Ends
For the commentators to discuss with each other and express and share with the audience their political views on the topic.
Act Sequence
- TV host introduces the Kelly File segment.
- TV host presents the story briefly and introduces the news commentator.
- TV host and news anchor comment on the story.
- Their commentary is illustrated by means o videos and pictures.
Norms of Interaction and Interpretation
- TV host sets the topic and subtopics to discuss and leads the course of the commentary.
- News anchor presents her views on the topic or subtopic introduced by the TV host. - - She is given considerable time and space to speak freely, though she is sometimes abruptly interrupted by the TV host.
Key
- Tone: Serious and reflective throughout.
Bill O’ Reilly’s tone is casual, sarcastic, indignant, effusive, straightforward at times and expectant at the end of the commentary. Megyn Kelly’s tone is effusive though hesitant at times and self-assured at the end of the commentary.
- Mood: The moods provoked in the audience range from apathetic, annoyed, embarrassed, angry and worried to reflective, sympathetic, amused, light-hearted and passionate.
Instrumentalities
Channel: Oral channel. Broadcasted by television.
Language and Register: Common-core American English with instances of colloquiality and law and police jargon.
Genre
- Political commentary segment in cable news show (According to Fox News)
- Political commentary segment in tabloid / talk show (According to Robert M. Entman - "The Nature and Sources of News." Institutions of American Democracy, The Press. 48-52.)
The following comments, quoted from YouTube, show different reactions to the commentary
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“illegal? as Americans we have the right to assemble......!!!!!!!!!!!!”
TempestaDiFuoco10 4 days ago
“People are angry cos the police done what the police are meant to do”
zZEDMUIRZz 4 days ago
“Bullshit martyrdom. Spoilt little middle class scum. Oh noooo! My eyes are itchy. The western world is in trouble, everyone is feeling the pinch... Sitting on the floor is doing nothing - grow up - man up - and get on with it.”
TheLiverpoolDelta 4 days ago
@VioletDay3820 “.... If these morons didn't want to be pepper sprayed maybe, just maybe they out not to block public places ffrom law abiding people. Ever considered that? No of course not, they are the victims right. Minding their own business and not infridging on other people's rights. LOL.... If they didn't want to be pepper sprayed that had all the opportunity not to! So next time they need to use tasers! Now that would be entertainment!”
aSingleDallasGuy 4 days ago
@lozza333 “Legality does override morality, as you can't use morals as a defense in court. Morality is relative to perception. What you see as "moral" may be complete immoral to someone else. We aren't governed by moral code, we are governed by laws.”
divine0enigma 4 days ago
“omg how dare they block a sidewalk”
jumperchu 4 days ago
“auschwitz, just a summer camp right kelly?”
kobeballer 4 days ago
“I've hated this right wing witch for so long. (...)”
friendlier 3 days ago
“This isn't about rights. Civil disobedience is part of protesting. The students didn't have the right to block the path but they did it out of protest. Arrest is an occupational hazard of protest. Pepper spray was out of all proportion. What normally happens is the police end up carrying the protesters because they go limp - not resisting but not helping either.Pepper spray should only be used where there is a real threat of aggression. This was pre-emptive, shoot first ask questions later.”
anonymous1312 3 days ago
“Speaking as non US-citizen what I find extraordinary is that this is I believe is a major tv program on major channel at prime time. How is this so? This must mean that there are a LOT of US citizens that would watch this verbiage and actually believe these jokers? (...)”
morklind 3 days ago
“Years down the road no one is going to believe that a percentage of our population was so stupid as to believe Fox News' propaganda.”
friendlier 3 days ago
“Megyn Kelly on mustard gas: “It’s a hot dog condiment, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on rubber bullets: “It’s a pencil eraser, essentially!”
MK on Guantanamo: “It’s a Caribbean vacation, essentially!”
MK on homelessness: “It’s urban camping, essentially!”
tricky1992000 3 days ago |
“ I think she's being reasonable. She's saying that it is technically legal not that it was moral. It seems like she is against it. She does also say that the police don't look in any way threatened. I love (Megyn) some (are) hating on fox news but I think she makes some good points (...)”
rorkimaru 2 days ago
“So
let me get this straight: the woman says pepper spray is "abrasive and
intrusive...several [protestors] went to the hospital" over photos of the actual incident, and everyone thinks she's condoning its use?”
EGRJ 2 days ago
EGRJ 2 days ago
REFERENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SITES
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- ttp://www.foxnews.com/on-air/personalities/megyn-kelly/bio/#s=h-l#ixzz1f1sZXROe
- Bloomer, A., Griffiths, P. and Merrison, J. “Conversation Analysis” Introducing Language in Use: A Coursebook (43-48) New York. Routledge
- Wardhaugh, R. “Ethnographies” An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. USA. Blackwell Publishing. 5th Edition
- Cameron, D. “Hidden agendas? Critical Discourse Analysis” Working with Spoken Discourse. London. Sage Publications Ltd.
- Entman, Robert M. "The Nature and Sources of News." Institutions of American Democracy, The Press. (48-52) Editors: Overholser, Geneva and Hall Jamieson, Kathleen. Oxford University Press, 2005
- Penz, Hermine “Language and control in American TV talk shows: an analysis of linguistic strategies.” (17-35) Germany. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen, 1996.
