Obesity in the News

Language and Representation in the Press
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-1-108-81897-1
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Format (B × H): 229 mm x 152 mm, Gewicht: 442 g

Obesity is a pressing social issue and a persistently newsworthy topic for the media. This book examines the linguistic representation of obesity in the British press. It combines techniques from corpus linguistics with critical discourse studies to analyse a large corpus of newspaper articles (36 million words) representing ten years of obesity coverage. These articles are studied from a range of methodological perspectives, and analytical themes include variation between newspapers, change over time, diet and exercise, gender and social class. The volume also investigates the language that readers use when responding to obesity representations in the context of online comments. The authors reveal the power of linguistic choices to shame and stigmatise people with obesity, presenting them as irresponsible and morally deviant. Yet the analysis also demonstrates the potential for alternative representations which place greater focus on the role that social and political forces play in this topical health issue.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Brookes, Gavin

Baker, Paul

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction; 2. The way in – shared keywords in the press; 3. Studying difference – comparing sections of the press; 4. Change over time; 5. Shaming and reclaiming; 6. Healthy body – diet and exercise; 7. General discourses of obesity; 8. 'A disease of the poor'? – obesity and social class; 9. Going 'below the line' – reader responses; 10. Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Brookes, Gavin
Gavin Brookes is a Senior Research Associate in the ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science at Lancaster University. His research interests include corpus linguistics, discourse studies, health communication and multimodality. He is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics.

Baker, Paul
Paul Baker is Professor of English Language at Lancaster University. He has written twenty books on various aspects of language, discourse and corpus linguistics. He is commissioning editor of the journal Corpora, an associate editor of the Cambridge Elements in Corpus Linguistics series and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.