Discourse analysis in the Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) tweets in the year of 2014

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN THE HUFFINGTON POST’S GAY VOICES

(@HuffPostGay) TWEETS IN THE YEAR OF 2014

A Thesis

Submitted to Letters and Humanities Faculty In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

The Degree of Strata One

BAGUS PUTRA RAMADHANSYA 1110026000011

ENGLISH LETTERS DEPARTMENT LETTERS AND HUMANITIES FACULTY

SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY JAKARTA 2015

ABSTRACT

Bagus Putra Ramadhansya, Discourse Analysis in The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) Tweets in The Year of 2014. A Thesis. Jakarta: Faculty of Letters and Humanities, Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, 2014.

The study focuses on the enactment of social identities and activities through Discourse Building of news tweets on The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) Twitter feeds. In doing so, the news aggregator has indicated of making use of James Paul Gee‟s Building Tasks theory with the additional assistance from The Principal Construction Elements of News theory by Doug Newsom and James A. Wollert.

Qualitative case study is used in this research to gain a specific outcome as the corpus results in a demand of a completely different response and significance. The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) tweets were taken as the corpus of this study the acquisition of twelve tweets from its page as the representation of each of the months of the year 2014 until the first half of the year 2014, the month of June. The objective of this research is to describe the building tasks of discourse it intends to depict along with its social activities and identities in the stance on LGBT issues reflected by the building tasks of discourse of the tweets.

The research resulted in the accomplishment of the use of the entirety of James Paul Gee‟s seven building tasks by the news aggregator. Moreover, the shaping of its stance on LGBT issues through these seven building tasks in building its discourse expressed the fact that the news aggregator has indeed taken the decision in siding towards the LGBT community with a side note on great consideration and care in choosing the linguistics units has been taken in order to maintain its objectivity alongside its integrity and reputation.

Keywords: discourse, discourse analysis, Building Tasks, Twitter, tweets, News

.

APPROVEMENT

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN THE HUFFINGTON POST’SGAY VOICES

(@HuffPostGay) TWEETS IN THE YEAR OF 2014

A Thesis

Submitted to Faculty of Letters and Humanities in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Strata One (S1)

Bagus Putra Ramadhansya 1110026000011

Approved by:

Advisor I Advisor II

Hilmi, M.Hum. Pita Merdeka, M.A. NIP. 19760918 200801 1 009 NIP. 19830117 201101 2 009

English Letters Department Faculty of Letters and Humanities Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University

Jakarta 2015

LEGALIZATION

Name : Bagus Putra Ramadhansya NIM : 1110026000011

Title : Discourse Analysis in The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices

(@HuffPostGay)Tweets in The Year of 2014

The thesis entitled above has been defended before the Letters and Humanities Faculty‟s Examination Committee on February 9th, 2015. It has already been accepted as a partial fulfillment of the degree of strata one.

Jakarta, February 9th, 2015.

Examination Committee

Signature Date

1. Drs. Saefudin, M.Pd. (Chair Person) __________ _________ NIP. 19640710 199303 1 006

2. Elve Oktafiyani, M.Hum. (Secretary) __________ _________ NIP. 19781003 200112 2 002

3. Hilmi, M.Hum. (Advisor I) __________ _________ NIP. 19760918 200801 1 009

4. Pita Merdeka, M.A. (Advisor II) __________ _________ NIP. 19830117 201101 2 009

5. Dr. Muhammad Farkhan, M.Pd (Examiner I) __________ _________ NIP. 19650919 200003 1 002

6. Rima Muryantina, M.Ling. (Examiner II) __________ _________

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to my best knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of the university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text.

Jakarta, February 9th, 2015

Bagus Putra Ramadhansya

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

The utmost praise and gratitude be to Allah Subhanahu wata‟aalaa, the Almighty, who has blessed strength and patience in the completion of this thesis. Salutation and prayers always be upon Prophet Muhammad Solallaahu alaihi wasallam, who has given us guidance to the brighter and better state as well as to his descendents and followers.

On this occasion, sincere gratitude is expressed to Alm. Jamin and Suwarni, who have continued to motivate and showered their love and affection as a fundamental driving force of the thesis formulation. Deepest appreciations are granted to Indah Putri Mauldwiyani and Arjuna Putra Triansya for being great siblings and supporters.

This thesis is submitted to the Letters and Humanities Faculty of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Strata One (S1) and could not be completed without the massive help from a number of people, especially Mr. Hilmi Akmal, M.Hum., as an outstanding advisor, who has patiently given time and guidance to the completion of this thesis and Mrs. Pita Merdeka, M.A., who has given guidance on the academic writing process of the thesis.

Further acknowledgement and appreciations are also given to these following people:

1. Prof. Dr. Oman Fathurahman, M.Hum, the Dean Adab and Humanities faculty.

2. Drs. Saefudin, M.Pd, the Head of English Letters Department.

3. Elve Octafiyani, M.Hum, the Secretary of the English Letters Department.

4. The lecturers and staffs of English Letters Department at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta on the given knowledge and experiences.

5. Keluarga HAHA for the continuous sharing of love and laughter throughout ups and downs in the entirety of the academic year.

6. Elbie Fams and Linguistics A class for the companionship in all of the academic and non-academic events.

7. The Geblex and JKL Party on their friendships from earlier school days up to the present time.

May Allah SWT always bless the people mentioned and their families with health and happiness. Moreover, it is well awared that this research is far from perfect; Thus, suggestion and criticism will be accepted for the improvement of this thesis.

Jakarta, February 9th, 2015

The Writer

LIST OF TABLE

Table 1: Corpus Data ... 38

Table 2: Data after Being Processed ... 41

Table 3: Identification of Building Tasks of Data 1 & 2 ... 46

Table 4: Identification of Building Tasks of Data 3 & 4 ... 50

Table 5: Identification of Building Tasks of Data 5 & 6 ... 56

Table 6: Identification of Building Tasks of Data 7 & 8 ... 61

Table 7: Identification of Building Tasks of Data 9 & 10 ... 65

Table 8: Identification of Building Tasks of Data 11 & 12 ... 70

LIST OF CONTENT

ABSTRACT ………...………... i

APPROVEMENT ...………..……….. ii

LEGALIZATION ...………..……….. iii

DECLARATION ..………...……….... iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..…..……….……….. v

THE LIST OF TABLE ..……..……….. vii

THE LIST OF CONTENT ….……….. viii

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ..………....……….. 1

A. Background of Study ...……….. 1

B. Focus of the Study ...……….……….. 6

C. Research Questions ...………..…... 6

D. Significance of the Study ...……….... 6

E. Research Methodology ...………...….. 7

1. The Objective of the Research ...……….…….….. 7

2. The Method of the Research ..………..….. 7

3. The Technique of Data Collection and Data Analysis …... 8

4. Instrument of The Research ...………..….. 9

5. Unit of Analysis ...……….. 9

CHAPTER II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...………..……….. 10

A. Previous Research ...………... 10

B. Concept ...………... 14

1. Discourse ...……….….. 14

2. Discourse Analysis ..………...……….. 17

3. Building Tasks ...……….. 20

a. Significance ...……….……….. 22

b. Activities ...……….…….. 23

c. Identities ...………..….. 23

d. Relationships ..……….. 24

e. Politics (the distribution of social goods) ...…….. 25

f. Connections ...……….….. 26

g. Sign systems and knowledge ...……….... 27

4. News and The Principal Construction Elements ....…….. 31

a. Message ...………...….. 32

b. Audience ...……….……….. 33

c. Medium ...………...…….. 33

5. The Relevance of Social Media and Twitter ...……….... 35

a. The Relevance of Social Media ...……….... 35

b. The Relevance of Twitter ...……….. 37

CHAPTER III. RESEARCH FINDINGS ...………. 38

A. Data Description ...……….... 38

B. Data Analysis ...………..….. 40

CHAPTER IV. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ...………..…….. 71

A. Conclusion ...………... 71

B. Suggestion ...………... 73

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...………..………... 74

APPENDICES ...………. 78

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

In recent years, social media are claimed to have a significant impact on the public discourse and communication in the society. Social media are believed to be the fastest developing type of informative and communicative instrument beyond any other because it is supported by the awakening of a new age known as the digital era. 1 They have introduced new communication practices and stimulated a wide civic participation through new forms of expression and interaction which is mostly based on the application of discourses.

In order to understand the application of discourse on social media, we have to acknowledge the definition of it. Discourse is a systematically-organized set of statements which gives expression to the meanings and values of an institution. It provides statements, organizes and gives structure to a particular area or topic. In line with that definition, James Paul Gee stated:

Discourses are out in the world and history as coordinations, “a dance”, of people, places, times, actions, interactions, verbal and nonverbal expression, symbols, things, tools, and technologies that betoken certain identities and associated activities.2

Discourse encompasses any meaningful use of language as well as communicative gestures in systematically-organized ways which take both written and spoken forms. Written or printed discourses, which can also be referred as

1

Charlie Gere, Digital Culture: Expanded Second Edition, (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), pp. 210-212.

2

James Paul Gee, An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method 2nd Ed., (Oxon: Routledge, 2005), p. 28.

'texts', can take up endless varieties of forms such as shopping lists and newspaper articles, but also transcripts of (spoken) conversations and interviews, as well as television programmes and web-pages.

Gee describes discourse as an example of a “thinking device” for us to construct and construe the world. When we do it, we carry out seven building tasks to simultaneously construct “reality” about any piece of language-in-use; significance, activities, identities, relationships, politics, connections, and sign systems and knowledge. They refer to the reciprocal process by which language both creates institutions and is created by institutions. It is important to keep in mind the fact that spoken or written forms of discourse do not contain meaning and that language does not merely transmit knowledge from one body to another; meaning is always constructively subjective by those engaged in the discourse. This is the part where the roles as tools of transmission to support affiliation within the society is needed and suitably taken by social media. Kaplan and Haenlein define:

Social media are a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.3

Social media is becoming one of the main foundations of information traffic by providing platforms which are not homogeneous; social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn), content communities (e.g. Youtube and Flickr), micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter), and so on. All of the sites mentioned

3

Andreas M. Kaplan & Michael Haenlein, “Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media” in Business Horizon - Journal, vol. 53, no. 1 (Indianapolis: Elsevier, 2010), pp. 59-68.

have become the host for rapid growth of users. According to George Anders, a contributor for forbes.com, Facebook has more than 1.19 billion people worldwide as members, while Twitter succeeded to attract more than 232 millionpeople to create accounts in total.4

Since this study will conduct a research in discourse building of tweets in Twitter, a clear understanding of them as a service for social interaction provided by the site and their suitability on the characteristics of a discourse needs to be created. Twitter users tweet about any topic within the 140-character limit and follow others to receive their tweets. This represents its benefit with a systematically-organized form shown by the character limit which will delineate its significance as a form of discourse.

On its usage aspect, social media offers much more than traditional media; it is free, allows users to reach far more people and gives a voice to those that otherwise might not have one. This opportunity is adopted and used by individuals as well as numerous institutions, including news practitioners, to direct a great amount of attention on broadcasting their contents throughout social media. One of the most prominent news companies which take this perfectly timed prospect is The Huffington Post. It identifies itself on its Google+ page:

The Huffington Post (#HuffPost or #HuffPo) is an American online news aggregator and blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, Andrew Breitbart, and Jonah Peretti. We offer news, blogs, and original content and cover politics, business, entertainment, environment,

4

George Anders, “A Twitter User Is Worth $110; Facebook's $98; LinkedIn's $93”, in

technology, popular media, lifestyle, culture, comedy, healthy living, women's interests, local news and more.5

The fact that The Huffington Post only utilizes social media and actively broadcast its contents through them is the main reason it gained much popularity amongst the internet users. In utilizing Twitter, The Huffington Post is in track with citizens‟ preference to acquire informationfrom lighter form of information source, rather than take time out of their busy lives to study an issue or watch more difficult news program.

Moreover, The Huffington Post attempts to entice a wide range of diverse communities by covering minorities issues such as the Latin-American, African-American, and especially the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) related themes which has become one of the most recent and fascinating topic of discussion because it is no longer seen as a marginalized minority with small numbers, but as a complex integral part of the society constitutes of a wide range of spectrum of its members. Study shows that an estimated 3.5% of adults in the United States identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual and an estimated 0.3% of adults are transgender.6 This implies that there are approximately 9 million LGBT Americans. The Huffington Post acknowledged this and the LGBT theme has become a sub-division; moreover, created almost every social media platforms, including its own website, Facebook, Youtube, Tumblr, and Twitter, for it.

Regardless the platforms, the way news institutions, including The Huffington Post, presents their contents, represents its social and cultural

5 _{The Huffington Post‟s Google+ front page, cited from}

https://plus.google.com/+huffingtonpost/about, Accessed on April 16, 2014.

6

Gary J. Gates, How Many People Are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender?, (Los Angeles: The Williams Institute - UCLA School of Law, 2011), p. 1.

perspective and identity which is one of the main concern of discourse analysis. Media generate their contents through discourse building. They do it with us as well as to us through mass communication as a central of cultural force in our society. They also have a responsibility to do so in a professional and ethical a way as possible. For example, a short discourse such as a tweet from The LGBT sub-division of The Huffington Post on Tuesday, April , 2014:

“Anti-gay pastor Scott Lively talks about LGBT rights, running for Governor and Obama.”

The excerpt above is built by the building tasks mentioned before. From the significance aspect, the tweet shows that it is significant for the LGBT community because the refusal from a certain religious leader, as can be seen from the foregrounding of adjective “anti-gay” and the noun “pastor”, is reflected

through his action that will have an impact to the community from the use of phrase “running for Governor” which will eventually affect their wellbeing,

depicted on the excerpt with the noun “rights”. On the activity aspect, the tweet

attempts to warn as well as inform the community about a particular contradictory movement that will rebut their ways of living shown by the transitive verb “use”.

There will still be layers of the building tasks of discourse that can be deeply extracted from this tweet.

Therefore, this research will analyze the building process of discourse which is depicted on the tweets posted by the LGBT sub-division of The Huffington Post with the account of @HuffPostGay on Twitter using the Building Tasks concept.

B. Focus of the Study

This research utilizes the Building Tasks concept by James Paul Gee to unveil the building tasks of discourse depicted on The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) tweets and its social activities and identities in the stance on LGBT issues.

C. Research Questions

1. What are the building tasks of discourse depicted on The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) tweets?

2. How does The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) portray its social activities and identities in the stance on LGBT issues reflected by the building tasks of discourse of its tweets?

D. Significance of the Study

The significance of this research is to give a new contribution to the field of linguistics, specifically to the study of discourse analysis. Theoretically, the result of this research paper can be a source of useful information in the development of discourse studies moreover in the aspect of discourse building. Practically, the result of this research paper can be a source of useful information for the writer, the readers, and the public in general to recognize and understand the scientific field of discourse, discourse studies, and even more specific, discourse building.

By recognizing and understanding the building process of discourse in

tweets which are related with the issues related to minorities issues, the level of awareness and tolerance will be elevated to prevent ignorant and discriminative

actions caused by misunderstanding through misrepresentations in the media which have been happening from the past. It is also expected that the research to be taken into consideration as a material for further research and studies.

E. Research Methodology

1. Objectives of the Research

a. To describe the building tasks of discourse depicted on The Huffington Post Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) tweets.

b. To discover The Huffington Post Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) social activities and identities in the stance on LGBT issues reflected by the building tasks of discourse of the tweets.

2. The Method of the Research

The method which is used by this research is qualitative case study. Merriam, as quoted by Nunan, defined:

The qualitative case study can be defined as an intensive, holistic, description and analysis of a single entity, phenomenon or social unit. Case studies are particularistic, descriptive, and heuristic and rely heavily on inductive reasoning.7

The result of this research will be described in analytical description. This research will be using the Building Tasks theory by James Paul Gee. The analysis will discover the building process of discourse on The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) tweets and its social activities and identities in the stance on LGBT issues.

7

David Nunan, Research Methods in Language Learning, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 77.

3. The Technique of Data Collection and Data Analysis

The data are collected using teknik kepustakaan (bibliography technique) as it is enable researchers to use written resources to gain data. 8 The research utilizes direct attention on the linguistic phenomenon, the discourse building tasks, appears on The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) tweets. The process of data collection in this research involved a number of steps:

a. The Twitter page of The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices

(@HuffPostGay) is taken into consideration and read.

b. Twelve tweets from The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices

(@HuffPostGay) Twitter page are taken as the representation of each of the months of the first half of the year 2014 until the month of June.

c. The relevant parts of the tweets are identified, highlighted, and being written on the data cards.

When the data are complete, the analysis begins from the identification and description of the relevant parts of the tweets which represent the discourse building tasks; therefore, the discourse building on the tweets will be discovered by using the Building Tasks theory by James Paul Gee.

8

Edi Subroto, Pengantar Metoda Penelitian Linguistik Struktural, (Surakarta: Sebelas Maret University Press, 1992), p. 42.

4. Instrument of The Research

The research instrument used on this research is data card9, a tool of certain sizes to write the relevant data from the focus of the research to identify and to highlight the relevant data to be analyzed from tweets

as the written form of discourse with the help of a connection to the World Wide Web to access The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices

(@HuffPostGay) Twitter page to collect twelve tweets and accumulate the data.

5. Unit of Analysis

The unit analysis of the research are twelve tweets from The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) Twitter page as the representation of each of the months of the year 2014 until the most recent one to the date of research composing, the month of June, to acquire the general overview of discourse building theory used on its

tweets.

9

CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL DESCRIPTION

A. Previous Research

There are some previous researches in the field of discourse analysis. The first research comes from Carol Wyatt (2009), entitled Discourse Analysis of Inquiry-Based Learning for Grade 5 Readers. The author focuses the analysis on four social language transcripts gathered in 2009 within the Grade 5 classroom. The research primarily utilized the seven building tasks developed by James Gee to explore the students‟ ways of developing text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections. In this inquiry, several of the three connection types occur. Most commonly the students offer very personal memories and images as text-to-self connections. These wide-ranging connections include experiences and actions plus beliefs, values and opinions. Only sporadically do students in this group make text-to-text connections which include biblical, novel and movie connections.10

The second research is in regard with media, news media in particular, with the title Korean Hurricane Media Discourse Analysis by Youngae Lee (2007). The author focuses the research to analyze a particular TV broadcast news discourse called Korean Hurricane Media Discourse (KHMD), which was presented online from YTN, a Korean cable TV news station. The data presents the topic of the Korean refugees who were forced to evacuate to

10

Carol Wyatt, “Discourse Analysis of Inquiry-Based Learning for Grade 5 Readers”, Unpublished Master Degree Thesis, (Faculty of Arts – Integrated Studies, Athabasca University, 2009).

Baton Rouge from New Orleans, after facing the destructions of Hurricane Katrina on August 2005. The methods are Ron Scollon‟s TV news frames, van Dijk‟s superstructure and macrostructure, Allan Bell‟s news structure, Dell Hymes‟s speaking model, and Erving Goffman‟s natural and social (cultural) frameworks. The research discovered that discourse analysis in media research is as varied as the fields of discourse studies since media power is persuasive, especially since media primarily has the potential to control the minds of readers or viewers to certain extent. Besides the five frameworks the author has approached in this study, media discourse is open to be analyzed in other various frames.11

The third is a research entitled A Discourse Analysis on Two Jakarta Post‟s Articles: Violence against Children on the Rise in School: KPAI and Teacher Punished for Beating Student Viewed from Sara Mill‟s Perspectiveby Dewirini Anggraeni (2010). The author focuses her analysis using Sara Mill‟s perspective of discourse analysis. The perspective concerns on the overview positions of actors; subject, object, reader, raised in texts which can show an object description and possible marginalization in news texts. The writer concluded two arguments:

a. The violence case still happens in the educational field whether it is the pattern of marginalization on women or pupil‟s mistake.

11

Youngae Lee, “Korean Hurricane Media Discourse Analysis”, Unpublished Master Degree Thesis, (Graduate Faculty of theLouisiana State University, 2007).

b. The ideology between male and female role is unequal resulting the violence mostly committed by superior (teacher) to the inferior (pupil).

The author also commented on the way the journalists deliver those articles as being really provocative and leading the reader‟s perception into what they say through their words.12

The fourth research is a paper conducted by Kate Le Roux (2008) entitled Relevance and Access in Undergraduate Mathematics: Using Discourse Analysis to Study Mathematics Texts. The paper reports on the use of discourse analysis to study the text of a mathematics problem which is used in a first-year university Mathematics course in Science in South Africa. The method andtools of Gee, including the seven building tasks, intertextuality, situated meaning, and Discourse and social language,are used to identify and explain how the text presents the activity of answering a mathematics problem and how the text may position the student. It was discovered that the analysis raises questions about the concepts of relevance and access in undergraduate mathematics relating with the identification and description of the activity and identity enacted in the three mathematics texts.13

12

Dewirini Anggraeni, “A Discourse Analysis on Two Jakarta Post‟s Articles: Violence against Children on the Rise in School: KPAI and Teacher Punished for Beating Student Viewed from Sara Mill‟s Perspective”, Unpublished Bachelor Thesis, (Faculty of Letters and Humanities, UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, 2010).

13

Kate Le Roux, Research Paper: “Relevance and Access in Undergraduate Mathematics: Using Discourse Analysis to Study Mathematics Texts”, (Numeracy Centre, University of Cape Town, 2008)

The fifth is a thesis by Nyda Aulia entitled Discourse Analysis of American Girl in Seventeen. Using Roger Fowler and co‟s model of

discourse, the author analyzed the text of Seventeen magazine and the ideology that is implied. The research unveils how the representation of American girl in the magazine column was observed along the text, discourse practice (text production and text consumption). The representations that the magazine reflected are forward-thinking, stylish, and trendy which also resulted in the form of consumerism ideology.14

There are a number of differences between the five previous researches mentioned above with this research. First, the notion of social media as an emerging and ever-developing new type of media for discourse studies was not a concern, moreover a focus, of those researches unlike the one conducted in this research paper. Second, the three researches allocated a great magnitude of the focus on the presentation of news as it is a final product of discourse without paying attention to its building process. Third, the length of a discourse was not deliberately taken into consideration when conducting those researches since the focus was on more of a “conventional” form of discourse, while in this research paper is quite the opposite concerning the existence of character limit on Twitter making it a newer and more “progressive” form.

14

Nyda Aulia, “Discourse Analysis of American Girl in Seventeen”, Unpublished Bachelor Thesis, (Faculty of Letters and Humanities, UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, 2008).

B. Concept

1. Discourse

The term „discourse‟ is an exceptionally blurry notion. There is no clear-cut definition explaining it as the same case goes for related concepts stands for complex phenomena, such as „language‟, „society‟, „communication‟, or „culture‟. 15

The only way it can acquire a fundamental definition is by identifying and classifying its general characterizations. Discourse is language-in-action, and investigating it requires attention both to language and to action. It has been treated either as a complex of linguistic forms, a „text‟, or as „language-in-use‟ in linguistic terms, or as „real language‟, the actual language used by people in common situation.16

In using language, we provide statements, organize and give structure to a particular area or topic with discourse. The definition is met with van Dijk‟s, which stated discourse is agreed by analysts as a form of

language use.17 Language use means that language has a characteristic of functional aspects. One of these aspects is in the communicative events. Language is used by people to perform numerous of activities in the world.18 People use language in order to communicate ideas, believes, and

15

Teun A. van Dijk, Discourse as Structure and Process, (London: SAGE Publications, 1997), pp. 1-2.

16

Gillian Brown and George Yule, Discourse Analysis, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 1.

17

van Dijk, op. cit, p. 2. 18

Joan Cutting, Pragmatics and Discourse: A Resource Book for Students, (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 1-3.

emotions as a part of more complex social events. It is used to identify, relate, communicate, help others, and build things like relationships, reputations, and institutions. It is also used to lie, gain benefits for themselves, harm people, and destroy things like relationships, reputations, and institutions. Conclusively, it is one property of discourse as the study of language use in the world, not only to say things, but to do things.19

In defining discourse, James Paul Gee stated:

Discourses are out in the world and history as coordinations, “a dance”, of people, places, times, actions, interactions, verbal and nonverbal expression, symbols, things, tools, and technologies that betoken certain identities and associated activities.20

The expression of language in the form of discourses as coordinations argued by James Paul Gee in communicative events also emanates the primary functions of human language which can be singled out to be the following two: to platform the performance of social activities (whether play or work or both) and to sustenance human affiliation within cultures and social groups and institutions.21 By doing this, the participant‟s thoughts, feelings, beliefs, attitudes, and values are embedded within the discourses they are using as they are seen as ways of representing aspects of the world; the processes, relations and structures of the material world, the mental world, and the social world.22

19

Theo van Leeuwen, Discourse and Practice, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2008), pp. 4-7.

20

Gee, op. cit., p. 28. 21

Ibid., p. 104. 22

The representation of particular aspects of the world may appear to be different, thus we generally be positioned in the consideration of the relationship between various discourses. Different discourses have different perspectives on the world, and they are connected with the different connections people have to the world, which in turn depends on their positions in the world, their personal and social identities, and the social relationships in which they stand to other people.23 Discourses not only represent the world barely as it is (or rather as it is seems to be). They are also projective, imaginaries, representing possibilities of alternative worlds which are different from the actual world, and tied in to schemes on shaping and changing the world in particular orders.

Discourses are related to one another.24 The relationships between different discourses are one element of the relationships between different people, they may complement one another, compete with one another, one can dominate others, and so forth. Discourses constitute part of the resources which people position themselves in relation to one another, keeping a separation from one another, cooperation, competition, domination, and in a seek to change the ways in which they relate to one another.

23

Ibid., p. 124. 24

Cultures, social groups, and institutions shape social activities.25 There could be no activities like “lunch table gossip sessions” or “classroom politics” without an institution whose lunch table, social relations, classroom, and politics are the sites of and drives for these activities. At the same time, cultures, social groups, and institutions get produced, reproduced, and transformed through activities.26 There is no institution unless it is enacted and reenacted moment-by-moment in activities like lunch table gossip sessions, classroom politics, meetings, and numerous other kinds of social interactions, all of which partly (but only partly) have a life all of their own apart from larger cultural and institutional forces.

2. Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis is a rapid, ever changing and growing field. It cannot be considered as an old nor a new discipline. The origin of discourse analysis as for being deliberately devised as a discipline, can be traced back to the study of language, public speech, and literature more than two millennia ago. Classical rhetoric, the art of good speaking, is one of its historical origins which would later be rhetorica, the discipline dealing with the precepts for the planning, organization, specific

25

James Paul Gee and Judith L. Green, “Discourse Analysis, Learning, and Social Practice: A Methodological Study” in Review of Research in Education - Journal, vol. 23 (JSTOR, 1998), p. 121.

26

operations, and performance of public speech in political and legal settings.

Researches in this field stretch from various different academic disciplines.27 Linguistics, anthropology, and philosophy are included as for they are the first disciplines in which models for understanding, and methods for analyzing, discourse developed.28 Other disciplines that have applied, and often extended, such models and methods to problems within their own academic domains, such as cognitive psychology, social psychology, artificial intelligence, and communication are also included.

Discourse analysis proposes that language is used variably. Accounts are constructed froma range of descriptive possibilities, and are intimately tied to thecontext in which they are produced and the functions they perform.29 There are many different approaches to discourse analysis and none of them is the “right” one. Different approaches fit different issues and questions distinctively than others. Some approaches to discourse analysis are not as closely tied to the details of language, but concentrate on ideas, issues, and themes as they are expressed in talk and writing.30

Discourse analysis is concerned not only with relations in discourse, but also with how those relations and struggles shape and

27

Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen, and Heidi E. Hamilton, The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2001), p. 1.

28

Sara Mills, Discourse: The New Critical Idiom, (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 1. 29

Robin Wooffitt, Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis, (London: SAGE Publications, 2005), pp. 13-18.

30

transform the discourse practices of a society or institution.31 Analysis of discourse attends to its functioning in the creative transformation of ideologies and practices as well as its functioning in securing their reproduction whichrepresents social and cultural perspective and identity. In more simplified definition, discourse analysis is utilized to convey three main aspects; anything beyond the sentence, language use, and a broader range of social practice that includes nonlinguistic and nonspecific instances of language.

When performing an analysis on discourse, the contextual background of a piece of language is to be thoroughly acknowledged. The reason behind this is because people communicate more information than the words meaning they are using. To put matters in a simpler term, van Dijk defined:

A context is what is defined to be relevant in the social situation by the participants themselves.32

Since discourse analysis studies the meaning of words in context, analyzing the parts of meaning that can be explained by knowledge of the physical and social world and the socio-psychological factors influencing communication, as well as the knowledge of the time and place when the words are uttered or written.33 Context is more easily to be recognized as having a powerful impact on interpreting a piece of language-in-use. In

31

Norman Fairclough, Discourse and Social Change, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), p. 36.

32

Teun A. van Dijk, Society and Discourse: How Social Contexts Influence Text and Talk, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 5.

33

summary, discourse is a product of a dynamic process where language is used as an instrument of communication in a context by speaker or writer to express meanings and achieve intentions, whereas discourse analysis is the study of the discourse being used.

3. Building Tasks

Language has a distinctively special property: when we speak or write we craft what we want to say to fit the situation or context in which we are communicating.34 But, at the sametime, how we speak or write creates that very situation or context. That means we fit our language to a situation or context that our language, in turn, helped to create in the first place.35

The notion between language and situation or context is somehow a blur.36 Which comes first? The situation we‟re in (e.g. a class meeting)? Or the language we use (our class ways of talking and interacting)? Is this a “class meeting” because we are speaking and acting this way, or are we speaking and acting this way because this is a class meeting? After all, if we did not speak and act in certain ways, classes could not exist; but then, if institutions, class, and class meetings didn‟t already exist, speaking and acting this way would be nonsense. The answer here is that this distinctively special property is real and language and institutions

34

Gee, op. cit., p. 10. 35

James Paul Gee, How to do Discourse Analysis: A Toolkit, (Oxon: Routledge, 2011), p. 84.

36

intertwined with each other into existence in a reciprocal process through time.37

Another way to look at the matter is this: we always actively use spoken and written language to create or build the world of activities (e.g. committee meetings) and institutions (committees) around us. However, thanks to the workings of history and culture, we often do this in more or less routine ways. These routines make activities and institutions, like committees and committee meetings, seem to (and, in that sense, actually) exist apart from language and action in the here and now. Nonetheless, these activities and institutions have to be continuously and actively rebuilt. This is what accounts for change, transformation, and the power of language-in-action in the world.38

We continually and actively build and rebuild our worlds not just through language, but through language used in tandem with actions, interactions, nonlinguistic symbol systems, objects, tools, technologies, and distinctive ways of thinking, valuing, feeling, and believing. Sometimes what we build is quite similar to what we have built before, sometimes it is not. But language-in-action is always and everywhere an active building process.

So language-in-use is a tool, used alongside other tools, to design or build things. Whenever we talk or write, we always and simultaneously construct seven areas of “reality” called the “seven building tasks” of

37

Gee, 2011, op. cit., p. 84. 38

Nelson Phillips and Cynthia Hardy, Discourse Analysis: Investigating Processes of Social Construction, (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publication, 2002), p. 3.

language.39 In turn, since we use language to build these seven areas, a discourse analyst can discover seven aspects about any piece of language-in-use. Below is the list of the seven building tasks of language.

a. Significance

We use language to give a significant meaning or value out of things in certain ways or to downplay that significance in certain ways.40 For example, someone enters a plain, square room, and speaks and acts in a certain way (e.g., like in order to run a meeting), suddenly, where that person sits becomes the “front” of the room. That person has used language in such way as to make the position where they sit have significance of being “the front of the room” for the time being. In this term, the elitists, the social groups with the highest power, e.g. journalists, have the power in accessing and signifying the discourse.41 The criterion this task brings: What we choose to put in a main clause is foregrounded information which is taken to be what is being focused on, and thus is treated as the most significant information. Furthermore, the focus of this task is about the ways a piece of language being used to make certain things significant or not.42

39

Gee, 2005, op. cit., p. 10. 40

Gee, 2011, op. cit., p. 92. 41

Teun A. van Dijk, Discourse and Power, (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), pp. 9-14.

42

b. Activities

We use language to get recognized to engage in certain activity. An activity carries out a socially recognizable and institutionally or culturally normed effort.43 People talk and act in one way when engaged in a formal opening of acommittee meeting and talk and act in another way when engage in “chit-chat” before the the meeting starts. In using language, we have to make clear to others what it is we are trying to be doing and what is being done. News media can engage numerous activities, e.g. chair meetings, issue commands or laws, and instruct encounters.44 The criterion this task brings: The presentation of verbs and verb phrases (verb + noun or noun phrase), (e.g., “go”, “go home” or “love the girl”) or prepositional phrases (e.g., “from home”). Furthermore, the focus of this task is about the enactment of activity or activities in a piece of language.45

c. Identities

We use language to get recognized as taking on a certain identity or role. We perform different identities in our lives in different contexts and they have different influences to others when being performed.46 We talk and act in one way one moment and we are speaking and acting as a chairperson of a committee; suddenly

43

Gee, 2011, op. cit., p. 97. 44

van Dijk, 2008, op. cit., pp. 27-33. 45

Gee, 2005, op. cit., p. 11 46

when we change the way of speaking and talking, we become one peer speaking to another casually. Even when we are having special appointments as chair of the committee meeting, we are not always acting as the chairperson. We have to enact these identities at the right times and places to make it work. The enactment of this task, need not be static, but maybe dynamically negotiated or challenged by the speakers engaged within the discourse.47 The criterion this task brings: Whenever different styles of language are everywhere apparent in the two texts, e.g. terms like “ass” and “dumb” in contrast with more formal terms like “offensive”, “hypocritical”, and “professed”. Furthermore, the focus of this task is about the enactment of identity or identities in a piece of language.48

d. Relationships

We use language to build and sustain social relationships with whom we are communicating, whether they are individuals, groups, or institutions.49 The relationship can be established between institutions or groups, e.g. the rich and the poor, men and women, or heterosexual and homosexual.50 For example, as the chairperson of a committee meeting, we can say, “Prof. Dermott, I‟m very sorry to have to move us on to the next agenda” and signal a relatively formal and distant relationship with Professor Dermott. On the other hand, if we say

47

van Dijk, 2008, op. cit., pp. 42-43. 48

Gee, 2005, op. cit., p. 12 49

Gee, 2011, op. cit., p. 114. 50

“John, it‟s time to move on.” We signal a relatively informal and intimate relationship with him. It should be kept in mind that institutional discourse can also be informal and an everyday constraint among other social practices for discourse is continuously contextualized by signaling various conditions or situations by the social relationships between the participants. The criterion this task brings: The construing of a social identity, position or profession as obligated within their domain skills, e.g. a student would relate a teacher with terms like “educate”, “guide”, and “learn”, but also with “friend” or “care” if more intimacy is established. Furthermore, the focus of this task is about the enactment of relationship or relationships in a piece of language.51

e. Politics (the distribution of social goods)

We use language to build or destroy social goods and the nature of their distribution in the society.52 Almost all humans view being treated with respect or deference as a social good. By doing that, we build a certain perspective on them. Much alike with news companies using this task with tendencies in the representation of discourse in and to suggest their ideologies and values implicitly in practices of news production.53For example, if we say, “You put too much sugar in your tea,” we treat the person as purposeful. On the

51

Gee, 2005, op. cit., p. 12 52

Gee, 2011, op. cit., p. 118. 53

Norman Fairclough, Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language, (New York: Longman Group Ltd, 1995), p. 54

other hand, if we say, “Your tea has too much sugar.” We treat the person as being less purposeful. Whenever the speaker or writer building and formulating the discourse, they seem to have consequences for further action or decision making of the participants engaged in it.54 How we phrase the matter has implications for social goods. The criterion this task brings: The dealing of linguistic units on negotiation over social goods and how they should be distributed including the work of government, elections, and political parties, e.g. “law” and “conflict”. Furthermore, the focus of this task is about the enactment of perspective on social goods in a piece of language.55 f. Connections

We use language to connect or disconnect things and to make things relevant or irrelevant.56 For example, we talk and act so as to make what we are saying about whether we should buy more sugar connected to or relevant to (or, on the other hand, not connected to or relevant to) what was said before about the excessive use of it in tea by a certain person. The presentation of news contents including the ones about particular social groups in discourses appear to be connected in ways that are often rather similar or as can be said stereotypically if not negatively in reflection with the values, norms, and beliefs held by the institution.57 The criterion this task brings:

54

van Dijk, 2008, op. cit., pp. 53-54. 55

Gee, 2005, op. cit., p. 12. 56

Gee, 2011, op. cit., p. 126. 57

Mostly through the use of lexical cohesion which links the sentences together through the fact that they contain words that are semantically related, e.g. “king” and “queen” or “Seminoles” and “Indian”. Furthermore, the focus of this task is about the enactment of connecting or disconnecting things; the relevance or irrelevance of things.58

g. Sign systems and knowledge

We use language to build up (or privilege) or denigrate various sign systems (communicational systems) and different ways of knowing the world.59 There exist numerous sign systems, such as languages (e.g., English, Indonesian, Spanish). There are also many different varieties of any language (e.g., the language of chemists, the language of poets, the language of gang members). There are communicative systems which are not language (e.g., images, equations, graphs). Furthermore, we humans are always making knowledge and belief claims within these systems. Different sign systems represent different views of knowledge and belief, different ways of knowing the world. We can make certain sign systems and certain forms of knowledge and belief relevant or privileged (or not) in given situations, that is, to build privilege or prestige to one sign system or knowledge claim over another. The enactment also acts as an exercise for power maintenance to allow illegitimate intimacy, and

58

Gee, 2005, op. cit., p. 13. 59

even dominance, over those participates within the discourse.60 For example, we talk and act so velvety like the language of a poetbecause it is considered as a more beautiful way to express art. The criterion this task brings: The use of distinct kinds of language and represents a distinctive way of knowing the world, e.g. “host plants” used by the non-scientific in contrast with “Passiflora vines” used by biologist. Furthermore, the focus of this task is about the enactment of privileges or de-privileges of certain sign systems (e.g., English vs. Indonesian, language of the poet vs. everyday language, words vs. images, words vs. graphs) or different ways of knowing and believing or claims to knowledge and belief.61

These seven building tasks in a piece of data can be uncovered by using discourse analysis method by James Paul Gee. Hypotheses can be retrieved from a small piece of data with the confirmation on referencing to more collections of data from a much larger corpus. Below is an example of data comes from a project in which a university professor, Sarah, wanted to work with middle-school teachers, one of them is called Karen.62

1 Last year, Susan Washington, who is our curriculum coordinator here had a call from Sarah at Woodson.

2 And called me and said:

3 “We have a person from Woodson who‟s in the History Department

60

van Dijk, 2008, op. cit., p. 54. 61

Gee, 2005, op. cit., p. 13. 62

4 And she‟s interested in doing some research into black history in New Derby

5 And she would like to get involved with the school

6 And here‟s her number

7 Give her a call”

8 And I DID call her

9 And WE BOTH expected to be around for the Summer Institute at Woodson

10I DID participate in it

11But SARAHwasn‟t able to do THAT

Not all building tasks will be apparent readily in all pieces of data, we can always propose the questions from the seven points above.63 Below are the building tasks of the data above.

Significance

Karen and Sarah treated this event as significant by making clear contrast of their involvement in the project. Karen portrays herself as responsible and as someone who did what she was told to do by saying “I DID call her” instead of just “I called her”. In defense, Karen

expresses a contrast between her own behavior and Sarah with “But

SARAHwasn‟t able to do THAT”. Activity

Karen‟s activity here is positioning herself in a certain way in front of the group and for the project to come and positioning Sarah in

63

another way. By using “I DID…”, “But SARAH wasn‟t able to do THAT”, Karen sets herself up as a “do-er” and Sarah as not a “do-er”.

Identities

Karen identity as a responsible “do-er” can also be seen from “Give her a call” which implies that she is considered as the teacher with the most expertise to deal with a university professor, Sarah.

Relationships

Karen is enacting a distance, but not particularly deferential relationship to Sarah. The bit where the “do-er” and not a “do-er” accomplishes this alongside with “a person from Woodson who‟s in the History Department”.

Politics

Karen‟s and Sarah‟s reputation as responsible, trustworthy people as a social good are at stake here as they “argue” over the responsibility on educating schoolchildren. It can be seen from the excerpt that the decision to call Karen in order to get to her class was a breach of protocol.

Connections

Karen renders her attendance and Sarah‟s lack of it connected and relevant to each other with “I DID…”, “WE BOTH expected…”, and

Sign systems and knowledge

This short excerpt is the beginning of a long struggle enacted in and through language as to whether teacher knowledge or university professor knowledge in regard to history, teaching history, classrooms, children, and the community is to be privileged with “a person from Woodson” and “interested in doing some research into black history in New Derby.”

4. The Principal Construction Elements of News

As a form of discourse constructed through the building tasks, news is defined as what people want and need to know.64 News is a major part of language and understanding it is important to understand the function of language.65 By reporting news, the mass media provide people the information they need to function in a society. News applies and transforms social practices and affects the interactions between them, including, everyday life, where it contributes to the shaping of how we live, and the meanings we give to our lives.66

The production of discourse happens when people, groups, or institutions represent everyday experiences as well as events or situations in subjective models which form the basis of the construction of the representation of the discourses about such events, as is typically the case

64

Doug Newsom and James A. Wollert, Media Writing: News for the Mass Media, (Belmont: Wadsworth Inc., 1985), p. 11.

65

Allan Bell, “The Discourse Structure of News Stories” in Teun A. van Dijk (Ed.),

Discourse Studies vol. 1, (London: SAGE Publications, 2008), p. 58. 66

for everyday stories or news reports.67 There are three principal elements to be considered when constructing a news piece: message, audience, and medium.68 Each of these affects how the news is written.

a. Message

The messages news pieces convey is related to the quality of the information they deliver. Information becomes news when a researcher discovers evidence that the self-examination process is flawed or can be improved.69 News practitioners have to know about the new development of the news piece on their own and then investigate and present the information to the audience.

b. Audience

The audience should always be kept in mind when writers are collecting facts and arranging them into a story. The constant doses of newsthe audience receive each day are a significant factor in social control, and they account for a proportion of the involvement in discourse.70 Audiences expect news media to fulfill six functions; to provide information about the availability of products and services (advertising), to entertain (special feature), to inform (basic news), to provide a forum for ideas (editorials, interpretatives, documentaries, and commentaries), to educate them (in-depth pieces, self-help stories

67

Teun A. van Dijk, Discourse and Context: A Sociocognitive Approach, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 59.

68

Doug Newsom and James A. Wollert, op. cit., p. 3. 69

Michael Ryan and James W. Tankard Jr., Writing for Print and Digital Media, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005), p. 37.

70

and columns and informative items presenting facts not otherwise readily available, as in science writing), to serve as a watchdog of government (investigative reporting and coverage of trials and other public events). How the news media go about fulfilling these expectations depends in part of the technical qualities of the medium. c. Medium

How an audience responds to the technology of the medium affects how the respond to the message being sent. The capacities of the medium also control how writers can use that medium. In short, the medium is the message itself.71 To be able to reach broader audiences, news institutions need to utilize a far-reaching media, as we know as mass media. The term “mass” implied that they have created a socially undifferentiated audience with the lack of clear divisions on classes, sexes, or races.72 The term “media” implied to their referenceto the printand electronic instruments of communicationthat carry and widespread messages to their audience.73

Mass media involve particular assumptions about their nature and their formation process of becoming connected with broader social and political relationships. Society, with its aspects, has always been a

71

Herbert Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium Is the Message: An Inventory of Effects in Doug Newsom and James A. Wollert, op. cit., p. 6.

72

Tony Bennett, Theories of the Media, Theories of the Society, (London: Mathuen, 1982), p. 32.

73

Richard T. Schaefer, Sociology: A Brief Introduction 5th Ed., (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), p. 137.

central focus of mass media.74 Through the media we expand our understanding of people and social issues beyond what we experience in person. There exist two forms taken by mass media; printed and electronic. Printed media include newspapers, magazines, and books; electronic media include radio, television, motion pictures, and the internet. The latest type of electronic media, the internet, with the help of computer technology has delivered a new variant of media, the digital media.75

5. The Relevance of Social Media and Twitter a. The Relevance of Social Media

Social network sites (social media) are Web 2.076-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile and share a connection within a system.77 Kaplan and Haenlein defined:

Social media are a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.78

Based on the given definitions, we can extract two major elements in understanding social media. First, the internet is

74

George Rodman, Mass Media in a Changing World 3rd Ed., (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010), p. 5.

75

Shirley Biagi, Media/Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media 9th Ed., (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010), p. 187.

76

Web 2.0 is a term that was invented at a conference of Web experts that followed the dot-com crash in 2001. It includes all of the online technologies that enable anyone with a computer to become a provider of their own data in a form that would allow remixing by others.

77

Danah M. Boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship” in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 13, no. 1 (2007), pp. 210-230.

78

needed by social media to connect them through the World Wide Web, which means they can be accessed literally everywhere. Second, the exact limitation of who can have access to them is non-existent resulting the users to have the opportunity to provide and transmit their own materials to the bigger community. In lieu of broadcasting, social media provide platforms which are not homogeneous. There exist different forms of social media, such as social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn), content communities (e.g. Youtube and Flickr), micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter), and so on.79

The growing relevance of communication in social media implies fundamental change in traditional public communication, which has usually been exclusively initiated and managed by specific actors, e.g., politicians, companies as well as journalists. This is different than what news institutions used to do in the past. Historically, companies were able to control the information by using press announcements and good public relations.

Social media have become outlets for the exchange of information about various aspects of life and have shown their relevance in becoming objects of scientific analysis. 80 This presents an agenda in educating the public on particular programs, policies, or events and issues which is the purported goal. This

79

Minavere V. Bardici, loc. cit., p. 1. 80

Stefan Stieglitz & Linh Dang-Xuan, Social Media and Political Communication: a Social Media Analytics Framework, (Muenster: Springer-Verlag, 2012), p. 1.

gives opinion change on the issue a major advantage. Changes in public opinion can occur when there is a systematicand permanent change in the way the media, entertainment and news, present the livesand issues of minorities.81

b. The Relevance of Twitter

Twitter as a micro-blogging type of social media which combined with bite-sized blogging, where small amounts of content or „updates‟ are distributed online and through the mobile phone network.82 Its first relevance is because it offers a relatively easy and simple way of accessing information, including news contents from news institutions, as a form of integrated data.The reason behind it is because of its relation with its supporting aspect which presents us with a channelwhich facilitates and constrains our ability to communicate in ways that are fundamentally different from those found in other type of digital media.83 Another relevance of Twitter is as it takes the role as a medium of discourse on a communicative event that happens in a social situation, presents a scenario, involves participants who played different

81

Jeremiah J. Garretson, Changing Media, Changing Minds: The Lesbian and Gay Movement, Television, and Public Opinion– Master Degree Thesis, (Nashville: Graduate School of Vanderbilt University, 2009), p. 3.

82

Antony Mayfield, What is Social Media?, cited from http://iCrossing.co.uk/ebooks, Accessed on June 27, 2014.

83

David Crystal, Language and the Internet, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 5.

roles, and determines some actions.84 That is based on the reason of it as a medium of social network which is more sensitive to the timing of people‟s post than any other social media in a large scale respectfully to its compact character limit.

84

CHAPTER III RESEARCH FINDINGS

C. Data Description

Upon selecting the immense number of tweets from The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) Twitter page, the data are collected using

teknik kepustakaan (bibliography technique) as it is enable researchers to use written resources to gain data.85 The steps on data collection in this research are: The direct attentive action to the Twitter page of The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay). Each month is observed to acquire the most recent and discussable issues as reflected on its tweets. The acquisition of twelve tweets from The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) Twitter page as the representation of each of the months of the year 2014 until the first half of the year 2014, the month of June was commenced by using the twitter search advanced, https://twitter.com/search-advanced. Keywords to the monthly hot issues were input to the search engine and eighteen tweets, three tweets every month, were taken as the table below.

Table 1. Corpus Data

No. Month Issue Number of

Tweets Corpus Data

1. January 2014 Russia‟s Anti -gay Law

8

a) Ian McKellen and 27 Nobel laureates speak out against

Russia‟s anti-gay law.

b) OH HELL NO:

Right-wing pundits

want to see

85

Subroto, op. cit., p. 42.

Russia‟s anti-gay laws in the U.S.

c) NBC Olympics

coverage won‟t

ignore Russia‟s anti-gay law.

2. _{February 2014 Michael Sam} of the NFL

35

a) Meet Michael Sam, the college football star who could go on to become the

NFL‟s first openly

gay player.

b) Michael Sam receives a standing ovation at Missouri basketball game.

c) Will Michael Sam save the NFL from its homophobia?

3. March 2014

Transgender Issues

21

a) Trans woman allegedly barred from Selena

tribute: „Nobody

wants to see a male person dress

up like a girl‟.

b) From homeless to hopeful: How a trans woman of color found her path.

c) She was never a

boy: A mother‟s

beautiful letter about her trans daughter.

4. April 2014

American Evangelical Pastor Scott

Lively

3

a) Anti-gay pastor Scott Lively talks about LGBT rights, running for Governor and Obama.

b) Gays use their

bodies „in ways

they‟re not

supposed to‟

hopeful governor declares.

c) Governor hopeful claims gays use

their bodies „in ways they‟re not supposed to‟

a) The unfair reason why twin Eagle Scouts have same merit badges but only one of them will get to stay in

5. May 2014 The Boy Scouts of America 5 Boy Scouts.

b) Major online retailer comes under fire for helping to fund anti-gay Boy Scouts.

c) New Boy Scouts president Robert Gates says he would have allowed gay adults.

6. June 2014 Marriage Equality

32

a) After gay marriage ban is overturned, GOP state legislator asks why

America can‟t be

more like Saudi Arabia.

b) LOOK: This kid

lobbied Australia‟s

prime minister to let his moms get

married… and he

got a response.

c) LISTEN: Hillary Clinton has awkward exchange over her position on gay marriage.

The collected corpus data are then taken into identification, accentuation, and annotation of the relevant parts of the tweets on the data cards by grouping them into six folders. Next step is focusing the research by taking two tweets from each of the months of the first half of the year 2014 until the most recent one to the date of research composing, the month of June, to acquire the general overview of discourse building concept used on its

tweets by utilizing the simple random sampling method in order for the data sample to have the same chance.

Below is the list of the processed data from each month: Table 2. Data after Being Processed

No. Month Issue Tweets

1. January 2014 Russia‟s Anti-gay Law

a) Ian McKellen and 27 Nobel laureates speak

out against Russia‟s

anti-gay law.

b) NBC Olympics coverage

won‟t ignore Russia‟s

anti-gay law.

2. February 2014 Michael Sam of the NFL

a) Meet Michael Sam, the college football star who could go on to become

the NFL‟s first openly

gay player.

b) Will Michael Sam save the NFL from its homophobia?

3. March 2014 Transgender Issues

a) From homeless to hopeful: How a trans woman of color found her path.

b) Trans woman allegedly barred from Selena

tribute: „Nobody wants

to see a male person

dress up like a girl‟.

4. April 2014

American Evangelical Pastor Scott

Lively

a) Anti-gay pastor Scott Lively talks about LGBT rights, running for Governor and Obama.

b) Gays use their bodies „in

ways they‟re not supposed to‟ hopeful

governor declares.

5. May 2014

The Boy Scouts of America

a) The unfair reason why twin Eagle Scouts have same merit badges but only one of them will get to stay in Boy Scouts.

b) New Boy Scouts president Robert Gates says he would have allowed gay adults.

6. June 2014 Marriage Equality

a) LOOK: This kid lobbied

Australia‟s prime

minister to let his moms

get married… and he got

a response.

b) LISTEN: Hillary Clinton has awkward exchange over her position on gay marriage.

The data will be analyzed by utilizing the qualitative method to reveal the building tasks of discourse on The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices

(@HuffPostGay) tweets and the social activities and identities it portrays in the stance on LGBT issues.

D. Data Analysis

1. January 2014 –Russia’s Anti-gay Law

The month of January 2014 brought us the new controversial law of the Russian Federation approved by Vladimir Putin which bans the promotion of homosexuality to minors. It is considered as an unnecessary, clumsy piece of legalization and of a political agenda because it is designed solely to boost support for Putinin Russia‟s conservative heartland.

Datum 1:

“Ian McKellen and 27 Nobel laureates speak out against Russia‟s anti-gay law.”

Datum 2:

“NBC Olympics coverage won‟t ignore Russia‟s anti-gay law.”

Seven Building Tasks of discourse on data 1 and 2 are analyzed and elaborated as to be seen below.

From the very beginning of the two tweets, the level of significance to the LGBT community can be measured by the placing of the indicators of the participants of the objection shown by the noun phrase “Ian McKellen and 27 Nobel laureates” as the subject placed in the

second tweet. When an internationally renowned corporation, NBC, as one of the biggest news network in the United States as well as in the world, is being taken into the matter, the issue must be in a great deal of importance and urgency. This notion occurred in similarity with the effect of McKellen‟s seniority as a Hollywood actor who has achieved “A level” of stardom proved by his winning on the Academy Awards. Same explanation also applied for the “27 Nobel laureates” as the Nobel award

is seen as the top form of an awarding grant for humanities being the same level with the Oscars for cinematography. This fact makes them public figures that have certain powers in their voices especially when voicing the issues of minorities. The uncountable noun “coverage” done by NBC on “Olympics” as the biggest sport competition in the world joined by

almost all countries indicate that the issue should be worldwide. The cue can bring changes in the action of the opinion-derived public with one of the effects of news which is able to, as Fairclough phrased it, “apply and transform social practices”.86

For the activity task, the preposition “against” alongside with its

complementary in the clause “against Russia‟s anti-gay law” in the first

tweet exhibits the act of informing and a possible encouragement to enact negative manners towards Russia by its audience. The two verb phrases “speak out”, as appears as verb + adverb, in the first tweet and “won‟t

ignore”, as appears as negative copula + verb (transitive), in the second

86

tweet evinces the conviction wherein the general population and the LGBT community is to be supported by having big names and corporate body taken interest and to have no need to fear on the ignorance on the report of the issue as it is to be pushed away by other issues.

In the task of identities, the noun phrase “Ian McKellen and 27 Nobel laureates” and “NBC” are clearly tied by The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices (@HuffPostGay) with the same string, the adjective “anti-gay”. The adjective itself with the prefix “anti-“ means opposed or against used

to capture the attention of its audience with the intention to promote itself as the reversal of the adjective, pro-gay; Therefore displays the standpoint of the news aggregator as a supporter of the community with its issues.

For the relationship task, the use of the phrasal verb “speak out”

in the first tweet displays a relatively high level of casualty and informality in the case of how a news institution relate to its audience rather than if the verbs “express”, “propound” or “remark” is used. Similar with that, the

verb phrase “won‟t ignore” expresses the assurance of NBC‟s commitment in the simplest words which could possibly be used in line of broadcast to be able to be received by all segment of society.

The noun phrase “Russia‟s anti-gay law” in both tweets shares the negative gesture towards opposition as a social good in the task of politics. While performing the gesture sharing, The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices

more favorable by the LGBT community opposite to Putin‟s which bans the promotion of homosexuality to minors.

In the connection task, The Huffington Post‟s Gay Voices

(@HuffPostGay) displays big names in their own fields, personal pronouns, “Ian McKellen” in the field of art and pop culture, “27 Nobel laureates” in the field of social and humanities, and “NBC” in the field of communication and broadcasting. All for making the issue relevant to be discussed by the general population as it can be seen that the issue is not exclusively belong to a certain group or field.

The sign systems and knowledge task of the two tweets de-privileging the native language of where the law implemented as can be seen from the possessive “Russia‟s”. This, again, shows that the issue is considered to better not be kept as an internal issue as it is more than a nationwide issue, but rather worldwide concerning human rights which should be understood, respected and upheld by all nations without exception; Therefore English is chosen as the language in use, not Russian.

The identification of the analyzed building tasks above can be seen from the table below.

Table 3.1 Identification of Building Tasks of Data 1 & 2

No. Indicators

Building Task Signi fi cance A ct iv it y Ident it ies R el at ionsh ip Poli ti cs C onn ec ti ons Sign s y st em s and kn ow ledge

1. Ian McKellen and 27

Nobel laureates √ √

2. speak out √ √

3. against √

4. Russia‟s √ √ √ √

5. anti-gay √ √ √

6. Law √

7. NBC √ √

8. Olympics √

9. Coverage √

10. won‟t ignore √ √

2. February 2014 – Michael Sam of the NFL

The American football player, Michael Sam, kissed his boyfriend, Vito Cammisano, at an NFL draft party in San Diego after he was selected by the St. Louis Rams. The action sparked a controversy because it was aired by an American sports channel, ESPN.

Datum 3:

“Meet Michael Sam, the college football star who could go on to become the NFL‟s first openly gay player.”

Datum 4:

“Will Michael Sam save the NFL from its homophobia?”

Seven Building Tasks of discourse on data 3 and 4 are analyzed and elaborated as to be seen below.

From the significance task, these tweets build up intensity to display a remarkably huge concern towards the wellbeing and continuation of LGBT community as an integrated part of the society starts with the foregrounding of personal pronoun “Michael Sam” merely as an individual who then acknowledged as an emerging “star” in “college football” as the

most popular sport in the U.S.A. adding significance entitling his name. The noun phrase “NFL‟s first openly gay player” gives away the impression of a new start, regardless it is a good one or a bad one. Later, it is seen as a chance to a good one as shown by the transitive verb “save”

which will affect one of the world‟s biggest practitioners in the field of sport broadcast, “NFL”. The noun “homophobia” is put at the end of the second tweet acts as the peak of significance as it strengthens the intensity in the suggestion of a high level of intolerance towards the idea of equality.

On the activity task, this tweet delivers a sense of hope to the readers, which obviously consist mostly of the members of the LGBT community. The delivery starts with the act of introduction shown by the transitive usage of the verb “meet”, as if both or at least one of the parties were not aware of each other existence and social significance. Gradually, as the introduction foreseen to have taken off, both parties acknowledge each other capacities. One could act as the hero and one is presented as the group in need indicated by the transitive verb “save” as an action of

APPENDICES

1. January 2014 –Russia’s Anti-gay Law a. Datum 1

b. Datum 2

c. Not chosen as datum

2. February 2014 – Michael Sam of the NFL a. Datum 3

b. Datum 4

3. March 2014 – Transgender Issues a. Datum 5

b. Datum 6

4. April 2014 – American Evangelical Pastor Scott Lively a. Datum 7

b. Datum 8

5. May 2014 – The Boy Scouts of America a. Datum 9

b. Datum 10

6. June 2014 – Marriage Equality a. Datum 11

b. Datum 12