This exciting new title explores how a concept of discourse can be usefully applied to the analysis of visual as well as verbal texts. Drawing on case studies and examples from British and US media, it re-examines the relationship between discourse and ideology demonstrating how both concepts interrelate and contribute to media analysis. Written in a lively and accessible manner, this resource will be useful to students of media and cultural studies, journalism studies and the social science disciplines. Exploring Media Discourse is divided into three sections. The first maps out key theoretical arguments and concepts. The second challenges some of the terms in which critical discussion of the informational media has been conducted, arguing that claims of 'tabloidisation' or of a shift from 'public' to 'private' values are themselves discursive and require investigation. The final part of the book focuses on discourses of risk and how these have become increasingly dominant within the media. By considering how the media handle three very different alleged sources of risk: child abuse and paedophilia as risks to children; 'unsafe' food; and Islam's 'global threat', the author investigates the varying messages about Western adult cultural values and anxieties that discourses of risk embody and yet obscure.

The discussion is supported by a number of examples of media coverage from both the press and television, and includes a preliminary discussion of the impact of the events of September 11th 2001 on Western discourses of Islam. Key features: ·Explores how discourse theory can be applied to visual as well as verbal texts ·Reviews the relationship between discourse and ideology in media analysis ·Extensively illustrated by a range of examples from recent British and US media texts.