IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN THE MEDIA: A CDA OF SLOGANS OF SOME SELECTED NIGERIAN NEWSPAPERS

Abstract

Newspapers are powerful tools of sending information to larger
audiences. They serve as mediators between government and the
citizens in a state. An effective use of the media facilitates
propagating governments’ and people’s visions and opinions to the
national and global communities. This study investigates and
analyses newspaper slogans that appear both offline and online with
particular attention to the Nigerian context. It looks at the ways and
manner newspapers employ language to construct identity through
slogans. The study adopts a combination of Fairclough’s (1989)
theory of social practice and Halliday’s (1970) Systemic Functional
Grammar in analysing the data. The study finds out that newspapers
are creative in using linguistic resources available to them to
construct the ideology of positive-self through slogans. The study
also reveals that newspapers’ slogans are embedded with
institutional power and ideology. The study concludes that the
relationship between language and identity as demonstrated within
the context of media is embedded with power and ideology.