News Discourse and Power: Critical Perspectives on Journalism and Inequality

The issue of socio-economic inequality has become an increasingly important question for journalism and the academy. The 2008 economic crisis and the years of austerity which followed exasperated class and regional division and as an even greater economic shock emerges from the aftermath of the Covid 19 pandemic, the role of journalism and the wider media in the production and reproduction of inequality assumes greater importance.

This edited collection includes eight chapters examining instances of where inequality is examined in the media, for example coverage of Thomas Piketty, precarity, corporate tax rates and race-, class- and gender-related issues, in order to address the following questions:

• Does journalism treat the issue of inequality in a satisfactory fashion?
• Does journalism challenge powerful interests, or does journalism play an ideological role in the reproduction of structures of inequality itself?
• How do increasingly poor working conditions of journalists impact on the coverage of inequality?

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Critical Discourse Studies journal.

Henry Silke lectures in journalism at the University of Limerick, Ireland. His research interests include ideology, the political economy of journalism and the role of communications and journalism in economic systems.

Fergal Quinn lectures in journalism at the University of Limerick, Ireland. His research focuses on comparative ethical norms in journalism, media representation of minorities and risk communication.

Maria Rieder is Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Her research focuses on social and economic inequality, minority communities and languages, language in the media, social movements and intercultural communication, with a specific focus on the role of language in the production of power and social conflict.