Watching the Watchers : - A Comparative Study

As citizens of developed countries we are under constant media influence. The media can in many cases choose if and more importantly how a phenomenon is to be presented to the public. Criminal matters and the actions of the police have almost always received large spatial attention in the media. The police’s perspective is often given much priority and weight, and while the police never intend to misguide the public, one must take into consideration that they operate under certain circumstances, hence their perspective of crime is influenced and somewhat biased. The written media, i.e. the press, is favorably examined through textual analysis but considering media influence on a society this textual analysis must be put in a wider perspective. This makes a discourse analysis of the critical kind well suited in researching the police in media. The aim of this paper is to establish, by using aspects of the theory of discourse analysis as presented by Teun van Dijk and Norman Fairclough, how (and to some extent with what purpose) the press presents the actions of the police