CNN’S CONSTRUCTION OF THE REALITY OF SEPTEMBER 11TH: unveiling in the classroom the ideology behind words and images

This article is situated on the challenging border between multimodal analysis of texts and a socio-cultural framework of discourse and visual culture. By analyzing in the classroom the CNN language and images on conflict and war during the aftermath of September 11th, the students can interpret the discourse of the channel not as a natural phenomenon but as a reconstruction of the realities being reported. The students-interpreters can evaluate how the context in which news is told is something assimilated to the verbal and visual text and influences it from within. The aim of the project is to bring news visual and verbal language to the classroom environment and show its “constructedness” according to the ideology that permeates the channel. The perception of reality, as something objective to be grasped by a neutral mind and eye, can be expanded and give way to the “unrealities” of our reality