Week7: Discourse in media in the context of Occupy Wall Street 2011

Anti-capitalist demonstrators in Melbourne last year.
Source: http://www.louisemcooper.com/galleries/occupy-melbourne/

Discourse can be defined as a language activity which shows sentences and structures organised in various ways and “this organisation is called Discourse” (Deshmukh 2011, p.1).  When compared Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and The Age about Occupy Wall Street last year, they used different discourse in their articles.  The Age contends that it is "an important event that might even be seen as a turning point" and then explains that Australian banks became vulnerable after Global Financial Crises and they remain still the same now (Llewellyn, 2011, no.pg).   And ABC states that what these protestors do is “not aiming to replace or to fight it (capitalism), it is merely aiming to come into existence” (Hage & Hoffsteadter 2011, no.pg). 

Foucault (cited in Green n.d., no.pg) argues that normality is created through a process of problematisation, for example, the norms of madness and illness are defined by reference to the deviant.  So, it seems on the one hand, left-wing-The Age tries to normalise anti-capitalist movements by problematising current financial institutions' systems.  And on the other hand, state-owned-ABC provides problems of the meaningless protestors’ insistence for the sake of normalisation of neo-liberal economy. 
                                                               An image used in the article of The Age.↑

               
                                                             An image used in the article of ABC.↑

Discourse seems be able to manipulate a sense of normality in people’s minds.  It could　control what is normal and not, and what behaviour or ideas are normal and not.  In other words, it may change a person’s normal sense to abnormal, and the person’s normal idea could be regarded as a crime in a society.  These discourse indirectly indicating norms consequently seems to being reflected in law, justice and order in our society.

References:

Deshmukh, AJ 2011, ‘Discourse’, Golden Research Thoughts, vol. 1, no. 6, pp.1.-4, retrieved 27 August 2012.

Green, S n.d., How can some of Foucault’s ideas and perspectives be usefully applied to the study of the mass media in society?, Theory. org.uk. : Media/identity/resources and project, retrieved 27 August 2012,

< http://www.theory.org.uk/f-essay1.htm>.

Hage, G & Hoffsteadter, G 2011, Occupy wants what Occupy is: another reality, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, retrieved 27 August 2012,

<http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3665204.html>.

Llewellyn, DS 2011, ‘Time to occupy our financial hubs?’, The Age, 10 October, retrieved 27 August 2012,

<http://www.theage.com.au/business/time-to-occupy-our-financial-hubs-20111010-1lgq9.html>.