Felicitas Macgilchrist

This site is a project of Felicitas Macgilchrist, research fellow at the Georg Eckert Institute in Braunschweig, Germany, occasional lecturer at the European University Viadrina (Frankfurt/Oder) and research associate with NewsTalk&Text (Ghent University, Belgium).

My current research project is an ethnographic discourse analysis, tracing the lifecycle of a set of education media from its concetion and production to its use in schools. This in some ways develops my doctoral research ‘Imagining Russia: Discursive struggles in the international news media’ (details below). Research interests include truth effects, discourse, curriculum theory and the relation of (new) media to emerging identifications, hegemonies and social imaginaries. Favoured methods include linguistic ethnography and 'positive' discourse analysis. I am always interested in hearing from colleagues interested in collaborative (especially multilingual) research.

Contact: fsm...(at)...discourse-analysis...(dot)...de

Blog: http://discoursology.net

Publications

Articles/Chapters

Van Hout, T & Macgilchrist, F. (in press). Framing the news: An ethnographic view of business newswriting. In Text & Talk.

NewsTalk&Text Research Group (2009). Position Paper: Towards a linguistics of news production. In NewsTalk&Text Working Papers Series 1: 1-22.

Macgilchrist, F. (2009) Gazprom, Ukraine und die deutschen Medien - Das Neujahrstrio. In Telepolis, 3 Januar. 

Macgilchrist, F. (2008) Vom Osten zum europäischen Kern: Die Deutsche Berichterstattung über Polen. In I. Kollak & A. Kołodziej-Durnaś (Eds.), Formen des sozialen Lebens im multikulturellen Europa. Berlin: Schibri.

Macgilchrist, F. (2007) Metaphorical Politics – Is Russia ‘western’? In C. Baker, C. Gerry, B. Madaj, E. Mellish & J. Nahodilova (eds), Nation in Formation: Inclusion and Exclusion in Central and Eastern Europe. London: SSEES Occasional Papers.

Macgilchrist, F. (2007) Positive Discourse Analysis – Contesting Dominant Discourse by Reframing the Issues. In CADAAD (Critical Approaches to Discourse across Disciplines) 1(1), 74-94.

Macgilchrist, F. (2007) Z Zachodu do centrum Europy: obraz Polski i Polaków w niemieckich sprawozdaniach prasowych. In I. Kollak & A. Kołodziej-Durnaś (Eds.), Formy życia społecznego w wielokulturowej Europie: polsko-niemieckie introspekcje. Szczeczin: Economicus.

Macgilchrist, F. (2006) Bond and The Return of the Evil Empire. In Telepolis,  26 November.

Macgilchrist, F. (2005) Terrorist or Freedom Fighter? Evaluation in ‘objective’ press texts. In H. Lenk and A. Chesterton (eds) Contrasting Text Types in the Press, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, pp.59-78.

Teaching Articles

Macgilchrist, F. (2003) Reading strategies. In English Teaching Matters 4(1), pp.4-6.

Macgilchrist, F. (2002) Community Language Learning. In English Teaching Matters, 3(2), pp.6-9.

Reviews

Macgilchrist, F. (2007). Review: Beer and De Landtsheer (eds) (2004) 'Metaphorical World Politics'. In Discourse and Society 18(2), pp. 230-232.

Macgilchrist, F. (2007). Review: Zelizer (2004) 'Taking Journalism Seriously: News and the Academy'. In Discourse and Society 18(5), pp. 684-687.

Current Research

Discourse and News Media

In this field I have been following transformations in the news media in various locations. First and foremost, in my doctoral thesis, Imagining Russia: A cultural discourse analysis of western media coverage. This was initiated within the DFG (German Research Foundation) "Representation-Rhetoric-Knowledge" Graduate Programme at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt an der Oder. Supervised by Professor Werner Schiffauer.

The thesis investigates the coverage of crises in Russia (including the Beslan school siege and Moscow theatre hostage-taking) in British, German and US news media. News output (texts, images) forms the nexus of the analysis which is informed by linguistically-sensitive discourse analysis, interviews with journalists and editors, theories of news production and post-structuralist discourse theory. A central aim is to explore the creation of common-sense notions of Russia, terrorism, the North Caucasus, the Cold War and the ‘West’, while also paying close attention to the multiplicity of potential readings, and the 'leakiness' of any hegemonic accounts. At an applied level, one aim is to encourage a style of reading which deconstructs news texts from within; a second is to provide strategies for activists/academics to write articles which counter mainstream news reporting. 

Secondly, I am interested in the changing international news landscape. English-language television news is diversifying: In 2002 Deutsche Welle started its 24-hour English-language channel; in 2005 the Russia Today news channel was launched; from November 2006 Al Jazeera International broadcast round-the-clock in English. I am interested in how these different channels report the world and how they relate intertextually to each other and to BBC World and CNN.

Linguistic Ethnography

Linguistic ethnography (LE) provides an excellent opportunity to study the practices and politics of a given field, be this media production, social interaction in schools, business communication, doctor-patient interactions, etc. LE combines linguistic and micro-analytic attention to detail with ethnographic attention to broader political and cultural questions, to reflexivity and to the situatedness of language use. The signal strength of LE is that the 'text' remains the focal point of analysis which also explores questions about the situated negotiation of meaning and authority, struggles among hegemonic projects, inclusion/exclusion, technological change, globalisation, diversity, interthinking, and much more.

In this vein of research, I have been working with Tom Van Hout at the University of Ghent, Belgium, on detailed linguistic ethnographic analyses of newswriting. These are based on case studies of business reporters as they discover, write and reflect on particular news stories. We ‘follow the story’ from its entry in the newsroom through the review process during a story meeting and the writing process up to the point the story is filed for copy-editing. On the way, we closely follow the process of reproducing, stabilizing or transforming the discursive frames employed to tell the news.

Future projects in this field are currently in preparation!

Citizen’s Media and Media Pedagogy

Drawing on Chantal Mouffe’s notion of radical democracy, Clemencia Rodriguez’ (2001) Fissures in the Mediascape inspires my interest in this field. She suggests that considering alternative media in binary opposition to mainstream media has encouraged the view that alternative media have failed. None of the movements have managed to democratise the mainstream media, nor destabilize their dominant market position. If, however, we go beyond the binary and think of citizen’s media in terms of their democratising force among users, Rodriguez argues they are succeeding. In this sense, I am exploring media projects – especially youth projects – in Berlin and Brandenburg.