Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 17:4 (2018) ► pp.511–532

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Shaping public view

Critical media literacy through English-Greek translated press headlines

ORCiD logo with link | National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Published online: 9 January 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17018.sid
Abstract
Media research problematizes processes of mediation and the media-audience relationship. The study explores a second-order but equally important type of mediation process, that of press translation. It examines a set of pairs of English original and Greek translated headlines culled from various Greek newspapers (2005–2015). It highlights translation shifts which have the potential to drive the interest and values of some locations and political action or players, with a view to modifying perception of political landscapes and the demographics of inclusion and exclusion. The study shows that this is achieved by translation strategies managing proximity/ distance implications, agency representation, de/aestheticizing suffering or shifting perceptions of audience identity. Remediation-as-translation practice needs rigorous theorizing as it assumes an important yet rather neglected area of media tactics, which can de/mobilize moralizing ethics and affect ethical sensibility in public sphere.
Article outline
  • 1.Politics, media and translation: research questions and theoretical perspectives
  • 2.Translation in the media and methodological considerations
  • 3.News headline translation as biased mediation
    • 3.1Conflictual landscapes
    • 3.2Agency
    • 3.3Reshaping power relations and agenda hierarchies
    • 3.4Shaping the ontological status of audience
    • 3.5Psychological proximity vs. distance
  • 4.On filtering suffering
    • 4.1Valorizing human life
    • 4.2On discursively aestheticizing suffering
  • 5.Critical literacy through translation and assumed nation/audience profiles
  • 6.On translation and its contribution to the study of interaction between language and politics
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (51)
References
Anthonissen, Christine. 2008. “The sounds of silence in the media: Censorship and self-censorship.” In Wodak, Ruth and Veronika Koller (eds) Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere, 401–428. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Axford, Barrie. 2001. “The Transformation of Politics or Anti-Politics?” In New Media and Politics, ed. by Barrie Axford and Richard Huggins, 1–29. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Mona. 2006. Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account. New York and London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barker, Cris. 2004. The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baudrillard, Jean. 1994. Simulacra and Simulation. (S. F. Glaser trans.) Michigan: Ann Arbor.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bignell, Jonathan. 1997/2002. Media Semiotics. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boltanski, Luc. 1999. Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brône, Geert and Kurt Feyaerts. 2005. “Headlines and cartoons in the economic press: Double grounding as a discourse supportive strategy.” In Language, Communication and the Economy, ed. Guido Erreygers & Geert Jacobs, 73–99. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buckingham, David. 2000. The Making of Citizens. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chakravartty, Paula and Katharina Saridakis. 2006. Media Policy and Globalization. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chérif, Mustafa. 2008. Islam and the West: A conversation with Jacques Derrida. Transl. Teresa Lavender Fagan. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chiluwa, Innocent. 2011. “Media Construction of socio-political crises in Nigeria.” Journal of Language and Politics 10(1): 88–108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chouliaraki, Lilie. 2006. The Spectatorship of Suffering. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “Digital witnessing in conflict zones: the politics of remediation.” Information, Communication and Society 18 (11): 1362–1377. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coleman, Stephen. 2001. “The transformation of citizenship.” In New Media and Politics, ed. by Barrie Axford and Richard Huggins, 109–126. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davis, Rocío G., Dorothea Fischer-Hornung, and Johanna C. Kardux (eds). 2011. Aesthetic Practices and Politics in Media, Music, and Art – Performing Migration. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dahlgren, Peter. 2001. “The Transformation of Democracy?” In New Media and Politics, ed. by Barrie Axford and Richard Huggins, 64–88. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1995. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London: Addison Wesley.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Language and Globalization. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gaber, Ivor. 2007. “Review. Roger Silverstone, Media and Morality: On the Rise of the Mediapolis . Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2006” European Journal of Communication 22(4): 511–513.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hall, Robert A. Jr. 1980. “The structure of Italian newspaper headlines.” In Italic and Romance, ed. by Herbert J. Izzo, 157–160. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holly, Werner. 2008. “Tabloidisation of political communication in the public sphere.” In Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere, ed. by Wodak, Ruth and Veronika Koller, 317–341. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huggins, Richard. 2001. “The Transformation of the Political Audience?” In New Media and Politics, ed. by Barrie Axford and Richard Huggins, 127–150. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kang, Ji-Hae. 2007. “Recontextualization of news discourse: A case study of translation of news discourse on North Korea.” The Translator Special Issue: Translation and Ideology: Encounters and Clashes 13(2): 219–242.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaniklidou, Themis, and Juliane House. 2013. “Framing austerity in Greek translated press headlines: the case of I Kathemerini .” mTm 51: 80–104.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kellner, Douglas. 1995. Media Culture. London and New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kontos, Petros and Maria Sidiropoulou. 2012. “Socio-Political Narratives in Translated English-Greek News Headlines.” Intercultural Pragmatics 9 (2): 195–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Livingstone, Sonia, Peter Lunt and Laura Miller. 2007. “Citizens, consumers and the citizen-consumer: articulating the citizen interest in media and communications regulation.” Discourse & Communication 1 (1): 63–89. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Livingstone, S. 2015. ‘Audiences and publics in global perspective: challenges of translation and interpretation.’ Keynote lecture to ICA Regional Conference, Lodz, April 2015. [URL] (accessed April 17, 2016).
McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. “The medium is the message.” In Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Musolff, Andreas. 2015. “Metaphor Interpretation and Cultural Linguistics.” Language and Semiotic Studies 1 (3): 35–51.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sassi, Sinikka. 2001. “The Transformation of the Public Sphere?” In New Media and Politics, ed. by Barrie Axford and Richard Huggins, 89–108. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schäffner, Christina. 2004. “Political Discourse Analysis from the point of view of Translation Studies.” Journal of Language and Politics 3 (1): 117–150. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. “Rethinking Transediting.” Journalism and Translation Special Issue of Meta 57 (4): 866–883.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schneider, Kristina. 2000. “The emergence and development of headlines in English newspapers.” In English Media Texts: Past and Present ed. by Friedrich Ungerer, 45–66. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004/2008. Linguistic Identities through Translation. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstone, Roger and Eric Hirsch. 1992/1994. Consuming Technologies – Media and information in domestic spaces. London and New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Statham, Paul. 2010. “Making Europe News – Journalism and Media Performance.” In The Making of a European Public Sphere -Media Discourse and Political Contention, ed. by Ruud Koopmans and Paul Statham, 125–150. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Street, John. 2001. “The Transformation of Political Modernity?” In New Media and Politics, ed. by Barrie Axford and Richard Huggins, 210–224. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tymoczko, Maria. 2010. “Western metaphorical discourse implicit in Translation Studies.” In Thinking through Translation with Metaphors, ed. by James St André, 109–143. Manchester: St. Jerome.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Valdeón, Roberto A. 2005. “The ‘translated’ Spanish service of the BBC.” Across Languages and Cultures 6(2): 195–220. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2012. “From the Dutch corantos to Convergence Journalism: The Role of Translation in News Production.” Journalism and Translation Special Issue of Meta 57 (4): 850–865.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, Theo. 2008. “News genres.” In Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere, ed. by Wodak, Ruth and Veronika Koller, 343–362. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth. 2008. “The contribution of critical linguistics to the analysis of discriminatory prejudices and stereotypes in the language of politics.” In Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere, ed. by Wodak, Ruth and Veronika Koller, 291–315. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. The Discourse of Politics in Action. New York: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, Rudolf de Cillia, Martin Reisigl, Karin Liebhart. 1999/2009. The Discursive Construction of National Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wolfsfeld, Gadi. 2003. “Media, conflict, and peace.” In Political Communication in a New Era, ed. by Maarek, Philippe J. and Gadi Wolfsfeld, 139–256. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Locher, Miriam A. & Maria Sidiropoulou
2021. Introducing the special issue on the pragmatics of translation. Journal of Pragmatics 178 ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo
Constantinou, Maria
2020. EU lay communication in translation: mediation, affectivity and EU citizenship. Perspectives 28:2 ► pp. 202 ff. DOI logo
Constantinou, Maria
2024. Facework in translating and re-narrating vulgar language: The case of Macron's harsh statement against the unvaccinated in English language and Greek mainstream and alternative media. Language & Communication 95 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Sidiropoulou, Maria
2020. Understanding migration through translating the multimodal code. Journal of Pragmatics 170 ► pp. 284 ff. DOI logo
Sidiropoulou, Maria
2021. Im/Politeness in Translated Press Discourse. In Understanding Im/politeness Through Translation [Advances in (Im)politeness Studies, ], ► pp. 23 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue