Discourse Representation of COVID-19 in Editorial Columns in Jordanian Newspapers

Abstract

This study aims to explore the discourse representation of COVID-19 in editorial columns in Jordanian newspapers. The corpus of the study consists of sixty-four editorial columns from three Jordanian newspapers, namely, Addustour, Al-Rai, and Al-Ghad during the period March to November, 2020. A thematic analysis was used in the data analysis to identify the themes represented by the Jordanian newspapers' editorials concerning COVID-19. A critical discourse analysis (CDA) was also adopted to understand the discourse representation strategies and discursive practices used by the Jordanian newspapers' editorial columns in their representation of COVID-19. The study has found that the editorials used thirteen themes in representing COVID-19, including pandemic, economic consequences, fighting COVID-19, abiding by health measures, crisis, danger, outbreak, lockdown, raising awareness, fear and worry, lifestyle changing, threat to humanity, and killing. Furthermore, the editorials used ten representational discourse strategies to represent COVID-19, namely, positive self-presentation, implication, actor description, authority, example/illustration, evidentiality, lexicalization, metaphor, negative other-presentation, and number game.