Making Sense of ‘Democracy’: Constructing Ideological and Attitudinal Positions in Media Discourse on Conflict and International Intervention in Sri Lanka.

Abstract

This paper studies the media construction of ‘democracy’ in commenting on policies, nations, communities, parties, organizations and individuals in the background of the conflict and international intervention in Sri Lanka during the period of Ceasefire Agreement (2002–2006) between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. It analyzes the thematic construction of democracy by the selected editorials of the Sri Lankan English newspapers in projecting discourse of dichotomy and binary positions of ideological significance of Sri Lankan politics. The study uses the theoretical and methodological framework of discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis using the analytical tools of Fairclough (1989; 1995; 1995b), Fowler (1991) and Halliday (1985) to investigate ‘language in use’ and language in social context. It also investigates language as a ‘text’ in contexts and with co-texts at both micro- and macro-levels to establish or change social practices. It investigates how English language is utilized by the media in the established sense of empowerment of interested parties, or to control the access to knowledge and resources by the under-privileged communities. The study addresses the relationship between corporate power and ideology (Herman & Chomsky, 1988) and examines how democracy is thematized by the media in society oriented towards legitimization, political accommodation and ideological management in the name of democracy. This paper substantiates the claim that ‘liberal democratic doctrine has been salutary and far more beneficial for human rights and freedoms but to a considerable extent these are formal rather than substantive claims’. Thus the philosophical aspects and the political sociology of democracy are implicated in the identity politics in Sri Lanka.