towards a philosophy of media theory: a semiotic analysis of news reportage surrounding the 1984/5...

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Towards a philosophy of media theory: a semiotic analysis of news reportage

surrounding the 1984/5 UK Miners' Strike.

Elijah James

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Contents

Chapter 0: Introduction (pp.2 6)

Chapter I: Socio-historic context (pp.6 14)

Chapter II: Pertinent Aspects of Critical Theory (pp.14 22)

Chapter III: Semiotic Analysis of News Reportage (pp.22 32)

Chapter IV: Conclusion a philosophical treatise of speculation (pp.32 37)

References (pp.37 41)

Abbreviations

NCB (National Coal Board)

NUM (National Union of Miners)

TUC (Trade Union Council)

UDM (Union of Democratic Mineworkers)

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Chapter 0: Introduction

The research of this dissertation thesis centres upon the event of the 1984/5 UK Miners'

Strike. It shall aim to produce a semiotic analysis of news reportage media-content articles

surrounding the event in order to discover the coding of 'the journalistic text'. The research

shall draw the idea of codes within the journalistic text from the work of Maarja Prl Lhmus,

who, in her PhD thesis, takes a structuralist view of the journalistic text and explores the

specific socio-historic time period in her analysis (see sources).

The journalistic text applies to all forms of news reportage construction available to

analysis for the purposes of a poststructuralist deconstruction. This research shall provide an

explanation of this in Chapter II, exploring the aspects of literary theory. Cultural critic Guy

Debord's view of the mass media as spectacle shall help in understanding the mode in which

to interpret the journalistic texts under analysis. It shall prove interesting to see what role(s)

poststructuralist leaning ideas such as the spectacle as well as what role other ideas can play

in the interpretation of events mediated by news communications. The identification of

structures and codes within the journalistic text shall prove useful in the process of decoding

it. These structures and codes may reveal Thatcherite ideology, which falls under a

hegemonic category rather than a totalitarian category.

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Chapter I: Socio-historic Context combines a number of different perspective surrounding

the event of the 1984/5 UK Miners' Strike. It aims to provide a narrative of the event by

providing some key points and themes. The discussion begins with the socio-historic context

to set a relevant background to the discussion.

Chapter II: Pertinent Aspects of Critical Theory combines various different modes of

poststructuralist discourse to give us the means to deconstruct the news reportage. It aims to

provide enough relevant knowledge on the subject of deconstruction to contribute to an

analysis that shall essentially read between the lines of the news samples and criticize their

social elements. This part of the discussion delves into theories surrounding capitalism and

communication as well as commentary on class structure and the coding of the journalistic

text.

Chapter III: Semiotic Analysis of News Reportage forms the main part of the argument and

the part of the thesis that the preceding chapters have worked towards. This part of the

discussion involves the direct application of the techniques of the literary theory discussed in

the previous chapter to reveal important insights not only into how to interpret events but

how to break apart the journalistic text. The identification of patterns and codes underlying

the journalistic text, combined with the arguments from the preceding chapter, shall lead to

an understanding of why these patterns and codes exist.

Chapter IV: Conclusion a philosophical treatise of speculation shall attempt to round up

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the argument through a reappraisal of each section of the deconstructive analysis. To

conclude the thesis the research shall cover all the points raised in the deconstructive analysis

of the news reportage up for discussion in order to present its findings and discoveries.

Moreover it shall present a treatise in a series of tractate paragraphs to philosophically

speculate how the media works and how the media did work to portray the 1984/5 UK

Miners' Strike.

The research title, Towards a philosophy of media theory: a semiotic analysis of news reportage

surrounding the 1984/5 UK Miners' Strike, narrows the focus of the discussion by centering

upon an event itself but allows for a broad scope of philosophical speculation as to how

media theory finds its definition. Semiotics proves useful in deconstructing media due to

how it identifies structure in the coded elements of journalistic texts. The main interest in

using semiological arguments comes from the attainment of cultural knowledge, i.e. how it

applies to capitalism, society and class structure, in that hypotheses such as these draw upon

historical examples to give us knowledge relevant to contemporary thought.

In looking at which texts this research utilizes to provide a framework for analysis it

turns to the following. Critical Theory, Poststructuralism, Postmodernism: Their Sociological

Relevance, by B. Agger and Postmodern Anarchism by L. Call to assist in the purposes of the

interpretation of messages and, particularly, to give insights into the postmodern perspective

of semiotics. Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle addresses the notion of the social, a central

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theme of the miners' strike, and identifies what constitutes mediation. Curiosity or

Contempt: On Spectacle, the Human, and Activism, by B. Kershaw looks at the subjectivity

of the social and how the spectacle absorbs it and affects it. The Spectacle of Visual

Culture, by C. Garoian & Y. Gaudelius shows how mass-mediated culture manifests itself

within the spectacle through an ever-present propaganda in the service of cultural

imperialism. Simulacra & Simulation by J. Baudrillard explains the relevance of signification

and shows how the increase of information liquidates meaning. Ethical Value and Negative

Aesthetics by B. Butterfield tells us that the representations, reproductions and

mediations of the mass media form part of a multinational ideology of capitalism and that by

coming at this problem by way of using the linguistic sign enables the identification of class

injustices. This research furthers the work of M. Lhmus, who, in her eponymous text

Transformation of public text in totalitarian system uses the journalistic text to reveal

structures and codes of meaning to determine the influence of a text itself. When combined,

these texts provide a rich storehouse for semiological/poststructural deconstructive readings

that when applied to news reportage shall reveal underlying structures and themes.

The focus of this research utilizes primary sources of news reportage written at the

time of the strike as well as other material, such as videos, which when analyzed through the

lens of deconstruction shall lead to main purpose of the task: to see what the texts themselves

say about the strike but also how to construct a philosophical theory of the media itself, how

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it works and what insight to contemporary thought it can materialize. The research uses the

following primary sources: The war that nobody deserves to win, by Peter Jenkins,

published in The Guardian newspaper; U.K. mine union boss vows guerrilla war, compiled

by The Associated Press; and, Tony Benn Militant Rally 2009 from YouTube. These texts and

video sources provide first hand insights into actual events but come along with the

assumption that through mediation they only form part of a representation that requires

deconstruction to reach our philosophical idea of how they contribute to a media theory as

such. The research uses the following secondary sources: The Role of the Media: Redefining

the National Interest, by A. Fountain & B. Schwartz, and The media and the miners, by G.

Williams, both of them contributing to event-based material that the framework for analysis

can address.

Chapter I: Socio-historic Context.

This chapter assembles a number of different perspectives to create a narrative of The

1984/5 UK Miners' Strike and frames it in its socio-historic context. Goodman explains the

beginnings of the strike and how it came about along with the parallels it had to the general

strike of 1926 and also how people viewed the profession as a male-oriented one. The

perspective changes by looking at the role of women in the strike: Campbell writes

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concerning the feminist currents of the strike. Those involved in the action would view those

who participated in the strike as scabs which also occurs in Richards' narrative of the

Nottinghamshire miners. The discussion briefly looks at the breakaway of the UDM from the

NUM and considers the significance that a strike ballot never took place. The perspectives

close with a discussion of the significance of this split that pitted miner against miner.

Geoffrey Goodman (1985) traces the historicity of the UK miners' strike of 1984 to a

root point. He questions whether its origins trace back to the general strike of 1926 but suffice

it to say simply, he notes that remarkable parallels exist alongside fundamental differences.

To provide a rich store of historic parallel (p.13) Goodman considers what in

previous history correlates to the miners strike of '84. For example, in 1926 differences

between a hard-line Tory government and the mining communities presented themselves

through an emotional symbolism of conflict. The similarities lie in the personalities of the

left-wing leadership with Arthur Scargill, the president of the National Union of

Mineworkers (NUM), actively setting out to style himself in the image of A. J. Cook, a British

coal miner and trade union leader. In 1926, the Nottinghamshire miners broke away from the

wider labour movement, as they did in the 1984 actions, and divisions within the Trade Union

Council (TUC) existed in 1926 as also in 1984.

To look towards the differences: [a]n entirely new social and economic structure has

evolved in the 58 years that separate the two great mining strikes. (Ibid.) This research

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shows the substantial differences for miners and their families by looking at the conditions of

life and the manner and style in which these people lived. The post-war welfare state had by

which time made the industry heavily state-subsidized and nationalized; note how this

would make it easier for Margaret Thatcher and the government to seize the industry from

the people in a type of reclamation of property. Despite the unavailability of nuclear energy

in 1926 rival fuels had the opportunity to fundamentally change the economic life of the

nation thereby usurping the overall need for coal. This research also draws from Goodman

the albeit brief conclusion that the defeat of the Heath government in 1974 gave Thatcher the

determination for vengeance and also considers trade union monopoly power as an objective

for her government to defeat in order to shore up their own power.

A labour movement that stood as one of the oldest established labour movements in

the world created a culture and tradition in direct opposition to radical counter-revolutionary

Tory forces which by then led to a battle that Goodman calls a classic conflict of our times[.]

(Ibid., p.14) Twentieth century Britain, in political terms, served as an era of how the

government of Britain should have worked but at the heart of the matter of the mining

dispute lay the issue of pit closures, not forgetting that the issue of employment transcended

any symbolism between the working class and the state with the entire cultural approach of

the working class movement serving as its backdrop. The mere sustenance of the working

class depended on their communities and the source of work, the mines, and the work ethic

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which all contributed to [t]he instinct to protect one's own. (Ibid.)

The difference between mining and other occupations, due to geological forces of an

unpredictable nature, their confrontation and the fight against nature, gave it a reputation as

a job for men and men only and therefore also gave it a special pride which in some respects

romanticized it. Considerations such as these take the occupation beyond efficiency

measurement or economics. The difference here lies in how free men regarded themselves as

having physical courage and a fortified idealism and the desire to fiercely protect their

livelihoods.

Historically exiled by the unions women had to fight for their own agenda during the

strike. Their voice had been a 'dirge' which had fallen on deaf ears. (Campbell, 1986, p.250)

Unlike other times the women participating in the strike action would not let the community

dispossess them. Even against some of the national leaders' judgment during the early weeks

of the strike some of the male pickets made forays into Nottinghamshire revealing the

measure of their attitudes and how far they had to take their cause. This attitude of their

fight, their union, their industry prevailed against discussing it with their wives creating a

sexual sectarianism that a year later would prove crucial in undoing the action. To further

elaborate this claim Campbell tells us that: a personal and political litism [was] disastrous

not only for the women but for the miners themselves (Ibid.) and that the residual patriarchy

presented itself as chauvinism among the young miners. Despite regarding these archetypal

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proletarians as the essence of the working class the trade union movement and its effects of

patriarchal dominance affected the miners communities heavily. This forms the view that the

exclusion of women's interests, by and for men, contributed to the labour movement.

Feminist insurgency could not incur these patriarchal proletarians who felt immunized

and secure in their isolation. The Morning Star newspaper reported at the beginning of 1985

that a real working class women's movement was born, (Ibid., p.251) thereby replacing the

trendy feminist current of the middle class cosmopolitans. The movement and its wider

implications fell under the eclipse of International Women's Day which despite celebrating

the miners' wives suppressed their cause. A unified class required a longed-for exemplar

with class fundamentalism as its main recruitment theme; certain elements of the left wanted

to put pressure on feminism for it to give way to the initiatives of the coalfield women's

movement. This threw a question above the meaning of the women's movement in the coal

communities. Campbell's text shows that the nature of a reality where women stood by their

men could not describe the complex meaning of the coalfield women's movements. When

Nottinghamshire women escorted their men through the picket lines the mobilization of a

flying picket by the women's support group occurred. (Ibid.)

Without consultation by the men these women pledged their support to the strike in

order to have some say in the conduct (Ibid., p.252) using the culture of feminism and

combining it with a form of trade unionism in itself in order to organize autonomously. By

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1985 in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire, even though the men from this county did not support the

general strike miners wives in the public sector themselves active in trade unionism

continued to do so but at the same time opposed the refusal to hold a trade union ballot and

opposed the behaviour of the flying pickets. A split within the Nottinghamshire NUM

paralyzed the Labour Party essentially a miners' party within which the miners wives

found no room for expression.

'Traitors' and 'scabs' which will serve as useful signifiers in our analysis refer to the

group of vilified strikers most notably those Nottinghamshire miners [who] refused to

support the NUM (Richards, 1996, p.175) during the 1984-85 strike. The Union of

Democratic Mineworkers (UDM) found its formation through a majority vote of 72 per cent

when the Nottinghamshire miners opted out of and broke with the NUM. The formation of

the UDM institutionalized the division within the miners' ranks and therefore undermined

the strike in general. Richards questions the threat to fellow-workers and questions the

actions of miners unwilling to remain unified. Richards goes on to question further whether

the industrial societies and their workers could maintain solidarity with such a split running

through the rank and file. (Ibid.)

The establishment of the UDM represented the continuity of a tradition but did not

represent the general outlook of the working class or in particular a rejection of the labour

movement either. (Ibid., p.193) The NUM split emphatically with the formation of the UDM

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which would from then on take responsibility for the decisions of the Nottinghamshire

miners.

During the strike the decision of the miners of Nottinghamshire to work did not come

from the development of a new consciousness but a violation of the tradition by the NUM

leadership. Traditions surrounding culture, industry and the economy have always

encompassed class politics and they enveloped the multiplicity of Britain's miners with the

Nottinghamshire tradition ranking amongst them. That the Nottinghamshire miners refused

to strike does not show a lack of 'class consciousness'. Instead it shows how the divisions

within the working class that had preceded these in history generally had the tendency to

interfere with the class politics of the workers. (Ibid., p.201)

The coalfield in Nottinghamshire with its large swathes of miners found themselves

alienated both during and after the strike for on a national level the tactics of the NUM did

not agree with them:

[T]he failure to hold a national ballot, the consequent attempt to spread the strike

through picketing, and the subsequent efforts to make dissident Areas more

accountable to the National Union and to punish working miners for their actions,

all ensured that with near-unanimity, Nottinghamshire miners felt they had been

forced into breaking from the NUM ... Richards, 1996, p.193-94.

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On Tuesday 6 March 1984 when the National Coal Board (NCB) announced pit

closures across the country the NUM could not muster total support for the strike even in

the most threatened coalfields, and [h]owever strong Scargill's determination, there was no

certainty that he could get his armies to march. (Jones, Macintyre & Wilsher, 1985, p.51) A

half-hearted and reluctant spirit characterized the NUM's support for the strike. A formal

ballot proved necessary to bring about the strike and though in favour of the action

Nottingham representative, Ray Chadburn, spoke on behalf of his 29,000 members to demand

the ballot.

Jones, Macintyre & Wilsher write of two rules that dealt explicitly with strikes, dating

back to 1944 when the formation of the the national union occurred, in its rulebook when the

'constitution' came into force. (Ibid., p.53) A 50 per cent majority previously 55 per cent

would necessitate the approval for a strike through the NUM ballot system; the requirement

of this majority made up Rule 43 of the constitution. Individual areas where industrial action

could take place had to cede control to the national executive according to Rule 41 in the

constitution. National level approval would justify industrial action but without this

endorsement the NUM constitution would prohibit it. A countrywide stoppage had never

received the constitutional invocation of Rule 41 until 1985. The union's leadership had

prepared and sufficiently backed a bypass of a national vote in order to engineer a national

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labour withdrawal.

[T]he theme of 'miner against miner' (Adeney & Lloyd, 1986, p.88) ran through the

heart of the strike from its earliest beginnings. With no ballot held the Notts men had reason

to protest but their cause did not interest strikers elsewhere those in particular including the

men from the Yorks pickets at Harworth. Considering that to cross the picket lines would

mean treachery and to turn back from them would seem good the split within the miners'

ranks imposed a certain dualism. For example, some of the men from Harworth whether

those with apparent resignation or those with enthusiasm chose not to turn back on the first

day of the strike. The entrance to the Harworth pit needed large numbers to form a blockade

and due to the entrance having a broad width the majority of miners crossed over the picket

lines whilst [a]bout a dozen women kept up a barrage of obscene abuse aimed at the pickets

from the estate across the road from the pit. (Ibid.)

Chapter II: Pertinent Aspects of Critical Theory.

For the purposes of the discussion and latter analysis this chapter begins with a brief

discussion upon the subject of linguistics and deconstruction. This part of the research shall

run through the ideas of linguistic deconstruction to show forth the techniques that apply to

the analysis of news reportage from the 1984/5 UK Miners' Strike. Initially, this part of the

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argument introduces the notions of semiotics and what makes up the linguistic sign to

understand globally how the formation of an image within the journalistic text comes about.

Lewis Call introduces some of his postmodern ideas of semiotics which shall prove useful

whilst Agger succinctly provides clues as to how to think about expression and interpretation

applicable to messages. The argument shall then break down the ideas pertaining to the

spectacle of mediation and how it constitutes both the human subject and the social. In

keeping with this understanding of what constitutes the image, or linguistic sign, a look at the

notion of binary opposition comes into view. Finally a discussion of simulation, structural

codes and the journalistic text shall help to introduce the techniques of analysis that shall

deconstruct the news reports themselves.

According to the godfather of semiotics Ferdinand de Saussure explained that

'signified' refers to the idea and object to which a word or phrase, perhaps purports to and

'signifiers' refer merely to the written letters and spoken sounds; identifying the relationship

of the two helps us to identify the 'sign' which creates the image. (Call, 2002, p.10) These

ideas form the structure to look for in the sub-medial space of the text, or subtext, the

subtleties of the interrelationships that make up overall signs or images. Semiotics shows

how cultural knowledge figures in interpretation of cultural features. From the semiotic

point of view, content analysis fragments the cultural phenomenon it investigates by

categorizing elements or features of texts. (Longhurst et. al., 2008, p.96)

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Lewis Call insinuates that hegemony impinges on our understanding of class but that

the thesis of the sign can help make possible profoundly radical new understandings of

class (Op. Cit.) to the extent that such cultures find themselves under the imposition of the

sign of hegemony and have it inscribed upon them; motifs of law and order, for example the

role of the police in the strike, creates the discourse that circumscribes the revolutionary

impulses in such a way that the working class find representation by their ideologically

motivated responses, i.e. the workers response to the closure of the pits.

Semiotic forms underwrite all manifestations of capitalist exchange, (Op. Cit., p.14)

and mediated data forms the main commodity which involves exchange in the context of an

economy of information subject to massive growth in recent times.

Powerful authorial claims about the social world encoded within the journalistic text as

a literary whole when subjected to poststructuralist analysis can generate deconstructive

readings about the culture(s) up for analysis and reveal interplay between expression and

interpretation. (Agger, 1991, p.124).

The spectacle of mediation constitutes the human subject and frames the notion of the

social in a performative aspect; that society forms part of a spectacle represented back unto

itself. The spectacle of mediation presents us with a paradox. In the same instant the

spectacle can both repel and attract; through the visual, the spectacle can play upon the

visceral; the spectacle increases waste as it multiplies power; and altogether the spectacle

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deals with the human in inhuman ways. (Kershaw, 2003, p.594) The mediation of the

spectacle directly affects those powers which shape the human subject. Does the social itself

as Kershaw puts it, the contingent of those of the strike, form the main view of the spectacle?

And if within the spectacle of mediation which constitutes the subject through such

powerful paradoxes does it frame the social in human terms? A common humanity exists in

spectacular processes according to these paradoxes in which the spectacle characterizes a

performative society. (Ibid., 594)

This sense of the human subject might partly relieve us of the restrictive conceptions of

class that shape our ideas about cultural justice and social identity. In this sense the spectacle

deals with the powers great enough to shape social histories. (Ibid., 595)

Kershaw explains how the link between the spectacle of mediation and consumption

relates to over-production when he says:

The near ubiquitous mass media [linked to] zones of consumption theatricalize

experience by turning the everyday into an immersive spectacle of increasing over-

production, in which people become spectators of themselves as participants in an

emergent cultural (dis)order. Kershaw, 2003, p.604.

The spectacular and the ubiquitous, that which appears present and everywhere, the

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very nature of the idea of the performative social happens when the mediatization of

conservative democracy, particularly late-capitalism, places the market at the heart of the

social so that in turn politicians perform [and] life styles perform for each other in the streets

... (Ibid., 605)

Cultural critic Guy Debord made the central tenet of his claim as to the knowledge and

nature of the spectacle by describing images as the mediation of social relations between

people. (Debord, 2002, thesis #4) To further this claim the critical theorist Douglas Crimp

explains that social effects that contradict themselves come from the social relations mediated

by the image. (cited in Garoian & Gaudelius, 2004, p.299) Viewing the linguistic sign as a

visual pronouncement leads to the assumption that the image bears ideological function(s)

which teach us what and how to see and think. (Ibid.) If the linguistic sign mediates social

relations then the social effects alluded to thus far extend to the interactions between persons

and how they influence choices.

A binary opposition exists in the characterization of the linguistic sign within the

spectacle of mediation. On the one hand corporate capitalism and its associated manufacture

of certain desires determines certain choices due to the mass-mediated culture which

supports the objectives of ubiquitous forms of representation; (Ibid.) and on the other hand

the linguistic sign, as discussed as the visual pronouncement of the image, can provoke

responses to social injustice(s) through its representation of the ideology that produces

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cultural codes of signification available to examination by democratic forms of critical

practice. (Ibid.)

In keeping with the framework of the binary opposition of the overall image cultural

imperialism manifests itself as propaganda in its ever-present form of the spectacle in the

service of mass-mediated culture represented back unto itself in halcyon fashion. Whereas

cultural democracy aspires towards a critical citizenship in order to resist the monocular

regime of spectacle seduction ... . (Ibid.) In order to create a plurality of vision, historian

Martin Jay (1988), states the necessity of: [weaning] ourselves from the fiction of a 'true'

[dominant cultural] vision and [reveling] instead in the possibilities opened up by the scopic

regimes we have already invented and the ones, now so hard to envision, that are doubtless

to come. (p. 20)

The mass media and the way in which it mediates information acts dissuasively to

dissolve meaning. A neutralization occurs where signification and meaning implode due to

an increase in information. (Baudrillard, 1994, p.79) That which signifies the social implodes

due to a destructuration of information mediated via mass communication. Mass

communication implies the mediation of ideology towards the masses. The spectacle of

mediation directs the masses in their fascination towards the liquidation of meaning, to a

system whose argument is oppression and repression, the strategic resistance is the liberating

claim of subjecthood. (Ibid., p.85)

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Whereas Karl Marx may once have said with prolix that the means of production make

up the dominant mode of capitalism, post-Debordian thinkers such as Baudrillard & other

critical theorists would later revise the thesis to connote that the means of simulation make up

the dominant mode of capitalism.

The technologies of capitalism represent, reproduce, but more importantly, mediate

reality to depict a world of total absorption by simulacra. (Butterfield, 1999, p.67)

Capitalism's multinational ideology exploits these mediations, reproductions and

representations. Bearing this in mind, the object of critical theory should then identify class

injustice evidenced by the bodies of workers who bear the physical signs of capital ... This

situation makes it necessary to come at the problem ... by way of the sign. (Ibid., p.74)

Lhmus states that journalistic texts utilize a complex structural code. (2002, p.12) The

structuralist view of literature whether journalistic or not takes meaning as relational to its

interpretation and [c]ode refers to a set of shared rules of interpretation. (Ibid., 13)

Codification of meaning which brings forth the influence of the journalistic text lies within its

internal structural system. (Ibid., 30) Semiosis refers to the broad field of meaning and code

refers to the structure of the journalistic text. The reception of the meaning dictates the

influence of the text. The reception of meaning can only occur once the recipient decodes the

message of the text which leads to social understanding. (Ibid., 31) The process of coding and

decoding creates a struggle within thejournalistic text and codes essentially form the language

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system which operates within it. (Ibid., 38)

Lhmus brings to our attention the ideas of the deep level text code sender, Code 1

which she describes as having: deep and close contact with the context and implicit receiver of

the text when the text itself bears greater inner tension. And in conjunction with this,

surface level codes Code 2 which create: greater inner cross-tensions, the more

divergent [the text's] internal directions. (Lhmus, 2002, p. 38) For the purposes of the

investigation the argument shall not digress towards semantics and communication theory

suffice it to say that detailed codes present in thejournalistic text create the potential for the

text to contradict itself.

The whole idea of the 'journalistic text' must come underneath scrutiny. McNair gives

us a good scope of what thejournalistic text does by saying that it consists in its entirety of

any authored text that is presented to its audience as a truthful statement about, or

record of, some hitherto unknown (new) feature of the actual, social world. (1998, p.4) Here,

McNair addresses the form whereas Lhmus provides a description of the function:

A journalistic text is a public text that has been institutionally arranged by the media.

The journalistic institution functions in the community to oversee the production of

texts and, through the latter, the collective reception. The journalistic institution as a

channel produces a contextual framework for meaning. Op. Cit., p.41.

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Lhmus describes the process of transformation that takes place within the journalistic

text and explains how it moves towards its totalitarian output for the purposes of its

ideological message. (Op. Cit., p.10). Lhmus continues to make the clear distinction between

democratic public text and totalitarian public text and takes these as products of specific

institutions (Op. Cit., p.13) to show that the two different types of journalistic text also reflect

the societal schism that took place in 1984.

Chapter III: Semiotic Analysis of News Reportage.

In this chapter the argument shall focus on examples of news reportage surrounding

the event of the 1984/5 UK Miners' Strike itself. It shall look at ways in which the

deconstructive techniques derived from certain areas of literary criticism those methods and

techniques discussed in the previous chapter III: Pertinent Aspects of Critical Theory find their

application. The discussion begins with Fountain & Schwartz's views on manipulation and

how manipulation involves the elements of commodity, class consciousness, and

representation, to which Beller elucidates further. Williams helps to bring an understanding

of press bias before arriving at the semiotic analysis of the journalistic texts themselves. In the

process of semiological analysis the news story by Peter Jenkins in The Guardian newspaper

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shall lead to a discovery of the elements of signification and cultural coding and the use of

these elements in discovering the nature of an underlying ideology. Jean-Franois Lyotard

introduces the ideas of subjecthood, sender and receiver which apply to the news report from

The Sun newspaper which leads to the discussion of the scab signifier. Finally the

argument leads to an unedited text from The Associated Press where a discussion of Lhmus'

ideas of sender codes takes place. The discussion finally makes reference to the idea of

simulation and how it applies to a video recording of an event related to the issue of the

strike.

News reports and their manipulation, according to Fountain & Schwartz (1985), have

shown the blatant horror which NUM representatives expressed at the time of their

publication (p.123). Arthur Scargill accused the media of the time of producing lies and

condemned them vehemently. Scargill had insisted that the strike had come up against the

active agency of the mainstream media, Fleet Street in particular, recruited to oppose a

substantial part of the union's case. (Ibid.) This research views the mass media and its

political significance in these terms with an appreciation that reflects the arguments

expressed by Scargill and its other opponents. The newsprint dictated the form that

characterized the daily strikes and influenced their public representations rather than the mass

meetings or the rallies themselves. In considering the manipulation of the news this research

now turns to how the image, or sign, brings together the three following elements: the

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commodity, class consciousness, and representation. The industrial labour of the strike itself

when made compatible to the activity of the media's production of its events together

converts the image into an economic commodity subsumed by the mediation of capital,

overdetermined and overwhelmed by this process of signification. (Beller, 2006, pp.219-20)

The representation of the proletarian subject, the strike when taken as a whole, and its

exploitation continues through the unified productive processes that merge the conditions

and increase the frequency of both the event and its representation. (Ibid., p.271)

Scargill would come to represent the proletarian subject through his portrayal in the

mass media. Scargill's skillful use of the press tended to his rise to prominence and more

than any other trade union leader he acquired the role of an accomplished media figure.

(Fountain & Schwartz, 1985, p.123) Despite the claim by Fountain & Schwartz that the union

had an advantage in receiving public attention which Scargill could manufacture to his own

ends leads to the assumption that the mainstream media showed bias in its reports to

strengthen the opposition against Scargill and his cause. Williams (2009) claims that the

proprietors and editors of the national newspapers aroused anger from print workers due to

the press runs having to run blatant bias:

On 9 May 1984 the Daily Express carried a page one splash and centre spread in its

edition devoted to a spoof speech Arthur Scargill would have made if he 'cared less

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about toppling a democratic government and more about the truth.' Williams, 2009,

p.38.

So The Guardian newspaper runs a story dated 26 September 1984 headlined The war

that nobody deserves to win bylined Peter Jenkins. The coding of this text points towards the

signifiers which allude to their signified concept thus helping to form an image of the

emerging structural code. Butterfield previously stated that the examination of class injustice

from within the journalistic text leads to the threading together of the string of signification.

The representation of class injustice in this sense opens up via certain terms found

within Jenkins' text. What image does Jenkins try to manufacture when he writes that the

striking miners face great hardship and suffering? (Jenkins, 1984, 26 Sep.) Jenkins sets up

the plight of the miners alongside a public that [deplores the violence of Scargill's pickets]

juxtaposing this view with a representation of a [trade union majority unwilling to support

strike action]. (Ibid.)

In order to address the question of what image Jenkins' text presents the discussion

must return to Crimp's idea of how the sign mediates social relations to produce

contradictory social effects. Considering binary discourse analysis applicable to Jenkins'

dichotomy of the miners versus the public/union majority comes the assertion of an

interpretation that the associated capitalist reproduction through culture supports the

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objectives referred to previously as ubiquitous forms of representation. Since a polarization

between two opposing groups now occurs, as set forth in the journalistic text, the image of

visual pronouncement comprising a chain of signifiers, again to refer back to Crimp, imposes

the provocation to respond to the class injustice(s) forming on what Lhmus refers to as the

surface level coding Code 2 of the journalistic text.

To further examine Jenkins' portrayal of events in his article an institutionalization of

Thatcherite hegemony coded within the following description of the [working miners as

heroes of counter-revolution versus the Scargillite mob] occurs. (Op. Cit.) This portends

towards a reconciliation of the two opposing dominant forces at odds with each other

throughout the strike and a singling out of the aggressor not as that of the government but

that of the union leadership. The removal of trade union resistance forms part of the main

effort of any such totalitarian government in the first instance. This forms the examplepar

excellence of surface level coding and when looking at the following portion of the text, ['Mrs

Thatchers Britain' responsible for industrial dereliction, urban decay, unemployment &

poverty] (Op. Cit.), it best exemplifies what Lhmus described earlier as the inner cross-

tensions and divergent internal direction(s) within the journalistic text.

The attitudes that Jenkins reveals within the text as paroxysm of resistance the

violent expression or sudden attack of disease 'Thatcher-ism' & 'Scargill-ism' and the

superior numbers of the haves over the have nots (Op. Cit.) portrays a dispute between two

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nations, of which Jenkins writes, thus presenting a totalitarian battle within the capitalist

framework with neither really appearing democratic at all. This shows how the media have

contributed to this view. By representing ideology, whether Thatcherite or Scargillite, these

'cultural codes of signification' bring into question the machinations of democratic

discourse(s).

A sub-thesis: Jean-Franois Lyotard (2004) explains that the subject, as in subjecthood or

personality, finds its place above the thing signified the message of someone who replaces

the sign and its constitution of pure information, the person. The accumulation of actual

experience stands proportionate to the expansion of the message of the subject to the extent

that events find themselves split into signs and then these signs, it is the 'receiver', the

addressee who will assure their stock-piling and ownership, (p.47) to which Lyotard asks

who is the sender? (Ibid.) Lhmus emphatically states that the sender code comes from the

unedited text. In order to make this small sub-thesis manageable the discussion must split it

up to first enquire about the subject according to a critical reading of event-media and delve

into this matter of sender. (Ibid.)

So The Sun newspaper runs a story dated 5 March 1985 headlined U.K. mine union boss

vows guerrilla war contributed to by The Associated Press newswire agency. This article

clearly bears the attribution of subjecthood to Arthur Scargill. The signifier scab stands as

the most important signified concept in the whole piece, a term that would run along the

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trajectory of common slang to denote those working miners who did not join the strike action.

What categories does the feature of this scab fall into and what other elements of the

journalistic text does it bring together? What deconstructive meaning about culture does

scab offer?

The expression and interpretation run along the same trajectory and it appears that

The Sun newspaper, who rallied against union action with their propaganda, use the term in

a conciliatory manner. The Sun reports the strike as over: clearly shown from the use of the

phrase I backed my union, but I didn't scab. (AP, 1985, 5 Mar.) This shows a consolation in

defeat for the Yorkshire miners it claims to represent by portraying this idea of union

solidarity, in part, and also expresses that from the very beginning the union had within it a

deep division. Again to return to Crimp's dichotomy, that in perpetuating both solidarity and

division simultaneously the sign of hegemony, viz-a-vie, the inscription of capital upon the

working class, impinges upon the understanding of them, or at the very least their

understanding of themselves.

This interpretation of the scab usurped the freedom fundamental to the right not to

strike, taking into consideration that no ballot took place and, as Gostin (2007) writes,

[undermined] the collective rights [of mine workers as a whole]. (p.613) Consider the

leitmotiffor the image of the scab as one of ostracism and isolation:

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cinemas and shops were boycotted, there were expulsions from football teams,

bands and choirs and "scabs" were compelled to sing on their own in their chapel

services. "Scabs" witnessed their own "death" in communities which no longer

accepted them. Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U., 2002, C18.

In light of this comes the consideration of the media's use of this derogatory term in

such spectacular fashion as contributing to social division. In terms of subjecthood Scargill

appears as the figurehead of opposition to the continuation of work in the face of pit closures

but his person, such that of constituting pure information, comes across as the very scab

itself, in a paradoxical way according to his associated icon in the news.

To continue the examination according to our sub-thesis the discussion must now turn

to the question of what constitutes the sender which Lhmus readily identifies as the code

emanating from the unedited text.

So this brings us to the unedited text that The Associated Press newswire agency

provided to its constituent organs, the mainstream media in general, dated 3 March 1985 sub-

headed For Union President, Miners' Strike Was Class War.

The identification of the Sender (Code 1) falls under the category of the deep level text

code. In context this means the reception of the code by the editor organs of mainstream

media news outlets. The unedited text does not yet conform to the institutionalization of

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arrangement, and manipulation of code, it finds itself subjected to by mainstream media

controls. This leads to the assumption that the receiver of a Code 2 surface level text applies

to a collective rather than an institution whilst bearing in mind that both of these elements

form part of the same establishment. Meaning does not undergo its contextualization in the

stages previous to the conformation of coding and journalistic trapping. Lhmus calls this

process 'transformation'. (Op. Cit., p.13) What indicators lie within the Code 1 text, using the

same triangulation of signification, i.e. signifier, signified & sign, that can help to uncover

what Lhmus refers to as the 'concealed dominator.' (Op. Cit., p.42)

The concealed dominator refers to material that pertains to the part of the message that

influences. This shows the journalistic message as having an independent influence. So what

evidence does the Associated Press Code 1 text show that would suggest external

independence from messages of class injustice or the sign of hegemony, viz-a-vie, the

simultaneous portrayal of both solidarity and division, and what makes them dominators?

Scargill described by The Associated Press as a demagogue, a bender of truths, and a

simplifier of issues who made no secret of his desire to topple a democratically elected

government presents us with an image of both totalitarian solidity and anti-democratic

divisiveness simultaneously thereby falling underneath the sign of hegemony. The AP article

confirms this in the next sentence following on from the previous statement to say that: his

supporters praise him as a shrewd bargainer, which shows us that this compromise

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portends to a schism, whilst at the same time [loyal] to his cause, shows us unwaveringly

his attitude towards the strike must prevail for the outcome of his aims. This same article

shows its portrayal of class injustice through its deployment of an image of the police, the

guardians of state property who have no trade union; note that trade union disputes with

police often arise during the terms of right-wing governments for this very reason.

By viewing events retrospectively they bear witness to capitalism's historicity through

capitalism's hyperreality, what Baudrillard & Call explain through their critiques as

simulation. With this comes the assumption that the only true access to events comes

through their representation(s) by the spectacle. It calls into question whether true

representation of events exist at all since the spectacle of mediation produces ubiquitous

forms of representation. Only the medium can make an event, writes Baudrillard (1994,

p.82).

This final part of the argument focuses on Tony Benn (2009) portraying a social

message on the popular contemporary medium of YouTube a subsidiary of its parent

company Google in a video entitled Tony Benn Militant Rally. By examining the message of

the speaker Benn it makes references to the strike through Benn's use of phrases like: we

meet together in the middle of a titanic and momentous struggle and that [t]he true

nature of this struggle is hidden from many people by a media determined to make

scapegoats of individuals and groups in order to conceal what is really happening[,] which,

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if conveyed by an edited text would reveal those inner cross-tensions that Lhmus explains

exist within a journalistic text. However, here the argument must make a brief departure

from the journalistic text to examine the simulacrum of event-media. The representation of

the message by the medium forms part of a reproduction of the event by taking it from the

realm of the real and making it hyperreal. The mediation of the event, as opposed to the

event itself, reveals the aspect of the performative social discussed previously and frames the

subjecthood above the constitution of the sign. Does the image sign of Benn's message

appear social or does it form part of a larger simulation of something in the order of the

ideological? In addressing the social Benn refers to the 1984 society as [capitalist] (Ibid.) yet

working towards a majority labour government elected on a socialist program as decided by

conference. (Ibid.) To return to Baudrillard, that the medium constitutes the event, any

meaning or content of message finds itself absorbed by its own simulation. The image moves

from a representation to a commodity of production in what Kershaw noted earlier as

politicians performing. (Op. Cit.)

Chapter IV: Conclusion a philosophical treatise of speculation.

The implications of constructing a media theory run along the lines of speculation.

Semiotics proves useful in decoding media to provide a social understanding of what

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consumers may perceive when they receive coded messages through journalistic texts. The

possibility of creating an awareness whereby the consumer can understand greater how the

journalistic text works could lead to a revolution in the overall perception of commodity-

information. The realization that communication now plays a major part in the economic life

of capitalism should encourage further research in this area; a rich field of knowledge exists

in the academic circles and beyond that other researchers should plunder and make

applicable to readings of media. This research serves as a touchstone or foundation, a sort of

gateway, for further readings of poststructural deconstruction or semiological analysis

applicable to event-based media. Some of the methods in this research can allow for the

attainment of cultural knowledge from certain historical events. History changes forever: it

no longer moves across a linear trajectory but finds itself assembled from the subjectivity of

various different sources compiled at different times. So, if the object of media theory moves

towards a reevaluation of history then it can do so from a vantage point of diversity; the place

that events now exist exist in a state of hyperreality.

Returning again to Tony Benn and his speech regarding the miners' strike itself, the

video recorded at the time of the event comes out of its original context by means of its

simulation. Tony Benn no longer appears as Tony Benn but as a representation of a politician

performing, a commodity of hyperreal production. Hyperreality manifests capitalism's

historicity as events recur retrospectively and ubiquitously. Simulation makes up the

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dominant mode of capitalism. Simulation both absorbs the message and its contents so that

any meaning implodes if the assumption that only the medium constitutes the event remains

true. Simulacra absorbs meaning and dissolves it so that the mediation of reality forms a

representation solely.

The sign of hegemony refers to the parts of the journalistic text that influences, the

coding underneath, that of the concealed dominator(s), identified by the pattern of division

and union simultaneously within the journalistic text. Deep level text coding produces an

emanation referred to as sender or Code 1. The controls of the mainstream media manipulate

the code and institutionalize the arrangement of the code to make the journalistic text

conform to a certain ideological output known as transformation. Transformation occurs when

meaning undergoes contextualization. Only a collective body receives the institutionalization

of a journalistic text once its surface level codes find their application by the editor(s). The

journalistic text acquires its surface level coding at the point when a provocation of the visual

pronouncement of the image (or sign) occurs. Strings of signification thread together within

the journalistic text so that class injustices emerge from its structural code.

Transformation moves the journalistic text towards its totalitarian output in order to

produce an ideological message. Specific institutions determine whether the text comes

across as either totalitarian or democratic, so, in the case of The Sun newspapers' reports, the

surface level coding and its bias make it totalitarian or hegemonic.

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The totalitarian output of an edited text neutralizes democratic principles through its

simultaneous juxtaposition of opposing signs, whether it sets paroxysm of resistance against

the superior numbers of the haves over the have-nots, or its juxtaposition of 'Thatcher-ism'

with 'Scargill-ism'. These findings surmise that the coding of ideologies within the

journalistic text, specifically this notion of 'Scargill-ism' versus 'Thatcher-ism', reverberate still

now through the discourse analysis of history both at the time of the event and recently. The

discourse of democracy dissolves due to the signification of cultural codes conforming to a

representation of ideology above all else.

A journalistic text containing divergent internal directions and inner cross-tensions

reveals its surface level coding, a coding which supports certain ideological elements such as

a totalitarian output to subvert union resistance through its message. It does this again by

neutralizing the opposition(s) that may occur by setting at odds the dominant forces only to

reconcile the two in the same text. This hegemonic form of coding institutionalizes its

ideology. Contradictory social effects that portray divisiveness come from social relations

subject to the mediation of the sign.

Much like simulacra, meaning gets liquidated by the spectacle of mediation. The

masses find themselves subject to the ideology of the journalistic text and its output through

the mediation of mass communication. Mass communication that mediates information

destructures and implodes the social, which forms part of the main reason that the strike

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failed, in that, the media contributed greatly to its dissolution.

Seduction by the spectacle of mediation forms part of a regime of monocular

domination that defines a critical citizenship's aspiration towards a cultural democracy.

Social relations depend on the mediation of the image/sign. The image mediates social

relations and produces contradictory social effects. What the critical citizenship thought or

saw would have come from the functions of ideology that the image(s) produced. The streets

of demonstration and the picket lines of the strikes performed as part of a spectacle of late-

capitalism, particularly, conservative democracy. The disorder of culture came from the

participation of spectators, the over-production of the spectacle of mediation, immersing the

everyday into a theatricalized experience of consumption zones of consumption, the site of

the coal mines portrayed by an ever-present mass media.

The discussion above noted how subjecthood, the person, that which constitutes pure

information stands above the sign. The addressee of the sign receives the subjecthood, that

which the sender emits from the journalistic text, so that the message expands proportionate

to the accumulation of actual experience it portrays. If the signified concept of the scab

represents one of ostracism and isolation then Arthur Scargill represents this sign, through

the paradox of his own isolation perpetrated by the news and separated by the spectacle of

mediation from the realization of his aims. Scargill faced opposition due to the strengthening

of bias from within the mainstream media. The representation(s) that the media put forward

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influenced the strikes and characterized them more than the strikes themselves.

The way that The Sun newspaper uses the sign of the scab after the strike had ended

to show conciliation to those who went on strike, even though it rallied against the strike

throughout its duration, shows that even though a change in partisanship nevertheless

evokes sympathy it contradicts the bias it ran to prove the fluidity and non-fixivity of signs

adaptable to any purpose of communication.

Representation of the event displays a unified process of production that exploits the

proletarian subject. In its ubiquitous form, representation supports a culture of capitalist

reproduction. Representations, reproductions and mediations find themselves exploited by

the multinational ideology of capitalism. The process of signification overwhelms and

overdetermines, the mediation of capital as economic commodity information as

commodity transforms the image and converts the image into the production of an event

which the activity of the media makes compatible to industrial labour.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDb3Vk74hbYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDb3Vk74hbY

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