An Ideological square of the "First World" versus the "Third World" in newspaper discourse: A case study of the 2010 Haiti earthquake

Abstract

The paper investigates discursive devices employed in newspaper articles on the 2010 Haiti earthquake to represent the First World, mainly the USA, and the Third World Haiti, with regard to ascription of blame for the catastrophe. It reveals that van Dijk's ideological square of US versus THEM is applied in the discourse as the First World's positive characteristics, such as help, are emphasized, while negative characteristics, such as contribution to and partial responsibility for poor socio-economic conditions in Haiti, are de-emphasized. Conversely, negative characteristics of Haitians, such as helplessness and dependence, are foregrounded. Such a portrayal implicitly establishes power asymmetry between the two groups of social actors. As its methodology, the paper employs critical discourse analysis, incorporating multimodal analysis as well. The corpus is comprised of 45 articles on the 2010 Haiti earthquake gathered from The New York Times, The Globe and Mail and The Guardian.