News from somewhere: youth crime, emotions contests and news reflexivity

Abstract

Competing emotional ideologies within three Canadian newspapers during the 1990s are analyzed with respect to youth crime debates. Comparing and contrasting representational tactics between regional and national, as well as ‘tabloid’ versus ‘broadsheet’ newspapers, this paper seeks to explicate ‘emotions contests’ which are closely related to ‘victim contests’ over young offender culpability and identity. Emotions contests are underscored where emotional reactions to social problems become, themselves, the source of contention. Drawing upon constructionist theory, particular attention is paid to the ‘discursive architecture’ of news articles, including the arrangement of claims in dialogue with each other. News reflexivity is argued to be a central feature of these articles, whereby references to ‘the media’s’ representational strategies are often espoused through the media itself. The aim of the paper is to suggest areas for advancement of constructionist analyses of emotions discourses in relation to social problems debates.