English Language A2 Investigation

“How do sporting events evoke nationalistic language within the media?”

The theory I am interested in researching is Language and Power most specifically, this because my motive within my investigation is to see how National sporting teams are “slated or praised” in their own countries newspapers after certain performances against rival countries.

 My methodology:

I have collected 6 online articles for data, 3 Australian articles and 3 English. All of these articles were accessed via an online newspaper. The articles all came from the Ashes series this summer, 5 tests were played and I selected a pre Ashes article from both country, an article from both country after the Lord’s test where Australia won heavily and finally I selected 2 articles from the press after the rain affected test match which saved England. All together I have 6 articles around the 750 word mark, 3 Australian and 3 English. All the articles are taken after the same point of the Ashes as this makes the data reliable and accurate as both nations are feeling the same emotion.  

The factors I had to consider when collecting my raw data was fairly simple, firstly there were no ethical issues with my data, but I had to check the reliability that each article had as I didn’t have access to a hard copy of an Australian newspaper. I collected the data via the internet from online newspapers from both countries to keep the same style of writing. One aspect I had to consider when collecting my articles was that the targeted audience that each individual paper had, if this differed to dramatically than my hypothesis that national sporting events evoke nationalistic language within the media could be inaccurate as it wouldn’t apply to all newspapers. 

Another factor I considered when finding my articles was that all the pieces have a very similar word count as if this contrasted greatly for each article then the nationalistic language content could vary significantly and give me unreliable data which would be detrimental to my investigation.