Media Perspectives on French Strikes

These two newspaper articles present the same story, where both the articles are written to tell the readers about the strikes occurring in France. The ongoing strikes are the main topic of both the articles, but they are presented in a completely different manner. The focus of the articles in reporting the story differs substantially. The social workers clearly support the French workers and their cause. On the other hand, the daily mail presents the story, focusing on the facts with a palpable critic view against the French president's politics. However, it does not support the strikes or the worker's claims.

The predominant voice used in both the articles is the active voice. This might suggest that, the intention of the author on identifying the actors in the processes. On the Daily Mail's article, there are two processes in the passive voice (Refer to appendix 1). Both of the processes are agentless. The writer puts his focus on the consequences of the strikes only one in seven high/speed TGV trains were running and not on the actors which can be identified by the context (Leedham 2018 p.25). The same happens with the second agentless passive which is part of a verbiage a deal is reached, where the actors are implied by the context and the important part is to reach a deal. The socialist worker also uses a passive to change the structure of the clause and in this case highlight, the actor which are the workers and how they come together the workers are united by the feeling (Leedham 2018 p.22). A third agentless passive is also used, where the actor is understood by the context and the importance is on Macron's intentions contracts, rights, pay, hours and holidays are negotiated individually.

Furthermore, looking at the processes (Refer to appendix 2) there is a much higher percentage of material processes in the Daily Mail's article (77.27%), than in the Social Worker's (51.51). This could suggest that, the daily mail is more focussed on the chain of events, caused by the strikes (Leedham 2018 p.28). The reader is faced by the consequences of the strikes such as commuters pushing their way into the trains or Macron negotiating with trade unions. However, it offers little insight into any of the thoughts of the agents involved. The daily mail uses only 1 mental process, suffered to describe the feeling of millions of French commuters and a relational process lay empty to depict the state of the busiest stations during the strike. There are three verbal processes to express worker's views and the government's past statements, using reported speech it has, however, said.

On the other hand, The Socialist Worker uses different types of processes (Refer to appendix 2). In this article, most of the material processes (51.51%) are used to describe what the protesters have done during the strikes were also striking, are fighting, are mobilising, have moved should not wait. Mental processes (18.18%) are used to express worker's or Macron's volitions want, have dreamed, need. Relational processes are also used in greater numbers than in The Daily Mail, 24.24% in the Social Worker is compared with 4.54% of the Daily Mail. This way, the Social Worker is giving so much depth to the story, compared to the Daily Mail which is just reporting the events of a particular day.

Looking at the participants (Refer to appendix 3), in the Daily Mail's article the majority of them are related to actors, goals or relational (81.57), which implies that, the focus is on the objective representation of the facts and who was involved (Leedham 2018 p.54). The actors, commuters, workers, unions, Macron and his government are represented in the story, perhaps putting the focal point on Macron and his government being the most frequent participants. On the other hand, the workers/protesters/strikers are most of the actors in the Socialist worker clearly establishing agency. Most of the goals involve some kind of protest although fewer than the Daily Mail. There is a clear focus on striking as a goal. The Socialist Worker is trying to concentrate on describing how broad the protests are becoming and how many sectors are participating. There are more sensers in the Social worker to express the worker's volitions. Looking at the sayers there is the same number in both articles, but the Daily Mail uses them to make a contrast between the union's voice and the government's, and perhaps project a more balanced approach. The Socialist Workers only give voice to the protesters by adding two direct quotes (verbiage) from them. Another trace of their support to the workers and strikers.

Looking at the lexis choices and both articles being similar in field they both have terms related to the topic such as strike, unions, workers, government, protests (Refer to appendix 4). They do not contain any specialised terminology. It could be argued that, the Daily Mail uses terms such as privatising or coalescing, decree, monopoly and the Socialist Worker uses imposed competition, neo-liberal offensive and free market, but those words are used in the media daily and have become common while reporting news (Leedham 2018 p.173). The daily mail uses some evaluative adjective such as heavily indebted, profit-making, special and descriptive adjectives to enumerate president Macron's qualities with a hint of sarcasm fearless and indefatigable moderniser. The daily mail also uses few colloquial terms to illustrate in a rhetoric way the negotiations between Macron and the Unions such as locked horns or with a gun to their heads. Both the articles are intended to be read by the general public using both day to day language and the Daily Mail is also even using colloquial terms.

In conclusion, both the articles have similar in field but the lexico-grammar set, apart their approach being noticeably different. Reporting the same event with a completely different focus choosing specific feature to reach their audiences and take a more objective balanced approach of the events (Daily Mail) and choosing to support one side and taking a social approach (The Socialist Worker).