Irony and the Journalistic Truth Claim A Study of Instances of Irony in Articles Published by

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Irony and the Journalistic Truth Claim

A Study of Instances of Irony in Articles Published by De Correspondent

Master thesis by Pia Dijkstra Student number: s1869345 Handed in on the 10th_{of May 2016}

Supervisor: dr. Frank Harbers Second reader: prof. dr. Marcel J. Broersma

Master Program in Journalism Studies Specialization; writing

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ABSTRACT

This thesis set out to answer the question of how De Correspondent uses irony in its journalistic articles. This question is relevant because it touches upon an interesting field of tension in which journalism and irony first seemed absolutely incompatible, while currently there might be some room for irony in a different type of journalism because it is based in a different notion of truth. In this thesis I explore the importance of the notion of truth for the authority of journalists to make truth claims. Also, I argue that nowadays there seems to be room for multiple discursive strategies in journalism, based on different ideas of truth and epistemology, to coexist. The use of irony at De Correspondent was researched, because this platform explicitly distances itself from the objectivity ideal in journalism and places itself within the context of transparent subjectivity. This thesis is one of the first expeditions of irony in the field of journalism which considers both stable and unstable ironies, as well as situational ironies. A large part of the existing research conducted by academics on the topic of irony in journalism only uses a very narrow definition of irony. To answer the question how irony is used in journalistic articles published at De Correspondent, I discussed what irony really is and distinguished three subtypes of irony which formed convenient categories of analysis. The main finding of this research is that in a journalistic platform working from a regime of transparent subjectivity, like De Correspondent, there can be instances of irony which do not harm the authority to make truth claims in journalism. However, it is important to remark that, even in a regime of transparent subjectivity, not all types of irony can be used without influencing the meaning-making process in such a way that it does not harm the authority of journalists to make truth claims. This findings of this thesis have nuanced the image of irony in journalism as solely a negative influence on its authority to make truth claim, which was instigated by the research only being conducted from the perspective of journalism in an objectivity regime. From the perspective of a transparent subjectivity regime however, there seems to be some room for irony in journalism.

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PREFACE

The writing of this thesis has been a very personal process. I learned about so much more than the use of irony in journalism and the importance of truth for the authority of journalism. My endurance and perseverance was tested on multiple occasions. This thesis brought me joy, it frustrated me, it inspired me, it challenged me in a way I was never challenged before. I have been ambitious about this thesis from the start, but I could not have finished it without the help of some people. Let me briefly thank them here.

Frank, as my supervisor you have been so patient with my perfectionism and ambition. Thank you for the thorough discussions of earlier versions over coffee. You have inspired me and helped me find the way in fields of study unknown to a former International Relations student. I will miss discussing narrative journalism with you.

Pieter, I thank you for your endless support, for your critical remarks on final versions (and really final versions, and definite final versions), for cooking my favourite dishes when I was too tired to do so myself, for empowering me, for your love.

My parents, Jolke and Maud, I thank you for supporting me, even when my perfectionism got the better of me and I seemed to never ever just be done with it.

Niek and Kien, I thank you for the discussions over the campfire and for providing me with a place where I could concentrate and work hard.

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INTRODUCTION

Twenty years ago, it was unlikely you would encounter irony in journalistic reportages in mainstream media1_{(El Rafaie 2005, 781-797). In the dominant discursive strategy based on}

the ideal of objectivity there was (and is) no room for irony, because irony is a stylistic or literary device of which the key element is the covert conveying of critical evaluations. There is an eminent clash with the objectivity ideal, which demands a strict differentiation between facts and values, conveyed in a language as plain as possible (Ettema and Glasser 1994, 5-28; Glasser and Ettema 1993, 322-38).

However, in this thesis I will argue that nowadays, manifestations of irony in journalism are no longer limited to alternative media. Instead, I found plenty of ironic utterances in articles published at the relatively young journalistic platform De Correspondent. As we will see, De Correspondent is based in a different discursive strategy, one I have called ‘transparent subjectivity’ in this thesis.

It is an interesting question why irony, which was seemingly incompatible with the essential values of journalism, is now used regularly in a leading and influential online journalistic platform. Therefore, the research question this thesis will look into, is the question of how irony is used in articles published at De Correspondent. With this question I aim to explore the interesting field of tension which emphasizes the friction between on the one hand the inherent incompatibility of ironic utterances in a journalism of objectivity and, on the other hand, the possible compatibility of ironic utterances in a journalism of transparent subjectivity. Because this field of tension is highly complex, and not easily explained in two sentences, I will use most of the introduction to elaborate upon it. This field of tension happens in the abrasion of multiple fields. In the following paragraphs I will sketch those fields and indicate where we find friction.

First of all, it is necessary to understand that the concept of truth is essential to the authority of journalists. I will discuss this in more detail in Chapter 1, but I will shortly introduce it here. However differently journalism has been defined throughout the ages, academics have agreed that one element is essential: journalists have always claimed to tell the truth (Broersma 2010b, 24; Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007, 8-19; Schudson and Anderson 2009, 88-9). We will see that this truth claim is not unambiguous, but first I will delve into why

1_{Note that I am not speaking of columns in journalistic outlets. I am referring to journalistic news articles. I}

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it is that journalists seem to have the authority to make truth claims in the first place. To do so, I follow Marcel Broersma’s (2010a, 15-35; 2010b, 21-33) line of reasoning that journalism should be studied as a discourse with a performative, rather than descriptive nature. He argues that journalism has a special ability to make readers understand a certain reality as true because journalists argue that it is true. According to him, this performative power of journalism is acted out through the use of forms which allow the public to recognize the ideology behind the news production. In his articles, Broersma (2010a, 15-35; 2010b, 21-33) mainly uses this idea of journalism’s performative power to explain the dominance of the objectivity regime in journalism. In short, he states that reading the newspaper, people recognize a specific layout, design, choice of words and writing styles (forms), which alert them to a journalistic ideology that laid at the base of that article. This journalistic ideology includes a conception of truth and how we can arrive at it. From Broersma, we thus learn that people will only legitimate journalism’s truth claim, as long as the journalistic ideology behind that specific kind of journalism, aligns with how that public understands truth and epistemology. Discussing his theory urged me to further investigate the relevance of how people conceive truth in general, because that seems to underlie the truth claim of journalism. I will discuss how the notion of what truth really is and how we arrive at it, is rather flexible (Foucault 2001, 317-9).

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9 Chalaby 1996, 303-326). By doing so, he responded to an altered perception of news

consumption and news production. He tells how he increasingly got the idea that the younger generations of news consumers did not refuse to read the paper because they are uninterested in news – as is often heard – he rather offered a different explanation:

Een verklaring die meer te maken heeft met een journalistiek ideaal dat in de negentiende eeuw ontstond en, ondanks groeiende weerstand, nog altijd gemeengoed is: objectiviteit. Volgens dit ideaal hoort nieuws een neutrale en rationele weergave van de werkelijkheid te zijn, gebaseerd op feiten en op principes als hoor en wederhoor. Persoonlijke fascinatie, verwondering of verontwaardiging van de boodschapper hoort er niet in thuis. Nieuws is een onpersoonlijk verslag van de wereld: of Gerri Eickhof of Teletekst je vertelt over de nieuwe paus of een bomaanslag in Irak doet er niet toe […].

Het klinkt misschien gek, maar langs dit ideaal ontwaar ik steeds vaker een generatiekloof, zowel onder nieuwsmakers als nieuwsvolgers. De generatie die dit ideaal hoog in het vaandel draagt, is bovengemiddeld vaak vijftig-plus. Voor hen is de journalist slechts brenger van nieuws, niet maker. Ze lezen ‘het NRC’, niet Bas Heijne of Maarten Schinkel. Ze kijken ‘het Journaal’, niet Sacha de Boer of Rob Trip. Ze willen news, not views.

Voor dertig-minners geldt vaak het tegenovergestelde. Voor hen is wie het vertelt minstens zo belangrijk als wat er verteld wordt. Ze volgen niet ‘de politiek’, maar Frits Wester of Ron Fresen op Twitter. Ze lezen niet ‘de economiepagina’, maar Ewald Engelen of Joris Luyendijk. Ze willen, gechargeerd gezegd, views, not news.

(Wijnberg 2013)

Like Van Zoonen and Broersma, Wijnberg is pointing out that he believes the authority of journalism is not dependent on one conception of truth. Rather, it seems to be the case that what the public considers to be good journalism, is dependent on the conception of truth that fits with the spirit of the time. After a discussion of this more postmodern theory of truth, I follow Broersma’s theory to discuss the different forms we might encounter in what I have called a ‘regime of transparent subjectivity’ in this thesis, which takes van Zoonen’s theory and a more postmodern view on the notion of truth as a point of departure in Chapter 1.3.

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in which irony will always fail. Because the essence of irony, as I will argue in Chapter 2, is the existence of a double-layered meaning with an evaluative capacity (Barbe 1995, 79; Jorgensen 1996, 622-9; Attardo 2000b, 11-5; Burgers, Van Mullen and Schellens 2012, 232; Hutcheon 35-55). The use of irony would thus clash with the objectivity ideal in journalism on two points. Firstly, the meaning of an ironic utterance is not at the surface, as objectivity demands, but in the friction between the first and second layer of the utterance. Secondly, irony’s evaluative capacity implies that an opinion is somehow always more or less (depending on the type of irony, see pages 26-42) covertly conveyed. However, where irony inherently clashes with the objectivity regime, I will argue that in a regime of transparent subjectivity there might some be room for it, because it is based on a different idea of truth. An idea of truth that acknowledges instead of denies the notion that all observations and ‘facts’ are ultimately constructed and selected. Linda Hutcheon finds that the use of irony can illuminate this view of truth and epistemology:

[I]rony’s doubleness can act as a way of counteracting any tendency to assume a categorical or rigid position of “Truth” through precisely some acknowledgement of provisionality and contingency. Its laconic reticence would then be interpreted as an undogmatic alternative to authoritative pronouncements. This is a functioning of irony that “doesn’t reject or refute or turn upside-down: not evasiveness or lack of courage or conviction, but an admission that there are times when we cannot be sure, not so much because we don’t know enough as because uncertainty is intrinsic, of the essence”.

(Hutcheon 1994, 49)

Hutcheon explains that irony can alert us to the malleable nature of truth, because it acknowledges the uncertain nature of human observation and reconstruction of reality. Finding that irony may well support some of the essential characteristics of journalism in a transparent-subjectivity regime, it is odd that there are few academic studies in that field. Therefore, I aim to take some preliminary steps into researching this interesting field of tension, where the use of irony in journalism may not be as exceptional as it used to be because part of the public, and part of journalism, believes in a broader understanding of truth and questions of epistemology.

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11 definition of irony. So, this thesis aims to also provide an increased academic understanding

of the use of irony in journalism.

On a more practical note, no academic research has made a special study of De

Correspondent, and most definitely no one has researched how irony is used in its publications

and in which way it supports or frustrates the carrying out its mission of transparent subjectivity. De Correspondent provides an interesting case study, since it is one of the first initiatives in contemporary journalism, that openly distances itself from the ideals of the objectivity regime and instead shows rather a change of paradigm in journalism by bringing in an ideological claim based in transparent subjectivity.

To answer the question of how irony is used in journalistic articles published at De

Correspondent, I conducted a qualitative content analysis based on immersion and micro

analysis. I found guidance in a methodology called Grounded Theory which was developed by Barney Glaser, Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin (Glaser and Strauss 1967, 1-18; Strauss and Corbin 1998, 1-17). It provided me with methods of analysis that allowed me to immerse myself in the data without losing myself in my own interpretations, keeping the focus on the systematic and rational analysis of the data. Moreover, this method helped me to develop theory about the use of irony in journalism and to see it as a field in its own right, apart from the studies of irony in, for example, rhetoric, pragmatics and literature studies.

In selecting the articles and authors to consider in my research, I used two main selection criteria. First of all, the articles had to have a journalistic nature; since De

Correspondent also regularly publishes more column-like articles, I consciously selected only

the journalistic reportages, to be able to learn something about the use of irony in a journalistic context. Secondly, I only selected articles in which I found instances of irony in the first reading, in order to maximise the amount of ironic instances for the sake of comparison and analysis. During the process of selection and analysis, I used memo’s to describe my thought processes and process of analysis. These can be found in Annex 2 and Annex 3. These memo’s both ensure the transparency of the research and enabled me to keep checking my own interpretations for bias.

Outline

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I-pistemology, with which she aims to indicate the increasing popularity of a different view of

truth. Afterwards, I discuss what type of journalism might fit with that broadened understanding of truth and through what forms it might be expressed.

In the second chapter I will discuss the notion of irony. Before arriving at a suitable definition of irony, I will first explain why it is difficult to catch irony in a definition that is broad enough to encompass the different subtypes of irony, but which is also specific enough to include the particularities that makes the irony. I will use an understanding of irony by Linda Hutcheon which is broad enough to cover the broad variety of possible irony expressions. Moreover, I will use a framework of analysing irony by Booth, which differentiates between three different types of irony; stable irony, unstable irony and situational irony. I will also tune in to some theories presented in the fields of pragmatics and rhetoric, which have searched for forms and markers by which we can recognize irony. However, it has to be made clear that the field of journalism studies has different properties than the fields of logic, pragmatics and rhetoric, for example. It must therefore also be understood that the way irony is studied in those other disciplines cannot be automatically used as a framework for explaining irony in journalism.

In the third chapter I present the research design and method of analysis that I used to find an answer to the research question. Because of the interpretative nature of the research, I have looked for methods which enable me to look critically at my own selection procedure, analysis and interpretation to keep checking for my own bias. I found this in a methodology called Grounded Theory. It provided an inductive method that allowed me to systematically analyse and interpret data by first helping me to immerse myself in the data and later helping me to see the data and my interpretations from a distance to develop a theory.

In the fourth and last chapter I will discuss the analysis and my findings. I have subdivided this last chapter in four paragraphs. In the first three paragraphs I will discuss examples from each of the three subtypes of irony, based on Booth’s differentiation, that I have encountered in the data. In these paragraphs I show the process of interpretation and meaning-making that comes with the analysis of the ironic instances. I have selected a few relevant examples, which I describe in a detailed manner for the sake of transparency and clarity. In the fourth paragraph, which I named ‘implications’, I will discuss the ironic instances and my analysis of those instances in the light of the journalistic context within which they occur. Hereby, I aim to discuss the implications of the use of the different types of irony on the credibility of journalistic texts.

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CHAPTER 1 – ON TRUTH AND TRUTHS

The field of tension between a broadened understanding of truth on the one hand, and the use of irony in a type of journalism that relies on that broadened understanding of truth on the other hand, is at the core of this thesis. It has been briefly touched upon in the introductory chapter that, to fully appreciate the complex nature of that field of tension, this chapter will first explore the importance of truth for journalism. It will also delve into the historic development of journalism, and the role ‘truth’ has played in that development. The first chapter constitutes an exploration of the importance of journalism’s truth claim for the establishment and the continued existence of journalism’s authority. In the second chapter, a discussion of irony in general and the use of irony in journalism will follow to complement the knowledge regarding the field of tension central to this thesis.

In this chapter, it will be argued that in today’s society, the popular understanding of ‘truth’ is being revised. How people consider ‘truth’, is changing under the influence of epistemological doubts. Over the centuries, the notion of truth is always known to be susceptible to change (Foucault 2001, 317-319). It has been established and re-established many times. In this chapter, I will not argue that we are on a fundamental crossroad, about to once more re-establish what ‘truth’ has come to mean in our era, and how (or if) we can ever arrive at it. However, I will argue that the popular understanding of truth is broadening and that it is relevant to the journalistic truth claim, and the authority of journalism.

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Truth and objectivity in journalism

The core elements of good journalism have been debated since before it was even considered a real profession (Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007, 8-19). However, since the early 17th century,

there has been an agreement about one thing; journalists have always claimed to tell the truth (Broersma 2010b, 24; Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007, 8-19). “On this there is absolute unanimity and also utter confusion: Everyone agrees journalists must tell the truth. Yet people are befuddled about what ‘the truth’ means” (Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007, 36).

Later on I will return to the difficulties and ambiguities of “the truth”. First however, it is interesting to note that journalists, the public and academics alike, agree that the concept of truth is elementary to journalism. An almost infinite list of journalism scholars and media historians have elaborated on the centrality of ‘truth’ for journalism. In 2007, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel published the second edition of their influential book The elements of

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elements of journalism practice. The first and most essential principle they mention, is tellingly: “Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth” (Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007, 16). The fact that this is not at all an unambiguous principle, is instantly recognized by the authors. However differently scholars approach the concept of truth, they all agree it is central to understanding journalistic practice and the authoritative position of journalism (Broersma 2010a, 15-35; Broersma 2010b, 21-33; Hanitzsch 2007, 367-85; Harbers 2014, 11-60; Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007, 8-19; Muñoz-Torres 2012, 566-82; Schudson and Anderson 2009, 88-101; Wijfjes 2004, 250-270).

Schudson and Anderson (2009) for example explain how journalism’s claim of telling “the truth” allowed for a broad recognition of journalism as a profession throughout society (Schudson and Anderson 2009, 88-9). Other scholars explain how claiming to tell only “the truth” and “the facts” about events, allowed for newspapers to attract mass audiences (Broersma 2010b, 21-33; Hanitzsch 2007, 367-85; Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007, 8-19; Muñoz-Torres 2012, 566-82; Schudson and Anderson 2009, 88-101; Wijfjes 2004, 250-270).

When considering the process behind journalism’s truth claim, many academics emphasize the ideal of the objectivity regime, which promotes a journalism practice based on elements like ‘facts’, the process of verification, fair and balanced reporting, impersonal reporting and accurate reflections of ‘reality’ (Hackett 1984; Wijfjes 2004 260-2; Schudson and Anderson 2009, 88-101; Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007, 8-19; Muñoz-Torres 2012, 566-82; Schudson 2001, 149-70). These elements seem so intrinsically linked to the essence of ‘truthful journalism’2_{, that, until nearly midway the 20th century, it was often overlooked that}

these elements were only one way of describing and practicing ‘truth’ in the discourse of journalism. Later on in this chapter, I will argue that what is considered to be truthful journalism, is dependent on contemporary cultural and epistemological views. First, however, I need to show how the still dominant objectivity regime came to be the origin of journalism’s authority when it comes to making truth claims. To do so, the emergence of the objectivity regime in the United States and the Netherlands will be elaborated upon, mainly based on the works of Michael Schudson (2001), Huub Wijfjes (2004) and Frank Harbers (2014). Afterwards, there will be a discussion of how the ideology of objectivity, and the journalistic practices that fit with it, have given journalists the authority when it comes to making truth claims, using Marcel Broersma’s theory of performativity.

The origin of the objectivity regime is found in the United States of the mid-19th century,

when journalists developed methods of writing and news selection that should keep personal bias out of their reporting (Chalaby 1996, 303-323; Schudson 2001, 150-160). By the end of

2_{With the term ‘truthful journalism’ I mean a journalism that is considered by the public to be telling the}

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15 the 19th century, the interview was established as a legitimate way of gathering news and

information. In his article, Schudson (2001, 150-160) furthermore mentions that the invention and innovation of the telegraph in the mid-19th century might also have stimulated the factual reports, stripped from all colloquials and opinions, because the use of telegraph lines were expensive so messages should be kept short and to the point (Schudson 2001, 150-160). Chalaby (1996, 303-323) names the wire-services as influencing the fact-centred nature of reports in American papers from the end of the 19th century onwards. Of course, wire-services appealed to much more papers when the content they delivered was not partisan. Schudson (2001, 160) however finds that “a self-conscious, articulate ideology of objectivity can be dated back to the 1920s” in the United States. But, as discussed above, he showed that before the ideology was articulated as such in the early 20th century, journalism practices had already been slowly changing from partisan in the early 19th century, to becoming gradually more fact-centered (Schudson 2001, 150-160).

Schudson finds that the changing practices led to the articulation of the objectivity ideal. He discerns two main reasons for the emergence of the objectivity ideal. Firstly, he says that the journalism practices of - for example - interviewing and fact-based reporting were a means of “defining your group” as being different from other groups (Schudson 2001, 149-155). As such, with the development of their own professional practices, journalists worked on the professionalisation of their trade. He argues that the journalistic practices that are associated with the objectivity ideal, are thus not a result of that ideal, but instead lead to the formulation of that ideal. The second main argument Schudson (2001, 152) presents to support his idea that the objectivity ideal resulted from the changed practices, is this: The existence of certain “ways of the group”, were (and still are) a way to pass on and exercise control over the profession. Having certain practices that discerned journalists from non-journalists was (and is) necessary for educational purposes and for superiors to give their subordinates some ‘rules of the trade’ (Schudson 2001, 152).

Where Schudson argues that the objectivity ideal followed from the established practices, other scholars have also argued that the journalistic practices that fitted within this objectivity ideal might have simultaneously been influenced by the dominant positivist scientific school at the time. The main trait of positivism is that it holds as main epistemological criterion that there is a ‘real’ world out there, which can be ‘objectively’ observed, and of which we can ‘truly know facts’ independent of our evaluations of those facts (Muños-Torres 2012, 571; Broersma 2010b, 27). That this way of regarding the world was dominant in science, may have influenced the norms and practices of journalists.

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or judge in that academic debate. Therefore, having discussed the main factors of influence in the emergence of the objectivity ideal, this thesis will now move on to a brief discussion of how and why the objectivity ideal catched in The Netherlands well over two generations later. There will also be a brief discussion of how the objectivity regime in The Netherlands differed - and differs - from how it first emerged in the United States.

As stated above, the objectivity regime emerged in the United States between the mid-19th_{and early 20}th_{century. In Europe however, this discursive strategy only gained a}

dominant position from the 1950’s onward (Wijfjes 2004, 260; Robinson 2006, 66-7; Broersma 2010a, 18-20; Harbers 2014, 81-121). In his monograph Journalistiek in Nederland

1850-2000, Wijfjes explains that the objectivity regime in the Netherlands was never as rigid

as it had been in the United States. For one, Dutch journalists have always viewed the notion of objectivity more as a method than an epistemology, which resulted in a journalism practice that has always acknowledged the difficulty of absolute (ideal type) objectivity. Not in the last place because the Dutch society at the time was a pillarized one. Newspapers either appealed to, for instance, a catholic audience, a protestant one, a liberal one, or a social-democratic one. In that sense, Dutch newspapers could never fully abandon their political colours, because those colours had a solid foundation in the newspapers’ audiences. Dutch journalists in the 1950’s have, however, pursued the ‘objective method’. Newspapers switched to the Anglo-Saxon layout conventions including leads, headlines and streamers. In their content and daily practice, journalists focused on the principles of detachment and neutrality: they devoted themselves to the correctness of the facts and the displaying of conflicting opinions. (Wijfjes 2004, 260-1).

The objectivity model is still dominant as a discursive strategy in journalism today. (Harbers 2014, 11-60; Harbers and Broersma 2014, 639-54; Broersma 2010a, 15-35; Broersma 2010b, 21-33; Hanitzsch 2007, 367-85;; Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007, 8-19; Muñoz-Torres 2012, 566-82; Schudson 2001, 149-70; Wijfjes 2004, 260-2. But the way in which the objectivity model is put to practice by journalists is often very different from the positivist, philosophical ideal that is behind the objectivity regime. Nowadays, most academics agree that absolute objectivity – in the abstract ideal sense – cannot be reached in journalism practice (Hanson 1997, 387; Hackett 1984, 229-259; Broersma 2010, 21-33). Following Hanson, I will not discuss objectivity mainly as a philosophy in this thesis, because for journalists, objectivity is not in the first place a philosophy, but a “method and [a] form” (Hanson 1997, 388).

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17 303-323) appears to believe that journalism is only really journalism when the discourse fits

in with the norms and practices of the objectivity regime when he says; “journalism is an Anglo-American invention”. By doing so he completely disregards journalism history that goes back to the Venetian precursors of newspapers that already existed in the 16th_{century. And}

what to think of the Dutch predecessors of newspapers which also came up in the 16th_century

(Gibbs 2012, 328)?

Responding to this discursive dominance of the objectivity ideal, Muñoz Torres (2012, 571) critically observes that “this dichotomy [between facts and values] became so widely accepted among journalists and scholars throughout time that it came to be coined as a very popular set phrase: ‘facts are sacred, comment is free’, usually quoted and invoked as if it were an axiomatic principle beyond question”. In other words, Muñoz Torres wants to explain that at a certain moment in time the notion of truth got equated with the notion of objectivity. However, as we have seen, what ‘truth’ is, and how we can arrive at it, has been understood differently by a variety of societies (Foucault 2001, 317-319).

1.1.1 |

Objectivity as a performance

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grounded in the socio-historic context, including the popular or societal understanding of what is ‘truth’.

Furthermore, Broersma argues that the objectivity regime has provided the ideological basis for “journalism’s [contemporary] discursive strategy” (Broersma 2010b, 27). Working with discursive strategies consonant with the objectivity regime – like the inverted pyramid design, the attribution of quotes and the separation of facts from values – journalism’s performative power manifests itself through the use of distinctive forms (Broersma 2010a, 16). He has coined form and style as two notions that are essential in to the understanding of the performative nature of journalism. Form is “the level of textual conventions that structure the presentation of news in the broadest sense”. These textual conventions cover the structure, the genre and the design of news (Broersma 2010a, 21). Style is not so much “a personal quality of an individual journalist but a marker of sociocultural context and group identity” (Broersma 2010a, 23). In other words, style is the ideology that is presented through

form(s). When analysing the style, it is not so much about the content of the story, but about

the routines of news selection and the ideological basis of the journalistic work.

Together, form and style ensure journalism’s performative power, according to Broersma (2010a, 15-35; 2010b, 21-33) . The public, when reading the paper, recognizes that the articles in the paper are a product of journalism because of the form(s). People associate these specific forms with a specific style of journalism; the objectivity regime, for example. The forms thus show the norms, routines, conventions and the process of news selection and reporting that make up the style. Because the public associates these specific forms and styles with the principles of objectivity and with things like ‘fairness’ and ‘truth’, they accept the truth claim of journalism and believe that what is written by journalists is ‘true’ (Broersma 2010a, 15-35; Broersma 2010b, 21-33)

Naturally, the truth claim made by journalists is only accepted by the public if the people associate that specific journalistic style with ‘truth’. For that to happen, there must thus be quite a resemblance between the popular understanding of epistemology and truth on the one hand and the journalistic style, expressed through forms, on the other hand. Broersma’s theory thus learns us that a dominant discursive strategy in journalism must be based in an ideology that greatly appeals to the contemporary societal understanding of truth.

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19 will acknowledge that truth and in doing so thus shapes what is true (Broersma 2010a;

2010b).

With the ideology of objectivity, which is what Broersma might call the style of objectivity, come certain forms of journalism. Where the style is typified by norms like news

value, factuality and verification (Broersma 2010a, 25; Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007, 8-19). The

objectivity regime is expressed through forms like a clear structure in the articles; first the answers to the ‘who, what, where, when’ questions, then the story is clarified with additional details. Moreover, opinions are clearly marked as such and are presented aside from ‘the facts’.

1.2 |

Transparent subjectivity as alternative discursive strategy

Although the objectivity regime still remains the dominant discursive strategy within journalism, it has been thoroughly critiqued. This critique mainly boils down to the problematic nature of objectively reporting “value-free facts” (Muñoz-Torres 2012, 570). Scholars of journalism widely recognize the difficulty of reporting objectively about something the reporter himself is a subject of. Ultimately it is nowadays acknowledged in academia that a report is always a representation or reconstruction of reality. No facts can be value-free, because they could not be selected without bias guiding the selection procedure in the first place (Muñoz-Torres 2012, 572; Hackett 1984, 230; Hanitzsch 2007, 376; Broersma 2010b, 26).

Where some scholars argue that this impossibility of ‘real’ objective reporting is only a minor obstacle and that it is still worth pursuing the ideal of objectivity, others argue that even the pursuit of the objectivity ideal is distorting the professional authority of journalists, leading journalism only further away from truthful reporting (Broersma 2010b, 23; Hackett 1984, 257; Luyendijk 2007; Maras 2013; Robinson 2006, 73; Zelizer 1990, 366, 371).

In his article, Broersma (2010b, 21-33) argues that “journalism still clings to its claim to the truth, and not without good reason. […] [A]bandoning the objectivity norm and confessing that journalism is unable to accurately represent reality, would undermine its authority”. This argument is embedded in his theory of journalism as a performative discourse, as opposed to a descriptive one. He argues that the authority of journalism is founded in the very idea that the public believes journalistic output is ‘trustworthy’ precisely

because it is founded in the ideal of objectivity – the idea that the public is presented with

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The idea that ‘truth’ is not a fixed notion and that its meaning changes over time is not new in academia. Michel Foucault for example notes that “[e]ach society has its régime of truth, its ‘general politics' of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true” (Foucault 2001, 317). For a long time, the common conception of ‘truth’ was based in a positivist ideology, and for the main part, it still is. However, academics are recording observations that points to the emergence of another meaning of ‘truth’; one based not on positivist ideas, but on a postmodern ideology.

When the public conceives truth in the positivist sense, which is also at the foundation of the objectivity regime, it would indeed degrade the authority of journalism to claim that journalists cannot know the objective truth. However, in a time when the public increasingly acknowledges the postmodern view of ‘truth’, seeing it as a product of time and culture and as an inevitably contextual interpretation of the world, journalism’s authority might actually be strengthened by a journalism that acknowledges this.

Liesbeth van Zoonen, for example, explains that in present-day popular and political culture, the public is losing confidence in knowledge from official institutions and authorities. People are more and more aware of the notion that that these “claims to truth and knowledge are tied to particular social and material interests, and therefore not to be believed, or at least taken with scepsis” (van Zoonen 2012, 56). She furthermore points out that when people face an uncertainty concerning what forms of knowledge to trust and distrust, they look to themselves (and people like themselves) as a new, true authority on knowing and understanding (van Zoonen 2012, 60). She coins this “turn into the self as the origin of all truth […]: I-pistemology” (van Zoonen 2012, 57).

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21 Presently, the public is also becoming more and more aware of the “unbearable

limitations of journalism”3_{; they increasingly distrust media’s claim of objective reporting and}

are increasingly aware of the reporter’s personal interpretation (van Zoonen 2012, 56-8; Robinson 2006, 73). The question is whether there are any convincing alternatives to the objectivity regime, that do not damage journalism’s authority?

Like Broersma points out, the performative power of journalism originates in the use of specific forms and styles, that signal ‘credibility’ to the audience (Broersma 2010a, 20; Broersma 2010b, 27). Now that audiences become increasingly more conscious of the fragile state of truth and find themselves in what Van Zoonen (2012, 60) coined “epistemological insecurity”, the content of what audiences find credible has changed. In that sense, it is thus not the case that journalism has lost its performative power. Rather, the specific forms and styles that mark and found this performativity have changed because the ideological foundation of journalistic credibility is not fixed. Like objectivity and authority, credibility is “relational and eventually depends on the eye of the beholder” (Berning 2011, 5).

Where audiences first sought forms expressing the ideology of the objectivity regime, they now seek different forms and styles in journalism because their view of ‘truth’ has changed. Let me emphasize that I do not aim to disregard the objectivity regime as a strong ideological stance through which journalism’s performative nature can be realized. I plead for the recognition that ultimately the performative power of journalism too lies in the eye of the beholder. Accepting this premise, it should be recognized that, in the end, the performative power is established through different forms and styles, flowing from different ideological positions, as audiences are heterogeneous and will be influenced by multiple ideological positions. The performative nature of journalism is thus not dependent upon the objectivity regime. Rather, it is dependent on whatever ideology and related epistemology is dominant in public and popular culture.

One of the alternative discursive strategies can be summarized as ‘transparent subjectivity’, which in practice means openness about the impossibility of objective reporting and transparency about the journalistic routines and selection procedures (Zelizer 1990, 373; Hanson 1997, 389; Broersma 2010b, 23; Harbers and Broersma, 2014, 7; Harbers 2014, 325-63; Muñoz-Torres 2012, 577-9; Hanitzsch 2007, 375-7). One of the advantages of this discursive strategy is that it acknowledges the difficult position of ‘truth’ and makes room for an understanding of the world through multiple ‘truths’.

Of course, the subject of transparent subjectivity is as much debated as the notion of objectivity. It is however not the purpose of this thesis to give a conclusive overview of the

3_{Coined by Marcel Broersma in Broersma 2010b – “The unbearable limitations of journalism: on press critique}

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objectivity-subjectivity debate in media studies. The purpose of this chapter is to show that truth is essential to journalism at all times, but that our common understanding of truth is susceptible to change, and so is our understanding of what constitutes good journalism. In the previous part, I have argued how journalism has attained the authority to make truth claims and I have explained the important role of the objectivity ideal for the development of that authority during roughly the 19th and 20th century. In this part I focused on the changing nature of truth and I argue that journalists who acknowledge that they may not know ‘The’ truth, do not necessarily harm journalism’s authority.

Assuming that transparent subjectivity as a journalistic discursive strategy has performative power too, it can thus be beneficial for journalisms’ performative power sometimes to emphasize, rather than to deny subjectivity. There are many ways through which journalists have typically been showing subjectivity, amongst which are the famous narrative writing styles of the New Journalists in the ‘60s and ‘70s of the last century (Berning 2011, 1-3; Robinson 2006, 68; Zelizer 1990, 367).

Before continuing with a brief exploration of forms that we may encounter in this other discursive strategy, it must first be noted that I am not arguing that a new discursive strategy is taking over from the objectivity regime. Instead, room has emerged for multiple discursive strategies to exist alongside each other. It allows for the existence of different types of journalism, all equally authoritative, but founded in different ideological positions.

1.3 |

Form and style in a transparent-subjectivity regime

As it was noted earlier, forms and styles which fit with discursive strategies that aim to acknowledge, instead of deny, the possibility of multiple of truths and the uncertainty of reality, have been used for example by the New Journalists of the ‘60s and ‘70s. The New Journalists were famous for their use of narrative or literary techniques in their reporting, which is why the umbrella term ‘literary journalism’ was assigned to this genre in journalism. Alternatively, academics have also called it ‘narrative journalism’. In this thesis, I will speak of narrative journalism.

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23 2012, 214; Van Belle 2015, 144). Rather, people engaged in narrative journalism argue that

journalists who claim to work objectively, are claiming a form of detachment or “pseudo-impartiality” which is a necessary strategy to cover-up ideological bias (Van Belle 2015, 143). The journalistic authority in a discursive strategy based on transparent subjectivity thus comes from a different ideological basis. It is because the public recognizes and accepts a different journalistic ethic that they find the journalistic authority legitimate. As we saw earlier, form and style are important markers of the underlying ideology. Like the objectivity ideal is marked, for example, by the use of the inverted pyramid and an impersonal narrative, there are also distinguishable forms and styles that point towards transparent subjectivity as an underlying epistemological standpoint.

Narrative journalism has – on the level of form and style – been characterized as differing from the objectivity regime by (among other things) scene-by-scene construction, extensive use of dialogue, third-person point of view, and the use of symbolic details that indicate the “status life” of individuals (Hanson 1997, 390). Other characteristics include first-person narration, a deep immersion in the life of the subject, the representation of everyday life as opposed to news as the exception to daily life and the use of imagery devices (Harbers and Broersma 2014, 5; Zelizer 1990, 366-76; Kramer 1995, 26). Is must be pointed out that narrative journalism need not contain all of the above elements, to be characterized as such. Third-person narration and first-person narration can, for example, both be found in narrative journalism, though not necessarily in the same text. What really sets the narration in narrative journalism apart from the narration in the objectivity regime, is that the voice has personality (Hanson 1997, 385-96). I find that to understand the difference between the style of the objectivity regime and that of narrative journalism, it is key to grasp that the relation to the subject of the story is fundamentally different in both styles of journalism. In objective reports

detachment from the subject of the story is key. In narrative journalism however, it is essential

that the story is defined by the subject or subjects of the story.

1.3.1 |

Irony in a regime of transparent subjectivity

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be a device pre-eminently capable of both revealing ambiguities and subjectivity in daily life (Kaufer 1983, 463; Halliday 1956, 21), and making daily life more ambiguous (Hutcheon 1994, 14, 46; Halliday 1956, 15, 22). By some scholars, the use of irony in journalism has been considered morally repugnant (Ettema and Glasser 1994, 5-28; Glasser and Ettema 1993, 322-38), by others it has been considered as a device in narrative journalism which can be used as a method of showing (as opposed to telling) that reality is subjective and ambiguous.

Regarding the widening perspectives on the meaning of truth, it is interesting to look closely at how irony is used in journalism. In this chapter, I agree with Broersma that regarding journalism as a performative discourse leads to fruitful discussions and insights. Moreover, like Broersma, I find that with regard to the performative power of journalism, it is not the objectivity regime per se that legitimizes the truth claim of journalism. Rather, the legitimacy of that claim is found in however the public understands ‘truth’ in a specific moment in time.

Taking that line of reasoning, it is plausible to conclude that other discursive strategies than the objectivity regime can grant journalism the authority to make truth claims. One of the most influential alternative discursive strategies can be referred to as the transparent-subjectivity regime, which is characterized by the use of narrative devices. This discursive strategy assigns authority to journalism, because it acknowledges the difficult position of ‘objective knowledge’ and provides an alternative voice to the kind of public that has moved away from the positivist epistemology – which lies at the foundation of the objectivity regime – towards a postmodern epistemology – among which we can regard Van Zoonen’s

I-pistemology and a transparent subjectivity regime.

In the media of today, there is thus increasingly room for a journalism that adheres to the norms and principles of a transparent-subjectivity regime. A good example of that is provided by Rob Wijnberg’s De Correspondent. Being based in a different ideological foundation, we can expect that this type or style of journalism will present itself with much different forms, since form is an indicator of ideology. Like we saw earlier, the narrative form is very often used by journalists working from a transparent-subjectivity ideal, wanting to convey the subjective nature of truth and reality. And because irony is a literary device that is pre-eminently capable of doing precisely that, it is interesting to research how De

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CHAPTER 2 – ON IRONY

In the previous chapter it has been argued why, in this time of multiple regimes, it is interesting to see how irony is used in journalistic media platforms that follow a transparent subjectivity ideology. In this chapter, I will present a workable understanding of irony for the purpose of this thesis and I will explore the different types and forms of irony and their markers and mechanisms.

2.1 |

Problematic definition

In common sense, irony is often understood as meaning the opposite of the literal utterance (Barbe 1995, 17; Booth 1978, 2; Grice 1975, 53; Grice 1978, 123-5; Haverkate 1990, 81; Hutcheon 1994, 12; Sperber and Wilson 1981, 295; Wilson 2012, 41). An example of this traditional type of irony would be someone saying ‘what a lovely weather’, while it is raining cats and dogs. In this case of irony, the speaker does not at all try to convey that the weather is lovely, on the contrary, he wishes to share the opinion that the weather is actually dreadful.

However, in contemporary theories of irony, it is emphasized that this semantic description of irony is both, like Katharina Barbe phrased it, “limited and consequently limiting” (Barbe 1995, 174). For instance4, if a mother exclaims ‘I love children who keep their

room clean’ to her son who has got a messy room, she is being ironic although she does not mean the exact opposite of her exclamation. We understand that she really – and literally – intends to convey that she loves children who keep their room clean. However, we simultaneously observe that she is criticizing her son – who’s room is not clean – and still simultaneously, we also understand that the love for her son is not solely dependent on whether or not he keeps his room clean. In other words, she is not saying the opposite of what she means (e.g. I don’t love children who keep their room clean) nor is she saying that she does not love children who do not keep their room clean (we can assume that a mother loves her son regardless of the condition of his room). In this instance the utterance is thus “literally true, but intended ironically” (Gibbs and O’Brien 1991, 525), implying that the irony happens in the clash between the literally intended utterance and the actual status of the boy’s room. And it is also clear that the irony happens somewhere between the coexistence of the multiple meanings and interpretations of that one sentence. Irony is thus not always found through the

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opposite of a literal saying, but can also be recognized in, for example, the exaggeration, or hyperbole that is the actual utterance.

Despite the fact that it is more difficult in the example above to pin-point exactly where the irony comes into existence, it is still a type of irony that is easily recognized as such. Moreover, once we have recognized and interpreted the irony, we can be fairly sure that we understand the intention of the utterer (the mother); ‘I want you to keep your room clean’. Before continuing to select an approach to, or definition of irony that serves the purpose of this thesis, I want to give one more example of irony to illustrate how difficult irony can be.

This example comes from a conversation I had with a friend. I told him I had gotten some incense from a friend to go with the meditation bench I was building. His response: “Haha, well... I always find that if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well”. I immediately thought his utterance might be ironic because of the tone of his voice and the look on his face. I felt as though I was being mocked. I sensed a second layer of meaning in his saying. But on second thoughts, I could not be sure of the ironic meaning, because I could not confidently retrieve or reconstruct the intended meaning. Was he criticizing my habit to meditate? Unlikely, because he himself uses meditation and mindfulness exercises to clear his head. Was he making fun of the spiritual connotations of the incense? Also not very likely, because I had just told him that I thought it was rather funny my friends bought me incense, since I am not really the incense-and-crystals type of person, so according to common conventional practice, he wouldn’t have to make fun of that anymore for I had already done so. Another interpretation could be that he hadn’t meant it ironic at all, though that also did not seem likely, because his tone and the look on his face definitely suggested irony. This example, in other words shows an inexplicably complex situation of irony. It was, and still is, unclear where the interpretations of the irony end. It continually keeps inviting me (the recipient) to re-evaluate and reinterpret the utterance. I don’t know if I will ever arrive at a fixed interpretation of this irony. The utterance invites me to interpret irony in its meaning, but it also keeps inviting me to doubt its meaning and intention.

Thus, the first difficulty in arriving at a suitable definition of irony lies therein that irony can come in so many different forms and types, that a general definition describing all forms would never be able to fully cover all the peculiarities of the different types or forms of irony. However, definitions that are specific enough to describe one form of irony, are no longer fully applicable to other forms.

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27

different than the literal utterance (Barbe 1995, 26; Holdcroft 1983, 494-5; Booth 1978, 2;

Haverkate 1990, 81). By extending the intended meaning to include other meanings than oppositional meanings, academics worked towards a broader understanding of irony. However, meaning something different than the literal utterance, is not a very useful or good definition of irony. For example, meaning something different than the literal utterance, could also refer to numerous other phenomena, like lies or metaphors. For a meaningful definition of irony, we thus ought to include more specifics about the shape, size and behaviour of irony. That however, brings us back to the first problem; definitions that are specific enough to describe one form of irony, are not fully applicable to other forms.

In order to arrive at a useful, meaningful and comprehensive definition of irony, I will now continue the exploration of the concept. First, I will elaborate on the between literal and

intentional utterances. Then, I will discuss the main participants to irony and the role they play

in the coming into existence of irony. At the end of this paragraph, I will propose a broad definition of irony from which I will distil three subtypes of irony, for the purpose of analysis. These three subtypes will be discussed in paragraph 2.2.

It is, first and foremost, interesting to note that academics disagree about whether we can even discuss irony in terms of a distinction between a literal and an intended text, because they are both products of interpretation (Barbe 1995, 38-60; Hutcheon, 111-34; Fish 1998, 180-96). “Literal meaning, rather than being independent of perspective, is a product of perspective” (Fish 1989, 185). Distinguishing one text as literal and objective as compared to other text thus seems a futile occupation. Our understanding of text is always influenced by our context, cultural knowledge and shared norms and values. Once we agree upon the flexibility of literal meaning it becomes increasingly difficult to verify a concept like irony by contrasting an intended meaning against a literal one.

About this (in)stability of language and meaning and its consequence for the development of irony theory, Katharina Barbe rightly remarks that “[p]erhaps because of the ever-changing and often chaotic nature of language, we will never arrive at a static theory of irony. Moreover, because irony will always be in flux, we cannot speak of a single possible interpretation of irony” (Barbe 1995, 65). However – anticipating nihilism – I wish to emphasize that acknowledging the interpretive nature of language does not necessarily lead to a line of reasoning which ultimately results in an inability to do any research at all because we dare not compare any language because of its nature. Rather, I would like to point out this excellent line of reasoning by Stanley Fish:

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but because it occurs in a history, a history in the course of which realities and anchors have been established, although it is always possible, and indeed inevitable, that they will have to be established again.

(Fish 1989, 196)

Rational discussion and comparative analysis will thus still make up the foundation of this thesis, even though it is recognized that studies of language, and especially the study of the ambiguous language that is irony, is a “risky business”5_{. Recognizing that a definition along the}

lines of ‘irony is saying one thing but meaning something different’ does not suffice, implies that the different forms and types of irony – and the mechanisms through which they happen – need to be explored thoroughly. Not however with the ultimate goal of finding the perfect definition of irony, but with the intention of understanding and recognizing a wide variety of types and forms of irony, each working in its own way, happening through different mechanisms and having different consequences for the understanding of a text.

2.1.1 |

Participants in irony

To gain understanding of how irony works or functions, it is also necessary to explore the participants in irony. In analysing irony, one comes across three types of participants (Barbe 1995, 80). First of all, there is the author, or speaker, of the utterance. In other literature, this person has also been called the ironist, however, this implies that the speaker of an utterance is always intentionally being ironic (Barbe 1995, 80;). This need not always be the case, which will be discussed later. This thesis therefore prefers to address this first participant in irony as either the author or the speaker.

Secondly, irony being conceived as a form of evaluative speech, or a “polite criticism” (Barbe 1995, 79), it has a target or victim. The target is the participant or subject being evaluated. The target however, does not need to be a person, it can very well be an institution as well. Also, the target may not always be clearly distinguishable nor is it always immediately present in the speech-situation. However, in instances where irony is used in journalism, it is interesting to see what types of participants are most often targeted. In conveying an ambiguous worldview, are journalists ironic about government and corporate institutions? Do they target famous people? Or do they prefer to show us the world is not unequivocal by making John or Jane Doe the targets of their irony?

The last main participant in making irony work is the participant to whom the irony is addressed. This participant takes the forms of recipient and evaluator (Barbe 1995, 80). There

5_{Irony was famously coined a “risky business” by Stanley Fish in Doing What Comes Naturally: Change,}

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29 is a catch to understanding this last participant. First of all it must be acknowledged that the

recipient of an ironic utterance can simultaneously be the victim of the irony. For example in the case of the mother sighing that she “loves children who keep their rooms clean”. In this example the mother is the speaker and the child is both the victim and the recipient. However if the mother had made the same remark about her child to her husband, he would be the

recipient and the child would be the target or victim of the irony.

A final problem in defining irony precisely, is that academics disagree about what roles

intention and interpretation play for irony to come into existence. In this regard, academics

increasingly point towards the recipient-participant. Where irony was first studied mostly from the assumption that irony was always intentional and came into existence once the author had made it up, nowadays, academics seem to agree that irony can also lie “in the eye of the beholder” (Barbe 1995, 75; Hutcheon 1994 111-3; Muecke 1978, 363-75). Whether or not irony works, is not only or always up to the speaker, but also up to the interpretation by the recipient. One can wonder whether irony ever really takes shape if it is not recognized as such by an audience. Irony is, in that sense, a product of double-interpretation. Attardo emphasizes that “all cases of irony involve intentionality, except that, contrary to common belief, it need not be [the speaker’s]” (Attardo 2000a, 796). Whether irony happens in ‘the eye of the beholder’ or in the intention of the author is a heavily debated subject in irony research.

The main difficulties lie in the determination of intention. As a researcher, I can determine my own intention to attribute irony to a certain text. But how can we ever be sure of the intentions of the author of the utterance? “The only way to be sure that a statement was intended ironically is to have a detailed knowledge of the personal, linguistic, cultural and social references of the speaker and his audience” (Gaunt 1989: 25 – cited in Hutcheon 1994, 111). Indeed; this emphasizes the importance of author and audience having a shared context and base of knowledge.

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I will not choose sides in the debate on whether intention or interpretation is most important in the coming into existence of irony. I would rather like to argue that where irony happens, is dependent upon the type of irony under consideration. In this thesis, I will hold the position that utterances can be intentionally ironic, but not understood as such. As well as they can be ironic unintentionally, but be understood as ironic nonetheless. An utterance can also be ironic unintendedly, but be understood as ironic nonetheless. Ultimately, I want to argue that irony is always depended on either the intention of the author, or an interpretation by the recipient.

2.1.2 |

The purposes and effects of irony

In this thesis, I will look for the use of irony in journalism. However, in order to understand the implications of the use of irony in journalism, we need to understand not only how it works, or when it happens. We also need to grasp the effects and/or purposes of irony. Because “the purpose of irony is not a secondary trait of the phenomenon, but gather grounds its interpretation, since it determines the relevance of the ironical sense” (Attardo 2000b, 16). In other words, if the irony was intended, the intended purpose is important for the reconstruction and understanding of the irony.

Academics have discerned many purposes of irony, but they seem to agree that the most important one is a form of evaluative speech or polite criticism (Barbe 1995, 79; Jorgensen 1996, 622-9; Attardo 2000b, 11-5; Burgers, Van Mullen and Schellens 2012, 232; Hutcheon 35-55). Hutcheon (1995, 36-7) finds that irony is about provoking emotions. She claims that “[t]he range of these effects [of irony] is actually very broad, for it runs the gamut from pleasure to pain, from delight to anger” (Hutcheon 1995, 37).

Many academics also emphasize the face-saving capacities of irony (Barbe 1995, 144; Jorgensen 1996; Attardo 2000b, 11-5; Burgers, Van Mullen and Schellens 2012, 232). Barbe (1995, 144), for example, explains that “[i]mplicit irony is a way of face-saving criticism. Once irony is used explicitly, this criticism is very outspoken and transparent and no longer opaque”. Jorgensen (1996, 628) furthermore explains that the face-saving aspect of irony is not so much about saving the face of either recipient or speaker, but about “the preservation of the relationships between the interlocutors by preserving the appearance of mutual respect”. By packing criticism in irony, both recipient and speaker can choose to avoid the intended criticism by not recognizing the irony and thereby the criticism. They can, for example, pretend not to read the second layer of meaning, or pretend it is a joke (Jorgensen 1996, 622-8; Barbe 1995, 144; Attardo 2000b, 11-5).

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31 can have a purpose. For, if an irony serves a purpose, like politely criticizing someone’s

tidiness, it has been uttered with the intention of politely criticizing someone. Moreover, in the case of unintended ironies, confusion and frustration will be likely effects, because the reconstruction of the irony is more difficult while, simultaneously, one will never feel fully confident about having understood the irony correctly (Booth 1974, 240-53).

2.1.3. |

A broad definition

Later on in this chapter I will argue that, for the purpose of analysis, we can broadly discern three subtypes of irony; (1) stable irony, (2) unstable irony and (3) irony of fate, or, situational irony. I will elaborate on these subtypes in the next paragraph. First I will point out how I have defined irony, based on the literature I have discussed so far and the literature I will discuss in the coming paragraphs. Please keep in mind that this definition is broad, for it needs to cover the essential elements all types of irony share. However, for the sake of clarity and understanding, it seems right to first discuss irony as an umbrella concept, before exploring the more specific subtypes.

I have come to understand irony as a highly complex speech act in which three participants take part; one to utter the speech act, one to evaluate it, and one who is the victim of the irony6_{. It is characterized by the existence of a second layer of meaning and a}

discrepancy between the first and second layer of meaning. But what really sets irony apart from, for example, parody or metaphor, is its evaluative quality, or “critical edge” as Linda Hutcheon (1994, 1-8) calls it. Like no other speech act, irony has the unique quality of conveying a “polite criticism” (Barbe 1995, 79). In every irony we find a struggle between the second layer of meaning and the first layer and in that struggle an evaluation is conveyed. It depends on the type of irony whether the first layer is really undone by the second, or whether the struggle remains. For example, irony happens in the struggle between the first layer of meaning of the utterance what a lovely weather and the second layer, which seems to convey

this weather is dreadful. In this case of irony, we will ultimately understand that while making

a false statement about the weather, someone was actually critically remarking upon the weather.

Lastly, I have also come to understand irony as something rather fragile. Like Hutcheon (1994, 6) remarked, “[the difference between the practice and analysis of irony is] not unlike the difference between a joke and explaining a joke: irony ‘cancels itself out the moment it adds a word of interpretation’”(Adorno 1974, 210 in Hutcheon 1994, 6). By which I mean to say that the analysis and understanding of examples of irony can never be as sophisticated as

6_{The roles of the three participants may be played by only two participants; one to utter the irony and one}

Irony and the Journalistic Truth Claim A Study of Instances of Irony in Articles Published by