
Reviews
miscelánea 70 (2024): pp. 243-247 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834
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of a socially marginalized underclass. This shift intensified following Rupert
Murdoch’s acquisition of The Times. During the 1960s, the welfare state was
largely taken for granted and scarcely mentioned. However, it came under intense
scrutiny during the 1970s and 1980s, coinciding with the acquisition of the
newspaper by the tycoon. More importantly, this chapter unveils that The Times
has restricted the concept of welfare to the provision of benefits for the less
privileged, omitting core elements such as education or the National Health
System from the discourse on welfare.
In Chapter 4, Michael Toolan undertakes a critical discourse analysis by comparing
the keywords extracted from a corpus of opinion articles sourced from The Times,
spanning two distinct decades: the 1970s and the 2000s. This study’s central focus
is child poverty, and it introduces two contrasting script types: a laissez-faire
approach and an interventionist approach. While the research is undeniably
intriguing, it would greatly benefit from a more explicit exposition of the
methodology employed. During the 1970s, the interventionist approach was
considered desirable, while in the 2000s, the narrative took a contrasting turn.
Discourse surrounding welfare and state-supported assistance became marginalized,
and poverty in the 2000s was predominantly portrayed as a personal issue, with
the state seemingly incapable of providing viable solutions.
Chapter 5, authored by Ilse A. Ras, analyzes how the press portrays elite crimes,
such as ‘corporate fraud’ and ‘modern slavery’. The research examines rhetorical
techniques and neutralization in media coverage, using different time periods
(2004-2007, 2008-2010, and 2011-2014) to construct the Modern Slavery
Corpus from database searches in 22 British newspapers. The study finds that
reporting on these crimes often avoids assigning responsibility to corporate
criminals, instead blaming governments for a perceived failure to regulate
effectively, allowing corporations to evade accountability.
Chapter 6, authored by Jane Mulderring, explores the intricate relationship
between health and inequality, with a specific focus on the analysis of the UK
government’s Change 4 Life program aimed at reducing obesity from its inception
in 2009 to 2019. This chapter seeks to examine the linguistic representation of
target groups within obesity policy, aiming to uncover the linguistic processes that
shape the normative linguistic identity assigned to certain populations.
Furthermore, it endeavors to identify the strategies employed by the government
to engage specific target audiences. To accomplish this, Mulderring’s research
draws upon two primary sources: a corpus of policy documents and a corpus of
advertisements disseminated on television and social media platforms. However,
the chapter does not provide detailed information regarding the size or scope of
these corpora.