Abstract
The second edition of The Language of Journalism: A Multi-Genre Perspective offers an examination of the language of journalism through the prism of critical discourse analysis (CDA). While the blurb promises a range of international examples in the new edition, the authors Angela Smith and Michael Higgins do not really explain in the Introduction what they have added to the second edition, published 7 years after the first one. They explain the benefits of CDA and introduce the framework of news values, widely used in journalism studies. Smith and Higgins ‘look at five interrelated ways in which language operates, and which emphasize its place at the centre of our understanding of journalism’: that language is social and political, that it ‘enacts identity and the right to speak’, and that it ‘denotes agency and power’. They briefly discuss the relationship between discourse, ideology and power, the development of CDA and intertextuality. Each of the substantive chapters is then focused on different genres and media platforms: broadcast journalism, magazine journalism, newspaper journalism, sports reporting, and digital journalism. The book is written in a student-friendly way and would definitely be useful for those interested in the application of CDA in journalism studies.