The Good,the Bad and the Other: Discursive constructions of nations in Voice of America’s international news

Abstract

This research analyses Voice of America’s discursive construction of nations in its international news reporting, based on Van Dijk’s sociocognitive discourse analysis approach and his concept of the ideological square. Through a combination of content analysis, corpus-assisted linguistic analysis and manual critical discourse analysis, this research examines how countries are constructed as part of an in-group and out-group. The findings show that US interpretations of democracy, freedom and human rights are used ideologically to emphasize positive aspects of in-group members and negative aspects of out-group members, while they are absent in justifications of military involvement by the in-group. The analyses also reveal the countries and regions of the world that are discursively overlooked or relegated to simply providing context for other nations’ activities.

Keywords

Critical discourse studies ideological square media discourse public diplomacy Voice of America

Introduction

The Voice of America (VOA) is the United States’ longest-running and largest international broadcaster, reaching an estimated 354 million people in 45 languages weekly (VOA, 2024). The first broadcast in 1942 stated: ‘The news may be good for us. The news may be bad. But we shall tell you the truth’ (U.S. Agency for Global Media, 2022).

Yet VOA is primarily a medium of public diplomacy, which Seib (2009: 774) describes as promoting ‘the best obtainable version of the truth that serves our interests’. VOA is categorized as a federal agency, funded through the US Congress, and the mission statement of its overseeing entity is ‘to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy’ (Broadcasting Board of Governors, 2015). This research examines how ideology is manifest in the discursive construction of nations in VOA’s premier English-language news programme International Edition, described as a ‘journey through the world’s headlines’ that ‘delivers insight into world news’ (Voice of America, 2023). It reveals how a powerful nation like the United States uses international broadcasting discourse to shape narratives about itself and foreign powers.

Using Van Dijk’s (2016) sociocognitive approach to discourse analysis and grounded in his concept of an ideological square, this research examines VOA’s news reporting to understand how it discursively constructs an in-group and out-group of countries. This analysis is part of a larger research project focused on discourse from international public diplomacy media outlets, with the aim of understanding how powerful nations speak to, and about, nations around the world. Public diplomacy outlets like VOA are compelling subjects of study because their international news focus is also their target audience – essentially, they provide international audiences with international news, filtered through the lens of government policy.

Existing research on VOA has focused on coverage of specific events or nations. In contrast, this research examines a standard news cycle of VOA’s International Edition over the span of 1 month. It aims to answer the questions 1) how does VOA’s International Edition discursively construct an ‘in-group’ and ‘out-group’ of nations and what role does ideology play in this division?; and 2) how does VOA’s International Edition discursively construct nations that are considered neither ‘in-group’ nor ‘out-group’?

Sociocognitive discourse studies

Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) is an interdisciplinary approach to understanding language in use and how it relates to social processes, social structures and social change (Flowerdew and Richardson, 2018). As a critical theory, CDS is focused on understanding how language functions in exercising power, constituting and transmitting knowledge and organizing social institutions (Wodak and Meyer, 2016). Van Dijk (2016) outlines that CDS addresses ‘power abuse of dominant groups’ (p. 70), and it has been used to expose a range of power imbalances produced through naturally occurring language use such as racist discourse, gendered discourse, populist discourse and anti-immigrant discourse (Wodak and Meyer, 2016). In this research, the power dynamic being analysed is media discourse about nation states broadcast from the United States’ public diplomacy outlet, VOA, to foreign publics.

Modern researchers prefer the term Critical Discourse Studies over the once-popular Critical Discourse Analysis in order to highlight the varied, interdisciplinary range of possible methodologies comprising CDS, rather than a specific set of analytical approaches (Van Dijk, 2015; Wodak and Meyer, 2016). Within CDS, there are a range of established approaches to conducting research. This research utilizes the sociocognitive approach associated with Teun A. van Dijk (2016), which is distinguished from other CDS approaches by its focus on cognitive mediation through a Discourse-Cognition-Society triangle. It acknowledges that within all discourse approaches there are non-observable structures, such as semantics and pragmatics, that depend on language users’ ‘cognitive representations or inferences from actually occurring discourse or conduct’ (Van Dijk, 2016: 64). Ideology is present throughout each dimension of the Discourse-Cognition-Society triangle (Van Dijk, 2016).

Within the triangle, cognitive structures refer to the mind, memory, and other processes that allow individuals to produce and understand discourse in context. These underlying structures can control and express themselves through discourse; as such, Van Dijk (2012) states that a detailed discourse analysis is a valid method for assessing such cognitive structures (p. 10). This approach incorporates context models, or the ‘dynamically changing communicative situation or experience in which language users are ongoingly involved’ (Van Dijk, 2016: 67, emphasis in original). As such, the next section contextualizes VOA as a US public diplomacy outlet and highlights the broader global inequalities within international communication.

The cognitive dimension also provides an understanding of ideology and its role in public discourse and power. Van Dijk (2012) describes ideologies as frameworks that define the beliefs shared by a group. Hall (1986: 29) similarly describes ideology as mental structures – ‘the languages, the concepts, categories, imagery of thought, and the systems of representation – which different classes and social groups deploy in order to make sense of, define, figure out and render intelligible the way society works’. CDS considers ideology a crucial means of establishing and perpetuating unequal power relations (Wodak and Meyer, 2001). Crucially, Van Dijk (2012) notes that ideology is connected to the concepts of values, with the latter being perhaps more general and basic than the former, and less likely to be challenged due to their apparent universality.

The societal dimension considers the groups, organizations, and larger structures such as nation-states that control public discourse. Van Dijk (2016: 71) highlights that discourse is not only a social action that can control dominated groups, but it also ‘expresses social cognition and may thus ‘manage the minds’ of other groups and their members’. This control is based on material resources and symbolic resources. In the case of VOA, it possesses both: the material power is in the form of capital, which funds the creation and dissemination of news content; the symbolic power is in the form of American hegemony and existing soft power, which can attract affiliate media outlets and potential audiences. Despite the increasing global media presence of nations such as China and Russia (Thussu et al., 2018; Thussu and Nordenstreng, 2021), the vast majority of countries do not have the material or symbolic power necessary to broadcast their own media into the United States, resulting a largely asymmetrical power dynamic.

At the core of CDS is the ability to ‘describe and explain how discourse may be involved in the (re)production of power abuse’ (Van Dijk, 2016: 72). Van Dijk (2012: 32) states that discourse features ‘many levels of structures, each with their own categories and elements, which may be combined in innumerable ways’. Analysing discourse also requires researchers to consider what is not present in texts: what is being omitted, what is being implied, and what is assumed knowledge.

Most important to this research is Van Dijk’s ideological square. The ideological square is a discursive concept that outlines how ideology can be conveyed through representations of an in-group and out-group in a given context based on four principles: 1) emphasizing positive things about ‘us’; 2) emphasizing negative things about ‘them’; 3) de-emphasizing negative things about ‘us’; 4) de-emphasizing positive things about ‘them’ (Van Dijk, 2012: 34). This emphasis on the positive and negative of in-groups and out-groups occurs at all levels of discourse, from the topics that are covered to the pronouns that are used (Van Dijk, 2016). This research analyses discourse about nations based on the ideological square. However, it also examines the construction of ‘other’ beyond ‘us’ and ‘them’ – in this case, nations that are discursively not constructed as in-group or out-group members. This research assumes a finite (albeit debated) number of nations in the world based on the United Nations’ members states, which enables the examination of omission as a discourse tactic (United Nations, 2024).

Nation states as ‘imagined communities’ within a global communication hierarchy

This research adopts Anderson’s (2006: 6) definition of the nation state as ‘an imagined political community’, which is conceived of as ‘a deep, horizontal comradeship’ although it is impossible for nation-state members to know or interact with all other members. This ‘imaginary’ grouping makes the discursive construction of nations comparable to the study of race or gender in CDS.

There has long been an unspoken hierarchy of these imagined communities in international communication (Chang, 1998). In the 1950s, Daniel Lerner proposed using mass media as a means of promoting Western ideologies to ‘traditional’ cultures (Lerner, 1958; Shah, 2011). This was followed by Schramm (1964) encouraging ‘developing’ nations to adopt Western media technologies to spread ‘modern’ values to their publics. In the 1970s, Galtung (1971) challenged these ideas by arguing that communication from core ‘developed’ nations to periphery ‘developing’ nations was a form of imperialism – an argument that continues to the present within media studies (Boyd-Barrett and Mirrlees, 2019). This theory holds that periphery nations provide newsworthy events that are filtered and processed by Western journalists to suit core countries’ perspectives and interests (Boyd-Barrett and Mirrlees, 2019; Galtung, 1971). Similarly, Wallerstein’s World System Theory proposed that nations can be categorized as core, semi-periphery, and periphery, in an interconnected global network, with political, economic and even cultural power ‘flowing’ from the centre out (Wallerstein, 2011). At the same time, research has shown a clear dearth of news from periphery countries being broadcast in core countries (Barnett, 2001; Golan and Himelboim, 2016). Though there have been challenges to this perceived neo-imperialism through media – notably by non-aligned countries pushing for stronger regulation of international media systems through a New World Information and Communication Order – these challenges haven’t been able to withstand the forces of national media deregulation and privatization (Carlsson, 2003).

More recently, the concept of intermedia agenda-setting – which posits that news outlets often look to other news outlets to determine ‘newsworthiness’ – has been applied transnationally. Guo and Vargo’s (2020: 433) network analysis of news from 67 countries found that ‘powerful countries continue to set the world news agenda in reporting international politics’. To better control news narratives, governments use public diplomacy to disseminate their perspectives about their own and others’ countries (Golan and Himelboim, 2016; Guo and Vargo, 2020). While media outlets like VOA promote themselves as journalistic entities, their state funding and international focus unquestionably place them in the realm of public diplomacy.

Voice of America as public diplomacy

This research considers VOA a public diplomacy media outlet, which aims to communicate with and attract foreign publics (Nye, 2008). Media outlets such as VOA are often categorized as a more basic and traditional form of public diplomacy since they use persuasive communication tactics ‘to create a favourable image for a country’s policies, actions, and political and economic system’ (Gilboa, 2008: 5). Such outlets have been used extensively since World War II to influence foreign public opinion and, ultimately, foreign policy (Gilboa, 2001).

The foreign-focused nature of VOA was enshrined in the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which forbade US government propaganda from being broadcast domestically (Heil, 2003; Wang and Hong, 2011) – though this was amended to allow for domestic broadcasting in 2013 (Hudson, 2013). While VOA broadcasts across a network of 2,400 affiliate radio stations globally, it also produces content for television, social media and podcasts, among others. Its English language programmes – including International Edition – are available globally through a combination of radio broadcasts and online content (Broadcasting Board of Governors, 2016). VOA’s strong online presence enables access even in areas where it is formally banned, such as Russia and China (Broadcasting Board of Governors, 2016). VOA prioritizes countries that ‘lack a free or developed press’ (Broadcasting Board of Governors, 2016: 36), and notes that populations in these target countries are overwhelmingly young, and that the current audience is predominantly male. VOA was under the purview of the United States Information Agency (USIA) from 1953 until 1999, when broadcasting functions came under the Broadcasting Board of Governors (Jowett and O’Donnell, 2012). In 2018, the Broadcasting Board of Governors changed their name to the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) (U.S. Agency for Global Media, 2023); however, the data for this research is from 2016, when it was still the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

A series of official charters and acts, known collectively as the ‘VOA firewall’, have sought to reassure audiences about VOA’s independence and journalistic credibility by prohibiting ‘interference by any U.S. government official in the objective, independent reporting of news’ (VOA, 2024). However, research has shown this firewall exists more in principle than in practice (Ungar, 2005). Uttaro (1982: 115) noted that, while most presidents have promised editorial independence for VOA, ‘none have been able to refrain from exerting pressure on its newswriters to tone down material that might damage or embarrass the administration’. VOA experienced a particularly tumultuous time under former President Trump, which ended with a federal inquiry finding that Trump’s appointed head of VOA had violated the independence of journalists, amongst other transgressions (Folkenflik, 2023; Palmeri, 2017; Wright et al., 2024). This unprecedented time in VOA’s history does not impact on this research, however, as the data is from March 2016.

Beyond specific administrations, ideology has always been a core part of VOA, especially through its editorials ‘explaining and justifying the Administration’s actions and policies’ (Rawnsley, 1996: 170). Ungar (2005: 7) particularly highlights the issue of Congressionally-mandated editorials which ‘now blend into or trump objective news reports’, and which Jowett and O’Donnell (2012: 140) dubbed ‘perhaps the most blatantly propagandistic aspect of VOA’s broadcasts’. Editorials are a common feature of the American news landscape, but their existence is not without critique. Notably, Tuchman (1972) argues that administratively distinguishing editorials from news is a strategy that allows news producers to claim ‘objectivity’ while simultaneously voicing decidedly subjective opinions – in this case, the opinions of the US government.

Methodology

This research used a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative critical discourse analysis, comprising a corpus linguistics and manual discourse analysis. Phelan (2017: 382) argues that the combined content analysis-critical discourse studies approach ‘mitigate[s] the criticism that critical discourse research is based on “unrepresentative,” “self-serving” samples’, while encompassing the ‘interpretative strengths of critical discourse analysis’. In this research, VOA is considered the actor producing meaning through its global news programme, International Edition.

The data comprises 122 discrete stories broadcast between 1 and 31 March, 2016. This range provides a snapshot of a standard monthly news cycle. Roughly 7 hours of audio broadcasts were downloaded and transcribed, resulting in a corpus of 72,009 words. This corpus size allows for the effective use of corpus linguistics software and provides a manageable amount for a manual discourse analysis (Baker et al., 2008). The 122 stories include 18 editorials, which begin with ‘Next, an editorial reflecting the views of the United States’ government’ and close with ‘That was an editorial reflecting the views of the United States’ government’. These editorials are labelled as such in the discourse analysis findings section.

Content analysis

Before exploring how countries are discursively constructed, it’s essential to know which countries are included and excluded. Chang (1998: 548) asserts that ‘identifying a country in the news undoubtedly indicates its importance or salience in international communication’, while excluding a country indicates non-importance. The content analysis quantifies this by calculating country inclusion both in terms of total frequency across the corpus, and as a percentage of stories where the country was mentioned. This approach accounts for instances where a country may be the sole focus of a story and therefore repeatedly mentioned, as well as instances where a country is not the sole focus but is referred to across a range of stories – as well as questioning the exclusion of countries.

Sociocognitive discourse approach

Van Dijk (2013) argues that critical discourse analysis is not a method of discourse analysis; instead, CDS encompasses a vast array of methodological approaches to analysing discourse. Therefore it is essential for the researcher to explicitly outline the range of CDS approaches that will be used to answer their research questions.

The discourse was analysed in two stages: first, using the corpus linguistic software SketchEngine to identify patterns in language and structure, such as collocations and keyness; and second, by conducting a manual discourse analysis using MAXQDA to assist with the process of open, axial, and theoretical coding (Böhm et al., 2004).

This analysis was most focused on nomination and predication in the construction of in-groups and out-groups. Nomination focuses on the discursive construction of countries, while predication focuses on the discursive qualification of countries (Reisigl and Wodak, 2016).

Findings: Content analysis

Table 1 contains the countries that had the most total mentions and that appeared in the most stories as a percentage. Syria, Russia and Iraq were high in terms of both total mentions and inclusion in the most stories. These findings support the existing criticism that VOA ‘paid far more attention to perceived ideological adversaries than to America’s existing and potential allies’ (Rawnsley, 1996: 2).

Table 1.

Country representation.

Country	Raw frequency	Percentage of stories (%)
Syria	121	16.4
Russia	78	13.9
Cuba	62	6.6
Iraq	61	11.5
North Korea	47	5.7
Turkey	48	4.9
Iran	41	6.6
China	34	7.4
Pakistan	34	2.5
Belgium	32	9
United Kingdom/Great Britain	9	9.8
France	11	8.2
South Korea	17	5.7

It’s also worth noting which areas of the world were not well represented: Latin America and Africa. Not a single African nation appeared in more than two stories. This absence is explored in more detail in the discourse analysis.

Findings: Critical discourse analysis

Ideology in values: Democracy, human rights and freedom

Variations on the words ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’ and ‘human rights’ appeared frequently and were regularly collocated with each other throughout the corpus. A close analysis showed that these terms are presented uncritically as universal values – there is never at attempt to define, explain, or qualify them. These terms seemingly serve as the basis by which VOA distinguishes the in-group from the out-group: the United States and other ‘in-group’ members were explicitly stated as promoting these values, while nations in the ‘out-group’ were criticized for lacking them.

Emphasizing the positive about us: The US and democracy, human rights and freedom

Variations on the words ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’ and ‘human rights’ were regularly associated with the United States – essentially, emphasizing the positive about the in-group on the basis of these values.

Excerpt 1 (editorial):

The promotion of human rights remains a pillar of US foreign policy. The fight for greater freedom, greater respect, greater dignity is a unifying narrative about humanity in all its diversity.

The perspective that rights and freedoms are ‘unifying’ and ‘about humanity’ is repeated in both editorials and news stories, where the terms are used as if they were apolitical, universally interpreted terms.

The word ‘freedom’ was often collocated with prepositional phrases for specificity, as in ‘freedom of religion’, ‘freedom of expression’, ‘freedom of the press’ and ‘freedom of assembly’. These freedoms were primarily attributed to the US and other in-group countries. For example, a news story on then-President Obama’s visit to Canada states that:

Excerpt 2 (news):

During an arrival ceremony earlier in the day, Mr Obama highlighted the shared values, noting universal healthcare, freedom of religion, and the diversity in both nations.

In the excerpts below, the United States continues to be associated with ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’ and ‘human rights’, but this time in contrast to Cuba – the implication being that the Cuban government opposes these values.

Excerpt 3 (news):

US President Barack Obama hailed the progress in relations between the United States and Cuba, while acknowledging that the two sides continued to have very serious differences on democracy and human rights.

Excerpt 4 (news):

And while we will and we are making diplomatic connections and strides with the government, we also intend to continue to respectfully and diplomatically but forcefully stand up for American values of human rights and democracy.

Excerpt 5 (news):

We’re not promoting our values of freedom and democracy, which after all, we do think is a good thing, and we do think would be better for the Cuban people.

The above speakers, even those not affiliated with VOA, used the first-person plural pronoun ‘we’ and possessive ‘our’ to refer to the United States government, clearly including themselves as part of the in-group and explicitly linking the US to the stated values.

These excerpts also highlight a distinction that was found throughout VOA discourse: while the US is making diplomatic connections with ‘the government’, the values of freedom and democracy are deemed as better for ‘the Cuban people’. This linguistic separation between a foreign government and its citizens was noted particularly when VOA criticized adversaries. This allows VOA to criticize other nations without alienating their citizens – the target audience of VOA – and implies that the United States’ criticisms of governments are justified because they’re in the best interest of the people.

Emphasizing the positive about a potential ‘us’: ‘Congratulations’ for nations promoting values

Beyond the United States, actors perceived as transitioning to democracy were described with positive in-group language. In stories about elections in Myanmar – which VOA refers to as Burma in deference to US policy (Yang, 2021) – the transition to democracy is deemed a ‘step forward’.

Excerpt 6 (editorial):

The United States remains committed to supporting the people of Burma and their ongoing pursuit of democracy, development, and national reconciliation . . . The presidential election is another important step forward in Burma’s democratic transition, noted US Secretary of State John Kerry in a message of congratulations.

Excerpt 7 (news):

But it will be a gradual transition to a more democratic government, and a government that is more interested in the welfare of the people than previous governments in Myanmar.

In a separate editorial, Myanmar’s positively portrayed transition to democracy is contrasted with perceived failures to adhere to democratic values.

Excerpt 8 (editorial):

The delegates congratulated the government of Burma for taking key steps in the direction of democracy, but noted concerns about continued military influence over the Parliament and key Ministries, abuses and discrimination against ethnic minorities, and continued legal restrictions on freedom of speech, assembly, and association.

These excerpts also demonstrate the previously noted phenomenon of linguistically separating ‘the government’ (which is criticized for restrictions on freedom and being disinterested in the welfare of citizens) from ‘the people’ (which the US is committed to supporting).

The trend of praising transitions to democracy continues in an editorial on Russia.

Excerpt 9 (editorial):

It is in America’s interests to see a strong, prosperous, and democratic Russia emerge, a Russia that can be a reliable partner in support of global peace, the type of Russian dream to which Boris Nemtsov and many other activists have devoted their lives.

Excerpt 10 (editorial):

The best way to honour the memory of Mr Nemtsov, said Deputy Assistant Secretary Berschinski, is to support human rights, democratic principles in Russia, and international norms.

In Excerpt 9, ‘democracy’ is collocated with positive adjectives like ‘strong’, ‘prosperous’, and ‘reliable’, and even ‘global peace’. This statement is written in the subjunctive, by contrast implying that the current un-democratic Russia is weak, unreliable, poor and opposed to global peace.

In Excerpt 10, democracy is linked to human rights and ‘international norms’, implying that democracy is not merely an American ideal, but a universal one. The positive language is extended to a Russian dissident and other activists opposing the government, suggesting inclusion in the in-group for citizens who are opposed to the out-group government.

Similarly, praise for an aspirational democracy is seen in a news story about the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria describing why ISIS attempts to recruit extremists rather than moderates:

Excerpt 11 (news):

And it wants to appeal to these people [extremists], because it knows that these people are more resilient, more committed, potential recruits than ordinary people who don’t accept these things, so want to live in a democracy, want to live in freedom and so on.

The parallel sentence structure of ‘want to live in a democracy, want to live in freedom’ stresses the inherent association between ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’. The link between these values and ‘ordinary people’ reinforces these concepts as universal.

Emphasizing the negative about ‘them’: ‘Concern’ about nations’ rights and freedoms

To the same extent that Myanmar’s transition toward democracy is portrayed as commendable, the perceived move away from democracy is portrayed as cause for ‘concern’. As with the emphasis on the positive in-group, the criticism of the out-group appears based around the values of human rights and democracy. The excerpts below are from news stories focused on the trial of two Turkish journalists.

Excerpt 12 (news):

Senior diplomats from Turkey’s Western allies, concerned about what they see as an erosion of human rights and democracy in the country, have been attending the trial.

Excerpt 13 (news):

The diplomatic spat comes amid already strained relations between Ankara and its Western allies over growing concerns of human rights and democracy.

Excerpt 14 (news):

This is quite a disappointment because Turkey through trial and error since World War II has been developing into a fairly reliable democracy with a multi-party system, and free and honest elections.

In these excerpts, Turkey’s democracy is linked with positive words such as ‘free and honest’; the perceived move away from democracy is associated with ‘disappointment’ and a cause for ‘concern’. Excerpts 12 and 13 also broaden the in-group to include ‘Western allies’, implying that the US government is simply one of many countries concerned about Turkey’s best interests.

Similar ‘concern’ was voiced in an editorial focused on Vietnam, where two citizens were on trial:

Excerpt 15 (editorial)

A Vietnamese Court convicted and sentenced Nguyen Huu Vinh and his colleague Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy on March 23rd under article 258 of the penal code, for allegedly abusing the right to freedom and democracy to infringe upon the interests of the State.

Excerpt 16 (editorial)

. . . the US is deeply concerned by the Vietnamese government’s conviction, and the sentencing of the bloggers, noting that the use of criminal provisions by Vietnamese authorities to penalize individuals peacefully exercising the right to freedom of expression is disturbing.

Excerpt 17 (editorial)

These convictions appear to be inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression and the freedom of the press provided for in Vietnam’s constitution . . ..

Though there are many mentions of abuses of rights in VOA discourse, this is the only time the adverb ‘allegedly’ appears in the corpus. Its inclusion here casts doubt on the Vietnamese Court’s claims of the convicted individuals ‘abusing the right to freedom and democracy’ – something that VOA repeatedly accused other countries of throughout the broadcasts.

In Excerpt 16, the positively connotated adverb ‘peacefully’ is linked with the right to freedom of expression, while the criminalization of this right is qualified as ‘disturbing.’ Moreover, the concern again falls on the ‘Vietnamese government’ and ‘Vietnamese authorities’, in contrast to the ‘individuals’ who are ‘peacefully’ exercising their rights, implying that the government is behaving hypocritically in relation to its own values and norms.

Emphasizing the negative about them: Criticism of governments’ lack of human rights and freedoms

VOA discourse used direct criticism and negative language to describe out-group countries based on perceived violations of democracy, human rights, and freedom. One editorial included a list of such countries.

Excerpt 18 (editorial):

US Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Theodore Allegra, highlighted abuses in Latin America. The Venezuelan government uses detentions to suppress and punish government critics, including the political opposition, civil society, and independent media . . . He also called on Cuba to end the practice of arbitrary short-term detention, respect freedom of expression and assembly, and release all political prisoners . . . Domestically the Russian government increasingly restricts freedom of expression . . .

Excerpt 18 specifies both the ‘Venezuelan government’ and the ‘Russian government’ and highlights violations of ‘freedom’ against their own citizens – another means of distinguishing countries’ governments from potential VOA listeners. Some of the strongest negative language used was for the governments, and specifically the leaders, of Russia and Iraq, in relation to human rights.

Excerpt 19 (editorial):

Human rights abuses in Russia under President Vladimir Putin have deteriorated significantly in the last year . . . The Russian government has stepped up efforts to suppress political opposition, suffocate civil society, silence independent voices, and stigmatised members of minority groups . . . The United States will also continue to hold Russians accountable for their roles in the imprisonment and death of Sergei Magnitsky and other gross violations of human rights.

Negative, emotive words like ‘abuses’, ‘gross violations’, ‘suffocate’ and ‘stigmatise’ imply not just a lack of human rights, but an active attack on human rights. Comparably violent language was used in relation to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Excerpt 20 (editorial):

Twenty-eight years ago, on March sixteen, nineteen eighty-eight, the regime of then-President of Iraq Saddam Hussein committed one of the worst atrocities of the modern era: the murder by poison gas of thousands of civilians in the Kurdish-Iraqi town of Halabja . . . Al-Anfal was a series of horrific crimes perpetrated by Iraqi leaders against their own civilian population . . . The head of government has a responsibility to the country and to its people to act in their best interests.

This excerpt does not explicitly mention human rights or freedoms; instead, strongly negative words like ‘atrocities’, ‘murder’ and ‘horrific crime’ describe the violations. However, the distinction between the government (‘the regime’, ‘Iraqi leaders’, ‘head of government’) and the people (‘thousands of civilians’, ‘civilian population’, ‘the country and to its people’) is stronger than in previous excerpts – understandably so, given what occurred.

De-emphasizing the negative about us: US military ‘successes’ and justifications

There was one recurring topic where democracy, human rights and freedom were noticeably absent: US military activities. The existence of these stories is noteworthy because it shows that VOA doesn’t avoid discussing a potentially controversial topic, but instead it de-emphasizes a negative aspect of the ‘us’ (Van Dijk, 2012) by offering justification for US military involvement in other nations. Counterintuitively, it presents military action using positive language such as ‘successes’ and ‘gains’:

Excerpt 21 (news):

. . . this appears to be the first major success by the new expeditionary targeting force operating in both Iraq and Syria.

Excerpt 22 (news):

. . . the commander was supposed to be, and believed to be, in this Al-Shabadi area, due to recent successes against the group by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

Excerpt 23 (news):

Back then, the US was saying that they had been gaining about 300, 400 square kilometres. The massive gains in this desert areas recently had sent Omar the Chechen to the area according to US officials.

Excerpt 24 (news):

But US officials are not claiming victory yet, let’s be clear, they’ve said, he was the target of the strike . . .

In Excerpt 24, even the acknowledgement of uncertainty was framed using positive language associated with the United States, implying that killing the target would be a victory for the US military.

These stories also offered justifications for military interventions by framing them as defensive measures:

Excerpt 25 (news):

. . . the Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James who says that this is a defensive strategy, that they saw, instead of just being an offensive attack against Al-Shabaab, they see this as something that was defensive in nature, because they were planning this attack, they had shown that they were training for this particular large-scale attack and therefore it is the United States’ responsibility to protect its own in Somalia as well as its allies.

This excerpt uses in-group discourse by referring to the US military protecting the ‘its own’ and ‘its allies’. As discussed in the following section, Somalia – the country where these events are taking place – in portrayed as neither in-group nor out-group.

Neither ‘us’ nor ‘them’ – Nations as backgrounds

While VOA discourse distinguishes in-group and out-group nations based on values, there are regions of the world that it simply ignores in global news reporting. Even when mentioned in broadcasts, these nations are linguistically relegated to geographic locations, rather than being represented as autonomous actors or governments possessing agency. A telling example is from the story on US military airstrikes in Somalia. In this story, the United States is frequently portrayed as an active subject in the sentence structure. In contrast, there is no agency for the nation of Somalia, or even mention of its government – the country is merely tagged on in non-essential prepositional phrases. In the following excerpts, the prepositional phrases with countries are bolded for clarity:

Excerpt 26 (news):

The Pentagon says a US airstrike in central Somalia has killed more than 150 Al-Shabaab militants who were preparing for a large-scale attack .. . . Davis said the US had learned that the fighters were set to depart the camp and posed an imminent threat to US and African Union forces in Somalia. . . . The United States doesn’t really talk a lot about the US forces in Somalia . . . How common is it for the US military to carry out these kinds of operations in Somalia? . . . The United States doesn’t want to become actively involved in Somalia . . . And therefore it is the United States’ responsibility to protect its own in Somalia as well as its allies.

Through repetition of this sentence structure, it is made clear that the United States is the actor with agency, and Somalia is merely a background location. This was also the case for Nigeria in a VOA editorial. In Excerpt 27, the Coca-Cola Company and the United States are given agency, and the in-group ‘we’ refers to the United States in collaboration with Coca-Cola. In contrast, Nigeria is presented as neither in-group nor out-group – it is not included as a collaborator, but instead is referred to only as a location in prepositional phrases:

Excerpt 27 (editorial):

The US Agency for International Development, or USAID, and the Coca-Cola Company, have announced support for a new programme in Nigeria .. . . This joint investment is aligned with USAID and Coca-Cola’s shared focus on clean water provision, as a means to help build healthy, sustainable communities in Nigeria. . . . We are proud to collaborate with Coca-Cola to bring a sustainable and safe water solution to thousands of people in Nigeria . . . USAID and Coca-Cola have collaborated in Nigeria since 2007 . . . This new agreement will provide a framework to implement WADA and to allow the parties to establish a range of policy issues to achieve their shared objectives in Nigeria.

USAID, Coca-Cola, and even the first-person pronoun ‘we’ (in reference to USAID) appears repeatedly as subjects, while Nigeria never does. Throughout this editorial, there is nothing to suggest that Nigeria has a government, let alone one that is involved in this initiative.

Finally, this pattern was repeated for the entire sub-Saharan African region in a story focused on UNICEF and Unilever:

Excerpt 28 (news):

The United Nations children’s fund UNICEF has joined the company Unilever in improving access to safe and clean water in sub-Saharan Africa.

Excerpt 29 (news)

Demographics in Africa are the challenge now and for the future, so indeed if we don’t act now, and this is part of why UNICEF is partnering with Unilever, and other, you know, important institutions across the world not only in Africa, if we don’t act now to improve access to clean water, literally children’s lives are at risk.

The above excerpts perpetuate two long-established tropes in Western news reporting about African nations: 1) referring to the entire continent as a homogenous whole rather than specifying nations; and 2) stereotyping African nations as places of crisis dependent on foreign nations and ‘white saviours’ for help, as seen again in the first-person pronoun ‘we’ (Brookes, 1995). Linguistically removing the agency of nations and relegating them to locations in prepositional phrases only highlights their perceived unimportance within VOA discourse.

This erasure of African nations appears more egregiously when one is presented alongside, and in stark contrast to, a country that VOA does consider important: China.

Excerpt 30 (news):

Coming up . . . China renews relations with an African nation no longer recognizing Taiwan

Excerpt 31 (news):

So I definitely think that, especially in Africa, with there only being a few countries left that currently recognize Taiwan, that there’s going to be more and more pressure on the African states to recognize ties with China . . .

This phrasing reveals two points: one, China is the primary focus of the story, as it is the first nation mentioned as well as the subject that is actioning the verb, ‘renews’; and two, the unnamed ‘African nation’ is of secondary importance, as it is again placed passively behind the preposition ‘with’, and its name is not even included. Instead, the phrasing highlights the China/Taiwan dynamic, bringing attention to China’s perceived aggression toward Taiwan, rather than new diplomatic agreements. This finding points to a larger debate about China’s engagement with African nations (Mano, 2021) and the subsequent condemnation of this engagement in US media (Frauen, 2021); however, this extensive debate is beyond the scope of this research.

This relegation to prepositional phrases was also the case for the other largely neglected continent, South America. The content analysis showed that Argentina appeared in three stories – the most of any South American nation – but that these mentions were exclusively in prepositional phrases.

Excerpt 32 (news):

Lulacruza’s lead singer, Alejandra Ortiz, is from Argentina.

Excerpt 33 (news):

The Rolling Stones’ Cuba stop follows concerts in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico.

Excerpt 34 (news):

Obama dances the tango during his state dinner in Argentina . . . He finishes with two kisses, which is the culture in Argentina.

This is not an exhaustive list of these instances, but instead a few examples that provide the clearest distinction between nations given agency and those denied it through discourse. Even countries condemned for their perceived human rights abuses are used as subjects and given agency in VOA discourse; such is not the case for African and South American nations.

Discussion

Democracy, freedoms and human rights in the ideological square

Van Dijk (2012: 11) wrote the following about values:

They basically define what is good and bad, permitted or prohibited, and the fundamental aims to be striven after by individuals, groups and societies alike . . . whereas ideologies are typical for groups, and may determine group conflict and struggle, values have an even more general, more basic, cultural function, and in principle are valid for most competent members of the same culture.

VOA utilizes the concepts of ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’ and ‘human rights’ as such fundamental values in its discourse. These concepts are used to define what is good and bad, to justify praise for the United States and its allies, and to criticize nations that allegedly fail to uphold them. This approach enables VOA to couch its ideologies in universal values, which can help establish common ground with audiences. This works in VOA’s interest, as Van Dijk (2012) highlights that although values may be general and culturally accepted, ‘they may be applied in different areas and in ways about which controversy is fundamental (p. 11). Democracy, for example, is a highly ambiguous term, but VOA collocates it with universal values such as ‘freedom’ and ‘human rights’ and doesn’t offer a specific interpretation.

These values of ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’ and ‘human rights’ serve as the basis for VOA’s ideological square: governments that are perceived as promoting these values form the in-group and are therefore praised, while governments that are perceived as opposing these values form the out-group, and are criticized. Where VOA has to ‘de-emphasise the negative’, as in the stories about military activities, these terms are not mentioned.

The condemnation of the out-group seems reserved for the governments of foreign nations, in contrast to the people. This allows VOA to condemn the actions of governments without alienating their citizens, which is essential given that VOA is a public diplomacy outlet. VOA’s promotion of these values and criticisms of governments violating them suggests that foreign publics are seen as potential in-group members, who may need to reject their own government to stand up for such universal values.

Beyond ‘us’ and ‘them’: Nations as backdrops

Previous research has shown that certain nations are largely omitted from global news flows – namely, African, South American and Oceanic nations (Brookes, 1995; Chang, 1998; Kim and Barnett, 1996). The content analysis shows this is the case for VOA, as these regions were largely omitted.

However, the key finding of this research is not the omission of nations; it’s that certain nations were mentioned but not acknowledged as such – they merely served as context to the actions of other nations. This relegation suggests a form of what Tuchman (1978) called symbolic annihilation through trivialization: many of the African and South American nations VOA mentioned were confined to nonessential prepositional phrases in sentences where other nations were the subjects acting with agency. These trivialized nations had no distinction between the government and the people, and they were not discursively included as either in-group or out-group. This finding is somewhat surprising given VOA’s high broadcasting penetration on the African continent (Smyth, 2001; Wang and Hong, 2011). As such, VOA seems more concerned with promoting ideology about itself and its adversaries than with considering its larger global audience.

Of course, these findings are limited to one month of VOA’s English-language news programme. Now that this analysis has identified these discursive patterns, corpus linguistics software could be programmed to identify these trends in much larger data sets. Research comparing VOA’s discourse under different presidential administrations and policies would also be enlightening, particularly given the tumultuous impact of President Trump’s first term in office. It’s also worth researching if the pattern of countries-as-locations in prepositional phrases is present in mainstream US media, or if this is a hallmark of US public diplomacy media.

Conclusion

At the core of this research is the question of power and how it is reinforced through discourse. The United States government has the ability to speak directly to foreign citizens through public diplomacy outlets like VOA. This outlet promotes American ideas of democracy, freedoms and human rights as universal, and uses them to praise and criticize other nations accordingly. Yet in the process of establishing the in-group and out-group, it relegates entire regions of the world to serving as background for more powerful actors. Although VOA rejects the label of government propaganda, this research shows that it is first and foremost a public diplomacy outlet focused on promoting American ideology and ultimately shaping how foreign publics view their own governments and other nations in relation to US policy.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ethical considerations

No ethical approval was required for this research.

ORCID iD

Valerie A. Cooper

Author biography

Valerie A. Cooper is a lecturer in media and communications at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. Her research focuses on power dynamics and international relations through communication, especially in the areas of public diplomacy, communication for development, and transnational education. She has previously been a lecturer in Moçambique, Hong Kong and China.

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