The Ways to Support theses in Television News Programs

• Main Author: Wiesław Czechowski
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lodz University Press 2018-02-01
• Series: Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Polonica
• Subjects: media; telewizja; program informacyjny; argument; teza; przesłanka
• Online Access: https://czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/polonica/article/view/4021
• ISSN: 1505-9057; 2353-1908

This article describes the ways to support theses in television news programs. The research material is based on the three most popular programs on Polish television: Fakty, Wiadomości and Teleexpress. Information which was analyzed, was presented from March 1st–3rd, 2017. As a result of the analysis it was possible to identify the theses, which are: quotations, paraphrases of public statements or journalistic conclusions resulting from interpretation of socio-political phenomena. The subjects in the question are verbalized by journalists (who are running the program) or are included in the narratives accompanying the presented film material. Additionally, they also appear in graphically animated banner inscriptions. The support is mostly verbal – the media primarily use two techniques: ab auctoritate (expert statement, politics) and ab exemplo. The second group of theses are the graphical ways to support them – where evidence and examples are most often drawn from online sources: what dominates is the influence of the activities of public figures in social media. In addition, scans of various official documents, open letters are displayed, data visualizations in the form of tables, graphs and diagrams are less frequent. What is valid there were also theses without support – the role of the support is taken by the credible medium. It is interesting to encourage the inferential activity of program viewers – only the premises are presented, drawing the conclusion is the task of the recipient.