Linguistic and visual analysis of a news story on the Liberal Party leadership challenge

On Tuesday, September 15, 2015, The Sydney Morning Herald published an article written by Mark Kenny, titled Turnbull calls for era of fresh vision with the sub-title Showdown: ‘It will be a thoroughly Liberal government’ (Kenny, 2015a; Appendix A), following the dramatic event happened on Monday, in which the federal government’s by then communication minister Malcolm Turnbull called for a special Liberal Party meeting to vote for a new party leader and prime minister for the nation. The equivalent online story on The Sydney Morning Herald’s website is titled Liberal leadership: Malcolm Turnbull defeats Tony Abbott to become PM (Kenny, 2015b).

This article's purpose is to analyse the news story, in regards to the genre of the article and the staging of events. It will also investigate the visual image accompanying the article, focusing on its orientation, presentation, ambience, representation and its relationship with the news article.

1.     The news article

1.1.  The genre

The purpose of the article is to inform and give description of what had taken place – the leadership spill of the Liberal Party. It conveys detailed descriptive information of the incident, including the “who, what, when, where and why” (Feez, Iedema, & Rose, 2008, p.71). Therefore, this piece of news article is classified as “hard news”, which functions majorly as chronicling or updating readers with latest updates of what has happened in the community (Feez et al., 2008, p.71). Further, Bell (cited in Bednarek, & Caple, 2012, p.191) defines hard news or spot news as news that report “accidents, disasters, crimes, coups and earthquakes, politics or diplomacy”. In this case, the article written by Kenny is a political story, recalling the leadership challenge that happened on the day prior, which The Sydney Morning Herald described as “The Coup” on its front page on the same day (Appendix B).

1.2.  The basic structure

Bednarek and Caple (2012, p.96) note that a typical structure of hard news stories consists of three parts, known as the headline, the introduction or the lead, and the body or the lead development, while Feez et al. (2008, p.69) suggest an optional stage following the lead development, the wrap-up.

Kenny’s article can be seen as one that follows the above structure, including the optional wrap-up stage. The headline part, as mentioned, is the two phrases “Turnbull calls for era of fresh vision” and “Showdown: ‘It will be a thoroughly Liberal government’” (Kenny, 2015a). The lead, as with most cases, is the first paragraph of the article (Kenny, 2015a):

Malcolm Turnbull has been elected as the nation’s 29^th prime minister, after launching an all-or-nothing leadership challenge on Monday afternoon in which he quit the frontbench, declared Tony Abbott had failed as leader, and told colleagues that sticking with him would only make Bill Shorten the next prime minister of Australia.

The body text begins from the following paragraph, starting with “the more moderate Mr Turnbull emerged victorious from a tense late-night meeting of the Liberal party room…” and ends with “‘He has not been capable of providing the economic confidence that business needs’” (Kenny, 2015a) in paragraph 24. The remaining final paragraph, then, is the wrap-up element of the story, “Mr Turnbull gave no hint of favouring an early election if elected, but the new dynamic has made the timing of that impossible to predict” (Kenny, 2015a).

1.3.  The nuclear model of text structure

The headline and the lead of news articles carry the most important information and distinguish the main angle of the story, which are then elaborated with detailed information in the body text (Feez et al., 2008, p.81-82).

The headline and the lead in Kenny (2015a) present the main idea of the article, that Malcolm Turnbull had been elected as the prime minister and that he promised for a reform, while the body paragraphs include additional information such as Turnbull addressing the press for two times on the day, the divided Liberal party, the long-term implications of the challenge and leadership changeover, and, most importantly, the late-night meeting and the ballot results.

The nuclear model of text structure noted by Feez et al. (2008, p.83) is thus applicable in this news story analysis. The extra elaborations of the article mentioned above are known as satellites, while the headline and the lead are called the nucleus. Satellites do not necessary form a chain that links together, but they are linked to the lead by expanding on the information provided there (Feez et al., 2008, p.83).

Figure 1 shows the nuclear model for this specific news text. The blue box is the nucleus while the orange circles denote the various satellites.

Figure 1    Nuclear model of text structure for the article

1.4.  The temporal order of events revealed

Compared to news articles in the early 19^th Century, which news stories are written chronologically according to the events happened, the beginning of the issue always starts the article while the ending of the event is always at the end, news stories published nowadays have the chronology of the events distorted. The principle of the structure is no longer based on how events realistically unfold, but based on the importance of certain information considered to be (Feez et al., p.79).

This article published in The Sydney Morning Herald also follows the modern approach to order the events within the news story. Table 1 lists the major events revealed in the article, in chronological order.

1	Malcolm Turnbull served as opposition leader (until 2009)
2	Julie Bishop’s intervention and confrontation to Tony Abbott
3	Parliament Question Time, 2:00pm, 14 September 2015
4	Malcolm Turnbull prepared for leadership challenge, afternoon, 14 September 2015
5	Malcolm Turnbull advised Tony Abbott about the contest, 3:30pm, 14 September 2015
6	Malcolm Turnbull addressed the press, 4:00pm, 14 September 2015
7	Liberal MPs expressed support and the divided party
8	The Liberal meeting, 9:15pm, 14 September 2015
9	The release of the ballot results, 9:50pm, 14 September 2015
10	Malcolm Turnbull addressed the press, 10:40pm, 14 September 2015
11	Canning by-election, 19 September 2015
12	General election, 2016

Table 1    Major events within the article

Table 2 shows all of the phrases and sentences in the article classified into these major events, ordered chronologically. The article in its text-time order with these event numbers is in Appendix C.

1 Malcolm Turnbull served as opposition leader (until 2009)	with whom he served as opposition leader until 2009, Julie Bishop
2 Julie Bishop's intervention and confrontation to Tony Abbott	As both deputy Liberal leader and the government’s most senior minister on the ground in Canning
	Ms Bishop’s intervention was crucial
	It is understood she told Mr Abbott his government had utterly failed to communicate its key economic message to voters
	Ms Bishop confronted Mr Abbott with the news he had lost the confidence of the majority of the party room and would face an imminent challenge from his communication minister, Mr Turnbull
3 Parliament Question Time, 2:00pm, 14 September 2015	when Mr Turnbull made his move following question time
4 Malcolm Turnbull prepared for leadership challenge, afternoon, 14 September 2015	The leadership change-over, which came just days before
	after launching an all-or-nothing leadership challenge on Monday afternoon
	in which he quit the frontbench
	was designed to reconfigure the government

5 Malcolm Turnbull advised Tony Abbott about the contest, 3:30pm, 14 September 2015	Mr Turnbull advised the Prime Minister that he no longer enjoyed his confidence at a 3.30pm meeting
	in which he advised he intended to contest the leadership
	and requested the position be declared vacant to facilitate a ballot
6 Malcolm Turnbull addressed the press, 4:00pm, 14 September 2015	In a statement aimed as much at party-room doubters as the public, Mr Turnbull said
	Mr Turnbull’s decision was announced via a live press statement at 4pm
	Explaining his move, Mr Turnbull unloaded on Mr Abbott
	declared Tony Abbott had failed as leader
	declaring the government was drifting without economic leadership
	the government had not been successful in ‘‘providing the economic leadership that we need’’
	‘‘It is not the fault of… the economic confidence that business needs.’’
	and had offered slogans rather than explanations for policy
	Promising a more consultative style devoid of Mr Abbott’s slogans and captain’s picks
	and told colleagues that sticking with him would only make Bill Shorten the next prime minister of Australia
	‘‘This is not a decision… over a long period of time.’’
	Mr Turnbull gave no hint of favouring an early election if elected
7 Liberal MPs expressed support and the divided party	Despite inflated claims of support by both sides as they sought to create momentum
	but has left it riven with divisions
	after a brace of senior ministers are understood to have shifted away from Mr Abbott, led crucially by Ms Bishop
	It came after key ministers, marginal seat MPs, and even some in relatively safe seats around the country, previously loyal to Mr Abbott, had decided they were heading for defeat under his leadership.
	Among a slew of casualties from the meltdown of the Abbott operation were some of the federal government’s most senior and prominent figures including Treasurer Joe Hockey, Senate leader Eric Abetz, and Defence Minister Kevin Andrews.
8 The Liberal meeting, 9:15pm, 14 September 2015	The showdown came to a head
	The more moderate Mr Turnbull emerged victorious from a tense late-night meeting of the Liberal party room
	That came within hours
9 The release of the ballot results, 9:50pm, 14 September 2015	The result came at the end of an acrimonious day after
	the outcome in the end was decisive, with Mr Turnbull winning 54 votes to 44
	An attempt by Abbott loyalist Kevin Andrews to knock off Julie Bishop as deputy was also spectacularly unsuccessful with Ms Bishop strongly re-endorsed 70 votes to 30
	Malcolm Turnbull has been elected as the nation’s 29th prime minister
	has been reunited in the leadership team with the deputy
10 Malcolm Turnbull addressed the press, 10:40pm, 14 September 2015	At his first media conference after the ballot
	Mr Turnbull on Monday night said he was humbled
	and called for an era of fresh vision and consultative leadership
	“We need to have in this country… that is innovative, that is creative.”
	Mr Turnbull paid tribute to Mr Abbott, saying the nation owed him a great debt
	“I want to say at the outset… he has led have been formidable.”
11 Canning by-election, 19 September 2015	a hard-fought byelection will be decided in the Perth seat of Canning
12 General election, 2016	ahead of a general election due within a year
	and was heading for electoral defeat at the general election whenever it was held
	but the new dynamic has made the timing of that impossible to predict

Table 2    Major events revealed in the article and their respective sentences

A text-time/field-time diagram could then be drawn to show how the text presents the events in a non-chronological order. Figure 2 is the diagram for this particular news story.

Figure 2    Text-time/field-time diagram for the news article

1.5.  The inverted pyramid model

The editorial decision of this order of events can be explained by the inverted pyramid model. Since the satellites or the events revealed are not of the same importance for the news story (Feez et al., 2008, p.81), journalists choose the most significant information for the beginning of articles and the least significant one at the end. The less important details contribute to the story but do not affect readers’ understanding of the issue if they are left unread.

For ease of analysis, the article can be divided by two at the approximate mid-point, after paragraph 13. For this particular news story, the focus of Kenny (2015a) is the new prime minister calling for a new era of fresh vision for the country. Therefore, the first half of the story addresses the significant information that contributes to the main argument, including, the most important ones, the party meeting and the ballot results, detailed information that led up to the ballot such as Julie Bishop’s intervention and Malcolm Turnbull’s preparation for the challenge, Malcolm Turnbull’s addressing the media before and after the party meeting, which includes him talking about his future vision and promise to the country. The second half then presents other less important details such as the Canning by-election on September 19 and the national general election in 2016, Malcolm Turnbull’s notifying Tony Abbott about the upcoming challenge, as well as his address to the media before the party meeting, in which he talked about the problematic Tony Abbott government.

The story ends with a wrap-up that invites readers to think about the upcoming general election in 2016, and to pay attention whether the new Malcolm Turnbull government will push that into an earlier time, “Mr Turnbull gave no hint of favouring an early election… but the new dynamic has made the timing of that impossible to predict” (Kenny, 2015a).

Therefore, this news article is said to be following the inverted pyramid model, with an additional satellite as a wrap-up, which contributes significantly to the development and the argument of the news story. 

2.     The accompanying image

Figure 3 shows the accompanying image of the news story, captioned, “Malcolm Turnbull [left] and Julie Bishop [right] at their news conference” (Kenny, 2015a).

Figure 3    The accompanying image of the news story

2.1.  Orientation

Orientation of images considers the relationship between the viewer and the image (or the producer of the image) and their interactions (Kress, 1996, p.119). It is divided into 5 factors, namely contact, affect, involvement, social distance, and power (Martin, 2015a).

Contact, first of all, is defined as the eye contact between people, including that with the viewer. It is either engaged or observed (Martin, 2015a). In the above image, the contact between Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop is observed, since Turnbull was not looking at Bishop though she was looking at him. Bishop’s contact with the audience is also observed, while Turnbull has an engaging contact with the journalists (the audience). Though he was not looking directly at the camera, due to the low angle shot by the photographer, it is believed that he was engaging with the audience in his press conference.

Affect considers the facial expression and the bodily stance of the persons presented. It is a choice between positive and negative (Martin, 2015a). The image presents smiling faces of both Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop. Seeing their teeth, it can also be said that they were laughing at that moment. They were both standing straight rather than leaning forward or backward that may appear to be slouched.

Viewers’ involvement with the image is defined by the horizontal angle of the viewpoint. A frontal angle presents an inclusive involvement, while an oblique angle provides an exclusive involvement (Martin, 2015a). The involvement brings by the photograph can be said as inclusion, as it was taken from a frontal angle of Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop, although Bishop turned away from the camera at that point of time.

Social distance, either intimate, social, or public, is considered by the shot-type. “The closer a subject or object in an image is to the viewer, the higher the sense of involvement” (Feez et al., 2008, p.252). The image presented shows the body, or part of the torso, of both Turnbull and Bishop, thus is considered as a medium shot. It demonstrates an average social distance, also known as a supervision distance, between the two and the audience.

The final one in the orientation systems, power, is considered as either viewer superior or inferior, or equal, which is defined by the vertical height of the camera angle (Martin, 2015a). Since the bottom of the nose and the chin of both Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop can be seen, it is considered that the photograph was taken from a low angle. Thus viewer is inferior in this case, in other words, the subjects (Turnbull and Bishop) were presented superior.

2.2.  Presentation

Presentation of images is the way in which they are composed (Feez et al., 2008, p.254). It is usually analysed with the vertical and horizontal axis, by reading from the left to the right or from the top to bottom, which represents the relationship between ideal and real, or between given and new (Martin, 2015b). However, this analytical tool is inapplicable in this case, since the image is not polarised. It is apparent that Malcolm Turnbull is not the “given”, nor “previous”, while Julie Bishop is not the “new” prime minister, even though the image has presented them left and right.

Despite that, the image can be considered as a triptych one. It can be divided into three parts horizontally – Malcolm Turnbull on the left, the Australian flag in the middle, and Julie Bishop on the right. Turnbull and Bishop on the two sides can be considered as complimenting the national flag in the middle, which is the main element of the image.

2.3.  Ambience

Ambience is the mood created by utilizing the interpersonal meaning choices in images to work on the viewers’ feelings (Painter, 2008, p.91). The ambience network is a desirable approach to define the ambience of an image, which is presented in Figure 4 (Painter, 2008, p.92). 

Figure 4    Ambience network

The image is, first of all, an infused ambient image (Painter, 2008, p.94), since it is not an outline drawing but a fully coloured photograph. Nor it is a defused image, which makes use of some shading and other textured effect, and is based on an outline drawing. It is also an activated image which uses full colour, rather than a denied image that uses the black colour only (Painter, 2008, p.96). At this stage, as an ambient, infused, activated image, the analysis can be further split into three features of colour, vibrancy, warmth and familiarity (Painter, 2008, p.97).

Vibrancy is the degree of colour saturation (Painter, 2008, p.97). In this image, the saturation is maximal, since the national flag is in its full colour, though Turnbull and Bishop, especially their shirts and suits, are mainly in reduced saturation. Therefore, the image is considered a vibrant one.

Warmth considers the choices of colour hue, which distinguishes colours mainly into warm and cool (Painter, 2008, p.99). Painter (2008, p.99) lists shades of red, orange and yellow as warm colours, while cool ones include shades of blue, green and aqua. Except greyscale, the image is dominated by blue, red, and orange. It can therefore be considered that the image carry both warm and cool hues, which is classified as a balanced image in terms of warmth.

Finally, familiarity is the colour differentiation in the image – the use of different colour hues. A familiar sense is created when a full palette of colours is used, while a sense of removed is created when it is restricted to shades of one or two colours (Painter, 2008, p.101). This image is restricted to a few hues on the colour palette only, mainly red, orange, and blue, as mentioned, without the presence of other colours such as yellow, green, and aqua. However, this does not remove the image from reality since it is believed that, in that situation and environment, the other colour hues were absent. Therefore, the image in this case does create a sense of the familiar.

2.4.  Representation

Representation considers the content of the image itself, which can be analysed by the action in narrative images and by the conceptual representation in analytic images. Since this is an action-based image rather than a conceptual, static image, the analysis will look for actions (angled vectors), gaze (eye vectors), speech and thought bubbles, and “imagic” sound words (Martin, 2015c).

The image in this case sees Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop standing in front of the press, which is considered action-less. However, an eye vector is presented as Bishop was looking at Turnbull. Thus, the image is transactional with the presence of the gazing element. Speech and thought bubbles, as well as “sound words”, are both absent.

2.5.  Relationship with the news article

Summarising the visual analysis of the image, Malcolm Turnbull did not look at the camera directly, but since the photograph was taken from a low angle, it is believed that he was looking at the camera’s direction, making eye contact with other journalists. With the smiling faces of both Turnbull and Bishop, the image presents a positive affection towards viewers’ emotion. The frontal angle and the medium distance used to take the photograph, brings an average social distance and an inclusive viewers’ involvement with the subjects. In terms of presentation, the image is presented with a triptych composition, with Turnbull and Bishop on the two sides and the Australian national flag in the middle. As for the ambience of the image, although only a few hues are presented in the photograph, it is considered that it does represent the reality since Turnbull and Bishop were both wearing greyscale-coloured suits. The image also contains both warm and cool colours with vibrant saturations. Last but not least, the gaze vector of Julie Bishop looking at Malcolm Turnbull, together with the above summarised analysis, create the following possible interpretation of the image and the relationship with the news article itself.

The first one is that Malcolm Turnbull, Julie Bishop, and their team look forward positively and passionately to the “new era of fresh vision” and to their government/policy reforms, which is mentioned in Kenny’s news article. This is demonstrated by the cheerful facial expression. Moreover, Julie Bishop’s gazing at Turnbull shows that she was grateful for him and is proud to be his deputy party leader.

Secondly, Turnbull and Bishop are, or appear to be, confident with their upcoming year in office, that they will perform much better than Tony Abbott and his team. This is demonstrated by the low angle photography that gives the pair a sense of superior power.

Finally, the triptych composition of the image presents the Australian national flag in the middle, featuring the white Commonwealth star, which represents “the unity of the six states and the territories of the Commonwealth of Australia” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2012, “Symbolism”, para. 5). Together with the low angle photographic style, it can be said that the photographer has demonstrated his confidence in the pair to govern Australia, the six states and the territories, well.

REFERENCES

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Commonwealth of Australia. (2012). It's an Honour - Symbols - Australian National Flag. Retrieved September 28, 2015, from https://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/symbols/flag.cfm

Feez, S., Iedema, R., & Rose, D. (2008). Media literacy. Surry Hills, NSW: NSW Adult Migrant Education Service.

Kenny, M. (2015a, September 15). Turnbull calls for era of fresh vision. The Sydney Morning Herald, p. 3.

Kenny, M. (2015b, September 15). Liberal leadership: Malcolm Turnbull defeats Tony Abbott to become PM. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/liberal-leadership-malcolm-turnbull-defeats-tony-abbott-to-become-pm-20150914-gjma13.html

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Martin, J. (2015a). LNGS7274 Media Discourse, lecture 3, week 3: Images – Orientation [Lecture PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://elearning.sydney.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-3132720-dt-content-rid-15556008_1/xid-15556008_1

Martin, J. (2015b). LNGS7274 Media Discourse, lecture 4, week 4: Images – Presentation [Lecture PowerPoint slides].

Martin, J. (2015c). LNGS7274 Media Discourse, lecture 5, week 5: Images – Representation [Lecture PowerPoint slides].

Painter, C. (2008). The role of colour in children’s picture books: choices in ambience. In L. Unsworth (Ed.), New literacies and the English curriculum (pp. 89-111). London: Continuum.