Concept "Family" in the Quality Press of Great Britain (the case of the online version of The Guardian)

For citation: Budanova N.K. (2017) Kontsept «sem'ya/family» v kachestvennoy presse Velikobritanii (na primere onlayn-versii «Gardian») [Concept "Family" in the Quality Press of Great Britain (the case of the online version of The Guardian)]. Mediaskop 1. (in Russian). Available at: http://www.mediascope.ru/2285

© Nadezhda K. Budanova

PhD student at the Chair of Foreign Journalism and Literature, Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia), n.k.budanova@gmail.com

Abstract

The aim of the article is to understand what the authors of the texts that are published on the British quality newspaper The Guardian website imply using the "family" concept. The author begins with the analysis of the dictionary definition of "family" and the results of the associative experiment conducted by N.A. Reshke and goes on with the analysis of the topics that are discussed in the The Guardian "Family" section and the analysis of "family" semantics. The latter allow the author of the article to describe basic features of "family" portrait the way it is represented in The Guardian. According to the results of the research the type of family that dominates in The Guardian is nuclear family that consists of two generations only: parents and their children. In the analyzed texts children are seen as obligatory element that allows to define a group of people as "family". Meanwhile a married couple with no children is highly unlikely to be called so. Nevertheless, as conservative nation the British cannot avoid "extended family" topic: although it is almost impossible to find serious discussion of extended families' problems, The Guardian regularly publishes texts based on either their readers' or celebrities' stories about their family traditions and values.

Keywords: family, values, concept, press.

Notes

Cambridge Dictionary. Available at: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/family (aссessed: 15.11.2016).

Cambridge Dictionary. Available at: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/nuclear-family (aссessed: 15.11.2016).

Geerte Hofstede & Gert Jan Hofstede, Dimension of national cultures. Available at: http://geerthofstede.nl/dimensions-of-national-cultures (aссessed: 15.11.2016).

Legislation.gov.uk. Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/27/section/2 (aссessed: 18.01.2017).

Marriage Rates in the UK. The Guardian. Datablog. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/feb/11/marriage-rates-uk-data (aссessed: 15.11.2016).

Oxford Dictionaries. Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/family (aссessed: 15.11.2016).

School Inspection Handbook. Ofsted. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/457199/School_inspection_handbook.pdf (aссessed: 15.11.2016).

The Guardian. Family. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/family/all (aссessed: 15.11.2016).

The Hofstede Centre. Available at: http://geert-hofstede.com/united-kingdom.html (aссessed: 15.11.2016).

Top Sites in United Kingdom. Available at: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/GB (aссessed: 09.11.2016).

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