“Democracy under attack”: Viewpoint and doxa in the coverage of the Jan. 6th, 2021 events at the US Capitol

Abstract

This paper aims at addressing issues related to the expression of subjectivity in media discourse, and more specifically to highlight the presence of doxa among journalists’ discourse. These issues will be addressed through an analysis of the transcript of the morning broadcast of two radio channels – the public radio channel in France, France Inter, and in French-speaking Belgium, La Première – covering the “attack” on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th, 2021. Because it reports an event which was at the same time very politically loaded and unexpected, the journalistic account of this event helps to reveal and question the continuum between facts reporting and the expression of personal opinions, with all the nuances of clear and less clear sharing of subjective viewpoint in between. The paper shows that subjectivity is present under different guises, including attribution, evaluative statements and doxa. The paper then establishes the difference between the plurality of voices and the plurality of viewpoints – a key distinction in the production of information and in the journalistic habitus.