прагматика и медиа дискурс / Teun A van Dijk - News Analysis

coming over us, emphasized this numerical strategy of the persuasive rhetorical formulation of this topic.

Similarly, the strategic use of sources and quotations further emphasizes the prevailing definitions of the situation. Tamils themselves are seldom sources or speakers. Although prominent actors, they are seldom agents but mostly patients, unless they are agents of negatively-valued actions such as protests, demonstrations, and illegal action and violence. At most, the refugee organizations are recognized as legitimate representatives, and, through them, fragments of an alternative definition of the situation may be heard. However, size, frequency, and textual organization of these interventions are framed primarily as reactions or protests against the primary speakers and actors of the political and social stage. The government, parliament, the political parties, the cities, and the police occupy the largest actor and speaking space of the press. The crucial accusation, that ethnocentrism and racism may be involved, is not even admitted as a legitimate alternative interpretation of the events and appears only briefly in a few, marginalized opinion anides.

In other words, at all levels, the Tamils were characterized negatively and their immigration represented as a threat to the social status quo. In this respect, the coverage shows striking similarities with the general media coverage of foreigners or minorities. Widespread stereotypes and prejudices are subtly exemplified for this new group of (Black, Third World) immigrants, that is, for these new minorities. This also explains the emphasis on illegal entry and residence, the allusions to crime and drugs, and the assumed profiting of welfare.

Cynically, but interestingly, some newspapers seem to sense this implication but either justify it, by emphasizing the seriousness of the facts, or have recourse to the well-known racist strategy of attributive transfer: The public, especially the people in the poor inner-city neighborhoods, will not tolerate more immigrants; therefore, Tamil immigration will enhance prejudice and racism, both against Tamils themselves and against other minority groups. In other words, we, the political or media elite, are not prejudiced; but the public is. Once assumed this mediated reaction of the public, the press can in turn speak on behalf of the public, thereby fulfilling its own prophecies.

Finally, the panic is as suddenly over as it has emerged: After the first few months of 1985, only a handful of news reports keep track of the fate of the Tamils. The political and social effects, in the meantime, have been disastrous: The government has felt itself supported by the media and the public to take a tough stance on immigration and reception, and it soon appears that only a few dozen of the Tamils will be given refugee status. With this unattractive expectation in mind, more than 1,500 Tamils continuad their flight to other countries, whereas the other half eatcls up in desolate and

isolated pensions to wait for the things to come. At that point, the story has lost its interest. Only occasional attention is paid to the situation of Tamils who are not allowed to work or to otherwise integrate into Dutch society.

Thus, after a year, both the media and leading party politicians, urged by the potentially explosive (and later indeed actually exploded) situation of the Tamils, slowly began to modify their policy and started to envisage a longer and more integrated stay of the Tamils in the country. The social damage, as witnessed by letters to the editor and the interviews we conducted after four months of negative Tamil reporting, however, had been done: The Tamils were henceforth defined and branded as the next group of (Black, Third World) immigrants who carne here to profit at our expense and to cause all kinds of problems.

While it is true that with continued media silence, the public soon focuses attention on another issue and the Tamil immigration is no longer a prominent issue, in their everyday lives (housing, work, daily interaction, education), the Tamils will confirme to bear the stigma that the press and the politicians have put on them in the first place. The panic may not have fully achieved its implicit goals (viz., to send them back), but it has at least resulted in effectively marginalizing and subjecting the new citizens. And this effect may be lasting. Fieldwork carried out in the spring of 1987 about memory for news about ethnic minorities suggests that two years later the Tamil story is still better remembered than most more recent news reports about minorities and refugees.

Since each of these aims would require analyses are beyond the limits of this book, we focus our study on an account of the press coverage of a single double-event: a police eviction of squatters and the ensuing demonstrations and unrest in the inner city of Amsterdam. As for the other case studies reported in this book, our analysis has a modest quantitative dimension and a qualitative dimension, in which the various topics, the local semantics, the style, and the rhetoric of the news are examined.

BACKGROUNDS: HOUSING AND SQUATTING

IN AMSTERDAM

The occupation of the "Grote Wetering" was one in a long succession of squatting events in Amsterdam. Although occupation of empty buildings was not unknown in earlier decades, it was only towards the end of the 1970s that squatting became a widespread form of social action and civil disobedience. Due to various circumstances, such as the rapid population growth alter World War II, changing life styles that lead to earlier independence of young people, and the failure of the authorities to build enough houses, Dutch cities have been confronted with serious housing shortages.

For low-income residents, cities have a housing authority that controls the distribution of low-rent apartments ; however, the demand is much larger than the supply. Of a total population of about 700,000, for instance, Amsterdam has a list of approximately 50,000 families entitled to a larger apartment. People often have to wait more than two or three years for an apartment. Conditions to join the urgency list are very strict. Until recently, for instance, singles were excluded from city-controlled distribution. Young people, therefore, had to find housing on the free market, where rents are high: up to about 1,200 guilders (about 600 dollars) for a simple two-room apartment, which is about the same amount as a monthly student scholarship or welfare allowance. Since unemployment for young people is high in the Netherlands (up to 40% of those leaving high school or university), there are few possibilities for them to get decent housing.

These various social conditions were further exacerbated by increasing housing speculation during the 1970s. Whereas rents and prices were comparatively low during the 1950s and 1960s, they rapidly increased afterwards. Real estate agents and companies found a lucrative market here to make fast and easy money. Houses bought one day could be sold for a nice profit the very same day to another buyer. When the market became less profitable, however, houses or office buildings often stayed empty for years. In a city with a serious housing shortage, this situation was rather generally felt to be socially irresponsible. So when at the end of the 1970s the first squatters occupied empty buildings, public reaction was rather tolerant.

Even the courts ruled that certain forms of occupation were legal. Squatters occupying an empty house may be entitled to full residence protection, for instance against owners or the pollee. The govemment and the city authorities, who had done very little against speculation, announced stricter rules for the management of real estate. To reduce the number of empty houses, a maximum delay between buying and actual usage was set.

Although alter a few years thousands of apartments were occupied by squatters who often made a rent deal with the legal owners, thus bypassing the city controlled distribution system, there were also cases that caused serious conflict. When house owners had a good case, the courts soon began to rule that squatters had to vacate the building. Against the background of the generally felt right of occupation, however, such court orders were often ignored. The regular city police was hardly equipped to evict dozens of often heavily barricaded squatter homes, let alone face hundreds of sympathizers who would immediately be summoned to defend the building against the police. In the spring of 1980, the first large-scale violent street fights resulted when police attempted to evict squatters from occupied buildings. Since the middle and end of the 1960s, Amsterdam had not known riots of this size. National riot police (the well-known ME, an abbreviation for mobile unit in Dutch) and tanks were called in to break the barricades built by squatters and their allies.

These first squatter fights coincided with the coronation of Queen Beatriz on April 30, 1980, in Amsterdam. This event alone was sufficient to provoke many of those, especially in Amsterdam, who are against the institution of a royal house. And with the effective rhyming slogan "Geen woning, geen kroning" (No housing, no coronation), Amsterdam was tumed into a large battlefield. Henceforth, squatter actions and demands became associated with violence. That same and the following year witnessed repeated large-scale police operations resulting from court orders in favor of house owners. Larger squatter buildings were usually christened with catchy names, based on street names and hence became well known social institutions of social protest of a fast growing movement among large parts of the juvenile citizens of the capital.

THE EVENTS OF OCTOBER 8, 1981

The Eviction of the Residents of Grote Wetering

The Grote Wetering (literally "Great Wetering") on Weteringschans, opposite the Rijksmuseum, was one of those squatter houses. Acquired by a well-known real estate speculator, it was to be torn down to make room for modem office buildings and expensive apartments. After a long admin-

istrative and legal battle with the city authorities, the real estate agent finally obtained permission to carry out his plans, and the squatters were ordered by the courts to evacuate the building. An earlier police attempt, in December 1980, to dislodge the squatters failed: They simply carne back. On October 8, 1981, another attempt was made, involving regular city police, national riot police (kept in the background), and heavy equipment: An armored car was used to break open the barricaded front door. After the violent confrontations with the police during previous evictions, both the police and the squatters had attempted to keep the action low-key: The squatters intended to resist passively against the eviction and promised not to defend themselves with violent means. After a fruitless phone call between the commanding police officer and the squatters, the police entered the building, both through the front door and, with the use of a crane, also via the roof. The squatters were brought outside and released. Compared with other police actions, this eviction was rather peaceful. Except for a few scratches, nobody was injured.

More dramatic, though, were the consequences. After the eviction, squatters, and other young people frustrated by the events, got involved in fights with the police in the immediate neighborhood. Some cars and windows of banks (seen as the institutions that support speculation) got smashed, and a few people, including two policemen, were injured. More organized was a planned protest demonstration that would take place the same evening. Passing through several expensive shopping

members of the largely peaceful group of demonstrators again smashed several windows and expensive cars. These actions soon led to serious fights with the city and riot police, which continued until after midnight.

The Eviction of the Residents of Huize Lydia

The reactions of squatters and demonstrators were not only directed against the eviction of the Grote Wetering (henceforth: GW), however. After this eviction, between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., the city authorities took advantage of the presence of the riot police in the city (units of these special police troops are usually stationed outside of the capital) and unexpectedly decided to evict residents of another occupied building, the newly restored honre (pension) Huize Lydia ("Lydia House"). This building, about which we have already briefly reponed in an earlier chapter, was occupied by Black Surinamese families, mostly mothers and children, in protest against the strict, patronizing house tales and the small rooms allocated to them in the new honre. Technically they were hardly squatters: They only had occupied somewhat earlier the building that was intended for them anyway, and this occupation was merely meant as a demonstration. The families

carne from decrepit and fire hazardous pensions. The families were not prepared to stay in these pensions waiting for the results of an administrative fight with the housing authorities over the conditions or mies of their new home.

The police, hardly less surprised by the orders of the city authorities, were much less prepared for this task, and barely knew who occupied Huize Lydia (henceforth: HL) and why. Resistance, reinforced by those who had been involved in the eviction of GW earlier that afternoon, was fierce. Large-scale fights with the police ensued. The Surinamese families were evicted with force from the building and huddled into police vans to be brought to the police station. It was late afternoon, and many of the children hadn't come home from school yet, when their mothers were arrested and brought to the police station, from which they were later released after provisional housing for them was found. The Black women later accused the police of sexist and racist abuse at the police station. A few weeks later, they were allowed to return to the same home after the restrictive house tales were rescinded by the authorities. The whole police action appeared to be nothing more, in effect, than a demonstration of power. The authorities justified their action with the court order that had to be executed.

The fights around HL at the end of the afternoon (at a five-minute walking distance from GW, close to the Concertgebouw), fueled the emotions and the wrath of the demonstrators that same evening. The authorities had shown that the low-key approach to squatting and eviction were no more than a face-keeping policy. The brutal actions of special riot police against unarmed Black women and children, on the one hand, and the victory of a well-known speculator, on the other hand, liad shown the squatters and their allies that the city authorities were not prepared to take a new approach to housing.

One Year Later: "Lucky Luyck"

One year later, the situation changed considerably. Even more violent riots followed the eviction of so-called "Lucky Luyk" (a name-pun modeled after the narre of the street, Jan Luykenstraat, also situated in the museum quarter of Amsterdam). These riots, which resulted in much damage and the unusual sight of a burning streetcar, led to the application of strict policing and court tactics: Demonstrators could now be picked up by the police even outside the area, and people could be ordered to stay out of certain parts of town. Yet, despite some legal protests and much discussion, this last big police action also marked the end of large scale confrontations between squatters and the police. The escalation of violence was condemned by most parties involved, including those that had favored or con-

doned squatting. Whereas resistence against the police is rather generally tolerated in Amsterdam, real violence for social action is a widespread taboo. Also, the squatters of "Lucky Luyck" may have lost their credibility because they occupied a beautiful house that was bought by the city in order to build low-rent apartments. Henceforth, public opinion and the press no longer supported or tolerated the more radical forms of squatting.

Changing Attitudes About Squatting and Social Resistance

After these dramatic events between 1980 and 1982, a transformation in altitudes by the public and the press contributed to a different conception of radical civil disobedience and resistance, in other domains as well. The permissiveness of the 1970s was replaced by increasing forms of intolerance and conservatism in the 1980s. Comparable social changes have taken place in several countries in the last few years. The"race riots" in Great Britain took place more or less at the same time: Bristol, Brixton, Liverpool, etc. have become the well-known locations of similar forms of social protest also among young, often unemployed, people. There, too, police actions appeared to be one of the major direct causes that sparked the events (Scarman, 1981; Bridges, 1983). An analysis of the press coverage of the events in Amsterdam, therefore, has broader relevance than just the study of a small local incident. It may show how the dominant Western press deals with the more radical forms of social protest.

THE ROLE OF THE PRESS: EARLIER STUDIES

Before we start our analysis of the press coverage of the events in Amsterdam, a few remarks must be made about the general role of the press in such events. It was already suggested that large scale police action, civil disobedience and resistance, and especially their violent dimensions attract joumalists as few other events do. Invariably, riots are front-page news, even across national boundaries. The April 30, 1980, squatter riots in Amsterdam and the unusual appearance of tanks in the streets of a usually peaceful city, made pictures that even reached the press abroad. (When I was teaching in Mexico City that semester, front-page pictures in the Mexican press of fights in my home town were a unique phenomenon: The Netherlands hadn't appeared in the international news for months). The same holds for riots anywhere. They make good pictures and news film and are a prominent example of the prevailing news values of negativity, violence, and drama of international news reporting. Even the relatively low-key eviction of Grote Wetering and Huize Lydia, and the ensuing fights, were covered

by some international press agencies and led to a few small items in the foreign (German, British) press.

Since riots are prominent both as media events and social events, they are also a preferred object of social and media research. The same is true for demonstrations that have or are attributed violent dimensions. Exemplary has been the study by Halloran and associates (Halloran, Elliott, & Murdock, 1970) of the media coverage of an anti-Vietnam demonstration in London. Their main finding was that a largely peaceful demonstration against the American presence in Vietnam was by anticipation defined and actually perceived in terms of violence. A small incident during the march, in which a group of demonstrators and police got finto a fight, became the major angle for the account of the demonstration as a whole. While giving little attention to the aims of the march, the news media paid much attention to real or assumed conflicts among the organizers of the demonstration and to the alleged presence of foreign agitators. In addition, the style in which events were described largely favored the police actions and were negative towards the demonstrators. Despite some differences, it was concluded that this overall perspective was shared by the different newspapers and TV programs.

Similar features define the coverage of the events in Amsterdam more than a decade later. In Chapter 2 we found an internationally-shared framework for the press account of violent international events. It is suggested here that there are similar frameworks for the press coverage of domestic news, namely a disproportionate focus on violence; internal conflicts and the role of isolated actors (foreigners); and a neglect of social backgrounds, reasons, and aims of social and political opponents or minorities.

Whereas Halloran and his associates (1970) focused on a political demonstration, we are confronted with social dimensions of juvenile protest and resistance. We have suggested before, following Cohen (1980), that juvenile deviance, as with the Mods and the Rockers in the 1960s, may be framed in terms of social categorizations, whereby groups of people may be perceived as folk devils. Along with the authorities, the press helps define a public reaction that is comparable to a moral panic. For ethnic groups, defined in the Dutch context as foreigners, we found that the public attitude was that they should adapt or leave. Similar attitudinal frameworks seem to operate for squatters. Where foreigners invade our country, squatters may be seen as invading our houses, not only in the authoritarian and conservative press. The proposed solution for such a moral indignation, is expulsion.

Cohen (1980) sketches the main features of this perception of juvenile behavior, which is not only categorized as deviant, but also as criminal, violent, and destructive. Also the Mods and the Rockers were portrayed as destroying "our" property, even when the actual damage in the sea resorts they rampaged was rather modest. Even here the foreign element appeared