Characteristics of Newspaper Editorials: ‘Chouftchouf’ in ‘Almassae’ Moroccan Newspaper as a Case Study

Abstract

Newspaper editorials seem to be neglected in media discourse research compared to the abundant work conducted on other newspaper texts, especially the news. Given their rhetorical nature, newspaper editorials are distinguished by certain characteristics in terms of their structure, the types of opinions used and their positioning in the editorial, as well as the language used in them. Given these facts, and since newspaper editorials are directed to mass audiences with the aim to opinions, they deserve more consideration in media discourse research. This situation seems to apply to newspaper editorials in Arabic language and in the Moroccan context specifically. This article, thus, tries to cover up some of these features in ‘Chouftchouf’ Editorial published in the ‘Almassae’ Moroccan newspaper. This editorial started to be published since the launching of ‘Almassae’ Newspaper in 2006 and has known a tremendous success since then. This editorial is characterized by the variety of its structural organization, the types and positioning of the opinions used as well as the language employed. The structure varies between including or excluding a conclusion, a background part in the beginning of the intermediate section, or just following the three part structure: an introduction, an intermediate section, and a conclusion. As far as opinions are concerned, the types vary between the using opinions based on popular beliefs, emotions, facts and evaluations. The positioning of these opinions also vary between inserting prominent opinions in the beginning of the article and including less prominent opinions in the end or vice versa. As for language, ‘Chouftchouf’ editorial is a rich source of language-based argumentative strategies from which it gets some of its influencing power. In this editorial, at least nineteen argumentative strategies that are language based are used.

Keywords: structural organization- language power- opinion types