Does Newspapers' Political Alignment Influence the Emotional Language in British Newspapers? : An Analysis of Headlines about the Nuclear Accident in Fukushima on 11 March 2011

Abstract: The main aim of this essay is to examine the extent to which journalists choose certain emotional words in order to influence public opinion in a certain political direction. A number of headlines about the nuclear accident in Fukushima on 11th March 2011 in three British broadsheets with different political alignment form the basis of my analysis. To identify emotional language, I have used a method developed by Professor Friedrich Ungerer: the “emotional inferencing system”. There are emotional triggers in all the broadsheets. In most cases, the triggers in the different broadsheets are quite similar. There seem to be no clear connections between emotions, or the strength of emotions, and the political alignment of the newspapers. A larger corpus or a corpus on a different issue would possibly imply a different result.