Pushed to the hedge: Hedging devices in Romanian online media discourse on migration and refugees

Abstract: The current paper analyses the type and frequencies of hedging devices used in Romanian online media discourse on refugees and asylum seekers, drawing on the media content that was published between Sept 2015 and March 2016. By using a mixed research approach, i.e. by combining pragmatics, Prince et al.’s Model (1982), elements of critical discourse analysis and Schroeder’s multidimensional model for media reception analysis, this article investigates 232 news items (both news posts and their comment threads) in a number of 8 mainstream Romanian online newspapers at the intersected space of computer mediated media discourse. Premised on the idea that media discourse is manufactured, the overarching goal of this examination is to identify the hedges and explore their pragmatic functions and their subsequent implications for commenters’ cognitive and attitudinal responses. Results obtained indicate that commenters use more hedging devices than journalists and for different purposes. While journalists seek to increase the credibility of the news presented, commenters use hedging to avoid commitment to action and decision.