Information sources as a persuasive strategy in editorials -: Le Monde and the New York times

The media, which includes editorials, have been shown to play an important role in the definition of priorities in public agenda. In the domain of international matters, the public relies heavily on the media, and editorials play an even greater role. This article examines how explicit mentions of external sources of information function in the argumentative structure of editorials to achieve a persuasive effect. A corpus of 40 editorials dealing with Russia (taken from Le Monde and The New York Times between August 1999 and March 2000) has been studied using a cognitive-based linguistic model of discourse analysis. It is shown how under the guise of bringing some objectivity to the editorials' argumentation, external sources of information facilitate and enhance their subjectivity.