Abstract

The medical discourse shows that Covid-19 has affected the lives of people all around the world. The present study aims to investigate the ideologies in medical discourse in selected Eastern and Western media news using Van Dijk’s ideological square framework. The data was collected from five news articles selected purposely during the timeframe of December 2019 to April 2022. AlJazeera, CNN, New York Times and BBC were selected. The media discourse transcripts include more than 4000 clauses analysed using Vand Dijk microstructure and content analyses to analyse occurrence, frequencies of Evidentiality, Hyperbole, Metaphor, Negative Lexicalisation, and Number Game. The study found that evidentiality was the most common strategy found in both newspapers. Another interesting point is that although hyperbolic language was used to a great extent in eastern media news, hyperbole was the least frequent strategy employed in western media news. In terms of similarities and differences, “all the news organizations were focused on the governments as they have mentioned the words “government,” state,” and “governor”. All the news organizations covered issues regarding the pandemic. On the other hand. BBC and CNN published news concerning their local issues but Al Jazeera was significant from the global perspective.