ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to address this methodological deficit by drawing on Fairclough's analytical framework of critical discourse analysis (CDA), to go beyond the identification of the framing and agenda-setting patterns of the dominant issue of national interest and to critically deconstruct it as a social problem of political economic communication. The reporting of the 2007 EU Africa Lisbon summit by the mainstream media offers a very illuminating case of the crisis of the political economy of journalism and global capitalism. When business journalists are complicit with the deliberate manipulation of public opinion to serve political and business interests at the expense of the public interest they become active players in creating and fostering the crisis of global capitalism. The chapter makes the argument that genres, styles and discourses of difference, represented as public interest communication of public business journalism, have the potential to address the obstacles of political economy of the media, professional and ideological structures, and audience pressure.
