Beware of the Stereotype: Categories, Generalizations and Clichés in Journalistic Language and Journalism Practice

Building on its longstanding engagement with journalism theory and practice, the Brussels Institute for Journalism Studies (BIJU) launches its sixth international conference, devoted to the study of categories, generalizations and clichés in journalistic language and journalism practice. The conference is explicitly multidisciplinary and welcomes contributors from, among others, communication and media studies, discourse and conversation analysis, (cognitive) linguistics, corpus linguistics, translation studies, epistemology, social psychology, and the political and social sciences to share their insights with us on the way stereotypical representations, generalizations, and clichés occur in journalistic language and practice, and on how they are reproduced.

For a linguistic approach of categorization and generalization, the use of generic language will be worth examining. From a linguistic perspective, categorization and generalization are fundamental to meaning making. Generic language enables speakers and writers to refer to categories, formulate general claims and abstract from individual cases. This naturally entails the risk of overgeneralization and stereotyping, or drawing inferences based on overly limited observation, experience or evidence.

This conference aims to critically examine how journalistic language contributes to the formation, circulation and contestation of stereotypes and overgeneralizations, as well as how such processes shape journalistic knowledge production and public discourse.

Stereotypical or biased language in journalism, in connection with gender, religion, nationality, the generic use of pronouns like you and we, the way presuppositions and inferences are conveyed, these are just a few examples of what a linguistic approach to the topic of our conference can focus on.

We welcome submissions from all relevant disciplinary backgrounds approaching the central theme of ‘stereotypes in the news’ from a conceptual, empirical or methodological perspective; using quantitative and qualitative methods, or a mixed-methods design; and looking into journalism practices, products, or audiences. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• Generic language use in journalism
• Presuppositions and inferences in journalistic language
• The linguistic expression of stereotypes and generalizations in journalism
• Possible stereotyping effects of LLMs on language use
• Stereotypes in relation to epistemology and journalistic truth claims
• Critical approaches to stereotyping, disinformation and social or epistemic justice
• Standardization, professional routines, and efficiency as drivers of stereotyping
• Stereotyping in digital news environments characterized by speed, automation, artificial intelligence, and algorithmic curation
• (Visual and multimodal) stereotyping in coverage of gender, race/ethnicity, nationality, culture, and class
• The effect of stereotyping on audience attitudes (perceptions of social groups, reinforcing prejudice) Resonance, identification, and resistance among news audiences
• Stereotypes within newsroom cultures and professional environments (homogeneity of staff and (epistemic) blind spots, diversity policies and inclusive storytelling)
• Stereotypes about journalism and their impact on trust, legitimacy, and democratic engagement