Abstract:
The study aimed to explore how journalists construct news bulletins on
Ghanaian radio stations. Specifically, the study sought to examine the generic
structures of news bulletins and how journalists draw on other sources for the
writing of their texts. Four radio stations (Joy FM, Citi FM, Radio XYZ and
Radio Ghana) were selected. The total number of data set comprised 20
transcribed episodes of radio news bulletins from the four radio stations. The
analysis of the data set was done by drawing on Halliday and Hasan’s (1985)
Generic Structural Potential framework and Bazerman’s (2004) Intertextuality
framework. The study revealed three key findings. First, radio news from the
four stations analyzed is characterized by twelve rhetorical elements. Second,
journalists largely utilize explicit and implicit intertextual sources. Finally,
journalists predominantly used positive reporting verbs in their reportage to
indicate that they agree and support the information quoted. The findings of
this research have significant implication for the genre theory and pedagogy.
