Bilingualism and social media : exploring the language practices of Maltese online news portals

Abstract

In the first chapter of the Constitution of Malta (1964), Maltese is recognised as the national language of Malta, whilst both Maltese and English are accorded the status of official languages. Having said this, Malta’s position as a bilingual country is one that is repeatedly scrutinised with the Maltese language’s position as the truly dominant language often becoming a source of heated debate (Sciriha and Vassallo 2015). While Maltese does seem to be the most spoken language (Sciriha and Vassallo, 2006), there have been factors which point towards a decline in Maltese (Vassallo and Sciriha, 2020). Furthermore, while there does seem to be a preference for Maltese as the spoken medium, English now seems to be preferred as the written medium (Fabri, 2015). In sight of this, one must also recognise the shift that has been made towards online communication, with social media and online news consumption now becoming part of daily routine (Yadamsuren and Erdelez, 2011), and so it becomes important to explore how the bilingual public uses its two official languages in the online domain. The main aim of this research is to demonstrate and discuss the language practices of Maltese online news portals, while also attempting to understand the stance that is taken by the Maltese public towards the ways by which the local news portals use language. A cursory look at local online news portals reveals that both official languages are present on local social media, though not to equal measure. The most followed news portals each seem to use English, either exclusively or together with Maltese, while Maltese-language news content is still published but to a lesser extent (especially by state-owned or party-owned news portals). The results in this research present the reasons for this prevalence of English in Malta’s online domain. The research follows a mixed-method approach; In-depth interviews with journalists and editors give insight as to how they produce content for their respective news portals, while a quantitative survey was also held to understand the general ideologies towards language use on these news portals from an audience perspective, with both sides of the research pointing towards English being the governing language on Malta’s online linguistic landscape. On top of that, audiences seem to prefer English for most types of content. As such, English is preferred for online content related to entertainment, current affairs, and sports. Maltese is, however, still preferred for all political content. This is likely to be a result of the political party media outlets which have firmly established themselves in Malta’s culture, both having their own Maltese-language television station, website, and online news portal. Moreover, the propaganda which is associated with Maltese-language media outlets might have led towards a stigma against Maltese-based journalism, an ideology which has perhaps contributed to the English language’s dominance across social media and online news portals. Although the idea is controversial in nature, English is often still considered as the more serious and credible language, and this language elitism is but another factor contributing to the majority of the public preferring English for all online content. In addition, news portals must also begin to recognise the call for bilingual online news portals. While having a bilingual online news portal certainly comes with its own set of challenges, it is clear that the Maltese public is demanding for online news portals to produce content in both Maltese and English. This research hopes to give an understanding of Malta’s de facto status of bilingualism in the online domain. This insight might help future online news portals shape their language policies according to the wants and needs of their audience, while also serving as a record of Malta’s current linguistic situation, especially important when considering the uphill battle that Maltese seems to be facing (Vassallo and Sciriha, 2020) in a future that increasingly looks like it will be linguistically hegemonized by English.