Further, the notion of global communication channels was not addressed, and I feel these are of extreme importance to a discussion on discourses. Text and talk can travel instantly across the globe, but the values and meanings of these discourses do not travel similarly. How are we to enact social change when we a) need to figure out both the legitimacy of the power dynamic, and the ways in which the power dynamic functions, and b) how this discourse proliferates across the globe, and whether we would be creating injustices by projecting locally valid assumptions onto the ways of addressing those involved in these international flows.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Critical Discourse Analysis
In the Dijk (1993) article, he discusses how the managing of the ‘mind of others is essentially a function of talk and text’. This presupposes an ontological statement regarding the legitimacy of the dominant group’s management over the masses. Groups may enact legitimate power over others, manipulating their minds in ways that are beneficial and necessary for the submissive group to function. Or, the dominant group may enact illegitimate power, manipulating and managing the group in a way that makes them entirely submissive and at the mercy of the dominant group. The function of a critical discourse analysis is to enact significant social change, Dijk even discusses that this metric is used to measure the success of a CDA project. But how are we to untangle what power or dominance is legitimate, and which are illegitimate? Also, how can we enact social change when we’re not sure of the function of the power relation?
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As with all cultural studies, critical discourse analysis, image analysis and the study of artifact are problematic because of the complex and ontological assumptions inherent in understanding human activity, belief and behaviour. Thomas reminds us that "it is a grand conceit of many social scientists and postmodern researchers to assume that [their methods are] a direct route to ...an individual's meaning-making-and-subsequent-application process for everyday life" (1994, p. 685). She cautions us not to confuse representations with reality! Content analysis is a study of representations; created by specific people, in specific relationships, at a specific point in history, for a specific purpose/agenda.
ReplyDeleteThe fascinating thing about this type of analysis is the remarkable connections that can be made after applying techniques of close reading, semiotics, rhetorical analysis, coherence, specificity, lexical style, and syntax. Examining epistemologies can reveal subtle but pervasive ideologies that reproduce social inequalities, dominance, and hegemonic systems that reproduce the conditions that privilege the status quo.
I'm sure that van Dijk is correct in his proposition that any domain where groups are differentiated and marginalized based on gender, class, caste, religion, language, political affiliation, geographic region or otherwise will bear out the same observations.