Standard Critical Approaches

• Content Analysis• Semiotics• Ideological

Critique

• Discourse Analysis/Theory

Approach: Content Analysis

• Quantitative (counting!) technique measuring specific frequency of various occurrences

• Produces raw data

Approach: Semiotics

Sign = Signifier + Signified

Signifier = the word or speech sound (rain)

Signified = mental concept (the concept of water droplets falling from the sky)

Semiotics: Types of Signs

IconicIndexicalSymbolic

Semiotics: Levels of SignificationDenotation = Literal Meaning

(1st level of signification) -- that ring is literally compressed carbon encased in platinum.

Connotation = Cultural Meaning (2nd level of signification) – that ring represents love, engagement, commitment

Semiotics: Culture Bound

• Signs are arbitrary cultural contructions

• Myth = transformation of historical into natural

Approach: Ideological Critique

Ideology = a system of ideas and ideals

Ideological Critique looks at cultural power and is focused on how meaning maintains the social order

Ideological Critique: Marx

Social relationships are based on domination and injustice and these are seen as natural and inevitable by those who benefit least.

Ideological Critique: Gramsci

Hegemony = process through which a group is able to claim, through consent, leadership or power throughout a society – it is not domination.

Ideological Critique: Gramsci

Articulation = non-determinist approach (just because you’re in the military, doesn’t mean you’re politically conservative)

Discursive Phenomenon = ideology is fragmented and contradictory and in flux

Constructed Subjects = ideology creates new identities for us to occupy

Approach: Discourse Analysis

Discourse = all forms of talk and textsDiscourse analysis interested in texts themselves,

rather than seeing texts as a way of “getting at” some reality behind the discourse