CHENYUE ZHANG
From the perspective of constructivism, culture facts are socially constructed and social categories, knowledges as well as relations are shaped by discourse. According to Foucault (1972), discourse is the way language shape and reproduce specific fields of knowledge and practice. It is important for students who study media and cultural studies to doing discourse analysis critically which is a kind of methodologies of research and explore how forms of discourse help to produce social meaning. Besides, to understand social research methodology is helpful to know how knowledge and power is shaped and reproduced. This blog is a reflection after reading this week’s reading of discourse analysis and practicing discourse analysis.
As Tonkiss (2004) mentioned in the article, there are four steps to do discourse analysis that the process tends to be ‘data-driven’: defining the research problem; selecting and approaching data; sorting, cording and analyzing data; presenting the analysis. However, during the process we analyze discourse of the press, continuously excavating and discovering the content of the text, exploring different interpretations of meaning and the power of ideology hidden in the text, I find it difficult to clarify the reflectivity of the analysis. The two main tasks of social science research are formalization and interpretation. Then it is hard for us to maintain relative objectivity during these two processes, so standpoints that we point out are demanding strong reflexivity. Concerning this situation, the researcher’s aim may be not neutrality, but reflectivity. For instance, we studied the BBC’s news about whether Muslims wear masks in the class. Did we draw the conclusions because we had known the multiple culture supported by the UK, or we got the conclusion of discourse analysis after reading the news? Discourse analysts open up declarative sentences to challenge and question the meanings that are taken for granted. Therefore, the author also mentioned that researchers should ensure their data interpretation, and pay attention to the validity of discourse analysis, writing as well as reflexive issues.
Furthermore, in the two readings of week 1, one article introduces discourse analysis and methods of the analysis as well as the other one provided a specific case study. There are many difficulties in the practice of specific discourse analysis. It is challenging that researchers are expected to select relevant and manageable data, considering the richness and availability of the content. In addition, it is difficult to jump out of the utopian world built by the power elite or the fantasy created by news in a proper way.
To sum up, the course of discourse analysis provides us different dimensions to study the text in all communication. Although the steps of the research method are provided, I still face many difficulties in the actual discourse analysis. We need to look at discourse analysis with dialectical thinking.
Reference:
Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge (AMS Smith, Trans.). New York: Pantheon.
Tonkiss, Fran. 2004. “Discourse Analysis.” In Researching Society and Culture, ed by. Clive Seale, 405–423. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Philo, Greg, Emma Briant, and Pauline Donald. 2013. “Case Studies of Media Content, 2011.” In Bad News for Refugees, 87–130. London: Pluto Press.
MCS group 2 