Apply two different critical lenses to a media text Feminist Marxist: class difference Poststructualist/deconstruction Reader-response/rhetorical Psychological/psychoanalytic/archetyp al Post-colonial Critical race theory Critical discourse analysis
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Apply two different critical lenses to a media text Feminist Marxist: class difference Poststructualist/deconstruction Reader-response/rhetorical Psychological/psychoanalytic/archetypal.
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Apply two different critical lenses to a media text Feminist Marxist: class difference Poststructualist/deconstruction Reader-response/rhetorical Psychological/psychoanalytic/archetypal Post-colonial Critical race theory Critical discourse analysis
Marxist: Discourse of class Focus on power and social/class hierarchy
Use of the “social ladder” chart Economic factors shaping characters
Ideological positioning of readers/audiences Advertising as indoctrination of consumerism
Discourse of class: “Up” series/PBS: “People Like Us” Upper middle class: focus on achievement consistent
with institutional norms Judgmental about people who deviate from
expectations or “don’t seem to care” Working class: focus on interpersonal relationships
and a sense of fairness/equity http://www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/
Cultural Capital Styles/manner/ways of expressing oneself Preferences/ways of valuing Cultural knowledge Familiarity/use of cultural “texts”
Literature, art, film, etc. Academic credentials
Feminist: Gender as Culturally Constructed Problems with binary categories based
on biological sex Study of historical/cultural aspects of
gender construction Wearing of lace as a masculine marker Matriarchy in Chinese myths
Gay/lesbian studies
Discourse of Femininity Media construction of identity Beauty work: sense of inadequacy Membership in imaginary communities
of consumption “synthetic personalization”
Mass audience treated as an individual “you” “synthetic sisterhood”
Postructuralist/Postmodern Challenge to structuralist/formalist notions
of language as a “prison-house” Language meaning a social construction Language categories are “slippery”/need to
be contested and challenged Language oppositions: “good” vs. “evil” Narratives as cultural constructions
shaping/limiting perspectives
Analysis (linked to discourses) What are the underlying categories?
“Male” versus “female” What meanings are associated with these
What are the “master narratives” and how do the shape people/characters? Growing up to be “successful”: anyone one in
America can “make it” if they work hard.
Reader-response/rhetorical How audiences are positioned to
respond in certain ways by ads or films versus how they actually respond.
How texts seek to gain audience identification to a brand, idea, cause, etc., through uses of images and equations—equating having fun at a party and drinking Miller Lite.
Reader response/rhetorical Experiences/engagement with the text Construction of audience
Identification/empathy with characters How am I being positioned by the text?
What techniques/camera shots are used to position me?
Psychological/psychoanalytic Appeals to/creation of audience
needs/desires Use of images to attract attention Fantasy engagement with characters’
Students: create comics/ animation Analyze narrative development
What is the problem/threat? (Fang: as “evil”; crime; global warming; health care system)
Who will solve the problem? (hero = good) How will these solve the problem? (brute
force, “science,” universal health care) What are the underlying assumptions:
“force is the answer to solving crime.”
Postcolonial How media texts portray former
colonialist people as “other” or in negative ways.
“Orientalism” (Said): Mideastern or Asian people perceived as suspicious, deviant, mysterious in Hollywood movies
Critical Race Theory: Institutionalize racism Placement of people in social categories
Attaching meaning to groups Creation of hierarchies
Top group--economic, social, political power Conflict: maintain vs. challenge hierarchy Application of racial ideology to explain and
justify hierarchy “Blacks as lacking motivation to work”
Racial Ideologies as “Interpretive Repertoires” Common frames
Fear of the other; Token inclusionism “Racetalk”
Avoid being seen as “racist”/Archer Bunker Categorizing: whiteness as normalizing
“White lives” isolated in schools/suburbs/peer group
Whites as “racial tourists”-- “others defined by what whiteness is not”
Racism and Local TV News
Critical Discourse Analysis Discourses: ways of knowing/thinking; serves to
limit/restrain ways of talking Foucault: “madness”/hysteria Rules for talking/defining knowledge Subjects--represent discourse “mad” people Social practices for dealing with people
Schools: Mediated by a discourse of “manageralism” Distanced, technocratic stances “which disallows the speaking
of concern, of welfare, of collective experience” (Fairclough, 2003)
Teachers as needing to be “accountable” “pay for performance”: test “outcomes” Emphasizes productivity, efficiency, and performance, Disallows teachers from expressing alternative voices or
perspectives Statistical measures as objective representations of learning