Term 2 - 2020/2021
Qualitative Methods in Media &
Communication (CM2006)
WEEK 8
Reading 1 Discourse Analysis
- Discourse: a particular way of talking about a topic
- Most difficult method
- Methods Potential
- It offers one of the most comprehensive approaches to meaning-making, enabling
researchers to capture a text’s multiple contexts and, in this way, to connect
understanding to the larger social structures.
- For instance, an influential way of talking about higher education today is by using an
economic language: a degree is presented as a means of getting ready for the job
market; faculty members are assessed in terms of output; knowledge and learning
become valuable only to the extent that they can be applied to a problem or a job, etc.
- Toolbox for Discourse Analysis
- “project certain social values and ideas and in turn contribute to the (re)production of
social life” (Hansen & Machin)
- “a group of ideas or patterned way of thinking which can be both identified in textual
and verbal communication and located in wider social structures” (Lupton)
- “discourse is a system of relations between terms and statements thatconstitutetheir
object” (Foucault)
- What we seldom question is how such a discoursesilencesother understandings of
higher education: for instance, not as a preparation for the job market, but as a
preparation for becoming an intellectual, a citizen, a critical thinker, etc.
- Such an analysis requires that you havein-depth knowledgeof the topic under
investigation – including its history, its current developments, etc
When and Why you Should Conduct Discourse
Analysis?
- Useful?
- To question social order
Laura Sehnem
, Term 2 - 2020/2021
- Deconstructing prevailing social categories
- How does DA work?
- Ideas are explicitly formulated in a text and others are left out
- Reveals the consequences of leaving things out of a text
- Identify and explore taken for granted narratives
Reading 2 on Discourse Analysis
- Practical Recommendations
- Layers to Analyse
- The semantic layer (the meaning of words, phrases, etc. but also the use of figures of
speech such as metaphors or personifications)
- The syntactic layer (the structure of phrases and sentences); the argumentative layer
(the arguments or the logic underpinning the text)
- Performative layer (what is being done by saying something – for instance, claiming
expertise, providing an excuse, etc.)
- Questions Guiding DA
• What assumptions (about the world, about people) underpin what is being said?
• What terms or stories are used to construct meaning?
• How does the speaker/ author perform a particular identity in the text?
• How is the topic proposed, rejected, qualified, ascribed, or displayed?
• What is emphasized as relevant (and what do you think is ignored, silenced)?
• How is a position legitimized? And what distribution of (social) power is implied/ taken
for granted in this position?
- One common charge against DA is that the process of analysis is often a black box: that is,
the reader cannot truly follow how the researcher moved from the data to the findings
- Alleviating the Charge
- the methodological section should contain a transparent protocol for analysis that
explains which aspects of a text will the researcher consider and record while reading
the texts.
- detailed exemplification of this process in the actual data analysis section of the report
- A good DA provides not only quotes that support the main findings or arguments, but
also those that contradict or challenge them.
Laura Sehnem
Qualitative Methods in Media &
Communication (CM2006)
WEEK 8
Reading 1 Discourse Analysis
- Discourse: a particular way of talking about a topic
- Most difficult method
- Methods Potential
- It offers one of the most comprehensive approaches to meaning-making, enabling
researchers to capture a text’s multiple contexts and, in this way, to connect
understanding to the larger social structures.
- For instance, an influential way of talking about higher education today is by using an
economic language: a degree is presented as a means of getting ready for the job
market; faculty members are assessed in terms of output; knowledge and learning
become valuable only to the extent that they can be applied to a problem or a job, etc.
- Toolbox for Discourse Analysis
- “project certain social values and ideas and in turn contribute to the (re)production of
social life” (Hansen & Machin)
- “a group of ideas or patterned way of thinking which can be both identified in textual
and verbal communication and located in wider social structures” (Lupton)
- “discourse is a system of relations between terms and statements thatconstitutetheir
object” (Foucault)
- What we seldom question is how such a discoursesilencesother understandings of
higher education: for instance, not as a preparation for the job market, but as a
preparation for becoming an intellectual, a citizen, a critical thinker, etc.
- Such an analysis requires that you havein-depth knowledgeof the topic under
investigation – including its history, its current developments, etc
When and Why you Should Conduct Discourse
Analysis?
- Useful?
- To question social order
Laura Sehnem
, Term 2 - 2020/2021
- Deconstructing prevailing social categories
- How does DA work?
- Ideas are explicitly formulated in a text and others are left out
- Reveals the consequences of leaving things out of a text
- Identify and explore taken for granted narratives
Reading 2 on Discourse Analysis
- Practical Recommendations
- Layers to Analyse
- The semantic layer (the meaning of words, phrases, etc. but also the use of figures of
speech such as metaphors or personifications)
- The syntactic layer (the structure of phrases and sentences); the argumentative layer
(the arguments or the logic underpinning the text)
- Performative layer (what is being done by saying something – for instance, claiming
expertise, providing an excuse, etc.)
- Questions Guiding DA
• What assumptions (about the world, about people) underpin what is being said?
• What terms or stories are used to construct meaning?
• How does the speaker/ author perform a particular identity in the text?
• How is the topic proposed, rejected, qualified, ascribed, or displayed?
• What is emphasized as relevant (and what do you think is ignored, silenced)?
• How is a position legitimized? And what distribution of (social) power is implied/ taken
for granted in this position?
- One common charge against DA is that the process of analysis is often a black box: that is,
the reader cannot truly follow how the researcher moved from the data to the findings
- Alleviating the Charge
- the methodological section should contain a transparent protocol for analysis that
explains which aspects of a text will the researcher consider and record while reading
the texts.
- detailed exemplification of this process in the actual data analysis section of the report
- A good DA provides not only quotes that support the main findings or arguments, but
also those that contradict or challenge them.
Laura Sehnem
