Individual Reflection
Art, Culture and Society (MC2V19002)
Name: Pim
Student ID number: …
E-mailadres: …
Date: November 1st, 2024
Tutor: Maartje …
Wordcount: 996
Page numbers: 5
In our research, through a comprehensive discourse analysis, we have observed a
diverse variety of sources– documentaries, academic articles, historic reports, and course
literature– that were relevant to our research and ultimately supported our analysis. The path
towards our collective final result can be ascribed to development on both individual and
collective levels. This individual reflection will address my personal growth, collaborative
contributions to academic and personal learning, evolved perspectives on the concepts of art,
culture, and society, and critically evaluate a cultural experience related to the course by
positioning it within the framework of different concepts and theories.
Reflecting on my personal growth, the previous few weeks of following the Art,
Culture, and Society course in relation to the collaborative research in the form of
establishing a full comprehensive discourse analysis have significantly influenced my
perspective on the concept of art, culture, and society. This implies that I have been able to
look beyond the physicality of art, culture, or societal subjects and instead consider them in
relation to, for example, certain forms of power or oppression, or the message being
1
, conveyed. In relation to the three different layers of discourses– the policy, public, and
professional discourse– in which we have laid a specific focus in the group paper, it has also
supported me greatly in the meaning-making process of a social phenomenon. It became
clearer how to understand the world by encountering different dynamics of a particular
process, including the causes and consequences. These three discourses share the idea that
our experience of the world around us is partly constructed by social processes that depend
on the society in which we live; social constructivism (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002).
Collaboration with other people has contributed to my academic and personal learning
in various ways. Initially, our group consisted of two Media and Culture students and two
Cultural Anthropology students. This has produced fundamentally diverse academic insights
throughout both studies, resulting in a multidisciplinary focus on our topic as well as the
relevant course and found literature. On a personal level, we were able to review, improve,
and support one another’s judgments and perspectives on the different theories that were
applied in our case study. Moreover, working together with others has made it possible to
complete more work in less time, although this has come with a cost: the various components
that each person focused on required some additional effort to overlay them with one another.
The cultural experience I have chosen for the following part of this individual
reflection is my visit to the Dom Tower last month. It goes without saying that this was
highly applicable to our comprehensive discourse analysis of the Dom Tower’s contemporary
restoration. Normally, I would classify visiting a building like the Dom Tower as a type of
standard local tourism where visitors have to pay money in order to have such an experience.
In retrospect, I feel differently about my visit now. By placing this experience within the
context of ideas and theories from the course, this can be linked to the theory of week 1:
“Discourse and discursive acts,” in relation to the article “Discourse Analysis as Theory and
Method." by Marianne Jørgensen and Louise J. Philips (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002). The
2
Art, Culture and Society (MC2V19002)
Name: Pim
Student ID number: …
E-mailadres: …
Date: November 1st, 2024
Tutor: Maartje …
Wordcount: 996
Page numbers: 5
In our research, through a comprehensive discourse analysis, we have observed a
diverse variety of sources– documentaries, academic articles, historic reports, and course
literature– that were relevant to our research and ultimately supported our analysis. The path
towards our collective final result can be ascribed to development on both individual and
collective levels. This individual reflection will address my personal growth, collaborative
contributions to academic and personal learning, evolved perspectives on the concepts of art,
culture, and society, and critically evaluate a cultural experience related to the course by
positioning it within the framework of different concepts and theories.
Reflecting on my personal growth, the previous few weeks of following the Art,
Culture, and Society course in relation to the collaborative research in the form of
establishing a full comprehensive discourse analysis have significantly influenced my
perspective on the concept of art, culture, and society. This implies that I have been able to
look beyond the physicality of art, culture, or societal subjects and instead consider them in
relation to, for example, certain forms of power or oppression, or the message being
1
, conveyed. In relation to the three different layers of discourses– the policy, public, and
professional discourse– in which we have laid a specific focus in the group paper, it has also
supported me greatly in the meaning-making process of a social phenomenon. It became
clearer how to understand the world by encountering different dynamics of a particular
process, including the causes and consequences. These three discourses share the idea that
our experience of the world around us is partly constructed by social processes that depend
on the society in which we live; social constructivism (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002).
Collaboration with other people has contributed to my academic and personal learning
in various ways. Initially, our group consisted of two Media and Culture students and two
Cultural Anthropology students. This has produced fundamentally diverse academic insights
throughout both studies, resulting in a multidisciplinary focus on our topic as well as the
relevant course and found literature. On a personal level, we were able to review, improve,
and support one another’s judgments and perspectives on the different theories that were
applied in our case study. Moreover, working together with others has made it possible to
complete more work in less time, although this has come with a cost: the various components
that each person focused on required some additional effort to overlay them with one another.
The cultural experience I have chosen for the following part of this individual
reflection is my visit to the Dom Tower last month. It goes without saying that this was
highly applicable to our comprehensive discourse analysis of the Dom Tower’s contemporary
restoration. Normally, I would classify visiting a building like the Dom Tower as a type of
standard local tourism where visitors have to pay money in order to have such an experience.
In retrospect, I feel differently about my visit now. By placing this experience within the
context of ideas and theories from the course, this can be linked to the theory of week 1:
“Discourse and discursive acts,” in relation to the article “Discourse Analysis as Theory and
Method." by Marianne Jørgensen and Louise J. Philips (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002). The
2
