1. Standard Critical Approaches
Content Analysis
Semiotics
Ideological Critique
Discourse Analysis/Theory

2. Approach: Content Analysis
Quantitative (counting!) technique measuring specific frequency of various occurrences
Produces raw data

3. Approach: Semiotics Sign = Signifier + Signified
Signifier = the word or speech sound (rain)
Signified = mental concept (the concept of water droplets falling from the sky)

4. Semiotics: Types of Signs
Iconic Indexical Symbolic

5. Semiotics: Levels of Signification
Denotation = 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

6. Semiotics: Culture Bound
Signs are arbitrary cultural contructions
Myth = transformation of historical into natural

7. 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

8. Ideological Critique: Marx
Social relationships are based on domination and injustice and these are seen as natural and inevitable by those who benefit least.

9. 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.

10. 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

11. Approach: Discourse Analysis
Discourse = all forms of talk and texts Discourse analysis interested in texts themselves, rather than seeing texts as a way of “getting at” some reality behind the discourse