1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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”

7. 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

8. Analysis (linked to discourses)
What are the underlying categories?
“Male” versus “female”
What meanings are associated with these categories?:
“Male” = control/aggression
“Female” = flexibility/negotiate
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.

9. 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.

10. 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?

11. Psychological/psychoanalytic
Appeals to/creation of audience needs/desires
Use of images to attract attention
Fantasy engagement with characters’ and worlds
Mythic/archetypal images
Water = sexuality

12. Psychoanalytic Criticism
Audience desires/needs: love, success, status, power, affection, etc.
Fantasy needs: imaginary alternatives through identifying with “movie stars” or “celebrities”
Engagement with Reality TV characters’ need for power
Appeal of romance Dirty Dancing storyline: woman as nurturing force

13. Archetypal Images
Nature/growth/summer/pastoral (green) vs. death/destruction/winter/urban (dark)
Seasons of the year
Water as life/sexuality/renewal
Imagery in Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, etc.

14. Hero images: Gendered spaces
Heroes reflect notions of what is valued
Feminist power
Super Ellen: physical prowess
Tiger Woman
Scary Spice, Xena, Catwoman
Challenge male dominated spaces
Fang: adolescent sexuality
Parody of male power
The Toaster

19. 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.”

20. 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

21. 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”

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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 (NCLB)