Master 2022/2023

Critical Text Analysis

Type: Compulsory course (Critical Media Studies)

Area of studies: Media Communications

Delivered by: Institute of Media

Where: Faculty of Creative Industries

When: 1 year, 2, 3 module

Mode of studies: offline

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Olga Baysha

Master’s programme: Критические медиаисследования

Language: English

ECTS credits: 6

Contact hours: 80

Course Syllabus

Abstract

“Critical Text Analysis” course is designed to provide students with an intensive exposure to the theory and practice of textual analysis as utilized in critical media studies. The course is located within the broader tradition of social constructivism, which postulates that any linguistic representation of material reality is not objective truth but a product of discursive categorizations, all of which are historically and culturally specific, and thus contingent. In the first part of the course (Module 2), students will be introduced to the basic techniques of text analysis by means of which researchers gather information and make an educated guess of how human beings make sense of the world. Students will learn that “text” is something we make meaning of and that different cultures make sense of the world in different ways. They will also discover that researchers engaged in textual analysis practice different methodologies, some of which are incompatible – both ontologically and epistemologically. Students will explore differences between three research paradigms – realist, structuralist, and post-structuralist – all of which may inform critical textual studies. During this introductory part of the course, students will learn the basics of framing analysis and the foundations of structuralist and post-structuralists perspectives, as represented in the works of Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes, and Michel Foucault. In the second part of the course (Module 3), students will be introduced to the basics of Discourse Theory (DT) developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. This theory considers discourses from macro-textual and macro-contextual perspectives. In contrast to many other theories of discourse whose focus is on linguistic analysis of micro-contextual situations, DT considers discursive formations at the ideological and societal levels. Originally developed in their volume Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (HSS), DT postulates that social reality is only possible on the condition of “discursivity,” where discourse is understood as a “social fabric” on which social actors occupy different positions. Articulated through both linguistic and non-linguistic elements, discourse appears as a real force that contributes to the formation and constitution of social relations. During this course, students will have an opportunity to trace the development of DT, starting from the seminal works of Michel Foucault (Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality) and finishing with the latest works by contemporary scholars such as Benjamin DeCleen, Jason Glynos, Sean Phelan, Nico Carpentier, etc. This is the final part of the bigger course “Critical Text Analysis,” in which students have been introduced to the intellectual history of critical text studies and acquainted with three dominant paradigms of analyzing texts: realist/essentialist, structuralist, and post-structuralist. Students have been assisted in learning how, drawing on different research traditions, to analyze complex social texts of globalized/post-modern contemporaneity. During this final part of the course, students will have a chance to apply theoretical knowledge, obtained through previous three modules, to the practical task of evaluating critically the academic texts of their peers. Through critical reviewing of their peers’ works, students will get a chance to suggest alternative perspectives that might help authors to look at their intellectual creations from unfamiliar points of view, to destabilize taken-for-granted assumptions, and broaden intellectual horizons.

Learning Objectives

• Part 1. To introduce students to the intellectual history of critical text studies.
• Part 1. To acquaint students with three dominant paradigms of analyzing texts: realist/essentialist, structuralist, and post-structuralist.
• Part 1. To familiarize students with various research methods informed by framing theory, discourse theory, and critical discourse studies.
• Part 1. To assist students in learning how, drawing on different research traditions, to analyze complex social texts of globalized/post-modern contemporaneity.
• Part 2. To introduce students to the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe (DT).
• Part 2. To familiarize students with Laclau’s theory of populism (TP) developed from DT.
• Part 2. To introduce students with Carpentier’s Discursive-Material Knot (DMK) developed from DT.
• Part 2. To assist students in learning how, drawing on DT, TP, and DMK, to analyze complex social texts of globalized/post-modern contemporaneity.
• Part 3. To introduce students to the analytical method of immanent critique.
• Part 3. To introduce students to the intellectual history of critical text studies
• Part 3. To assist students in learning how, using the analytical method of immanent critique, to review academic texts.
• Part 3. To acquaint students with three dominant paradigms of analyzing texts: realist, structuralist, and post-structuralist
• Part 3. To assist students in learning how, through critical reviews, to reveal internal inconsistencies and contradictions within academic texts.
• Part 3. To familiarize students with various research methods informed by framing theory, discourse theory, and critical discourse studies.
• Part 3. To assist students in learning how to help the authors, whose texts have been under review, to fix problems, excavated through the critical analysis of their discursive constructions.
• Part 3. To assist students in learning how, drawing on different research traditions, to analyze complex social texts of globalized/post-modern contemporaneity.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Assist other scholars/classmates in identifying internal inconsistencies and contradictions within their discursive constructions.
• Employ immanent critique for critical reviewing of academic texts.
• Help other scholars/classmates to fix logical problems of their texts.
• Identify and fix discrepancies in the logic of text organization.
• Understand the difference between immanent and transcendental critique.
• Understand the difference between three research paradigms informing critical textual studies: realist/essentialist, structuralist, and post-structuralist
• Employ the conceptual grammar of realist, structuralist, and post-structuralist theoretical approaches to critical textual studies
• Discuss argumentatively various approaches to critical textual studies
• Discuss argumentatively the difference between essentialism and social constructivism
• Use different research approaches to critically engage with textual sense-making
• Evaluate critically the advantages and disadvantages of different theoretical and methodological approaches informing critical text studies
• Employ DT for critical textual analysis.
• Employ TP for critical textual analysis.
• Employ DMK for critical textual analysis.
• Discuss argumentatively DT, TP, and DMK.
• Use different research approaches, informed by DT, TP, and DMK to critically engage with textual sense-making.
• Evaluate critically the advantages and disadvantages of applying the conceptual grammar of DT, TP, and DMK to contemporary media analysis.

Course Contents

• Part 1. Basic concepts: text, culture, hegemony, discourse, normalization
• Part 1. Essentialism/Fundamentalism vs. Structuralism vs. Poststructuralism. The discourse of modernity. Modernization theories. Eurocentrism. West-Centrism.
• Part 1. Structuralism: sign, myth, and frame.
• Part 1. From Structuralism to Poststructuralism. The postmodern condition.
• Part 1. Poststructuralism. Foucault’s Theory of Discourse.
• Part 1. Discourse Theory Today.
• Part 2. From Foucault to Laclau & Mouffe.
• Part 2. The foundations of DT.
• Part 2. DT: Practical Application.
• Part 2. DT and the Theory of Populism (TP).
• Part 2. TP: practical application.
• Part 2. Discursive-Material Knot (DMK).
• Part 2. DMK: Practical Implications.
• Part 3. Immanent critique as the core of critical theory.
• Part 3. Discourse analysis as immanent critique.
• Part 3. From transcendental to immanent critique.
• Part 3. Using immanent critique to guide a literature review.
• Part 3. Immanent critique and the politics of knowledge.
• Part 3. Immanent critique as a self-transformative practice.
• Part 3. An immanent critique of neoliberal capitalism.

Assessment Elements

• Weekly reaction papers
• Class presentation
• Final paper
• Class participation
• Weekly assignments
• Class attendance and participation
• Final paper
• Class participation
  Questions submitted online on each class reading and participation in class discussions.
• Class presentation
  Each student will have to make one presentation.
• Final paper

Interim Assessment

• 2022/2023 2nd module
  0.2 * Class attendance and participation + 0.3 * Final paper + 0.5 * Weekly assignments
• 2022/2023 3rd module
  0.35 * Class presentation + 0.3 * Final paper + 0.35 * Class participation
• 2023/2024 1st module
  0.2 * Final paper + 0.3 * Class participation + 0.2 * Class presentation + 0.3 * Weekly reaction papers

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Curtis, R. (2014). Foucault beyond Fairclough: From Transcendental to Immanent Critique in Organization Studies. Organization Studies, 35(12), 1753–1772. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840614546150
• Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and Punish : The Birth of the Prison (Vol. 2nd Vintage books ed). New York: Vintage. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=733102
• Herbert Marcuse. (2014). One-Dimensional Man : Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society: Vol. Unabridged. Beacon Press.
• Horkheimer, M. (1982). Critical Theory : Selected Essays. Continuum International Publishing Group.
• Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press Books. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=681874
• Louis Althusser. (2014). On the Reproduction of Capitalism : Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. [N.p.]: Verso. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1694954
• Said, E. W. (1979). Orientalism (Vol. First Vintage books edition). New York: Vintage. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=842875

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Baysha, O. (2018). Miscommunicating Social Change : Lessons From Russia and Ukraine. Lanham: Lexington Books. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1925444
• Entman, R. M. (2004). Projections of Power : Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=298799
• Foucault, M. (1990). The History of Sexuality : An Introduction. New York: Vintage. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=733101
• Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, & Gunzelin Schmid Noeri. (2002). Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford University Press.
• Pavón-Cuéllar, D. (2017). The Language of History and its Immanent Critique: From Lacanian Discourse Analysis to Marxist Revolutionary Practice. Annual Review of Critical Psychology 13 1-13. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.888173

Authors

• BAYSHA OLGA -