Shadow Stabbing

I love to think about things from a critical lens. I often play devil’s advocate simply to bring more perspectives to a discussion or debate, even if I do not buy into the position I offer. Often in holding discourse in this way, I am able to sort out my personal feelings about any given topic. I find it incredibly fascinating in class discussions of any kind to hear the interpretation and analysis of my peers. Nearly always, a perspective is offered that I hadn’t previously considered and my own analysis is enriched or even changed by critically viewing the topic in another way. That is why I found chapter 4 so important—and challenging.

In all my school experiences, I have spent a lot of time analyzing text and media, but without considering the specific type of critical approach I was using—and also without ever being asked to use a specific critical approach. When I started reading chapter 4, I had a hard time getting familiar with what Beach was trying to say and how the different approaches would be used. My first reaction was dismissive, as if knowing all the different approaches was trivial. Analysis is analysis, right? Wrong. Media, literature, and texts of all kinds are multi-faceted and many layered, making them ripe for many different approaches to critical analysis. When students learn how to examine text or media from different angles and approaches, it has the potential to lead to a much richer appreciation and understanding of the media.

For this week’s assignment, I chose Poststructuralist and Critical Discourse to be my areas of expertise. Though the section on Poststructuralism was brief, I found it very important. In short, the idea of Poststructuralist analysis draws on the idea that binaries are often portrayed in text and media. To analyze media in a Poststructuralist way is to identify, define, and analyze the language categories that make the dichotomies present. In discussing this approach, Beach again discussed the Coors Light beer commercials, pointing to the male/female binary, which plays into stereotypes of gender behavior and interests. The virile, beer drinking males are juxtaposed with the voluptuous females, existing in the commercials for the pleasure and satisfaction of the males.

It is important for students to be aware of the either/or presentations frequently portrayed in text and media—good/evil, male/female, love/hate, peace/war, right/wrong, normal/abnormal, etc. By looking for these kinds of structures in text and media, students will be prepared to pick them apart and ask critical questions: How does the dichotomy present itself? What are some general associations or stereotypes associated with this binary in our culture? How are these associations used to play up the binary in this media? What perspectives are left out or ignored when employing such a binary? Is one part of the binary portrayed as better than the other?

The second approach I studied in-depth was Critical Discourse. Unlike the Poststructuralist approach, which focuses mostly on language and categories—and the limitations of binary categorizations—critical discourse delves more deeply into perspective-taking and how modes of thinking are formed. Beach neatly points out that discourses define perspectives based on the world in which one lives. An attorney’s point-of-view is shaped by their experiences and lenses, which could be very different from the ways of knowing held by a teacher, physician, or priest. In using critical discourse to analyze text, students must be able to determine the dominant culture and ways of knowing that influence or permeate the text—and their reading of it.

Last semester in one of my courses, we discussed at length the roles of white privilege and white culture in our schools. Initially, it was difficult because we were examining very closely systems, thought patterns, and behaviors that are so ingrained many in the class were not aware of them. It is very difficult to define your own culture. It is easier to define what is perceived to be the culture of another, because it is defined in terms of how it differs from your own culture. In the course, it was initially difficult to examine the institutional practices of American education because they are so ingrained that it is hard to imagine things being different—or wrong. It takes careful consideration of what is believed and practiced in order to identify oppressive practices.

Similarly, using critical discourse analysis seeks to define the discourse being used so that students may consider and analyze how it impacts the meaning or the reading of the text/media. Beach talks specifically about discourses of class and race, but there are others as well, such as religious and Western. Using the book’s website, I followed the link for 4.6.4 and found this: “ [Critical discourse analysis] is concerned with studying and analyzing written texts and spoken words to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality, and bias and how these sources are initiated, maintained, reproduced, and transformed within specific social, economic, political, and historical contexts (Van Dijk, 1988).� I find this especially helpful in getting to the core of critical discourse and how it can be used to analyze media and texts.

In the classroom, this approach to analyzing media could be very time-consuming, but I can also see that it could produce wonderful work, thoughtfulness, and growth in the students. The issues of class and race are very difficult to discuss because they often call to mind painful experiences or unpleasant thoughts about the establishment. In a classroom of high school students, I fear it could lead to tensions between students or a lot of misunderstandings if it is not handled carefully and thoughtfully by the teacher. That is, the process of analyzing through critical discourse often requires the reader/media consumer to first recognize their own discourse in order to identify their own ways of knowing that could be impacting their interpretation, followed by a viewing of the media from the perspective of the intended audience or from that of the creator of the media or text. The process of questioning and identifying discourse inherently raises a lot of questions, often about stereotypes or misunderstandings, which could cause problems in the classroom—especially in a classroom of mixed race, gender, class, and/or religion, wherein students may have questions about the discourses of others that could raise tensions.

I appreciate Beach’s examples of studying discourse, both for class and race, because they provide examples of existing media with clear weaknesses that are easily examined. In the first example, students analyze ads to determine the intended audience. The second example of critical discourse analysis, surrounding race, is taught through a viewing of the film Dangerous Minds. Students can examine the values placed on the teacher and the students and how those values ultimately become equated with race. Students relate to humor and another possible way to help students with the idea of critical discourse analysis would be to use satire or parody clips on race, class, religion, etc. MadTV has done a number of segments to this end, including scathing satires of films such as Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers’ Diary, and satirical commentary on race through mock episodes of “Survivor� wherein teams are divided by race. By using satire or parody, that which is being criticized is pointed out very clearly, so students may be able to more readily pick out bias and inequality than in a serious work. Starting with a satirical piece on race or class may be a good way to break into critical discourse analysis, followed by examination of non-humorous works.

I feel that the best way for students to appreciate the different kinds of critical approaches is to use them all! I think I would teach the approaches one at a time, starting with a description or overview of an approach, then offering a short demonstration or practice activity for each. Students may feel overwhelmed learning all eight approaches at once, so I may select a few approaches at a time that would best lend themselves to analysis of a class reading or media. For example, narrative analysis would probably not work well on the Coors Light commercials to which Beach so often refers, but Poststructuralist and Semiotic approaches likely would. The course text or media being studied would dictate the method of analysis I would teach students to employ.

(In case you missed it, there are 2 links in this post to MadTV videos on YouTube. Go back up and click on Dangerous Minds and Survivor.)