key concepts and critical approaches
TRANSCRIPT
Key concepts and critical approaches
Last Years Key Concepts
• Representation • The process by which signifying practices stand in for or depict an
object or practice in the ‘real world’
• Power • A process of social control. Knowledge is power and it is not neutral.
The creation of influence usually used for gain
• Value • An individuals or societies ideas about what is good, right, fair and
just. Values are presumed to form a common good though do conflict. Is What then is our value?
• Identity• A coming together of meanings from both outside and internal
sources to create ideas people have about who they are
This Years Key Concepts
• Ideology • A collection of concepts, ideas and values
reflecting what is important to a particular group at a given time. Ideology as a structure
• Mode of Address • ‘who does the text think I am?’ How we are
addressed or positioned by texts. How a text may help form us on ideological lines
• Discourse • A type of language, or sentence. Like an
ideology it constructs reality
This Years Key Concepts
• Narrative • The way in which meaning is structured in stories What
is the role of narrative in culture? How does it define us? Ideologically we desire narratives
• Technology• Not as objects but exploring technological aspects and
effects on society. I.e. A means by which messages are conveyed Technological determinism
• The focus now shifts slightly from the personal to the cultural
Critical Approaches
• Market Liberalism How free economic markets in conjunction with democracy and personal freedom provide the best political model for well-being and prosperity
Critical Approaches
• Critical Social Theory Ideas such as Marxism and Hegemony which are based on economic and class inequalities put in place to keep the dominant social order
Critical Approaches
• Feminism Arguments of inequalities based on gender differences including the mis/representation of women in the media
Critical Approaches
• Post Modernism The idea that our world has evolved beyond Modernism to a space where nothing is new or even real anymore and economies are based on information and images as opposed to things
Critical Approaches
• Post Colonialism Arguments stating inequalities based on race and ethnicity and understood to be a cultural legacy of colonialism.