Discourse in social change
Ideology is the prime
means of manufacturing
consent (Fairclough 2001)
Text is ideologically creative
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Individual
Commonsensical
Related to one’s position in society
Develop knowledge about ourselves
(technologies of the self)
Discourse and social struggle
• Physical struggle (revolution, war,
demonstrations, protests, elections)
• Ideological struggle in language
• Ideological power (having power to
legitimize and to naturalize)
Discourse types
• Ideologically particular or ideologically
variable (one position or another)
• Determined by different economic and
political realities (elite and dominant block)
• Naturalization and universality of
discourses (sustaining power in social
institutions)
Alternative discourses
• Conscious (against dominant discourse)
• Oppositional (resistance)
• Marginal to political and economic
dominance
Presentation of experiential
values through words
• Coded in vocabulary
• Significance of ideology in words
(subversive, democratic forces, etc)
• Example of the Contra war in Nicaragua:
freedom fighters or murderers
Relations between words in
discourse
• Ideologically contested
• Meaning depending on the discourse
• Depending on the relation of some words
with others (Evil Empire)
Contemporary capitalism is
characterized by a degree of
colonization of peoples’ lives by
systems such as the economy and
state institutions in which
discourse is the most important
tool
Two ways of colonization of
people’s lives
• Consumerism(economy and commodity
markets)
• Institutional control (bureaucracy, social
order)
Social tendencies
• Imposed by the dominant block
• They change according to the change of
these tendencies
• Discourse of consumerism: re-structuring of
other discourse types
• Strategic discourse
The dimensions of ideological
work in advertising
• 1) The relationship advertising discourse construct
between the producer/advertiser and the consumer
• 2) The way advertising discourse builds an
imagine
for the product (predicated on the ideology
(freedom, richness, efficiency, etc)
• 3) The way it constructs subject positions
for consumers
Cultural capitalism
• The process of industrialization and
urbanization that has destroyed traditional
cultural ties:
Traditional ties (extended families, religion
or ethnic community) are replaced (ties of class)
How do advertising construct
consumption communities?
It does it indirectly
• Through ideology
• Superficial view of the relationship between
truth and fiction
• Commons sense assumptions
Works ideologically through
• Building relations
• Building images
• Building the consumer
Discussion question
• Give me an example of a common sense
assumption in a power relationship. How
can this common sense assumption
contribute to sustaining unequal power
relations?