"This article examines the discourse surrounding Kibera, a highly populated low-income community in Nairobi, Kenya. Based on 11 months of fieldwork and interviews with 56 Kibera residents, this article discusses the disconnect between the lives experienced by residents and the hyperbolic and essenti
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alised discourse that depicts Kibera as a community defined by sickness, crime and despair. While residents do not deny many of the hardships that are central to the Kibera discourse, they articulate maisha mtaani [life in the neighbourhood] as complex, diverse and contextual. Sadly, several groups that claim to serve the good of Kibera are partially responsible for perpetuating this harmful discourse. In fact, some NGOs, journalists and residents benefit from reproducing a discourse that actively marginalises Kibera and its people." (Abstract)
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"The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis covers the major approaches to Discourse Analysis from Critical Discourse Analysis to Multimodal Discourse Analysis and their applications in key educational and institutional settings. The handbook is divided into six sections: Approaches to Discourse A
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nalysis, Register and Genre, Developments in Spoken Discourse, Educational Applications, Institutional Applications and Identity, Culture and Discourse. The chapters are written by a wide range of contributors from around the world, each a leading researcher in their respective field. All chapters have been closely edited by James Paul Gee and Michael Handford. With a focus on the application of Discourse Analysis to real-life problems, the contributors introduce the reader to a topic, and analyse authentic data." (Publisher description)
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"This collection of seventeen contributions provides a small but significant window into some of the themes that, in our view, will define research on narrative in the coming years. Some of these themes have already started taking center stage— for example, the diversification of methodological to
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ols, concepts, and contexts in the study of identities in narratives. Others are relatively new, such as the investigation of how mediated communication has changed storytelling practices and our conception of narrative. Yet other questions were already central to narrative research but have taken new directions—for instance, the study of how narratives participate in the construction of the moral order, and the different roles that truth and deception play in varying social practices. What emerges from the chapters in this book is a common emphasis on contexts and practices, a close attention to differences rather than an assumption of homogeneity. These elements confirm a welcome opening up of the field to the realities of postmodern societies." (Introduction, page 5-6)
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"Media Talk" provides an accessible introduction to the analysis of the spoken word by examining linguistic and discursive aspects of broadcast media. Beginning with the observation that talk is central to all genres of radio and television, Ian Hutchby examines the forms of speech used by broadcast
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ers as their primary means of communicating with audiences. He looks at a range of media forms and genres, including televised audience debates, confrontational TV talk shows such as "Oprah Winfrey" and "Ricki Lake", open-line talk radio shows, advice-giving broadcasts, news interviews and political panel discussions. Hutchby argues that the study of talk provides insights into the very nature of mass communication, and invites the reader into further consideration of a range of important issues, such as the relationship between broadcasters and audiences, and the public role of media output. The book not only describes the role of media talk but also provides detailed examples of analytical tools." (Publisher description)
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"News stories provide an essential confirmation of our ideas about who we are, what we have to fear, and what to do about it: a marketplace of ideas, shopped by rational citizen decision makers but also a shared resource for grounding our contested narratives of identity in objective reality. News a
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s a fundamental social process comes into being not when an event takes place or when a report of the event is created but when that report becomes news to someone. As it moves off the page into the community, news discovers - through its interpretations - its reality in the lives of the consumers. This book explores the path of news as it moves through the tangled labyrinth of social identities and asserted interests that lie beyond the page or screen. The language and communication-oriented study of news promises a salient area of investigation, pointing the way to an expansion, if not a redefinition of basic anthropological ideas and practices of ethnography, participant observation, and “the field” in the future of anthropological research." (Publisher description)
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"Drawing on socio-political-linguistic approaches combined with real-case studies, the author offers a unique discourse analysis model for analysing politically sensitive language in the media. The focus in this study is on the Arab media discourse in times of conflict with Israel and the US, spanni
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ng the years 2001 to 2009. Using rich examples from outspoken Arab media outlets, the study explores ideological and language facts about the Arab-Israeli conflict." (Publisher description)
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"Topics covered include the ongoing linguistic processes, controversies, and implications of language modernization; the functions of South Asian languages within the legal system, media, cinema, and religion; language conflicts and politics, and Sanskrit and its long traditions of study and teachin
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g. Language in South Asia is an accessible interdisciplinary book for students and scholars in sociolinguistics, multilingualism, language planning and South Asian studies." (Publisher description)
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"Within media and cultural studies, the study of media texts is dominated by an exclusive focus on representation. This book adds long overdue attention to social interaction. The book is divided into two sections. The first outlines key theoretical issues and concepts, including informalisation, ge
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nre hybridisation, positioning, dialogism and discourse. The second is a sustained interrogation of social interaction in and around media. Re-examining issues of representation and interaction, it critically assesses work on the para-social and broadcast sociability, then explores distinct sites of interaction: production communities, audience communities and 'interactivity' with audiences." (Publisher description)
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"This book is an introduction to reading visual culture. It explains which methods are available to the undergraduate student and shows exactly how to use them. The book begins with a discussion of general themes and recent debates, on the meaning of culture and the function of the visual, that offe
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rs a critical inquiry into the relation of visual images to social identities and social relations. Gillian Rose then goes on to investigate in detail the different methods for interpreting visual images. The strengths and weaknesses of each method are discussed in relation to a detailed case study, as well as to the more general issues outlined in the introduction. These methods include: compositional interpretation, content analysis, semiology, psychoanalysis, discourse analysis, audience analysis." (Publisher description)
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"Featuring a wide range of exercises, examples, and images, this textbook provides a practical way of analyzing the discourses of the global media industries. Building on a comprehensive introduction to the history and theory of global media communication, specific case studies of lifestyle and ente
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rtainment media are explored with examples from films, global women's magazines, Vietnamese news reporting and computer war games. Finally, this book investigates how global media communication is produced, looking at the formats, languages and images used in creating media materials, both globally and in localized forms." (Publisher description)
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"In transitional societies where political pressure on the press is coupled with a commercial media system and a professional journalistic culture, the politics of self-censorship is likely to involve a strategic contest between the media and political actors. Language plays a significant role in th
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is contest. The present study focuses on the case of Hong Kong. It analyzes how two local newspapers, facing an important yet sensitive political issue, constructed two different overall storylines and used two different sets of discursive strategies in their editorials to handle political pressure, market credibility, and journalistic integrity simultaneously. The elite-oriented Ming Pao constructed a storyline of the debate as a factional struggle in order to posit itself as an impartial arbitrator. This approach was further sustained and justified by the discursive strategies of balanced and qualified criticisms and the rhetoric of rational discussion. The mass-oriented Apple Daily, on the other hand, constructed a storyline of a sovereign people whose rights are encroached upon by a powerful entity. The paper was therefore much more critical towards the power center. Nevertheless, it also appropriated the dominant discourse, constructed internal contradictions, and decentralized the Chinese central government to smooth out the radicalism of its criticisms." (Abstract)
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"L'Analyse du discours est une nouvelle discipline apparue dans les années soixante, et qui se trouve aujourd'hui au cœur de l'ensemble des sciences humaines et sociales. Son objet, le «discours», n'est rien d'autre que le langage lui-même, considéré comme activité en contexte, construisant
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du sens et du lien social. Cette discipline carrefour s'est imposée progressivement. Et d'abord aux chercheurs qui rencontrent le langage sous ses divers aspects : comme phénomène interactif de communication et d'influence, de production et de maintien des systèmes de croyance, de construction de la personnalité, etc. Mais elle s'est imposée aussi aux professionnels qui étudient comment manier le langage à des fins d'information, de persuasion ou de séduction. Enfin l'analyse du discours est devenue indispensable aujourd'hui aux formateurs travaillant en didactique de la langue, maternelle ou étrangère, et qui élaborent des méthodes d'analyse grammaticale ou textuelle, comme aux enseignants de toutes disciplines à qui elle permet de renouveler les pratiques traditionnelles du commentaire. Les auteurs de ce dictionnaire (le premier du genre) ont eu le souci de proposer un véritable outil de travail qui couvre l'essentiel de ce champ, et respecte sa diversité. Ils ont fait appel aux meilleurs spécialistes des nombreux courants qui composent aujourd'hui cette discipline pour offrir au lecteur un guide conceptuel facilement consultable, bien documenté et clairement exposé." (Description de la maison d'édition)
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