Discourse in social change

Ideology is the prime means of manufacturing

consent (Fairclough 2001)

Text is ideologically creative and it appears as:

• Individual

• Commonsensical

Texts should be thought in terms of:

• one’s position in society

• how society positions individuals over time

Foucault’s notion of technologies of themselves

• Academic discourse types are instrumentals in framing our identity and our subjectivity

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)

The Contra war in Nicaragua

• Depending on the discourse they are 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 (communism and evil Empire versus communism and solidarity)

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 versus communicative discourse

• Strategic discourse: discourse oriented to instrumental goals, to getting results (advertising)

• Communicative discourse: oriented to reaching understanding between participants

The dimensions of ideological work in advertising

• The relationship advertising discourse construct between the producer/advertiser and the consumer

• The way advertising discourse builds an imagine for the product (predicated on the ideology (freedom, richness, efficiency, etc)

• 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 does advertising construct consumption communities?

It does it indirectly

• Through ideology

• Superficial view of the relationship between truth and fiction

• Commons sense assumptions

How does advertisement work ideologically?

Works ideologically through

• Building relations• Building images• Building the consumer

Give an example of a common sense assumption in a power relationship. How can this common sense assumption

contribute to sustaining unequal power relations?