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.