Discourse

Discourse analysis is the name given to a variety of approaches that take language and social constructions as their object of study. Discourse analysis involves identifying patterns in discourse, being able to highlight recurrent themes or ideas or tropes—particularly when looking across a corpus of data—whether this is in newspapers or interviews. This chapter provides a brief intellectual history of discourse analysis, situating it in relation to other methodologies in media studies and examines a range of different approaches to analyzing discourse and outlines their key terms and concepts. It discusses one particular approach to discourse analysis used in a variety of types of research, including studies of media organizations, analyses of media texts, and interview-based audience research. The chapter focuses on one case study, analyzing sex and relationships advice in women's magazines and discusses the challenges and dilemmas of using this approach in media and communications research

Language Ecology and Language Teaching for Translators

In the age of globalization, there are fears that the overwhelming presence of dominant world languages such as English and French will have serious repercussions for ethnic cultures and languages. Supporters of the language-ecology paradigm for language teaching see it as the responsibility of teachers of first-world languages to examine these repercussions through forms of representation they use to teach world languages. The ecological paradigm, with its insistence on boundary-crossing and on observation of inter-language and inter-cultural relationships, has proven to be a rich avenue of exploration for translation students. The exploration of cultural and linguistic assumptions in the multicultural language learning classrooms of the new millennium provides translation students with frameworks for understanding the profound holism of the act of translation.En els temps de la globalització, hom tem que la presència aclaparadora de llengües dominants en tot el món, com l'anglès i el francès, no tingui unes repercussions greus per a les cultures i les llengües ètniques. Els partidaris del paradigma llengua-ecologia per a l'ensenyament de llengües consideren que és responsabilitat dels professors de les llengües dominants examinar aquestes repercussions per mitjà de les formes de representació que utilitzen per ensenyar aquestes llengües. El paradigma ecològic, en posar l'èmfasi en la vessant transfronterera i en l'observació de les relacions entre llengües i entre cultures, ha demostrat que és una via d'exploració eficaç per als estudiants de traducció. L'exploració dels pressupòsits culturals i lingüístics en les aules d'aprenentatge de llengües multiculturals del nou mil·leni proporciona als estudiants de traducció marcs per a comprendre l'holisme profund de l'acte de la traducció

A qualitative study of children, young people and 'sexting' : English

The purpose of this small scale qualitative research was to respond to and enhance our understandings of the complex nature of sexting and the role of mobile technologies within peer teen networks. It was designed as a pilot study – to investigate a phenomenon whose nature, scale and dimensions were unknown. Thus the research itself also was small in scale and exploratory in nature and also culturally and geographically specific. We conducted focus group interviews with 35 young people years 8 and 10 in two inner city London schools. At the focus groups we asked participants to friend us on Facebook, with a research Facebook profile. We then mapped some of their activities online and returned for 22 individual interviews with selected case study young people. We also interviewed key teachers and staff at the schools. The study found that threats from peers in digital social networks were more problematic for young people that ‘stranger danger’ from adults. Digital technologies facilitated new visual cultures of surveillance, in which young women were pressured to send revealing body photos or asked to perform sexual services by text and through social networking sites. In this way, sexting aggravated peer hierarchies and forms of sexual harassment in schools, meaning that sexting was often coercive and was sometimes a form of cyberbullying. Girls were most negatively affected by ‘sexting’ in cultural contexts of increasing ‘sexualisation’ shaped by sexual double standards and boys had difficulty in challenging constructions of sexually aggressive masculinity. The research allowed for exploration of when pleasurable sexual flirtation through digital communication moved into sexual coercion and harassment, which was illustrated through narrative examples. Considering the relationship between online and offline risks it found sexual double standards in attitudes to digital sexual communication were linked to incidents of real playground sexual harassment and violence. Finally, it found that children at primary school age were being impacted by the coercive aspects of ‘sexting’ at an earlier age, than prior research indicated

Confidence is the new sexy: remaking intimate relationality

This chapter is concerned with the reshaping of intimate relationality in contemporary culture. Its focus is primarily upon Anglo-American contexts, but its arguments may have a wider transnational significance. The argument is located within sociological debates about the transformation of intimacy (Giddens, 1993), and in particular how constructions, understandings and practices of intimacy are changing in societies marked by neoliberalism, postfeminism and emotional capitalism (Illouz, 1997). The chapter aims to examine how intimate relationality is being 'made over' in these contexts through new incitements to 'love yourself' or 'love your body', directed almost exclusively at women. It seeks to argue that a 'confidence imperative' has reached an ascendancy in contemporary popular culture and to examine what potentialities this might open up or close down politically for those interested in equality, diversity and social justice

Get unstuck! Pandemic positivity imperatives and self-care for women

Examining women’s magazines and lifestyle coaching, the article explores how positivity imperatives in contemporary culture call forth a happy, confident, hopeful, and vibrant subject during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis shows how these positivity imperatives acknowledge stress and difficulty, and at times highlight their gendered impacts, yet nevertheless systematically figure responses and solutions in individual, psychological, and often consumerist terms. The discussion demonstrates how positivity imperatives operate not only through verbal advice but also through visual, embodied, and affective means and through an emphasis on developing new social practices—from holding one’s body differently, to keeping gratitude journals, to cultivating a new virtual persona for online work meetings. The article highlights a profound paradox: in times of a global pandemic that has affected women disproportionally, and when structural injustices and inequalities have been made ever more visible, positivity and individualized self-care interpellations to women flourish, anger is muted, and critiques of structural inequality are largely silenced. Thus, seemingly benign and often undoubtedly well-meaning messages of confidence, calm, and positivity during the pandemic work to buttress a neoliberal imaginary and persistent social inequalities

Feminism rebranded : women?s magazines online and ?the return of the F-word?

In recent years feminism has gained spectacular levels of visibility, notably among young women and in the media, especially online. This article makes a novel contribution to a growing discussion about ?the new cultural life of feminism? (Diffractions, 2016), and in particular the ?mediated feminist landscape? (Banet-Weiser, 2015) and its ?new luminosity in popular culture? (Gill, 2016) by bringing to the conversation the voices of those very individuals doing the mediating, providing such luminosity. Drawing on 68 in-depth interviews with the producers of women?s online magazines from the UK and from Spain, we examine the range of ways in which these professionals define and dis/identify with feminism, as well as explain, applaud or critique the emergence of a ?new feminism? promoted by their publications. In general terms, the analysis shows that the talk of women?s magazine producers constitutes a heterogeneous discursive terrain filled with ambivalence and ideological dilemmas. Additionally we show how the recent interest in feminism by these media is deeply but not only ideological, necessarily but not simply commercially-driven, and involved in simultaneous practices of de-stigmatising as well as depoliticising the movement. We suggest that in its transition into popular media feminism is ?rebranded? in such a way that both opens up and closes down possibilities, in a contradictory dynamic of regulation and adaptation that is characteristic of ?cool capitalism? (McGuigan, 2009).

Against systemic gender injustice, our confidence culture encourages women to blame themselves

Wherever there is talk of inequality—particularly gender inequality—discussions about confidence are never far behind. Women are encouraged to see themselves as stymied by internal obstacles and personal deficits. Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill write that at a moment when structural inequalities and injustices are intensifying, instead of identifying their root causes, confidence culture turns away from those wider political, economic, and social issues. Instead, it encourages women to turn inwards and work on themselves