3.3.1 Critical Discourse Analysis Tools
The blurring of boundaries between consumption and production in the new media supports the critical discourse analysis tradition of drawing from both structuralist and poststructuralist paradigms in the analysis of a text. While it is conventional in media research to work from a single view, these should not be seen as mutually exclusive standpoints, but rather as offering complementary stances of advantage to a holistically balanced, multidisciplinary analysis. Thus, the analysis of this new media text should consider both spectrums in a more integrated light than the original Fairclough (1995a) model represents.
Since this research focuses on a text written primarily by South Africans despite being located in the global new media, greater emphasis will be laid on the socio-cultural practice embedded in the text, than to linguistic complexities, as this dynamic is of greater interest to the field of media and cultural studies.
The social-constructionist aspect of the research focuses on how the discussions are
―derived from (and feed into) larger discourses‖ (Terre Blanche and Durrheim, 2002:
148). With this in mind, I will seek discourses at work in the text by referring only selectively (since the 20-point plan is too convoluted, and is not all relevant to the purpose of this research) to Parker‘s (1992) ―Criteria for Distinguishing Discourses‖, which is an extension of Potter and Wetherell‘s (1987, in Parker, 1992) work in that area.
While Parker is more concerned with psychological discourse, these practical guidelines are helpful, particularly in identifying new discourses (that are not widely established) in the analysis of a text.
Potter and Wetherell (1987) developed a ten point plan for identifying discourses, each point resting on the ephemeral ground of ‗intuition‘ and ‗presentation‘ (cited in Parker, 1992: 5), but cautioned that ―there is no analytic method‖ (Potter and Wetherell, 1989:
169 in ibid: 5), since discourse is hidden as ‗fact‘ when it is successful.
Parker (1991) built on this work in an attempt to make the analysis of discourse more comprehensive, establishing a ten phase, twenty point plan for the identification and analysis of discourse. Steps in process include:
(2)Exploring connotations through some sort of free association.
(4) Talking about the talk as if it were an object, a discourse
(6) Speculating about what they (types of persons identified as objects of discourse) can say in the discourse… (what rights to speak in that way of speaking).
(7) Mapping a picture of the world this discourse presents.
(12) Reflecting on the terms used to describe the discourse, a matter which involves moral/political choices on the part of the analyst.
(17) Looking at which categories of person gain and lose from the employment of the discourse;
(18) Looking at who would want to promote and who would want to dissolve the discourse.
(20) Showing how the discourses allow dominant groups to tell their narratives about the past in order to justify the present, and prevent those who use
subjugated discourses from making history (Parker, 1992: 6-20).
Since not every text representing discourses would necessarily contain all of the data required for the identification of discourse by Parker‘s twenty point plan, I have narrowed my use of it to the applicable categories most suited to this study with the aim of
identifying, documenting and mapping formations of discourses in the South African new media community to be explored. The points used here have been selected for their
appropriateness to the medium and the subject matter. The original Parker 1992 plan is extremely exhaustive, and these selected points contain minimal repetition. These points, in conjunction with Fairclough 1995a, allow for structured analysis appropriate to a new media text, allowing for the exploration of emergent discourses within the discourse and sociocultural practices in which the text is embedded.
By engaging in-depth with present discourses, the analyst is prevented from ―regress(ing) to exactly those conceptions of individual culpability for social practices that discourse analysis attempts to avoid‖ (ibid: 21). However Macdonald‘s (2003) work on discourse and agency (discussed in pages 15-6) should be born in mind in relation to this statement.
Metaphor and social myth are devices that can be considered as rich sites of culturally- bound meaning. Seeking out instances in the text and analysing the political implications hidden by these devices will reveal aspects of South African cultural discursive practices.
Myth is a particular site of inquiry since ―myth masks the radically different social and economic conditions under which people are born, work and die‖ (Culler, 1983: 34, in Fourie, 2007: 253). Identifying metaphor and social myth at work in the text will function as a key to unlocking the social dynamics that they seek to mask.
Open coding will be used to identify prevalent themes in the text. Having located the dominant themes, the social dynamics between various perspectives and individual voices in the text will be explored, referencing socio-cultural practises in South Africa and, as far as possible, linking these to the historical context. This will provide a framework for the analysis.
Parapraxis is a useful tool in discourse analysis to uncover private attitudes that cannot be voiced in particular dominant discourses, particularly in the case of political correctness as ―topics of race and to a lesser extent gender have been taboo in our society… What people say in public is not the same as what they believe in private‖ (D‘Souza et al, 1992, in Van Boven, 2000: 267).
―In the same way that psycho-analysis makes use of dream interpretation, it also profits by the study of the numerous little slips and mistakes which people make - - symptomatic actions, as they are called ... I have pointed out that these
phenomena are not accidental, that they require more than physiological explanations, that they have a meaning and can be interpreted, and that one is
justified in inferring from them the presence of restrained or repressed intentions‖
(Freud, 1925)
In light of D‘Souza‘s work on the effects of political correctness on public discourse, incidents of parapraxis may therefore make these ―restrained or repressed intentions‖
(Freud, 1925) visible, and open an otherwise ‗hidden‘ layer of meaning to the analysis.
Instances in the textual event that reveal discourses related to national identity and construct a map of how elements of the discussion construct ‗South Africanness‘ will be explored. An additional element of the analysis will be to assess of how much of the discussion is focused on Jacob Zuma, as the title of the newsgroup (Help us stop Jacob Zuma from becoming South Africa‟s next president) would seem to imply that discussion would be dominated by the topic of ‗Jacob Zuma‘.
If this is not the case, it would be significant in that the contributors are creatively extending the parameters of discussion that the name of the newsgroup would seem to delineate, in a manner that is made possible through new media. This would have implications for the development of civic identity initiatives in the new media field.
3.3.2 Hermeneutic Ethnographic Tools
According to Saville-Troike (1989) ethnographic research should uncover the requisite knowledge for appropriately participating within the ―speech community‖ under study. In addition to the linguistic conventions of the said group, the research should reveal ―the cultural rules and knowledge that are the basis for the context and content of
communicative event and interaction processes‖ (Saville-Troike, 1989: 2-3).
In keeping with the Cultural Studies tradition, this research aims to uncover the cultural processes existent in the text that shape conceptions of race (Turner 2001: 2-3 cited in Fourie 1997: 275) and national identity. The analysis of the text will therefore aim to uncover what Thompson (1990) terms ―contestatory symbolic forms‖ (Thompson, 1990:
68, in Macdonald 2003: 30) illustrated by a definition by political philosopher Martin Seliger:
―…sets of ideas by which men [sic] posit, explain and justify ends and means of organised social action, irrespective of whether such action aims to preserve, amend, uproot or rebuild a given social order.‖ (ibid: 30)
As a South African engaging in this exploration into a South African popular cultural text, I commence this research conscious that ―there is more to the understanding of an experience than can be ascertained from within the context of the experience‖ (Kelly, 2002, in Terre Blanche and Durrheim, 2002: 400). Despite sharing cultural codes with the contributors to this newsgroup, by conducting this research I am necessarily inserting a level of abstraction from this group of my compatriots. In order to consider the text in a balanced fashion there are two layers of meaning to be documented: the context provides one layer of meaning, and the view of the text and context from a distance reveal aspects of the context which would be invisible and could not be expressed from within it (ibid).
This process of ‗distanciation‘ reveals a ‗surplus of meaning‘ and acts as a counter to the obligatory subjectivity of qualitative research. By exploring the text from within the cultural context and then consciously extricating myself from my own culture, I will thus be experiencing the text in two different ways, each bringing a different meaning to it. By comparing and contrasting these views of the text, an additional layer of meaning is accessed.
Given the subjectivity of interpretive research, particularly when the culture under study is the researcher‘s own, Geertz (1973, in Terre Blanche and Durrheim, 2002: 139) recommends that a component of the research process is ―an account of the researcher‘s role in constructing this description‖. To accommodate this element I will deposit the full
journal of the ethnographic component of the analysis, together with other rough research notes at the MECS office for perusal.
Both of these approaches stress the importance of the historical context to the analysis of a text. Since the contributors are mainly South Africans, the political and social shifts in this society play a role in the sharing of cultural codes implicated in language. As a piece of ethnographic research, this conception of discourse contributes to the possibility uncovering culture bound meanings and the social dynamics that emerge from the newsgroup text.