NPF 562 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Narrative Inquiry, Semiotics, Content Analysis
14 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Reality is organized through a distribution of texts. Texts are used to organize and regulate power: policies, laws, curriculum, media messages. Discourse: patterns of speech and writing that define, determine, and influence disciplines and the general population. Discourse dictates and frames meaning; in doing so, it conceals its own processes and mechanisms. Discourse is rooted in specific communications (texts, visual presentations, documents) Discourse is continuously made, reaffirmed, negated through communication. Discourse is one way of exploring the social construction of reality: dominant discourses imply ways of using knowledge and info to secure and maintain power, media constitute key discursive texts and contribute to discursive formations, discursive regimes. Understanding of reality can also be framed in other ways eg. understanding of meaning. Meaning refers to the idea that there"s something within or beyond a given thing. Semiotics: the study of signs, sign systems, and their meanings.
