QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

1. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS CRITICAL TEXTUAL ANALYSIS--TYPES, PART 2

2. I. MARXISM/CRITICAL THEORY • A. Marxism refers to theories of economics, politics, & society using ideas from Karl Marx & Fredrich Engles. • B. Culture intertwined with class struggle through ideology • C. Ideology conveyed through various institutions (or superstructures) • D. The philosophy is complex & not monolithic.

3. D. Political Economy • 1. Grounded in the economic analysis of institutions • a. Actions of individuals motivated by self-interest (see Adam Smith) • b. Self-interest leads to greater level of overall wealth in the nation (“the invisible hand”) • 2. In media studies, Political Economy primarily focuses on the economics of mass media production & consumption. • 3. Seeks to understand “how the capitalist class promotes and ensures their dominant position in capitalist society” (Devereux)

4. E. “Classic Marxism” • 1. Sees culture as “the mirror of social life.” • a. Art (or culture) should be viewed in terms of “realism” • b. True art should subvert ideology & capitalism • 2. The Frankfurt School--flourished in Germany in the 1930's & in the U.S. in the 1940's • a. Sometimes is known as "critical theory" or classic Marxist theory, focusing on problems in the mass media. • b. Theorists argued that mass media had prevented history from working out as Marx had predicted, because it subverted & seduced the masses (through "low art") 

5. F. The Frankfort School • 1. Pop culture is defined as mass culture, produced by big business for a profit • 2. Pop culture seen as synonymous with low culture • 3. Elitist vs. populist values • a. True elitists scorn popular or low culture as debased & trashy (not really "art“) • c. True populists scorn high art as pretentious & inaccessible

6. The Frankfort School, con’t. • 3. High vs. low art • a. High art original, serious & complex • 1) Also known as “highbrow” • 2) Includes literary & artistic masterpieces, classical symphonic music, etc. • b. Low art is popular, unoriginal & not complex • 1) Also known as "lowbrow“ • 2) Seen as trashy, garish, crude, or kitschy • 3) Includes popular novels; comic books; mainstream TV shows; Hollywood blockbusters; fashion & fads; etc.

7. The Frankfort School, con’t. • c. "Middlebrow" is an in-between position • 1) Prefers a safe & non-controversial middle position between high & low art; • 2) Includes popular foreign or independent films; PBS; "lite" classical music; etc. • 3) Many elitists see this position as too safe & sentimental (e.g. Adorno) • 4) Keeps us from recognizing "high art“ because prefer easy listening selections or sentimental favorites instead of the truly avant-garde

8. The Frankfort School, con’t • 4. Arguments made against popular art by the Frankfort School: • a. Panders to lowest tastes • b. Geared mostly to entertainment & fun • c. Often nostalgic & sentimental • d. Junk is preferred over quality • e. Over-commercial (designed to sell products)

9. The Frankfort School, con’t. • 5. Pop art revisionism/arguments for pop art (Neo-Marxism): • a. Evocative & can be serious • b. The “literature of the people“ • c. High art/low art an artificial distinction; boundaries eroding in a postmodern world • d. Pop art is a social unifer • 1) Helps with social rituals • 2) Cements community feelings • 3) Reinforces values

10. II. PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY • A. Freudian Psychoanalysis • 1. First formulated by Freud • 2. Concerned with internal psyche structures & the complex relations between them • 3. Drives, desires, & wants are geared towards satisfaction • a. Motivation is primarily pleasure-seeking (or hedonistic) • b. Blocked motives lead to frustration, producing pain.

11. Freudian Psychoanalysis • c. Pain eliminated from the conscious mind via repression into the unconscious or unorganized mind (or the id) • d. Control of the id role of consciousness (the ego) • e. The internalized ideas of others, plus self-criticism, creates the super-ego • 4. Defense mechanisms • a. Condensation--combination of two or more ideas, desires, or memories into a single episode, image, symbol, or sign

12. Defense mechanisms, con’t. • 1) Condensation occurs in dreams, where the manifest content (remembered events) represents repressed, underlying wishes & memories (the latent content); e.g. a locked door • 2) Condensation also operates in innuendo & punning (similar to metonymy (part for whole/whole for part) • b. Displacement • 1) Process by which significance of something is transferred (displaced) onto something else • 2) Similar to metaphoric transposition • 3) Redirect energy away from a frustrating goal & towards a more vulnerable target

13. Defense mechanisms, con’t. • c. Projection • 1) Process by which ideas, images, & desires are imposed on an external environment. • 2) Projection denies unpleasant self-accusations, projecting such accusations onto others (fueling scapegoating, prejudice, etc.) • d. Identification • 1) Process by which the individual merges at least some of another's identity with his/her own • 2) Three ways--can extend into someone else, can borrow from someone else, or can confuse identity with someone else (Rycroft)

14. Defense mechanisms, con’t. • e. Narcissism • 1) While some self-love is necessary to function, it is problematic if lead to self-absorption, egoism, selfishness, childishness, etc. • 2) Narcissists seem self-assured, but in reality are extremely anxiety-ridden & insecure. • 3) A problem in identify formation--develop feelings of superiority to protect from feelings of inadequacy • 4) Not the same as egoism--egoists may be selfish, but are often realistic, whereas narcissists are not • 5) Narcissists often deny their self-love; may assume a mask of humility, being altruistic, etc. • 6) Or may be super-confident, self-assured but with grandiose ideas

15. Defense mechanisms, con’t. • f. Sublimation • 1) Rechanneling sexual impulses from primary gratification into more socially acceptable gratifications (e.g. shopping, gambling) • 2) Civilization forces us to renounce uninhibited instinctual gratifications (esp. sex & aggression), creating guilt for such impulses • 3) Operates in fetischizing or the substitution of desire onto a less threatening image, usually something that can serve as a substitute phallus

16. Defense mechanisms, con’t. • 4) Mulvey notes that the "male gaze" of the camera evokes visual pleasure (sublimation & resolution of the castration complex) by both overvaluing women characters as fetish objects & undervaluing them (punishing them for being sexual objects) • g. Voyeurism • 1) A person with a privileged, yet hidden view, esp. who watches the sexual (forbidden) activities of others, yet without their permission. • 2) Produces guilt (because the scene is private) & a sense of power (it reveals knowledge which we "shouldn't" possess) • 3) Voyeurism implies omnipotence

17. 5. The Oedipal Complex • a. The process of maturation found in everyone--natural instead of environmental • b. Children mature through 4 stages—oral, anal, latent, & phallic • c. Myth of Oedipus shows how children resolve crises occurring during puberty (phallic stage) • 1) Boys have castration anxiety (fears of castration by the father), eventually leading to an identification with the father & a rejection of the mother • 2) Girls have penis envy (fantasy that they have lost their penises), eventually leading to a re-identification with the mothers; as women turn to outside males to obtain a male child (gaining back their "lost" penis)

18. The Oedipal Complex, con’t. • d. There is also a reverse Oedipal complex, involving fantasies of incest with the same sex parent, & murderous wishes toward the parent of the opposite sex • e. A controversial concept, yet also often used to critique literature & film (e.g. Hamlet, Freud argued, plays out a version of the complex). • 1) Brenner (1974) argues that "for a literary work to have a strong, or, even more, a lasting appeal, its plot must arouse and gratify some important aspect of the unconscious oedipal wishes of the members of its audience" (p. 235) • 2) An example is the original Star Wars, which can be "read" as a working out of Luke's Oedipal complex

19. B. Lacanian Psychoanalysis • 1. Jacques Lacan believed that Freud's hypotheses must be interpreted symbolically rather than essentially • 2. Language structures the social subject • 3 Reinterpretation of psychoanalysis through semiotics & structuralism • 4. Posited 3 stages in place of Freud's oral, anal, & phallic stages of growth: • a. Preverbal phase--undifferentiated identity with the mother, pre-oedipal, instinctual

20. Lacanian Psychoanalysis, con’t. • b. Mirror phase • 1) the moment when the child sees itself as a self, in a mirror--separates from the mother & sees self as a subject • 2) More representative of femininity than the symbolic phase. with its assumption of narcissism • 3) The child experiences pleasure (jouissance) at seeing itself, yet also alienation & dismay, since separate from the mother (the first object of desire)

21. Lacanian Psychoanalysis, con’t • c. Symbolic phase • 1) Child enters into the Symbolic, or the realm of language (language replaces the penis/phallus) • 2) Gaining the power to speak (through socialization) provides the child with the primary tool needed to operate in the public world • 3) To gain the power to speak means to repress the hidden desires for the mother, which kicks in a (symbolic) Oedipal complex • 4) Boys can identify with the "rule of the father" & resolve the Oedipal crisis by taking the place of the father, separating fully from the mother, then transferring their affections to an adult woman

22. Lacanian Psychoanalysis, con’t • 6) Girls, however, are characterized by "lack"--they don't possess a phallus, therefore cannot identify with the father • 7) Girls must separate from the mother, transferring the forbidden desire to the father (or father substitute); yet, they also cannot separate from the mother, since already “castrated” • 8) Without a "voice," girls are thus Other, that which is an object outside of the realm of the symbolic • d. Ideas very useful to feminist critics, esp. when combined with other concepts

23. Lacanian Psychoanalysis, con’t • 5. Difference • a. Both language & unconscious signify by means of binary oppositions • b. Difference, as Other, controls the mind; the Other & (male) desire become sexualized • 6. Jouissance • a. The totality of enjoyment--sexual, spiritual, physical, & conceptual • b. Exists outside linguistic norms (in the realm of the poetic), therefore more associated with women, who are also constituted outside of society • c. Women have the capacity for a decentered, multiple sexuality, "the sex which is not one“ (Irigray)

24. III. POSTMODERNISM • A. Means many things, ranging from a social condition to a critical perspective • B. The "modern" period occurred during & after the Enlightenment, with the rise of the individual & the beginnings of capitalism & industrialism (though some trace it back to the 15th century, with the invention of the printing press) • 1. Associated with writers like James Joyce, Marcel Proust, T.S. Eliot, & William Faulkner • 2. Connected to artists like Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, along with Dadaism & surrealism • 3. In music, modernist composers include Igor Stravinsky & Bela Bartok

25. Postmodernism, con’t. • C. Postmodern refers to 4 interrelated phenomenon (Denzin, 1991): • 1. An artistic, aesthetic movement called postmodernism (seen in media & architecture, as well as traditional art forms) • 2. A historical transformation of society following World War II • 3. A new form of theorizing about the contemporary historical moment • 4. Social, cultural, & economic life under late capitalism • D. Influential postmodern theorists include Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault & Jean-Francoise Lyotard

26. Postmodernism, con’t. • E. Some key concepts: • 1. Truth & knowledge • a. Postmodernism disavows truth, especially the notion of absolutes & universals. • b. Knowledge is a discourse that becomes an accepted statement of truth, or "metanarrative“ • 1) Metanarratives set their own criteria or standards for what counts as truth (e.g. science). • 2) Must be skeptical about metanarratives • c. Postmodernism also attacks the law of non-contradiction (that an object cannot be both A & not A), seeing it as an instrument for control

27. Postmodernism, con’t. • 2. History & subject • a. Postmodern society tends toward disconnection & fragmentation--runs counter to the modernist impulse to order & define • b. Postmodernism "eschews history; humans exist in fragmented current moments." (Gill, p. 202) • c. Thus it reflects "the end of history"; or the end of the metanarrative of linear historical progress

28. Postmodernism, con’t. • d. Postmodernism also argues for the "death of the subject“ • 1) Individuals occupy positions in various language games or "communication circuits," (where we are both sender-receiver) • 2) The self is socially & linguistically constructed, a position which generally denies autonomy & individualism • e. The postmodern critic asserts that the author/artist/creator of discourse has no special privileged status in determining meaning

29. Postmodernism, con’t. • 3. Embracing low/popular culture. • a. Consists of a “degraded landscape of schlock & kitsch, of TV series & Reader's Digest culture, of advertising & motels, of the late show & the grade-B Hollywood film," with romance novels, murder mysteries, science-fiction, etc. (David Lodge, 1988) • b. Popular culture is integrated with all other culture, with past & present mixed together • c. Gill notes that such art can be "sexually explicit, rebellious…critical of both political & social norms. It also is schizophrenic & disorderly" (p. 203)

30. Postmodernism, con’t • F. Some postmodern elements: • 1. Simulacra of experience--a type of "virtual reality" or hyperreality, as in video games • 2. Pastiche--a mixture of elements not normally connected; a "crazy quilt" of images, etc. • 3. Self-referential elements--there is a self-consciousness that occurs through multiple allusions & intertextuality • 4. Spectacle--over inflated staging of events, designed to promote euphoria • 5. Overcommodified--focus on clutter & consumption • 6. Contradictory images—paradox is embraced

31. Postmodernism, con’t • G. Todd Gitlin (1989) offers this perspective on postmodernism: "It self-consciously splices genres, attitudes, styles. It relishes the blurring or juxtaposition of forms (fiction-non-fiction), stances (straight-ironic), moods (violent-comic), cultural levels (high-low) . . . It takes pleasure in the play of surfaces, & derides the search for depth as mere nostalgia." • 1. Postmodern American society offers "culture as garage sale" • 2. Gitlin’s list of postmodern examples include architecture, Andy Warhol's multiple image paintings, Disneyland, Las Vegas, shopping malls (especially mega malls), William Burroughs, Monty Python, science-fiction/action films, MTV, etc.