Bolt’s unremarkable account of Black Lives Matter: critical discourse analysis of racism in Australian media

RESISTING THROUGH CITIZEN JOURNALISM: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT ON TWITTER

Critical discourse analysis is a rapidly growing, interdisciplinary field of inquiry that combines linguistic analysis and social theory to address the way power and dominance are enacted and reproduced in text. Critical discourse analysis is primarily concerned with the construction of social phenomena and involves a focus on the wider social, political, and historical contexts in which talk and text occur, exploring the way in which theories of reality and relations of power are encoded and enacted in language. Critical discourse analysis moves beyond considering what the text says to examining what the text does. As an interdisciplinary and eclectic field of inquiry, critical discourse analysis has no unifying theoretical perspective, standard formula, or essential methods. As such, there is much confusion around what critical discourse analysis is, what it is not, and the types of projects for which it can be fruitfully employed. This article seeks to provide clarity on critical discourse analysis as an approach to research and to highlight its relevance to social work scholarship, particularly in relation to its vital role in identifying and analyzing how discursive practices establish, maintain, and promote dominance and inequality.

Scholars have employed a variety of research methodologies and methods to explore, probe, and uncover ways in which social justice is enacted, embodied, supported, or not supported by researchers, educators, and practitioners in library and information science and services (LIS). Discursive psychology as developed by social psychologist Jonathan Potter and critical discourse analysis as developed by Norman Fairclough are introduced as fruitful approaches to investigate the critical intersections of LIS and social justice. The theoretical development of social justice in LIS is discussed. Next, critical discourse analysis and discursive psychology are examined and then analyzed for goodness of fit with Kevin Rioux’s (2010) five underlying assumptions of social justice metatheory: (1) All human beings have an inherent worth and deserve information services that help address those needs; (2) People perceive reality and information in different ways, often within cultural or life role contexts; (3) There are many different types of information and knowledge, and these are societal resources; (4) Theory and research are pursued with the ultimate goal of bringing positive change to service constituencies; (5) The provision of information services is an inherently powerful activity. Drawing on the findings of the goodness of fit of Rioux’s metatheory and examples of discourse analytic studies in LIS, this article offers practical strategies for social justice researchers wanting to use critical discourse analysis or discursive psychology.

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary research methodology used to analyze discourse as a form of “social practice”, exploring how meaning is socially constructed. In addition, the methodology draws from the field of critical studies, in which research places deliberate focus on the social and political forces that produce social phenomena as a means to challenge and change societal practices. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the benefits of CDA to population public health (PPH) research. We will do this by providing a brief overview of CDA and its history and purpose in research and then identifying and discussing three crucial principles that we argue are crucial to successful CDA research: (1) CDA research should contribute to social justice; (2) CDA is strongly based in theory; and (3) CDA draws from constructivist epistemology. A key benefit that CDA brings to PPH research is its critical lens, which aligns with the fundamental goals of PPH including addressing the social determinants of health and reducing health inequities. Our analysis demonstrates the need for researchers in population public health to strongly consider critical discourse analysis as an approach to understanding the social determinants of health and eliminating health inequities in order to achieve health and wellness for all.

Mass media has been a massive influence on showing the perspective towards a certain issue to the people. Furthermore, media as a part of discourse has a huge part of framing the certain issue and show the neutralism of the media towards what is conveyed in the news. This study aims to reveal the perspective that The Australian media was trying to portray upon the political condition in Indonesia under the situation of recent presidential election. This study uses socio-political theory of critical discourse analysis to reveal the neutralism or which side that the media is supporting to. It is found using Critical Discourse Analysis that The Australian media indicated to portray the foregrounding towards Prabowo and benefits the back-grounded side which is the incumbent, Joko Widodo. Key words: media, critical discourse analysis, the Australian media, politics.

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) examines the relationship between language and power in society. By linking micro, mezzo, and macro environments, examining the impact of language on marginalized communities, and providing a lens for critical reflection, CDA aligns with the frameworks and values of social work as a profession. Yet this method has been underutilized in social work research. This paper provides an orientation for social work scholars seeking to use CDA through discussion of four key “signposts” or decision-making points: 1) theoretical framing and rationale, 2) sampling and data generation, 3) data analysis, and 4) dissemination of findings. Drawing on examples from the authors’ experiences with CDA studies addressing diverse research topics and methodological decisions, this paper offers a wide range of research design strategies for conducting similar projects. Examples are varied in terms of theoretical framing, research questions, data sources, analytic strategies, and audience. They include analyses of neoliberal discourse in refugee policy, discourses of culture in international development research documents, constructions of bisexuality among older women, and representations of intimate partner violence in young adult novels and tweets. Along the way, attention is given to communicating about CDA for social work audiences, particularly those less familiar with the epistemological foundations of CDA and its implications for practice.

This study aims to analyse power, dominance, racial discrimination, and power exercise that is narratively established through a subtle network of metaphors in a fiction work, The Kite Runner. The Kite Runner exposes the socioeconomic conditions in the borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan, revealing the differences between power manipulation and the domestic performance of powerful social groups. The work also explores how religious and status dichotomies circumvent the progress of minority groups and align their physical features with their receding power and financial features. An adopted model of critical discourse analysis (CDA) indicates power, economic, and racial dichotomies in the book while revealing the shades of metaphors through conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) in a post-colonial text. Dogmatic ideographs are perpetuated in every public sphere through language and established gradually through unprovoking tools of metaphors. The metaphors are uncovered through CMT, providing a helpful understanding of different conceptual domains. Rhetorically, CDA helped reveal the racial discrimination, human rights violations, and hatred against minorities embedded in the selected metaphors. This investigation is very significant in connection with the current scenario of cross-cultural studies, as it mainly depicts the prevailing social trends regarding two different settings. The study may benefit intelligentsia interested in post-colonial and decolonial discourse and diaspora literature. Keywords: Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis, Metaphor, Power Expansion, Racial Discrimination Agbo, I. I., Kadiri, G. C., & Ijem, B. U. (2018). Critical metaphor analysis of political discourse in Nigeria. English Language Teaching, 11(5), 95–105. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v11n5p95 Burke, K. (2017). A rhetoric of motives. 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Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford University Press. Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd ed., pp. 202–251). Cambridge University Press. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press. Reddy, M. (1979). The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (pp. 284–324). Cambridge University Press. Talib, N., & Fitzgerald, R. (2016). Micro–meso–macro movements: A multi-level critical discourse analysis framework to examine metaphors and the value of truth in policy texts. Critical Discourse Studies, 13(5), 531–547. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2016.1182932 Van Dijk, T. A. (1988). News analysis: Case studies of international and national news in the press. 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Social justice is recognized as a core value of social work, and justice-oriented social work has roots in the early history of the profession. However, controversies exist about the meaning of social justice and the most appropriate theoretical approach for justice-oriented social work. There are also challenges in translating conceptualizations of social justice into practice. Although social research was a method of promoting social justice in the early settlement houses, contemporary guidance is limited on using social work research as a tool for promoting social justice. There are also controversies about the best pedagogy for teaching about social justice in social work education programs. In recent years social work scholars have expanded the conversation about social justice to include environmental justice and global social justice.

This chapter focuses on developing the type of ‘language critique’ in critical social work by deploying N. Fairclough’s three-dimensional analysis of discourse. It explores several key concepts of Critical discourse analysis (CDA) initially. Texts as forms of written, visual or spoken language are viewed as produced and consumed in our everyday social and cultural interactions. Genres and styles link to particular forms of acting in social events/interactions and the analyst locates how these align to wider social work discourses. Discourse is constitutive and constituted because, for CDA, it is understood as a form of social practice which both constitutes the social world and is constituted through powerful social practices. The social context is conceptualised by unpacking discourse through the three levels of analysis with the first level called the micro-analysis. This involves a systematic and detailed textual analysis and the other two layers are understood in CDA as the meso and macro level analysis.

This critical policy analysis is concerned with the discursive linguistic practices and social justice implications surrounding the passage of Florida's controversial “Parental Rights in Education Act” (PREA), which enacts limitations on classroom instruction involving topics related to gender and sexuality. Foregrounding this essay lays a call for social work scholarship to recognize the significance of the critical semiotic and post-structural turn in social science research, which evinces the importance of attending to the nuanced relationship between discourse, power, ideology, and identity formation. As a field espousing the tenets of social justice and commitments to the broader aims of social equality, social work holds an inherent investment in understanding the politics of language and, by extension, the language of emancipatory change. Informed by critical discourse analysis (CDA) and feminist post-structural thought, this analysis brings to the forefront the relevance of discourse, language, and semiotics as crucial objects of inquiry and seeks to examine what norms are in operation in the context of this legislation. What can discourse reveal about the nature of the social problem as postulated by PREA, and what discursive implications might it contain? Ultimately, this analysis contends that PREA represents a new threshold of educational and queer surveillance, best understood when bracketed by the ideologies of neoliberalism, cis-/heteropatriarchy, and the concomitant articulation of transphobia.

Discourse in Late Modernity sets out to show that critical discourse analysis is strongly positioned to address empirical research and theory-building across the social sciences, particularly research and theory on the semiotic/linguistic aspects of the social world. It situates critical discourse analysis as a form of critical social research in relation to diverse theories from the philosophy of science to social theory and from political science to sociology and linguistics. First, the authors clarify the ontological and epistemological assumptions of critical discourse analysis - its view of what the social world consists of and how to study it - and, in so doing, point to the connections between critical discourse analysis and critical social scientific research more generally. Secondly, they relate critical discourse analysis to social theory, by creating a research agenda in contemporary social life on the basis of narratives of late modernity, particularly those of Giddens, Habermas, and Harvey as well as feminist and postmodernist approaches. Thirdly, they show the relevance of sociological work in the analysis of discursive aspects of social life, drawing on the work of Bourdieu and Bernstein to theorise the dialectic of social reproduction and change, and on post-structuralist, post-colonial and feminist work to theorise the dialectic of complexity and homogenisation in contemporary societies. Finally, they discuss the relationship between systemic-functional linguistics and critical discourse analysis, showing how the analytical strength of each can benefit from the other. * Sets out a new and distinctive theoretical grounding and research agenda for critical discourse analysis * Interdisciplinary in scope * Draws on a broad range of theories and approaches

This paper aims to analyse the concepts of scientific literacy and agency in two official documents of the Chilean science curriculum. We used Fairclough's three dimensional model as critical lenses, based on critical discourse analysis, where every discursive event can be analysed: (i) as a text, (ii) as a discursive practice and (iii) as a social practice. The research questions were: ‘How are the different visions of scientific literacy operating and being promoted within the Chilean science curriculum?’ and ‘How is student and teacher agency declared in those documents?’ By understanding the curriculum as a dialectical process, as a social event between planning, executing, and evaluating education, we evidence tensions among different visions and paradigms for both concepts (scientific literacy and agency), specifically, in the transition from one cycle to another in secondary education. The first document has a predominantly neoliberal approach to scientific literacy and the second one presents a focus on citizenship, democracy, and social justice. As a social practice, in both documents, teachers appear under the idea of curriculum implementers, to a certain extent, based on a banking model where teachers are containers to receive someone else's curriculum expertise. The preceding imbalance raises potential tensions based on teacher performance and on student agency. Specifically, students must transition from a passive role and then consider themselves as active subjects who question how to produce knowledge, understanding their role within environmental conflicts within current socio‐political structures for instance.

ABSTRACTFocused primarily on addressing racial and social injustices through theoretical and critical analysis, critical social work is a well-established paradigm in Canadian social work education. This pilot study explored how clinical social workers might translate critical social work principles into clinical practice. We used simulation-based research methods to observe social workers’ engagement with a Simulated Client (SC; i.e. trained actor). Social workers with at least a Master’s degree (n = 8) were recruited from across Canada to conduct a session with the SC via Zoom followed by a post-session interview to reflect on the session. Data were analyzed inductively, using coding methods from Grounded Theory. The following categories emerged as concrete practice skills informed by critical social work: (1) create and hold a space of safety, (2) take an unassuming position while holding theoretical assumptions, (3) peel off the layers of the presenting problems, and (4) take a non-neutral therapeutic stance. Implications for clinical social work practice and further research are discussed.

The aim of this study is to present how critical discourse analysis was used to enhance social justice among teenaged mothers. Critical discourse analysis was used to promote critical dialogue between the socially legitimate structures and the marginalized teenaged mothers to deconstruct text and discourses that perpetuate social injustice. The study is anchored on community engagement. Data was generated with seven teenaged mothers, parents, and community leaders. Individual interviews, focus group discussions, and reflections were used to generate data with co-researchers. The study found that when teenaged mothers are exposed to social marginalization, they are denied the needed support in the development of personal, cultural, and social skills. Through critical dialogue, social text and discourses were deconstructed to co-create contextual and shared meaning leading to social justice for the marginalized teenaged mothers. The study concludes that critical discourse analysis is most appropriate in studies with youth or marginalized groups.

This paper examines the role of podcasting in teaching and learning for social justice, especially within schools of social work. Using a critical pedagogical teaching and learning lens within social work education, we explored the engagement of entry level Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) students in learning about and creating podcasts. Students simultaneously developed social work skills such as critical thinking, understanding theory, current issues of social (in)justice, and community engagement. In the process of creating podcasts, students (1) began to develop their professional and generalist social work identity, (2) engaged with critical reflective practice, and (3) made links between structural and experiential issues related to social policy and social justice. In addition to having implications for critical social work pedagogy, we suggest that student-led podcasting can be used to promote a relationship between the academy and the community.