Analyzing the ‘Critical’ in Media Control Discourse

John E. Ingulsrud (Meisei University) and Kate Allen (Meiji University)

Volume 3, Issue 1

Abstract

Practitioners of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and media control discourse view their work as contributing to the social good.   In addition, both share the literacy practices of engaging in the text critically.   However, CDA practitioners would probably resist having their work compared with that of media control discourse.   They would prefer to see their goal as emancipatory, as opposed to defending perceived standards motivated by fear.  This article describes similarities and differences of the two approaches in terms of reading text.   Four general positions are presented to describe ways in which a text can be read.   The article then illustrates how one media control text, Frederic Wertham's ‘Seduction of the Innocent', was successful in bringing about social change in the United States as comics were censored and attitudes towards them were profoundly altered.   In contrast, manga in Japan were not suppressed and censored in the same way, providing an example of what developed in the absence of such social critique.  Wertham's success provides a cautionary note for CDA practitioners as they attempt to effect social change.  

Download

Download full text of the article as PDF

References

Barker, M. (1984).  A Haunt of Fears: The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign.  Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.

Barker, M. (1999).  Fredric Wertham: The sad case of the unhappy humanist.  In J.A. Lent (ed.), Pulp Demons: International Dimensions of the Postwar Anti-Comics Campaign.  Madison, NJ and London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Associated University Presses.  pp. 215-233.

Barthes, R. (1977).  The death of the author.  In S. Heath (trans.), Image, Music, Text.  New York: Hill and Wang.  pp. 142-148.

Bloor, M. and Bloor, T. (2007). The Practice of Critical Discourse Analysis: An Introduction.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chouliaraki, L. and Fairclough, N. (1999). Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis.  Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis.  London: Longman.

Fairclough, N. (2003). Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research.   London: Routledge.

Graff, H.J. (1987). The Legacies of Literacy: Continuities and Contradictions in Western Culture and Society.  Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 

Hajdu, D.  (2008).   The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America.  New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Hirsch, E.D. (1976). The Aims of Interpretation.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ingulsrud, J.E. and Allen, K. (2009).  Reading Japan Cool: Patterns of Manga Literacy and Discourse.  Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Janks, H. (2002). Critical discourse analysis as a research tool.  In M. Toolan (ed.), Critical Discourse Analysis: Critical Concepts in Linguistics IV.  London: Routledge.  pp. 26-42.

Janks, H. (2005).  Language and the design of texts.  English Teaching: Practice and Critique 4 (3): 97-110.

Kane, B. (1939).  Batman.   New York: Detective Comics.

Kutner, L. and Olson, C. (2008). Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do.  New York: Simon and Schuster.

Marston, W.M. (1944). Wonder Woman.  New York: DC Comics.

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.   New York: McGraw-Hill.

Miller vs.  California.  http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/ USSC_CR_0413_0015_ZS.html.  (accessed: 6 January  2009).

Nakano, H. (2004). Manga Sangyōron [Theory of manga industry].  Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō.

Richardson, K. (2002). Critical linguistics and textual diagnosis.  In M. Toolan (ed.), Critical Discourse Analysis: Critical Concepts in Linguistics I.  London: Routledge.  pp.  358-374.

Roddenberry, G.  (1966).  Star Trek.  http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/ features/intro/index.html.  (accessed: 6 January 2009).

Shannon, C.E. and Weaver, W. (1949). The Mathematical Theory of Communication.  Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Sharrock, W.W. and Anderson, D.C. (1981).  Language, thought and reality again.  Sociology 15: 287-293.

Street, B.V. (1984). Literacy in Theory and Practice.   Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Surber, J.P. (1998). Culture and Critique: An Introduction to the Critical Discourses of Cultural Studies.  Boulder, CO: Westview.

Suzuki, Kazuko. (1998). Pornography or therapy?  Japanese girls creating the Yaoi phenonenon.   In S. Inness (ed.), Millennium Girls: Today's Girls around the World.   Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.  pp. 243-267. 

Wertham, F. (1954).  Seduction of the Innocent: The Influence of Comic Books on Today's Youth.   New York: Rinehart.

Wodak, R. (2008). The Politics of Exclusion.  Debating Migration in Austria.  With M.  Krzyzanowski.  New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Wright, B.W. (2003). Comic Book Nation:  The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.   Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.