[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Before I do, however, I wish todeal briefly with a discussion of textual analysis from Nick Couldry s InsideCulture (2000).Couldry s discussion is one of relatively few recent attempts toreturn to textual analysis in order to re-evaluate its usefulness as a methodology.Couldry responds to some of the claims for the expansion of the notion of thetext outlined above, and its part in the construction of the popular realitydescribed in John Hartley s work (1996), by insisting that we ask what is a text,considered as a social object? (Couldry 2000: 80).What Couldry learns fromsuch work as Hartley s is that, in order to do this, textual analysis must be trans-formed to take account of the actual complexity of textual production (p.86).Rather than focusing on the discrete text reader relationship, Couldry proposesthat we analyse what he calls the textual environment ; composed of meanings,texts and readers, the textual environment is constituted by a pattern of flowsrather than objects and consumers.Because we make things into texts by the waywe read or consume them, Couldry wants to investigate the process of textualiza-106 TEXTS AND CONTEXTStion how particular complexes of meanings come to be treated as texts to beread, within the textual environment (pp.81 2).Such a process, he argues,involves complex extra-textual conditions , which include something like theBennett and Woollacott idea of the reading formation.We need to know more,though, about how people actually negotiate this textual environment:People s negotiations involve active processes.We may screen some materialout entirely, and make a more explicit and considered choice about other mate-rial.Some texts we may read closely, working hard to connect them with othertexts.Or we may read a text with limited attention, incompletely, without anygreat interpretative work.This is where questions of textuality and tacticscome in.& There are also passive processes, which affect what texts are avail-able to particular people.These range from material exclusions (economic,educational), to other more subtle forms of exclusion (like people s sense ofwhat is appropriate for them, for their taste ) which by endless repetitioncome to have an almost material force (compare Bourdieu, 1984).(Couldry 2000: 84)As a result of such variations, those texts that do attract close attention are notsimply there as discrete objects: rather, they emerge as part of a textual eventwhich itself needs to be studied (p.86).To read texts in this way, Couldry says, isto have decentred textual analysis in the traditional sense (p.87).Indeed, whatCouldry suggests is along the lines implied, but not as fully developed, inHartley s work (1996, 1999): a multitextual, multimedia reading practice whichwould include the features of the text, the historical reading formation , themarketing and production strategies, and the discourses circulating about thetext and its themes.Clearly, this looks much more like a thoroughly cultural(rather than aesthetic or semiotic ) account of the text, and one that offerssignificant methodological possibilities for future work.Couldry concludes his discussion of textual analysis a little provocatively bypointing out that there is another factor in determining the textual event which isnot largely acknowledged:there must somewhere come a point where our questioning of the text stopsand we recognise that particular texts do exercise power over us, and forreasons that sociological context can only partly explain.We take pleasurein programmes, in films, in novels, music and dance, and these pleasures,while embedded in history & contain something left over which sociologyon its own has difficulty explaining: the realm of aesthetics.(Couldry 2000: 86 7)107 CENTRAL CATEGORI ESOf course, sociology is not the only one to have difficulty explaining aesthetics.Cultural studies displacement of the aesthetic and of issues of cultural value hasbecome notorious and remains unresolved [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl przylepto3.keep.pl
.Before I do, however, I wish todeal briefly with a discussion of textual analysis from Nick Couldry s InsideCulture (2000).Couldry s discussion is one of relatively few recent attempts toreturn to textual analysis in order to re-evaluate its usefulness as a methodology.Couldry responds to some of the claims for the expansion of the notion of thetext outlined above, and its part in the construction of the popular realitydescribed in John Hartley s work (1996), by insisting that we ask what is a text,considered as a social object? (Couldry 2000: 80).What Couldry learns fromsuch work as Hartley s is that, in order to do this, textual analysis must be trans-formed to take account of the actual complexity of textual production (p.86).Rather than focusing on the discrete text reader relationship, Couldry proposesthat we analyse what he calls the textual environment ; composed of meanings,texts and readers, the textual environment is constituted by a pattern of flowsrather than objects and consumers.Because we make things into texts by the waywe read or consume them, Couldry wants to investigate the process of textualiza-106 TEXTS AND CONTEXTStion how particular complexes of meanings come to be treated as texts to beread, within the textual environment (pp.81 2).Such a process, he argues,involves complex extra-textual conditions , which include something like theBennett and Woollacott idea of the reading formation.We need to know more,though, about how people actually negotiate this textual environment:People s negotiations involve active processes.We may screen some materialout entirely, and make a more explicit and considered choice about other mate-rial.Some texts we may read closely, working hard to connect them with othertexts.Or we may read a text with limited attention, incompletely, without anygreat interpretative work.This is where questions of textuality and tacticscome in.& There are also passive processes, which affect what texts are avail-able to particular people.These range from material exclusions (economic,educational), to other more subtle forms of exclusion (like people s sense ofwhat is appropriate for them, for their taste ) which by endless repetitioncome to have an almost material force (compare Bourdieu, 1984).(Couldry 2000: 84)As a result of such variations, those texts that do attract close attention are notsimply there as discrete objects: rather, they emerge as part of a textual eventwhich itself needs to be studied (p.86).To read texts in this way, Couldry says, isto have decentred textual analysis in the traditional sense (p.87).Indeed, whatCouldry suggests is along the lines implied, but not as fully developed, inHartley s work (1996, 1999): a multitextual, multimedia reading practice whichwould include the features of the text, the historical reading formation , themarketing and production strategies, and the discourses circulating about thetext and its themes.Clearly, this looks much more like a thoroughly cultural(rather than aesthetic or semiotic ) account of the text, and one that offerssignificant methodological possibilities for future work.Couldry concludes his discussion of textual analysis a little provocatively bypointing out that there is another factor in determining the textual event which isnot largely acknowledged:there must somewhere come a point where our questioning of the text stopsand we recognise that particular texts do exercise power over us, and forreasons that sociological context can only partly explain.We take pleasurein programmes, in films, in novels, music and dance, and these pleasures,while embedded in history & contain something left over which sociologyon its own has difficulty explaining: the realm of aesthetics.(Couldry 2000: 86 7)107 CENTRAL CATEGORI ESOf course, sociology is not the only one to have difficulty explaining aesthetics.Cultural studies displacement of the aesthetic and of issues of cultural value hasbecome notorious and remains unresolved [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]