Analysis as assemblage: Making sense of polysemous texts

Priyadharshini, Esther ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9509-2865 and Pressland, Amy (2018) Analysis as assemblage: Making sense of polysemous texts. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 35 (5). pp. 420-439. ISSN 1529-5036

Preview

PDF (Accepted manuscript) - Accepted Version Available under License Unspecified licence. Download (700kB) | Preview

Abstract

Accomplishing critical literacy within a mediascape where texts present as polysemous and ambiguous may be the challenge of our times. This article uses the example of a seemingly paradoxical newspaper column, which contains paratextual elements, to illustrate how an assemblage of critical analytical approaches is needed to make fuller sense of the text. The column is read in three ways, focusing first on the main column, its location, imagined audience, its use of rhetorical devices such as satire, irony, humor, and repetition to critique the state of global football. The second reading uses a postcolonial feminist perspective to focus exclusively on the curious supplementary tailpieces (shirttails) that end the column. It reveals how specific translation strategies and the representation of certain bodies as sexually voracious, deviant, and excessive frame such bodies as absurd exotic-erotic objects of a neo-colonial gaze. The third reading leans on Derridean ideas of writing and text to understand the seemingly discrepant relationship between column and shirttails, and raises critical questions about the role of the reader/readership. Each analysis brings different sensibilities to the work and illustrates the value of assembling multiple analytical approaches to work towards critical media literacy. The conditions and caveats of such working arrangements are also considered.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	polysemy,paratext,critical literacy,postcolonial feminist analysis,derridean analysis,working arrangement
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Education and Lifelong Learning
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Critical Cultural Studies In Education
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	20 Jun 2018 13:30
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2022 03:53
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/67415
DOI:	10.1080/15295036.2018.1492143

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item