Discource analyzing Text

Discource analyzing

Analyzing Text

The Cultural Discourse in Ethnic Food Review

theory.

ABSTRACT

This chapter demonstrates how to conduct a textual analysis. I employ textual

analysis through a cultural critical lens and illustrate this method with an

analysis of food reviews. First, the method is defined and central theoretical

tenets are explained. Then I outline the methodological process of this qualita-

tive method from searching for a topic, establishing a theoretical background,

selecting data, and presenting evidence to building a line of argument. As an

example, I analyze newspaper food reviews of ethnic restaurants. This analysis

is embedded in three theoretical contexts: the role of media in creating national

identity; the essentializing contradictions of authenticity and culture; and the

problematic “us versus them” dichotomies of international journalism

Textual analysis has become one of the more popular methodologies for cultural

critical media scholars. While the method is employed under various names, what

all approaches have in common is that the method concentrates on qualitative inter-

pretations of cultural output. For media scholars, the main data for a textual analysis

is media content such as newspaper or magazine articles, television shows, radio

programs, Internet sites, or computer games. Textual analysis draws on qualitative

interpretive research traditions and critical theory

Defining Textual Analysis

With the cultural-critical turn in media studies more than 30 years ago, an increasing

number of scholars rejected the social science paradigm of research along with

quantitative methodology. Quantitative content analysis was criticized for remaining

on a descriptive level and for evaluating language out of context. Instead, cultural-

critical scholars tried to end a way of exploring content in its “natural” occurrence

– words or images as they are expressed and received in a specific web of meaning.

Drawing on a long line of qualitative research and interpretive approaches, textual

analysis was often positioned in contrast to traditional content analysis, as it was seen

as “a type of qualitative analysis that, beyond the manifest content of media, focuses

on the underlying ideological and cultural assumptions of the text” These dening distinctions indicate the influence of the humanities, especially semiotics, flm studies, and literary analysis, and of discursive interpretive approaches on the development of textual analysis.In line with understanding media as “clues to the general culture” (Du Gay, Hall,

Janes, Mackay, & Negus, 1997, p. 11), textual analysis has become a methodology

that attempts to reconstruct the structures of feeling (Williams, 1974) – that is, the

prevalent ideologies permeating a particular historical and cultural moment – that

make a specific type of coverage possible. Researchers infer from specic media

content how the people who produced the content and people who are addressed as

audiences create shared meaning. The “underlying cultural and ideological assump-

tions” mentioned in the definition above are therefore the aspects in the text that can

be analyzed to understand how ideology and common sense are constructed at any

given time.

Textual analysis in the cultural-critical paradigm follows the principles of interpre-

tive research (such as naturalistic inquiry). Textual analysts probe a research question

inductively by ending patterns in the empirical material. These patterns lead to the

interpretations and developments of explanations and theories grounded in the back

and forth between observation and contextual interpretation.

Discource analysis of recipes

Abstract and Figures

This article explores the mediated discourses of food and gender in a multimodal narrative analysis of two Food Network instructional cooking shows hosted by female protagonists. Through a discussion of the openings and closings, side-narratives and evaluations, this article shows how multimodality advances the cooking show narrative. In examining the presentation of the women cooks in the context of their homes and family, the analysis illustrates how the mediated context facilitates the transition of women from underappreciated and expected caretakers in the kitchen to confident and empowered agents.

Introduction

Cooking shows have become a mainstay in contemporary

media, producing celebrity cooking show hosts known on a first-

name basis. Scholars have turned attention to this rise of celebrity

chefs, from identifying a typology of ‘‘culinary personas” that relate

to gender and social hierarchies to examin-

ing gendered ideology on celebrity chef cooking shows and in their cookbooks

, to seeing how celebrity chefs work

as cultural intermediaries , to analyzing how story-

telling fosters intimacy between the cooking show host and viewer

, to observing the material experi-

ence of celebrity chefs by consumers

Part of this shift in relationships between the performer and

audience on cooking shows is a result of a more fluid multimodal

discourse of expert-friend talk.