Discourse Analysis as Ideology Analysis

This chapter focuses on the ‘expression’ of ideologies in various structures of text and talk. It is situated within the broader framework of a research project on discourse and ideology which has been conducted at the University of Amsterdam since 1993. The theoretical premise of this study is that ideologies are typically, though not exclusively, expressed and reproduced in discourse and communication, including non-verbal semiotic messages, such as pictures, photographs and movies. Obviously, ideologies are also ‘enacted’ in other forms of action and interaction, and their reproduction is often embedded in organizational and institutional contexts. Thus, racist ideologies may be expressed and reproduced in racist talk, comics or movies in the context of the mass media, but they may also be enacted in many forms of discrimination and institutionalized by racist parties within the context of the mass media or of Western parliamentary democracies. However, among the many forms of reproduction and interaction, discourse plays a prominent role as the preferential site for the explicit, verbal formulation and the persuasive communication of ideological propositions.