The critical tradition

1. The Critical Tradition Communication as a reflective challenge of unjust discourse

2. The critical tradition arose to counteract the tendency of the other approaches to describe the communicative process without questioning the outcomes

3. The term critical school of communication comes from a group of German scholars known as the “ Frankfurt School” because they were part of the independent Institute for Social Research at Frankfurt University

4. The Frankfurt school is neo- marxist though it had rejected the economic determinism of orthodox Marxism

5. The leading figures of the Frankfurt school are Max Horkheimer , Theodor Adorno , and Herbert Marcuse

6. These scholars and their followers offered thoughtful analyses of discrepancies between the liberal values of freedom and equality that leaders proclaimed and the unjust concentrations and abuses of power that made those values a myth

7. Critical scholars consistently challenged three features of contemporary society: The control of language to perpetuate power imbalances, The role of mass media in dulling sensitivity to repression, and Blind reliance on the scientific method and uncritical acceptance of empirical findings.

8. Although diffuse and hard to organize, this tradition brings one thing in common on the table…

9. …the idea that social and cultural arrangements are loaded to enforce the power of certain stakeholders in ways that dominate and even oppress others

10. The critical school hope to move beyond feelings of sympathy and stimulate praxis – social action.

11. modernism Marxism Critical scholars attempt to name and expose structural oppression that may be hidden from our consciousness Louis Althusser : ‘ideology is present in the structure of society and arises from the practices undertaken by social institutions’.

12. modernism For Althusser : the society has repressive state apparatuses – the police and military, and ideological state apparatuses – education, religion and mass media. The Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, hegemony occurs in many ways in society, especially, when events and texts are interpreted in a way that promotes interests of one group over those of another.

13. modernism Jurgen Habermas and the Frankfurt School: the study of mass communication Pioneers are: Max Horkheimer , Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse at the Frankfurt School of Social Research, 1923. Contemporary scholar – Jurgen Habermas : the theory of the Public Sphere

14. modernism Feminism: liberal and radical feminism Liberal feminism: …that women have been oppressed as a group. Radical feminism: …that the oppression of women runs far deeper than political, it is about a patriarchal hegemony

15. Postmodernism Cultural studies – investigations of the ways culture is produced through a struggle among ideologies. Feminist Cultural Studies – patriarchy as the source of gender oppression.

16. Poststructuralism They opposed the idea that language structures are just natural forms to be used by individuals as a tool of communication. Their goal was to “deconstruct” language in order to show that language can be understood, used, and constructed in a limitless number of ways. Michel Foucault: “language creates the person”. The discourse of our age will shape who we are and how we think.

17. Postcolonialism This scholars are devoted to understanding Eurocentrism, imperialism, and the processes of colonization and decolonization – all of the ways in which the colonial experience can be understood as an ideology of domination. Neo-colonialism Postcolonialism – domination, ideology, and power through globalization.