Discourse, as I see it

Prelude:  I had a very tough time with "Discourse". Most things SRC said just went over my head. But I jotted down the points to read later (which I never did until very late..)

The questions which had in my mind is..

1. Why are we studying "Discourse" in Mass Communication?

2. What to study and what to write? It's not even written in our syllabus. I couldn't link it with any topics given in our syllabus.

Then our next teacher ABT came, and without any introduction taught us Nationalism and Propaganda. It made me even more confused. I can understand "Propaganda" is an important topic in Mass Communication. But how "Nationalism" fits in there?

Then came SD, gave us massive reading material (which was too late to read and comprehend). I searched internet to understand it, and everywhere there is a different approach to talk about "Discourse" which added to the confusion.

I did a simple thing, talked to GM. And right after it everything SRC and SD said in class made sense.

I hope most by now have understood it. Still I want to write it down in plain language. Hope some would find it useful.

What is Discourse exactly?

You can compare it with a lens. Say you are wearing a red sunglass, what will you see? Everything with a red tint obviously. Similarly what if you wear a different shade? Different color.

Discourse gives us a "perspective" to understand something, which might be a fact, an event.

Discourse is kind of an argument.

Say we are in a debate. Someone say's "Men are superior to women" He gives his own logic.

So how an argument is formed? It’s nothing but a bunch of "statements" Statements are expressed via "language” and it needs to be communicated.

Somebody says "Men are superior to women" and gives logic behind it. Some support, some disagree. The people who agree communicate further. They add more statements, more logic, more reasons. May be write books, articles. And step by step a discourse is formed..that is Patriarchy in this given example.

Whenever there is an argument, it is trying to establish a certain truth.

People who believe/support Patriarchy is trying to establish that “Men are superior to women” is a truth. But is it a truth? It came from an argument and it is trying to generate a truth. That truth is only “generated truth”. Next step of them is to say that “generated truth” is “knowledge”.

We take “knowledge” for granted. We think whatever knowledge is, it can’t be questioned.

Once a Discourse is accepted as “knowledge” it gives certain “power” to some institutions.  Just think of a family where “father” has the absolute say in everything, nobody questions him. It has accepted “Patriarchy” as knowledge; it can’t question it any more. A society which has accepted “Patriarchy” gives men power over women. Take religion for instance. Each and every religion gives “men” a superior position over women. Who formed those religions? Who wrote or dictated those books? All men.

Now what if somebody argue against it? They just put down those arguments on the basis of that “produced knowledge”. A man in a patriarchal society will just say ‘shut up’ to a woman, because he takes that “Discourse” (here Patriarchy) as “real knowledge”. We must remember where it started..as some statements which made an argument. Can any argument be one-sided? No. For every argument there can be a counter-argument, whenever we question the “power” or “authority” of an institution we are making a counter-argument.  We are making statements, giving reasons and logic to prove that what they say or what they believe is not the absolute truth. In this case “Feminism” is that counter-argument, another lens to see the same thing, same event. Another discourse.

Again, it starts from statements to form an argument, trying to “generate truth” to establish that truth as “knowledge”. Is it the “real truth” or “real knowledge”? It’s just another lens. You are wearing a red glass; I am wearing a green one. You say everything is reddish, I say no it’s greenish. So how will we know what the “truth” is? We will have to put off that lens.

That is Discourse Analysis. You will have to stand outside it to question it. You will have to understand that you are only wearing a lens; you will have to put it off in order to question it. If you have to understand whether a Discourse or an argument or a statement is “truth”, either you need to be free from that Discourse or produce a counter Discourse.

For example take “Nationalism”. We take it for granted that “Nationalism” is good. Is it? Always?

A terrorist is caught. Say he is a Kashmiri militant who tried to plant a bomb somewhere. Instantly we take that he is a ‘monster’, a criminal who is anti-India. As a group i.e as citizens of India we want him to be hanged. That’s “Nationalism” inside us.

Now think of Khudiram. He tried to kill a British magistrate and accidentally killed some innocent people.

Do we consider him as a militant, a terrorist? Or a revolutionary? We call him “Shahid Khudiram”. But for British he was a terrorist. Whatever our judgment or perspective of seeing an event, there is always another side of story. In order to understand it, we need to question it, stand outside of it. It’s not for simple conclusion whether its “good” or “bad”. It’s for understanding it. A Kashmiri militant might not be a militant to an ordinary person in Kashmir. We just can’t kill all those who have anti-Indian sentiments. If we understand “why”, we can address it. We can go to that root cause and eliminate it. Why a poor person will take up a gun and be a Maoist? If there was opportunity for them to live a peaceful life where they don’t have to face oppression or exploitation, would they take up a gun and break law? There is a Discourse called “Humanism” which gives paramount value to humanity. Which comes first, Nation or Humanity?

These are all just questions to understand “Nationalism” as an argument, which gives the state that power to put down anything which doesn’t agree or produce a counter-argument.

Think about Capitalism as a discourse. Marxism is the counter discourse which questions it. Two sides of the coin.

Now who produces Discourse? Always the people in Power. The white people won some battle, by ‘hook or by crook’ colonized our nation. They are the people in “Power” here. Now they need to rationalize, justify their authority. Here comes colonialism. What it says? Black people are immature; they are like children or women, who needed to be administered by white people for their own good. Notice they hand of patriarchy working here too.  They tried to establish some truth (they are superior, we can’t rule ourselves so they should rule us), tried to establish it as a “knowledge”. Think about 200years of India under British rule. A handful of them ruled us. How? Because they succeeded in forming a system (police, military, administrators) loyal to them, who accepted that “generated truth”, that “produced knowledge” as real knowledge. So Power produces Discourse, and Discourse produces Power too.

Discourse just doesn’t fall from a tree. There are certain facts already. For hundreds of years people hated Jews. That anti-Jew feeling for whatever reason was already there. Now Hitler and his followers made a discourse of Nazism which in turn caused the mass killings of the Jews (known as Holocaust).

So we can say social facts produce Discourse and Discourse produces social facts too.

Now where exactly Discourse comes into Mass Communication?  No matter which subject in arts you are studying, Discourse is relevant. As I have written earlier, in order to form an argument you need language (in whatever form) and you need communication. Also if you know the “lens” you can analyze almost everything.

For instance take the story of “The Boss came to Dinner”.

Remember what Shamnath said about the friend of his mother?

“I want to give a wide berth to that next door hag”.

Hag (witch, ugly woman) is a very derogatory word. This statement shows us a picture of his beliefs. Its sexist (derogatory to woman), ageist (he hates old people). He believes in absolute form of patriarchy (remember he has the last say in everything in the house).

Even to understand a character in a story, discourse is helping. It would help when you will write, say an article for a newspaper. It would help you to understand news. When you are communicating, when you are receiving communication, in both the cases.

It’s not only relevant to our subject, its relevant in whatever you do, whatever you think and whatever you see, read, hear or write!