Lecture 18 - Discourse, display & write up

Question 1

(!) Describe discourse & discourse analysis in general

Answer 1

Discourse:
- Social construction/meaning-making through talk & text

Discourse analysis:
- Analyze language use
- How meanings are produced
- Which meanings prevail in society
- Bundle of methods
- Eg. Study firm through lens of discourse

Discourse analyst job:
- Study structures of meaning, expressions, themes, routine ways of talking, & rhetorical devices used in constructing reality

Question 2

(!) Describe the discourse analysis as method

Answer 2

General:
- Language, practise & context

From analyzing to questioning context:
- Analyze meaning & what text/discourse does
- Logic, rhetoric, produced objects & assumptions in text

Wider context aspects:
- Identify discourses
- How text relate to other texts
- How text & discourses is used
- What is excluded: What cannot be said
- How discourses change over time

Coding:
- Terminology, sentences & phrases
- Semantic & latent coding
- Analyze use, role & relations in mediating & creating context & understanding

Question 3

Describe examples on discursive phenomenas

Answer 3

General:
- Phenomena access through language

____________

Phenomena manifested as verbal communication:
- Conversations
- Briefings
- Interviews
- Meetings
- Presentations
- Announcements

___________

Phenomena in written form:

Within organisations:
- Reports
- Manuals
- Newsletter
- Corporate websites
- Press releases
- Email correspondence
- Advertisements

Outside organisations:
- Academic journals
- Books
- Media coverage
- Activist & protest leaflets and websites
- Public blogs
- Government-produced material

Question 4

(!) Describe the levels of analysis in discursive design

Answer 4

General:
- Often interconnected

Micro:
- Individuals

Meso:
- Groups & organizations

Makro:
- Society: Eg. Politic, Economic & social factors

Question 5

(?) Describe the research tradition of discursive design

Answer 5

General:
- Situation, focus, level & mode determine discursive approach

Positivist:
- Positioned as mean to establish coherent reality or uncontested truth

Critical:
- Contested nature of meaning & the discursive exercise of power

Poststructuralist
- Engage with multiple interpretations of reality & the indeterminacy of meaning

Question 6

(!) Describe visual tools

Answer 6

General:
- Organize thought
- Systematize data & structure analysis
- Helps clarify connections between data, analysis & conclusions
- Key to theorize from qual data

Constant comparison:
- Pattern of diff. & similarity of codes, units & cases
- Experimenting with displays
- Which concepts capture “story”
- Play: Mix & match under diff. arrangements & themes
- Alter: Re-alter arrangements until decent pattern emerge
- “Creative leap”: Identify patterns to more general theoretical framework

Question 7

(!) Describe different types of visuals

Answer 7

Case summaries

Data tables:
- Matrix displays
- Intersection of lists
- Tabular format: Collects & arrange data for easy overview
- Visually highlights patterns or contrast across cases
- Great if comparative element

Data structures:
- First order: Concepts
- Second order: Themes
- Third order: Dimensions

Grounded models

Network displays

Question 8

Describe how to use & show data

Answer 8

General:
- Shift between telling & showing:

Telling:
- Theoretical points

Showing:
- Illustrate point with quotation or field note extract
- Use data to bring theoretical point to life

Telling again:
- What it mean in light of theory

Question 9

(!) How should the findings be interpreted?

Answer 9

• Connection to earlier theory & RQ
• Significance of findings
• Consequence of findings
• Conclusion of findings
• Why it is a good interpretation
• Interpretation related to earlier discussions on theme