Representation & Power

Question 1

The Media

Answer 1

• Definition: Main means of mass communication, depending on the technologies that allow us to spread messages broadly
• Throughout most of human history, talking was practically the only means of communication
• Writing caused the first real media revolution, although it needed printing press and education to reach the masses
• Then telegraph, radio, television
• New Media: Computers, internet, smartphones

Question 2

Edward Said (1935-2003)

Answer 2

• Palestinian, moved to Egypt as kid, worked in the US
• Literary theorist, helped to revolutionize literary studies
• Most famous work is Orientalism (1978). Deals with literary representations and power

Question 3

Discourse

Answer 3

• Like Foucault, Said sees knowledge as a source of power and is interested in discourses
• Discourse: Systems of representations and understandings of the social world that cause us to see and make sense of the world in certain ways
• Limits the extent to which our observations/understandings are objective
• Power of Discourses: Discourses promote biased views/understandings. Can empower some but subordinate other. Ex. Stevenson’s “Squaw Drudge” discourse
• Said believed that the print media has played a very important role popularizing discourses over the past few centuries
• Print media allows people to spread common representations/understandings of categories of people, creating a biased views of certain categories of people
• Once these discourses are popularized, they can create a life of their own
• Different from Foucault, believes powerful actors with particular interests commonly create and maintain discourses for instrumental purposes

Question 4

Orientalism (1978)

Answer 4

• Said’s work focuses on an “Orientalist” discourse which says Europeans and (subsequently) North Americans have created and popularized discourse about what the “Orient” is and what its peoples are like
• Said analyzes novels and travelogues on the “Orient” mainly from 19th century, documents discourse that exoticizes as barbarians inferior, emotion, autocratic, irrational, lazy, violent which influences how we see “Orientals”
• Orientalism is a means of power/domination, justifying colonialism and promoting discrimination
• Nowadays, shifted to violence and terrorism especially dehumanizing the Muslim to justify Gulf Wars and the war in Afghanista

Question 5

Post-Colonialism

Answer 5

• Academic discipline providing a critical analysis of the long-term impact of colonialism on populations, considers the enduring legacies of domination and exploitation
• Influenced by Said
• Normative: Focused exclusively on the negative effects this had on the colonized populations in the hopes of alleviating its long-term effects

Question 6

Colonial Discourses

Answer 6

• Colonizers were in positions of power and could popularize their discourses and impede competing discourses of the colonized
• Superiority/Inferiority: Generally portrayed the colonizers as superior and the colonized as inferior. Ex. Orientalism, Squaw Drudge
• Helped to justify colonial domination

Question 7

Frantz Fanon – Black Skin, White Masks

Answer 7

• How colonial racist discourses promoted inferiority complexes among the colonized
• Stratification and discrimination among colonized populations in favor of those most like the colonizers
• As a result, colonized tried to be like the colonizers