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Critical Discourse Studies and Technology: A Multimodal Approach to Analysing Technoculture

(Hardback)


Publishing Details

Full Title:

Critical Discourse Studies and Technology: A Multimodal Approach to Analysing Technoculture

Contributors:

By (Author) Dr Ian Roderick

ISBN:

9781472569493

Publisher:

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Imprint:

Bloomsbury Academic

Publication Date:

2nd June 2016

Country:

United Kingdom

Classifications

Readership:

Professional and Scholarly

Fiction/Non-fiction:

Non Fiction

Other Subjects:

Media studies

Dewey:

401.41

Physical Properties

Physical Format:

Hardback

Number of Pages:

232

Dimensions:

Width 156mm, Height 234mm

Weight:

503g

Description

Making a new contribution to the developing field of multimodal critical discourse studies, Ian Roderick's book demonstrates how technologies that tend to be widely represented as innovative, or as simple pragmatic solutions, are always anchored in power relations and are therefore deeply ideological. A series of examples analysing technologies such as robotics, smart phones or bio-medicine, their functioning and uses, as well as their representations in the media, show that these are embedded within discourses that tell us about social and power relations, identities and political values. The book takes a tour of everyday technologies and how they are represented in different settings. A Disney theme park attraction showing how technology has improved family life makes many assumptions about what is natural in terms of interpersonal relations, pleasure and satisfaction. Advertisements that represent robot workers inform us about the kinds of worker-management relations now characterising work places. Roderick looks at the way that technologies, while often represented as divorced from their production and maintenance, as objects of wonder, need to be seen within a fabric of social relations that tends to be supressed from how we see them as part of a wider technological fetishism. Engaging with existing theories of technology, the book argues that we must take a more interdisciplinary approach to avoid the pitfalls of social constructivism and technological determinism. Our experiences of technologies are shaped through the relationship between knowledge, practices and institutional forms.

Reviews

Roderick (communication studies, Wilfrid Laurier Univ., Waterloo, Canada) has created an excellent, thought-provoking book that examines critical discourse studies and technology.The works conclusion suggests that the critical discourse studies approach to the examination of technology enables a more interdisciplinary method to the study of discourse. The book has clear pictures, a useful glossary, and an extensive bibliography. * CHOICE *
Returning to Rodericks work, this timely, well-written and comprehensive approach to analysing technoculture introduces important reflections for a technology-embedded world. Moreover, Roderick provides valuable tools, methods and insights for the execution of a multimodal study. * CADAAD *
This book is capturing this "multimodal" turn in an explicit, fascinating and well-supported manner. * Journal of Language and Politics *
This book is so essential we need more books out there that use CDA/multimodal analysis to really question technologys role in society. -- Theresa Catalano, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA

Author Bio

Ian Roderick is Associate Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada.

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