Discourse Analysis 2: The illusion of freedom

In the 7th chapter of her book Visual Methodologies, Rose pursues the foucauldian approach on analytical discourse and how it can be used to understand the regimes of power created by the institutions. This is what we call Discourse Analysis 2. In discourse analysis 1, an artefact (such as a painting) would be analysed in order to understand what it conveys and the hidden messages behind it (author’s motivations and what the viewer might take for granted at first sight). In the second form of discourse analysis, the museum or gallery exposing the painting would be analysed in order to understand their motivations by disposing it in a certain way, the building itself would also be analysed in order to understand its effects on viewers: the settings of a museum as well as its architecture are all exercing a form of power on their visitors, a certain way to behave inside the museum and a certain way to appreciate the artefacts presented. It seems quite logical and predictable to say that a museum’s visitor will pay less attention to various paintings all disposed in a tiny room than to a painting exposed alone in a large room with benches in front of it: in the first case, the visitor is invited (if not forced) to look at all the paintings filling the room rather quickly (rather than being presented on their own they can be seen as a group of painting that are all part of a specific conception of art, or maybe they are just overlooked pieces from an author which is recognized for other paintings. The fact that the room is tiny is also inviting visitors to stay for a short time, before another group joins the room and fills it). On the second case, the visitors are invited to contemplate the painting, the fact that it is standing alone in a large room creates an instant gaze between the viewer and the painting. It undoubtly appears as more important than the paintings in the tiny room. The fact that the viewer is invited to sit is also suggesting that he should take more time to look at this painting than other ones. When a visitor enters a museum, he is entering it’s owner’s conception of what art truly is and what form of art is more important than another, he is receiving a certain education in order to appreciate art in a certain way, one should learn to take distance and recognize the techniques used by the institutions to reach the ability to appreciate art by himself, not by the way the museum is telling him to.

Virtual institutions can also be analysed to discourse analysis 2, even though they supposedly offer more freedom in the way the viewer organizes the things he want to look at, they are always following a certain display which exerces a form of power on the viewer. Youtube is an interesting case: the viewer is able to connect to it via his google account on any computer in order to watch the channels he subscribed to, he is also presented with videos related to the ones he previously watched with his account. Nevertheless, when the viewer connects to youtube, he is not always presented with videos strictly related to his subscriptions or what he previously watched: the first section is (misleadingly) called ‘Recommandations’ which rather than presenting recommended videos for the viewer based on his previous researches presents only a few of them next to the most popular videos on youtube right now (the more popular a video is the more it will bring money to Youtube). The viewer is offered 10 propositions. In my case, when connecting to my account on someone else’s computer, out of the 10 videos presented to me, 3 of them were Vevo videos (youtube’s own platform for music videos: this platform is more beneficial for the website than another music video not posted on vevo). These three music video were (in order): Jennifer Lopez – Ain’t Your Mama, Rihanna – Needed Me, Justin Timberlake – Can’t Stop the Feeling and Radiohead – Daydreaming (each of these videos are the last ones released by these artists (all in the last month)). I have watched Justin Timberlake’s videos before but not in a long time since I was pretty disappointed in his last album. The last Rihanna video I’ve watched is B*tch Better Have My Money which was released nearly two years ago (I haven’t watched it since). I can not remember the last time I’ve watched a Radiohead video but it was probably around 10 years ago. In the case of J-Lo.. well, I do not remember ever watching one of her videos on youtube. Next to it were two buzzing videos: one of them was a street report about what japanese people think of black/asian-americans. The other one was a documentary exploring Korea’s illegal tattooing scene (I have never been big into Asian culture or tattoos in general). Finally, the three other videos included two videos by humorists duo Key&Peele and one from Saturday Night Live, which I’ve been watching last week, making it the three videos truly related to me out of 10 in the recommended section. Despite being connected to the platform and my dozens of subscriptions,  I am still presented with the mainstream videos providing the highest income to the website.

The same idea goes for Spotify when they present related artists, while being part of the same style, the first ones coming often seem to be the most streamed ones, not necessarily the closest musically.

Bibliography: •Rose, G. (2001). Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials. London: Sage.

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