The definition of discourse is “groups of statements which structure the way a thing is thought, and the way we act on the basis of that thinking.” (Rose 2001, p. 136). It is a form of language that has laws within the institutions that it is circulated. An example given by Rose (2001) is medical discourse, which has its own forms, rules and spaces that it is spoken. Medical discourse produces its own knowledge (Nead 1988 as cited in Rose 2001, p. 136). Discourse also produces subjects, doctors nurses etc (Rose 2001, p. 136). To simplify, there is meaning and knowledge behind each word spoken, it is not simply the word itself.
Discourses do not have to be specialised like medical discourse, and can be articulated through a variety of images, texts and speech (Rose 2001, p. 136). Foucault pioneered this understanding of discourse and discourse analysis. He stated that discourse is a form of discipline and power (Rose 2001, p. 137). Discourse is associated with power because it is productive, disciplining its subjects to a certain understanding and appropriate behaviour, creating human subjects. (Rose 2001, p. 137). Identity, a sense of self and our relation to the surrounding world is created through discourse (Rose 2001, p. 137). Discourse analysis I, used by Elliot (2001), “tends to pay rather more attention to the notion of discourse as articulated through various kinds of visual images and verbal texts” (Rose 2001, p. 140). It is used to display how certain images construct specific views of the world and is concerned with the social modality of the image (Rose 2001, p. 140).
Elliot (2001) uses discourse analysis methods to analyse marketing of coffee and its representation of global culture (Elliot 2001, p. 369), involving Starbucks coffee in her case study. Elliot discusses how Starbucks market their product to create a new life style and induce excitement in the coffee bean. Elliot also discusses the “interpretive repertoire” of marketing, as consumers ingest contradictory discourses of foreignness (Potter 1996 as cited in Rose 2001, p. 156, Elliot 2001, p. 369). This discourse aligns with “the complexity and contradictions internal to discourses” (Rose 2001, p. 156). They have structures but are not necessarily logical or coherent.
Rose states that “discourse analysis is to be concerned with the discursive production of some kind of authoritative account” (2001, p. 142) and with the social practices embedded within the discourse. This can be seen with Elliot’s analysis of Starbucks symbolic marketing of their product. Elliot uses starting points of academic texts on globalisation to begin her discourse analysis (Rose 2001, p. 142). By looking at symbolic analysis’ and other disciplines, she asserts the need for a discourse analysis of Starbucks and globalisation. She moves onto to using iconography methods to analyse the effects of Starbucks on cross cultural consumption and globalisation. Iconography is “the subject matter or meaning was, for Panofsky, to be established by referring to the understandings of the symbols and signs in a painting that it’s contemporary audiences would have had” (Rose 2001, p. 144). Through understanding the symbols and multilayered text of coffee, one can analyse its effect on the global scale (Elliot 2001, p. 371) becoming integrated as a key part of Western consumer identity.
Elliot looks at how marketing of coffee has changed through historical advertisements (Elliot 2001, p. 372). Through this analysis of advertisements, Starbucks use of symbols and discourse can be compared and contrasted. They personify the beans, creating an otherworldly sense (consuming culture in a cup) (Elliot 2001, p. 373), from Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Indonesia and New Guinea, to Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen. This discourse is combined with Starbucks array of trademarked blends. Starbucks asserts it “creates” its blends (Elliot 2001, p. 373). This contrasts with its otherworldliness, yet is tied together within Starbucks advertising. Thus, the “interpretive repertoire” is created (Potter 1996 as cited in Rose 2001, p. 156) and hosts a great symbolic power (Elliot 2001, p 374).
Elliot goes further into Starbucks advertisements harnessing otherworldliness with how coffee is described, as “”magical”, “intriguing”, “fleeting” and “elusive” (Elliot 2001, p. 378). This combines “Starbucks’ sense of the exotic and its Western gaze with the mysterious and primitive to create a coffee profile with multiple meanings” (Elliot 2001, p. 378). She gives countless other examples of discourse and visual images Starbucks has used to create their iconic brand, controlling coffee and all its cultural behaviours. Methods described by Rose are used by Elliot to analyse Starbucks’ discourse on coffee in order to market its product.