Last week’s post was concerned with Discourse Analysis 1, the power that images and text create over the reader. Today, I will talk about the other type of Discourse Analysis (DA2). Discourse analysis 1 and 2 are different in what they stand for, but share Foucault’s notion of operating power and knowledge. However, while Discourse Analysis 2 is based on the institution that sells or portrays a certain product, Discourse Analysis 1 (DA1) deals with text and images and about the product itself that creates a discourse. While DA1 deals with the products themselves and what their broader context and influence is, and further, how power and knowledge are being exercised through the discourse.

DA2 is rather concerned with the institution that sells or portrays that certain product. Here, power and knowledge are applied through the set up of the institution as whole. This can also be noticed in the the sources that can be analysed with the second method. The sources are, just like the method is, about the institution Rose (2001) writes that the sources that are being used range from texts about the kind of institution that is dealt with, mainly its architecture, over interviews with people who are in charge of the institution to visual images of the building and displays of products.

Two things can be distinguished which are the main characteristics of DA2: the institutional apparatus and the institutional technologies. To make things easier, I will from here on take Ikea as an example. The furniture and connotation Ikea creates around certain furniture is part of DA1, as we create discourses around their products.

The apparatus, would be the set up of an Ikea store. Here, it is not only the path that is predetermined by the constructors of the store, also how things are being displayed. The store’s outlook is being designed in a way for the customer to imagine what their home could look like. Typical for any Ikea store is the path that has to be followed by everyone. First and foremost, it is a strategy of the management. It exercises power over the consumer, as the whole store has to be walked through in order to get to the check out.

The items that are being presented and their cultural value are also part of the apparatus. The way in which the furniture is being presented determines the clientele. Rose writes  about museums and galleries ’the architecture of museums and galleries articulated these various discourses of culture, art and science.’ (p. 172). By “discourse of culture” she means the discourses that are being created through the presentation of culture in museums. Translated to my example, the discourse of culture applies to the display of furniture and the cultural meaning and discourse it creates.

The institutional technologies can be considered as the tools that are being used to present the items that are being displayed. The small- scale way in which products are being presented, according to Rose, ‘articulate particular from of power/knowledge’ (p. 175). Whether items are openly available to the customers or whether they are prevented from being touched conveys the value of a certain product but is also able to provide a better understanding about it. Further technologies are descriptions, both on the items and as signage. It is one the one hand informative for the consumer and on the other it holds power over the behaviour of the customer.

Reference List

Rose, G. (2001). Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials. London: Sage. (Chapter 7: Discourse Analysis II: Institutions and Ways of Seeing)