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Nico Carpentier

Title of the presentation:
Deploying Discourse Theory in Media Studies

Short abstract of the presentation:
When Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe published an elaborate version of their discourse theory in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985), they were met with fierce resistance by a unified front of traditional Marxists and antipoststructuralists. The debates on post-Marxism dominated much of the book's reception. This focus, combined with discourse theory's rather abstract nature, its lack of clear methodological guidelines, and its more natural habitat of Political Studies, caused discourse theory to remain confined to this realm of Political Studies, despite the broad ideological definition of the political preferred by the authors. This lecture aims to explain the basics discourse theory and bring it into the realm of Media Studies. Also the re-articulation of discourse theory into discourse theoretical analysis (DTA) will be discussed.

Short biography:
Nico Carpentier (PhD) is an assistant professor working at the Communication Studies Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB - Free University of Brussels). He is co-director of the VUB research centre CEMESO and vice-president of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). His theoretical focus is on discourse theory, his research interests are situated in the relationship between media, journalism, politics and culture, especially towards social domains as war & conflict, ideology, participation and democracy. He has authored, co-authored and edited 12 books in Dutch, French and English.