2. The critical tradition arose to
counteract the tendency of the
other approaches to describe
the communicative process
without questioning the
outcomes
3. The term critical school of
communication comes from a
group of German scholars
known as the “ Frankfurt
School” because they were
part of the independent
Institute for Social Research at
Frankfurt University
4. The Frankfurt school is neo-
marxist though it had rejected
the economic determinism of
orthodox Marxism
5. The leading figures of the
Frankfurt school are Max
Horkheimer, Theodor
Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse
6. These scholars and their followers
offered thoughtful analyses of
discrepancies between the liberal
values of freedom and equality
that leaders proclaimed and the
unjust concentrations and abuses
of power that made those values a
myth
7. Critical scholars consistently
challenged three features of
contemporary society:
0 The control of language to perpetuate power imbalances,
0 The role of mass media in dulling sensitivity to repression,
and
0 Blind reliance on the scientific method and uncritical
acceptance of empirical findings.
8. Although diffuse and hard to
organize, this tradition brings
one thing in common on the
table…
9. …the idea that social and
cultural arrangements are
loaded to enforce the power of
certain stakeholders in ways
that dominate and even
oppress others
10. The critical school hope to
move beyond feelings of
sympathy and stimulate
praxis – social action.
12. modernism
0 Marxism
0 Critical scholars attempt to name and expose
structural oppression that may be hidden from our
consciousness
0 Louis Althusser: ‘ideology is present in the structure
of society and arises from the practices undertaken by
social institutions’.
13. modernism
0 For Althusser: the society has repressive state
apparatuses – the police and military, and
ideological state apparatuses – education, religion
and mass media.
0 The Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, hegemony
occurs in many ways in society, especially, when
events and texts are interpreted in a way that
promotes interests of one group over those of another.
14. modernism
Jurgen Habermas and the Frankfurt School:
0 the study of mass communication
0 Pioneers are: Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno and
Herbert Marcuse at the Frankfurt School of Social
Research, 1923.
0 Contemporary scholar – Jurgen Habermas: the theory
of the Public Sphere
15. modernism
0 Feminism: liberal and radical feminism
0 Liberal feminism: …that women have been oppressed
as a group.
0 Radical feminism: …that the oppression of women
runs far deeper than political, it is about a patriarchal
hegemony
16. Postmodernism
0 Cultural studies – investigations of the ways culture
is produced through a struggle among ideologies.
0 Feminist Cultural Studies – patriarchy as the source
of gender oppression.
17. Poststructuralism
0 They opposed the idea that language structures are
just natural forms to be used by individuals as a tool
of communication.
0 Their goal was to “deconstruct” language in order to
show that language can be understood, used, and
constructed in a limitless number of ways.
0 Michel Foucault: “language creates the person”. The
discourse of our age will shape who we are and how
we think.
18. Postcolonialism
0 This scholars are devoted to understanding
Eurocentrism, imperialism, and the processes of
colonization and decolonization – all of the ways in
which the colonial experience can be understood as
an ideology of domination.
0 Neo-colonialism
0 Postcolonialism – domination, ideology, and power
through globalization.