Using discourse analysis

In Chapter 16, Chris Walton provides an account of his experience of working alongside other researchers in doing an abbreviated Foucauldian discourse analysis. In this video, we hear another ‘insider’ perspective on what it can be like to use discourse analysis, this time from Philippa Carr who used a discursive approach in her Masters and PhD research. Philippa talks about why she chose to use a discursive approach and how she learned to apply it. She also responds to a question that is frequently levelled at discursive and other critical psychologists, namely what makes her research psychological rather than political.

Philippa Carr is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of the West of England in Bristol in the UK. She completed her PhD at Coventry University in 2019. Her thesis explored how the ‘super-rich’ use talk about psychological concepts to legitimize extreme wealth in television broadcasts. She remains interested in how extreme wealth inequality is presented in the media and how public arguments for extreme wealth are used to legitimize inequality and practices that impede social mobility.

Examples of Philippa Carr’s research can be found here:

• Carr, P. (2021) ‘Extending the boundaries of political communication: How ideology can be examined in super-rich television documentaries using discursive psychology’, in M.A. Demasi, S. Burke and C. Tileagă (eds), Political Communication: Discursive Perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 89–114
• Carr, P., Goodman, S. and Jowett, A. (2019) ‘“I don’t think there is any moral basis for taking money away from people”: Using discursive psychology to explore the complexity of talk about tax’, Critical Discourse Studies, 16(1): 84–95.