Social Power and Privilege in Society.

Development Perspectives Workshop: Hosted by Stephanie Kirwan and Bobby McCormack.

On Thursday October 26^th last, Stephanie Kirwan and Bobby McCormack, of Development Perspectives, hosted a fascinating workshop in the Carmelite Centre in Dublin City. The workshop focused on ‘power’ and ‘privilege’ in society, specifically the invisibility of power and privilege, and how it creates and maintains particular sets of norms and conventions which sustain unequal access to social capital, and resources.  Under guidance from Bobby and Stephanie, the conversation developed quite organically taking us down an enlightening rabbit hole of issues surrounding topics such as education, social status, language, discourse, rights, duties, obligations, privileges, and responsibilities etc.

There was a broad range of people from different backgrounds in attendance bringing multiple perspectives to the table.

The event inspired me to write about power and privilege in society. So here it is…

(As a quick disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Development Perspectives and the views in this article are entirely my own)

Household chores and children versus the rest of the universe: news values and views towards women in The Korea Herald and The Korea Times, a CDA perspective.

Published in The Journal of Media and Performing Arts.

Household chores and Children versus the rest of the universe: news values and views towards women in The Korea Herald and The Korea Times, a CDA perspective.

ISSN 1975-8928.

Abstract:

This paper comparatively analyses the discursive construction of women’s societal roles in two online Korean English language newspapers. It addresses the question; how are women represented in English language ‘broadsheet’ online news journals of record in South Korea; and how do those representations of women maintain the social conditions which sustain gender inequalities?  Linguistic data was gathered from The Korea Herald and the Times of Korea over a two day period based upon headlines that had a direct reference to ‘women’.  A Critical Discourse Analysis approach (CDA) was used drawing on various theories of discourse analysis, pragmatics, and cognition.  The findings pointed to an ideological predisposition towards representing women in traditional roles in line with a socio-cognitive legacy of Confucian values. There was also a notable confusion in the language which reflects the discord between these Confucian values and modern globalised values.

Keywords: cognition, Confucianism, feminism, Critical Discourse Analysis, linguistics, media, values, ideology