Let's get real: a critical semiotic analysis of Irish print media discourses

ABSTRACT

In what follows, I critically assess the merits of the relativist and realist positions in the social and human sciences, and argue that the relativisation of truth claims operates to mask relations of power and inequality, and also offers impunity to discursive mystifications denying the existence of both. Alternatively, I argue that the Critical Realist position, with its realist ontology and relativist epistemology, allows for the identification of such structures, and as a consequence of its emphasis on the materiality of discourse, for the identification of mystificatory meaning-making. And I operationalise my argument through critical analysis and commentary on four texts drawn from newspapers across the range for such in Ireland on the related issues of wealth and welfare.

KEYWORDS:

• Realism
• relativism
• mystification
• print media
• explanatory critique

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Eugene Flanagan studied for his BA (Hons), M.Sc., and Ph.D. at the West Yorkshire universities of Leeds, Huddersfield, and Bradford, respectively. He has lived in the west of Ireland for several years.