When media theory gives up on certainity
Inherent within humanity is the exigency for certainty so when an influx of meanings are communicated within a chaotic world where individuals desire singular streams of information to rely upon, a fog of truth is created. This in turn underpins how a post structuralist theoretical turn in communication has indeed caused a complete dissolution of certainty as humanity now lacks that singular information stream that promotes truth. Storytelling has a distinct influential characteristic, the ability within modern society to communicate narratives at an exponential rate invites an unprecedented number of different narrative discourses . With the emergence of post-structuralism the certainty is lost however individuals find themselves restricted as they remain on an inevitable search for ideologies that produce explanations.
In a world of upheaval, post-war mid 20th century France, structuralism embodied the most comfortable patterns of constructing meaning in media from underlying universal mechanisms and structures that adhered to the status quo (Smith, 2020,). As a skeptical academic response to structuralism, the new framework of post-structuralism serves to critique current theories regarding the conditions and foundations of knowledge and the representational abilities of language (Norton & Morgan, 2013). Language is now seen as constantly researching itself and a key site for creativity and contestation (Butler, 1990), meaning is fluid in an environment where there is no shared social agreement (Harcourt, 2007).
Post-structuralism was a beginning venture into the cultural context school of communication (Schirato and Yell, 1996) which formed as a reaction to the transmission model and highlights the personal and collective possibilities we derive from an analytic prominence of language ((Norton & Morgan, 2013). Post-structuralism frameworks develop a deeper critical awareness and illustrate how phenomenology connects language and social meaning. This modern public lexicon forsters objective facts to ‘become less influential in shaping public opinion’ (Russell, 2023), now personal emotions and beliefs are given more power. In this new territory, instantaneous communication and cultural transmission (Russell, 2023) birthed from post-structuralism provides for dissolution of certainty and in navigating the narratives we are constantly told, we must be able to sift through the range of information.
Structuralism theorist Ferdinand Saussure argued language has shared patterns using signs to build meaning, post-structuralist theorists critique this notion; they highlight structuralism cannot explain the battle over social meanings that can be attributed to those signs (Norton & Morgan, 2013). This battle can be characterized by each different discourse which is a “practice that has its own forms of sequence and succession” (Foucault, 1972, p. 169). A discourse is the articulation of a point of view and is required for communication, it is an interpreted mode of expression attributed to social actors. Language users do not conjoin in communicative events as if they were blank slates but instead participate possessing socioculturally shared knowledge which will influence what and how they say and how it will be received (Dijk, 2009). We must analyze discourses in terms of ‘non-observable’ social structures constructed in the minds of language users in order to provide text with any meaning (Dijk, 2009).
The discursive undertones of discourses are challenged when they are utilized to express ideologies because if they embody an opinion they communicate agendas and beliefs, therefore holding greater power (O'Shaughnessy & Stadler 2005). Power is unequally distributed in society existing in dominant and subordinate groups and power by a dominant discourse is maintained and reproduced by the constant circulation of ideas. Ideologies are negotiated in the communicative sphere by an orchestrated hegemony that crafts a fog of truth among individuals in society, inevitably fueling a dissolution of certainty. Theorist Michel Foucault developed discourse analysis, to examine how knowledge is caught up in the relations of power and how this crafts the possibility of social change, with new discourses challenging existing power structures (Sidhu, 2003, pp.6). He emphasizes there is also a continuous struggle between competing discourses, arguing discourse emerges from “an anonymous and polymorphous will to knowledge, capable of transformations” (Foucault, 1994, p. 12). His archeological methods set out rules that may determine ‘truth’ (Sidhu, 2003) and see a ‘positive unconscious’ dimension to the production of discourse that the rules tend to elude the consciousness of the practitioners (McNay, 1994).
Under Foucault’s set of rules, discourses constitute the world by bringing phenomena into being through the way in which they categorize it (Hardy & Phillips, 2004). Each ideology diffused through one discourse into the social body is expressed in a single manner and when a different discourse displays a varying view of the same concept to illustrate the same ideology, the meaning shifts. Each time a new discourse is produced, meaning shifts constantly. The task of attributing meaning to what is communicated is now not only on the receiver of information but the receiver must sift through multiple opposing streams of information. Constant reiteration of opposing opinions and ideologies inevitably causes a dissolution of certainty. Theorist Jacques Derrida argued ' ‘there is nothing outside the text’’, that words and ideas can only be understood within the larger text and language is a constant movement; he manufactured deconstruction as the binary opposition between text and speech (Hendricks, 2016). His theory of deconstruction demonstrated how he believed meaning to be unstable, that ambiguity is inherent in language (Callinicos, 2004). Without stable meaning, there is no certainty.
Current world views and realities of discourse can be attributed to a dissolution of certainty. The discourse on superheroes in popular culture in works such as Captain America and the Avengers place great emphasis on justice and retribution, while other more grim discourses, such as The Boys that reveal a violent and harmful underbelly. Implications of research for political communication discourses has also presented different political ideologies communicated today (Hart, 2011).
Language is inherently flawed and poststructuralism presents the idea that we are not really in control of the linguistic system. French theorist Jean-François Lyotard first proposed research should be not aimed at the production of truth but of ideas (Woodward, n.d.), suggesting that language and discourses are insufficient when we take into account human feeling; he defined the era as one that has lost faith is all grand, totalising 'metanarratives' (Giles, 2022). Language accounts for structural binaries across issues such as gender and power and its imperfection often leads to miscommunication, a core anxiety of the poststructuralist lens which validates a dissolution of certainty.
The Death of the Author marks a decline in authority as Roland Barthes takes accountability off the original creator and onto the receiver of communication to attach meaning, depending on their cultural context and social experiences (Gass, 1984). He argues that to give a text an author is “to impose a limit on it” and “text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination” (Barthes, 1966, p.6). That only the reader can hold the space as elements of the text are inscribed and furthers Foucault’s consideration of a world without need for an author by now arguing texts are merely a product of other texts (Bently, 1992). No individual has the exact same context meaning texts are rich with possible interpretations and without one singular interpretation we are led into a dissolution of certainty.
Foucault’s The Order of Discourse, 1970, explains that “statements are therefore understood as true because they meet conditions of acceptability, not because they are ‘in truth’” (Downing, 2008). Crafting identity and developing a degree of critical awareness that can be beneficial or detrimental is essential to the post-structuralist framework; however, it also accepts a dissolution of certainty. Poststructuralist theorists such as Foucault have been critiqued for lacking clear examples and remaining too abstract (Downing, 2008). The existentialist framework of post-structuralism leads to decision paralysis that prohibits catharsis and certainty. It is still less critiqued than other movements, aiding the advancement of society with increased ideas, a greater sense of purpose to audiences and more creativity. The poststructuralist theoretical turn in communication and media studies led extensively to a greater influx of multiple discourses within a world of upheaval. Humanity promotes a desire for reliable information and by fueling a resistance against constraints, poststructuralism generated a complete dissolution of certainty.
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