Because textual analysis is one of the methods I have used the most frequently in my scholarly career so far, I really enjoyed reading Alan McKee’s “A Beginner’s Guide to Textual Analysis” this week. I have to admit that so far I have, like many Cultural Studies scholars, used a rather “intuitive form of textual analysis” (McKee, 2001, p. 144). I have done many textual analyses – from my master’s thesis on the construction of masculinity in Old Spice commercials to an analysis of the sexuality and promiscuity of the character Barney Stinson in the television sitcom How I Met Your Mother. The textual analysis that fits McKee’s guide on how to do a textual analysis the best, however, was a textual analysis I did of the marketing activities (and the actual stores) of the brand Abercrombie & Fitch in Germany. I would like to base my blog post this week on this analysis and put it into the context of McKee’s guide, in hope that it will help everyone to get a better understanding of the method of textual analysis.
McKee (2001) points out that textual analysis is an important method because “if we want to understand the world we live in, then we have to understand how people are making sense of that world” (p. 144). Further, McKee (2001) points out the immense importance of the context a text is put in for the textual analysis of that text; he states that “this context (that is, a series of intertexts, related texts) is what ties down the interpretations of a text” (p. 145). As such, the meaning of texts vary depending on the context they are being placed in (McKee, 2001, p. 145). My paper on Abercombie & Fitch (A&F), titled “‘Welcome to the Peer’: Americanization, the Abercrombie & Fitch Brand as Imagined Community, and National Identity in Re-Unified Germany,” is a good example of this. The brand – in this case the text to be examined – has a completely different meaning and offers completely different interpretations in Germany’s cultural climate (context 1) than it does in American culture (context 2), or even other European societies (context 3, and so on).
In my analysis, I found that A&F had more stores in Germany than in any other country in Europe, and I wanted to find out why that was the case. By analyzing some of the most popular German media platforms, I found that narratives are dominant in German media that focus on the lack of a inner unity of the German people. I concluded that A&F in Germany – which was framed as a brand that represents a cohesive community of individuals in the context of American culture – is so appealing to the German people because it creates a sense of community that the Germans, more than 20 years after the Berlin Wall came down, still desperately long for and cannot find on a national (identity) level.
Many of the articles we have read in the past two weeks have shown how sport stars can be read as a text within a specific context. For instance, the construction of Micheal Jordan’s masculinity was grounded in the context of discourses about Black sexuality and the nuclear family at that time. I therefore agree with McKee (2001) that “you can do nothing with a text until you establish its context” (p. 146).
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ReplyDeleteI think that Yannick’s blog entry on textual analysis is very help and illustrative of the methods that Alan McKee’s “A Beginner’s Guide to Textual Analysis” encourages scholars to employ. I, like Yannick, regularly do textual analyses, but (previously) I did not really follow a set of guidelines regarding how to go about the research (it was more “intuitive”). I found McKee’s article to be extremely helpful even at this point in my academic career because the article is clear, concise, and offers just enough examples and information to illustrate the ideas and steps involved in the process of a textual analysis. Also, as Yannick mentioned, the emphasis on context is very important; if context is lacking, then the analysis can lose meaning or significance. It is important to understand how the same cultural text differs in meaning depending upon its location (as Yannick explained with his A&F example).
ReplyDeleteYannick’s post helps us to better understand how to actually ‘do’ textual analysis even more so now. What I found really interesting while reading Yannick’s post is that he was sort of doing a textual analysis of textual analysis. He was giving us an example of the context in which he used a textual analysis for his research work (the Abercrombie paper). In my future research, I too hope to find out how different people view and interpret the same thing (ice hockey video analysis in my case), while Yannick looked at how the store Abercrombie & Fitch was looked at in different areas across the globe.
ReplyDeleteYannick's entry is one that allows me to better understand textual analysis. Because I am not familiar with textual analysis, explanations like these allow me to continue to understand the purpose. By looking at how a variety of texts are viewed, it allows people to better understand the actual text. It also can allow the author to realize how their piece is viewed.
ReplyDeleteDerek Shay
I agree with the posts above stating that Yannick's post helps explain textual analysis better. I find it really interesting that Yannick has completed so many textual analysis'. The one about Barney Stinsen, i beleive, would be very interesting to read. How I Met Your Mother has become a popular TV show that many Amricans watch and analyzing a specific character is a very interesting concept. Ive never thought to analyze a certain character of a popular TV show before (probably why I do not study Pop culture). Thank you Yannick for your input. It is very helpful.
ReplyDeleteMaddy Amon
Similar to others, I found Yannick’s blog post to be very helpful in understanding textual analysis. At times, I think it is difficult to understand textual analysis, mainly because I have not ever done that kind of writing. Your example that you provided was helpful in understanding the process and importance on selecting a good topic. As Bri restated, context is very important, a textual analysis will fall flat if there is not context. This blog entry was very helpful. I now have a better understanding of the topic I think I am choosing for my textual analysis.
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