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Reading Agricultural Power
Author(s) -
LIEPINS RUTH
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
new zealand geographer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.335
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1745-7939
pISSN - 0028-8144
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-7939.1996.tb02060.x
Subject(s) - hegemony , power (physics) , reading (process) , meaning (existential) , agriculture , sociology , critical discourse analysis , masculinity , media studies , epistemology , social science , gender studies , political science , geography , law , ideology , politics , philosophy , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics
Many forms of rural geography include investigations of power. Lately some researchers have achieved this through studies of discourse. This paper presents a reading of agricultural power as it occurs in several examples of Australian and New Zealand print‐media. Initially, I review the importance of discourse in the study of power ‐ arguing that a ‘geography of discourse’ enables key questions and objects of analysis (spaces and processes) to be investigated. I then analyse coverage of agriculture in selected rural print‐media forms. I argue that hegemonic discourses of masculinity and agriculture are used in the construction of reports, reinforcing the power of certain knowledges and truths. Finally, I propose more study is needed of the sites and processes through which meaning is constructed. Using the case of a farm women's conference I argue that the media involves a number of sites and processes which must be negotiated if discursive change is to occur in our understanding of agricuture.