Underrepresented Groups

Critical Race Methodology

Critical race methodology is a theoretically grounded approach to research that foregrounds race and racism in all aspects of the research process. It also challenges the separate discourses on race, gender, and class by showing how these three elements intersect to affect the experiences of people of color. Critical race theory is the work of progressive legal scholars of color who are attempting to develop a jurisprudence that accounts for the role of racists in U.S. law and that works toward the elimination of racism as part of a larger goal of eliminating all forms of subordination. Critical race methodology attempts to operationalize critical race theory, which is a critical examination of society and culture, focusing on the intersection of race, law, and power. Critical race theory recognizes that racism is ingrained in American society. This approach to communication research resonates strongly among communication scholars because of its focuses on the discourse and images that create, maintain, and transform cultural relations of meaning and power as racial phenomena. Analyses consider the subtle and often-contradictory processes by which symbolic codes are organized and activated in the production and reception of cultural performances and texts.

Cultural Studies

Cultural studies draws on methods and theories from communication, sociology, cultural anthropology, and other disciplines to investigate the ways in which culture creates and transforms individual experiences, everyday life, social relations, and power. The relations in culture are understood through human expression and symbolic activities, and cultures are understood as distinctive ways of life. Within communication, cultural studies was initially adopted as a critique of quantitative studies of media institutions and their effects. It has now extended to offer [Page 1808]communication scholars humanistic resources for analyzing media and for incorporating the reflective voices of audience members. Cultural studies considers texts as complex artifacts that operate to shape ideologies.

Afrocentric Methodology

An Afrocentric methodology is a form of cultural criticism that is concerned with establishing a worldview about the writing and speaking of oppressed people, placing people of African descent at the center of analyses about them rather than in the margins and viewed as objects of curiosity. Afrocentric ideas regarding texts and creative productions, then, reflect African or African American cultural responses to life.

...