Critical discourse analysis: Understanding change in maternity services

Abstract

This paper provides an example of the use of critical discourse analysis (CDA) in the area of maternity care policy and describes the process of CDA as an effective research method for understanding the influences of change in the context of Australian maternity services. CDA is a methodological approach that examines how discourse is formed and given power, as a result of how power is used, who uses it and the context within which this usage takes place. The application of CDA is described in this study for the purpose of examining key-stakeholder use of knowledge and power for the purpose of influencing the direction of the maternity services reform. The CDA theoretical framework guided discourse identification and analysis of the purpose behind the discourse through examination of power relationships between key stakeholders. The use of a theoretical lens in the form of neoliberalism to supplement the theoretical framework facilitated the exposure of forces intrinsic to the maternity care context driving change.

Mediated pathways, negotiated identities: a critical phenomenological analysis of the experience of sexuality in the context of intellectual disability

“…A comparative analysis of the accounts of each participant category was also performed in order to build an experimental network of participant experiences. Subsequent analysis was founded in Foucauldian discourse analysis, which understands language as a tool that conveys different regimes of truth; it both constructs and is itself constructed by the social context in which a person evolves (Jäger and Maier, 2001; McIntyre et al., 2012).…”

Relocation Into Italian Residential Care Homes: A Qualitative Analysis of Decision and Choice: Psychological Implications and Consideration on Health

“…To perform the analysis, researchers examined the current literature about CDA in health care studies (Bell et al, 2013;Hakimnia et al, 2014;Joergensen & Praestegaard, 2018;Johansson et al, 2010;McIntyre et al, 2012;Pulkki & Tynkkynen, 2016) and referred to Van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach (2001), which is focused on three elements: discourse, cognition (individual and social cognition), and society (as face-to-face interaction, groups, group relations, institutions, and social and political systems). Moreover, the literature underlines that CDA is meant to shed some light on social problems, to understand the reproduction of social inequalities and the abuse of power, and to give voice to those, such as the older adults, who have none (Liu & Fang, 2016;Schofield et al, 2012).…”

Applying Critical Discourse Analysis in Health Policy Research

“…The keywords ''critical discourse analysis'' and ''health policy'' were used to search the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature from 2000 to 2015. We identified 16 English language references (Aldrich, Zwi, & Short, 2007;Alexander & Coveney, 2013;Allender, Colquhoun, & Kelly, 2006;Evans-Agnew, 2011;Garoon & Duggan, 2008;Johnson, 2013;Johnson, Boutain, Tsai, & de Castro, 2015a, 2015bLancaster & Ritter, 2014;Liu, 2010;Lu, 2009;McIntyre, Francis, & Chapman, 2012;Mulligan, Elliott, & Schuster-Wallace, 2012;Salami, 2014;Smith, 2007;Trigg, 2009). Of these studies, nine were authored by nurses.…”

“…Five of these references were dissertations published from the same university (Evans-Agnew, 2011;Johnson, 2013;Liu, 2010;Lu, 2009;Trigg, 2009). The nine articles focused on analysis of national or global public health priorities such as maternal health (Liu, 2010;McIntyre et al, 2012), asthma (Evans-Agnew, 2011), indigenous health (Aldrich, Zwi, & Short, 2007), and worker health (Allender, Colquhoun, & Kelly, 2006;Johnson, 2013;Johnson et al, 2015aJohnson et al, , 2015bSalami, 2014). Seven studies reviewed policy recommendations (Alexander & Coveney, 2013;Lancaster & Ritter, 2014;Mulligan et al, 2012), plans (Evans-Agnew, 2011; Garoon & Duggan, 2008), or excerpts (Liu, 2010;McIntyre et al, 2012) as data.…”