Discourse analysis and the challenge of identities

This chapter offers some theoretical explorations, as reference points, for an engaged discourse analysis. It begins by reflecting on three key terms: discourse, identity, and media. It redefines each, and looks for connections between them as context for a basic argument: that an increasingly globalized and mediatized world is producing ever larger and more dispersed discursive manifestations of identity. These discursive manifestations, and the identities they mediate, are strongly embedded in new media, which are themselves embedded in new and old social forms. Discourse analysis needs to be re-thought and re-formed to do justice to the scale and impact of new media and new forms of identity.