Abstract
While a tradition of cross-fertilization between media studies and discourse theory has sprung up over the last decades, audience reception studies have remained outside the scope of discourse-theoretical media scholars. This article fills that gap and asserts that combining the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe (further developed by the Essex School) with reception studies provides a valuable and original approach that enhances scholars’ understanding of the complex and versatile ways in which individuals engage with the ideological systems of meaning put to work in media texts. The discourse-theoretical approach insists on regarding audience reception as the meaning-making practice where discourses are used, negotiated, and contested in shaping personal narratives around media texts, all against the backdrop of a contingent social reality. A case study focusing on audience receptions of Belgian media representations of euthanasia illustrates the applicability and value of the discourse-theoretical approach. The analysis shows how audiences, while being highly familiarized with the right to die project, shift between different logics of identifying with the discourses of patient autonomy, independence, and hedonism activated in the media texts, depending on the capability of these discourses in providing the material for people to make sense of lived experiences.
Keywords
Introduction
This article advocates for the benefits of combining audience reception studies and discourse theory to deepen and enhance insight into the complex and versatile ways in which individuals engage with the ideological systems of meaning activated in media texts. The encounter with media texts being the locus of individuals engaging in subjectivity and identification, the discourse-theoretical approach to audience reception presented here draws attention to how individuals invest in particular structures of meaning, circulating throughout the social and being put to work in media texts. In the tradition of the discourse theory formulated by Laclau and Mouffe (1985) and later developed by the so-called Essex School (Glynos and Howarth, 2007), these structures of meaning are called discourses, where the notion of discourse goes much beyond the linguistic and can be described as ‘discourse-as-representation’ or ‘discourse-as-ideology’ (Carpentier and De Cleen, 2007). In drawing on discourse theory, the article provides a conceptual toolbox with which to locate the interpretation of media texts in a meaning-making momentum where, in the encounter between the individual and the media text, discourses are put to work in the construction of a narrative that caters to audiences’ personal and lived experiences. Media texts offer a multiplicity of identification points, which guarantees the possibility of subjectivity and agency. In building narratives around media texts, agency and subjectivity show as discourses are recognized, drawn upon, and also reproduced, negotiated, and resisted. The approach presented in this article thus bridges the narrative, the media text, and the discourse while also highlighting the role of each in the structured activity of identification.
This article seeks to demonstrate the value and benefits of studying logics of identification at the intersection of discourse theory and audience reception studies and attests to this approach’s ability to shed light on how people invest in discourses. This will further the tradition of importing discourse theory in the field of media and communication studies. In this tradition, media scholars have deployed discourse theory to study discourses in media, discourses of media production, and the discursive construction of the audience, among others (see, for instance, Carpentier and De Cleen, 2007; Carpentier and Spinoy, 2008; Dahlberg and Phelan, 2013; De Cleen, 2015; Carpentier and Van Brussel, 2012; Van Brussel, 2012, 2014). The reception of media texts, however, has remained outside the scope of discourse-theoretical media scholars. This article thus fills a void in the field and demonstrates the value of combining discourse theory and audience reception studies in bringing together a culturalist interest in experience and subjectivity with a poststructuralist interest in the social as an ever contingent, fluid, and volatile field where meaning is constantly negotiated, a field consisting of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses that structure and re-structure social relations, practices, and circumstances.
The article is presented in three parts. In the first part, the conceptual toolbox of discourse theory is outlined as the theoretical and analytical backbone of the article. In the second, a discourse-theoretical perspective is applied to make sense of audience receptions. This perspective draws attention to how identification is a matter of structured agency. The process of interpreting media texts breaks down into two logics: the logic of recognition and the logic of identification. Reminiscent of Hall’s (1973) preferred reading, the logic of recognition refers to audiences’ shared understandings of the discourses activated in media texts. The logic of identification refers to the way subjects reproduce, negotiate, and also creatively combine and contest these discourses, which are indeed still the structures of meaning available in society upon which subjects rely in the practice of interpreting media texts. In the third part, a case study demonstrates the value of a discourse-theoretical reception analysis. Studying audiences’ reception of Belgian mainstream media representations of euthanasia, this section illustrates the complex and versatile nature of the practice of identification. This section also illustrates the ways subjects engage in and shift between logics of full identification, partial identification, and dis-identification, depending on the achievements of the discourses activated in the media texts in providing audiences with the material to make sense of personal and lived experiences.
A selection from the conceptual toolbox of discourse theory
The discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe (1985) goes well beyond the linguistic. It defines discourse as everything that carries meaning in the socio-material world. This means that discourse theorists do not distinguish between linguistic, material, affective, and behavioral aspects of social practice, given that they each contribute to the construction of meaning and the shaping of the socio-material world (Torfing, 1999). It is beyond the scope of this article to go much deeper into the ontological premises of discourse theory or to give an exhaustive overview of its rich conceptual framework. Rather, this article draws attention to a selection of discourse-theoretical concepts that are at the core of the discourse-theoretical reading of audience reception presented here.
Discourses are created when specific elements are articulated into a discursive structure. Laclau and Mouffe (1985) define articulation as ‘the practice of establishing a relation among elements such that their identity is modified as a result of the articulatory practice’ (p. 105). Discourses are structured totalities and thus always gain a certain degree of stability – one that is both inevitable and necessary – given that without this stability any meaning whatsoever would simply be impossible. The transformation of ‘floating signifiers’ into ‘nodal points’ is at the very core of the temporal fixation of meaning. A floating signifier is defined in terms of being ‘overflowed with meaning’ (Torfing, 1999: 301). Nodal points provide the cement for the partial and temporal fixation or sedimentation of meaning. They are privileged signs around which other signs are structured (Jorgensen and Phillips, 2002: 26).
The process of discourses transforming floating signifiers into nodal points comes about through a reduction of signification possibilities – the exclusion of all other meanings a sign could possibly obtain. All of the possibilities that a discourse excludes form what Laclau and Mouffe call ‘the field of discursivity’ (Jorgensen and Phillips, 2002: 27). Given the magnitude of the field of discursivity, there are an infinite number of discursive elements navigating through the field that are not connected to a specific discourse at a given moment in time. This causes contingency at the level of the discourse itself. This implies that unconnected elements can always be claimed by, (re-)articulated, and integrated within a discursive structure, sometimes replacing or disarticulating other elements.
Contingency is also generated by inter-discursive struggle. Discourses are often engaged in struggles over meaning in an attempt to stabilize the social. Stability is created when a discourse achieves a hegemonic position over other discourses. In the scenario of hegemony, a dominant social order (Howarth, 1998: 279) is created that pushes other meanings ‘beyond the horizon’. A discourse has achieved its hegemonic quest when it has succeeded in providing ‘a credible principle upon which to read past, present, and future events, and capture people’s hearts and minds’ (Torfing, 2005: 15). Then again, hegemony is temporal. There is always the possibility of resistance and of the recrudescence or reactivation of struggle, processes that can destabilize discourses.
Discourse theory has primarily been deployed in analyzing the creation of relations of difference and equivalence between (political) groups (Howarth et al., 2000; Howarth and Torfing, 2005; Laclau, 2005). An equally important level at which discourses operate is that of the subject (Glynos, 2012, 2014a, 2014b). A main argument is that discourses provide individuals with subject positions with which to identify. In this fashion, discourses can achieve in getting a grip or a hold on the subject. When subjects identify with a subject position, they invest in a discourse that they come to embody and enact. Again, contingency lurks. Identifications are always incomplete, and they never exactly coincide with the subject position (Glynos, 2012, 2014b; Glynos and Howarth, 2008). It is through this process that human subjectivity and agency are achieved. Subjectivity is a result of the ‘over-determined’ subject, urging the subject to identify with those subject positions that cater to his or her sense of self-identity and that are capable of ‘suturing the rift in the symbolic order’ (Howarth and Stavrakakis, 2000: 14).
Discourse theory and audience reception studies
Media texts activate discourses. In so doing, they contribute to the formation, negotiation, and contestation of a social imaginary. Media are sites where fierce struggles over meaning can occur, where resistance toward the hegemonic is articulated, and where meaning is negotiated. It is important to note that the media are not merely one of the societal sites where discourses circulate and meaning is constructed. Rather, they function as discursive machineries that can be considered systems of dispersion of discourses ‘with their proper and specific rules of formation’ (Carpentier and De Cleen, 2007: 274). Media thus put discourses to work in a specific way. Media’s systems and relations of production privilege certain representational mechanisms. These mechanisms include, but are not limited to, the privileging of the conflictual over the consensual and of covering events rather than processes, the tendency to stage events, and the tendency to seek for personal entry-points (Croteau and Hoynes, 2014: 155; Jewkes, 2015; Liebes, 1994). Representational mechanisms provide the formal packages in which particular discourses are activated. This means that certain representational mechanisms facilitate the activation of particular discourses while hampering that of others.
In activating discourses, media texts offer audiences a multiplicity of identification points, and identification resides in the process of interpreting media texts. The notion of interpretation is deeply rooted in the tradition of audience reception studies, where scholars rightfully emphasize the meaning-making role of the audience (Livingstone, 2014). In the tradition of reception studies, audiences actively allocate meaning to media texts, assuming textual openness and the possibility of polysemy: ‘many meanings’ (Fiske, 1989; Hall, 1973). At the same time, audience reception scholars have pointed out that polysemy is not endless. The structuring role of social context is stressed (Livingstone, 2014). It is also emphasized that while audiences may evaluate the media message in different ways, they often share a reading of its preferred meaning (Hall, 1973).
A discourse-theoretical reading of audience reception offers an innovative perspective from which to make sense of the structured agency acknowledged in audience reception studies. More precisely, a discourse-theoretical viewpoint leads us to break the process of interpreting media texts down into two distinct logics: the logic of recognition and the logic of identification. Both media producers and media audiences are part of the same society where particular discourses have achieved a hegemonic status. This implies that there is logic of recognition, where audiences will often implicitly and unconsciously recognize the hegemonic message inscribed in the media text. Recognizing the discourses activated in the media text does not speak to how subjects invest in the multiplicity of identification points offered to them. The logic of identification refers to the way audiences invest in discourses and subject positions activated in media texts.
The discourse-theoretical development of the category of identification described earlier urges us to conceive of the latter as a practice whereby audiences invest in bits and pieces from potentially different, sometimes conflicting discourses, depending on the discourses’ capacity in ‘getting a grip’ on audiences and providing an interpretative framework through which lived experiences can be understood and narrated. The process of identification implies agency, but at the same time self-determination is not unlimited. Indeed, as Laclau (1990: 44) argues, ‘self-determination can only proceed through process of identification’. It is the notion of identification that creates connection between the individual and the discursive structures and subject positions that are outside the subject (Carpentier, 2011: 178). In identifying and dis-identifying with discourses activated in the media text, audiences are still reliant on the discourses that are ‘available’ – in the media text and in society – discourses that provide them with subject positions to identify with and which in turn allow them to ‘speak’.
Case study: a discourse-theoretical analysis of audiences’ receptions of Belgian press coverage of euthanasia
A case study attests to the benefits and value of a discourse-theoretical approach to audience reception. The case focuses on audience receptions of Belgian press coverage of euthanasia. This section first situates the case study, then goes on to elaborate on the data and methods, and finally presents the discourse-theoretical reception analysis.
Situating the case
Euthanasia was legalized in Belgium in 2002. 1 The law allows competent people who are terminally ill, ‘suffer unbearably’, and whose condition is ‘hopeless and irreversible’ to have their lives ended by a doctor on their own repeated request. In 2014, the law was extended to minors. The euthanasia law can directly be linked to the right to die movement, which arose in the 1960s as a new social movement striving for the right of individuals to determine both the timing and manner of their own deaths (Green and Javis, 2008; McInerney, 2000). The discourse of the right to die movement, which I have discussed elsewhere (see Van Brussel, 2012; Van Brussel and Carpentier, 2012), is structured around a number of nodal points, including self-determination, independence, and dignity.
Media are important sites where the discourse of the right to die movement is played out. Within the context of this reception study, the news coverage of three euthanasia cases in three Belgian newspapers (Het Laatste Nieuws, De Morgen, and De Standaard) was selected. These highly mediatized cases are moments of increased discursive struggle and societal upheaval around the issue of euthanasia, moments that provide audiences with very concrete and tangible points of identification and dis-identification:
The euthanasia of Hugo Claus in 2008. Claus was a well-known Belgian writer/artist, and his euthanasia caused considerable societal debates, as he was not terminally ill but requested death while suffering from an early form of Alzheimer’s disease. Choosing euthanasia in this stage of the disease was the only way Claus could meet the criteria of the euthanasia law.
The euthanasia of Marcel Engelborghs in 2008. Marcel Engelborghs was a local politician but became known by a wide audience when, suffering from an incurable and terminal cancer, he made the choice for euthanasia. Engelborghs’ dying process was highly mediatized.
The euthanasia of Amelie Van Esbeen in 2009. The request of 93-year-old Van Esbeen, who suffered from a wide variety of geriatric ailments but was not terminally ill, revitalized the debates around end-of-life decision-making and the (limits of) patient autonomy. Van Esbeen’s request was initially rejected, but after going on a hunger strike, the euthanasia was eventually performed.
Prior to the discourse-theoretical reception analysis, a discourse-theoretical content analysis was conducted (presented in Van Brussel, 2012, 2014; Van Brussel and Carpentier, 2012). The analysis showed how the press coverage of these cases activates the discourse of the right to die movement in a particular way. In summary, supported by particular representational mechanisms, euthanasia (aka, the right to die) is constructed as a good death through the articulation of two privileged signifiers: autonomy and dignity. Autonomy is articulated with independence, which comes with a problematization and ‘othering’ of care and dependency, excluding them from the definition of what it means to die well. Care and dependence become associated with palliative care – against which euthanasia is opposed – and articulated into a relation of equivalence with a bad and passive death. Palliative care, in this fashion, becomes the ultimate ‘other’: the bad death. Euthanasia, on the other hand, is ‘the’ good death – a dignified, hedonic, brave death; the ultimate expression of self-determination; and moreover, a death that allows the individual to maintain his or her independence, self-reliance, and ability to maintain the ‘authentic’ self.
Data and methods
A discourse-theoretical reception study illustrates the versatile ways in which audiences identify with the discourse of the right to die movement and its activation in the media coverage of the three cases listed above. The reception study was conducted on the basis of qualitative focus groups and face-to-face interviews with three audience categories, carried out in 2013-2014. 2 Three focus groups were conducted with the ‘general public’ (one group aged 20–25, one group aged 30–45, and one group aged 50–67), including people who had not experienced the dying process of a relative or friend in a direct way. Ten focus groups were conducted with medical professionals, five with nurses, two with general practitioners, and three with specialists. Eight in-depth interviews were conducted with relatives of people whose relative died either after euthanasia or after a process of palliative care. 3 The different audience categories were selected in order to guarantee the presence of diverse speaking positions and not with the ambition to establish causality between different logics of identification and different audience groups.
The interviews were structured around a number of media items that cover one of the cases. A variety of questions and exercises were developed, some aiming at generating open answers and some at encouraging reflection about more specific aspects of the media texts under discussion. 4 Interviews are inevitably marked by a high degree of reflexivity from the part of the respondents, which is reinforced by complex interactional dynamics in the case of focus groups. A familiar critique posits that interviews generate situational-produced statements that do not reflect what people actually think or do (Vaisey, 2009). This article, however, adheres to the view that people constantly engage in practices of identification and that these practices are always situational and contextually embedded. A discourse-theoretical reception study based on qualitative interviews provides a particular context to explore the nature of these practices of identification. It allows for exploring the discursive landscape people navigate when engaging in the production of narratives.
The respondents’ comments about the media texts are at the core of the discourse-theoretical analysis. These comments harbor personal experiences and trace back to wider societal discourses respondents invest in when interpreting the media texts under discussion. The transcripts of the interviews were subject to a coding process, with a number of (sets of) sensitizing concepts (Blumer, 1969) guiding the discourse-theoretical analysis (see Carpentier (2010) for an elaboration on discourse-theoretical analysis). The notions of recognition and identification draw analytical attention to the way respondents acknowledge the discourses activated in the media texts and how they invest in these discourses in different ways. The concepts of narrative and discourse help distinguish the stories/tales the respondents produce from the more encompassing structures of meaning or discourses they weave into their narratives.
The concepts of speaking position and subject position function in a similar way. The speaking position draws attention to the different positions the respondents speak from, which can be from different positions at the same time, including a relative, nurse, doctor, future patient, citizen, and so on. The subject position refers to the identificatory positions discourses make available to individuals. Taking up a particular speaking position implies identifying or dis-identifying with a particular subject position (e.g. the autonomous patient). Finally, there are the sensitizing concepts that draw attention to the substance of the actual discourses the respondents invest in. These are the categories iteratively arrived at through reviewing literature about the right to die movement and the analysis of media representations of euthanasia: self-determination, patient autonomy, dignity, dependence/independence and care (see Van Brussel, 2012, 2014; Van Brussel and Carpentier, 2012; Carpentier and Van Brussel, 2012).
The logic of recognition
The analysis shows how audiences share an understanding of the media coverage in terms of what they understand to be the ‘main message’ of the media texts rather than how they evaluate it, which is a matter of identification. Three discourses play a crucial role in the construction of euthanasia as a good death in the media coverage of the selected euthanasia cases: the discourse of (patient) autonomy, the discourse of independence of care, and the discourse of hedonism. The respondents acknowledge the presence of each of these structures of meaning in the media texts.
Respondents from different focus groups tend to recap the essence of the media items in terms of autonomy. The following responses, where interviewees reconstruct the main message of the media items, speak to the pattern of audiences recognizing the discourse of autonomy activated in the media texts: ‘Take death in your own hands, you own your death’; ‘They took the decision themselves, they are relieved’. In discussing an article about the death of Engelborghs in more detail, a respondent nicely reconstructs the hegemonic message of the article, in which the activation of the discourse of autonomy entails a representation of euthanasia in terms of the good death. He says that the article depicts Engelborghs’ death as a ‘beautiful death’ by stressing that he ‘made his own decision, was able to say goodbye from his relatives the way he wanted to’. Responses to the article ‘Last wish of 93-year old’, which covered the euthanasia request of Amelie Van Esbeen, demonstrate the logic of recognition. Here, respondents acknowledge how the article weaves the discourse of autonomy together with a de-stereotyping and de-stigmatizing of the elderly. For instance, they summarize the article as making the claim that ‘elderly are still allowed and capable of making their own decisions’.
‘Being in good shape’ and ‘being independent’ are frequently recurring concepts in the narratives of respondents when they discuss the media coverage, especially the coverage of Claus and Engelborghs. Respondents in all focus groups reconstruct the hegemonic media message of independence in a similar vein. They read the dominant message as one saying that you ‘shouldn’t be a terminal patient to choose for euthanasia’ or that Engelborghs and Claus died ‘in full awareness’ and ‘with self-esteem and not totally helpless like a plant’. As one general practitioner in one of the focus group argues, ‘I would expect to find the following message in the article: don’t wait until complete deterioration’. Also, when asked to recap the main argument of the media items about Claus and Engelborghs, respondents often reconstruct the ideal of independence of care. As the following responses for instance illustrate, ‘People want to be ahead of the deterioration process’ or ‘Step out before you become dependent’.
There is also agreement on the fact that Claus and Engelborghs are depicted as hedonists. This is a representation that the respondents believe conveys the message that ‘Euthanasia can also be pleasant’. Respondents in different focus groups come up with similar possible headlines to an article that covers the euthanasia of Claus and Engelborghs. Suggestions for headlines include ‘Dying with a smile’, ‘Cheers to live, cheers to death’, and ‘Enjoy until the last day’. The respondents share an understanding of the media items under discussion and are in agreement that coverage of Claus and Engelborghs depicts euthanasia in positive terms as ‘something with a pleasant atmosphere’ or ‘some kind of exuberance’. For instance, the following illustrates how two respondents describe Claus and Engelborghs after reading the articles: ‘R1: They are hedonists’ and ‘R2: Yes, they made the decision and enjoyed life until their last days’. Another respondent notes, ‘It is depicted like “Let’s have a party”’.
Logics of identification
Respondents share an understanding of the hegemonic meaning of the texts (i.e. of the discourses activated in the text). However, these discourses do not necessarily map neatly onto lived experiences, causing people to relate to these discourses in diverse ways. There is a great range of ways in which people engage with discourses activated in the media texts. Still covering a variety of responses, three main logics of identification can be distinguished. The first logic is one of (full) identification: respondents strongly invest in the discourses activated in the media text – they speak and embody them. The second logic is one of partial identification, where the discourses activated in the media text partially fail in providing the material to construct an intelligible narrative with which to make sense of personal experiences. Respondents actively and creatively negotiate discourses, sometimes resisting parts of the right to die discourse and other times bringing in new discursive elements. In the third logic, respondents dis-identify with the discourses activated in the media texts and mobilize alternative discourses and subject positions.
It is important to note that these logics of identification are not perfectly delineated. At the same time, distinguishing between them is both theoretically and analytically meaningful. Precisely unraveling the different dimensions highlights the complexity of the practice of identification. The logics of identification are dynamic as well, which means that respondents often engage with different logics throughout the interview.
Full identification
Respondents sometimes identify fully with the discourses activated in the media texts. This happens when these discourses, which support the right to die, provide the signifiers to grasp personal experiences and to voice opinions and beliefs.
Members of the general public often articulate support for the right to die through an investment in the discourse of self-determination. In particular, the news items about the euthanasia of prominent figures like Hugo Claus and Marcel Engelborghs facilitate the identification with this discourse. In talking about news items covering the death of Claus and Engelborghs, respondents speak as members of a society, perhaps even as citizens of a country, where autonomy and self-determination are the fundamental principles underpinning the euthanasia law. The respondents produce statements in which they deploy an ‘individual rights’ language, pointing to the importance they attach to self-determination. For example, consider the following statements:
I think that as a human being you should have the freedom to choose for euthanasia. There are limits and everyone should be able to set these limits him-or herself.
In narratives of relatives, the often very emotional experiences connected with a loved one’s end of life play a key role. Sometimes these experiences facilitate the investment in the discourse of self-determination. This investment is supported by media coverage of the right to die struggle of the 93-year-old Amelie Van Esbeen. It may not come as a surprise that the coverage of Van Esbeen facilitates the investment in the discourse of self-determination. Indeed, the subject position of ‘courageous victim’ residing in the coverage provides relatives with a very tangible point of identification. In response to the article ‘Last wish of 93-year old’, one of the interviewees shared the following:
This is very recognizable to me … I suppose this lady was in an institution where euthanasia is not really supported. As I said before, it is not enough to say ‘I want euthanasia’ […] That, to her, was very frustrating. Not to be heard. She said: it has been enough. He said: ‘it has not been enough’.
When producing narratives with a focus on a medical experience, the interviewees often invest in the discourse of patient autonomy, which then becomes the main point of identification. As one relative for instance argues, it is not the doctor but ‘especially the patient’ who should be heard in end-of-life decision-making. The discourse of patient autonomy is also described in the following statement from a 65-year-old respondent of a focus group with the general public, speaking as a (future) patient: ‘I like to retain control, not least over myself. And when I don’t want another examination, I want to be able to say to the doctor: remove that probe!’
The media coverage of the euthanasia of Amelie Van Esbeen again expedites identification. The media construction of Van Esbeen as an ordinary hero invites interviewees to reflect on how they would feel and react in a similar situation. The media coverage of this case prompts respondents to defend the interests of the patient. As one of the interviewed relatives remarks after reading an article about Amelie Van Esbeen, ‘The woman [Van Esbeen] says: “I’ve had a good life, it’s been enough.” I really would fully support that’ and ‘This is not a dignified death, because it is the doctor who decides and not the patient’.
Medical professionals, too, often strongly invest in the discourse of patient autonomy. In the narratives of the nurses, a joint construction of ‘the good nurse’ who supports the patient is encountered. In identifying with the subject position of the good nurse, the respondents evoke a medical-ethical vocabulary and frame of knowledge, emphasizing the importance of listening to the patient and respecting his or her wishes. In strongly investing in a patient-autonomy discourse and identifying with a hegemonic subject position of the loving, caring, and supportive nurse, who is an ally of the patient, the subject position of the good nurse becomes spoken in nurses’ narratives:
Whether you are pro or contra euthanasia, I think that as a nurse you ought to take a step back and put your personal opinion aside. You can’t judge. Judging means saying ‘this is not the right thing to do’. In our job, you ought to be open towards different contexts, different points of view, and you should never judge.
Another way in which interviewees demonstrate their investment in the right to die project is through engaging with the notion of dignity, where the latter is often articulated in terms of independence of care. Younger interviewees with little or no personal experience with the death of a relative tend to invest in the discourse of independence and reproduce the articulation of dignity as inscribed in the media items. For instance, they explicitly describe the euthanasia of Claus and Engelborghs as dignified deaths. According to one of the respondents, someone who dies with dignity is ‘someone who can still be independent before he dies’. A relative identifies with a discourse of independence in talking about the death of her mother and compares it to the euthanasia of Claus and Engelborghs. She remarks that the euthanasia of Claus and Engelborghs is ‘what I understand as dying with dignity’. She describes her mother as a proud woman who needed ‘help with everything’ and had been ‘waiting for death for months’ and goes on to describe her mother’s dying process as ‘a punishment’.
Partial identification
Respondents often identify partially with the discourses activated in the media texts. Relatives and medical professionals in particular tend to distance themselves from these discourses and bring in alternative identification points. While still adhering to the basic right to die principle and thus supporting the euthanasia law in Belgium, the way the right to die discourse is activated in media representations fails to a degree in providing these respondents with the material to make their own experiences sensible.
The analysis demonstrates two main ways in which the respondents partially (dis-)identify with the discourses activated in the media texts. Both involve the deconstruction of media representations and the expansion of the discourse as activated in the media text. First, respondents sometimes expand the discourse of self-determination. This happens when they deconstruct the media representation of euthanasia as the ultimate act of self-determination. For instance, relatives suggest that autonomy goes beyond the choice for euthanasia and also includes a wide variety of other (palliative care) decisions. In bringing her own experiences with the end of life of her husband into the encounter with news items covering the euthanasia of Claus and Engelborghs, one relative describes dying with palliative care as an active and determined choice, an act of true self-determination. In so doing, the interviewee still strongly invests in a discourse of patient autonomy but at the same time deconstructs the exclusive association of autonomy with the right to die discourse. Consider the following statement by the interviewee:
In any case, I think the patient’s wish should be respected. Raf [her deceased husband] said: ‘I do not want that [euthanasia], I want to live until the very last minute. That was his way’.
Later in the interview, the woman continues to negotiate her identification with the right to die discourse by maximizing the notion of heroism beyond the remits of the right to die. In her words, ‘it takes courage to determine the moment of your own death. If you say: I do want the pain and I will suffer until the very end because I want to be with you for as long as possible, that too is a sign of strength’. Maximizing the notion of heroism is the result of combining a discourse of self-determination with a discourse of dependency, demonstrating courage and strength in the choice for (inter)dependence and connectivity. Medical professionals also often combine these discourses when they disarticulate the perceived exclusive discursive association between euthanasia and braveness, which is most explicitly encountered in the news items about Claus and Engelborghs. For instance,
I saw a woman last Friday, a young woman your age [referring to the researcher] who asked me: ‘can you help me to spend the holidays at home, with my family.
A second way in which respondents engage in a logic of partial identification concerns the deconstruction of the ‘care versus euthanasia’ dichotomy that is sometimes encountered in the media items. Here, respondents import a discourse of care into their narratives. Combining the right to die discourse with a discourse of care is something that relatives whose partner choose for euthanasia do most prominently. These interviewees tend to stress that euthanasia is a form of care rather than merely life termination. Take, for instance, the following response of one of the interviewed relatives: ‘It is another type of care, but it is also care’. Consider another response: ‘Whether you are cared for until the very last day or you look for someone to help you [euthanasia], it’s both caring’. Another relative criticizes the way media associates only hospitalization with care, which conflicts with her own experiences with the euthanasia of her father. ‘[…] They give the impression that only people in a rest home receive the best care. But I think that also people who choose for euthanasia get good care. That also entails a lot of care’. During a focus group with general practitioners, one of the respondents deconstructs the euthanasia versus (palliative) care dichotomy from a media-critical perspective, accusing the media of associating ‘testosterone characteristics’ with euthanasia and ‘female characteristics’ with palliative care. He goes on to argue, ‘we [doctors] see euthanasia as part of palliative care’.
Dis-identification
Respondents sometimes radically reject the discourses activated in the media texts and dis-identify with the right to die project. This dis-identification takes place in a number of ways: through the occupation of the subject positions of the autonomous doctor and the curing doctor, through dis-identifying with a discourse of self-determination, and through investing in a discourse of care in which care is differentiated from euthanasia.
Some of the interviewed doctors dis-identify with the subject position of the serving doctor that is constructed in the media texts under discussion. A news item on the euthanasia of Amelie Van Esbeen, which problematizes the decision of the physician not to permit euthanasia, has been met with fierce resistance by some of the interviewed doctors. This item encourages them to take up alternative subject positions. A first subject position that is taken by doctors in dis-identifying with the right to die project is that of the autonomous physician. In speaking as a professional who embodies the subject position of autonomous physician, some of the interviewed doctors contest what they take to be a ‘euthanasia market’ that threatens the autonomy of the professional physician:
These newspaper articles create the idea that euthanasia is a right, like ‘we have the right to choose for euthanasia and you have to make it happen’. They [the media] have made euthanasia into something that is enforceable.
Interviewed doctors sometimes identify with a second subject position of ‘the doctor who cures’ (instead of ‘kills’), though this is rare. In their words, ‘I was not educated to end people’s lives’. Some of the interviewed doctors draw on an ethics of curing in more implicit terms. This is evident when the argument is raised that patients are free to make the decision to die, but the doctor should not be saddled with the task of ‘killing’ people. After reading the article ‘Euthanasia should not be horrible’, one of the doctors says, ‘You can commit suicide, but you cannot saddle the physician with it […]. People should have the courage to end their own lives and not to pass that responsibility on the doctor’.
Interviewees also dis-identify with the right to die discourse in bemoaning the supposed ‘glorification of independence’ as encountered in the media texts. In this logic of dis-identification, euthanasia is constructed as an inappropriate answer to the vulnerability of ill and dying people. The attitude of ‘I will not deteriorate’ makes one of the interviewees ‘shiver’. Making her age (65+) relevant in her narrative, she speaks as an elderly woman, arguing, ‘We will all end up in a phase where we depend on others’ and ‘one simply has to learn to let go’. In similar vein, a doctor evokes his professional experience to deplore the problematizing of dependency and its construction as undignified. After reading a newspaper article about the euthanasia of Hugo Claus, he argues, ‘and who says his quality of life would be problematic? […] Professionally, I know a lot of people with dementia who have a dignified existence that is deeply meaningful’. Sometimes medical professionals suggest care as an alternative to euthanasia in a more explicit way, thereby antagonistically constructing euthanasia as the wrong way to deal with deteriorating and dying. After reading the article about Amelie Van Esbeen’s request for euthanasia, one of the interviewed nurses reacts, ‘But I assume that there is a lack of care here, a dignified life before death. Well, that’s the feeling I’m getting, as if something was missing in her ageing process’.
Relatives also sometimes identify strongly with a discourse of care. More concretely, they contest the media construction of euthanasia allowing for ‘more dignified death’ than palliative care. In so doing, however, they simultaneously reproduce the dichotomy between palliation and euthanasia. In comparing the dying process of Claus and Engelborghs to dying supported by palliative care, one of the relatives argues, ‘Palliative care is something totally different than euthanasia, of course. It is caring, caring, caring there’. He goes on to argue, ‘palliative care is care, euthanasia is life termination’. In a similar vein, another respondent differentiates euthanasia from palliative care. He comments, ‘The goodbye [euthanasia] is too abrupt […] It’s different from palliative care, where people are accompanied for weeks and lovingly surrounded’. Closely related, the relatives also sometimes dis-identify with the discourse of hedonism, stating, ‘it’s not a party, it’s a goodbye’; ‘what bothers me is the goodbye party’. Thus, the discourse of hedonism fails in providing them with the signifiers to narrate the death of a loved one, which they experience as being imbued with love and care.
Conclusion
This article demonstrated the value of a discourse-theoretical perspective on audience reception. While this perspective’s theoretical underpinnings concerning the variety and versatility of audience responses and the structured agency contained in these responses are akin to those of other culturalist approaches to reception studies, the discourse-theoretical approach does cast an innovative and original light on audience reception. It does so by foregrounding the category of identification, which has been developed here in terms of the subject’s investment in discourses and the latter’s ability to get a hold on the subject. The article located practices of identification against the backdrop of a logic of recognition, the latter referring to the horizon of hegemonic meanings inscribed in media texts that audiences tend to recognize and acknowledge. The logic of identification, which has been distinguished from the logic of recognition, refers to the variable ways in which audiences invest in the discourses activated in media texts and in the subject positions these discourses make available to them. Shifting between different logics of identification with different discourses, audiences shape narratives around media texts, using them to make sense of and reconstruct personal experiences.
A case study that focuses on audiences’ receptions of Belgian media representations of euthanasia illustrated the applicability and value of a discourse-theoretical reception analysis. Using the respondents’ comments as the starting point of a discourse-theoretical reception analysis, it has been shown that while audiences share a recognition of the activation of the discourses of (patient) autonomy and independence in the media items, they engage with these discourses differently. It was found that the relations and the connectivity between personal narratives and societal discourses, as well as between the speaking positions respondents take up and the subject positions they invest in, comprise the meaning-making area in which three main different logics of identification – full identification, partial identification, and dis-identification – come about. While these logics can be differentiated from one another, they are not well-delineated, stable, or fixed. Rather, they are dynamic, fluid, and contingent. Different discourses, packaged in different media representations, (fail to) cater to personal experiences in different ways, which causes people to shift between logics of identification. From a discourse-theoretical viewpoint, the agency of audiences is located at the level of identification, their agency in re-producing and investing in discourses, and also in negotiating, combining, and resisting discourses. As the analysis has shown, discourses activated in media texts do not always neatly map onto the respondents’ lived experiences, causing them to often negotiate or reject these discourses and/or bring in alternative discourses. At the same time, agency is structured in that audiences still rely on existing discourses when they interpret media texts and construct narratives about them.
With this case study, the article aspires to contribute to an emergent partnership between discourse theorists and audience reception scholars. Discourse theory provides reception studies with a particular approach and conceptual toolbox to link audience interpretations to wider social and political realities. Alternately, discourse theorists can only benefit from incorporating reception studies into their methodological gaze. Indeed, reception studies are more than merely an entry point to look into the way discourses operate on the level of the subject. Our realities are more than ever imbued with media texts, which gives us all the more reason to take seriously the crucial place they occupy in acts of identification and in the shaping of subjectivity. In conclusion, this article hopes to provide an impetus for a research tradition that combines discourse theory and reception studies to enhance scholarly understanding of how individuals invest in a variety of discourses that are constitutive of today’s complex societies. The right to die is only one such discourse.
Footnotes
Funding
This research was made possible by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen (FWO).