A Lacanian Approach to Media

Abstract

Lacan often said that his conception of objet a was his only major contribution to psychoanalysis. This was his “signature” concept, so to speak. In effect, its importance cannot be overstated if Lacan’s philosophical anthropology, as advanced from Freud concerning a fundamental “split” or “void” that lies at the heart of subjectivity is to be accepted. This is a difficult concept at first to grasp, since the dominant view in cultural youth studies concerning audiences, identity formation, and literacy continues to be various forms of cognitive ego psychology and advances in Foucauldian derived poststructuralism where social discursive semiotic analysis is favored (e.g., Hodge and Tripp 1986; Buckingham 1996). This later constructivist approach in particular is an advance over former behavioral, statistical, and “needs and gratifications” research. It provides insight into how youth define and construct their social identities through their talk about the media narratives, how they “read” popular culture in the social situations that they find themselves in, such as in peer groups, the home, amongst close personal friends, and in their ethnic communities. Media “literacy” in these accounts give credence to the motivations and intents and purposes for youth judgments, and view them as “critical” consumers and producers.