Structures of Discourse and Structures of Power

Communications Yearbook 12, pp. 18-59.The chapter examines the relationships between discourse and social power. The author reviews some of the recent studies in this area of research. The chapter pays special attention to the role of ideology, but unlike most studies in sociology and political science, we formulate this ideological link in terms of a theory of social cognition. This formulation enables us to build the indispensable theoretical bridge between societal power of classes, groups, or institutions at the macro level of analysis and the enactment of power in interaction and discourse at the social micro level.