Van Dijk, T. A. (1993). Principles of critical discourse analysis. Discourse & Society, 4(2): 249-283.

Van Dijk makes it clear: Managing the mind of others is essentially a function of text and talk. Therefore, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) needs to focus on the “discursive strategies that legitimate control, or otherwise ‚naturalize‘ the social order” – i.e. on strategic ways to change the mind of others in one’s own interests (p. 254).

It is thus evident that CDA is different to other discourse analyses. CDA takes an explicit sociopolitical stance and aims for change through critical understanding targeting the power elites. In other words, the objective of CDA is to study the relations between discourse structures and power structures, while power abuse, dominance (as well as counter-power) and hegemony form the focus of observation (p. 252).

Crucial to van Dijk’s concept is the access to (public) discourse for different social groups: Power and dominance of groups are measured by their control over (access to) discourse. This implies that the powerful control the minds of other people by controlling social representations.

What is more, in subsequent publications van Dijk proposes the ideological square, his approach for analysing the polarization between “us” and “them” and therefore a method for in-group and out-group descriptions (cf. Philo, 2007).