How to Critically Analyze a Piece of Media
By Deniigiq (Almost Ph.D)
So as a person who has spent the last 5+ years working in higher education in both research and staff capacities, I feel that it is my responsibility to provide y’all with some tools to help you critically analyze shit that you come across so that you don’t end up guilt tripping yourselves and others around you 24/7.
I am writing this because I see people constantly saying that people no longer know how to critically analyze something or don’t have critical thinking skills, but very few people actually have the time/energy/obligation to break down what that actually means and looks like for others.
The good news is that I apparently do have the time, energy, and honestly, the genuine concern to start to help people do that.
This is going to be a long-ass post.
I am not sorry for that either. This is just a tiny taste of some shit that you can and should really go ham with.
So anyways, here’s how to critically analyze a piece of media.
Critically analyze = asking questions of a text/media/object and thinking about answers to those questions.
THAT’S ALL. Don’t make it more complicated at this point in time.
Here are some basic questions that you want to ask yourself about a text/media/object (hereafter referred to as a Thing) before, after, and during your consumption of it:
The period in which a Thing is made is important because the world during that particular point in time influences the decisions that went into producing the Thing.
This question has layers. You will find many answers to this question if you pose it to anything that exists ever. And it should have multiple reasons because humans give many different meanings to individual things. There are often very few absolutely right answers to this question.
The layered identities of the people who create a Thing are always present in it. The important part is that if a person creates a Thing, then that Thing will have both insights into that person’s perspectives/beliefs/values/identity AND the limitations of those perspectives/beliefs/values/identity.
- What ideas does this Thing include and what ideas does this Thing leave out?
This is a really basic question that you probably don’t think of to ask yourself often, but when you are presented with a Thing, you have to first identity what is literally there right in front of you (example: this is a movie about a superhero. The superhero is a tall, beefy white man. The tall beefy white man has 2 sidekicks. And so on and so on.)
THEN, once you’ve done that, you sit back and think about what is NOT there. (The tall beefy white man’s sidekicks are both white characters. None of them are woman. None of them are people of color. And so on and so on.)
Once you get to this point in your analysis, you start asking different questions about the Thing.
For each answer you come up with to the above questions, you ask yourself:
Some questions you may find yourself making at this point include:
- Why was this Thing done in this way?
- Why does this Thing have that audience?
- How does this aspect of the Thing affect this other aspect of it?
- Why did the person who made this Thing choose to do it X-way and not Y-way?
- How might the time and place this Thing was made in affect its creation?
So you may be saying to yourself at this point, “but Matt, this doesn’t sound very critical to me! This just sounds like a load of fucking questions.”
To which I will say: thank god you have finally understood, padawan.
Being critical of something does not mean that you or someone else hates it.
It does not mean that you or someone else thinks the Thing is worthless.
It does not mean that you or someone else hates the people who made the Thing or the people who like the Thing.
It simply means that you have asked questions about the Thing and have recognized what it is, what it is doing, and what it is not doing from a variety of different perspectives.
So that means that when someone comes to you and says, ‘this Thing is having X effect on its audience,’ ‘this part of this Thing is representing X idea in Y ways,’ or ‘this Thing is leaving X people out in its story, which has Y effects’ that ‘criticism’ isn’t actually a targeted attack on you as a person.
This is because Things are not personality traits. Fandom ideas and ships and headcanons and whatever else are not what makes you you. You are special and unique because of so many other things that you do and have experienced. The thing that you like does not make up the entirety of your person or identity, even if that Thing or hell, even if a specific person has a lot of emotional value to you.
And because of that, when someone criticizes a piece of media or an object, they are not criticizing you. Rather, they are explaining to you how a Thing is functioning through a lens that you often don’t have access to or haven’t thought of.
And just so that we are clear, you can absolutely like a Thing after going through this process and finding that it has all sorts of limitations.
You may find that there’s a lot of shit about a bit of media/fandom/object that you don’t like, and you might decide that that shit outweighs the things you do like about whatever it is.
And regardless of the case, you are MORE than allowed to continue to consume a bit of media or whatever and say, ‘you know what? I enjoy this for a number of reasons. And I also acknowledge that there are parts of it that are not good for a number of other reasons. So now when I have fun with this Thing, I’m going to be aware of and sensitive to those less great parts, while also celebrating the good parts of it, too.’
That’s totally fine. In fact, that’s great. That’s amazing. That’s the kind of awareness that people are asking you to have when they ask for critical analysis.
Critical analysis is a tool that helps you think beyond the surface layer of an idea/thing/object. Being asked to think critically is not an attack. It does not mean that you cannot enjoy something or let it occupy an important place in your heart.
Critical analysis is a tool for everyone to use, and it is intended to help you understand how an idea/thing/object relates both to itself and the world around it.
What you do with critical analysis after that point is all up to your values and morals.
Anyways, if you have more questions, please don’t ask me. Ask yourself and then ask Google for more information or what to do next. That’s a whole different process called ‘researching’ and no one is paying me to teach you all how to research next. (…UNLESS???)
