Ideology
Intro
The concepts of ideology and of discourse have been key ones for media studies, especially in Europe
Ideology still has a key role to play in suggesting the often taken-for-granted and unseen connections between the media and different kinds of power.
Discourse here can help to explore the ‘in-between’ area of how overarching and long-lasting ideologies become part of daily practices
‘Ideology’ and its histories: Marxist approaches
Some sets of ideas, though forming a system, even a rigid one, are not classified as ’ideological: Obsessive cleanliness
Ideology relates to the distribution of social power and refers to:
sets of ideas which give some account of the social world
ideas which are usually partial and selective
the relationship of these ideas or values to the ways in which power is distributed socially.
‘Ideology’ is often taken to be:
one of the means by which dominant economic classes extend their control over others
one of the ways in which dominant values and meanings come to seem ‘natural’ and ‘obvious’ rather than socially aligned, in other words, again, how they work with, or against, particular sets of power.
Marx
Marx questioned the supposedly ‘natural’ but unequal order of things.
He analysed the then-new profit- and competition-dominated system – capitalism – and the power of two classes within it: the rising industrial manufacturers (or capitalists) and the working class (or proletariat).
What is capitalism?
Mercantilism describes a class system emerging in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, led by merchants who accumulated wealth obtained through colonial exploitation, slavery and war.
Industrial capitalism began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when a new class of industrial entrepreneurs exploited technological innovation (such as the steam engine) using accumulated capital or money (from the slave trade, mercantile exploits, etc.).
The factory system of production began and political power overall was wrested from aristocratic landowners, whose power dated from feudal times, by these ‘capitalists’.
Socialism is an ideal arising partly from the experience of workers in this new factory system. It is broadly a belief in collective or public ownership, and the rights of all working people to full representation in political systems
Marx
Class difference (the relationship of people to means of production) is key to the kinds of values and political ideas that they have.
Do you own the means of production (own and profit from factories, banks, country estates etc) or earn your living working for those who own it?
Marxist textual accounts of advertising: Ads emphasise the product, the powers claimed for it and the joys of using it all render the work of producing it (labour) invisible, or even ‘natural’ – a deeply ideological move.
The product can seem to appear from nowhere, without the exploitation of either human labour or the world’s natural resources.
Marx
Ideological prominence of stars and celebrities: Unimaginable amounts of other people’s labour go into not just the lifestyle of stars (nannies, chauffeurs, servants, agents) but also their appearance, which is often presented as ‘natural’
Stars vs “them”, the others who worked in the media material.
Marx used the concept of ideology (as well as theories of force) to help account for how the capitalist class was able to protect and preserve its economic interests.
Marx
The dominant ideas, which become part of the ‘common sense’ of any society, are those which work in the interests of the ruling class, to secure its dominance.
- those who own the means of production who thereby, also, control the means of producing and circulating the key political ideas in any social order. Is that include media?
Marx argued for a base–superstructure model
relationship between the ways the basic needs of a social order are met (base, the economy) and
its superstructure, i.e. its ‘secondary’, less basic institutions, such as organised religions and cultural life
the economic ‘base’, and who owns it, is argued to determine, not just to influence, cultural and political activities.
Dominant class is able to make workers believe that existing relations of exploitation and oppression are natural, inevitable and therefore unchangeable.
Gramsci
Italian Marxist Gramsci’s term ‘hegemony’ was taken up as a key way of thinking about how dominant value systems change.
Instead of an emphasis on the imposed dominance of a unified ruling class, and the determining power of the economic base, Gramsci argued that particular social groups in modern democracies struggle for control of consensus, or hegemony
Capitalist use persuasion and consent as well as occasional brute force.
Althusser
The ideological state apparatuses (ISA), including the family, media, religious organisations and education system, and RSAs (repressive state apparatuses) resorted to at later stages by ‘the state’, such as the law, prisons, armed forces.
The key point from this for media studies is that people are not forced or duped into a false consciousness of the world, but have their consent actively fought for all the time – nowadays, crucially, through the media.
Marx
‘Commodity fetishism’ or ‘reification’ (from the Latin for ‘res’ meaning ‘thing’)
A process whereby products all made by people, are treated as though they had an almost magical reality and logic of their own, as though ‘the market’ was almost a real ‘thing’.
Ideology masks actual social relations – as well as about some of advertising’s strategies, and results, in ‘fetishistic’ appetites for certain goods.
Marx
Increasing concentration of power, and profits, into the hands of a very few enormous media corporations, and of a few executives within those, is argued to lead to:
an overall decline in the range of material available
the dominance of corporate advertising and marketing within culture generally, taking equal time as substantive content.
Post-Marxism
The power of Marxist explanations deteriorated due to
Fall of communist bloc
The renewed power of ‘free market’ or ‘neoliberal’ systems became dominant globally
Postmodern attack: an abandonment of any political connections to help construct a better world
Identity Politics
As class identities fail to explain, other, key identities (sexuality, ethnicity, gender and so on) claimed more expression and visibility.
Identity politics: Feminists’ argument that inequality derives from other oppressions than unequal pay in the realm of paid work, though that is key.
Men’s social position and power can often be shown to exploit women’s domestic and even emotional work for them and their children.
Black’ theorists have likewise explored the ways in which inequalities between ethnic groups have been constructed and maintained, and how they have often cut across class and gender difference.
Does Marxism’s key interest in class differences disappear in ‘identity’ emphases? We still live in deeply unequal capitalist societies, driven by profit, high consumption and gross inequalities. But these now operate on a global scale, with relations of exploitation spread across and between continents, and with other kinds of oppression also producing deprivations.
Identity Politics and Media Pluralism
Some would argue that neoliberal capitalist orders are quite happy with identity politics. Why?
Such politics are admirable and necessary, and related to class differences. But they are argued to emphasise diversity and not inequality, which is steeply rising and finding disturbing forms of expression, such as fascist movements focused on ’race.
Pluralist models of media ownership have developed, seeing the media as floating free of power. Is that the case?
we still need an account of power to understand how some ideas and imaginings came to circulate more freely than others
Critical pluralism
We now live in times of a complex play between several kinds of power:
economic power
political power
coercive, especially military, power
‘symbolic power’, i.e. the means of information and communication,
Discourses
Later theorists, responding to the struggles around identity, which focused partly on media representations of oppressed groups, thought subordinated ideologies and identities, said to operate through lived cultures and powerful or marginalised discourses.
Discourse: How ideas & ideological concepts expressed in language (spoken and written words, statements, arguments, conversations etc).
Can extend beyond language—to images, visual content and other things
Discourses
Can be related to public health, education, politics, law, international policy, medicine, environmentalism etc.
Law: Questions asked in courts
Medicine: Doctor-patient communication
Politics: The metaphor of ‘cancer’ to imply fatalism about a certain situation, and used to justify taking severe measures
Journalism: Phrasings and framings of interview questions especially with a “powerful” political figure
Propaganda
Discourse that tries to convince and persuade by:
Employing strong rhetorical strategies
Presenting (or clearly preferring) only one side of an issue
To further an agenda
A news story about students’ protest against increased tuition fees in universities:
Students as brave fighters for the right to have an affordable education.
OR
Students as troublesome anarchic people who are threat to law and order.
Propaganda
Discourse analysis
Can help us unmask overarching and deep-seated ideologies that are part of our daily practices and everyday language through deciphering:
Ideologies contained in daily conventional practices, patterns in language & other linguistic expressions
Implications of these patterns for social relationships
Ex: modes of address (how a media text speaks to its audience or how individuals relate to one another) What does it mean to call your teacher hoca?
Ex: Far-right and anti-immigrant discourses on social media platforms
Discourse analysis
Trump builds his anti-immigrant discourse by framing Mexico and the Latinos/Latinas as drug cartels, rapists, and a threat to national security. Twitter was an important medium for him, until he was de-platformed, to convey his idea to the public. By analyzing his use of language and choice of words, we can understand his stance on such issues as immigration, racism, etc. in the US.
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Discourse beyond language
Image & visual content as discourse
How does this ad use its imagery, language (and its cinematography, etc.) to create an ideological discourse?
Stuart Hall: Encoding / Decoding
Media effects model:
Mass media is powerful and create influence
It assumes audiences are passive receptors
Uses & Gratifications Model:
- Audiences have significant power and agency- Hall balances effect & use models of audience
Stuart Hall: Encoding / Decoding
Stuart Hall: Encoding / Decoding
Encoding and decoding of the message do not necessarily correspond to each other
Possibility for mismatched codes & multiple interpretations (polysemy)
Provides agency and power BOTH to creators AND audiences
But polysemy has its limits: ALL interpretations are anchored in the text—based on parameters of the text and shared codes
Stuart Hall: Encoding / Decoding
Three different reading positions:
Dominant: We receive the preferred meaning intended by the producer, accept it without any resistance, agree with the dominant ideology without problematizing it.
Negotiated: We negotiate the preferred reading, partly accepting and partly rejecting it; refine interpretation based on personal values, experiences and interests.
Oppositional: Werecognize, but reject the preferred reading on cultural, personal or ideological grounds; openly question the dominant ideology and resist it.
Stuart Hall: Encoding / Decoding
Dominant: “It was funny.”
Negotiated: “We see what he’s trying to do, and some were funny, but some of them weren’t…”
Oppositional: “We see what he’s trying to do, but it’s entirely offensive – the end.”
South Park, season 13, episode 3, “Margaritaville”
Emre Toros - Media Studies