Ideology

Idoelogy is often referred to as an unconsious set of ideas, values and beliefs that a group society or an individual hold to be true or important, and provide a particular views of the world:

- The values and beliefs perputuated by the majority within a society may be described as dominant ideology this may involve: - Patriacy, Christian beliefs, Western democracy, Hetrosexuality and family (kept through media - daily mail)

- Within a society there might be different ideologies at play representing different sets of social interests this may involve: - Gay rights, racists (ethic minoritiesstill not represented)

- there are many institutions that message and values like media (bbc), police, schools, ect

 

Marxist ideology

 

 

Marx stated that "Dominant ideologies may be hidden in terms of the common sense view or naturlised.

The marxist approach: -

- Society based on conflict between proletariat (makers of product/workers/wage earners) and bourgeoisie (owners of factories/manufacterers)

- Conflict is surplus ratio(profit) extracts from proles by owners-max profit for minimum wages-morkers makes as much money as she/he can and also tries to pay as little as possible to ensure profit

- System naturalisies this selects some and crucially cinvinces you it's your fault it you're poor

- Marx said that "religion is the opiate of the people"

- System prepares you access of failure depending on class and access to areas of experience (public school/Private health care)

 

Antonio Gramsci

 

 

He argued that societies economic system could not be used alone to control every aspect of intellectual cultural and political life. He identified the role of cultural power in maintaining the status quo. Hegemony therefore is the "process by which dominant ideology was able to naturalise aspects of how society is organised and this was achieved through control of cultural practices"

Hegemony is also subject to renegotiation and redefinition and the consensus may be broken as the ideologies of competing and/or subordinate groups came into direct conflict with dominant ideologies

 

 

 

Patriotism is a key dominant ideology which is promoted through the media

 

Allhusser argued that ideology is a force in its own right. Class rule is substained by organised power, which operates in two ways at the same time. The military, police and legal syatem maintain state force by power. Education, religion, politics, society and the media maintain power at the ideological level, by reinforcing common sense assumptions, attitudes and expectations that are ideological in that they manufacture and maintain consent to the exsiting social order

Chomsky argues that the mass media can be used to divert people's attention from real issues such as poor living conditions. He maintains that most people prefer to escape into popular culture rather than watch hard-hitting documentaries

 

Institutional ideologies

 

There are other ideologies at work in a media text. Any media institution will have particular ideologies which affect the construction of its text. These may be explicit ideologies (e.g. a newspaper may have a particular political affiliation) or implicit ideologies (such as the visual representation of a heroine in a typical Hollywood film)

Hollywood Ideology i that there is always a happy ending and about the American dream. Examples of these are die hard and Of mice and men