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Mass media: ideology
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Mass media: ideology
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The aim of this section is to give a very general overview of the concept of ideology as it is used in cultural and media studies. I don't think this section is essential, as the general idea should become apparent if you read through the sections devoted to various Marxist approaches to the mass media. However, some students find the idea difficult to grasp, in part perhaps because of the way the term is used in everyday English, in part because of its rather different use in other subjects they are studying.
Initially, the term meant the 'study of ideas', a study which was intended to be one of the great intellectual achievements of revolutionary France. However, the project failed and the term soon came to acquire the negative overtones which attach to it in Marxist or Marxist-influenced studies. The quotations I have included from various writers in that vein should serve to illustrate its negative connotations. Although the term ideology is not necessarily used in all of those quotations, they do point to some beliefs about the operation of the mass media which are fairly characteristic of this Marxian conceptualization of ideology.
If we take ideology in its modern sense to mean not 'the study of ideas', but rather a set of ideas, beliefs and values about the way that the social world works, and, by extension, about the way the world ought to work, then we might expect the term to be fairly neutral. However, even outside the sphere of Marxian discourse, the term is generally used with negative connotations. Thus Margaret Thatcher would lambast the 'ideologues' of the Labour Party, her mission was to eradicate all traces of 'socialist ideology' from British society; in reply, members of the Labour Party, as well as Anglican bishops, would launch into attacks on her 'free market ideology'. There is an implication in such uses of the term that
As you can see from the examples I have just referred to, Thatcher's use of the term suggests that Labour's ideology is simply wrong. In her view, it is not merely the case that the implementation of reforms motivated by Labour ideology have had deleterious effects on the competitiveness of British industry, but rather that it rests on a series of fundamental misunderstandings. These misunderstandings relate not only to the way that businesses and markets work, but, more importantly, to the way that human beings inter-relate, the aspirations they have, what motivates them and so on.
I should point out here that not all conceptions of ideology necessarily construe ideologies as negative or illusory. Lenin, for example, had a fairly neutral conception of the term, whereby proletarian ideology was certainly not illusory and was an important positive weapon in the proletariat's struggle against the bourgeoisie. Mannheim conceived of ideology as a sort of 'sociology of knowledge', which would involve the study of systems of thought and ideas in relation to the socio-historical context within which they are situated.
However, the way the term is generally used in cultural and media studies is not neutral. Ideology is seen as negative and susceptible of critical analysis. It is seen as illusory, in particular in so far as it serves to conceal the class divisions in society. Thus
You will recognize that this notion of domination is central to the quotations I have provided. Central to a Marxian conception of society is the notion of conflict. In Marx's own writings, this was conceived of almost exclusively as conflict between social classes. In later writings within the Marxian vein, the investigation of domination was often extended to include relations of domination between the sexes, ethnic groups, dominant and subordinate nations and so on. Thus the following definition by Thompson is general enough to avoid being limited to class conflict only:
When established relations of power are systematically asymmetrical, then the situation may be described as one of domination. Relations of power are 'systematically asymmetrical' when individuals or groups of individuals are endowed with power in a durable way which excludes, and to some significant degree, remains inaccessible to, other individuals or groups of individuals, irrespective of the basis upon which such exclusion is carried out.
Thompson (1990 : 151)
From some quarters, though, the criticism continues to be levelled at the Marxist conception of ideology and domination that it is too concerned with class domination. Indeed, many Marxist commentators would continue to argue that the conflicts between sexes, between ethnic groups and so on are essentially the result of the operation of ideology in the interests of the dominant class.
From the idea that ideology serves the interests of one social class in dominating another, it follows that the Marxist concept of ideology is not neutral. Thus, you will often find Marxist critics talking about the dominant ideology.
Summarizing, then, we can say that the Marxist conception is that there is an (illusory and erroneous) dominant ideology which is established and mobilized by the dominant class to establish and maintain relations of domination between itself and subordinate classes.
That answers (albeit necessarily oversimplified) the what? of ideology. It also implicitly answers the why?. The how? is answered (well, maybe) in the sections on the Marxist approach to mass media. However, you may prefer to have the strategies listed in one place. Therefore, as Thompson (1990) offers a useful general overview, I shall enumerate below the methods he identifies.
Relations of domination may be presented as legitimate. Max Weber identifies the following three grounds on which a claim to legitimacy might be made:
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rational grounds | appealing to the legality of enacted rules and using a chain of reasoning to persuade the audience of the validity of existing social relations. Thus, for example, in Britain we are often reminded that 'property is nine tenths of the law'. Many of Thatcher's policies were based upon an appeal to common sense, coupled with anti-intellectualism. The intellectuals (the chattering classes, all vaguely infected with sociology) had lost touch with ordinary people's common-sense, which tells them that 'there is no such thing as society; there are only individuals and their families'. From that point of view it makes sense to 'roll back the frontiers of the state'. And the sense that it makes is shared by all of us, apart from a few whingeing intellectuals. |
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traditional grounds | appealing to the sanctity of immemorial traditions - under this heading we would find what Thompson refers to as narrativization, whereby the claims to legitimacy are seen to be supported by a story about how the present has grown out of a glorious past and is anchored within time-honoured traditions. Traditions may indeed be invented to legitimate the present - for example the invention throughout the nineteenth century of the 'traditional' British monarchy, which was sustained at least as far as the marriage of Charles and Diana. The tradition does not necessarily have to stretch back into the mists of time, as can be seen in Thatcher's recreation and appropriation for her own ends of the Churchill myth. |
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charismatic grounds | appealing to the exceptional character of an individual who exercises authority. The Führer principle is an obvious example, as are the personality cults which surrounded Stalin and Mao. The leader does not necessarily have to be charismatic in the sense of 'attractive' or 'popular', though. Thatcher was one of the most unpopular Prime Ministers we have ever had, but was commonly perceived as having the qualities required to get the job done - 'the Iron Lady' |
Ideology maintains class relations by concealing them. The tactics used include:
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displacement | a term used to refer to one object or individual is used to refer to another, thus transferring to it the positive or negative connotations the term has acquired. Marx's example is of the farcical Louis Bonaparte who presented himself as the legitimate heir of Napoleon, thus transferring to his rule the reverence which attached to Napoleon's. Today, one could think of Tony Blair's prefacing everything he wants us to approve of with 'the people's'. His use of the 'people's Lottery', the 'people's Dome', the 'people's Princess' is actually quite interesting. The expression might, especially after the long night of Thatcherism, be perceived as having a dangerously socialist ring. Thatcher herself referred to her project of 'popular capitalism' rather than 'people's capitalism' for precisely that reason. Blair is, of course, benefiting from the scandals of sleaze and the fat cats of the final years of the Conservative government, but I think he also borrows some of the connotations which attach to the American use of the term when used by Clinton with whom he appears to have a close relationship which he wants to be clearly displayed to the British public. At least some of his legitimacy, then, appears to be borrowed, not from illustrious predecessors, but from an illustrious contemporary. |
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euphemization | we must all be so familiar with this by now that it's a wonder it works at all. The Nazis didn't kill Jews, they normalized them; the Americans didn't destroy Vietnamese villages, they disassembled them; Thatcher didn't give away nationalized industries, she introduced popular capitalism; and Blair isn't about to sell education to private industry, but to modernize it. |
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trope | by trope Thompson refers to figurative language. That includes a variety of different strategies, including synechdoche, metonymy and metaphor. Synechdoche (pronounced sin-ek-ducky) involves using one term standing for one part of something to refer to the whole. Thus the term 'the British' will be used to refer to what is actually a relatively small group of the British, for example the government or the dominant class, and their values can be presented as if they are representative of the nation as a whole. Metonymy is rather the reverse of synecdoche. An attribute of something is taken to refer to the thing itself. So, for example, I write in this infobase of 'the press' when I refer to the whole newspaper business. 'The crown' is referred to when 'the Queen' is meant. In that latter example, the effect of referring to 'the crown' is to depersonalize and disguise the relationship between Mrs Windsor and her dysfunctional family on the one hand and her 'subjects' on the other, locating it within the time-honoured traditions of the British constitutional monarchy. Metaphor is a rhetorical technique we are all familiar with. So Thatcher not infrequently referred to the perception of Britain abroad as the 'sick man of Europe', for whom she had the appropriate 'medicine' which would 'cure' the nation. From there, of course, it was natural to progress to the reminder that we all know that the worse the medicine tastes the more effective it's likely to be. |
For ideology to work its magic, we must all see ourselves as having a collective identity, regardless of the divisions and conflicts which may actually separate us. The tactics deployed are
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standardization | obvious examples of this are the attempted eradication of languages in linguistically diverse nation-states, e.g. the current 'arabization' of Berber regions of Algeria, or the earlier 'anglicization' of Britain. |
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symbolization of unity | the construction of symbols of unity, e.g. flags, statues, parliamentary buildings, the pageantry of the Royal Family etc. |
At the same time as unification is essential to the operation of ideology, so, paradoxically, is fragmentation, either by fragmenting those groups that might be able to mount an effective opposition or by orientating potential forces of opposition towards a target which is presented as threatening. Tactics used here are:
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differentiation | emphasizing the factors which disunite people and prevent them from mounting an effective challenge or from participating effectively in the exercise of power. Thus, Labour emphasizes the differences between the pro- and anti-Europeans in the Conservative Party; with rather less success, the Conservatives stress the differences between New and Old Labour. |
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expurgation of the other | the construction of an enemy, either within or without, which all right-thinking people should unite against. So Nazi propaganda identified 'international Jewish Bolshevism' as well as (oddly, but successfully) 'international Jewish capitalism' as the enemy outside as well as on the inside (without the qualifier 'international'). So also, Thatcher was able to unite the British in fanatical jingoism against the Argentinians and was able to capitalize on that a couple of years later when she turned on the miners, (in)famously referred to by her as the 'enemy within'. In so doing she also employed the tactic of differentiation referred to above, attempting to split the working class movement, with the miners on the one side and all other workers ranged on the side of the 'British' qualities of fortitude, love of democracy, the 'bulldog spirit' etc. which had been conjured up in the Falklands war, Scargill and the other mineworkers' leaders being presented as anti-democratic dictators. |
The term 'reification' is a translation of Marx's Verdinglichung, literally making a concept into a thing, presenting it as if it were a fact of nature. By extension, it means presenting a state of affairs located in a particular socio-historical context as if it were permanent, a fact of nature. Thompson refers here to two strategies:
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naturalization | a state of affairs which is the product of historical, social and economic factors is presented as if it is an entirely natural state of affairs. So, in Thompson's example, 'the socially instituted division of labour between men and women may be portrayed as the product of the physiological characteristics of and differences between the sexes'. Similarly, under Thatcher and Reagan, market forces were 'reified', presented as if they were forces of nature: 'you can't buck the market', in Thatcher's words, any more than you can control the weather. |
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eternalization | customs, traditions and institutions seem to stretch into an infinite past and any possibility of their termination is unimaginable. In Britain we've got plenty of those. |
Marxist approach to mass media effects
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