IDEOLOGY & Hegemony

Key concepts

Ideology

Ideology is a difficult - but important - concept to grasp. Simply put, it is the ideas behind a media text, the secret (or sometimes

not-so secret) agenda of its producers.

Disney & Ideology

Most Disney narratives end with a new, married to a prince equilibrium. What does this teach to young girls? The message of these texts are the ideology that a girl needs a man.

Also that ultimately beauty and submission/sacrifice is what will get her that desired prince charming.

A way of analysing ideology is to apply Laswells model;

Who/says what/ to whom/in what channel/to what effect

Producers – ideological message/s – target audiences – global mediascape –propaganda, influence behaviour,win consent for -purchase e -consume –buy...wear...war,,watch

Look at the Disney images again and makes notes on the other ideological messages in Disney films.

What is Ideology?

On one level, ideology is the system of beliefs that organises the way which we view the world and the events that take place.

It follows then that in our consumption of media texts, we will be subjected to the ideological views of the producer of that text.

In sociological terms,

Ideology is a body of ideas or set of beliefs that underpins a process or institution and leads to social relations.

These sets of beliefs are those held by groups within society, and the prevalent ones are those held by the ruling/dominant groups.

Religious ideologiesBible & The Quran

The bible has a list of dos & don’ts, the ten commandments lists an ideological framework . The ten commandments are a good idea if you wanted to ideologically control people 2,000 years ago. Can you identify any ideologies in the bible?

Religious ideologies

Religion is ideological, organised beliefs & values that define how people should live their lives and what constitutes appropriate behaviours , dress and what to eat. Can you identify any ideologies associated with any of these religions?

Capitalism Vs. Marxism

Ideologies come in different forms and as we saw in semiotics, they can often be political or religious.

In advertisements we can see that capitalism and consumerism are the main messages

Capitalism is an ideology that emphasises the importance for people in society to be able to create wealth by running there own business.

Marxism, on the other hand, is a belief system that considers capitalism to exploit the labour of the workers and argues that the state should control the wealth and distribute it fairly among the popululation as a whole.

Clearly these two ideologies are in conflict.

What conflicting ideologies are represented in these images

Political ideologiesHow would these groups conflict?

Early Marxist Origins

Ideology was seen as a powerful mechanism of social control whereby members of ruling class imposed their worldview, which represented their interests, on members of subordinate classes

Early Marxists stood for a social revolution that would stand in opposition to the ruling ideology

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a

heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people". – Karl Marx.

What is the ideological messages of these texts? Apply Laswell

Political institutions such as News International have had a major influence on politics – apply Laswell.

H E G E M O N YThe WINNING OF CONSENT, HEARTS & MINDS...

Antonio Gramsci describes how people are. influenced into accepting the dominance of a power elite who impose their will and worldview on the rest of the population .

Gramsi argues that the small elite rule the ret of us by a consensus, we let them.

He wrote this from a prison cell, in the form of his Prison notebooks, He argued that to win consent, a consensus, was to win the ideological war.

Ideologies, like binaries, are in continual opposition, hegemony refers to the attempts to win consensus and who has won public consensus. The idea of consensus is important for the idea of democracy.

It can be argued that the ideological function of the media is to persuade us that it is in our best interests to accept the dominance of this elite.

In any society the accepted and agreed beliefs are those of the ruling class

i.e. the class which is the ruling material (with all the money) force is at the same time its ruling intellectual (with all the ideas) force.

Christianity is the main historical example (think of how many legal systems take Christian moral values as their basis)- are there any modern day equivalents?

Football currently has hegemonic status in the UK - glance through the sports pages and see what coverage other sports get - and everyone is expected to understand and accept its national importance.

Magazines perpetuate hegemonic norms about beauty, for men & women. Apply Laswell – identify key terms

The Beauty Myth

The idea of beauty and the 'ideal' female shape propounded in Western magazines bears little to no relation to the measurements of the majority of Western women. It is accepted as 'natural' that models in women's magazines should be young and drastically underweight. Since the 1960s the preferred reading has been that these women are beautiful.

However, there are signs that, as hegemonic belief begins to adapt to the concerns of many that this body shape is actually unhealthy, the preferred reading is beginning to shift very very gradually.

Over recent years, size zero models have been banned from the catwalk in fashion weeks the world over. Beauty magazine editors have responded to reader concerns that the models depicted in their pages are unrealistically thin by pledging to use "real women" instead. Dove, a cosmetics company, has made a global campaign for "real beauty" the cornerstone of its marketing. The outcry over the use of Photoshop to create unrealistically young and slim looking images in advertising continues to gather support. There are signs that the hegemonic standards are in flux.

Ideology as Normalisation

Media texts serve as sites of articulation of social norms.

Media represent images of social interaction and social institutions that by mere repetition on a daily basis shape broad social definitions.

Accumulation of media images suggests what is ‘normal’ and what is ‘deviant’ The other.

Popular media have a tendency to display a remarkably narrow range of behaviours and lifestyles – marginalizing others!

Louis Althusser

IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARARTUS

Consent Family – gender roles

– socialisation Mass media : gender roles,

ideological messages, adverts, consumption, magazines, stars,

School -

REPRESSIVE STATE APPARATUS

Coercion parents Social services Truant officers Prefects,

headmasters, teachers

Police Army/navy ect Judiciary

What are the hegemonic messages of Batman or Avengers – in groups & make notes

Politics – Left & right wing