Chapter 5: Media Ideology Synopsis

Chapter 5: Media Ideology

This chapter discusses ideology, dominant ideology, hegemony, and discourse. The chapter goes on to explain how each of these concepts is applied in understanding mass media. Ideology is defined as “in the service of power” (150). Ideology is the ideas and opinions that make the power of a dominant social group or class legitimate. Ideology is a very imperative, constructive, and essential component within both the social theory and in media analysis. Ideological power is used in five ways: legitimation, dissimulation, unification, fragmentation, and reification. Legitimation is when relationships are made and maintained with unequal power roles, and is being represented as being in everyone’s best interest. Dissimulation occurs when relations of domination are denied, hidden, or obscured. Unification is used when you were to further deflect attention from the unequal power of relationships between the leaders and the followers. Fragmentation is when hegemony is achieved and maintained by splitting up the potential opposition, which in turn reduces or removes the threat. Reification is an unequal social structure that is represented as being likely and expected (152-154).
The next topic discussed is the analysis of media. Content analysis is used to find out what the “intentions and other characteristics of communicators, detect the existence of latent propaganda or ideology, reflect cultural patterns of groups, reveal the foci of organizations, and describe trends in communication content” (158). This is only one example of how to examine media in our society. Ideological and discursive analysis is when one “concentrates on the relationship between media language and audience beliefs about the social world” (159). Communication would never be able to happen between the media and audiences of ideology and discourse did not exist. Ideology is ever-present in the mass media. These examples of ideology are not appreciated by the media professionals, but when the ideology is about race or gender the ideology becomes noticed.
Many people have studied ideology; including Karl Marx and Frankfurt School, Louis Althusser, Antonio Gramsci, and John B. Thompson. Karl Marx and the Frankfurt school describe ideology as being restricted or closed and in turn developed a negative understanding of the concept. They “emphasize the relationship between the economic base and dominant ideas of capitalistic society” (163). Louis Althusser and Antonio Gramsci characterize ideology as open or realized. Althusser was troubled with explaining the relationships between the media and ideology. He developed the idea of the “ideological state apparatus” (163). This meant that the media and educational systems described ideology as “representing capitalism as being natural, inevitable, and indeed desirable” (163). Antonio Gramsci developed hegemony. He studied how capitalism made and maintained the role of dominance in society. He found that hegemony/domination is created by force. He explains that the mass media gives the world a “commonsense” viewpoint (165). He also found that people who have no power give in and become dominated by the powerful people. This viewpoint goes against the views of feminists and Marxist views. John B. Thompson helped us to better understand ideology and the mass media’s role in the concept of ideology. Thompson explains that ideology is “establishes and sustains relations of power whish are systematically asymmetrical – what [he] shall call ‘relations of domination’” (168). Thompson took a tripartite model. This examines the ideological role in the media. The tripartite model helps to understand orientations that use different research methods to accomplish the preferred end. The second part of the model uses references to “discursive analysis” of media (171).
The concepts of ideology and discourse are necessary in understanding the media and the relationships of power within society. The discourse analysis helps us to further understand the ideology in the media. It helps us to understand how media texts are made and how they are used. Understanding discursive discourse is imperative in understanding ideological analysis.