CMM1113 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Metalanguage, Georg Simmel, Antonio Gramsci
5 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
CMM1113
WEEKLY READINGS SUMMARYS: Croteau & Haynes, Barker, Hall.
MEDIA AND IDEOLOGY:
• Ho, fo eaple, do edia poduts depit the appopiate oles of e ad
oe, paets ad hilde, o osses ad okes? What defies suess, ad
how is it achieved? What are the underlying messages in media content, and whose
interests do these messages serve?
WHAT IS IDEOLOGY?
• Ideology is a decidedly complicated term with different implications depending on
the context in which it is used. When Marxists speak if ideology, the often mean
belief systems that help justify the actions of those in power by distorting and
misrepresenting reality.
• Whe sholas eaie edia poduts to uoe thei ideolog, the ae
interested in the underlying images of society they provide. In this context, an
ideology is basically a system of meaning that helps define and explain the world
and that makes value judgements about that world.
• When we examine the ideology of media, we are not so much interested in the
specific activities depicted in a single newspaper, movie or hit song as in the broader
system of meaning of which these depictions are a part.
• Instead of assessing the images and making some judgement about levels of
realness, ideological analysis asks what these messages tell us about ourselves and
society.
• Virtually, all forms of mass media-radio, television, movies, music, and the internet –
are standard targets, attacked by politicians from different political perspectives who
have little doubt that the media are ideological, selling certain messages and
worldviews.
• Media sell both products and ideas, both personalities and worldviews; the notion
that mass media products and cultural values are fundamentally intertwined has
gained broad public acceptance.
DOMINANT IDEOLOGY VERSUS CULTERAL CONTRADICTIONS:
• But the media are not simply conduits for carrying competing messages; they are
more than just the battlefield on which cultural warfare takes place.
• One of the principal reasons why media images often become so controversial is that
they are believed to promote ideas that are objectionable. In short, few media
critics are concerned about the media texts that promote perspectives they support.
• The most sophisticated ideological analysis examines the stories the media tell as
well as the potential contradictions within media texts, that is, the places where
alternative perspectives might reside or where the ideological conflict is built into
the text.
• Ideological analysis provides a window onto the broader ideological debates going
on in society. It allows us to see what kinds of ideas circulate through media texts,
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
ho thee ostuted, ho the hage oe tie ad he the ae eig
challenged.
IDEOLOGY AS A NORMALIZATION:
• This articulation is accomplished, in large part, by the fact that popular media,
particularly television and mass advertising, tend to display a remarkably narrow
range of behaviours and lifestyles, marginalizing or neglecting people who are
"different" from the mass mediated norm.
• The fear is that media images normalize specific social relations, making certain ways
of behaving seem unexceptional.
• Mass media are commercially organized to attract audiences for profit, there is good
reason to believe that popularity will be more important to media producers than a
commitment to any specific ideology.
EARLY MARXIST ORIGINS:
• Ideology was seen as a powerful mechanism of social control whereby members of
the ruling class imposed their worldview, which represented their interests, on
members of subordinate classes.
HEGEMONY:
• Consent is something that is won; ruling groups in a society actively seek to have
their worldview accepted by all members of society as the universal way of thinking.
Institutions such as schools, religion, and the media help the powerful exercise this
cultural leadership since they are the sites where we produce and reproduce ways of
thinking about society.
• Hegemony operates at the level of common sense in the assumptions we make
about social life and on the terrain of things that we accept as "natural" or "the way
things are."
• When people adopt common-sense assumptions-as they do with a wide range of
ideas-they are also accepting a certain set of beliefs, or ideology, about social
relations.
• Gramsci saw hegemony as a daily struggle about our underlying conceptions of the
world, a struggle always subject to revision and opposition.
• Media images do not simply reflect the world, they re-present it; instead of
reproducing the "reality" of the world "out there," the media engage in practices
that define reality.
ENTER POSTMODERNISM:
DEFINING THE TERMS:
• Modernity and postmodernity are terms which refer to historical and
sociological configurations. Modernism and postmodernism are cultural and
epistemological concepts.
THE INSTITUTIONS OF MODERNITY:
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Weekly readings summarys: croteau & haynes, barker, hall. Ideology is a decidedly complicated term with different implications depending on the context in which it is used. Ideological analysis provides a window onto the broader ideological debates going on in society. It allows us to see what kinds of ideas circulate through media texts, ho(cid:449) the(cid:455)(cid:859)(cid:396)e (cid:272)o(cid:374)st(cid:396)u(cid:272)ted, ho(cid:449) the(cid:455) (cid:272)ha(cid:374)ge o(cid:448)e(cid:396) ti(cid:373)e a(cid:374)d (cid:449)he(cid:374) the(cid:455) a(cid:396)e (cid:271)ei(cid:374)g challenged. Ideology was seen as a powerful mechanism of social control whereby members of the ruling class imposed their worldview, which represented their interests, on members of subordinate classes. Hegemony: consent is something that is won; ruling groups in a society actively seek to have their worldview accepted by all members of society as the universal way of thinking. Defining the terms: modernity and postmodernity are terms which refer to historical and sociological configurations. Modernism and postmodernism are cultural and epistemological concepts.
