Van Dijk states that Ideologies are the ideas and belief systems that are socially shared

by the members
of a collectivity of social actors. These Ideologies consist of social representations that define the social
identity of a group, that is, its shared beliefs about its fundamental conditions and ways of existence and
reproduction.

Dijk argues that there are different types of ideologies that are defined by the kind of groups that 'have'
an ideology, such as social movements, political parties, professions, or churches, among others. He
further argues that ideologies are acquired, expressed, changed, and reproduced in the society, mainly
in different forms of discourses such as texts and talks.

Moreover, Van Dijk focuses that ideologies usually control the thoughts of a social group which then
represent the essential social characteristics of a group based on their identities, goals, norms, values,
positions, and responses to other negative stances. However, Van Dijk emphasizes the ideological
consumption in both cognitive and social levels and proclaims that social cognition is a system with
shared sociocultural knowledge by members of a specific group, society, or culture. On the other hand,
cognitive functions are considered as the basic form of ideological properties that organize, monitor,
and control attitudes of a social group and are accompanied by the experiences of a person.

According to Van Dijk, Ideologies have many cognitive and social functions.

 First of all, they organize and ground the social representations shared by the members of
(ideological) groups.
 Secondly, they are the ultimate basis of the discourses and other social practices of the
members of social groups as group members.
 Thirdly, they allow members to organize and coordinate their (joint) actions and interactions in
view of the goals and interests of the group as a whole.

Furthermore, Dijk believed that Ideologies are not innate but learned. They are gradually acquired by
people as members of social groups, mediated by personal experiences (subjective mental models)
generalized as, socially shared attitudes about relevant social or political issues. For such social attitudes
and their underlying ideologies to be acquired and shared in a group in the first place, they usually need
to be expressed, formulated, or otherwise communicated among group members or defended outside
of the group. That is, ideologies are typically produced and reproduced by talk or text by ideological
discourse, such as parliamentary debates, news reports and editorials, textbooks, bibles, pamphlets, or
scientific articles, as well as everyday conversations among or with people as group members.

Are ideologies always negative?

Van Dijk ideologies are particular ways of representing and constructing a society that reproduces
distributed power relations. Moreover, Dijk argues that Ideologies are not necessarily negative. They are
not only developed and used to sustain and legitimate social and political power abuse, as is the case for
racism, but can also be shared and used by social groups to resist such domination and in order to
propagate egalitarian attitudes and practices, as is the case for feminism. In both cases, ideologies are
belief systems shared by groups in order to promote their interests and to guide their social and political
practices.

How ideologies are communicated in a society?

Van Dijk contends that ideologies are endorsed in the forms of action and interaction, and ideological
reproduction is often rooted in organizational and institutional contexts. For example, racist ideologies
are expressed in racist talk, and feminists reproduce their ideologies in feminist talk. Therefore, many
forms of interactional discourse play a vital role in communicating ideologies in the society.