Soc.

118
Media, Culture & Society

Chapter Five:
Media and Ideology
 OVERVIEW
 What is ideology?
 Ideology as normalization
• Analyzing TV commercials
 Theoretical roots of ideology
 Modern ideology and hegemony
 Advertising and consumer culture
 History of consumerism
• Modern advertising
 Case study
 Women’s magazines
• Video presentation: “Killing Us Softly 3”
 Other cases
• News (elites and insiders, economic news)
• Film (the military and masculinity)
• TV (the American family)
 Media and Ideology
 Media representations of
the social world
 Next level of analysis
 Focus on content
 Examining underlying
messages
 Whose interests do they
serve?
 What values do they reflect?
 Focus on the stories they
tell
 Not on effects of such stories
 Broader system of meaning
in the media
 Patterns of messages
 Specific content part of
something larger
 Connection between media
content, culture and society
 How ideas are embedded in
media
 How messages are
constructed
 Change and challenges in
content
 What is Ideology?
 A set of beliefs that explains
and justifies some social
arrangements
 Often containing religious,
moral, political and other
ideas
 Distorts and misrepresents
reality
 Related to belief system, world
view or values
 Basic ways in which the world
or reality is defined
 Debates about the
acceptability of messages
 Because of the lessons they
teach us about the social
world
 Cultural contests about
meaning are waged in media
 “Culture wars”
 Some ideas will have the
advantage while others will
be marginalized
 Debate about whether the
media promote the “dominant
ideology”
 Worldview of the powerful
 Or whether the media
includes contradictory
messages
 Contain the dominant
ideology while partially
challenging it
 Ideology as Normalization

 Social norms are articulated in the media

 Interactions, roles, social institutions
 Media texts imply what is normal and deviant
 Cumulative effect through sheer repetition
 Presents narrow range of behaviors and lifestyles
 Marginalizing or neglecting others
 Media normalizes some social relations and
makes others unacceptable
 Evident in what is presented as well as excluded
 Super Bowl 2008

Analyzing TV Commercials
 Theoretical Roots of Ideology
 Conflict theory (Marxism)
 Classical sociological
theory (19th century)
• Focus on power relations
in society
 Social stratification 
social inequality
 Domination 
subordination 
exploitation
 Ruling class imposes their
world view (ideology)
 Representing their
interests
 Powerful mechanism of
social control
 Dominants rule by indoctrination
 Disseminating world view that
only pretends to describe
universal experience
• But serves only the particular
interest of rulers
 “False consciousness”
 When subordinates accept
ruling ideology
• “Buying into” ideas
 The opposite of "revolutionary
thinking“
• Needed for social change
 Ideology involves mystification,
veiling, subtlety
 Example of ideology and the
“American Dream”
 Hegemony
Antonio Gramsci (Italian Marxist 1920s-30s)
 Ruling groups can
maintain power through
force or consent
 Consent must be won
 Power exercised through
“cultural leadership”
 People generally accept the
current ideas
 Operates at the level of
common sense
 Assumptions, taken-for-
granted notions
• “What’s natural,”
“everybody knows,” “the
way things are”
 We don't critically evaluate
these ideas and assumptions
 Seems uncontested
 Ideas must be continually
restated and reinforced
 Because they often conflict with
real life
 Hegemony can never be
complete or final
 Struggle for definition
 Ideas can be challenged
 Attempts to undermine seen as
threatening
 Ideas revised or retained
 Advertising and
Consumer Culture
 History of consumerism
 American capitalists in 1900s
• Mass production
 Seek to make business
profitable
 Advertising used to shape
consciousness
 More about creating buyers
than selling products
• Stimulating new needs and
habits
 Aimed at immigrants and urbanites
 Consumption as “great
equalizer”
 Concept of the “good life”
 Buying = participating in
democracy
• Consumption = citizenship
 Culture of consumerism
 Normalizes upper-middle
class values
• Acquiring wealth and status
• Consumption as a virtue and
freedom
 Elevates the individual over
the collective
• Buying and selling as the
primary
interaction/relationship
 Advertising tells us what the
dream
 Lifestyle all should pursue
• Realized through the power
of purchase
• Whether or not we have the
means
 Modern Advertising
 What stories do ads tell us about ourselves and society?
 One level is about products
• Informational
 One level is about lifestyles, states of mind
• Emotional
 Case Study: Women’s Magazines
 Gender-specific marketing
• Consumption category with special needs
• Woman = knowing what to buy, consuming certain products
 Ads promoting consumer lifestyle make up bulk of magazines
• Editorial content also contains “covert advertising”
 Social problems redefined as personal problems
• Beauty, sexuality, success, skills and social status can be purchased
Video
Presentation
 Media and Ideology:
Other Case Studies

 News media
 Elites and Insiders
 Economic News

 Film
 The Military and Masculinity
• Back to Vietnam films
 TV
 The American Family