Britishness
• Make a list of the
qualities and
characteristics of
the British.
• How are these
qualities and
characteristics
reflected in the
media?

Values and Ideology
It’s not under the surface - it is the surface

Values
• Values often goes to the heart of a media
product.
• Almost every newspaper story is written
with a set of values in mind.
• E.g., according to the Daily Mail, society
is falling apart, people don’t have enough
respect, the teaching profession is useless...

If something is wrong...
• …then somebody has an idea of what
would be right
• You could call this underlying values,
but actually these values are usually in
plain sight!

The problem is...
We’re all wearing ideological glasses and don’t know it!

Values vs. Ideology
• What’s the difference?
• Put simply: WE have values; THEY have an
ideology.
• In other words, ideology tends to be a
pejorative term, aimed at those whose
values differ from our own.

POWER

OWNERSHIP
• Who are the people who own everything?
• How are power and wealth distributed
through society?
• How do these people maintain control in
spite of the fact that they are a tiny
minority?

HEGEMONY
• They convince you to allow them to
exercise power using subtle (and unsubtle)
cultural messages
• Ideas about the world and the way it works
are presented as normal, natural or
common sense.
• It’s just the way things are...

Higher? Or Lower?
• Does our quality of life tend to improve
overall, or get worse?
• Who gets the benefit of new
breakthroughs in technology and
healthcare?
• Is this a country where people want to live?

• According to the Office of National Statistics,
People’s perceptions of their local neighbourhood give
an indication of the strength of community spirit and
neighbourliness.
• The above graph shows the changing percentage of
people who believe that we help each other or tend
to go our own way.

• According to the Office of National Statistics,
Income inequality in 2005/06 increased compared to
the previous year.
• Over the longer term, income inequality remains
high by historical standards.

Average income per household, 2005/06, United Kingdom
• According to the Office of National Statistics, the
income of the top 5th of households was sixteen
times greater than that of the bottom 5th in
2005/06.
• After the impact of taxation and benefits, this
inequality was reduced to a ratio of four to one.

Stereotypes
• We are trained by media images to recognise
stereotypes of poverty and wealth.

Keeping up
Appearances...
• The real inequalities of wealth in society are often
hidden underneath appearances.
• People somehow manage to “live the dream” by
running up huge levels of debt.
• Can we really tell if that jewellery, that
iPhone, that 57-plate car, or that “beautiful
home” is bought and paid for?
• More importantly, do we ever question our need
to even have such things?

Stereotypes
• How do we use
stereotypes to
poke fun at people
who try to follow
a different ethos?

Discussion
• How do the media encourage people to
accept social inequalities?
• In what ways do the media encourage us to
aspire to give the appearance of wealth?
• What values/ideologies are assumed by the
Simpson’s Mastercard ad, and the “banned”
one?

Beyond Wealth...
• The appearance of people and things also relates
to our underlying values/ideology.
• For example, our ideas about body image, health
and sexuality are highly influenced by the media.
• Thinking of media representations of wealth,
glamour, and ‘to-be-desired-ness’, can you come up
with an ideal good life?

Hepburn vs. Monroe

Changing Values
• Though they are both icons of the 1950s,
Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn
couldn’t be more different.
• Can you explain (compare/contrast) their
different qualities?
• Which one has the more enduring appeal?

Body Image and Moral Panic
• Audrey Hepburn was
famously skinny, partly
because she lived on
starvation rations in the
Netherlands during
WWII.
• Yet she’s still a powerful
role model and
perennially popular
media icon.
• Relate her popularity to
moral panics about
eating disorders and
body image.

What does it mean
to be a man?

...or a father? ...or a mother?

...or a friend?

IDENTITY

The End of Ideology?
• Some commentators saw the collapse of
communism as the end not just of that
ideology but of all ideologies.
• We supposedly live in a post-modern age in
which it is “impossible” to subscribe to
Grand Narratives.

Grand Narrative
• Grand Narratives are stories about our
society and culture which purport to
explain why things are the way they are.
• Whereas religions tend to explain the
world in terms of GOD, Marxism explained
the world in terms of economics and
power.

Pseudo...
• The problem with political philosophies like
Marxism is that it arose at a particular historical
moment.
• In the 19th Century, science/technology was seen
as an infallible measure of human progress.
• Many new “-ologies” and “-isms” appeared: pseudo-
sciences that attempted to explain society, human
nature, and the economy in terms of scientific
theories.

Pseudo-Sciences...
• Anthropology
• Psychology
• Marxism
• Sociology
• Socialism
• Communism
• Fascism

POSTMODERN?
• Whether there is any such thing as the
postmodern is debatable.
• What’s certain is that we now have science
that “nobody understands” (e.g. weird
quantum mechanics), which means it’s easy
to dismiss both science and pseudo-science
alike.

Platform
• This leaves us without a base: nowhere to
stand in order to critique our society (and
the media it produces).
• It’s easy to pretend we have no ideology,
throw up our hands and muddle along.
• We end up with identity politics: ideas
that circulate about gender, sexuality, and
other aspects of self-identity.

And we get the
MEDIA
we deserve.

Youth & Politics
• The youngest sections of society are more likely to
opt-out of the electoral process than their older
counterparts.
• To what extent do you agree with the following
statements?
• 'It's a bit uncool to vote. If somebody says I'm not going, you
say well, I'm not going either.'
• 'I only know a couple of people my age who voted, but
they're the next Tony Blairs, the sad ones.'

How true of you is the
following statement?

Young People
• Though they have well formed opinions on, and are well able
to discuss, issues such as mobile phones, sex, crime and their
local neighbourhood, they have little patience with political
debate, which seems to them to occupy a parallel universe to
the one they inhabit. It should not be assumed that this group
are 'apathetic'. However, they do not make the connection
between their personal dissatisfaction with a particular aspect
of public life and participating in traditional processes as a
way of a way of expressing that dissatisfaction or seeking a
solution to these problems.