This lecture introduces Marxist perspectives on ideology and its role in media and culture. It discusses key theorists including Althusser and Gramsci. Althusser viewed ideology as structuring reality rather than being false consciousness. Gramsci developed the concept of hegemony to describe how dominant groups gain consent through the diffusion of values and beliefs throughout society that maintain the status quo. The media are discussed as playing a part in justifying oppression by legitimizing the current social order.

1. Lecture 3:
Marxism, ideology and the
media
Or
“We are stupid to believe what
we believe”
MS 2900 Exploring Media Theory
University of Winchester
Dr Marcus Leaning

2.  In this lecture we are going to look at ideology
from a Marxist perspective.
 Ideology is a key concept in the fields of cultural
analysis, media studies and literary analysis.
 The idea of ideology explains:
◦ why people hold beliefs that seem antithetical to their
material position –why do we believe we should continue
with the current system when it is obvious we are not
benefiting from the present state of affairs?
◦ how ‘culture’ is structured in such a way that enables the
group holding power to have the maximum control with the
minimum of conflict.

3.  This is not a matter of groups deliberately
planning to oppress people or alter their
consciousness (although this can happen),
but rather a matter of how the dominant
institutions and groups in society work
through:
◦ values,
◦ conceptions of the world,
◦ symbol systems,
 in order to legitimise the current order.

4.  Briefly, this legitimisation is managed
through the widespread social adoption of
ideas about the way things are, how the
world works and should be.
 These ideas which are often embedded in
cultural practices orient people's thinking in
such a way that they accept the current way
of doing things, the current sense of what is
'natural,' and the current understanding of
their roles in society.

5.  We will look at;
◦ Some theoretical foundations of the Marxist
approach;
◦ The ideas of two key theorists;
 Louis Althusser
 Antonio Gramsci

6.  Marxists are interested in “How dominant
social groups are able to reproduce their
social and economic power” Taylor and Willis
(1999) P.29.
 This idea goes right back to Marx.

7.  “The ideas of the ruling class are in every
epoch the ruling ideas, I.E. the class which is
the ruling material force of society is at the
same time its ruling intellectual force” Marx
and Engles The German Ideology.

8.  Economic Determinist.
 The economic system determines the form of
society.
Capitalist Society
Capitalist Economic
System
Superstructure
Economic Base

9.  All aspects of culture in a given society are
dependent on and derived from the
relations of production of the system of the
particular mode of production.
 The particular mode of production of an era
formed the base structure of society; all
other aspects, including culture, religion,
values are simple superstructure, a
consequence of the economic structure.

10.  According to Marx, ideology
◦ Naturalises
◦ Historicises
◦ Eternalises
The economic system:
1. The system appear to be natural, “it’s just how
things are”;
2. The system appears to be the logical conclusion to
an historical development – we evolved to this
state;
3. There is an assumption that now that this (natural)
state of affairs has been reached, things will be
that way, barring regression (eternalisation).

11.  “The free market is the economic system most in
keeping with the nature and needs of humans;
history has been an evolution of economic forms
towards our version of the free market; once states
have all reached this, all they have to do is avoid
reverting, there is no 'further' to go in terms of
economic organization."
 We assume that the free market is the political
system best suited to the nature and aspirations of
humans, we see history as a movement towards
this, we assume that once all nations have achieved
it they will continue to be free markets forever,
unless they erode.
 These assumptions are ideology.

12.  More recent theories have tended to look at
how elements of society contribute to the
maintenance of the system.
 Cultural life is not just a result of economic
life, they help to maintain it, contribute to it
and accelerate it.

13.  Tried to develop these criticisms.
 Says Modernity is different from other
periods of time.
 That because of the changes that took
place in Modernity the superstructure
acquired a degree of independence from
the base.
 The superstructure develops above and
beyond the determinates of the base.
 As a consequence we need to look beyond
the merely economic relations and extend
our analysis to the other aspects of society.
 We should just look at economics to
explain inequality, we need to look to
culture and the media as well.

14.  The Marxists economistic way of thinking of
proposed that ideologies are false, they
misrepresent reality to us.
 Ideologies are a veil that hide reality.
 For them, underneath ideology is a real
hidden world (for example, the "real"
economic relations of production).
 We can’t see these real systems.
 Trad. Marxists contend they ‘pulled back
the veil’ on the falsity of Modern life and
have seen the reality beneath.

15.  They (Bolsheviks) must
lead the way, they have
seen the truth and must
show people the reality
of their conditions.
 If we see what the world
is really like we will
awaken from the
‘dream’ or false
consciousness.
 Marxists are not alone
in this belief…

16.  Ideology is not “false consciousness.”
 Rather ideology structures what we do and
makes our reality.
 Althusser is a structuralist We cannot exist
outside of culture or ideology.
 It provides meaning to our lives, the systems
that we live through.
 In short, we have no reality beyond our
ideology – we ‘adopt’ an identity from a
shared set.

17.  For Althusser, it is impossible to access the “real conditions
of existence" due to our reliance on language.
 Our language structures our experience of the world –
(remember semiotics?) and our language is a consequence of
the social world.
 We have no way of engaging with the world apart from
language.
 Because of our being inside language we can’t see external
reality only the ideological interpretation of it - we can only
see the representation of reality, not reality itself.
 However, through a vigorous study of economics, history and
sociology, we can come close to perceiving ideological
systems and how we are placed in specific sets of relations by
those systems.

18.  1971 – Althusser’s main and possibly most
important contribution.
 Had some key (but tricky ideas).

19.  Process of an individual adopting a set of beliefs or
ideology from a system of beliefs.
 We come to think that our beliefs are our own, that
they originate from ourselves.
 My beliefs emerge from my conscious decisions, I
have free will and can choose what to do.
 However what Althusser argues is that these beliefs
are not really our own – they are social.
 We are taking part in shared societal ideas but
think they are our own private ideas.
 We internalise social beliefs and see them as our
own.

20.  Our mind is structured
by the wider social
world.
 Althusser uses
psychoanalytic theory
drawn from the work
of Jacques Lacan to
explain this.

21.  The beliefs/ideology come to us through
the Ideological State Apparatus, the devices
by which ideology is transmitted.
◦ Family
◦ Education
◦ Media
◦ Religion
◦ Culture
◦ Arts

22.  Our consciousness, what we are emerges
from these.
 We exist is a system of beliefs, we internalise
these beliefs and they become our own, and
in turn we play a part in reproducing them.
 The people produced by this, the ideological
‘subjects’ facilitate the economic systems.

23.  If for some reason the ISA fail to do
their job, and the subjects created
are not convivial to the economic
system there is a range of systems to
back them up;
◦ Police
◦ Judiciary
◦ Armed forces
◦ Occasionally medicine, particularly
psychiatric medicine.
 ‘Faulty’ non-compliant subjects /
people are labelled:
◦ criminal,
◦ terrorist
◦ lunatic
 and dealt with.

24.  Are people simply duped into adopting such
a set of beliefs?
 Is this really that much different from the
main traditional Marxist ideas?
 Aren’t we more free willed?

25.  Gramsci, an Italian Communist, developed his ideas during the
late 1920’s while he was on ‘holiday’ at Mussolini’s expense.
 During this time, he completed 32 notebooks containing almost
3,000 pages.
 These notebooks were smuggled out from his prison and
published in Italian after the war but did not find an English-
language publisher until the 1970s.
 The central and guiding theme of the Notebooks was the
development of a new Marxist theory applicable to the conditions
of advanced capitalism.
 He became the first Marxist theorist to work with the problems of
revolutionary change in 20th century Western European society -
he sought to explain why revolution had not happened according
to the [predictions of scientific Marxism.
 He identified the importance of the struggle against bourgeois
values – that the struggle must occur at the symbolic as well as
the physical level.

26.  Gramsci accepted the analysis of capitalism
put forward by Marx.
 He accepted that the struggle between the
ruling class and the subordinate working
class was the driving force that moved
society forward.
 But he had difficulty with the traditional
Marxist view of how power was maintained.
 This was Gramsci’s contribution his idea on
the role played by ideology in maintaining
power.

27.  Gramsci uses the idea of hegemony
 By this he meant the dissemination throughout society of a
system of values, attitudes, beliefs and morality that has the
effect of supporting the status quo in power relations.
 Hegemony in this sense might be defined as an overarching
belief that is diffused by the process of socialisation into
every area of daily life.
 Dominant relations of power become seen as 'common
sense' so that the philosophy, culture and morality of the
ruling elite comes to appear as the natural order of things.
 The values that maintain the power relations permeate all
levels and aspects of culture.
 A hegemonic belief is something we all concur with, its
normal and is spread throughout society.

28.  Because we all concur with these beliefs and
share them we actively contribute to their
maintenance.
 Rather than a passive public we give consent
to power systems.
 EG - The ruling groups present themselves as
the group best able to provide us with the
means to pursue our needs.
 And to maintain power the dominant groups
constantly realign themselves and adopt
different critical concerns.

29.  Ideology is not fixed and constant but in
flux
 “Hegemony… is not universal and “given” to
the continuing rule of a particular class. It
has to be won, reproduced, sustained.
Hegemony is as Gramsci said, a “moving
equilibrium containing relations of forces
favourable and unfavourable to this and
that tendency”” (Hall 1978).

30.  Hegemony is about getting us to actively
agree to the system of oppression.
 Ideology is not imposed but a system of
choices and ideas.
 These are grouped together into set which we
choose to adhere to.

31.  The media play a part in justifying oppression
by making it seem legitimate.
 The help in the “Manufacture of Consent” – a
term taken up by Noam Chomsky but that is
for another day…

32.  Ideological Marxism is different from pol ec
marxism.
 It stresses the importance of culture and
values.
 Althusser sees us as subjects.
 Gramsci sees us as willing if not complicit
participants in our own subjectification.
 We’ve only just scratched the surface…