Unit VIII Final EssayPartial Analysis for Your Employment Intere.docx

Unit VIII Final Essay
Partial Analysis for Your Employment Interest
The purpose of this assignment is for you to actively begin
analyzing organizations and/or corporations to make
employment decisions (i.e., do you really want to work for this
organization or corporation based on the information you
discover?) and to practice evaluating organizations or
corporations. This allows you to enhance your research,
analysis, and decision-making skills as an international
manager.
Select a multinational organization or corporation that interests
you. If you do not have a favorite yet, consider an industry
(e.g., communications, banking, broadcasting, entertainment,
administration) that keeps your interest. Once you select an
industry, use your favorite Internet search engine to help
finalize your selection of a corporation.
Use the Internet and/or the CSU Online Library to research an
international, multinational, or global organization or
corporation. Choose an organization or corporation that seems
like it could be your dream job. What makes it multinational?
What is the mission of the organization or corporation? What
does the mission mean to you? Why do you want to work for
them? To obtain and maintain a solid reputation at
Multinational ABC, how should you proactively approach
political, legal, and technological factors?
Prepare a two-page essay that describes the details of the
organization or corporation and why it is your dream job.
Within the essay, include the following details:
1. Overview of the organization or corporation
a. Location
b. Industry
c. The mission of the organization or corporation
d. What makes it an international, multinational, or global?

2. Partial analysis of the organization or corporation
a. What are the political factors?
b. What are the legal and regulatory factors?
c. What are the technological factors?
d. What else did you discover?
3. The job or area of interest
a. Overview of the job or your area of interest
b. Describe why this job interests you
4. Conclusion
a. What is important to you versus what is important to the
organization or corporation?
b. How does your analysis of the organization or corporation
influence your decision to work for this organization or
corporation?
c. What else influences your decision to work for this
organization or corporation?
Format the essay using APA style, and include citations and
references as needed to avoid instances of plagiarism.
Ideology
T his chapter brings tagether twa natians that we have already
intraduced but left rather underdevelaped: .E.0wer and the
social CQPsR;�];l.Qf reality. Every saciety attempts ta
guarantee its'
own cantinuing existence. A saciety maintajnsitself
by:reproducin� its
institutians and)t� structure.af,�acj.9.Lre.ktigp�R? Ta da sa, it
has ta
continuausly reproduce the things necessary far its existence,

from the
resaurces ta produce faod and shelter far its peaple, ta the labar
neces-
sary ta transform these resources inta commadities, ta the
individuals
willing and able ta participate in the institutians and .occupy
their
assigned roles in the sacial relatianships. But we have been
suggesting
throughaut this baak that the institutians and relatianships that
consti-
tute a saciety always embady structures .of pawer and
inequality. If a
society is ta cantinue existing, it must, therefare, ensure that its
particu-
lar relatians .of pawer-its particular hierarchies .of ecanamic,
palitical,
and cultural power-cantinue ta .operate with same appearance
.of legit-
imacy in the lives .of the general papulatian. One way .of daing
that is ta
use farce ta cantrol peaple's lives and to actively suppress
appasitian. �11hling and...n:tQI:�.QflDt way io.volyesg¥tting
eeaple ta - -y_
�cept an ideolo&1�12articula� w�.Y QLth�kll,}g a�d
seeing"the wa�ld ./f'
lhat makes the eXlstmg.2!g<gl.lZ,!h()D�o�J.reJatlo�QQear
nafUreT
and inevitable. Althaugh suchid.eill!lgica1 power the.....attempt
to define ---
r�lity in l?articular wa�has always been part of social life, its
1 93

. ./
MAKING SENSE OF THE MED
IA
importance increased significantly in the eighteenth and
nineteenth
. centuries, as part of the processes of modernization in Europe
and
America. Historically, becoming modern involved the
democratiza-
tion of both political and cultural life. As "the masses" gained
political
power and cultural literacy, partly as a result of the
develop�e�t of
new communication media, the use of force became more
diffIcult,
costly, and visible, and thus it became an instrument only of
last
resort. Instead, society came to rely more and more on the
ideologi-
cal possibilities of communication and culture.
IDEOLOGY, REAilTY, AND REPRESENT
ATION
The issue of ideology is closely tied to the
discussion in the previous
two chapters: �dia ma�� meanings ane!
�ganize them into vari-
ous codes and systems. Implicit in these argu
ments is the assumption

th�t'ili�s�=�des intejin�t!�f!.hty; they make the
world meaningful and
comprehensible. T.b� .. Jnt!Qd�cti0I1. � .f . t�r.IT1�)i��
.r�fl{ity..and.J:bg.J1
1Qrld.
signals _ the _m�ve from._ gu��!i
on�_ gf �eanJng . . t�.q1Jg§.tj.��g�esen:
tation .from.cuHvre tQ ideo19gy. After all, th
ere are lots of mearungful
·t�xts {hat do not ne�-;��rily�iaim to describe an actual
reality.
Much of
the time, people assume they know the dif
ference between fact and
fiction; although, as we shall see, this assum
ption is very problematic.
Many meaningful statements explicitly descr
ibe a world that is not
actual (for example, a world in which a man
with super strength and
X-ray vision constantly saves the world from
bad guys). That world
might be one that we can imagine; it might ev
en be one that we assume
to be plausible. Or there may be certain featu

res of that world that we
take to be descriptive of our own world. For
example, we might agree
that the legitimate law enforcement agencie
s need help, or that the
difference between the good guys and the bad
guys is obvious. Other
meaningful texts describe fantasies that people
may take to be describ-
ing impossible realities or at least realities th
at they would not want
to see actualized.
People experience the world only through th
e cultural codes of
meaning that enable them to interpret or make
sense of the world. Yet
people are capable of understanding many co
des �f me�g that :�ey
are incapable of experiencing as possible or
even Imagmable realIties.
In other words, certain codes of meaning are
not only intelligible, they
194

Ideology
are also assumed to be descriptions or possible descriptions of
the
wor
.
ld. As descriptions or representations, particular codes appear
. ObVlOUS, commonsensical, and even natural. They are
assumed to be
objective descriptions of how things are and, more often than
not, of
how things have to be.
The word representation literally means "re-presentation." To
�e-pres:,
nt somet�ng �eans to take an original, mediate it, and "play
It bac� .
.
But, agam, this process almost necessarily alters the reality of
the
.
ongmal: �ejJ!�� g2!�!DY£l¥.�_�ma2n�aim on and.
allout.. _;e�l,�!y: but It IS not the same as realism. It is not
merely a matter of
realistIcall� .
constructing an imagined world; it is not merely a matter
of what cnhcs have called "the willful suspension of disbelief. "
In this
sense of r�alism, the producer of a text will try to maximize the

experi-
ence and Impact of the text on the audience by drawing the
audience
into the universe that the text has created. Hence, as we have
noted
films use continuity editing to create the illusion, not that this
is the real
wor
.
ld, but that the world the film creates has a reality of its own, a
r�alIty that acts in much the same way as the reality of the
world out-
SIde the text behaves. Even so-called reality TV is a
representation.
The producers use a variety of techniques (such as hand held
cameras
"confessional" type interviews, or "surveillance camera" type
images)
to convince the audience that what is presented is unmediated,
or at
least less m
.
ediated than what is on television the r
.
est O
.
f
.
t
.
h

.
e time.
/ .10 make a [email protected]!J:¥-ta..bide.tJ;lIait....QWll.
.£resence in and operation o�lh':._t�t As we have already
suggested, a
produc�r w�o IS aImmg for realism will avoid editing
practices that
emphaSIze his or her own interventions; for example, audiences
notice
such things as jump cuts, when cinematographers and video
editors
keep � camera a�d subjects in the same position but edit out a
portion
of a fIlmed or VIdeotaped sequence. They not only notice that
some-
thing is missing but are also reminded that the world they are
seeing
is not "real" because it has been produced. The illusion of
realism is
broken. And
.
for just this reason, media producers seek to avoid jump
cuts: They aIm for a seamless, involving presentation that draws
the
audience's attention into the content. The audience must
"forget" for a
mo�ent that the text is "just a text" producing meaning: Its
realism,
whic
.
h may or may �ot necessitate that the world of the text has

specific
relations to the audIence's everyday reality, depends on the
audience's
ability to imagine the actualization of that world.
1 95
MAK ING SENSE OF
THE MED I A
two of the authors were wat
ching the .
first
For example, when 1 d
. dway through the mOVIe, as . . 1990 we were start e ml . d
Batman mOV1e � '
. . hen a college student
sitting behm us
Batman is scalmg a b.Ull
dmg, ;
1" U to then, we guess, he had fou
nd
blurted out, "Cheez, ls that fad
ey .
d
�

a bat costume and hopping off If own-up resse m . f the portraya
0 a gr . 0 D nnis Muren the supervI
sor 0
f tly plaus1ble. r, as e ' . skyscrapers per ec d
. f e Academy Award Winner
special effects for Terminator
2 a.n
� SlX- l
t
m
hy Everyone can tell if . t "Reality 1S so OUC
.
in that category, put 1 , hin
. unbelievable, you've lost the
something isn't real. Once
somet g IS
" ( t d in Pollak 1991, p. B2). li . audience quo e ' h h d is not
necessarily
rea stIc,
t· on the ot er an , . Representa lOn, . 1't Realism as a genre IS
1 t king a claIm on rea
1 y.
although it is a w�ys s a . which articular texts might atte
mpt to
only the most ObVIOUS way

�
k
P
1 'ms about reality. But even . 11 tl at 1S to ma e c al operate
ideolog�ca y-
1. . k f 11 the Disney animated movies-
can
the most fantastic texts-thm
0 a'd I . not a characteristic
of texts
still be effective ideologically. F
o
l
r
1 t
eo
d
ogy
dl�eployed in society.ln?.s1.ar as ,r th ys they are oca e an . --
r-themselves but 0) e wat makes a claim about t�e�e!Y }�at
its �
�,!eXl�g!z��r;;;;d--;��ibl�� tT;;;;:'p �W;,t
i:.,.i;ieologica1.
ence lives m-about what l�!1£LP��--A -' 1'" f 1992 "riots"
erupted --�"""�
�
�

"""""""'f 11 ing example: In pn
0 ,
Consider the 0 ow C l'f rnia J'ury acquitted fou
r
f Ventura County, a 1 0
, ,
in Los Angeles a ter a . f the beating of moto
nst
. harges stemmmg rom P olice officers on c . th nation and many
acroSS V· t lly every person In e
,
h' h Rodney King. lf ua 'd f the beating, in w IC d t dly seen a
home VI
eo 0
h the world, ha repea e . ff' No one challenged t
e
58 r by pollce 0 lCers. King was struck lffies . ture real events.
But to render a
"truth" of the videotape: l� dId .cal Ph d t interpret the reality
of the . . the Kmg tna a 0 . verdict, the Jurors m d on them one
verslOn, ting attorneys presse videotape. The prosecu b lice
officers out of control; the
that King wa� savagely.
be;:e;th� �� police officers acted reason�bly
defense's verSIOn of reality . d'fferent ideological artlcu-. t ces
One pIcture, two 1 . . under the Clrcums an · 1 ,",,..,,t� ... e .....
t�at,,,,.....,r; the...x�:I£.,

��rnntlOn l'r But a so no lC . .. -""""' ..... lations, two
different rea I Ie�
.
1 " . t "-rath� than as "p�tsl" or
I
", cl..t}:le events following the tr�.::'�.""''''' :r1 n
oillo:�l.&l:boice ,_ , -" . ' 71 -"V'e'flci n uonsmg -�gn � �e ' .
-:; <" "demonstratIons, ,!?r e ......,. ........ ��.� • ..".- ""':" b
omm' g representatlOn; '" __ -a r' - tt of meanmg ec --rd�ology
is not only a ma er d inequality Although the h estion of power
an . f h it is also about t e qu . ' d 'th the French philosophes 0 t
e
f 'd 1 gy ongmate WI hil concept O l eo 0 . t s the German p
oso-. tl eighteenth century, I wa . Enlightenment m le . 1 M who
developed the con
cept In
pher and political economIst
Kar arx
1 9 6
Ideology
its present form. Writing in the nineteenth century, Marx
wanted to
understand how minorities were able to maintain power and why
the
vast majority of people accepted a system and even acted in
ways the
consequences of which seemed to be against their own interests.
Why

did subordinated populations accept their subordination and
even act
in ways that continue that status? Quoting Marx (1975),
In the social pro.duction which men carry on they enter into
definite
relations that are indispensable and independent of their will;
these
relations of production correspond to a definite stage of
development
of their material powers of production. The totality of these
relations
of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the
real
foundation on which legal and political superstructure arise and
to
which definite forms of social consciousness correspond, The
mode of
production of material life determines the general character of
the
social, political, and spiritual processes of life, It is not the
conscious·
ness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary,
their
social being determines their consciousness. (p. 425)

Marx is concerned here with simple questions. How do societies
maintain and reproduce structures of social difference and
power?
Why do some people see themselves as superior and thus justify
their
privileged position in society? More important, why do people
who are
subordinated accept their subordination? In some societies,
hierarchy is
maintained through the use of force; you may be surprised to
learn that
even less than a hundred years ago, factory owners often used
force
to subdue workers and to compel them to accept their
exploitation
(Ewen, 1976). Even today, force is often used against illegal
immigrants
and in many Third World countries. However, most modem
democra-
cies eschew the use of force in favor of ideology. If those in
power can
succeed in constructing a dominant vision that justifies social
inequal-
ities, and they can win agreement to this vision, then their
position of
power is reasonably secure; force becomes unnecessary. The
construc-
tion of such a consensus is thus always tied to the particular
interest
groups that struggle for power in society. �atjon
ilFld.:r;ll.ammROIIiI"Q-Q.f,..
such a consensus is called hegemom . ...
L�t's take-"iS' e examp e: fu the nineteenth-century American
South, the dominant ideology represented Blacks as inferior,
often not

quite human, beings. To the extent that both Blacks and Whites
agreed
to this ideology (and notice that this agreement was often
unconscious
1 97
, .
t/
... , "." -' r
MAKING SENSE OF THE MEDIA
because it seemed so commonsensical), the system of
subordination
and subjugation endured. Of course, not everyone-certainly not
all
Blacks and not all Whites-accepted race-based subordination as
a nat-
ural fact, and some struggled against it And often force was
used to
subdue such disagreements. Still, the ideology was largely
successful
for many decades. Paradoxically, this ideology often was more
humane
in its consequences than less discriminatory ideologies; in
treating
Blacks as not fully and rationally human, it allowed for
interracial rela-
tionships of a fairly wide range, and it usually protected Blacks
as if
they were like children. For all of the horrors of this period,
then, we

should not forget that Northerners who staked out the moral
high
ground often ended up treating Blacks worse than did southern
Whites. Nonetheless, and certainly by today's standards in the
United
States, any ideology that justifies the enslavement of any human
by
another is unjustifiable.
In�the_conterp.P9rf:1rX,�Qr!f!'.Jh!;_m�g.t'Las�jDY9!y�9j�
_t.he gr�duc-
.!L9n._oUg�0IQgy.;,a}.Ub��e. After all, they are, as we
have suggested,
perhaps the most important producers of meaning and the codes
of
meaning in contemporary society. Furthermore, they are often a
central
and important part of people's everyday lives. They have the
potential,
then, to become the site at which meanings become more than
mean-
ing. J::Yhen.the.media. become. representations,_when they
m�-t.. claims �� .
.!bf_"Y.eY_i.il�_tyQrl91§,=tl�)1,b?J;Qme�p,o.w:exfuLideolo
gkal.jpsjjtu-
,tiOp.s, And they are, therefore, potentially a source of great
conflict and
struggle.
Almost all media texts, from the news to Evenjbody Loves
Raymond,
can be seen as ideological. Although it is true that not all media
texts
(whether apparently factual news reports or obviously fictional
enter-
tainment programs) support the status quo or the power

structure,
what is often presupposed or taken for granted is a set of
relationships
that usually do: The dominant codes of the media in the United
States,
for example, rarely if ever question whether a business
enterprise
should make a profit or whether politics is defined solely by the
elec-
toral system as opposed, for example, to organized protest
Similarly,
the media seem to regularly present the world in a way that
makes
assumptions about such things as the primacy of the nuclear
family,
the necessity of working for wages, and the relative value of
various
segments of the population; in these media portrayals, these
values
seem commonsensical, universal, and even unquestionable. That
is,
1 9 8
Ideology
the media, like other ideological operators, are constantly
hiding the gap between reality and their representations of it.
Even alternative media operate ideologically. They just may not
share the mainstream ideology.
But ideology cannot be understood simply in terms of
particu-lar unrelated acts of representation, or particular
unrelated codes of meaning, �pplied to particular events,
people, relations, or practices. It a�ways Involves ways of
representing, seeing, and thinking about reality. In Ways of
Seeing, John Berger (1972) gives a number of examples of the

new ways of seeing the world that characterized the emer�en7e
of n:odern society � Europe. Berger points, for example, to
artIsts practIce of representIng people with their possessions as
a new perceptual system for thinking about the value of
individuals. S�milarly, he points to the ways in which women
are represented in VIsual arts (from painting to advertiSing) as
the passive objects of an unseen man's gaze.
Another example of a "way of seeing" the world touches some
of the deepest assumptions about reality in the United States,
where the laws, economy, and value system all seem to be
centered on the "natural" priority of the individual. Americans
tend to see individuals as th� most basic and valued unit of
social life. Perhaps this in part explaInS Americans' hostility to
socialism, as well as the effectiveness of negative rhetorical
appeals that attack social alternatives (from single-source health
care to labor unions) as so�ialist. It might also explain most
Americans' suspicion of religious cults, because they are based
on the community as the basic unit of social life.
Ideologies are not merely particular systems of representation
or ways of seeing. � are also ways of excluding and limiting,
for they -.l }et the �ounda:ies k on what we gr.Ei:..able to-
1lnderstand as I2.Qs�� Ji-Iaeologles are also not neutral. In
defining the terms within which reality is experienced,
perceived, and interpreted, they are always arti
.
cul�ted or connected to the struggle of one group or another to
�amtam or challenge particular social organizations, particular
rela-tIons of power. !s!t;ology is,. then,
abQyt,tryiug..to...ge.Lpeup!e W. see..t.be
�grl.d..ac.c.ording.J;f).th.e�h�Lms�code.s..tl14.t..h�en..selb
y one or *-�roups of p.:.££le, Us�illx)hQ.�e who control
tb�12Q.wer within' �y. Although some ideological codes are
explicitly linked to polit�cal positions and philosophies (think
of the ideologies of com-mUnIsm and capitalism, or of the

Democrats and the Republicans),
199
MAKING SENSE OF TH
E MEDIA
ideology is a much more pervas
ive and common feature of socia
l
existence .
Capitalist societies, for example,
need to have people who are
willing to sell their labor so th
at someone else can profit from
it.
Capitalist ideology needs to have
people believe that anyone can b
e
economically successful who is
willing to apply himself or herse
lf.
People who "fail" must have som
ething wrong with them. (What mu

st
constantly remain hidden is the fa
ct that there are structural inequali
-
ties in the system and that the sys
tem in fact needs such inequalities
.)
Similarly, the two-party system
depends upon people's unshakab
le
belief that the two-party system g
uarantees them a real say in the go
v-
ernance of their country. Patriarch
y-the assumed superiority of men
and the masculine over women a
nd the feminine-requires that al
l
people take as "natural and obvio
us" that men are stronger, more rat
io-

nal, better rulers, natural family
heads, and so on. An example of
an
ideological or taken-for-granted a
ssumption about the natural way o
f
organizing television can be seen
in the fact that American televisio
n
programs are always interrupted b
y commercials. Whereas Americans
find watching this unproblematic
and have no problems connecting
the segments into a single narrati
ve, people from other cultures ofte
n
complain that they find it difficul
t to follow the story and distinguis
h
the program segments from comm
ercials. As we shall see in Chapter 9,

ideology is always involved in th
e way that the media treat various
segments of the society.
REALITY AND THEORIES OF I
DEOLOGY
Reality is a somewhat paradoxic
al concept because reality is what
most people assume exists indep
endently of any concept or repre-
sentation. Reality is what exists,
end of discussion. Thousands of
years of argument in metaphysics
(the theory of the nature of reality
)
and epistemology (the theory of
knowledge of reality) quickly di
s-
proves the commonsense assump
tion that reality is not a problem
.

Even if reality is what it seems, h
owever, the question remains how
human beings can know and talk
about it. The most common theory
,
and the most commonsensical, a.
.§§.Umes tha��5..a��itilli1.-2f
�riillact? (what actually exists or happens),j.he�.nw:nil
ll_�jngs. .
�t-el-Y-FerceiLe3uchJ�<;:t�LjiI!
d _�h� t _ !��se.pef(;epti?��J an3_��
'")(1(1
Ideology
�acts they cor e d ) � ._ : . r: sE.9n to �an be accuratel d 'b
even m1rrored.by th .
. " .��' Y . �
scn f�;L.calllured or
_ __ . e vanous verba ancLvisuaLl
--' ..
£llllure...Every society assumes that its own
g�g1¥!��of h�man
provide the only and m t
perceptlOns and languages

sorts of realism have two
OS ac
t
c
fl
urate representation of reality. These
grea aws' They are thn .
cannot explain ' .
. e ocentnc and they
ffilspercephons halluci t' d'
so forth.
, na lOns, 1sagreements, and
A second theory goe b k I
PI t h '
s ac at east as far as the Greek philos h
a 0, w 0, rn The Republic, offered the foIl
. op er
humans' relationship to realit I '
owmg fable to describe
been prisoners in a cave h
�' �agrne that some people have always
wall. Behind them f
,c arne so that they can only see the back
, 19ures move and dance in fr t f f'

shadows on the back wall The ri
. on 0 a He, casting
cave and never having se�n th
�. soners, havmg never been out of the
are real and that they are al�
1furesl�
assume both that the shadows
I
0 rea 1ty. Plato was sugg f h
peop e confuse appearances (wh' h d h
es rng t at
I .
1C 0 ave some cau I . d .
re ahon to reality) for reality 't If PI
sa or rn eXlcal
b
1 se . ato drew an abs 1 t d" .
etween people's experie f h
0 u e IshnctlOn
d
nce 0 t e world-an experie f .
:er :��::�::�:
S��dw l�t

e
h
alit
t
Y itself·
d
The latter exists b::n� :::;
a�:�
, ou an un erstand' f h
causal relationship, people are inca b
mg 0 t. e nature of this
Such a "phenomenal" theor mak
pa Ie
.
of knowrng reality itself.
of reality.
y es expenence the other inferior half
.
A third the
.
ory asserts that ��ru.�"l�J1Q t . .real....iJ;wml .
Errect se�ls rafuer,..th FEQauGt.ci.h; . . .bM.i.� v"
people create and re-create .
um.aU..JJl.¥£nhoo..
...,.something

In this view no independe
(
t
prOd
l
�ce� marntaill, repair, and transform).
, n rea 1ty IS ever availabl t h
rather, the things that ar t k b
e 0 uman beings;
e a en to e real are real b h
socially constructed, or re resented as r
. eca�se .t ey are
.3e� �o be made to mean. PThe cla' h eal. A�co�drng .to thIS
v1ew,..!E!1:.. . . ,
Ir
implies that communi
J:' . lffi t at realIty IS sOClally constructed
chain or sliding of Sig�;'
lOn. IS always doubly articulated: First, the
.
1ers IS stopped to produce me ' d
ond, parhcular meanings are th I .
anmg, an ,sec-
d
emse ves articulated to oth .

an events as their representations The f t ' h
. er practices
ing or significance' the second th
HS IS t e production of mean-
of reality And '
'
f
, e representation and construction
. mso ar as each of thes f l '
from a P OSitiO�f
-
P-;
----h--·,,-
-·��
�!?ns E..��ssible only
_
_ wer, t en, the SOCIal co st, f f
-
--- - ;-.- -
always a .-ryocess inextricabb -1 t€G
� ruc [email protected]!.UUs-
"';-"-_ __ �.
¥_re a . ,....tGl-tn€-re.lati.,Qns f .
sOClety,l.Jotice that such a theo d

. .
.. _. 2.., p.£��E.2!1_�_
_
ry oes not necessanly imply that there
MAKING SENSE OF THE MED IA
is nothing that is not language or culture, that there is �o
materi�l
reality. It does, however, imply that insofar as human be�ngs
�xpen-
ence any reality, such reality is always the double articulatlOn
of
culture, an ideo!ogical product.
. Each of these theories of reality and knowledge offers a
dIfferent
account of the operation of ideology. Because human existence
is
always more complicated than its theoretical description, each
of them
has a certain truth and describes at least certain moments of the
rela-
tions of power constructed within and by the cultural and
communi-
cation environments in which people live.
A Realistic Theory of Ideology
/ The most commonly held theory of ideology, �£aJisLth.e.ru�
�de91Qgy_aQ....1al�� .. <:..on�� For example� Marx and
Engels (1970) claimed that the dominant ideas of a socIety are

the
ideas of the dominant class. That is, the class that holds power
(for
example, the capitalist class) attempts to imp�se its .
ideas, its �ersion
of reality, on the rest of society. These ideas mtentIOnally
n:Isrepre-
sent the world, at least from the point of view of the real
mterests
of the working class. The capitalist class tells the world that it
.is the
natural order of things that labor power be sold as a commodIty
on
the market, that the quality of one's being is measured by one's
life,
that the family is where one lives out one's real life, and so on.
The
fact that workers believe them means that, in one way or
another
(and Marx never quite figured out how), they are brainwa�hed.
They
are suffering from false consciousness because they are takmg
as true
knowledge ideas that are false. (This formulation assumes that
there
must exist true knowledge and that there must be some way to
tell
the difference.)
This theory of ideology also implies that there is a direc�
corre-
spondence between social position (such as .
class me�ber�hIp) an�
knowledge and interests. Thus there is something called the

mterests
of the working class, which can be defined independently of any
par-
ticular social struggle and defined solely by the fact that
workers sell
their labor as a commodity. Moreover, there is a truth that
would
describe their reality. Similarly, the capitalist class has its own
interests
and its own truth. The problem comes when the truth of the
capitalist
class is universalized and naturalized, then offered as the truth
for
202
Ideology
everyone, as if it were both the way the world is and the way it
has to
be. In other words, ideas, knowledge, and culture are simply a
reflec-
tion of the social position of those who produce them. They are
not real;
they are nothing but the effect of more real and determining
social and
economic relations.
Such a view of ideology is common in the contemporary world.
As
we shall see in Chapter 9, it plays a central role in many
discussions
about the politics of identity, as when one member of a group
accuses
another of having bought into the mindset of the dominant
group.

Equally common, some critics of contemporary society assume
that the
media are consciously and intentionally feeding the population
false
information and a false set of attitudes about the way the world
is and
has to be. In fact, some critics assume that, on the basis of the
social
identity of the producer of a particular text (by which they
usually
mean the board of directors of the responsible corporation), one
can
know the ideological bias of a text. Capitalists produce
procapitalist
texts that intentionally misrepresent reality to the audience for
the sake
of maintaining their own power. Male-run corporations produce
pro-
masculine texts that intentionally misrepresent reality to the
audience
for the sake of maintaining their own power.
Experience and Ideology
A phenomenal theory of reality adds a layer to the analysis of
ide�log� . . gXR�p�n��, al.way� jrL§Q ID��n§�
J£lLe�2�J:.��.ha.�2..� r�tyi.)t always eXIsts at a dIstance
from reality. And xgte4(Reri�JKg ,/ .h� it§...9o.Wn..s
orkru..tIalth .. 1t is, at the very least, the necessary starting
point for any attempt to discover the truth of reality. Experience
is the
dimension through which human beings live the meaningfulness
of their culture. That is, a phenomenal theory emphasizes the
fact that
human beings live in a meaningful world, but it still privileges
the real

world as if it could be accessed outside of the codes of meaning
that
define people's experience of it. [email protected])!: of reality
giyes v
r..i.sa..to a hllmanistic theo�y 9f.ideology,
This theory of ideology emphasizes the more humanistic and
less
economistic side of Marx's (1975) writings. It refuses to reduce
culture
and knowledge to a mirror image of reality or to a direct effect
of some-
thing else; it refuses to ignore the active role of meaning in
human life.
Instead, this theory begins with the assumption that people's
position
203
in the social world determines their experience of the world
through
the mediation of the cultural and communication forms that
have
emerged naturally and authentically from that position. That is,
rather
than assuming that there is a natural correspondence between
social
position and truth, a humanistic theory of ideology assumes a
natural
correspondence between social position, cultural forms, and
experi-
ence. First, social position determines experience. By virtue of

being
working class, a worker is alienated from his or her labor,
whether or
not he or she knows it. By virtue of being a woman or a person
of color,
one inevitably has certain experiences of the world. For
example, every
woman has had the experience of being "sized up" by men, and
any
person of color has had the experience of being treated
differently from
White people. Second, left to their own devices, groups produce
their
own cultural forms and institutions, which accurately express
and
represent their experience.
However, precisely because these social groups are politically
and economically subordinated, their culture is also
subordinated to
the cultural institutions and forms of the dominant class. The
domi-
nant culture tries, through any number of means, to replace and
dis-
place the authentic culture of the subordinate. It may simply
drive
or crowd their institutions out of business in the name of profit,
in
the way that the record and radio industries basically defeated
and
erased the music hall tradition of the working class. It may
marginal-
ize the cultural products and practices of the subordinate groups
by constructing them as unworthy of serious consideration, or
of
social support. It may castigate them as vulgar, profane,

obscene,
dangerous, and even unpatriotic. Or it may appropriate them by
making them a part of the dominant cultural codes so that these
authentic expressions of subordinate experience are transformed
from a challenge to the dominant values into a reaffirmation.
This
is called recuperation. For example, during the protests against
the
Vietnam War, dominant news media reporting on
demonstrations
would often emphasize that the very fact of such protests
confirmed
the unique privilege (freedom) of American society. In the
process,
the actual object of the protest (for example, the war in Vietnam
or the
disproportionate number of Blacks serving in the armed forces)
was
forgotten or ignored (Gitlin, 1980).
The result of this contest between an authentic culture and a
dominant culture is that the subordinate group's ability to
express and
204
Ideology
represent its authentic experience is negated. The dominant
culture
misrepresents and redefines others' experience. Thus the
subordinate
group comes to experience the world in the codes of the
dominant
group; its experience is made inauthentic because of the
mediating

power of cultural or communicative codes. While the truth of
knowl-
edge (as an authentic relation to the world through experience)
and
ideological misrepresentation are still at stake, the key terms
are no
longer truth and reality but experience and culture.
The correspondence that such a theory assumes-a correspon-
dence between one's position in and perspective on reality,
experi-
ence, and cultural forms-is reflected in the assumption that
there
is a structural homology or parallelism that operates and can be
read
across these diverse dimensions. It is as if, everywhere one
looks, one
sees a particular message that can be taken to describe the
structure
of culture and experience, whether the authentic or the
dominant.
For example, consider Raymond Williams's (1992) discovery of
the
structure of mobile privatization. Mobile privatization, in its
simplest terms, defines a structure in which the individual
avoids
the hostile world by retreating into the privacy and safety of the
home. The outside world is beamed into the home via the mass
media; no longer do individuals need to foray out into the world
to
gather information. Williams argues that this "structure of
feeling"
describes at least a significant part of the culture and experience
of
contemporary life and that it can be read from a wide range of
texts

and aspects of the mass media.1
Social Constructionism and Ideology
-'22!.h..��l.l�.2rt.�Q).gg�m
tbilLl��glQK¥�.i§..llt�9,m� VC"
j�D§�Qi§tQX,tio.n.Qt.£.Qrr�c!a2.1�misJ;�t.ese.ntatiQn
Qf.realily. In the end, ideology is a kind of bias operating
within culture and knowledge. But social
:?�::,�i,��?e::!.��,�t th:::,}s a�!�,?�� r��,�t-
srcreor representatIons that wouFdatiow one to measure the
truth or .... )
�,9!.��tions. lOe'010gy IS nm-�mas''''oecaiis'e-rf
carmO'tb� -;<r
measured against something that is not ideological, or that
exists out-side of ideology. ODe <:an 0Bly
com}J.are..ane.ideoIQgic.g,Ln::1?J�.�lltllliQll.. �er.
Phenomenal theories of reality that contrast it to "mere
appearance" assume that people (or at least the critic or scholar)
have at some level an unmediated (nonideological) experience
of the world
205
that can serve as a normative yardstick against which to judge
specific
ideologies.2
People live within the systems of representation; they
experience
the world according to their codes of meaning. T here is nothing
outside

of them that allows them to measure or judge their truth.
Ideologies,
then, are the systems of meaning within which people live in
reality or,
to put it differently, live their relationship to reality. They
define how
people experience the world, what they take for granted.
Ideologies
define what is taken to be common sense; the truth of
ideological state-
ments appears obvious and even natural. But people are often
unaware
of many of these ideological codes, because the codes are
unconscious
and often unchallengeable.
If realist theories deny experience any significance, and
humanis-
tic theories make experien�e into the privileged access to truth,
a social
constructionist theory argues that experience itself is what
ideology
produces. It suggests that the most powerful and important
effect of
ideological representations is that they construct our most
fundamen-
tal and basic experiences of the world. When Richard Nixon and
even
Robert Kennedy went hunting for Communists in the 1950s,
they hon-
estly saw such figures everywhere and viewed them as a real
menace.
T here was no way to argue against this ideology by appealing
to some
experience outside of another ideology. In other words, an
ideology is

self-contained and nonfalsifiable.
T he twentieth-century French philosopher Louis Althusser
(1970)
was the leading proponent of such a theory of ideology, arrived
at, he
argued, by bringing the insights and arguments of semiotics and
struc-
turalism to bear on the question of ideology. Althusser defined
ideology
as the systems of representation in which people live out their
imaginary
relationship to their real conditions of existence. Notice: What
is at stake
here is not people's relations to reality but their relationship to a
rela-
tionship. What is this imaginary relationship if not people's
already
meaningfully interpreted relations to the world? To put it
simply, there
is no way out of experience. Experience is the beginning and
end of
ideology. It is the world in which human beings always exist,
and it
is the product of ideological experiences.
If this theory is accurate, then it would seem to follow that the
more obvious the truth of an experience is and the more certain
people
are of that truth, the more ideological that experience is.
Consider the
following analogy: Two people are talking. Person A says that
his arm
206

Ideology
is broken. Person B says that it is not Onl " . of fact. (Even
judgments of s h
. Y one IS nght m this matter uc rna tters of fact' 1 pow��. As
Michel Foucault [1973] has de
mvo ve relations of
medlcme is partly a hi t f
monstrated, the history of s ory 0 the reorg . . example, Who has
the . aruzati on of power: For
P
power to dIagnose su h thin erson A had said that he ' .
c gs?) But suppose
There is an obvious proble:�
m pa
b
m, and B had challenged this claim.
f · ere, ecause Person A d a expenence and not fact. rna e a
statement i1 . . ' we assume that pe 1 d eged empmcal access to
th .
op e 0 have some priv-
th elr OWn experien I at I see red, although l b '
ceo cannot be mistaken
th y, can e mIstaken that th . ere. et a constructionist th f .
ere IS something red . eory 0 IdeOlogy Just such experiential
stat seems to suggest that ements, statements th t secure, are in
fact the most ideological.

a seem to be the most
How does this production of ex . indiViduals into its signifyin s
per�ence Work? 1t '"Y0rk� b.r E.u�
�ore or t��e�r;sI'O��;' a w�y as to make them of th . .
ns, m IVlUuals b �=....--_ ... __ �. own experiences Yo k �- "-
.. - - -_ �co�Jti ut1iors . �.--.; .... . u now when you" " � IS,
you authorize yo"li'rown . t . see a red car. That th m
erpretatlOn as the t th b e SOurce and author of th t ru ecause
you are Ideology works in J'ust thO e s alteme�� and hence of
the experience IS way t poslho . d' . . of their own ideological st
t . ns m IVldua1s as the subjects P 1 b a ements and hence f th .
! eop e�e them$e1ves to b th b' 0 err experiences. ill L t ."� .e
e ar Iters of an . lac constructed b�i d 1 ·'1 =r -""':� expenence
that is thi --- - - ,,-� eo ogica codes Althus -(19;7"-'''' . .... _ s
process as interpellation" fut 11--: ser 0) describes assilm ind" d
1 .. . _erp-�_ahQn '§ ig.go Qg,y��h;I;�, ��J.��,<�s to S
�gtIC ositions within ' = -�Lt� �lOhc2 renr esentatio,n"'!of:
� . 'l":""""t ---.......--. I1s 02:'n communicative f --��i,Ij.�-
;..:xzP��.u.eg l� ��'r � We can further explicate this
rather d ' . . two experiments First p' k IffIcult nohon by
suggesting t . " IC up something th t en In the first-person
singul h a Someone else has writ-I �s� �ak� a Dud. You will
find that you b ' . . r or a report. Now read it you feel yourself
living wh t thegm to Idenhfy with the I in the text, that a e
person who Wr t 't l' seems to become part of y h- 0 e 1 lVed,
and that it Thr h ou, or ra t er you seem t b . aug an
identification with the I .; b ' 0 ecome part of it. Identi
.ty, but, of Course, this will onl
'� egms to become part of your
What IS going on.
y e temporary because you know
. Now, try a second experiment· The . Imagine that the world

that'
. next tJme you go to a movi e that you are i n i t . Ask yo l
i
f
s re
h
Presented on the screen is real and
Th' k urse W ere are you st d' In about your field f '.
an mg in that world a V ISIOn, what you can and
.
cannot see;
MAKING SENSE O F T
HE MED I A
that will pretty clearly define
where you are. Then, ask yours
elf if
you could be standing anywhe
re else. Even if you can imagine
other
positions, you will still be una
ble to actually put yourself in th
em;

you remain firmly rooted where
you are. Why? You are position
ed by
the camera. Because the cam
era that filmed the scene is you
r only
source of information about the
world of the movie, you are bas
ically
forced to identify with the cam
era and to be in the place it de
fines
for you .
Films represent a reality that d
oes not exist outside the film.
Viewers experience it accordin
g to the way they are positione
d in
relation to what appears on th
e screen. They can see only wh
at the
camera shows them . More imp

ortant, in most commercial Holly
wood
films, the camera never violat
es people's sense of their perce
ptual
position in the world by showi
ng them something that it wou
ld be
impossible for them to see. The
y cannot see what is going on b
ehind
a wall or in another place or
behind their backs. The camera
may
turn around, but it must alway
s do so in predictable ways that
do not
violate the viewers' sense of wh
ere they are standing in relation
to the
film's world.
These two experiments illustr

ate the process of interpellation
.
Interpellation literally means
"putting into the space." Theo
rists
use it to describe the way in
which different codes-the co
des of
language or the codes of the ci
nema, for example-place peop
le into
particular positions that define
their subjectivity and experien
ce of
the world. It is a bit like walkin
g down the street and hearing s
ome-
one say, "Hey you." You turn
around thinking that perhaps
they
have called to you . In that ins
tance, you have been hailed an

d posi-
tioned-interpellated by that s
ingle simple utterance. Interpe
llation
makes the individual into a sub
ject (a speaker of language) resp
onsi-
ble for every word that he or s
he speaks and for the reality tha
t these
words imply. Return to the im
age in Chapter 5 of a game of musi
cal
chairs: Meaning is created whe
n the moving signifiers stop mo
ving,
and some signifiers slide below
others into the chairs, taking o
n the
fu nction of signifieds. Interpel
lation answers the question of

why
the music stops. The individua
l speaker stops the music; it is
his or
her apparent intention that cre
ates the meaning. To put it an
other
way, it is the I who is both insid
e and outside of language tha
t
draws the line between the sign
ifier and the signified. (See Bo
x 7 . 1 ,
"Interpellation and Advertising.
")
208
pellation and Advertising
�
o
s �t of advertisements ran on television a few years ago f
mod;1J
rClse equipment. One advertisement featured an a

Ideology
. another an attractive female model Both vOlceo e� nd
Imager A
. . co
" :d
y. vOlceover would intone "Th'
��:nt
n
��n��e
c
��-�fh
shot of a finely mu�cle] f. . ��:Jv:��
shoulders ' ' 0 t "
er body parts suc�/ � ' our leg " "your
. ' ur s omach, and end with "This I.
" '
pan led by a m-shot of the m d I f '
0 be you accom-
was the close t advertisement
� e rom the wta . This final image
was the only ti e saw the pers��S
e
f�
o
c!

hOW e entire model, and
. What we wo I e to focus on here i t ,i . . .
Interpellation by th ertiseme t li I
. s e .4 licit use of Ideological
reminds us that ide 0 . s
n . e eVlsl n ' olar Mimi White ( 1 992)
are systems r e t t'
to construct individua so ' I b' "
sen a Ions that "function
and recognition of one' v
cia su Je ' s, ntributing to the production
, . sense of> d ty" (p 1 69) N Ing Implicitly hails the au 'e b t l,.
, " ow, all advertis-
"This could be you " What
t ' u I I . vertlsement was more explicit:
to the hailing and �ays i�Pli 't
� e , If an audience member responds
. h '
ould be me"? I th
IS t e ad asking you to do? WH . '
n 0 er words, what
is "you," who are you? Wh�t t s
sklng you to believe or value? If this

world, one's place in it an 0
umptlons does one make about the
At its most basic, to y " t
ets thln�: don.e?
mean that one is or ide fie th b '
� be me �o thiS particular ad could
disposable income, It oul, ean t�at
Ite, middle class, with a certain
sonality, intelligenc Int aJiity d
values appearance over per-
one's body and 0 ,' Ii
'7 ' an , so
. could mean that one sees
to work on my a
'
I
S a continuing ie'ct to be worked on ("I need
d
' i ' a so on my relatio .
�
and
an on my ed ati nd ") It Id
, on my decorating;
ally based a �h, of �h�t i

' cou
,
mea one buys into a cultur-
ness of th 'Po ,� but their b:��n�ld�red at Ie: not only the
white-
Gould me n ;tl ne buys into the'
a�
.
of bo ifr and so on. And it
proble (in case the proble
�o lon
l
tha� p . �ng things solves
li evi' " interpellates its aUd
m 0 not ooklng Ii models).
d'
lence In many way , II
IreG ad s. We are hailed as " "
eCla y through
b d
you or perhaps as p " " '
ro c ,� , game shows talk shows a d we In news
1 � � e a h 'I d '
, n across the um (Aile

ahd ' as
,;� al e when a television host looks directly
n,
10 '
I 0 us. Each of these instances can be viewed a
�0.l
.
�� l
i
��
t
a
a
U
s
��c�s
��:��i� the lerms of reference
l)i�lng us to value? What is It ' k'
IS It asking us to believe?
Who benefits if we
' see the w�r�d
l�h�S
u�:��O? And, finally, we shou
209

MAKING SENSE OF THE MED I A
I n this way, b y having reporters "embedded" with the troops
during the second Iraq War, and reporting live from the
battlefront,
the Pentagon sought to interpellate the audience by increasing
the
audience's identification with the troops (and therefore with the
war
effort itself) by placing them in the shoes of a person in combat.
Positioning the audience in this way makes them feel more
directly a
part of the war itself. The reality of the war that was presented
was that
as experienced by some of the U.S. troops, and not the reality of
others
(such as the Iraqi troops or civilians, or diplomats, or others).
If ideologies are somehow linked to particular power relations
and interests, then it appears that one has to assume that
ideologies
somehow distort reality for the sake of the interests of those in
power.
Returning to the example above, it is in the interest of
capitalists to con-
struct an ideology of the free market of labor, but such a market
does
not actually exist, or so it would seem. But, according to social
con-
structionism, an ideology is not a biased view of a reality that
can be
described outside of ideology. This problem is known as
mystification.

Ideology mystifies in two Wqys. First, Kg�C�l!se an ideology
pre-
senEli�If�h�§�1 ;��-u;�§1,jJ hiQ��)t� conn��trQn
!QThti;;.k
ests', of particular �9cial grolJPS QLPow�r. blocs in society.
By making
th� labor market, as it functions in capitalisn;.: '�ppea;:' to be
the only
rational and natural form of labor, for example, the ideology of
capi-
talism hides the ways in which this particular form of the labor
mar-
ket exploits workers for the benefit of capitalists.
Second,}deolo�y !£..
!E.ysttiY1I2g"p_r�s!�eIL��'?��,�h�!��Uty"llJ
_� . resents. For /fexamPle, the ideology of patriarchy
represents women as the weaker
sex and thus continues the privileged position of men in society,
Precisely because of the commonsensical nature of this
ideological
I
representation, parents often treat boys and girls differently.
Boys will
. be encouraged to participate in activities that augment their
strength,
and they are allowed to be rough, whereas girls will be guided
toward
more passive pursuits. Or consider a different example: Marx
(1977)
said that the major figure of capitalist ideology is the
commodity,
something made to be sold. Capitalist ideology represents
everything,

including labor, as a commodity. Through the power of this
ideology,
everything in capitalism-including workers-becomes a
commodity,
The mystification arises not because things are not commodities
(they are) but because they need not be. In a different ideology,
such
as the communism Marx envisioned, labor need not be rewarded
on
2 1 0
Ideology
the basis of its value, but o� the basis " humane life. of people
s reqUIrements for a
Or, to return to the question of at ' different system of child '
p narchy, one can imagine a , reanng that would h dIsprove the
apparently natu I d 'f'e
' among ot er things, ra I lerences between th B new system
would not actu 11 d ' e sexes. u t this a y Isprove patriarchy h
patriarchy with a different ' so muc as replace which would in
turn create .
�onstructlO� or representation of reality, I s own realIty.
IDEOLOGY AND STRUGGLE
One need not choose among these theories f ' , seen to have
different uses Th . I
0 IdeologIes, for each can be . e SocIa constructi . t h the broad
terrain on which
" oms t eory describes a SOCIety s COrnrnun' ti actively
determine both the tru tur f '

Ica on and cultural life s c e o SOCIal r I ti h ' their
relationship to the world. Still 't h r
e a ons IpS (power) and
ations in which ideology b
, l as Ittle to say about specific situ-ecomes a more c ' struggle,
A humanistic theory f 'd 1
onsclOUS and explicit site of
attempts on the part of subor:in�t:�
��e
.
s�ribes the
.
struggle between
life outside of the control of the dom'
n�es
.
to defme a part of their
ity to which they a�sign d' ma�t maJ.onty, a space of
authentic-a Irect relationship t th ' b ' It also describes some of
the r ( . 0 elf su ordmation.
�:�=:::a��
O
!:�e�,,:�rii�;
e
t��:��t:S d:��;��a:�:;: :o:��
concerned with the way dornm' ti' ,

rnm� IOn. Both of these theories are a on IS achIeved and ' .
the construction of a cultur 1 ,
mamtamed through , a consensus usmg the f cation, But neither
theory add h ' ,
means 0 cornrnuni-
. resses t ose SItuations wh th ' . consensus IS precarious
enough that it b ' .
ere e eXIsting
explicit ideological war that often cons .
can
l
��mtamed only by an
ence. A realist theory of ide 1 .
ft CIOUS Y IssIrnulates to the audi-
political economic battles (f
� ogy IS 0
1
en u�ef�l for describing explicitly
. r examp e, capItalism vs co ' )
,
A SOCIal constructionist theory maintains th
.
,
rnrnunlsm ,
mvqlves practices of articulation, In Cha ter

5 at Ideology always
, event or media product can have multi 1
p " We a:gued that any
The same media product ca b d
P e m�anmgs or lOterpretations. , n e rea as telllOg a n b f d '
stones, We argued that m . um er 0 Ifferent , , " eanlOg was
produced b link' ' mg SIgniflers, signs, or texts, Similarl
� 109 or arhculat-
number of different stories about real '�'
there
b
exlst at ��y moment a
1 y or a out speCIfIc events that
2 1 1
M A KING SENSE O F THE MED I A
occur. Ideology is then the product o f a double articulation:
First, a text
is articula ted to a certain meaning, and then a meaning has to
be artic-
ulated to reality to become an ideological code. Consider any
govern-
ment scandal (from Watergate to Irangate to the latest one):
Every
scandal elicits a number of stories, each of which seems to
make sense
of the "facts . " Each version has different consequences, and

each is
related to different political interest groups. For example,
Watergate was
a scandal of the corruption of a small group within the
Republican
Party; Watergate was a phony scandal invented by Democrats to
embar-
rass the Republicans; Watergate was a sign of the corruption
that has
become pervasive in American politics; Watergate was a
"nonevent," no
different from the way politics has ever been conducted.
Notice that it does make a difference which of these stories
becomes
the accepted one, which becomes "knowledge" that most A
mericans
share. It is this struggle to make specific meanings and stories
into
taken-for-granted representations of reality that defines the
struggle
over ideol ogy. If articulation describes the way specific
meanings can
b e attached to specific signs or texts, it also describes the way
a partic-
ular set of meanings can be linked to m a terial or nondiscursive
prac-
tices and events. Remember the example of the Trobriand
Islanders,
who believed that sex has nothing to do with reproduction: As a
story,
it can be humorous and entertaining to Westerners; but, as an id
eol-
ogy, that story had been successfully articulated to reality so
that the
islanders actually experienced the world in its terms.

The question of how reality is represented, the choice between
d ifferent stories or pictures of reali ty, is not random. Nor is
the decision
freely made by each individual in isolation. Individuals do not
get to
decide that reality is this way, even though the rest of the world
dis-
a grees with them. The construction of a socially shared
representation
of reality is always implicated in society's attempt to reproduce
its
own e xistence and to ensure the continued viability of the pa
rticular
relations of power characterizing that society.
On the other hand, although one ideology (or more accurately,
an ideological formation, because it is composed of numerous
state-
ments that might not fit seamlessly together) is usually
dominant, there
are always competing stories about events and reality in a
society. The
dominant ideology defines the taken-for-granted or
commonsense real-
ity of the vast majority of people in the society. How does this
work?
Ideology can be effective only if it appears to be u
nquestionably true,
2 1 2
Ideology
to be so obvious and natural that an rati to its interpreta tions.
Recreational d

�
f
onal h uman would assent
demonized by contemporary .
gs,
.
or example, have become conservatIve Ideolo . d . . the common
sense of A "
gIes, an mcreasmgly men can SOCIety To stand d tain drugs to
argue that th
. up an speak for cer-
led to beli�ve seems a1m
e
t
y
.
are no� the evil force that we have been , os ImpossIble Inde d
th d ' . marijuana is quite clear in th d b ' e , e emoruzatlOn of
medicinal p urposes In this
:
a
e ates
.
a�o� t the use of marijuana for
of reality become b�th natu I
y, ;pec�c Ideological representations

ideology assume that any r:�o�:l b �
versal. Those living within an
sense perceptions; if they do t th
emg wo�ld share their common-
h
no , en something must b . t em. The construction of "welfare "
e wrong WIth
chea t the American public 'd
q
f
ueens as lazy parents out to
.
provI es a urther exam Ie. There are always multiple ideol ' ' .
p
.
is not quite the same as s .
ogles WIthin any gIven society. This aymg, as we did in Ch t 5
always many meanings t ' F .
ap er , that there are or s ones. or an Ideolog . h It is a
representation An 'd I .
Y IS more t an a story: . � �� eo Qg}{-emb.o� t�la · b . /.
group that th;"_mearun' g.o t . -� JrrL�y.<-'i, F iJfhrul r . ' �=
... H!""- � ll: S ory.....represen t li hI C ologies are always in
co ' h' t : ' - " . '� ��_§. •. I� - u ' onsequently, ide-mpe IOn
WIth each oth Th ' struggle between ideologies to achieve
dorrun' eInr. h ere IS always a b ance, t at sense I cannot e seen
as passive "d " h ' peop e opes w 0 unkno . I ' by a single

dominant ideology B } . , wmg y are marupula ted
how reality will or must be re
' ecause t tere IS no Sure way to establish
in the struggle over ideolo
presen:e
,
d, peop�e ar� �onstantly involved
tells a story about wh hi
g�· The Bnhsh medIa cntIc Stuart Hall (1 985) en s young Son
wa I . simultaneously something ab t hi '
s e
,
arnmg the colors and ou s own Idenhty Th 1 understand why he
was "bl k " b '
, e Son cou d not ac , ecause m fact h b particular color has
been arti
' ,
, e was rown, But a
color carries with it a parh'
c
l
ulated tO
f
a part�cular social identity That cu ar set 0 meanmgs ' In Wi
these are largely negative, as in black rna '
. estern cultures,

of black at funerals And th .
glC, black humor, the wearing . ese mearungs a . d . tion, This
articulation is t
re carne mto the articula-
ralizes and legitimates th
P
e
ar
b
and
d .
p ar�el of a racist ideology that natu-su or mahon of Bl k B H
out that one of the most i
ac s, ut all also points
the ideological struggle torr;:::::;::��
t
�l��
e civi
,
l rights �truggle was
tions and to rearticulate it to a " ,
rom ItS negatIve connota-
Or consider another example 0
7�:e p�ItI�e
.
Image: "Black is beautiful. "

the authors were owin
e ar cu ahon of color and race: When
labeled flesh TOd:
r
y that
g u
l
P, �ne of the crayons in the Crayola box was . co or IS peach.
2 1 3
I
' I
')t
MAK I N G SENSE O F T H E MEDIA
les hetween competing i�.Q!Qgi�1 'C u lture m' volves
cons�ilnt stf1,l.gg_._,�l.( �.,, __ �_�_"._ -"��=qople
'
� . ,,,-
1... ..l::-to Selmeft't9 . . .. _ . r'" ' . :-:-- " ---r - to gain the
l!p.p.er�J?laRl:t, . , , '
. _
' code��9S . � t.t�IEP. m�·' __ -=·"�-f-:-ts parh'cular
meanings, to expenenc-- -' ''= . I d terms 0 1 into seemg the wor

m
l ' 1 formations are not as coherent ing the world in its ter�s.
I�eo o�Ica
f y have made it appear. As and systematic as the dISCUSSiOn t
U
.
S
G
ar rn a
. (1971 ) argued common . d ' f Antomo ramsCi h, ...... � •. _,
_..., the Italian journalist an .
cn IC
e On the contrary, it is made up of_ sens� ��ysJ:.¥mat!S
str1.!<;�'';'_ 'd"� eiSta'lliil!!8L asslimptions .' �tradicto
f�gm�ll�Lme�g ... an_fr ' an"' · n�ber of different ' . �- �l rl
�h � so,...;phr ;�h eIlts om :V ' __ . ..-, ._ b !Lth��bUfu,. '
'''''''''''''J-MJMh '�� -",w, .......... . f kn ledge jl.....,Q1l . . -
remember where these bItS 0 ow sources. Often, no one can
bl' h d They are now, as Gramsci h . truth was esta IS e .
ongmated or how t eir
. t ry ' we have lost the ability to h traces without a n mven 0 ,
bl
describes t ern,
d hy they seemed so reasona e remember where they came from
an w
at some time.
. f articular text need not be deter-Thus the ideologiCal effects
0 a p

arrative One can watch h t t I ' ty of the program or n . mined
only by t e o a I
t f the films unacceptable and . find many aspec s o
. '1 the Batman mOVIes, h h t finding notions of Vigi an-I ' f b
t leave t e t ea er . certainly unrea IS iC, U f h l ' ce strongly
articulated (or rearlic-tism and the incompetence 0 t e Ps? 1 '1 I
consider the Rambo films: . , mon sense. Imi ar y, ulated) m one
s com . hole one might argue that at least Looking at the
narratIve a� a
1
w
. ' f the movies makes the federal one possible ideol ogical
arhcu at
h
iOn
.
0
bably not the most common . t th enemy But t at IS pro
d
government m o e ' . h ' h ere more likely linke to . 1 ff t of
these mOVIes, w IC w
.. . .
ideologlca e ec
d . d ' ' dualism and even JIngOIstIc various notions of
violence an
:;n:;
I
Day displaced the Cold War patriotism . More recently, In
d�en

h
e
my as the feared Other into . b y relocatmg t e ene
k
fear of commumsm
. f' . f the 1 950s one can as B . the SCi- 1 mOVIes 0 , outer
space. ut, as m
th ts facing the United States f' l . eally about new rea w hether
the 1 m IS r
. . h ested less about particu-. some cntIcs ave sugg , here on
Earth or IS, as
h d to reassert a strong sense of iden-. n d more about t e nee
t the
l ar enemIes a
. th face of political challenges 0 tity against a commo� ene�?
I:n d
e
di fferences. To put it simply, is the established system of
Idenhh�s
b t alien species really a backlash . I f sci fi mOVIes a ou
C Id
current reVIva 0 -
. . ts and the end of the 0 . . f racism new Immlgran , against
femmlsm, an
1 M' . Black films seem to undermine any ') 0 the other hand,
the en In War . n

. iformly threatening others. ability to represent alIens as u�
t ublic spectacles presents a One of the most int�re�tmg �ece;
tl � complexity of ideological good opportunity for thinkmg a
ou 1
7 1 4
Ideology
struggle and the differences between the theories of ideology we
have discussed here. On August 31, 1 997, Diana, Princess of
Wales, was killed in an automobile accident in Paris while
fleeing with her lover from the paparazzi. The world media
coverage was unrivaled, and the public response unprecedented.
Over a billion people watched the funeral; millions of people
sent flowers or waited for hours to sign books of condolences
from all Over the World. The dea th of Diana, the "people 's
princess, " was the occasion for a worl d wide collective act of
public and private m Ourning.
Let us begin by conSidering how each of the three theories of
ideology might be used to enlighten Ou r understand ing of this
event. An ideological realist migh t interpret this event as
another media spectacle that distracts public attention from the
serious problems of contemporary SOCiety by fOcusing on the
life of another member of the rich and famous. A fter all,
Diana's worldwide celebrity was itsel f a construction of the
med ia. Dian a 's image as the people's princess is false
consciousness, beca use, in reality, she was a wea lthy member
of the ruling elite who used most of her time and m oney in
conspicuous consumption of exorbitantly priced designer
fashion. A hu manistic theorist might talk about the ritual
aspects of her life and her dea th. Beginning with her marriage
and ending, for the moment, with her funeral, Diana 's entire
life and image as Princess of Wales was a media ritual
celebrating all sorts of common values and dreams. Like the

mythic Cinderella, the fairy tale that was Princess Diana's
marriage reaffirmed our faith in love, m a rriage, and the
appar-ently happy ending suggested b y the myth that Prince
Charming is waiting around the corner for every woman. Diana
's life reaffirmed Our belie f in the importance of compassion,
charity, and, in the con-temporary p olitica l clima te,
volunteerism . But the events leading up to her divorce and her
dea th were a spectacle of another order, reaf-firming Our Worst
fears about dysfunctional m a rriages, unsupportive families,
and the victimization of women in contemporary society. The
social constructionist might make a n umber of observations.
First, he or she might raise the question of Dian a 's
relationShip to con-temporary notions of royalty and the pOwer
of the monarchy in contem-porary British life. Diana 's death
seems to have challenged the monarchy in new and powerful
ways that threaten to either reform or end its power. Second, a
social constructionist might want to inquire into the grounds for
the very real and powerful emotional identification with
MAKING SENSE O F THE MEDIA
Diana that marked the worldwide response to her death.
Psychiatrists
reported that women patients talked about her life and d eath as
public
parables about the changing nature of life for women in
contemporary
society, from eating disorders to abuse. Finally, the social
constructionist
could use Diana's life and death to talk about the changing
nature and
role of celebrity in the media; how the traditional and tabloid
press are
implicated in the development of the paparazzi and journalists

who
spend their lives stalking celebrities to provide the apparently
insatiable
demand for coverage. Are these changes in the media
themselves related
to other aspects of contemporary definitions of entertainment
and news,
and the blurring o f the distinction between them?
The question remains, Where is ideology produced? Where is it
found?
Where are the struggles over ideology taking place? The answer
is
simple: wherever l anguage, culture, and media are found . For
it is in the
��"""""-..
shared culture of a society that ideology resides. And as the
media have
gro�wn to b e · themosHmportari.f arld-vfSlble cultural
institutions of the
society, they have become the most important ideological
battlefield.
It is in the media that one finds not only the dominant ideology-
from
which people learn the commonsense view of reality-but also
subor-
dinate ideologies struggling to change that commonsense view.
NOTES
1 . In fact, Williams discovers this structure through an
analysis of the econom-
ics, technology, and cultural forms of television.
2. See Marx's Das Kapital (Capital, 1 977), where he describes

ideology as a
necessary misrepresentation.
SUGGESTED READINGS
Althusser, L. (1971 ) . Lenin and philosophy, and other essays
(B. Brewster, Trans.).
London: New Left Books.
Berger, J. ( 1 972). Ways of seeing. London: Penguin.
Gramsci, A. (1971 ). Selections from The prison notebooks (Q.
Hoare & G . Nowell-
Smith, Trans.). New York: International Publishers.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. ( 1 972). The German ideology. New
York: International
Publishers.
2 1 6
193-216
Introduction to
the Philosophy of Art
THE MEANING OF ART
The appropriate expression for our subject is the
Philosophy of Art, or, more precisely, the Philos-
ophy of Fine Arts. By this expression we wish to
exclude the beauty of nature. In common life we
are in the habit of speaking of beautiful color, a
beautiful sky, a beautiful river, beautiful flowers,
beautiful animals, and beautiful human beings.
But quite aside from the question, which we wish

ROtiO discuss here, how far beauty may be predi-
cated oisuch objects, or how far natural beauty
maybe placed side by side with artistic .beauty,
we must begin by maintaining that artistic beauty
isr;higher than the beauty of nature .. For the
beauty of art is beauty bom - and hom again -
olthe spirit. And as spirit and its products stand
higher . than nature· ruld its phenomena, by . so
much the beauty that resides in art is superior to
the·beauty of nature.
.
To. say that spirit and artistic' beauty stand
higher than natural beauty, is to say very lillie,
fur : "higher" is a very indefinite expression,
which.·states the difference between. them a s
·q�titative and external. The "higher" quality of
�tand of artistic beauty does not at all stand
�lla merely relative position to nature. Spirit only
.IS the true essence and content of the world, so
that ,w�tever is ,beautiful is truly beautiful only
. Whenlt partakes of this higher essence. and is
produced by it. In this sense natural beauty ap-
".:ngs':UY .� a
.
r�flection of the beauty that be-
•.... ' , spmt; It IS an imperfect and incomplete ,�slOn of the
spiritual substance.
',·:";:tConfining ourselves to artistic beauty, we
"
:;

s
first co�sider
.
certain difficulties, The first
:
, ' uggests Itself IS the question whether art i s >.,a.J.!:lWortl!
f . h'l �1_" . Y 0 a p I osophic treatment. To be
'c ··art an� beaut� pervade, like a kindly genius,
of hfe, and joyously adorn all its
outer phases, softening the·gravity and
by Joseph Loewenberg,
the burd�n of actual existence, furnishing plea-
sure for Idle moments, and, where it can accom-
pl�sh n?thing positive, driving evil away by occu�
pymg Its place. Yet, although art wins its way
everywhere with its pleasing forms, from the
crude adornment of the savages to the splendour
of the temple with its marvellous wealth of deco-
ration, art itself appears to fail outside the real
aims of life. And though the creations of art can-
not
,
be said to be directly disadvantageous to the
senous purposes of life, nay, on occasion actu-
ally further them by holding evil at bay, on the
whole, art b�longs to the reIaxati'on and leisure of
the mind, while the substantial interests of life
demand its exertion. At any rate, such a view ren-
ders art a superfluity, though the tender and emo-

tional ffifluence which is wrought upon the mind
by �cupation with art is not thought necessarily
detnmental, because effeminate. ' .
�ere are others, again, who, though acknowl-
edgmg art to be a luxury, have thought it neces-
sary to defend it by pointing to the practical ne�
cessities of the fine arts and to the relation they
bear to morality and piety. Very serious aims
have been ascribed to art. Art has been rec()m-
mended as a mediator between reason and sensu-
ousness, between inclination and duty, as the rec-
oncilor of all these elements constantly warring
with
,
one another. But it must be said tha�, by
making art serve two masters, it is not rendered
thereby more worthy of a philosophic treatment.
�stead of being an end in itself, art is degraded
mto a means of appealing to higher aims, on the
one hand, and to frivolity and idleness on the
other.
Art considered as means offers another
difficulty which springs from its fonn. Granting
that art can be subordinated to serious aims and
m.at the res,
ults which it thus produces will be sig-
mficant, stIll the means used by art is deception,
for beauty is appearance, its fonn is its life; and
one must admit that -a ;true and real purpose
should not be achieved through deception, Even

INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART
if a good end is thus, now and then, attained by
art its success is rather limited, and even then de-
ception cannot be recommended as a worthy
means; for the means should be adequate to the
dignity of the end, and truth can be produced by
truth alone and not by deception and semblance.
It may thus appear as if art were not worthy
of philosophic consideration because it is sup-
posed to be merely a pleasing pastime; even
when it pursues more serious aims it does not
correspond with their nature. O n the whole, it is
conceived to serve both grave and light interests,
achieving its results by means of deception and
semblance.
As for the worthiness of art to be philosophi-
cally considered, it is indeed true that art can be
used as a casual amusement, furnishing enjoy-
men(and pleasure, decorating ou{ surroundings,
lending grace to the external conditions of life,
and giving prominence to other ()bjects through
ornamentation. Art thus employed is' indeed not
an independent or free, but rather a subservient
art. That art. might serVe other purposes and still
retain its pleasure�giving function, is a relation
which it has in common with thought. For sci-
ence, too, in the hands of the servile understand-
ing is' used for finite ends and accidental means,
and is thus not self-sufficient, but is determined
by outer objects and circumstances. On the other
hand, science can emancipate itself from such

service and can rise in free independence to the
pursuit of truth, in which the realization of its
own aims is its proper furiction.
Art'is not genuine art until it has thus liberated
itself. It fulfils its highest task when it has joined
the same sphere with religion and philosophy and
has become a certain mode of bringing to con-
sciousness and expression the divine meaning of
things, the deepest interests of mankind, and the
most universal truths of the spirit. Into works of
art the. nations have wrought their most profound
ideas and aspirations. Fine Art often constitutes
the key, and with many nations it is the only key,
to an understanding of their wisdom and religion.
This character art has in common with religion
and philosophy. Art's peculiar feature, however,
consists in its ability to represent in sensuous
form even the highest ideas, bringing them thus
nearer to 'the character of natural phenomena, to
the senses, and to feeling. It is the height
supra-sensuous world into which thought re
but it always appears to immediate consci
and to present experience as an alien
Through the power of philosophic thi'
are able to soar above what is merely here,a
sensuous and finite experience.' But spmt
heal the breach between the supra-sensuous'
the sensuous brought on by its own adv
produces out of itself the world of fine· art as
first reconciling medium between what is merelj
external, sensuous, and transient, and the WOl:lill
of pure thought, between nature with its
reality and the infinite freedom of phil
reason.

Concerning the unworthiness of art bee
its character as appearance and deception,
be admitted that such criticism would net,
without justice, if appearance could be said to �
equivalent to falsehood and thus to somethinft1
. that ought not to be. Appearance is essen'
.
.' reality; truth could. not be, did it not ..
through.appearance. Therefore not appearance�
general can be objected to, but merely the ' :;
ular kind of appearance through which art:
to "portray truth. To charge the appear
which art chooses to embody its ideas as .. '
tion, receives meaning only by comparisonwiilf,
the external world of phenomena and its imril!idi�
ate materiality, as well as with the inner world �,
sensations and feelings. To these two worlds �;
are wont, in our empirical work-a-day life,to �
tribute the value of actuality, reality, and truth, in':
contrast to art, which is supposed to be lacldng'
such reality and truth. But, in fact, it is jusrtlle'.
whole sphere of the empirical inner andiOu�'
world that is not the world of true reality; indeed
i t may be called a mere show and a cruel d�
tion in a far stricter sense than in the case of;l!lt
Only beyond 'the immediacy of sense and oLex;·
ternal objects is genuine reality to be fount!,
Truly real is but the furidamental· essence and:the
underlying substance of nature and of spirit, and
the universal element in nature and in spirit is
precisely what art accentuates and makes visible�
This essence of reality appears also in the com-

mon outer and inner world, but it appears in the
form of a chaos of contingencies, distorted by
the immediateness of sense perception, and by the
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
capriciousness and conditions, events, characters,
etc. Art frees the true meaning .of appearances
from the shoW and deception of this bad and tran-
sient world, and invests it with a higher reality
and a more genuine being than the things of ordi-
nary life.
THE CONTENT AND IDEAL OF ART
The content of art is spiritual, and its form is sen-
suous; both sides art has to reconcile into a united
whole. The first requirement is that the content,
which art is to represent, must be worthy of artis-
tic representation; otherwise we obtain only a
bad unity, since a content not capable of artistic
treatment is made to take on an artistic form, and
'
a :matter prosaic in itself is forced into a form
quite opposed to its inherent nature.
The second requirement demands of the con-
tent of art that it shall be no abstraction. By this
is not meant that it must be concrete, as the sen-
suous is alleged to be concrete in contrast to
everything spiritual and intellectual. For every-
thing that is genuinely true, in the realm of
thought as well as in the domain of nature, is
concrete, and has, in spite of universality, never-

1heless, a particular and subjective character. By
<saying, for example, that God is simply One, the
. ;SlIpremeBeing as such, we express thereby noth-
ing .but a lifeless abstraction of an understanding
."devoid of reason. Such a God, as indeed he is not
":mnceived in his concrete truth, can furnish no
itxllltentfof'art, least of all for plastic art. Thus the
'��B ancl the Turks have not been able to repre-
.�ttheir God, who is still more abstract, in the
:':'jIositive manner in which the Christians have
•. .
theirs. For in Christianity God is con-
',:��"",..w his truth, and therefore concrete, as a
a subject, and, more precisely still, as
;·iilUlIIl,,·Whot he is as spirit appears to the reli-
·consciousness as a Trinity of persons,
at the same time is One. Here the essence
reconciled unity of universality and
such .unity alone being concrete.
a content in order to be true must be
this sense, art demands the same con-
because a mere abstract idea, or an ab-
cannot manifest itself in a partic-
�en:SUOI1S unified form.
If a true and therefore concrete content is to

have its adequate sensuous form and shape, this
sensuous form must - this being the third re-
quirement - also be something individual, com-
pletely concrete, and one. The nature of concrete-
ness belonging to both the content and the
representation of art, is precisely the point in
which both can coincide and correspond· to each
other. The natural shape of the human body, for
example, is.a sensuous concrete object, which i s
perfectly adequate to represent the spiritual i n its
concreteness; the view should therefore be aban-
doned .that an existing object from the external
world is accidentally chosen by art to express .a
spiritual idea. Art does not seize upon this or that
form either because it simply finds it or because
it can find no .Qther, but the concrete spiritual
content itself carries with it the element of exter-
nal, real, yes, even sensuous, representation. And
this is the reason why a sensuous concrete object,
which bears the impress of an essentially spiri-
tual content, addresses itself to the inner eye; the
outward shape whereby the content is rendered
visible and imaginable aims at :an existence only
in our heart and mind. For this reason alone are
content and artistic shape harmoniously wrought.
The mere sensuously concrete external nature as
such has not this purpose for its only origin. The
gay and :variegated plumage of the birds shines
unseen, and their song dies away unheard; the
torch�thistle which blossoms only for a night
withers without having been admired in the wilds
of southern forests; and these forests, groves of
the most beautiful.and luxuriant vegetation, with
the most odorous and fragrant perfumes, perish
and waste, no more enjoyed. The work of art is
not so unconsciously self-irnmersed, but it is es-

sentially a question, an address to the responsive
soul, an appeal to the heart and to the mind.
Although the sensuous form in which art
clothes its content is not accidental, yet it is not
the highest form whereby the spiritually concrete
may be grasped. A higher mode than representa-
tion through a sensuous form, is thought. True
and rational thinking, though in a relative sense
abstract, must not be one-sided, but . concrete.
How far a definite content ·can be adequately
treated by art and how f ar it needs, according to
its nature, a higher and more spiritual form, is a
distinction which we see at once, if, for example,
the Greek gods are compared with God as con-
ceived in accordance with Christian notions. The
Greek god is not abstract but individual, closely
related to the natural. human form. The Christian
God is also a concrete personality, but he is
purely spiritual, and can be known only as spirit
and in spirit His sphere of existence is therefore
essentially inner knowledge, and not the outer
natural shape through which he can be repre-
sented but imperfectly and not in the whole depth
of his essence.
But the. task of art is to' represent a spiritual
idea to· direct contemplation in sensuous form,
and not in the form of thought or of pure spiritu-
ality. The value and dignity of such representa-
tion lies in the correspondence and unity of the

two sides, of the spiritual content and its sensu-
ous embodiment, so that the petfection and ex-
cellency of art must depend upon the grade of
inner harmony and union with which the spiritual
idea and the sensuous form interpenetrate.
, The requirement of the conformity of spiritual
idea and sensuous form might at first be inter-
preted as meaning that any idea whatever would
suffice, so long' as the concrete form represented
this idea and no other. Such a view, however,
would confound the ideal of art with mere cor-
rectness, which consists in the expression ,of any
meaning in its appropriate form. The artistic ideal
is not to be thus understood. For any content
whatever is capable, according to the standard of
its own nature, of adequate representation, but
yet it does not for tl;Iat reason lay claim to artistic
beauty in the ideal sense .. Judged by the standard
of ideal beauty, even such correct representation
will be defective. In this connection we may re-
mark that the defects of.a work of art are not to
be considered simply as always due to the inca-
pacity of the artist; defectiveness of form has also
its root in . defectiveness of content. Thus, for in-
stance, the Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, in their
artistic objects, their representations of the gods,
and their idols, adhered to formlessness, or to a
vague and inarticulate form, and were not able to
arrive at genuine beauty, because their mytholog-
ical ideas, the content and conception of their
works of art, were as yet vague and obscure. The
more perfect in form works of art are, the more
profound is the inner truth of their content
thought. And it is not merely a question 0
greater or lesser skill with which the obj

external nature are studied and copied, �
certain stages of artistic consciousness and
tic activity, the misrepresentation and dist
of natural objects are not unintentional tee
inexpertness and incapacity, but conscious
ation, which depends upon the content that
consciousness, and is, in fact, demanded
We may thus speak of imperfect art, which,
own proper sphere, may be quite perfect
technically and in other respects. When
pared with the highest idea and ideal of art,'
indeed defective. In the highest art alone
idea and its representation in perfect con
because the sensuous form of the idea is in
the adequate form, and because the
which that form embodies, is itself a ge
content.
The higher truth of art consists, then, in
spiritual having attained a sensuous form
quate to its essence; And this also
.
principle of division for the philosophy
For the Spirit, before it wins the true no
meaning of its absolute essence,has to
through. a series of stages which cons ., _
very life. To this universal evolution there corre::i
sponds a development of the phases of art, undei1
the form of which the Spirit - as artist - attainS�
to'a comprehension of its own meaning. "'-%)
This evolution within the spirit of art has-�
sides. The development is, in the first placeia�
spiritual and universal one, insofar as a gradual'

series of definite conceptions of the universe ""i'
of nature,. man, and God - finds artistic repler'
sentation. In- the second place, this universaLde·:
velopment of art,embodying itself in sensuous
form, determines definite modes of artisticex�
pression and a totality of necessary distinctionS
within the sphere of art. These constitute the par;'
ticular arts.
We have now to consider three definite relll·
tions of the spiritual idea to its sensuous expres;
sion.
SYMBOLIC ART
Art begins when the spiritual idea, being itself
still indefinite and obscure and ill-comprehended,
is made the content of artistic forms. As indefi-
nite, it does not yet have that individuality which
the artistic ideal demands; its abstractness and
one-sidedness thus render its shape defective
and whimsical. The first form of art is therefore
rather a mere search after plasticity than a capac-
ity of true representation; The spiritual idea has
not yet found its adequate form, but is still en-
gaged in striving and struggling after it. This
fOml we may, in general,call the symbolic form
of art; in such form the abstract idea assumes a
shape in natural sensuous matter which is for-
eign to it; with this foreign matter the artistic
creation begins, from which,however, it seems
unable to free itself. The objects of external na-

ture are reproduced unchanged, but at· the same
time the meaning of the spiritual idea is attached
to them. They thus receive the vocation of ex-'
pressing it, and must be interpreted as if the spir-
itual idea were actually present in them. It is in-
deed true that natural objects possess an aspect
which makes them capable of representing a uni-
versal meaning, but in symbolic art a complete
correspondence is not yet possible. In it the cor-
Iespondence is confined to an abstract quality, as
when. for example, a lion is meant to stand for
:strength.
�'l::ThiS abstract relation brings also to conscious-
�sthe foreignness of the spiritual idea to nat-
:ural phenomena. And the 'spiritual idea, having
Mother reality to express its essence. expatiates
malLthese natural shapes, seeks itself in their un-
l�stand disproportion, but finds them inadequate
:�illtthen exaggerates these natural phenomena
�'shapes them into the huge and the boundless.
':� spiritual idea revels in them, as it were,
and ferments in them, does violence to
·distorts and disfigures them into grotesque
and endeavors by the diversity, hugeness,
of such forms to raise the natural
to the spiritual leveL For here it is the
idea which is more or less vague and
while the objects of nature have a
IV "'_'''.6 fonn.
JCOll1mlltv of the two elements to each

relation of the spiritual idea to
a negative one. The spiritual as a
element and as the universal sub-
all things, is conceived unsatisfied with
all externality, and in its sublimity it triumphs
over the abundance of unsuitable forms. In this
conception of sublimity the natural objects and
the human shapes are accepted and left unaltered,
but at the same time recognized as inadequate to
their own inner meaning; it is this inner meaning
which is glorified far and above every worldly
content.
These elements constitute, in general; the
character of the primitive artistic pantheism of
the Orient, which either invests even the lowest
objects with absolute significance, or'forces all
phenomena with violence to assume the expres-
sion of its world-view. This art becomes there-
fore bizarre. grotesque, and without taste, or i t
represents th e infinite substance in its abstract
freedom turning away with disdain from the illu-
sory . and perishing mass of appearances. Thus the
meaning can never be completely molded into
the expression, and, notwithstanding all the aspi-
ration and effort, the incongruity between the
spiritual idea and the sensuous form remains in-
superable. This is, then, the first form of art -
symbolic art with its endless quest, its inner
struggle, its sphinxlike mystery, and its sub-
linllty.
CLASSICAL ART

In the second form of art, which we wish to des-
ignate as the classical, the double defect of sym-
bolic art is removed. The symbolic form is im-
perfect, because the spiritual meaning which it
seeks to convey enters into consciousness in but
an abstract and vague marmer, and thus the con-
gruity between meaning and form must always
remain defective and therefore abstract. This
double aspect disappears in the classical type of
art; in it we find the free and adequate embodi-
ment of the spiritual idea in the form most suit-
able to it, and with it meaning and expression are
in perfect accord. It is classical art, therefore,
which first affords the creation and contempla-
tion of the completed ideal, realizing it as a real
fact in the world.
But the congruity of idea and reality in classi-
cal art must not be taken in the formal sense of
the agreement of a content with its external
form; otherwise every photograph of nature,
every picture of a countenance, landscape,
flower, scene, etc., which constitutes the aim of
a representation, would, through the conformity
of content and form, be at once classical. The
peculiarity of classical art, on the contrary, con-
sists in its content being itself a concrete idea,
and, as such, a concrete spiritual idea, for only
the spiritual is a truly classical content. For a
worthy object of such a content, Nature must be

consulted as to whether she contains anything to
which a spiritual attribute really belongs. It must
be the World-Spirit itself that invented the
proper form for the concrete spiritual ideal; the
subjective mind - in this case the spirit of art
- has only found it, and given it natural plastic
existence in accordance with free individual
spirituality. The form in which the idea, as spiri-
tual and individual, clothes itself when revealed
as a temporal phenomenon, is the human fo-,:m.
To be sure, personification and anthropomor-
phism have frequently been decried as a degra-
dation of the spiritual; but art, insofar as its task
is to bring before direct contemplation the spiri-
tual in sensuous form, must advance to such an-
thropomorphism, for only in its body can mind
appear in an ad7:uately sensuous fashion. The
migration of souls is, in this respect, an abstract
notion, and physiology should make it one of its
fundamental principles that life has necessarily,
inits evolution, to advance to the human shape
as the only sensuous phenomenon appropriate to
the mind.
The human body as portrayed by classical art
is not represented in its mere physical existence,
but solely as the natural and sensuous form and
garb of mind; it is therefore divested of all the
defects that belong to the merely sensuous and of
all the finite contingencies that appertain to the
phenomenal. But if the form must be thus puri-
fied in order to express the appropriate content,
and, furthermore, if the conformity of meaning
and expression is to be complete, the content
which is the spiritual idea must be perfectly capa-
ble of being expressed through the bodily form of

'Hegel means the transmigration of souls into the bodies
of other animals; this notion is "abstract" because it presumes
that the soul has an ideal reality that allows it to be put into
any earthly envelope. [Ed.]
man, without projecting into another sphere:
yond the physical and sensuous represen .
The result is that Spirit is characterized as a
ticular form of mind, namely, as human
and not as simply absolute and eternal; but
absolute and eternal Spirit must be able to
and express itself in a manner far more spi
This latter point brings to light the de£
classical art, which demands its dissolution.
its transition to a third and higher form, tO'i
the romantic form of art.
ROMANTIC ART
The romantic form of art destroys the unity .
spiritual idea and its sensuous form, and
back, though on a higher level, to the differ
and opposition of the two, which symbolic
left unreconciled. The classical form of art
tained, indeed, the highest degree of per£
which the sensuous process of art was capa
realizing; and, if it shows any defects, the de£
are those of art itself, due to the limitation 0
sphere. This limitation has its root in the gen
attempt of art to represent in sensuous con· .
form the infinite and universal Spirit, and .
attempt of the classical type of art to blend
completely spiritual and sensuous existence· .
the two appear in mutual conformity. But in suchr�

a fusion of the spiritual and sensuous aspec��:
Spirit cannot be portrayed according to its true:�
essence, for the true essence of Spirit is its infi;j
nite subjectivity; and its absolute internal me .
ing does not lend itself to a full and free e
sion in the confinement of the bodily formasits.�
only appropriate existence. I��
Now, romantic art dissolves the inseparable;�
unity which is the ideal of the classical type, 1J6;'�
cause it has won a content which goes beyond tbe�
classical form of art and its mode of expression;;
This content - if familiar ideas may be recalled,
- coincides with what Christianity declares ito',
be true of God as Spirit, in distinction to the'
Greek belief in gods which constitutes the essen'.�
tial and appropriate subject for classical art. The;
concrete content of Hellenic art implies the unity;
of the human and divine nature, a unity which,;'
just because it is merely implied and immediaie;
permits of a representation in an irnmediatel(
visible and sensuous mold. The Greek god is the
object of na"ive contemplation and sensuous
imagination; his shape is, therefore, the bodily
shape of man; the circle of his power and his
essence is individual and confined. To man the
Greek god appears as a being and a power with
whom he may feel a kinship and unity, but this
kinship and unity are not reflected upon or raised
into definite knowledge. The higher stage is the
knowledge of this unconscious unity, which un-

derlies the classical form of art and which it has
rendered capable of complete plastic embodi-
ment. The elevation of what is unconscious and
implied into self-conscious knowledge brings
about an enormous difference; it is ,the infinite
difference which, for example, separates man
from ,the, animal. Man is an animal, but, even in
his animal functions, does not rest satisfied with
the potential and the unconscious as the animal
does,but becomes conscious of them. reflects
upon them, and raises them - as, for instance,
the process of digestion - into self-conscious
science; And it is thus that man breaks through
the boundary of his merely ,immediate and un-
conscious existence, so that, just because he
knows himself to be animal. he ceases in virtue
of such knowledge to be animal, and, through
sucbself-knowledge only, can characterize him-
self as mind or spirit.
' •. '. If in the manner just described the unity of the
human and divine nature is raised from an imme-
.diate to a conscious unity, the true mold for the
�aIity of this content is no longer the sensuous,
¥JIIllediate existence of the spiritual, the bodily
frame of man, but self-conscious and internal
,con��plation. For this reason Christianity, in
��IC�g God as Spirit - not as particularized
mdiVldual mind, but as absolute and universal '�i?t-:- retires
from the sensuousness of imagi-
;�on mtothe sphere of inner being, and makes
t�.and n ot the bodily form, the material and �qOf its ��ntent;
an� thus the. unity .of the 'J;", an and dIVIDe nature IS a
conscIous unIty ca-
�le f
' ;.m: realization only by

.
spir�tual knowledge. �.' w content, won by thIS UUlty, IS not
depen-
<,. , upon sensuous representation; it is now ex-
:llfrom
such imm�diate existence. In �is .' Owever, romantIc art
becomes art WhICh
nds itself, carrying on this process of self-
transcendence within its own artistic sphere and
artistic form.
Briefly stated, the essence of romantic art con-
sists in the artistic object being the free, concrete,
spiritual idea itself, which is revealed in its spiri-
tuality to the inner, and not the outer, eye. In con-
formity with such a content, art can, in a sense,
not work for sensuous perception, but must aim
at the inner mood, which completely fuses with
its object, at the most subjective inner shrine, at
the heart, the feeling. which, as spiritual feeling,
longs for freedom within itself and seeks and
finds reconciliation only within the inner recesses
of the spirit This inner world is the content·of ro-
mantic art, and as such an inner life, or as its re-
flection, it must seek embodiment. The inner life
thus triumphs over the outer world - indeed, so
triumphs over it that the outer world itself is
made to proclaim its victory, through which the
sensuous appearance sinks into worthlessness.
On the other hand, the romantic type of art,
like every other, needs an external mode of ex-
pression. But the spiritual has now retired from

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