Ideological state apparatuses
translated by repeated usage through channels
of communication into wisdom as apparently
natural as fresh air; a process sometimes referred
to as mystification. Within society there may
be a variety of contending ideologies at play,
representing different sets of social interests,
each seeking to extend recognition and accep-
tance of its way of making sense of the world,
its own capacity to give order and explain social
existence.
Language itself may be seen not as a neutral
medium, but as ideological, thus in its use ensur-
ing that ideology is present in all discourses. Each
may seek to become the dominant ideology, and
it can be argued that the capacity to make use of
the channels of mass communication is crucial
to either achieving or maintaining this position.
Th e use of the media in this respect is the focus
of much research and analysis. German sociolo-
gist Karl Mannheim (1893–1947) in Ideology and
Utopia (Routledge, 1936) distinguishes between
ideas that defend existing interests, the status
quo, which he terms ideologies, and ideas that
seek to change the social order, which he terms
utopias. See consensus; cultural appara-
tus; discourse; dominant discourse; hege-
mony; ideological state apparatuses;
male-as-norm. See also topic guide under
media: values & ideology.
▶Mike Cormack, Ideology (Batsford, 1992); Tuen A.
van Dijk, Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach
(Sage, 1998).
Ideology of detachment See impartiality.
Ideology of romance An aspect of hegemony
in which the perceptions and attitudes of
women, in particular teenaged girls, are ‘shaped’
by dominant discourses into accepting the
roles of wife and mother within an essentially
patriarchal social structure. Wendy Halloway in
‘Gender diff erence and the production of subjec-
tivity’ in Changing the Subject: Psychology, Social
Regulation and Subjectivity (Methuen, 1984),
edited by Julian Henriques et al, calls this mode
of communicative conditioning a ‘to have and to
hold’ discourse which links acceptable behaviour
with monogamous relationships.
The ideology of romance can be found
expressed and reinforced in magazines, fi lms,
pop songs, advertising and soap operas. It
is, in the view of Mary Ellen Brown, author of
Soap Operas and Women’s Talk: Th e Pleasures
of Resistance (Sage, 1994), an ideology that ‘can
leave young women few options’. At the same
time the ideology of romance can be seen as a
rational response to, and a means of coping with,
material and economic subordination, encap-Th e view is challenged by Matthew Kieron in
‘News reporting and the ideological presump-
tion’ published in the Journal of Communication,
Spring 1997. He declares that the ‘presump-
tion’ is ‘either false, incoherent or trivial’; it is
‘overextended, misplaced and distortive’. Kieron
argues that we should, in our scrutiny of journal-
ism, acknowledge that in broadly free societies
there are suffi cient variables in interpretation
and approach to escape the grip of the voice of
authority.
Ideological state apparatuses This term
derives from the work of the French philosopher
Louis Althusser (1918–90). Ideological state
apparatuses (ISAs) are those social institutions
which, according to Althusser, help shape
people’s consciousness in a way that secures
support for the ideology of those who control
the state; that is, the dominant ideology. Such
institutions include education, the family, reli-
gion, the legal system, the party-political system
and the mass media. Th e dominant ideology is
thus represented as both natural and neutral. As
a result it becomes almost unseen, taken-for-
granted.
In contrast there is what Althusser calls the
RSA (Repressive State Apparatus), comprising
the law, police, military; these are brought into
operation – using coercion or the threat of
it – when the ISAs are failing to secure their
objectives of social control through persuasion.
Authority relies on the media to serve as an
ISA and to support situations when the RSA
is brought into action. See common sense;
discourse; elite; hegemony; myth; power
elite. See also topic guides under media:
politics & production; media: values &
ideology.
Ideology An ideology is a system of ideas and
beliefs about human conduct which has normally
been simplified and manipulated in order to
obtain popular support for certain actions, and
which is usually emotive in its reference to social
action. Karl Marx (1818–83) used the term to
apply to any form of thought that underpins the
social structure of a society and which conse-
quently upholds the position of the ruling class.
Th e twentieth-century French philosopher Louis
Althusser (see above), drawing on the work of
Marx, saw ideology as being an unconscious set
of values and beliefs that provide frames for our
thinking and help us make sense of the world.
Ideology can often be found to be hiding (or
hidden) under terms such as ‘common sense’,
the ‘common sense view’, which Marx would
claim was merely the view of the ruling class