Concept of Ideology for Understanding Communication - Essay Example

Why is ideology an important concept for understanding communication To understand how the concept of ideology (and related concepts such as 'interpellation') can help in communication research. 2. To understand how ideology relates to some aspects of structuralist semiotics. Ideology is intrinsically invisible, making the existing conditions and relations of production appear inevitable, natural, and desirable. Althusser describes ideology as the imaginary relation of people to the real condition of existence (Essays on Ideology 164). I perceive that I am biologically a woman, but the assumptions I then make that certain roles and relations are more suitable for me than others is the result of my having been socialised into the dominant ideology of my society. My assumptions, and the socialisation of which they are a function, are unconscious because of the invisible nature of ideology itself. Of course, by its manifestations in every aspect of the material world including social structure and gender roles, ideology comes to have a material existence of its own (165). When I express 'my own thoughts' in 'my own words' I am greatly circumscribed by ideological norms about what I can express and how I can express it: whether to a single listener or to a global audience. By making visible the powerful influences on communication (the material relations between author and recipient; the choice of form and style as historically determined), the study of ideology enables a piece of communication to be viewed as a product of the status quo with which it dialectically engages. Language - whether verbal or nonverbal - is a system of symbols which are given meaning by mutual agreement. There is no universal physical reality to the representation of a particular entity by the word 'dog.' In the case of onomatopoeic words there is some auditory similarity between the represented sound and the representing word: e.g. 'bow wow' is a loose mimicry of a dog barking. But the vast majority of signifiers: words (me), signs (the exclamation point) and symbols (the Mitsubishi logo) are pure symbols: the signification is perfectly non-representative. The most sophisticated forms of communication are purely symbolic: the oldest known script, Sumerian hieroglyphics, began with representative drawings which became more and more stylised and symbolic. Of course, the non-universality of symbols is not obvious: when we learn a language we agree that 'dog' indicates a particular entity in the real world and that the purely arbitrary collection of symbols 'dog' is associated with particular ways of moving our articulators and producing sound. Is language then, artificial Noam Chomsky suggests that human beings are born with the inherent ability to imbibe language; and this ability seems to be universal. People can learn new languages well into late life and babies can acquire multiple languages simultaneously and apparently effortlessly. It is not language that is artificial but the particular significations (signifier-signified relationships) of any given language. This kind of artificiality typifies ideology or any of its components, for example the ascription of certain human qualities to inanimate entities (the rose as a symbol of love suggests something about the culture that accepts such a symbol). Any given communication, whether interpersonal or mass-scale, can then be viewed as an iceberg, with the bulk of meaning residing under the level of consciousness. A rose with its petals being torn off by the wind evokes strong emotions not attributable to the mere sensation of watching a flower being disassembled. The rose is not 'saying' anything new; rather, its very presence and conditions call forth a predictable set of responses: to quote Barthes: "it comes and seeks me out in order to oblige me to acknowledge the body of intentions which have motivated it and arranged it there as the signal of an individual history, as a confidence and a complicity" (Mythologies 48). The tremendous importance of consciously realising ideology in understanding communication now becomes apparent. Not only is the content of communication determined by ideology (why did Shakespeare and not Bernard Shaw write Hamlet), but the forms achieved by the communication are to be understood through ideology. Both communication and ideology are components of the superstructure of Marx's model of social relations; as such they perpetuate and at the same time make invisible the non-universality of the existing relations of production that forms the material base of society. Any communication thus takes for granted the ideology and the base out of which it arose. Equally important, the human beings involved in the communication are defined by ideology. Within the Marxist understanding of subjectivity, Machiavelli methodically describing appropriate behaviour for princes was as inescapably subjectified by the dominant ideology as the citizen subjects of Italian princes implementing his advice. Thus the perpetuation of the existing ideology by communication (telephone conversations, lectures, scientific journals, ad films) is not intentional or conspiratorial; on the other hand both the content and form of communication are dictated in a seemingly obvious way by ideology. Interpellation or subject creation is a phenomenon of always-already. All individuals are always already subjectified by the incumbent ideology. In some sense there is no 'free' individual a priori to the subject; even before birth an individual is hailed as a subject (by the ideological and repressive state apparatuses described by Althusser) and responds to this hailing 'naturally' (Essays on Ideology 172-174). Thus understanding ideology enables a better understanding not only of the means of communication (style, content, medium) but also the human beings involved in it: both components are equally determined (and this determination equally invisible) by ideology. Interpellation of humans as subjects ('Hey, Mom!' subjectifies the addressed in particular roles and positions in ways that seem natural and inevitable for both addressed and addresser) and symbols as subjects (the rose is a symbol of love and not of fatigue) constitutes a large part of any communication. I can make a series of noises with my tongue and lips and signify that I am hungry; I can show the wind tearing petals off a rose and create a definite and strong mood. This is what John Thompson calls the 'social construction of thought' (Ideology and Modern Culture 29). There is no reality prior to consciousness. Our sensations trigger thoughts and feelings which become organised into our knowledge of the world (the pain in my hand tells me I have been bitten by a dog; I understand that I must be careful of dogs; biting becomes a part of my understanding of dogs). Just as I cannot 'know' a dog without my senses, so I can know myself only in a particular socially determined process: the mundane activity of producing means of subsistence leads to processes which produce of all my knowledge about the world. What I know and what I feel is determined purely by my position in the configuration of the material world and my relation to other components of the means of production. Communication, as a reflection of the subject's understanding of the world, is also born as a subject within the ideological framework. If I am a Greek fisherwoman, my reality is determined entirely by my consciousness as a Greek fisherwoman. Whatever communication I produce is also determined by this reality and will reflect this reality. I may valorise the condition of Greek fisherwomen or denounce the injustices they experience; I may talk about something else altogether; but whatever I produce will be intrinsically, ineffably the product of a Greek fisherwoman. Whether I consciously or unconsciously propagate or challenge the existing ideology, I am always working from within the existing ideology and the existing relations of production reinforced by the ideology; I have no subjectivity and no means of communication except within the existing ideology. The fact that ideology makes non-universal symbols apparently universal has interesting consequences for communication. Structural semiotics talks about the processes and tools of encoding and decoding a piece of communication. With the aim of exciting hunger, an advertising agency may encode an ad with symbols of hunger suggested by a particular culture: burgers, fries, and ketchup. If the ad is viewed by an audience who do not share the same culture, the communication will not be decoded or will be incorrectly decoded; the ad may altogether fail to excite hunger and promote the given restaurant. Symbolic forms are "embedded in specific social-historical contexts and processes within which and by means of which they are produced, transmitted, and received" (Thompson 145). In the age of mass-accessible global media, interesting things happen when a given communication is received by au audience who do not decode it with the same means wherewith it was encoded. The tool of encoding and decoding is culture, which Thompson describes as the "complex whole of knowledge, belief, art, morals and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society" (128). A procession of people dressed in black is decoded as a funeral by Christians but may be senseless to Hindus, who mourn in white. Signifiers lose their meaning and cease to signify when the human beings involved in communication do not agree on the signification (do not share a culture). Technologies of mass media, notably television and the internet, often have unintended communication effects, and not necessarily because of non-shared means of coding. Telecasts of Vietnamese civilians during the American invasion had very different effects on Americans back home that were probably intended by those who put the images together; the effects were different enough and strong enough so that purely on the basis of communication (from media images, from veterans) American citizens mobilised to have the troops withdraw. Mass media allowed 'unintended' audiences access to communication and knowledge, which the audiences use for their own purposes without reference to the ideology of the creator of the communication (though of course still controlled by their own ideologies). Mass media allows communication on an unprecedented scale between distinct cultures; what results is a making visible of ideology and of all that it caused the creator of the communication to take for granted (take black for granted as the colour of mourning). Thompson suggests that newer technologies may "undermine the ability of ideology to exert definitive control over citizens" (233) by making visible and showing as non-universal their own ideologies. This is an interesting proposition. Technology belongs to the base of the structure of social relations; it is part of the means of production. The superstructure that reinforces the existing relations of production (e.g. improvements in the horse harness may reinforce the feudal-agrarian mode of production) must shift so that it corresponds to the base, at the same time as influencing the base. The technology of an age can thus be understood as both explaining and explained by the dominant ideology. That the internet as a means of communication could never have arisen in imperial Rome cannot be explained merely by the less advanced state of technology in imperial Rome. The technology of the internet forms merely the base on which the content and style of the internet (dictated by ideology) are erected. Advances in technology and means of communication redefine the existing relations of production (for example, by making available American movies and offshore jobs to South Asians) on which a new ideology erects itself. That the rise of mass media weakens existing ideology may be true, but this is no more true than that the growth of cities weakened the European feudal system. The rise of mass media does not weaken ideology per se: a new ideology that perpetuates mass media will grow up (and has grown up) which is stabilised by mass media. Ideology enables us to understand communication as interpellation by describing both the form (style, content, and medium) and formulators-receivers of communication as always-already subjects of ideology. The study of ideology makes visible the means of coding and signification on which any communication is erected. Structural semiotics enable a communication to be taken apart and examined for units of cultural taken-for-granted understanding so that the most mundane pieces of communication become rich sources of information about an age, a culture, an ideology. Works Cited Thompson, John B. Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical Social Theory in the Era of Mass Communication. Stanford University Press. London 1991 Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Hill and Wang. New York 1972 Althusser, Louis. Essays on Ideology. Verso Books. Paris 1984 Read More