Media studies:
Mass communication and media t
COM2604
ASSIGNMENT 1 ANSWERS
SECOND SEMESTER YEAR 2020
Department of Communication Science
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QUESTION 1
MEDIA CULTURE AND THE IDEOLOGICAL POWER OF THE MEDIA
Critical theories of ideology developed mostly from a Marxist point of departure.
In an essay, discuss Marx’s realist theory of ideology.
The term ideology is made of two Greek words: idea and logy, or science. The term
ideology was first used shortly after the French revolution by the aristocrat and
philosopher Antoine Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836) to describe a new science that
would be concerned with the systematic study of how people think. But the term
quickly acquired negative connotations when Napoléon Bonaparte, military ruler of
the French republic, used it to accuse the philosophers of disseminating ideas that
were undermining French society. In the 19th century German philosopher Karl Marx
took the concept of ideology with its negative connotations and developed it to its
present form. A more critical view of ideology that provides important understanding
of the role of the mass media in society was developed from various Marxist theorists.
Marx wanted to explain how ruling minorities or a small group of people
were able to dominate large masses of people and hold on to power without using
force and why the majority of subordinated people accept their subordination. Marx
came to the conclusion that those in power were able to construct and communicate a
dominant vision of society that justified their rule and the subordination of others and
have such a vision accepted by those that were dominated. When such an image of
society is accepted by the majority of the people as legitimate, the power of the ruling
minority becomes secure and the use of force is unnecessary (Grossberg, Wartella &
Whitney 1998:181). For example, most voters in South Africa believe that the ANC
government, on the basis of its long liberation struggle, has the best ideas about
running the country and accept these ideas and policies as true and legitimate. Such
people may become annoyed when an opposition party criticises the ideas of the
government.
Marx suggested that ideology in a particular society was always produced by a ruling
minority or the élite. As he put it: in every society the dominant ideas are the ideas of
the dominant class. Because the dominant class has power, owns the means for the
production of material goods and controls the economy in a society and profits from it,
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such material or economic reality determines the consciousness of the people. Marx
argued that the dominant ideology was false consciousness: the ruling class’s
explanations that the existing relations were the natural order of things were accepted
by the dominated majority, preventing the dominated from seeing their own
oppression. As such, ideology can prevent people from thinking about other ways of
arranging society.
In Marx’s views, ideology can be considered a social cement that glues together
different social classes and groups who assumed there were no other ways to think
about reality. For Marx, ideology was always determined by economics and it always
distorted reality. For example, apartheid ideology in South Africa justified the
domination of the majority of the black people by a powerful white minority as a
natural social order that was created by the Christian god. Many people, including
those dominated, accepted such an explanation even when it was against their own
interests. Another example is the ideology of patriarchy, also found in South Africa
and elsewhere, which assumes that men are stronger and superior over women who
are weak by nature. In some societies women are represented in traditional stories,
legislation and the mass media as passive and subservient to men. In these societies,
many women accept their position of domination as natural.
Marx’s view could be described as a realist theory of ideology because it assumes that
a person’s position within the economic and social relations directly determines his or
her ideology. According to this theory, if we know a person’s social class situation,
then we have a much better chance of predicting that person’s ideology. For example,
a person belonging to the working class, such as a labourer, would hold views that are
based on his experiences and relationships and we could predict that such a person
might be a member of a trade union such as the Congress of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU), might consider capitalism an oppressive system and might
support labour reforms like the demands for minimum wages and the right to strike.
It is assumed that because the mass media are often owned by politically and
economically powerful minority groups in a society, the mass media may
purposefully communicate false information in order to support their owners.
According to this theory the mass media function as important agencies of social
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