Ideology (Media Studies)

A system of ideas that underlies and regulates the behavior of groups and entire societies. Ideology connects into a totality of individual actions and beliefs that seem on the surface to lack any systematic connection or political significance. More often than not, it exists within individual thought as unconscious and implied belief. Because ideology functions at the collective and structural levels, it cannot be changed by individual action. In a general sense, ideological formations can be identified in every society. However, Marxist critics, who gave the word its currency, locate ideology specifically in a capitalist society, defining it as “false consciousness,” by which is meant the imaginary relationship of individuals with their real conditions of existence. Because the relations of power are structurally unequal, capitalist ideology works to sustain that inequality. The Western media, apparently a free site of contested and conflicting ideologies, can be seen as complicit in exercising hegemonic control in society.