IDEOLOGY is – A set of theories for thinking about how belief systems in society work – even if the beliefs are not in the interests of the bulk of that society
IDEOLOGY is – Generally thought of as a set of beliefs imposed on a society by the most powerful people in that society – but assumed as common sense by the majority.
IDEOLOGIES are – Systems of belief in relation to society and culture that cater to the majority – while marginalising smaller or less powerful groups.
How an idea or concept is represented is dependent on the dominant ideologies. Can also be thought of as the value systems of the people who represent these ideologies.
Some examples lie in the simplest everyday metaphors Or ‘figures of speech’ – Involving height and depth…highbrow and lowbrow for instance…
Spatial difference becomes a metaphor for social experience… For example…Top of your game. vs Hit rock bottom. any more? Material, physical, difference is used to make sense of abstract, social,experience.
Another example is the range of metaphors around money and time… Although we are paid for our time (time is money) Time cant really be physically held and collected One person cannot hold more of it than another It cannot be invested to make more of itself
Claude Levi-Strauss – called this the “the logic of the concrete.” This is the idea that all societies make sense of abstractions which are important to them by embodying them in concrete experience. Making them‘real.’
Roland Barthes defines his own theory of ideology within popular culture and calls it MYTH. Saussure suggested that signifiers (sounds) and signifieds (concepts) are connected toghether by the process of signification. Barthes suggested that this process does not necessarily end at this point. A sign can take part in a new level of signification where it becomes the signified at another level (Myth).
Naturalisation– Connotation produces the illusion of denotation, the illusion of language as transparent and of the signifier and the signified as being identical. Denotation becomes just another connotation.
From such a perspective denotation can be seen as no more of a ‘natural’ meaning than is connotation but rather as a process of naturalization.
Barthes’ Mythologies
- • Bartheswantstostoptakingthingsforgranted,and concentrate rather on what they mean and how they function as signs.
- • InmanyrespectswhatBarthesisdoingis interrogating the obvious, taking a closer look at that which gets taken for granted, making explicit what remains implicit.
- • Weinhabitaworldofsignswhichsupportexisting power structures and which purport to be natural.
- • Theroleofthemythologist,asBarthesseesit,isto expose these signs as the artificial constructs that they are, to reveal their workings and show that what appears to be natural is, in fact, determined by history.
Bana's Blog 