Croteau&Hoynes: Media/Society, 5th Edition Instructor Resource
Chapter 5: Media and Ideology
Purpose and Goals of the Chapter
Chapter 5 introduces our analysis of media content, using
ideological analysis to explore the underlying assumptions and values embedded in media texts.
The chapter discusses the meaning of the term “ideology” and explores the theoretical roots of
analysis of media ideology, while, at the same time, suggesting that much current media criticism
implicitly uses an ideological framework. A series of examples from news, film, television,
music, and advertising explore a range of substantive arguments about the ways that
contemporary American mass media disseminate ideology. At the same time, we discuss the
Outline of Key Chapter Themes
Ideological analysis of media provides a window onto broader debates in society.
Media help to normalize, or make unexceptional, certain widely circulating attitudes and
behaviors.
Hegemony is a key concept for ideological analysis.
The taken-for-granted, the realm of commonsense, and our definitions of the “natural” are the
terrain of ideological analysis.
News media draw boundaries that help define legitimate opinion.
Ideological analysis often focuses on a specific genre or a specific historical period.
Back-to-Vietnam films both reflected and reproduced fears and desires about the meaning of
masculinity in the 1980s.
Recent war films became more nuanced, but many still privileged the American perspective.
Television helps to define social relationships, including the meaning of family.
Some rap music is contradictory political expression that, on one hand, provides a critique of
Chapter Outline
1. Ideological criticism in media studies
Ideology
o“A system of meaning that helps define and explain the world and that makes
value judgments about that world”
Ideological analysis
oStudy of media images that send messages about the nature of the world, how it
operates, and how it should be
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Croteau&Hoynes: Media/Society, 5th Edition Instructor Resource
Ideology as normalization
oDominant ideologies
2. Theoretical roots of ideological analysis
Marxist origins
oIdeology as a powerful mechanism of social control whereby members of the
ruling class imposed their worldview
oGramsci’s view of ideology
Power can be wielded at the level of culture or ideology
Media images do not simply reflect the world
oThey re-present (construct) the world
oThey are ideological
3. News media and the limit of debate
News media can be ideological
o“The news supports the social order of public, business, and professional,
upper-middle-class, middle-aged, and white male sectors of society… In short,
when all other things are equal, the news pays most attention to and upholds the
actions of elite individuals and elite institutions” (Gans, 1979)
Ideology in news
oA small group of analysts are regular commentators and news sources
oNews favors the insiders’ (government, establishment) view
Economic news as ideological construct
4. Movie, military, and masculinity
Action-adventure films
oIdeology of polarity (us vs. them)
oIdeology of the rugged individual (heroism)
oIdeology of the American dream
Vietnam films and war films today
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Croteau&Hoynes: Media/Society, 5th Edition Instructor Resource
5. Ideology and popular TV
Images of family
oDominantly white, upper-middle-class, happy, secure
oChange toward family conflict and struggle
oWork family programs
The new momism
oThe old, “perfect mother” image resurrected
oCelebrity motherhood
6. Rap music and ideology
Shows the development and change of ideology
Original rap music
o A criticism of the dominant ideology of racism within the America power
structure
o“Survival in a hostile world”
oRap music has been empowering to black youth by providing them a way to
express themselves and their critical ideologies (Rose, 1994)
Ideological contradictions in today’s rap
oRap music is often full of lyrics degrading women
oChallenging oppressive dominant ideologies (racism)
7. Advertising and consumer culture
The dominant consumerist ideology
oAds celebrate and take for granted the consumer–capitalist organization of society
oAds normalize middle- or upper-middle-class lifestyle
oAds promote a worldview that stresses the individual and the realm of private life,
ignoring collective values
Selling consumerism in the early 20th century
oSelling a new way of American life
oAds were a tool of social integration
Women’s magazines as advertisements
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Croteau&Hoynes: Media/Society, 5th Edition Instructor Resource
oUse of foreigners in ads
As “the others”
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