In media studies, the critique of ideology is deployed to analyze Essay

In media studies, the critique of ideology is deployed to analyze issues of power in highly stratified liberal democracies. Usin - Essay Example In contemporary times, the influence and responsibility of the media is expanding because of the development of information technology, which is producing new forms of mass media. According to McLuhan’s Technological Determinism theory, the media determines social and cultural changes in communication technology. Therefore, nowadays, the role of the media seems more important than ever before, and if it does not function properly then we cannot expect society to progress in an orderly fashion. Also, in order to become a more productive society, press freedom should be safe from harm, and additionally, critique of ideology should be allowed to function because the critique of ideology observes how appropriate the role of media is in providing answers for society. The critique of ideology also makes people judge misinformation and insists on demanding the truth. However, there is another way to communicate with society: through culture. According to Raymond William, culture can refer to high culture, folk culture, or, in terms of industrial societies, mass culture. As he mentions so often, culture contains human thought, art, and mentality. Culture is the most traditional and natural way of communication between people in society. Therefore, it is significant to study about ideology, and furthermore, what the critique of ideology accomplishes in a liberal democracy. Ideology has multiple meanings, as shown in Olivier Reboul’s classification of ideology. In a book called Language and Ideology, Olivier Reboul classifies ideology to the Napoleon meaning, Karl Heinrich Marx meaning, and sociology of knowledge meaning by Karl Mannheim (Reboul, 1994). First of all, for the Napoleon meaning, according to the document that his secretary kept, he defined it as a disturbance that blocks flexible ideas for hypocrites. He also described that it refers to a person who is abstract and an idealist. It is not used all that commonly, so it will just be treated as hi storical meaning. For the Karl Heinrich Marx meaning, Marx defined ideology as false consciousness, using the metaphor of a camera obscurer. False consciousness means only showing a portion of a concept, and this makes people misrepresent the idea; it does not show what the full picture is. This kind of fantasy intimates with religious and moral principles. In this case, the subject who makes an ideology is dominant, and the person who receives the distorted information is weak and receives unfair treatment. Over time, ideology is a system of awareness or notion that is made from the dominating party. The problem with this is that particular information is accepted as common knowledge to the receiver. The Napoleon meaning criticizes the existing rulers while the Marx meaning is trying to remedy society. However, the last ideology’s meaning is completely different from the above two meanings. This ideology comes from the Hungarian-born German sociologist Karl Mannheim, and is called the sociology of knowledge. This idea is based on neutrality and first appeared in the 20th century. He terms ideology as every image that can be seen in a certain group. He emphasized that the composition of a group helps the group to work together. This idea is less controversial than the other two and is a unique cultural idea; however, it’s true that this makes it more open to debate. How does ideology apply to cultural