Monday, November 12, 2012

"Media and Ideology"- Croteau

Hyperlink/ Quotes
To begin this blog post I had to complete more google searching in what ideology means.  This article created confusion for me as I felt like there was no real definition for what this word means.  Although I had read this article I'm still confused as to what the whole meaning and sense of this article is.  I did some researching and I found out that ideology means a set of ideas, goals and actions. "Ideologies are systems of abstract thought applied to public matters and thus make this concept central to politics.  Every political or economic tendencey entails an ideology whether or not it is an explicit system of thought". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology
So basically ideology revovles around the media and politics.  While reading the article I found a few quotes that some what clarifies the meaning.
1. "Virtually all forms of mass media- radio, television, movies, music, and the internet are standard targets, attacked by politicians from different political perspectives who have t=little doubt that the media are ideological, selling certain messages and worldviews" (161).
2. " Media sell both products and ideas both personalities and worldviews" (161).
3. " The ideological work lies in the patterns within the media texts.  Ideas and attitudes that are routinely included in media become part of the legitimate public debate about issues". (163).
These quotes somewhat clarify my confusion.

After reading the whole article I'm still confused as what ideology means.  I would like to learn more about it and how it comes in place in the media and politically.

2 comments:

  1. I can definitely see where this article could be confusing. I was able to understand it, for the most part, but it didn't hold my attention as easily as some of our other readings for class had. Ideologies are morals, values, or beliefs. Essentially what Croteau was saying, is that the media is largely in control of what society considers its morals, values and beliefs, even if it isn't "real." Just because we mainly see straight, white, able-bodied, middle class couples on TV does not mean that they make up the majority of the United States. Yet, we believe that they do because we see it so often. The media does not portray the "reality" of our society, it's actually creating a false reality that people try and so often fail to live up to. Yet, no one is at the top of the media food chain deciding to create ads to make girls stop eating, or cause men to be violent, it just so happens that because of what is shown, as we learned in class, sometimes these are the outcomes. I don't know if this helps, but that's essentially what I got out of the reading!!

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  2. This article did take me a good 2-3 reads but I think I got it. I think what kind of confused me and sometimes still does is how we as in America let Media form such strong ideology.

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