Althussers Theory and the Media - author Kerry Braye

In the 1960s and 1970s, Marxist thinkers such as Althusser developed more sophisticated articulations of ideology in base-superstructure theory. Originally, this was an attempt to explain why there had not been a world revolution that Marx in particular had foreseen. Instead of a simple cause and effect relationship between ideology and the economic base of society, where one class imposes values on another, Althusser redefined ideology as a continuous and all-pervasive set of practices in which all groups and classes participate (Fiske, 1992: 176-178). He stressed that ideology is the medium through which people experience the world (Curran, 1977: 24). This medium is a system (with its own logic and rigour) of representations (images, myths, ideas or concepts) endowed with an historical existence and role within a given society (Althusser, 1969: 66). By treating ideologies as 'systems of representations', Althusser gave a more semiotic or discursive definition of ideology itself. He rejected the notion of 'false consciousness' as believed in fundamental Marxism, and much of the Frankfurt School, which resulted from the emulation of the dominant ideology by those whose interests it did not reflect. Instead he believed that ideology worked to a large extent on the 'social unconsciousness' for example, the 'common sense of individuals' and an acceptance that things are not 'natural, obvious and given' (Donald and Hall, 1986: xvii).

This explanation of ideology became problematic in that it did not explain how such a system of mass representations and/or structures actually worked. In other words, the concept of 'recruitment of people' by ideology into their perspectives of the world was not fully explained. Althusser believed 'the identity of an individual takes place according to a pre-established series of identification in the values imposed by the laws of different institutions such as religion and the media' (Taccheri, 1998: 1). These institutions, according to Althusser, consisted not only of the State (repressive power operated in the interests of the ruling class), but a distinction between an explicitly 'Repressive State Apparatus' (the government, police and administration - function by violence) and the different formative functions of religion, family and other major institutions (function by ideology). He called these the Ideological State Apparatuses' (ISA) (Althusser, 1971: 136-138). These ISAs, although the most private, absolve the purely political function to 'impress on the blank page of the undetermined individual' his/her social and private identity. In other words, the investment of identity takes place according to a pre-established series of acts of identification in the values imposed by the laws of ISAs. The only way an individual can become a subject is by 'subjecting' himself (subject being the one that performs the action, but also the one who is acted upon) to the existing values given him by institutions such as the family, religion, the media and so on (Taccheri, 1998: 1).

By deploying the philosophical category of the subject, Donald and Hall (1986) suggest it is not the 'biological person', rather the social category in which people exist as social beings, that is as a legal subject, as a family subject and so on. In other words, this is not a naturally occurring entity but a 'symbolically constructed' one. Althusser used another term - interpellation. This both names and positions a subject, for example, a subject of the family. It may also be called 'spontaneous identification' (Donald and Hall, 1986: xvii). In other words, a subject may identify with their place within a particular discourse and recognise the sorts of characteristics which that discourse involves. For example, soap operas tend to consist of young attractive women with similar types of men whose successful lives become intertwined with complexities. Women in particular may not only recognise themselves in the characters and locations within this genre, they may want to be like those characters or they may rebel against them. Either way, the subject is being 'interpellated' (Woollacott, 1986: 206-209). Interpellation therefore, helps to explain why people watch what they watch, how they construct their lives and the ideas and opinions they may form.

Media theorist use Althussser's theory of interpellation to explain the political function of mass media texts. 'As a pre-existing structure, the text interpellates the spectator, so constituting him/her as a subject' (Lapsley and Westlake, 1988: 12). In other words, the subject (viewer, listener, reader) is constituted by the text, and the power of the mass media resides in their ability to 'position' the subject in such a way that their representations were taken to be reflective of everyday reality. These theorists tend to see the text as the sole determinant of the subject's response and treated the subject as unified (Curran, 1977: 25). Critics argue that these theorists did not allow for the possibility of individuals resisting the process of interpellation, whereas the ISAs are not invariably and completely successful; the subject can be an agent as well as effect (Lapsley and Westlake, 1988: 15).

Curran (1977) suggests that Althusser, like most Marxist theorists, believe the mass media conceal the economic base of class struggle; 'ideology becomes the route through which struggle is obliterated rather than the site of struggle' (Curran, 1977: 26). This contradiction does not help find the solution to the problem of the exploitation of the oppressed. Therefore, when examining the concrete political realities and struggles which ultimately take place at the level of the infrastructure within the media per se, Althusser's 'social unconsciousness' looses momentum, and is lacking of practical implications and solutions.

While most theorists agree that the mass media had ideological power, they tend to disagree as to its nature. For example, Marxists view the media as part of an ideological arena in which various class views are fought out, although within the context of dominant classes (Gurevitch et al, 1982: 1). Herbert Marcuse's (1972) Frankfurt School, on the other hand, believes that the power of the mass media casts individuals (subjects) as passive victims. As quoted by Bennett (1982), Marcuse believed that the media 'carry with them prescribed attitudes and habits, certain intellectual and emotional reactions which bind the consumers and reduces them to little more than a mindless mass' (Bennett, 1982: 43). Liberal pluralists emphasise the role of the media in promoting freedom of speech. Control of the media is said to be in the hands of an autonomous managerial elite of whom a considerable degree of flexibility to media professionals is allowed (Gurevitch et al, 1982: 1). Stances by Althusser (1971) and other like-minded theorists such as Hall (1982), have typically come to grant more active roles to audiences than that proposed by Marxists and the Frankfurt School and more control on the part of the media over audiences contrary to the liberal approach. As Curran (1977), in support of Althusser's theory says, 'whilst dominant meaning systems are seen as molded and relayed by the mass media, they are also seen as adapted by audiences and integrated into class-based or 'situated' meaning systems (Curran, 1977: 15).

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Last Updated 20/06/03