IDEOLOGY IN MEDIA STUDIES_OPINION LEADERSHIP

Ideology is a difficult - but important - concept to grasp. Simply put, it is the ideas behind a media text, the secret (or sometimes not-so secret) agenda of its producers. It is important to be able to identify the different ideological discourses that may be present in even an apparently simple photograph.

In sociological terms, ideology is a body of ideas or set of beliefs that underpins a process or institution and leads to social relations. These sets of beliefs are those held by groups within society, and the prevalent ones are those held by the ruling/dominant groups.

Dominant ideology or hegemony

In any society the accepted and agreed beliefs are those of the ruling class, i.e. the class which is the ruling material (with all the money) force is at the same time its ruling intellectual (with all the ideas) force. Christianity is the main historical example (think of how many legal systems take Christian moral values as their basis)- are there any modern day equivalents? Football currently has hegemonic status in the UK - glance through the sports pages and see what coverage other sports get - and everyone is expected to understand and accept its national importance.

Hegemony is not a forced political movement, however. To use the previous example, no one is forced to watch/listen to/read about football. It's just sometimes it seems that there are few alternatives. This is how hegemonies take hold: a majority decide to 'fit in' with the cultural values and ideas of their time and place and the minority keep their objections quiet. Hegemony is about consent, and one of the things it consents to is inequality - us and them.

What part does the media have to play in developing and maintaining a hegemony?

- Institutions, language, news/information, arbiting taste, regulating output, representations, ownership, authorship

What part does the media have to play in opposing/altering the hegemony?

-Challenging all of the above by presenting the alternatives in a positive light

Task:
Read the recent panic article about a computer game. 
Make notes on the language of the writer. Is he being pro censorship?
Do you think this type of game causes people to go out and torture?

Grand Theft Auto 5 under fire for graphic torture scene

Ideological Discourse

These are the issues/attitudes debated over in the Media which form part of the everyday ideological discourse in our society. The views taken on these subjects form the basis of our social rules and practice:

• education
• employment
• gender
• sexuality
• racism
• feminism
• nationalism/national identity
• youth/age
• left wing/right wing politics
• environmentalism
• public/personal reality
• crime and punishment etc

Preferred reading

Producers of a media text design it with a certain meaning in mind. They hope that audiences will decode their text in a certain way - particularly if the text is an advertisement. Preferred readings are those which tie in with hegemonic beliefs.

The Beauty Myth

For instance, the idea of beauty and the 'ideal' female shape propounded in Western magazines bears little to no relation to the measurements of the majority of Western women. It is accepted as 'natural' that models in women's magazines should be young and drastically underweight. Since the 1960s the preferred reading has been that these women are beautiful. However, there are signs that, as hegemonic belief begins to adapt to the concerns of many that this body shape is actually unhealthy, the preferred reading is beginning to shift.

Over recent years, size zero models have been banned from the catwalk in fashion weeks the world over. Beauty magazine editors have responded to reader concerns that the models depicted in their pages are unrealistically thin by pledging to use "real women" instead. Dove, a cosmetics company, has made a global campaign for "real beauty" the cornerstone of its marketing. The outcry over the use of Photoshop to create unrealistically young and slim looking images in advertising continues to gather support. There are signs that the hegemonic standards are in flux.

Size Zero Advert Shocks Catwalk 
How one campaign group got the message across

Twiggy ad Campaign

Oppositional Reading

Texts being texts, however, audiences can choose to read them any way they please. Often, if a text is approached by an audience that it was not originally targeted at (teenage boys reading teenage girls' magazines, for example) they will decode it in an entirely different way to the original intentions of the producers, perhaps deriving humour from something that was meant to be serious (check out women's magazines from the 1950s if you want a laugh in this post-feminist world). The audience may have a very different cultural or social experience from the producer, and may connect signifiers to completely different signifieds. Media texts may be less open than other texts (there is the danger that if you do not read, for example, a Marlboro print ad in a certain way it will make no sense at all) there is still room for oppositional reading.

Task: 
Think of three contemporary texts, print or AV which could be decoded differently than intended. Who is the secondary target audience and what are they seeing in opposition to the primary target audience?

Opinion leadership is leadership by an active media user and who interprets the meaning of media messages or content for lower-end media users. Typically the opinion leader is held in high esteem by those who accept his or her opinions. Opinion leadership comes from the theory of two-step flow of communication propounded by Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz.

In his article, Elihu Katz answers the question, "Who is an opinion leader?" One or more of these factors make noteworthy opinion leaders:

1.            expression of values

2.            professional competence

3.            nature of their social network.

Opinion leaders are individuals who obtain more media coverage than others and are especially educated on a certain issue. They seek the acceptance of others and are especially motivated to enhance their social status.[11] In the jargon of public relations, they are called thought leaders.

In a strategic attempt to engage the public in environmental issues and his nonprofit, The Climate Project, Al Gore used the concept of opinion leaders. Gore found opinion leaders by recruiting individuals who were educated on environmental issues and saw themselves as influential in their community and amongst their friends and family. From there, he trained the opinion leaders on the information he wanted them to spread and enabled them to influence their communities. By using opinion leaders, Gore was able to educate and influence many Americans to take notice of climate change and change their actions.