Page 94 - Culture Society and the Media

84 THE REDISCOVERY OF ‘IDEOLOGY’
media can be said (with plausibility—though the terms continue to be confusing)
to be ‘ideological state apparatuses’. (Althusser, however, whose phrase this is, did
not take the argument far enough, leaving himself open to the charge of
illegitimately assimilating all ideological institutions into the state, and of giving
this identification a functionalist gloss).
This connection is a systemic one: that is, it operates at the level where systems
and structures coincide and overlap. It does not function, as we have tried to
show, at the level of the conscious intentions and biases of the broadcasters.
When in phrasing a question, in the era of monetarism, a broadasting interviewer
simply’ takes it for granted that rising wage demands are the sole cause of
inflation, he is both ‘freely formulating a question’ on behalf of the public and
establishing a logic which is compatible with the dominant interests in society.
And this would be the case regardless of whether or not the particular
broadcaster was a lifelong supporter of some left-wing Trotskyist sect. This is a
simple instance; but its point is to reinforce the argument that, in the critical
paradigm, ideology is a function of the discourse and of the logic of social
processes, rather than an intention of the agent. The broadcaster’s consciousness
of what he is doing—how he explains to himself his practice, how he accounts
for the connection between his ‘free’ actions and the systematic inferential
inclination of what he produces—is indeed, an interesting and important
question. But it does not substantially affect the theoretical issue. The ideology
has ‘worked’ in such a case because the discourse has spoken itself through him/
her. Unwittingly, unconsciously, the broadcaster has served as a support for the
reproduction of a dominant ideological discursive field.
The critical paradigm is by no means fully developed; nor is it in all respects
theoretically secure. Extensive empirical work is required to demonstrate the
adequacy of its explanatory terms, and to refine, elaborate and develop its infant
insights. What cannot be doubted is the profound theoretical revolution which it
has already accomplished. It has set the analysis of the media and media studies
on the foundations of a quite new problematic. It has encouraged a fresh start in
media studies when the traditional framework of analysis had manifestly broken
down and when the hard-nosed empirical postivisim of the halcyon days of
‘media research’ had all but ground to a stuttering halt. This is its value and
importance. And at the centre of this paradigm shift was the rediscovery of
ideology and the social and political significance of language and the politics of
sign and discourse: the re-discovery of ideology, it would be more appropriate to
say—the return of the repressed.

REFERENCES

Adorno, T.W. et al. (1950) The Authoritarian Personality, New York, Harper & Bros.
Althusser, L. (1969) For Marx, London, Allen Lane.