прагматика и медиа дискурс / Teun A van Dijk - Ideology

The problem of this (very realistic) last example is that most people in society may finnly believe something, while a few others believe the opposite. Theories of knowledge in tercos of consensus, common serse or shared cultural beliefs, would in that case be in trouble — critical, dissident knowledge of a few would then be defined as an opinion by a (vast) majority. Indeed, many people have burnt on the stake for that reason, and the problems of Galilei with the Catholic Church have only recently been resolved, after more than three centuries. Contemporary social movements and action groups have their own stories about the difficulty of getting their beliefs accepted as knowledge, and not rejected as mere ideological opinions.

There is another aspect involved in the ideological struggle about knowledge and truth, namely, meaning. That is, different social groups of course share a vast amount of socio-cultural knowledge, as well as many truth criteria. This allows members of different groups to understand each other, to argue and sometimes even to persuade each other. However, given their different interests, some concepts may be defined in a different way in different groups. Thus, in the ideological debate about racism in the Netherlands, it may, well be accepted (given the role of — some — social scholarship in such debates) that more than sixty per cent of Dutch employers state that they prefer white men over women and minorities. This statistical 'fact' may be granted (and thus statistics admitted as a truth criterion), though seldom highlighted, in a debate with anti-racists. But the difference of opinion begins where one group considers this fact as proof of racism, whereas the other group simply does not want to call this fact a form of racism at all, but at most a forro of prejudice, misguided beliefs or resentment. Indeed, the other group may define 'racism' only in terms of ideologies of racial superiority, and as characteristic of the extreme Right.

In other words, 'racism' never applies to 'people like us', so that any evidence of racism that might be applicable to 'our people' is automatically disqualified as being ideologically biased, and an unjust accusation. In other words, it is not the knowledge or its basis here that is rejected as an opinion, but rather the meaning and application of a concept. And since there is no 'objective proof for the correct use of one specific meaning of the words that deal with social structures and relations, any use that may not be in our own interests may be rejected as incorrect or biased, that is, as an expression of an opinion, so that also its truth criteria do not apply in the same way. Indeed, many of these tercos are generally seen as involving value judgements anyway, and not as descriptors of objective facts or properties, as is also true for words like discrimination, dernocracy, conservative, progressive, dangerous, healthy, and so on.

We might therefore further specify that any belief, including factual beliefs, that implies a value judgement, thereby may become an evaluative belief or opinion for others. Thus, the concept of racism may truthfully describe the ethnic situation in the Netherlands. But for both racists and antiracists alike, the terco has a negative implication, so that its use tends to be

seen as a value judgement. Similarly, the statement that some country is not democratic may well be intended and used as a factual statement, but given the fact that it may imply a value judgement, it may also be interpreted as an opinion, and hence as an accusation. Even obvious descriptive tercos, such as woman or child, may thus in some contexts be intended or understood as implying a positive or negative value judgement, and hence as the expression of an opinion instead of a factual belief.

This analysis shows something else, namely, the ideological basis of the core of much (social) knowledge, such as the very concepts that define such knowledge. Indeed, if 'racism' has the broad conceptual meaning it has for anti-racists, others may think exclusively of aggressive, extremist, rightwing racism, or only about explicit racist ideologies, when using this terco. That is, as soon as part of a concept, when applied to our people, is seen to be inconsistent with our interests, people also adapt their knowledge and the language used on the basis of it. Similarly, most feminists will probably tend to define 'sexual harassment' in broad tercos, whereas many men (and some women) may find this exaggerated and would accept only overt, blatant and very aggressive forros of sexual violence in such tercos. In other words, each group may also have its own concepts and language use, and these would be ideological as soon as dimensions are added to, or deleted from, the concept so as to apcommodate the interests of the group.

In sum, one way in which ideologies control knowledge is the way they monitor conceptual structures and hence word meanings. The question then becomes: who should define such concepts and meanings? This question brings us to the relations between knowledge and power.

Knowledge and power

An analysis of the role of ideology in the study of knowledge not only involves an abstract epistemology or cognitive science, but also many social dimensions that have to do with the establishment of truth, truth criteria and what counts as knowledge in society. 5 Power is one of these dimensions. Let us therefore examine whether such a perspective may resolve the dilemma between the thesis that says that at least some knowledge is ideologically based and the thesis that claims that all ideologically based knowledge should be called opinion, so that knowledge by definition is nonideological.

There are several ways to tackle this issue. The first is to change the definition of knowledge. Instead of saying that knowledge is justified true belief , we may say that knowledge for a given culture or society can never be more than justified belief , whether or not it is objectively true, or whether or not knowledgeable others now or later think it is true or false.

That is, the combined pragmatic-semantic definition is thus reduced to a pure pragmatic one, which in fact claims that knowledge is based on the power of the consensus, that is, on the kind of truth criteria accepted within

the epistemic community Thus, for the Dutch community, the dominant consensus is that the Netherlands is not a racist country, and that those who claim otherwise are not expressing knowledge, but an ideological or otherwise misguided opinion.

This solution is also in fine with discourse analytical, microsociological and ethnographic thinking, which emphasizes the role of knowledge as being generally presupposed and taken for granted within a society or culture. It also is consistent with a historical and political approach, which would claim that what counts as knowledge in any period or community is determined by who has the definitional or other truth-determining power in society, such as public opinion, the church, the media or science. This argument will also correctly predict that if specific minorities, dissidents or individuals express beliefs they hold (and even prove) to be true, these wilr either not be believed, or their knowledge will be disqualified as mere opinion, or they will be prevented from expressing their beliefs in the first place. Of course, it may well be that such 'deviants' later may prove to have been right, and hence (from an outside point of view) to have expressed knowledge, but that does not mean that they were right for the epistemic community.

Given this power over the definition of truth and knowledge, one may claim that such a consensus is itself ideological while being in the interest of the community as a whole. But such a position would be inconsistent with the specific definition defended here — ideologies are defined for groups and presuppose different (and often conflicting) group interests within the same community. Of course, if we were to see a whole community (culture, society) as such a group, this would constitute the boundary case of what I define as an ideological group (see Part II), and indeed the ultimate form of ideology, namely, that of the consensus, and a culmination of hegemony if such a consensus could be established by the elites. The interests defended in that case are indeed those of the community as a whole, and defended against any deviant individual or subgroup. Although such a position may be defended, it would in fact collapse the notion of ideology with that of societal norms or culture, and it would mean that we are unable to use it in a more specific inter-group sense.

So, if we maintain the definition of ideology in terms of interests of different groups within a community, the next question is whether we allow the definition of knowledge to be group-dependent as well. That is, not only within the community as a whole, but also within its various ideological groups, knowledge would then be defined as justified belief, whether or not it is true, or whether or not other groups or 'independent' truth instances would qualify such beliefs as opinions. Again, such a position would correctly predict the use of the notion of knowledge within groups, as long as it can be justified with the truth criteria accepted within that group.

Obviously, much of the general socio-cultural knowledge holding within the group may be shared with other groups, and the same may be true for most truth criteria. But especially the beliefs and truth criteria that are related to the interests of the group, or the special issues that are relevant for the

group, might well be specific, and hence ideologically based — again, whether or not they are 'objectively' true or false. Thus, the specific knowledge of women about sexual harassment, of feminists about gender inequality, of anti-racists about racism, or of ecologists about pollution, constitute relevant examples. 6 Again, in these cases such knowledge may well be objectively true (given an independent truth instance), but it may be rejected as opinions, lies, or fantasies by those who oppose such groups.

Conversely, their opponents may firmly believe — and never see as mere opinion — things about gender, immigrants or pollution that are objectively false. That is, what counts is what the group members believe and what, within their own system of verification, they believe to be justified — whether or not such truth criteria are themselves biased. A typical example is knowledge about ethnic relations. Dominant majority group members may feel that any knowledge and epistemic criteria in this case as defined by minority groups will be biased. This is, for instance, the case for those (many) white journalists who do not take minority sources and their statements seriously. In other words, the basis of credibility judgements themselves may be partisan, and hence ideological. This also explains why specific group knowledge of one group will often be rejected as mere opinions by opposing groups. Indeed, very often the very ideological conflict itself may not only be about socio-economic conditions or resources, but about truth criterio themselves.

Since many ideologies are constituted by fundamental opinions about Us and Them, we must assume that not only the basis of attitudes are evaluative beliefs, but also those of specific group knowledge. That is, although within the ideological group, knowledge is still distinct from opinion, the knowledge criteria themselves are self-serving and value-oriented. For instance, such criteria may involve (value) judgements about who is a reliable source, what is relevant information, what perceptions can be trusted, or what data can be depended on. Thus, Christians may admit God as one of the instances of truth, and anti-racists the everyday experiences of minorities in a racist society.

Concluding remark

Concluding this succinct discussion of the role of knowledge and truth in a theory of ideology, we thus find again that ideologies in general monitor group attitudes — that is, evaluative beliefs — but that also specific factual beliefs may be defined as knowledge within the group. That is, ideologies essentially control group specific judgements about what is good and bad, and also about what is trae or false for us.' This may also include parts of the meanings of specific concepts (such as 'racism'). This does not mean that, from an independent point of view, all group knowledge is ideological, since each group obviously shares knowledge with other groups. Nor does it mean that all truth criterio are ideological, since each group must be able to argue

in such a way (using general truth criteria) that others can be persuaded of their position.

Ideological knowledge control, however, does consist in selecting concepts and truth criteria that may be specific to a group, and may involve attributing special credibility to specific truth instances, such as God, Science, the Party or the Union. This also mean that again within the group itself such partisan knowledge is not found to be 'ideological' (and hence misguided) at all, but knowledge like any other kind of knowledge. But since group values, principies and other basic beliefs are involved that reflect the interest of the group, our (outside) description of course would generally take such knowledge and its truth criteria to be ideological, as defined.

12

Identity

What is identity?

Ideologies consist of a fundamental schema of which the first category defines the membership criteria of a group. Together with the contents of the other categories, such criterio define the social identity of a group. This means that whenever a group has developed an ideology, such an ideology at the same time also defines the basis for the group's identity. The question is what this implies exactly. Does it mean that group members can only be considered group members, and hence partake in a group's ideology when they actually identify themselves as group members? What exactly 'is' such an identity, and the process of 'identification' in the first place?

Again, my approach to such questions is socio-cognitive: identity is both a personal and a social construct, that is, a mental representation. I briefly discuss this element in the theory of ideology precisely because it may be situated at the boundaries of a theory of social identity, a theory of social cognition and a sociological theory of group membership. I

In their representation of self, people construct themselves as being a member of several categories and groups (women, ethnic minorities, US citizens, journalists, environmentalists, etc.). This self-representation (or self-schema) is located in episodic (personal) memory. It is a gradually constructed abstraction from personal experiences (models) of events. 2

Since such models usually feature representations of social interaction, as well as interpretations of discourse, both experiences and their inferred selfrepresentations are at the same time socially (and jointly) constructed. Part of our self-representation is inferred from the ways others (other group members, members of other groups) see, define and treat us. When experiences are shared with others, abstracted personal experiences, and hence self, may pardy merge with the self-representation of the group. A feminist may thus feel herself to be a feminist in more or less the same way as other feminists do, and, in that respect, self of an individual feminist may be pardy constructed with the elements of the socially shared self-schema of feminists as a group. The more the feminist construction of self corresponda to the socially communicated and shared group schema, the more an individual woman will 'identify with feminism.

This does not mean, of course, that such a weak or strong group identification needs to be dominant in specific events and situations. A feminist joumalist, when gathering or writing news stories, may well

primarily identify as a journalist (and hence adopt ideologically based joumalistic attitudes, including the opinions and models derived from those) and only secondarily as a feminist, and the converse will be true if that same woman participates in feminist action.

In other words, group identities may be more or less abstract and contextfree, in the same way as 11 social representations are. Similarly, social members may share in several social identities that are more or less stable across personal contexts, and thus defining a personal self, but in concrete situations some of these identities may become more salient than others. Thus, in each situation, the salience, hierarchy or relevance of group identification will monitor the actual social practices (e.g. the action priorities or 'motivatioñ) of social actors. Unless we admit a theoretically doubtful notion such as 'situational identity', thus, we should distinguish between relatively context-free personal identity (which may be a composition of various social identities) or personal self, on the one hand, and the actual, situated practices of social actors that may be seen as manifestations of (some aspects of) personal identity.

People may'objectively' be members of groups (and be seen by others as group members) and still not identify with their groups. Such well-known forms of dissociation, which most dramatically may occur for inherentidentity groups (young, old, men, women, whites, blacks, etc.), but also for professional groups, probably implies that such 'members' do not share the ideology of the group either. Indeed, they may, for a number of reasons, rather identify with opposed groups and their goals and values. Derogative words such as 'traitor', 'renegadé , 'dissidene, 'linde Tom' and so forth show what kind of reactions and sanctions group members may face when denying or leaving their own group. It also explains why anti-racists are sometimes considered to be more of a problem in white society than racists

— they share the ideology of the others that'our' society is racist, and thus threaten the positive self-definition of 'us' as the dominant group (see Chapter 28). Treason is, either literally or at least symbolically, a capital offence for many groups, as is the case for sedition, defection, and becoming an'infldel'. Conversely, strong identification and co-operation will usually be positively valued in tercos of solidarity, allegiance and fidelity. AH this applies not only to social practices, but also to ideologies and the forms of 'mental' solidarity with groups represented in self-representations that may be assumed to be at the basis of such social practices.

Personal and group identity

These arguments suggest first that we need to distinguish between social or group identity and personal identity. The latter takes the two forms informally described aboye: (1) a mental representation as (personal) self as a unique human being with its own, personal experiences and biography — as

represented in accumulated mental models, and the abstract self-concept derived from it, often in interaction with others; and (2) a mental representation of (social) self as a collection of group memberships, and the identification processes that are related to such membership representations. These identification processes may be assumed to depend on a comparison between personal and social self. If the membership criteria, activities, goals, norms, values, position or resources of the group are in fine with (at least consistent with) those of the personal self construct, identification may be more or less strong. If not, a process of dissociation may take place, including association with other groups.

For a theory of ideology, this of course has implications for the ways individuals identify with group ideologies and attitudes. When membership is largely ideological (as for political parties, Churches, etc.), such ideological dissent usually implies leaving the group altogether when one's dissenting opinions are inconsistent with those of the group as a whole. For professional ideologies this is much more difficult because they are closely related to goals and interests of everyday professional practices. It is difficult to 'be' a professor and at the same time not 'feef like one, and if professional ideologies represent the aims, values, norms and social resources of the professional group members, ideological dissociation is seldom in one's personal interest. Of course, there may be other considerations, other ideologies and values, which may be accepted as more valid, despite one's group membership. Thus, occasionally professors may espouse student ideologies.

Ideology as group identity?

All these processes account for personal variation and the complexity of the manifestations of group ideologies in everyday life. However, it should be recalled again that ideologies are essentially shared and hence need to be defined at group level. The same is true for the social or collective 'identity' of the group as a group. Usually, identity is taken in an individualistic fashion, in terms of representations and identification processes of group members. However, in the same way as groups may be said to share knowledge, attitudes and an ideology, we may assume that they share a social representation that defines their identity or 'social self as a group. 3

My attempt to bring some clarity to the multitude of notions related to the field of ideology suggests that, at least at the cognitive level of description, social (group) identity probably collapses with a group self-schema. And since I have taken such a schema as the most likely candidate for the format of a group ideology, we need to conclude that group identity collapses with group ideology. 4 Given the way I have analysed social ideologies, this is not entirely improbable, sine the relevant categories precisely define what Identifies' the group, especially also in relation to other groups. That is, the

ideological group self-schema should represent precisely those fundamental beliefs that are generally shared (acquired, used, reproduced) at the group level, and answer such fundamental questions such as 'Who are we?', Where do we come from?', 'Who belongs to us?','What do we (usually) do, and why?', 'What are our goals and values?', and so on. 5 The theoretical (general, ideological) answers to such questions are therefore continuously taught and repeated in social encounters, symbolic interaction, and other group activities. It is this that is inculcated, sometimes explicitly (in didactic situations or in times of crisis), and often implicitly; in the many group-relevant social practices of the group, its institutions and its members.

On the other hand, there are a number of arguments that plead against equating group identity with ideology. Thus, if the cognitive dimension of group identity is defined in terms of the specific social representations shared by the group, the notion of group identity is more inclusive than that of ideology. After all, ideology was more strictly defined as the 'axiomatic' basis of the shared social representations of a group. That means that ideologies form at most the basis of group identity, that is, the fundamental propositions that pertain to more or less stable evaluations about 'our' group's membership criteria, activities, goals, norms and values, social resources and especially our position in society and the relations with special other groups.

Just like personal identity, social identities may change. Whereas some basic (ideological) principles may remain more or less identical over a relatively long period of time, the more specific social representations, such as attitudes, may adapt strategically to social and political change. Thus, although the peace movement might of course keep its basic pacifist ideological principies, specific attitudes about different forms of disarmament, the deployment of nuclear arms, and other issues may depend more directly on the political situation, including the changing attitudes of opponents, or the realization of oné s major goals. 6

Such changes of group attitudes more generally pose the question about the nature of social identity. If social identity is defined in terms of shared social representations, and if these may continually change, also the very notion of identity should be more a dynamic than a static notion. But if social group identity is in turn a crucial defining property of social movements and other groups in the first place, then the very notions of movement and group need to be much more dynamic. As we shall see in more detall in our discussion about groups, in Chapter 15, this would mean that a group is not merely a more or less stable collectivity of people, but also or rather defined in terms of a permanently changing set of cognitions and their concomitant practices. Identity then becomes a process in which such a collectivity is engaged, rather than a property. For that reason the term identification would probably be more satisfactory than the more static term 'identity'. Just like persons, groups may thus be permanently engaged

in a 'search' for their identity, as a function of social structures as well as changes.

Social identity as collective feeling'?

Social identity is often associated also with more affective or emotional dimensions. Although these concepts open the well-known Pandora-box of emotion theory, and raise the old question whether emotions are (also) cognitive and not (merely) physiologically based, we should not run away from such theoretical problems. The point is that if emotions necessarily have a physiological basis, they need to be strictly personal, since groups obviously have no bodies. But, similarly, groups have no minds, and we still speak about socially shared mental representations. Thus, what does it mean that group members may share 'emotions' as distinct from sharing (strong) evaluative beliefs?

If emotions are (also) defined in tercos of bodily arousal of some kind, then a 'shared' emotion would imply that group members would be constantly aroused. Thus, if feminists are 'angry' about male chauvinism, does that mean that afi individual women who identify themselves as feminists constantly 'feel' angry. Of course not. However, individual feminists may be (more) likely to become angry at specific moments of expressions of male chauvinism. But not the same as saying that feminists as a group (permanently) 'share anger', in the strict sense of an emotion.

Rather, I would suggest, such an expression does not denote emotion at but strong negative beliefs. Indeed, while holding such strong negative beliefs, some feminists may never actually feel angry about social inequality of the group, although again they may become angry about personal experiences of such inequality. The same is true, more generally, for feelings of social identification. One may 'feel' strongly about oné s membership of

a group, but again such a 'feeling', I propose, is a set of evaluative social representations (e.g. attitudes about equal pay, abortion, etc. for feminists), rather than an ongoing emotion shared by al 1 or most members of the group.

In other words, the frequently observed emotional attachment of members to a social group may not be, as such, an alternative to the cognitive definition of group membership given aboye. This does not mean that individual group members may not tend to be (more) emotional in their personal (but group-related experiences). However, it does mean that such emotions, as such, cannot be actually 'shared'. They may be known, respected, talked about, and in that way they are 'shared'. But there is no such thing, it appears, as a 'collective emotion' of a more or less permanent nature. This again does not mean that, at a specific moment, a collectivity of people may not have more or less the same emotion, for instance when demonstrators are angry during a demonstration. But that is not the same thing as a shared, collective feeling of a group, a feeling that exists also beyond such specific 'emotional' moments.