прагматика и медиа дискурс / Teun A van Dijk - Ideology

Introduction

Later debates in this Marxist tradition, however, questioned the economic determinism of the dassical definitions of ideology. Ideas, laws, philosophy, literature, and hence also ideologies, may in part develop autonomously with respect to the material base, and may even exercise their influence, topdown, on that economic infrastructure. 5 With Gramsci, these relations between ideology and society were conceptualized in terms of legemony'. Thus, instead of the imposition of dominant ideologies by a ruling class, hegemony more subtly works through the management of the mind of the citizens, for example by persuasively constructing a consensus about the social order.

It is especially this neo-Marxist view and its variants that have inspired many debates on ideologies at least until the demise of Communism around 1990, wheñ the terms of the debate changed again. Many of these approaches are now merging with a broader critical concept of ideology, for instance in the field of cultural studies. 6 Yet, whether as dominant or hegemonic ideologies, contemporary versions of the Marxist idea of the combined socio-economic and symbolic power of elite groups remain alive in many current approaches to ideology. In my own account of the role of the elites in the reproduction of racism, we shall encounter a special version of that idea.

In ongoing dialogue with (and often in opposition to) the Marxist strand of the tradition, sociologists and philosophers have continued to debate, with increasing sophistication, the social and political dimensions of knowledge, truth and scholarship itself. Por a long time, their insights into society were precisely self-defined as non-ideological, and hence as truthful and scientific. Both politically and in a scholarly context, Marxism was no exception. Aboye the fray of politics, and unbound by social or economic interests, thus, most scholars considered themselves afreischwebende Intelligenz, that is, beyond the pale of self-serving falsehood, and only interested in the disinterested search for the truth — only to be accused by more critical others of engaging in precisely what they wanted to avoid in the first place, namely, an ideology. This ideology of science, which tries to conceal its interests and wants its own beliefs to be accepted as truth by those who recognize its power and dominance, is thus hardly different from other ideologies that are developed to achieve hegemony, to legitimate power or to conceal inequality

— if only in the domain of knowledge. It is at this crucial point where the philosophy and sociology of ideology and the philosophy and sociology of science overlap.

It is only in a later stage, in the second part of the twentieth century, that more inclusive and less pejorative notions of ideologies develop. Here, ideologies are usually defined as political or social systems of ideas, values or prescriptions of groups or other collectivities, and have the function of organizing or legitimating the actions of the group. ' Most later work on political belief systems is rooted in this more general concept of ideology.

It is at this point where my own exploration will start. Yet, it will be emphasized that also the notion of a 'belief system' is still much too

1

general, and in need of further analysis. This is one of the reasons why this study also intends to continue (the few) psychological approaches to

ideology. 9

In this informal summary of some main strands of the classic debate about ideology, most notions, including the more controversia) ones, are as familiar as the narres associated with them. Although many are not very precise, as may be expected for such fundamental terms, these are the notions that are being used, and that have influenced the foundations of virtually all social sciences. Most studies of ideology, instead of going beyond the classics, keep repeating, reformulating and reinterpreting this Master Narrative of the Story of Ideology. Therefore, I feel delightfully free to presuppose Chis history to be known and to explore new ways of addressing the old problems, and at the same time perhaps create some interesting new problems.

A framework for a multidisciplinary theory of ideology

The philosophy and sociology of science tell us that old theories and approaches are seldom discredited because they are explicitly proven false or inadequate. Rather, other ideas become accepted that seem to be more attractive for whatever reason, sometimes because they provide a better account of the'facts', or because they focus on other, more interesting facts. Therefore, for the same strategic reason that I presuppose the history of the study of ideology to be generally known, it will not be my aim to discredit, attack or debate the multitude of such classical approaches. Such a dispute would precisely look back and remain entangled in the same frameworks of discussion and thought (see, however, some of the endnotes for comments on the relevant literature). Of course, Chis book cannot start from scratch, and will use and integrate those classical ideas about ideology that remain relevant in a new approach.

My main purpose, then, is to look ahead, to find alternative theoretical frameworks, to explore and incorporate other disciplines, and especially to work towards a comprehensive theory of ideology. Among other things, such a theory would describe and explain the following.

•the general status of ideology as a cognitive and social system

•the differences between ideologies and other (systems of) 'ideas'

•the components and internal organization of ideologies

•the relations between ideologies and other shared social representations

•the relations between ideologies and values

•the relations between ideologies and social structures

•the relations between ideologies and groups and their interests

•the institutional embédding of ideologies

•the relations between ideology and power and dominance

•how ideologies are acquired, used and changed

•how ideologies are reproduced

Introduction

•how ideologies are expressed in social practices in general

•how ideologies are expressed and reproduced by discourse.

Obviously, this is a research agenda that could keep several hundreds of scholars busy well into the next millennium, so my aims have to be more modest, and I shall therefore focus on only some aspects of such a theory.

I need not do so merely within the confines of the disciplines that have up to now dominated the debate, namely, philosophy, sociology and (in part) political science. Since I continue to talk about ideology, some of the more familiar notions, also from these disciplines, will appear again in my own approach. However, where necessary, they will be framed and formulated in a novel way, and related to concepts and theoretical developments that hitherto have received scant attention from the leading ideologues of the study of ideology. That is, a theory of ideology first of all needs to be multidisciplinary

Yet, we all have our limitations, interests and preferred ways of thinking, and my approach wiil therefore be located in the conceptual and disciplinary triangle that relates cognition, society and discourse. There are worse sites of inquiry when dealing with the notion of ideology. First, even among those who deny it, ideologies are at least implicitly taken as some kind of'system of ideas', and hence belong to the symbolic field of thought and belief, that is, to what psychologists call 'cognition'. Second, ideologies are undoubtedly social, and often (though not always) associated with group interests, conflicts or struggle. They may be used to legitimate or oppose power and dominance, or symbolize social problems and contradictions. They may involve social collectivities such as classes and other groups, as well as institutions, organization and other parts of social structure.' Hence the pervasive interest of sociologists and political scientists in the notion of ideology. And third, many contemporary approaches to ideology associate (or even identify) the concept with language use or discourse, if only to account for the way ideologies are typically expressed and reproduced in society." Concealment, legitimation, manipulation and related notions that are seen as the prime functions of ideologies in society are mostly discursive (or more broadly semiotic) social practices. Of course, as we shall see, this does not mean that ideologies are expressed only by discourse, but merely that discourse has a specific role, among other social practices, in the reproduction of ideologies.

Having staked out this very broad and multidisciplinary field of inquiry, it is my contention that precisely the complex relationships involved here — namely, those between cognition, society and discourse — are needed in an explicit theory of ideology. To say that ideologies are systems of 'ideas' and hence in need of a psychological approach will be an interesting suggestion only if we realize at the same time that diese 'ideas' are also social (and political and cultural), and that we therefore need to account for them in

Introduction

terms of the study of social representations and their functions for social

cognition. 12

And conversely, if ideologies are part of social structure and somehow exhibit or even control the relationships of power and dominance between groups (classes, social formations, organizations, etc.), such a sociological approach will similarly be relevant only if we realize that ideologies characterize the 'mental' dimension of society, groups or institutions. Combined then, these mutual relationships locate my theory first of all in a joint psychological—sociological account of the social mind in its social (political, cultural) context.

However, this still leaves us at a level of mental or social abstractions that have no empirical grounds. We need to 'seé ideologies expressed or lived by social actors, and 'at work' in concrete social situations, that is, in everyday social practices. Many of these practices would do as a domain of empirical research. Thus, forms of everyday discrimination against women and minorities may be studied as manifestations of sexist and racist ideologies. However, although we may well assume that such discrimination is largely ideologically based, it does not as such 'articulate' these ideologies themselves — at least not as explicitly as the discourses that explain, defend, legitimate, motivate or otherwise lormulate' fragments of the'underlying' ideologies.

In other words, although discourses are not the only ideologically based social practices, they certainly are the most crucial ones in the formulation of ideologies in their social reproduction. Language use, text, talk and communication (together subsumed here under the overall term of 'discourse) are needed and used by group members to learn, acquire, change, confirm, articulate, as well as to persuasively convey ideologies to other ingroup members, to inculcate them in novices, defend them against (or conceal them from) outgroup members or to propagate them among those who are (as yet) the infidels. In sum, if we want to know what ideologies actually look like, how they work, and how they are created, changed and reproduced, we need to look closely at their

Note that such a discourse analysis itself is multiply related to a cognitive and a social account. Discourse meanings, inferences, intentions and many other properties and processes of the mind are intimately linked with an adequate account of text and talk. At the same time, it has become the standard view in discourse studies that discourses are forms of social action and interaction, situated in social contexts of which the participants are not merely speakers/writers and hearers/readers, but also social actors who are members of groups and cultures. Discourse rules and norms are socially shared. The conditions, functions and effects of discourse are social, and discourse competence is socially acquired. In sum, discourse and its mental dimensions (such as its meanings) are multiply embedded in social situations and social structures. And conversely, social representations, social relations and social structures are often constituted, constructed, validated, normalized, evaluated and legitimated in and by text and talk

Introduction

Having sketched this rich conceptual triangle of discourse—cognition- society, we have a unique framework to precisely articulate the relationships that also are needed in the theoretical account of ideology. Of course, this is a complex project, or rather a vast paradigm for research, of which one scholar can only design the general outline and study some smaller fragments.

Aims of this study

This book aims to contribute to such a necessarily collective enterprise. In order to be able to emphasize what has often been neglected, my contribution will focus on the structures and strategies of discourse, social cognition and their mutual relationships, as well as on their social embedding — and less on societal (class) structure, or on those institutional, cultural and political dimensions of ideology that have received primary attention in earlier work. Of course, such an emphasis does not imply that the sociopolitical study of ideology is less fundamental.

Preparing the more specific studies of ideology and its relations to cognition, society and discourse, this book, then, primarily aims to do some of the theoretical groundwork. It does so by examining a number of theoretical concepts that may be needed (or rejected) in such a framework.

This also allows me to position my own approach and conceptual analysis in relation to current and past approaches: even new theories have historical backgrounds, and at least need to spell out which extant ideas deserve to be further elaborated and which ones are theoretically less fruitful. Thus, instead of reviewing again the history of such classical notions as 'ruling ideas', 'false consciousness', 'hegemony' or I

conceptual analysis of these and related notions in my new framework, and will either propose to redefine them or to leave them as history.

Obviously, such theoretical and conceptual groundwork has its own limitations. Many of the notions discussed in this study have been the object of impressive philosophical and social scientific treatises. Some of them (like'knowledgé or 'group') are the object of whole (sub)disciplines. I am unable to redo or undo all this previous work. However, I discuss some of it briefly in a new perspective and try to relate it somewhat more explicitly to the new notion of ideology I shall develop in this and the following studies.

Even where earlier studies are relevant for my enterprise, their main problem seems to be the lack of theoretical explicitness. Most crucially lacking is a theory of the internal components, structures or organization of ideologies. Very few of the large number of studies about ideologies ever get down to the mundane job of describing what they actually look like. In the same way, although most studies discuss the functions of ideologies for groups, group members, society and culture, there is not much work that spells out the details of such social or cognitive functions and that explains

ideological structures in terms of such functions. Thus, if ideologies are being developed to legitimate' power or social inequality, what is the precise nature of these legitimation processes and practices? And finally, if ideologies are expressed and reproduced, if not constituted, by discourse, similar questions may be asked — how does this happen, what discourse structures are involved and how exactly are these related to the social context? In sum, although much classical and current work on ideology is interesting and relevant also for our own discussion, their analyses usually remain at a level of abstraction that defies detailed inquiry. It is the aim of this book to design some of the elements of a research programme that will try to answer such fundamental questions.

The new concept of ideology

To do this, I intend to develop a new notion of ideology that serves as the interface between social structure and social cognition. In that framework, ideologies may be very succinctly defined as the basis of the social

This means that ideologies allow people, as group members, to organize the multitude of social beliefs about what is the case, good or bad, right or wrong, for them, and to act accordingly.

Ideologies may also influence what is accepted as true or false, especially when such beliefs are found to be relevant for the group. In that latter, epistemological sense, ideologies may also forro the basis of specific arguments for, and explanations of, specific social arrangements, or indeed influence a specific understanding of the world in general. Note, though, that ideologies in this framework are not simply a 'world view' of a group, but rather the principies that forro the basis of such beliefs. Here we enter the perennial debate about the relations between ideology and knowledge, which we alsó need to examine in some detall.

In most (but not all) cases, ideologies are self-serving and a function of the material and symbolic interests of the group. Among these interests, power over other groups (or resistance against the domination by other groups) may have a central role and hence function as a major condition and purpose for the development of ideologies. Ideologies thus operate both at the overall, global level of social structure, for instance as the socially shared mental 'monitor' of social competition, conflict, struggle and inequality, and at the local level of situated social practices in everyday life.

The core of this new concept of ideology is not an arbitrary invention that would take us too far from earlier scholarly as well as commonsense notions of ideology. If that were to have been the case, we should have had to invent a new terco altogether. Several current definitions of ideology share important elements with my own. Many authors would agree that an ideology is something like a shared framework of social beliefs that organize and coordinate the social interpretations and practices of groups and their members, and in particular also power and other relations between groups.

Thus, to quote just one of many such definitions by an influential scholar, Stuart Hall defines ideology as follows:

By ideology I mean the mental frameworks — the languages, the concepts, categories, imagery of thought, and the systems of representation — which different classes and social groups deploy in order to make sense of, figure out and render inteligible the way society works. (Hall, 1996: 26)

We see that many elements of my own approach already appear here: a mental framework of beliefs about society and the cognitive and social functions of such a framework for groups. Given his other work, Stuart Hall would probably have no objection if we were to add to his definition that ideologies are not limited to making sense of society, but that they also serve to regulate social practices. In the explanation of his definition, he explicitly refers to the role of ideologies in the stabilization (and one might add, the challenge) of particular forms of power and dominance

The aim of this book, then, is to go beyond such definitions, and actually spell out what exactly these 'mental frameworks' are and how exactly (members of) social groups 'make sense' of, communicate and otherwise interact in society on the basis of such frameworks. That is, we need not only a definition, but also a detailed theory of ideology.

The cognitive versus the social?

One possible objection to the cognitive definition of ideology in tercos of the basis of the social representations shared by a group may be that this approach is too 'idealise . As will become olear later in this book, such a critique would be misguided. Ideologies are not merely defined in cognitive terms, but also in terms of social groups, group relations, institutions, at the macro-level and in tercos of social practices at the micro--level. It will be emphasized that ideologies are constructed, used and changed by social actors as group members in specific, often discursive, social practices. They are not individual, idealistic constructs, but the social constructs shared by a group.

However, it will also be stressed that for a theoretically useful theory of ideology, we should analytically distinguish between these socially shared mental representations, on the one hand, and the social practices that are (partly) controlled by them, or by which they are constructed. Such a distinction is as useful as that between grammars or discourse tales and actual language use. Hence, although a theory of ideology has an important cognitive component, such a theory would not be complete without an equally crucial social component. This does not imply, however, that the theory of ideology, as is the case for traditional Marxist approaches, should be 'materialise in the sense that it is rooted (only) in the socio-economic base of society.

In sum, and more generally for my work, I precisely advocate a productive integration of the cognitive and the social, the individual and the

10 Introduction

collective. That both discourse and ideology are social constructs and accomplishments should by now be a truism, and it also informs the approach in this book. Much contemporary discourse analysis is socially (or rather 'interactively') oriented and ignores the crucial cognitive dimension of language use and social practices. This book will therefore focus on cognition (and discourse) rather than on the (more familiar) social dimensions of ideologies, but that does not mean that these are less important. No adequate theory of discourse or ideology can be developed wíthout examining the role of socio-cultural knowledge and other shared beliefs that provide the 'common ground' of all discourse and social interaction. My point is that these 'representations' are both social and mental.

More specifically, an exclusively social or 'interactionise theory of discourse or ideology is unable to describe in detail how exactly societal structures (groups, power, institutions, etc.) and even social interaction and contexts condition the actual production and understanding of discourse, and indeed the very participation of social actors in social interaction. If language users share knowledge, rules or 'methods' then these should also be made explicit in cognitive terms. The Intermediaté representations and processes involved in these complex and detailed relationships between society and discourse are not and should not be ignored, or mystified. We are able to explain such relationships only if we know how language users actually go about writing or talking, reading or understanding, and indeed interacting, that is, by thinking and by 'making sense' of what they and their co-participants do. This does not mean that discourse (or ideology) is reduced to individual persons, nor to their minds. But text and talk of language users cannot be explained without at least a serious cognitive analysis of the minds of such language users, and especially how such minds shape and are shaped by discourse and other social practices in context.

Obviously, cognitive science does not provide the full story about the representation and processes that are involved in language use and the development and the uses of ideologies. Cognitive science is unfortunately not interested very much in social representations and ideologies, nor in social issues more generally. With some notable exceptions, most current social discourse analysis in turn ignores cognition, for example, because it is afraid of psychologism, cognitivism, mentalism or individualism. None of these -isms needs to be feared as long as one knows that discourse and ideology are social phenomena and as long as one embeds cognition in social contexts and society. That people think, and share their beliefs, is part of that social Efe of language and ideology, and analysing thinking and believing, in ,detail and explicitly, is also a task of the socially minded scholar. Theoretically, then, there is no alternative but to integrate a social and a cognitive analysis in the study of ideology, as will be extensively argued throughout this book. Ignoring either the social or the cognitive dimension of ideology will imply unwarranted reduction. This book, and also my other work on discourse, emphatically rejects such reductionism.

A critical approach

Apart from being multidisciplinary, and attempting to formulate a more explicit theory of ideology within the discourse—cognition—society triangle, my work on ideology also aims to be critical, in the sense of articulating an explicit position of scholarly dissent in relationships of societal dominance and inequality. 13 Contrary to traditional critical approaches, however, this does not mean that the definition of ideology is limited to a concept that sees ideology only as an instrument of domination. There are good theoretical and empirical reasons to assume that there are also ideologies of opposition or resistance," or ideologies of competition between equally powerful groups, or ideologies that only promote the internal cohesion of a group, or ideologies about the survival of humankind. This implies that, as such, ideologies in my approach are not inherently negative, nor limited to social structures of domination.

Does this more general conception of ideology take away the critical edge of the enterprise, as is sometimes suggested, or prevent ideological critique? Of course it does not. No more than that the use of the general concept of 'power' precludes a critical analysis of power abuse, as well as solidarity with the forros of counter-power we call resistance. The same is true for the general concept of legitimation'. Again, ideologies may be critically examined when (unjustly) legitimating power abuse or domination, but that does not mean that afi legitimation, as such, is negative. Most forms of applied ethics will accept the legitimation of resistance against domination. It would be rather arbitrary to use the notion of ideology only for the belief systems we do not accept. What about the ideological belief systems we are indifferent about — would we have to declare them non-ideological because we have not made up our mind about them? Obviously, as will be argued in more detall later, this cannot be a fruitful criterion for the use of a theoretical concept. Thus, ideologies will only be (generally) defined in terms of their contents and structures, as well as in terms of their cognitive and social functions.

Such a general notion is perfectly compatible with a critical analysis of 'bad' ideologies such as those of class domination, racism or sexism, that is, of ideologies that deny, conceal, legitimate or monitor social inequality. A general concept of ideology not only provides a more solid framework for a critical approach, but also allows comparison among different kinds of ideologies, the changes of ideologies from systems of resistance to systems of domination (or vice versa), and a more coherent and complete study of the embedding of ideologies in social cognition as well as in social structure. In this sense, my study explicitly continues but also fries to renew the tradition of critical theory in the social sciences and the humanities initiated by the Frankfurt School sixty years ago. Is

My previous major project was a study of the ways racism is reproduced by discourse. In order to establish a link with this work, and at the same time to have a more specific example, several chapters will make some comments

on racist ideologies. These examples are merely illustrative — a fully fledged theory of racist ideologies would require a separate monograph, with its own theoretical framework and especially a serious empirical study of the ways racist ideologies manifest themselves, for instance in discourse.

Organization of this study

The discussion of some of the key topics of a theory of ideology will be organized as follows. It starts with what I consider to be the core of such a theory, namely, the account of what ideologies 'are', where we can 'fmd' them, what they look like, what their components are and how they are related to other phenomena of the same kind. This will bring us to the study of ideology as the foundation of . social cognition, and of the relations between ideologies and other mental representations, such as values, attitudes, opinions, knowledge and mental models of events. At the same time, such an analysis allows us to spell out the cognitive functions of ideologies. Having established such a framework, I am able to discuss more explicitly a number of classical concepts associated with the notion of ideology, such as (false) consciousness, truth and falsity, common sense and (in)consistency, among others.

Next, such an account of ideology in tercos of social cognition will be located in a social context. That is, we need to spell out first of all what it means exactly that social cognition in general, and ideologies in particular, are socially shared, and indeed who or which groups have them, and especially also why. This brings us to the analysis of the fundamental social functions of ideologies. Such functions will probably also shed further light on the elusive problem of the intemal structures of ideologies. Similar questions may be asked about the discursive manifestations of ideologies in their social contexts. Which contexts, situations, participants, institutions, groups and group relations, or other micro or macro social structures are involved in this 'practical accomplishment' of ideologies in discourse, and hence in the everyday enactment and reproduction of ideologies? Which relationships of power, dominance, resistance, competition or conflict constrain or occasion such ideologies? This framework allows us finally to discuss in somewhat more detall the many social concepts traditionally associated with ideology, such as those of power, domination, elites, institutions, groups and communities.

Since these social embeddings and functions are obviously the reason why people develop and use ideologies in the first place, I might have started with a discussion of these social notions. In many respects this would have been theoretically more adequate. However, given the orientation of traditional research, we know much more about these social dimensions of ideology, so that I may first focus on the less familiar study of the cognitive core and then locate these in their social contexts and highlight their discursive reproduction. In other words, I first want to know what ideologies