прагматика и медиа дискурс / Teun A van Dijk - Ideology

314 Conclusions

belief, many of which are not Ideological'. So, a theory of ideology needs to focus on specific, ideological beliefs.

8 The traditional distinction between episodic and semantic memory is used to distinguish between personal beliefs, on the one hand, and social beliefs or social representations, on the other hand. Ideologies are of the latter kind, and hence first (and as yet incompletely) defined as shared, social beliefs of (specific) social groups.

9 Since on the other hand there are also several types of socially shared beliefs (knowledge, actitudes, norms, values, etc.) some of which are not ideological, it is further proposed that ideologies are the general, abstract beliefs that underlie (other) social representations. In that respect, they are like the basic axioms of the system of social representations shared by a group.

10 Ideologies are not arbitrary lists of propositions, but organized by specific social categories that constitute an ideology-schema, such as Membership, Activities, Goals, Values, Position or Resources. These categories are the cognitive (re)construction of the basic social criteria for groups. Cognitively, this schema functions also as the self-schema of the group, defining its social identity and interests.

11 Ideologies also may have other structural characteristics, such as those of group polarization (Us versus Them).

12 Ideologies are the basic social beliefs of specific groups, but themselves rooted in the general beliefs (knowledge, opinions, values, truth criteria, etc.) of whole societies or cultures. This allows the very understanding, communication and interaction between (members of) different groups.

13 Ideologies, as social representations, are generally assumed to be at least coherent. Such coherence explains the frequently observed coherence and continuity of ideological opinions, practices and discourses among different social members and in different situations.

14 Ideological coherence does not imply that ideologies are always used coherently by group members. That is, the equally frequently observed variability of discourse or social practices monitored by ideologies, is not due to lacking ideologies or incoherent ideologies, but by several other factors, such as the interaction of several ideologies (and group memberships) for social members, personal experiences, and the constraints of the situation.

15 Ideologies are coherent and complex only at the group level for which they are defined. Depending on their social position and socialization, different (sub)groups of social members (e.g. the ideologues) may have different ideological expertise.

16 The main cognitivefunction of ideologies is to organize the social representations of a group. Indirectly, that is, through more specific, domainrelevant, attitudes and knowledge they thus monitor social and personal beliefs and ultimately the social practices and discourse based on the latter.

17 Attitudes are here defined as socially shared complexes of the shared opinions of social groups, and are carefully distinguished from personal opinions.

18 A distinction is also made between factual beliefs (trae or false knowledge) and evaluative beliefs (opinions, attitudes, ideologies) which are based on the application of socio-cultural values.

19 The well-known problem of the relation between social knowledge and ideology was resolved by making a distinction between (historically variable) cultural knowledge that serves as a 'common ground' for all (competent) members, on the one hand, and the specific knowledge of a group (which may be called 'opinions' by members of other groups). It is the latter kind of group knowledge that may be ideologically controlled. Group knowledge may sometimes become general cultural knowledge and vice versa.

20 Although ideologies may thus also control group knowledge, they especially monitor the shared evaluative beliefs (opinions) of a group. They are the basis of the social judgementS of groups and their members.

21 Ideologies are not defined as wrong, misguided, false, or distorted beliefs of a group. Epistemically, whatever their truth status for the group itself, they may be trae or false. It is not their truth value, but their cognitive and social role (e.g. effectiveness, usefulness) in the management of thinking and interaction that is the criterion for their evaluation.

22 The socio-cognitive notions introduced aboye explain more analytically such notions as ideas, beliefs, (false) consciousness, common sense, in traditional studies of ideology.

23 In order to explain how socially shared representations in general, and ideologies in particular, can be related to personal cognitions (and then to discourse), the notion of mental model is used, for example to account for the subjectivity of personal experiences, interpretations and representations of discourse and action and the representation of contexts.

24 Models are the interface between the social and the personal, between the general and the specific, between the macro and the micro. They apply or instantiate socially shared information (knowledge, attitudes, ideologies) in relation to self, to current situations, tasks, problems, actions and discourse. Conversely, they are the experiential basis for the generalization of personal beliefs to social knowledge, attitudes and ideologies.

25 Models embody personal and applied social beliefs, and thus, indirectly, ideologies. It is through ideologically controlled models that ideological social practices and discourse can be produced by social members.

Social analysis of ideologies

26 Ideologies are by definition social; they are socially shared by groups. They are only individual in their personal, contextual uses, applications or implementations by individual social members. In that respect they are like language systems (or grammars, or discourse tales).

316 Conclusions

27 Ideologies are not generally social or cultural, but defined for specific social groups. Not all collectivities of people form such groups, but only those collectivities that satisfy a number of group-criteria, such as (more or less continuous, permanent and organized) membership conditions, joint activities, interaction, goals, norms and values, a specific position in society and social resources, and especially shared social representations. These precisely map onto the cognitive structures of shared ideologies. Thus, groups constitute ideologies (and hence social identity) just as much as ideologies constitute groups.

28 The socialfunctions of ideologies are tied to these properties of groups. They represent group identity and interests, define group cohesion and solidarity, and organize joint actions and interactions that optimally realize group goals. That is, ideologies resolve the fundamental problem of social and interactional co-ordination, namely, that, despite personal and contextual variation, individual social actors are generally able to act as group members, and often in the interest of the group as a whole.

29 Ideologies are especially relevant for the management of social such as those of domination and conflict, but also those of

competition and co-operation. It is in this respect that ideologies may function as legitimation of power abuse and inequality, on the one hand, and as a basis for resistance, challenge, dissidence and change on the other hand.

30 Given the definition of ideology in terms of social groups, they are not limited to dominant groups. Such would unduly restrict the notion and make it theoretically much less interesting. For one thing, it would prevent an ideological analysis of dominated groups and practices of resistance.

31 Because of their preferential access to, and control over, public discourse, and especially of the media and education, various elites have a special role in the formulation and reproduction of ideologies. Although ideological reproduction is both top-down and bottom-up, this suggests that a relatively small number of 'symbolic' elites (writers, thinkers, politicians, scholars, journalists, etc.) may exercise the special role of ideological leaders, who preformulate and stimulate ideological debate.

32 The effective reproduction and implementation of group ideologies often requires organization and institutionalization, typically so by ideological institutions such as those of politics, the media and education.

particular, via social beliefs (knowledge, attitudes) and personal beliefs (models).

34 Discourse has a special function in the expression, implementation and especially the reproduction of ideologies, since it is only through

language use, discourse or communication (or other semiotic practices) that they can be explicitly formulated. This is essential in contexts of acquisition, argumentation, ideological conflict, persuasion and other processes in the formation and change of ideologies.

35 Despite the fundamental role of discourse in the expression and reproduction of ideologies, That is, they should not be defined as statements, and their nature and structure should not be identified with the structures of text or talk. An analytical distinction should be made between ideologies as general, abstract, sociocognitive (mental) representations shared by a group, on the one hand, and the specific, personal, interactional, contextualized uses of the ideology in specific social situations by individual social members, on the other hand. Indeed, if ideologies were to be reduced to (or identified with) discourse, it would be impossible to explain how they can influence other social practices.

36 An analysis of the discursive expression and reproduction of ideologies requires a detailed, systematic account of the various levels, structures, units and strategies of text and talk, defined as communicative events. Such an analysis should not, as was traditionally often the case, be limited to a vague study of the 'production of meaning'. Besides complex semantic analysis of various types of meaning, also explicit other theories are needed to account for these discourse structures and how they may express underlying ideological contents and structures, for example, phonological, graphical, syntactic, lexical, stylistic, rhetorical, schematic (e.g. argumentative, narrative), pragmatic and conversational structures.

37 Besides an account of the levels and structures of text and talk, discourse analysis also provides a detailed analysis of the many properties of the context, defined as the discourse-relevant structures of the social situation. Context influences discourse 'uses' (production and comprehension) through subjective mental models of language users, that is, through context models.

38 Ideological discourse production is a complex social and cognitive process in which underlying mental models are mapped on discourse structures — for example, mental models of events map on to semantic structures, and mental models of context on to the large number of variable discourse structures (forms, expressions, schemata, etc.). Context models exercise the overall control of such discourse production and ensure that discourses are socially (or indeed, ideologically) appropriate in the social situation.

39 Ideologically based mental models as well as more general social representations may thus be expressed or signalled at all levels of discourse structure, that is, forms, meanings and actions. The overall strategy hereby is in fine with ideological polarization and other structures, such as self-serving positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation.

40 This overall strategy may be implemented by a large variety offorms and meanings that emphasize (or mitigate) positive (or negative) properties

318 Conclusions

of the ingroup and the outgroup, respectively, for example through intonation, stress, volume, clause structure (transactivity: e.g. actives and passives), lexical selection, implicitness, presuppositions, local coherente, overall topics, rhetorical devices (e.g. metaphors), schematic organization (argumentation, fallacies), the selection of speech acts, and conversational and interactional management (e.g. of politeness).

41 Conversely, in and persuasion, these various discourse structures may in turra be used to influence the formation, the contents and structures of mental models and, often indirectly, of social representations and hence of ideologies. These strategies are generally tuned to the formation or change of preferred models or their structures, again under the general constraints of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation strategies.

42 However, and reproduction are not merely a function of discourse structures but also of the social context (or rather of context models), and of the (other) mental representations of the recipients, such as existing ideologies, attitudes, knowledge, models of experience, current goals and personal interests, and so on. This means that ideological influence may not always have the intended effects. Despite their group membership, and the powerful influence of social representations, social actors are in principie autonomous individuals, and hence largely in control of their opinion formation and change, for example as a function of personal interests, goals and wishes. Ideological influence, and hence reproduction, will hence be most successful if ideologies are consistent with personal experiences (models), if social actors have no (better) alternatives than the proposed ideologically based models for their opinions and actions, or if they can be manipulated to believe and prefer (misguided) information ('facts', opinions) even if it is not in their best interests.

43 A sample analysis of a book about race relations in the USA shows

(a) that social attitudes, personal opinions, event models and discourse may exhibir an interaction between various ideologies, (b) that conservatism is rather a'meta-ideology' than an ideology, (c) how social groups (Us and Them) are represented in attitudes and discourse, (d) how at many levels of text and by many devices ingroups are presented positively and outgroups presented negatively, and (e) how ideological discourse is (made) sociopolitically relevant in times of (real of imaginary) social crisis, as a means to confirm group dominance and to legitimate inequality.

Limitations and prospecta

The outline of the theory of ideology presented in this book and summarized aboye is just that: an outline. Yet, it tries to offer a comprehensive framework for detailed theoretical and empirical studies of ideology.

As suggested, such studies need to be multidisciplinary. One of the main limitations of traditional studies was that they ignored systematic and

analytical insights from other theories and disciplines. Indeed, I have shown that the cognitive and especially the discursive dimensions of the theories were hardly developed.

This meant that the classical, socio-economic approach could only be formulated in very general, abstract and often vague tercos. Ideologies empirically only 'show' in social interaction and discourse, as well as in their organizational and institutional structures, and hence they need to be empirically studied at those levels.

Moreover, a social explanation of ideological interaction and discourse is unable to relate social structure to interaction and discourse structure, and needs a cognitive interface. This cognitive interface, however, cannot simply and vaguely be identified with 'belief systems'. We need a much more detailed analysis of mental representations and mental strategies in order to understand how ideologies relate to social practices, and to discourse, and how they are thus reproduced.

I have tried to elaborate a theory that establishes these various relations. Obviously, many elements of the theory are not yet fully worked out. For instance, given the predominant social nature of traditional studies, I have only paid attention to some aspects of the role of social interaction and social structure in the formation, functions and reproduction of ideologies. I have assumed that ideologies are by definition group-based. However, we need to spell out in more detail under what conditions groups develop ideologies, and indeed how ideological groups are formed. We need to pay much more attention to the organizational and institutional dimensions of ideologies and the ways they function and are reproduced in society. Ideological conflicts need to be analysed in detail in order to understand the role of ideologies in such conflicts.

Similarly, despite the relative detail provided for some of the cognitive aspects of ideologies, there are many blank spots on the mental map of the structures, contents, organization and functions of ideologies. We have provisionally assumed an ideological schema based on social group selfschemata, but such a schema may be too specific, and not adequate for more general and 'universalise ideologies (such as religions and complex political ideologies). We need to know much more about the ideological control of the (structures) of other social representations, such as attitudes and knowledge. We only have tentative ideas about the relations between (personal, subjective) models of experience, and the socially shared representations of the group. Indeed, how and under what conditions are mental representations personal, and when are they socially 'shared' or Inowñ in the first place?

We know as yet very little about the internal organization of mental models and how they embody (ideologically based or other) knowledge and opinions. And fmally, we have only vague ideas about the precise relations between models and social representations on the one hand, and discourse structures or social practices on the other hand.

Finally, only a beginning has been made to an explicit analysis of those structures of text and ta1k that systematically express, convey, signal,

communicate or influence underlying ideologies. Although in principie all or most discourse structures may be so used, it may very well be that some do so more typically or more effectively. Much empirical work will be needed to show how some groups use (and abuse) discourse in very specific ways. Indeed, what kind of ideological discourse is typical for what groups, what are its properties, and how is it in turra socially and institutionally embedded? How are ideologies discursively expressed and reproduced in such important social domains as politics, the media and education?

In sum, there are many more questions left open than answered in this book. It should therefore rather be seen as a sketch for a research programme than as a complete theory of ideology. As strongly suggested, such a research programme can only be carried out successfully if scholars from different disciplines (and knowledge about each other's theories and concepts) combine to elaborate the theoretical and empirical details. The development of a fully fledged theory of ideology cannot be left only to psychologists, or only to social scientists, or only to discourse analysts, or, indeed, only to philosophers.