IDEOLOGY

• 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.

• These sets of beliefs in the media are those held by groups within society, and the common ones are those held by the ruling/dominant groups.

IDEOLOGYDominant ideology or hegemony• In any society the accepted and agreed beliefs are those of the ruling class,

i.e. the class with all the money, is at the same time its ruling intellectual (with all the ideas) force.

• Hegemony is the concept used by Marxist critic Antonio Gramsci to describe how people are influenced into accepting the dominance of a power elite who impose their will and world view on the rest of population. Gramsi argues that this elite is able to rule because the rest of the population allow it to do so. The media it can be argued plays a central role in accepting the dominant views of the powerful.

• Hegemony is not a forced political movement. 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.

• 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.

Hegemonic Ideology

• Noam Chomsky an American critic of media, argues that popular culture can be used to divert people’s attention from real issues such as their conditions of employment. He argues that it is only the intellectual and educated classes who must be persuaded to agree with the ideological values of the ruling elite.

Forrest Gump

• Key areas

1. Race – black panthers, KKK, civil rights, influence of blacks on rock n roll

2. Peace movement – hippy movement

3. The war in Vietnam

4. Representation of women – Jenny

5. disability