- a set of ideas which gives account of the social world
- relationship of these ideas to the way that power is socially distributed
- the way they are posed as 'taken for granted' ideological assumptions from the natural world
Marxism:
Walter Benjamin, a German-Jewish intellectual described Marxism as "art in the age of mechanical production".
Leading up to the 1789 Revolution, Marx argued that ideas are not free floating but instead, systematically linked to social power. In the 19th century, he questioned the supposedly 'natural' but unequal order of things by analysing the new profit and market dominated system: Capitalism, as well as the rising manufacture industrialists and the working class. Marx emphasised the importance of class difference or people's different relationships to the means of production: do they 'own' or 'work for'. He argued the working class had the power to change history through their united action and used the concept of ideology to account for how the Capitalist class protected its economic issues:
- The 'dominant ideas' of any society are those which work in interest of the ruling class to secure it's rule or dominance.
- He argued a 'base-super-structure' model of the social role of institutions such as the media existed; the ways in which the basic needs of a social order meet determine it's superstructure.
- The dominant class is able to make workers believe that existing relations of exploration and oppression are natural and inevitable.
Gramsci and 'hegemony':
Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) created the term 'hegemony' which was a development of Marx's theory and became a new way of thinking how dominant value systems change throughout struggle. Gramsci argued that particular social groups struggle for ascendancy using persuasion and consent where as Marx emphasised on the imposed dominance of the ruling class and the determining power of the economic base.
