Criticizing Ideology and the Media

By Eric Sindabi

I

IDEOLOGY is about how people think and identify themselves in society. It is also the process of criticizing or challenging other people’s ideas. Karlmax cast a negative shadow on ideology while critiquing media for propagating ideology of a few in societies to influence the masses. According to Karlmax the minority brainwash the majority and once they achieve this they rule.

Rulers apply all classes of ideology to suit their egos. Corruption, tribalism, racism, culture, prejudice, religion, class, and economic power can all be applied in ideology. Since time immemorial however many societies in the world have experienced the phenomenon of ideology where a few rule and dominate in society.

Critics of ideology however urge that ideology is an enslavement of the masses by the few dominant and results to inhumanity. The notion of mental slavery thus comes to surface. The masses always assume that there is no other way of thinking about reality other than the way their rulers think. It is to this point that critics feel, the media comes in as an agent of ideology because it is mandated by society to survey and transmit information.

Theory

According to an Italian philosopher Atonio Gramsci, the co-operation of the masses in the production or success of an ideology by a minority helps the rulers satisfy their goals. Critics observe that the sub-ordinate majority are subjected to social institutions that support the powerful. The media is one of them.

When the media for example fails to be objective but biased and un-ethical, it directly supports the aims of the dominant few in society through the information they circulate. From side to side opinion leaders propagate the ideology of the few that roots into the masses and justifies the goals of the media and that of the rulers. The media sales while the rulers gain.

Media theorists indeed believe that the media is powerful in this role. The masses are directly influenced by media content and shape opinions, beliefs and characters. Because the media is in business, it is controlled by the few dominant because of their economic powers. It sets the agenda for public opinion by psychologically affecting the thinking patterns of the majority in society through propaganda.

Hitler

Hitler was a racist. His ideology was that his Arian race was supreme over other races and that only Arians were the justified human beings in the world. This ideology was planted in his German followers who went at all bounds to support him achieve his political goals. He promised his followers that his ideas would help rebuild Germany into a mighty empire that would last for over a thousand years.

The Nazi Movement went ahead to exercise an in-human ruling style where millions of Jews in many European countries were oppressed and massacred to justify Hitler’s ideology. The regime spread death and hatred that provoked world war in 1939.As a result the Nazi killed about 6 million Jews as well as about 5 million other people that Hitler regarded as racially inferior or politically dangerous.