NARRATIVE & Chapter 4

IDEOLOGY Carmella Hinacay 

ENE 13.03 - B

"Narratives are... a kind of political action." (Toolan 2001: 206)

It is clear, therefore, that narrative is a potentially powerful force, and that stories can be used
to persuade and steer us towards accepting certain values and beliefs as the norm.

Narrative as a 'mode of thinking' (Tambling 1991: 109)

Often explicitly concerned with worldbuilding and imaging social structures and ways of

organising culture and society

May act as critique of what exists in the real world

In this chapter, Marxist approaches to the study of narrative will be considered

Narratives as 'perpetuating dominant ideologies'

Counterarguments and array of viewpoints

BARTHES'S RHETORICAL
MARXIST APPROACHES TO NARRATIVE MYTHOLOGIES APPROACHES

Narrative as a 'purposive
Ideology works in the interests of the dominant class In the mid-1950s, Barthes
communicative act' (Phelan
Frankfurt School - cultural texts are seen as a means of oppression published an essay about the
2007: 303)
A Marxist approach might therefore focus on how advertisements French press
Poetics enables a purging of
promote bourgeois domesticity, or how ads encourage consumerism 'The falsely obvious' - an
emotions in its audience
Classic Marxist approaches have been replaced by analyses ideological view of reality
The particular choices in the
Focus more on identity formation and the politics of gender, ethnicity, Subjects: contemporary films,
narration have 'designs on its
etc. advertising, sports, and cuisine
audience's values'
'It is impossible to stand outside ideology..." (Turner 2006: 198) He offered readings of myths
The role of narrators is crucial
Ideology owes much more to Althusser and Gramsci Barthes' theory of myth brought a
Rhetorical approach: careful to
Althusser (1971): "a representation of the imaginary relationship of new political dimension to
distinguish between author and
individuals to their real conditions of existence" narratology
'implied author'
Individuals take up the subject positions offered to them by Mythologies helped to establish
The issue of ethics has become
powerful social forces or 'ideological state apparatuses' semiotics as a key framework for
more prominent
Gramsci's theory of negotiated hegemony paved the way for cultural analysis
This view sees narrative as an
studies to focus on the potential of negotiation of meaning The term contextual narratology
opportunity to excise moral
Television narratives perhaps offer the most compelling examples of has emerged in opposition to
judgments and make ethical
complex interplay between ideology and resistance formalist narratology and as part
choices to encourage the
More recently, cultural materialism and new historicism focus on the of a seeming advance into a
development of interpretive and
constructive role of ideology in shaping individual subjects and societies 'postclassical phase'
discursive skills

POSTMODERNISM
DIALOGISM & THE POSTIDEOLOGICAL
ANALYSIS

Russian theorist Mikhail
Bakhtin (1981) argues that
narrative may offer contesting
positions and voices.
In a dialogic text, there is a
continuous interplay between
voices.
The novel offers readers a
unique opportunity to come 'to
know one's own belief system
in someone else's belief
system'
Bakhtin's concept of the novel
as embracing the coexistence
of competing voices allows us
to talk about narrative as a
site for the display of power
while also accepting the
possibility for openness and
resistance
Postmodernism - a rejection
of the possibility of belief or
faith in institutions and
dominant discourses that
purport to offer us absolute
truths of any kind
Grand or master narrative -
include religious, scientific,
or historical systems of
knowledge that once had
power, but are challenged in
contemporary society
Slavoj Zizek (1989):
'postideological society'
Idea of ideology as some
kind of illusion or mask
doesn't make sense if
nobody ever believes that
they are dupes of
ideology
News stories have been a major focus for ideological criticism
A common strategy is to compare how the 'same' story is represented
in tabloid and broadsheet newspapers
Linguistic criticism focus on the particular terms of address used for
those involved in the story (e.g. 'terrorists', 'protesters', etc)
Language can also shape how blame and responsibility is apportioned
News stories do not have narrators in the same sense as works of fiction
The structure of news stories can also help to reinforce a particular
ideological view
Traditionally starts with the most recent events and work backwards
The Disappearance of Flight MH370
One of the biggest news stories in the spring of 2014 about the
mysterious disappearance of flight MH370 with over 200 passengers on
board
In the extract, we can see that the reporting in this case provides some
degree of personalisation in the form of emotive response by the airline
official
Subtle choices in language, structure and style betray a particular view of
events which restricts the range of possibilities of interpretation by the
readers.

CONCLUSION
An ideological analysis exposes how language and structure help to shape and direct the

reader or viewer's response and can also highlight what is not said as well as what is.