Representation of Ideology in Print Media

Submitted by: Hamza Majeed

Registration no. : ( 2020-GCUF-062369)

Submitted to: Prof M. Ashraf

Course code : ENG-404

Course Title : Media Studies

Department of English

GCUF
 Representation of Ideology in Print Media
Representation of ideology in print media is an important topic. So before starting discussion
about this first of all we have to understand the concept of ideology. Such as:

 What is ideology?
 Origin of ideology?
 Nature of ideology?
 Characteristics of ideology?
 Significance of ideology? etc.

By covering up such points as given up we can understand the concept of ideology easily and
this is also going to be very helpful and supportive in the discussion and understanding of our
main topic which is Representation of ideology in print Media.

What is Ideology :

Ideology is defined by different Linguists and Ideologists in different way some of them are
listed below.

“Ideology can generally be thought of, as set of ideas, beliefs and aims which a person

Or a group of community holds in their mind.”

(Fair Clough 1992)

“It is not possible to read off ideologies from texts because meanings are produced through
interpretation of text.”

(Fair Clough 1992)

"Ideologies are constructed, maintained and propagated in or through language."

(Fair Clough 1992)

"A set of doctrines or believes that are shared by the members of a special group or that form
the basis of a political, economic and other systems.”

“Ideology is a set of ideas that are important to a person, a group or a culture.

 “Study of origin and nature of ideas. "

”The philosophical study of nature of ideas."

“Doctrine, philosophy, body of belief or principles belonging to individual or group."

“Ideology is the lens through which a person views the world.”

“An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons,

especially as held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as
prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied primarily to economic, political, or religious
theories and politics.”

(Wikipedia)

Origin of Ideology:
The term "ideology" was for the first time used in 1796 when ( D.D. T) Antoine Destutt de
Tracy coined the term "ideologie."

The term ideology originates from French ”idéologie”, itself deriving from combining Greek
Word ‘ideo’ means Ideas and the Word ‘logie’ means to study, science. Thus, the term
‘ideology’ in its literal meaning refers to ‘science of ideas’ or the study of ideas. Which he
claimed to have adapted from the epistemology of the philosophers John Locke and Etienne
Bonnet de Condillac, for whom all human knowledge was knowledge of ideas.

In social sciences, the term “ideology” refers to the science of ideas that act as a basis for
societal setup/system. More simply, the term ideology refers to a set of ideas on which the
social, economic, and political system of a society is built.

Characteristics of ideology:
Ideology in the stricter sense stays fairly close to Destutt de Tracy’s original conception and may
be identified by five characteristics:
(1) it contains an explanatory theory of a more or less comprehensive kind about human
experience and the external world;

(2)it sets out a program, in generalized and abstract terms, of social and political organization;

(3) it conceives the realization of this program as entailing a struggle;

(4) it seeks not merely to persuade but to recruit loyal adherents, demanding what is
sometimes called commitment;

(5) it addresses a wide public but may tend to confer some special role of leadership on
intellectuals. In this article the noun ideology is used only in its strict sense; the adjective
ideological is used to refer to ideology as broadly defined.

Nature of ideology :
All ideologies arise from the needs and perspectives of their originating groups in their
historical frame, and all ideologies assume superior knowledge of human society. These
assumptions form the shared precepts which allow a particular belief system to be defined as
an ideology. It is the nature of ideology to claim privileged access to truth.

Much of human history is the chronicle of human destruction at the hands of those with a
different comprehensive and explicit ideological doctrine.

The great conflicts of the last several centuries have had their deepest roots in ideological
differences. One can uncover the central role played by ideology as one reads historical
accounts of the American, French or Bolshevik revolutions and observe the legacy of these
ideological conflicts in contemporary political events and economic disagreement.

Ideology is trans-cultural . In 20 th century ideological conflicts causes wars and economic

disruption. Ideological conflicts causes large scale violence .

Significance of ideology:
Term 'Ideology' means science of ideas. It contains those ideas that a nation strives to
accomplish in order to bring stability to its nationhood. The main purpose of Ideology is to offer
change to a nation and adherence to a set of ideals where conformity already exists, through a
nominative thought process. Ideologies are system of abstract thoughts applied to public
matters and thus this makes this concept central to politics. The ideology grows among a dis-
satisfied nation as a challenge to the prevailing social setup.
Classification of ideology:
There are two main types of ideology discussed or under discussion now a days. which have
great importance. political ideologies, and epistemological ideologies .

 Political Ideology:

“Political ideologies are sets of ethical ideas about how a country should be run.”
Many political parties base their political action and program on an ideology. In social studies, a
political ideology is a certain ethical set of values, principles, doctrines, myths, or symbols of a
social movement, institution, or class which explains how society should work. It offers a
political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order. A political ideology largely concerns
itself with how to allocate power and to what ends it should be used. Some parties follow a
certain ideology very closely, while others may take broad inspiration from a group of related
ideologies without specifically embracing any one of them.

Political ideologies have two dimensions:

Goals: how society should work (or be arranged).

Methods: the most appropriate ways to achieve the ideal arrangement.

 Epistemological ideology:

“Epistemological ideologies are sets of ideas about the philosophy, the Universe, and how
people should make decisions.”

The word epistemology is derived from the ancient Greek episteme, meaning "knowledge", and
the suffix -logia, meaning "logical discourse."

Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the
rationality of belief, and various related issues. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of
philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.

 Social ideology:

Sociologists define ideology as:-

"cultural beliefs that justify particular social arrangements, including patterns of inequality."

Dominant groups use these sets of cultural beliefs and practices to justify the systems of
inequality that maintain their group's social power over non-dominant groups.
  ethical ideology:

Ethical ideology consists of :-

the degree of relativism (use of universal. moral rules) and idealism (belief that good can
come of all situations) exhibited. by individuals when they make an ethical decision (Forsyth,
1981)

. A highly. relativistic individual would reject moral principles to analyze situations.

Ideology in Media Studies:

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. It is important to
be able to identify the different ideological discourses that may be present in even an
apparently simple photograph.

In sociological terms, ideology is a body of ideas or set of beliefs that underpins a process or
institution and leads to social relations. These sets of beliefs are those held by groups within
society, and the prevalent ones are those held by the ruling/dominant groups.

Dominant ideology or hegemony:

In any society the accepted and agreed beliefs are those of the ruling class, i.e. the class which
is the ruling material (with all the money) force is at the same time its ruling intellectual (with
all the ideas) force.

For Example:

Christianity is the main historical example (think of how many legal systems take Christian
moral values as their basis)- are there any modern day equivalents? 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.

Hegemony:

Hegemony is not a forced political movement, however. To use the previous example, 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.
Representation of ideology in print media:

Significance of Headlines:
Significance of Headlines Ogilvy (2006) asserts that headlines are best site for ideological investment and
are considered as one of the most important genres of newspapers as they can capture the attention of
specific readership easily to provide them an overview of the social construction of ideology in a desired
manner. Headlines play an important role in orienting the readers’ interpretation of a particular event.
Ungrammaticality is a prominent feature of newspapers’ headlines. They capture a story in the fewest
possible words. As Abastado (1980, p.149) argues that “headlines encapsulate not only the content but
the orientation.”

The following characteristics of newspaper headlines must be focused:–

 Headlines make the story prominent

 Headlines help the readers to interpret the real
 Headlines of newspapers evoke shared cultural knowledge.

Example

Here is an example of representation of different ideologies by different media groups.

H1 .Daily Dawn news headline;

“Over 60 Palestinians , 13 Israelis troops die in Gaza shelling and clashes”

( 2 actors are there both are active)

H2 .Daily nation news headline;

“Bloody Sunday in Gaza as 100 Palestinians killed.”

(1 actor and is passive)

That's how two different ideologies are sold by different news groups through headline. Dawn
news considers both Palestinians and Israelis as suffered groups. Both are equally involved in all
the disturbance. while the Nation news considers Palestinians as suffered or in trouble but it
also has not the power to blame the Israel for Palestinians' suffering . And trying to show the
helplessness of the Palestinians.

As Halls (1997) opines that reality and representation are different from each other. Reality
can't be represented in print media. It is re capitulation of reality which is re-presented in
newspaper headlines.
Critical Discourse Analysis:
Fair clough & Wodak (1997) regard language as a social practice. According to them, discourse
is language in action in society. Describing discourse as a social practice implies a dialectical
relationship between a particular discursive event and the situation(s), institution(s), and social
structure(s), which frame it: the discursive event is shaped by them, but it also shapes them.
That is, discourse is socially constitutive as well as socially conditioned. CDA, is a post-mortem
of language to explore the deeper meanings embedded in different layers of language.
Moreover, it can also reveal biases of new reporter/controlling ideological group to maintain
power and construct reality in a desired manner.

Discursive Techniques Used in Print Media:

There is power within and behind print media discourses. Print media on one hand serves the
purpose of controlling ideological groups and on the other hand highly politicized language
(miss)represent an event to propagate desired ideology. Usually, it is observed that in order to
disseminate different ideologies to the readers, different discursive techniques are used by
print media. These discursive techniques are used as persuasive tools to disseminate particular
ideology to the target readership (Phillips et al., 2004). CDA focuses on studying or exploring
different discursive techniques, employed by a powerful group or community to subjugate the
powerless with the help of certain linguistic practices. The group, which is aware of these
discursive techniques, subjugates those who are unaware of these. Hence, they shape the
mindset of the people and maintain their dominance and hegemony .

Theoretical Framework:
Dijk (2006) in his work, “Politics, Ideology and Discourse”, proposes a research model to
analyze print media discourses. He describes that print media discourses are more suitable to
propagate different types of ideologies. Moreover, he is of the view that in political discourses
different linguistic spins are used to politicize the event to propagate what is desired by the
ideological controlling groups. Moreover, he talks about an important factor about political
discourses that is they carry two types of power i.e. power within discourses and power behind
discourses.

CDA of Media Discourse:

CDA is applied in different domains for a detailed analysis of both texts i.e. written and spoken.
Media discourse is analyzed in relation to different social aspects like political, geographical and
historical context. He proposes an effective and result oriented socio-cognitive framework to
analyze discourses of print media. According to him, media discourse represents the
assumptions of ideological group of media depending on their cultural, political and social
background (Dijk, 1998). However, it is important to know that media discourse cannot be
interpreted easily; even simple texts (headlines) carry different implicit and explicit ideologies.

Categories of Ideological Discourse Analysis:

Dijk’s (2006) model consists of the following analytical categories:

• Actor description (meaning): Based on the ideologies, actors are described in a

positive/negative way.

• Authority: Mentioning authorities in remarks to support one's claims.

• Categorization: When people are assigned in people to different groups.

• Consensus: Agreement and solidarity among members of a group or society.

• Disclaimer: Idea are presented as positive and suddenly rejected in second part of sentence
with the help of different words such as “but”.

• Evidentiality: Support of ideas or statement with the help of facts.

• Hyperbole: When a statement or any event is exaggerated. Politics, Ideology and Print Media:
A CDA of Newspapers’ Headlines 49

• Implication: Telling any information which is not told in the sentence apparently.

• Irony: A trope that involves incongruity between what is expected and what occurs Or Saying
something and meaning something else.

• Lexicalization: It is a discursive technique for the representation of others through the use of
different words in statement or discourse.

• National Self Glorification: Glorification of one’s country by telling positive things about her
in statements.

• Number Game: Use of numbers, facts and figures to make statement concrete.

• Polarization: Representation of persons and departments with good attributions of US to

make “In group” and representation in bad way of THEM to make “out group”.

• Presupposition: Pre-occupation of mind about anything, person and incident.

• Vagueness: Un-clarity and ambiguity about anything or issue.

• Victimization: Representation of Others by telling bad stories about them.

Genre analysis:
Hartley opines that;

"genres are the best site to propagate ideologies- they limit the meaning potential of a given
text."

Hodge and Kress describe genres as;

"typical forms of texts which link kinds of producer, consumer, topic, medium, manner and
occasion, adding that they control the behavior of producers of such texts, and the
expectations of potential consumers".

In relation to print media, Nonnas Fairclough notes that;

" genre analysis in good at showing the mutine and formulaic nature of much media output,
and alerting us for instance, to the way in which the immense diversity of events in the world is
reduced to the often rigid formats of news"

World view:
Merriam Webster Dictionary (2015) defines Worldview as :

Worldview is the understanding of any person or group about anything or idea which is socially
accepted. Worldview is the mirror of mind through which a person views the outer things in the
real world. Worldview can include personal relations , emotions , ethics , cultural values and
understanding about anything or even.

Presupposition:
It is a technique which is not written in any discourse or statement but it is the shared
knowledge in a society about any particular person or event which pre-occupy the minds of the
inhabitants of a society.

For Example:

The statement “Zaheer examined a patient in his clinic.“ presupposition that “Zaheer is a
doctor.” Presupposition can be positive as well as negative. Presupposition of any powerful
man or group can influence the lives of powerless class in a society.Negative presupposition can
fail communication between two groups.
Presupposition is very important while conducting Critical Discourse Analysis of any text or
speech because presupposition can change the analysis and can explore implicit meanings
behind the words .According to Fairclough (1992)

“Presupposition are also features of INTERTEXTUALITY in that they constitute something taken
for granted by the text producers which can be interpreted in term of intertextual relations
with previous texts of the text producer.”

Persuasion:
It is a technique through which a writer or speaker convince a reader or listener in a desired
way . Through the technique of persuasion . A writer or speaker intends to change the
perception of a person or his/her attitude towards people , events , ideas , and the world .
Different persuasive discursive techniques include different emotive and strong words and
logics . Which support your argumentations to make your statement or idea accepted . When
any scholar or expert person support anything or idea then that thing or idea become concrete
and people believe on that thing or idea .

For Example:

In any commercial a doctor claims that he is also using this product his home personally.

Print and Electronic media persuade the audience and readers with the help of different lexical
items to differentiate between THEM and US .

Lexicon:
Lexical items are very important in any discourse to convey any ideological idea or thinking of
any person or group . Lexical items are the words through which any person or group
represents THEM as negative and US as positive in any discourse through the use of different
words .Without lexicalization this representation is not possible . These lexical items are used
according to situation and demand of the sentence . With the help of these lexical items any
analyst tries to decode the underlying meaning of the sentence because the use of these lexical
items is very ideological and can’t be ignored by any researcher .

Face:
The apparent appearance of the people in society is face . Goff man (1967) argues that ;
“It is the positive social value which a person claims for himself in a society to represent himself
or represented at any particular time in any particular contact . Face is man’s positive
representation in front of anybody or group with social accepted norms . The people want to
reveal their positive face in society through ethics or religion . They exploit religion and social
power to maintain positive face in a society . Positive face is the inner desire of any person to
attain praise and approval from members of society . Whereas Negative Face is a naked power
to subjugate the weaker class in a society with the use of any illegal act or immoral situation.”

Data Analysis and CDA of Newspapers Headlines:

This section deals with critical discourse analysis of the selected front page main headlines of
the mentioned newspapers regarding the representation of political events. It shows that how
same political themes is represented differently by employing various discursive techniques by
the two newspapers.

Dijk (2008) believes that print media discourses act like a prism, either to construct reality or to
distort reality as designed by some ideological group. Each newspaper serves as a sight of
ideological investment to shape the mindset of target readership accordingly. Analysis and
Discussion: Same Event, Different Representations

Analysis and Discussion: Same Event, Different Representations:

Theme of Politics The headlines published in the daily “The Nation” and “The Daily Dawn” on
29th September 2014 have been analyzed below employing Dijk’s (2006) model to locate
ideological underpinnings with the help of different discursive techniques.

Headlines:
H.D1: Imran vows to hold rallies in all big cities.

H.N1: Imran Khan steals Punjab’s heart.

The context that surrounds the two headlines is about the sit in staged by Imran Khan and its
print media coverage in the Dawn newspaper goes like this; Imran vows to hold rallies in all big
cities. Above mentioned newspaper headlines are coined after a successful rally in Lahore. Two
different newspapers published the same news items with different ideological underpinning by
employing different discursive techniques according to the target readership to propagate
desired ideologies. To represent a different representation of facts, a news reporter reconstruts
reality in a desired manner according to ideologies of the presenters and their target readership
(Fowler, 1991). As a result, the same news event is represented differently by using different
discursive techniques in different newspaper headlines depending on the desired ideologies of
the newspaper(s) (Fang, 2001).

H.D1: Imran vows to hold rallies in all big cities (29th September 2014)

The headline under discussion finds coverage in “The Daily Dawn” carrying political theme.
Different discursive techniques are used to propagate political ideology in this headline as can
be seen below:

 Actor: Imran
 Categorization: all big cities
 Lexicalization: vows
 Presupposition: hold rallies
 Preposition: to, in

This headline illustrates that Imran regards his protest sessions or rallies against the
government to enlighten the people as his religious obligation. Merriam-Webster dictionary
(2015) defines, the lexical item, the verb “vow” as, “Serious promise made by someone to do
something for the benefit of others.”

H.N1: Imran Khan steals Punjab’s heart (29th September 2014)

Above mentioned headline was published in “The Daily Nation” carrying “political” theme. To
disseminate political ideology, the encoder of the headline used the following discursive
techniques:

 Actor: Imran Khan

 Hyperbole: steals
 Metaphor: Punjab’s heart
 Personification: Punjab’s heart
 Punctuation: ’

As far as the discursive techniques used in this specific headline are concerned, Imran’s
political struggle has been delimited only to Punjab’s heart. Here, Punjab has been represented
metaphorically. If somebody is capable of stealing heart, what remains behind, in this headline,
Punjab has been given the central importance. Heart is a vital part of human body and it almost
controls all the activities of the human body. Same is the case with Punjab. So, here, the use of
apostrophe (’) in Punjab’s heart implies that Lahore is the centre of Punjab and if somebody
wants to capture Punjab, he or she must be in a position to hold control in Punjab. The political
implications can be there because in Punjab there are maximum number of seats wither in
national assembly or of provincial assembly.
In “The Daily Dawn” Imran Khan is represented in different way whereas in “The Daily Nation”
Imran Khan is represented in a competitive mood with the help of different discursive
techniques. “The Daily Dawn” takes a straight and non-controversial statement whereas “The
Daily Nation” takes a statement based on paradox and it is controversial too. “The Daily Dawn”
and “The Daily Nation” both reflect political ideology but used different discursive techniques to
disseminate the desired ideology.

Conclusion:
Through above discussion it is concluded that how ideology is important and how it is
represented in print media by different sources and by use of language. It is very hard to
represent reality in print media . As Halls (1997) opines that reality and representation are
different from each other. Reality can't be represented in print media. It is re capitulation of
reality which is re-presented in newspaper headlines.

It is not possible to “Read off” from text because meanings are produced through
“Interpretation of text”. By reading text you cannot find what is the ideology behind it . When
you make stylistic and critical analysis of the text than you find out the real ideology behind the
speech . SO, we can say that ideologies are embedded in text which are also embedded in our
mind through print media .