Media, ideologia e egemonia culturale

Ideologia e egemonia
Sociologia delle comunicazioni
29/3/11
• “Is there an underlying and coherent set of values
and beliefs that characterise media
representations of the world? Do the media
prescribe particular ways of thinking about social
problems and their solutions?... Is there a
consistent pattern to the bias and stereotyping
observed in the media’s coverage of events? Do
the media construct specific meaning through
genres and narratives? Are the media vehicles for
carrying and conveying ideas of one group of
people rather than others?” (Williams
Understanding Media Theory, p. 145)
Teoria critica neo-marxista
degli anni 1960 e 1970
(studi culturali inglesi o
scuola di Birmingham)
Louis Althusser (1918-1990)
Per Marx (1965)
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)
I Quaderni del Carcere
(1925-1935) pubblicati tra
il 1948 e il 1951
James Curran, Michael
Gurevitch and Janet
Woollaccott
(eds)(1977)
Mass communication
and Society.
Open University.
‘Early American research focused on the effects of the
media on individuals rather than the area of
‘meaning’ or the relationship between the media and
more general social and economic organization and
this social psychological impulsion tended to obscure
the analyses of media messages which was in any
case dependent on the impoverished methodology of
content analysis’ (James Curran et al 1977 p. 311)
The work of the Frankfurt School represents
an earlier development of a critical
philosophical variant of Marxism, ‘critical
theory’, which rejected both the
economic determinism of Soviet Marxism
and the empirical positivism of the
American tradition of mass
communications research…
The impetus of Adorno’s work was culturally
elitist and pessimistic about mass culture
and the implication was that the only
real and authentic culture rests on a
specific type of art…’ (p. 312)
Stuart Hall, il CCCS (Centre for
Contemporary Cultural
Studies) di Birmingham e il
Marxismo (gli anni 70)
‘Culture, Media and the
Ideological Effect’ (1977)
Materialismo storico e cultura
‘Culture has its roots in what Marx, in The
German Ideology, called man’s ‘double
relation’: to nature and to other men… Men
collaborate with one another for the more
effective reproduction of their material
conditions… No matter how infinitely
complex and extended are the social forms
which men then successively develop, the
relations surrounding the material
reproduction of their existence forms the
determining instance of all these other
structures. (Hall 1977, p. 315)
This the basis for a materialist
understanding of social
development and human
history: it must also be the
basis of any materialist or
non-idealist definition of
culture.. Production always
assumes specific historical
forms, under determinate
conditions…’ (Hall 1977, p.
316)
‘For Marx, the relations which
govern the social
organization of material
production are specific… The
social and cultural
superstructures which
‘corresponds’ to each mode
of production will be
historically specific.
(p. 316)
Totalità e reale
For Marx, the major modes of
production in human history
have been based on one
type of the exploitation of
the labour of some by
others. Modes of production
are therefore founded on a
root of antagonistic
contradiction (p. 316-317)
Il modello marxista:
Base
Economia (modo di
produzione, base, reale)
Sovrastrutture
Società (relazioni di potere
determinate dall’economia,
involontario, stato, famiglia
società civili)
Cultura (forme, linguaggio,
rappresentazione, coscienza,
ideologia)
Ideologia
‘The ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas:
i.e. the class, which is the dominant force in society, is at the
same time its dominant intellectual force. The class which has
the means of material production at its disposal, has control
at the same time over the means of mental production…
Insofar as they rule as a class and determine the extent and
compass of an epoch, they do this in its whole range, hence
among other things they regulate the production and
distribution of the ideas of their age; thus their ideas are the
ruling class of the epoch.” (Marx e Engels The German
Ideology citati in Williams, p. 37)
Ideologia
a. Il contenuto dei media è ideologico, e l’ideologia sarà quella
della classe dominante trasmessa attraverso i messaggi
mediatici
b. Il problema della determinazione/autonomia della cultura
(ideologia) rispetto al modo di produzione (economia e
società)
c. L’ideologia è la coscienza (falsa coscienza, relazione
immaginaria, identificazione, soggetto etc)
Il lavoro dell’ideologia:
a. Trasformare una relazione nel suo opposto
(camera obscura)
b.Far sì che una parte rappresenti il tutto
(feticismo)
c. Nascondere il tutto
Esempio di ideologia: il mercato
come camera obscura
‘For Marx, capitalism is the most dynamic and
rapidly expanding mode of production in
human history… production comes to depend
on socialization or ‘interdependence of
labor’… But this interdependence is realized
and organized through the market…And in the
market, men’s all sided independence…
appears as a condition of mutual
unconnectedness and indifference.’ (p.323)
Esempio di ideologia: il mercato
come feticcio
‘The market represents a
system which requires
both production and
exchange as if it
consisted of exchange
only’ (p. 323)
Esempio di ideologia: il mercato
come occultamento
‘making the real foundations of
capitalist society in production
disappear from view… hence
we can only ‘see’ that labour
and production are realized
through the market… we can
no longer ‘see’ that it is in
production that labour is
exploited and surplus value
extracted.’ (p. 323)
L’ideologia per gli studi culturali
• Non c’è relazione omologica tra modo di
produzione e ideologia, ma una serie di
trasformazioni
• L’ideologia (cioè la sfera della cultura, o del
linguaggio e rappresentazione) è produttiva
(produce, teorie, immagini e rappresentazione)
• L’ideologia non si esprime solo nelle
rappresentazioni, ma anche nelle pratiche
culturali (la pratica sociale della significazione)
La mediazione del linguaggio
… all social life, every facet of social practice, is
mediated by language (conceived as a system
of signs and representations, arranged by
codes and articulated through social
discourses… (p. 328)
As Volosinov puts it, …’the domain of ideology
coincides with the domain of signs. They
equate with one another. Wherever a sign is
present, ideology is present too. Everything
ideological possesses a semiotic value’ (p. 329)
Stuart Hall ‘Encoding/Decoding’
Es. Roland Barthes Mitologie
Edward Said Covering Islam (1981)
Louis Althusser e l’ideologia
• Le istituzioni sociali e culturali sono
relativamente autonome dall’economia
• Apparati statali repressivi (polizia e esercito) e
apparati statali ideologici (chiesa, scuola,
università, famiglia, media etc)
Louis Althusser e l’ideologia
• L’ideologia per Althusser non è
semplicemente ‘falsa’ o ideale
o mentale’. Althusser definisce
l’ideologia come ‘la
rappresentazione della
relazione immaginaria degli
individui alle loro reali
condizioni d’esistenza’.
• La psicanalisi di Jacques Lacan
e la teoria dei tre stadi (reale,
immaginario, simbolico)
• Immaginario e identificazione
Louis Althusser e l’ideologia
• L’ideologia funziona
attraverso il meccanismo
dell’interpellazione
• L’interpellazione lavora
sull’inconscio e dà forma
al soggetto
• L’individuo è soggetto
nella misura in cui è
precostituito da
strutture sociali
Louis Althusser e l’ideologia
“He introduces the concept of ‘interpellation’ to explain the
process by which individuals are constituted as subjects.
Ideology operates to do this. Individuals are interpellated
(have social identities conferred on them) through
ideological state apparatuses from which people gain their
sense of identity as well as their understanding of reality.
Like all structuralists, Althusser sees the human being as
determined by pre-given structures such as language,
family relations, cultural conventions and other social
forces. Althusser did not concede that the individuals could
resist the process of interpellation’ (Chandler citato in
Williams p. 149)
Antonio Gramsci e l’egemonia
culturale
“Conquistare la maggioranza politica di un Paese
vuol dire che le forze sociali, che di tale
maggioranza sono espressione, dirigono la
politica di quel determinato paese e dominano
le forze sociali che a tale politica si
oppongono: significa ottenere l'egemonia.”
(Gramsci Quaderni del Carcere)
Antonio Gramsci e l’egemonia
culturale
‘Hegemony is the operation wen the dominant
class fraction not only dominate but direct –
lead: when they not only possess the power to
actively coerce but actively organize so as to
command and win the consent of the
subordinated classes in a continuing way.’
(Hall 1977 p. 332)
Antonio Gramsci e l’egemonia
culturale
‘…hegemony works by ideology… ‘definitions of
reality, favourable to the domninant class
fractions,… come to constitute the primary
‘lived reality’ for the subordinate classes… the
dominant classes strive and to a degree
succeed in framing all competing definitions
of reality within their range, bringing all
alternatives within their horizon of thought’
(Hall p. 333)
Antonio Gramsci e l’egemonia
culturale
L’egemonia culturale non può mai essere vinta
una volta per tutte (quindi è instabile, quindi
terreno di battaglia)
Ripresa da Ernesto Laclau e Chantal Mouffe: la
lotta per l’egemonia è la lotta per estendere la
democrazie a più soggettività
Antonio Gramsci e l’egemonia
culturale
L’egemonia culturale lascia spazio all’idea di una
guerra semiotica o di segni e significati a cui
possono partecipare sia gli ‘intellettuali
organici’ che i pubblici stessi
Stuart Hall et al (1978) Policing the Crisis:
Mugging, the State and Law and Order
“The authors showed how the media created
public anxiety over the crime of ‘mugging’,
student protests and picketing. Together
the media represented the increase in
violence and disorder as a threat to law and
order in society. There was no evidence to
show that any increase had taken place – in
the period the book examines the incidence
of crimes of violence had actually fallen.”(p.
151)