Framework
This is a study focusing on the entangled relationship between humans and ideology, specifically concentrating on academic critics who work on ideological analysis or critique.
Regarding the concept of humans (i.e., intellectuals or ideological critics) and the critiques, this thesis has offered literature reviews of both terms in Chapter 2. With regard to the discussion of ideology theory, this has not been addressed yet. In fact, this thesis will not offer a literature review of ideology in a single chapter. Instead, specific literature reviews of ideology will be presented together with related empirical analysis reports in the same discussion block. That is, although the following chapters 5-8 mainly focus on explaining what SWPs this thesis has found, the corresponding ideology theories will be introduced before explaining these SWPs.
For example, Chapter 6 explains the analytical pathways of ideological critique/analysis (Procedure 2), including Marx’s, Althusser’s, Gramscian, Semiotic and Historical Descriptive analytical pathways. As shown in Figure 4-1, in each discussion topic (see green box), this thesis first introduces the related ideology theories (see red box), and then provides the empirical reports regarding analysis of 33 IAC articles (see blue box). By such a framework arrangement, this thesis wishes to create a resonance between theoretical understandings and empirical practices.
Figure 4-1: Presentation of Literature and Empirical Analysis
Examples
Regarding the presentation of the empirical analysis, this thesis will only provide 2 or 3 examples found in IAC articles to explain each procedure (or sub-procedure) of SWPs. This is not only because of the limitation of pages but also to provide unhindered reading. Despite this, all other examples of the same SWPs in all IAC articles will be collated and listed in a reference-table attached at the end of each discussion. Take one reference-table (Table 6-1) from the empirical analysis chapter as an example (see Figure 4-2). This table collects all references/examples regarding all 33 IAC articles which apply concepts of Marx (i.e., Marx’s Analytical Pathway in SWPs) to analyse their research. For instance, in Research Article 02, readers can find the application of Marx’s concepts on pages 247, 248, 249, and 253 as the blue box in Figure 4-2.
Figure 4-2: How other SWPs Examples can be found in the Reference Table
To further explain the design and function of the reference-table.
SWPs Code: will be explained in next section.
Research Articles: are abbreviated as RA, which are followed with numbers to refer to certain articles, e.g., RA07. References of each article are in Table 4-1.
Found References/Examples: display all other examples related to the SWPs procedure of current discussion. Take RA13 in Figure 4-2 as an example (see red box). ‘p.287’ refers
Methodology to the original journal’s/book’s page. ‘(9)’ means the document page, which is provided for readers to quickly find the reference in the original IAC articles. All collected IAC articles are sorted in the disk attached as the Appendix 1. ‘c’ refers to specific concept-code of the discussion topic; it varies from one topic to another. For instance, in this example (Marx’s Pathway case), ‘c’ refers to Marx’s concept of ‘false consciousness’.
In Althusser’s pathway case (see Chapter 6, Table 6-3), ‘c’ refers to the concept of
‘interpellation’. Differences in each concept-code are provided at the bottom of each reference-table (see green box in Figure 4-2).
SWPs Codes and How they are Presented in IAC Articles.
In order to accurately record analysis findings, as well as to create a clear referencing system, this thesis has generated what it refers to as ‘SWPs Codes’ to undertake this task. Every SWPs Code refers to a particular (sub-)procedure of SWPs, (or say, each (sub-)procedure possesses its own SWPs Code). These codes are simply the abbreviation of the SWPs’ name.
For example, in the previous Figure 4-2, the SWPs Code is ‘P2-M’ which is the abbreviation of ‘Procedure 2: Applying Theoretical Foundations—Marx’s Analytical Pathway’.
During the process of analysis, once any part (e.g., words, sentences, or, paragraphs) of writings in 33 IAC articles are considered as referring to a specific (sub-)procedure of SWPs, a corresponding ‘SWPs Code’ will be marked alongside the detected parts of writing in that IAC article, as per the blue box in Figure 4-3.
Figure 4-3: SWPs Codes Marked in IAC Articles
Additionally, all SWPs Codes created for this thesis are listed as the following Table 4-2.
This table provides a map of all found/induced/established procedures of SWPs thus far. In this table, ‘Content Index’ is added, which indicates the part, section, and chapter to which the discussion refers.
Methodology
Table 4-2: SWPs Codes and Content Index of SWPs
Procedure of Key Points/Sub-steps SWPs Codes Index
1 Identifying Essential Elements
Finding the Classes P1-FC 5.2
Involving Power P1-PR 5.3
Presenting the Reality P1-IP 5.5
2 Appropriating a Theoretical Foundation
Marx’s Analytical Pathway P2-M 6.2
Althusser’s Analytical Pathway P2-A 6.3
Gramscian Analytical Pathway P2-G 6.4
Pathway of Historical Description P2-HD 6.6
Semiotic Analytical Pathway P2-S 6.7
3 Connoting Certain Meanings P3-C 7.2
4 Illustrating (Articulating and Interpellating)
1 via Thoroughly Understanding the History or Literature
Finding the Similarities P4-1-FS 7.5
Using References P4-1-UR 7.5
2 through Specific Presenting Techniques
Transferring P4-2-T 7.6
Direct Statement P4-2-DS 7.6
Writing Skills P4-2-WS 7.6
Explaining P4-2-E 7.6
5 Selecting Expression Styles
Purely Descriptive Style P5-PDS 8.2
Interpretative Style P5-IS 8.2
Defensive and Corrective Style P5-DCS 8.2
6 Revealing Personal Viewpoints
1 via Declaring a Standpoint Optimism P6-1-P 8.6
Pessimism P6-1-O 8.6
2 through the Narrating Traits
Title Selection P6-2-TS 8.7
Asking Questions P6-2-AQ 8.7
Personal Background P6-2-PB 8.7
Assertive Declaration P6-2-AD 8.7
How to Match SWPs Codes Within IAC Articles (How to Use the Disk)
This thesis usually offers 2 to 3 examples in each discussion of SWPs. Other related examples/references are collated and listed in the ‘reference tables’ which are the channels to find further examples in all IAC articles stored in the disk (Appendix 1). All analysis tracks of each IAC article were recorded by using ‘SWPs Codes’.
Supposed readers wish to see how RA05 applies Marx’s analytical pathway (SWPs Code is P2-M) aside from the example that this thesis has displayed in the main text. RA05 can be found on the disk (Appendix 1).
The following Figure 4-4 shows the connection between the reference table, P2-M, and IAC article, RA05 (see red box). The reference table of P2-M shows that readers can find the application of Marx’s concepts (see green box) on page 4 (see blue box). ‘(2)’ means the document page (see yellow box).
Figure 4-4: Connection Between Reference Table and IAC Articles
Moreover, the ‘arrowhead sign’ marked in IAC articles means the beginning of one SWP (see Figure 4-5). For example, in Figure 4-5, the arrowhead sign in the blue box means that procedure P2-S of the SWPs begins from this line. Similarly, in the green box, procedure P4-1-FS(MC), starts from the line where the arrowhead sign is.
Where an asterisk is combined with a number, such as *1 in the red box on the right means that this thesis also provides extra explanation for the reasons why this sentence/paragraph is considered to possess such a characteristic. Only by clicking the
Methodology hyperlinked asterisk (the red box on the top left), will a note box with an explanation appear (middle red box), as in Figure 4-5.
Figure 4-5: Reference of Arrowhead and Asterisk Signs (Note Box)
4.5 Conclusion
This chapter introduces the methodology specifically for later empirical analysis chapters (5-8). It has explained how research data (i.e., 33 IAC articles) were collected and the two research objectives of empirical analysis (i.e., examining the existence of SWPs and establishing a methodology for ideological critique). Literature and discourse analysis are two methods underpinning the empirical analysis. The former explains how this thesis induces SWPs (i.e, from collecting literature data, continuing to identify it, and finally to classify and induce findings). The latter adopts Fairclough’s three dimensions of discourse analysis (i.e., textual, discursive, social practice) guiding this thesis to examine the relationship among IAC analysts, their works, and outside social ideology. Finally, how this thesis presents research outcomes was also introduced in this chapter.
Standard Writing Procedures
Section of Empirical Analysis (Chapters 5-8)
Introduction
— Standard Writing Procedures of Ideological Critique
In Chapter 2, this thesis introduced two subjects—intellectual and ideological critique. It argues that intellectuals are the few people who are capable of working on ideological critique. Whilst, in Chapter 3, this thesis adopted three arguments in relation to the culture industry—the phenomenon of compulsion (invisible controls), commodification, and standardisation as offered by the Frankfurt School—to examine whether scholars’ works (particularly ideology-critics’) are being industrialized (especially focusing on the standardisation of their IAC works).
Yet, this argument does not mean that standardisation is bad. Showing standard procedures for writing IAC articles does not necessarily show that ideological critique is paradoxical. In fact, if the standard procedure for writing IAC articles exist, effective critiques could be made easily which might also help to generate emancipation in diverse research fields. What concerns this thesis is that if standardisation indeed happens to academic publications, especially works related to ideology, it means there is a guiding principle for scholars to follow; the undeniable fact is that such a principle inevitably results from either their own or social total ideology. Since an analysis or critique is based on ones’
ideology to argue against others’, from where might critics acquire the authority to claim that
‘my argument is right’?
In order to verify this assumed academic phenomenon of standardisation and investigate the capacity of ideological critics to escape the shackles of ideology, the following empirical analysis (chapters 5-8) will test whether a similar formation of discourse (i.e., the standard writing procedure) exists for analysts from different fields to write articles related to ideological critique/analysis. To determine or to establish/conclude such standard
writing procedures is to demonstrate the question discussed in later chapters: Can ideology-specialists (human beings) be immune from the influence of ideology? Or, what factors limit ideological critics’ capacity to undertake ideological critiques?
Although this thesis has distinguished the concept of ideological critique from general critique in Chapter 2, such discussion is based on a broad meaning of ideology. A clear and systematic discussion of ideology theories is still missing. Hence, findings of empirical analysis and its related ideology theories will be presented together in the following chapters.
In so doing, the aim is not only to provide a link between theory and practice, but more importantly, the aspiration to classify the current predicament of ideology research.
According to Abercrombie et al. (2006), there are three types of dimension to the concept of ideology: first, specific kinds of beliefs, e.g., communism, capitalism, socialism;
second, a distorted or false belief; and third, a set of beliefs (which has nothing to do with true or false) which is in cooperation with the construction of consciousness under the manipulation of power in a certain social condition (e.g., humans’ belief in one social movement).
However, not everyone is aware of the above distinctions applying the term ideology.
In fact, the problem of understanding ideology is the problem of epistemology. People usually neglect what they indeed refer to when they talk about ideology. Do they refer to the essence of the term ideology? Do they refer to the process of making an ideology? Do they mean the influence of ideology? Do they simply indicate ‘specific kinds of beliefs’, such as capitalism (i.e., the first type)? Do they try to reveal the false ideology that certain groups force people to believe (i.e., the second type)? Or, do they try to illustrate ‘a set of beliefs’
such as the belief in a student movement (i.e., the third type)?
Since people remain lost in diverse epistemology regarding ideology perspectives, the term ideology is lost in the process of definition and recognition. Words like ‘ideology’ and
‘ideological’ often only retain the negative or obscure meanings (Purvis & Hunt, 1993).
Ideology-related words all become ‘adjectives’ for purposes of emphasis; they are merely part of the vocabularies that users or readers mention or read without paying any attention41
41 Of course, here, it mainly refers to those academicians who are not specialized in ideology study.
To them, the word ideology is applied for the purpose of ‘emphasis’ which usually goes with the negative characteristic of ideology. Please refer to later discussion in this Chapter.
.
Standard Writing Procedures In brief, words related to ideology are used as ornamentation. Most readers, even academic scholars, care little about how ideology works or how it affects other matters; they have no thought for the significance of ideology. Yet, surprisingly, terminologies, such as alienation, dominant ideology, material existence, articulation, interpellation, relation of production, RSAs/ISAs, hegemony, false consciousness, reification or labour, have been applied through discussions related to topics of ideology. These terms resulted from diverse epistemological angles regarding ideology’s characteristics, but they have become entangled in diverse ideology discourses.
For this predicament of ideology research, a new map of understanding ideology will be suggested. This is also the reason why the literature of ideology theory has not yet been introduced. The related literature of ideology will be introduced and discussed together with corresponding empirical analysis results in order to map a clear structure of ideology.
Accordingly, this thesis distinguishes the question ‘what is ideology?’ into two perspectives:
the nature of ideology and the making of ideology. Understanding the nature of ideology is the first procedure of the six SWPs for writing IAC articles. Regarding the making of ideology, this will be explained throughout the discussion in the other five procedures. It is further divided into two dimensions: Ideology concealed in texts and ideology embedded in analysts. These six standard writing procedures are listed below. A map showing detailed concepts of these procedures is drawn as Figure 5-1.
Procedure 1: identifying essential elements—the nature of ideology (Chapter 5);
Procedure 2: applying theoretical foundations—the making of ideology (Chapter 6);
Procedure 3: connoting certain meanings—ideology concealed in texts (Chapter 7);
Procedure 4: illustrating—ideology concealed in texts (Chapter 7);
Procedure 5: selecting expression styles—ideology embedded in analysts (Chapter 8);
Procedure 6: revealing personal viewpoints—ideology embedded in analysts (Chapter 8).
Figure 5-1: Standard Writing Procedures
Procedure 1: Identifying Essential Elements
Chapter 5
Procedure 1: Identifying Essential Elements
—The Nature of Ideology
5.1. Introduction
The first of the six procedures is to identify essential elements, or the procedure to understand the nature of ideology. This thesis argues that ideology is a term about relations which contains three elements: Class, power, and reality. Here, the term Class has been redefined/reinterpreted by this thesis and will be explained in a later section. Simply put, the first procedure (identifying essential elements) is to confirm 1) which research subjects IAC analysts are concerned with (i.e., Class); 2) what the presumed phenomenon is which invites the analysts’ motivation (i.e., Reality); and 3) how this phenomenon is presented/constructed (i.e., Power). These three elements form the initial motivation of analysts and, most importantly, determine their presumed standpoints which have affected their eventual conclusion, even though the analysts might reach that through different analysis/critique methods.
The relationship between Class, reality, and power as well as their interaction, resulting in creating various terminologies, are displayed as Figure 5-2. Individual elements and the relationships between them will be theoretically discussed and accompanied with the empirical analysis results. However, before this thesis advances to the first procedure, some of Marx’s fundamental concepts should be introduced for a better understanding of ideology in later discussion, especially to explain why this thesis redefines the term Class to replace class (which is argued not to suit all ideology-related discussions), thereby considering Class as the essential element of ideology.
Marx’s Fundamental Concepts for Understanding Ideology
Labour has been a critical factor in the making of humans’ history. Lukacs (1971) argued that the construction of social existence is not about evolution but labour, which also
distinguishes the difference between mankind and animals. Labour refers to the way people arrange their activities for maintaining their lives in human society. It also refers to how people transform their efforts so that they might exchange these for other necessities. To Marx (1976), whenever humans enter into exchanges with the world, they try to remain independent and subjective, but not subject to others. Marx defined the labouring process as a process of objectification through which humans can manifest their real abilities and demonstrate their free will. In other words, labour is an extension of the existence of the human species’ being (Suchting, 1983).
Figure 5-2: The Nature of Ideology
Nevertheless, since the invasion of the logic of capitalism, humans no longer work for the sake of accomplishing their own volition. The logic of capitalism implies an important notion: the division of labour. In order to maximise the efficiency of production and profits, capitalists divide the production process into several specific units. Marx quoted from Ferguson to describe this phenomenon: “Manufacturers, accordingly, prosper most where the mind is least consulted, and where the workshop may ... be considered as an engine, the parts of which are men” (1976, p. 397). That is to say, professional skills needed in the past are no longer required under the logic of capitalism, meaning that workers are replaceable and, as Marx explained, workers are paid by capitalists not for their labour but their labour-power.
Procedure 1: Identifying Essential Elements Accordingly, labour means that humans develop natural materials from one form to another (e.g., from wood to chairs). This can be defined as including two types of labour practice. In the first, workers use tools to create what they need. It is a process of objectification in which humans are able to distinguish themselves from their creations. It also means that nature is something humans could appropriate and transform to the form of what they need. In so doing, humans display their ability and free will.
Yet, the key point is the second type. In the second, capitalists use workers’
labour-power to produce products; thus, workers themselves become tools and are alienated.
Simply put, humans not only materialize/reify the nature; they are also alienated by themselves, as Marx and Engels (1970) said,
As long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided, man’s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him. (p.53)
Hence, when the ‘relation of production’ of capitalism impacts on humans’ free will, people are alienated. Originally, the products (results of labour) that humans make should be part of their will; a product should be identified with the person who produces it. However, under the logic of the division of labour, the relationship between products and producers changed.
As Eagleton (1991) pointed out, “In certain social conditions, Marx argues, human powers, products and processes escape from the control of human subjects and come to assume an apparently autonomous existence”(p. 70). That is, the condition of alienation occurs because the link between humans’ will and their work has disappeared. There are four types of alienation that humankind suffers: People are alienated from 1) themselves,42 2) the results of their labour,43 3) the production process,44 and 4) other people45
Thus, the result of the division of labour is that “the devaluation of the world of men is in direct proportion to the increasing value of the world of things” (Marx, 1970, p107;
emphasis original). This asymmetric and paradoxical subject-object relationship produces (Marx, 1970).
42 Being replaceable workers, their personal values are neglected, let alone their being able to pursue the honour of achievement.
43 The results (products) of a person’s labour belong to capitalists; whereas, for example, people might hope to accumulate the fruits of their labour for themselves by old age.
44 Workers are no longer important to capitalists because they are only a single part of the whole production process. They are replaceable.
45 Due to the division of labour, the relationship among workers is never again cooperative but competitive.
alienated, estranged human beings who switch their position from the subject to the object as they are objectified by capitalism.
Another critical logic of capitalism is the means of production. This comprises two
Another critical logic of capitalism is the means of production. This comprises two