Reinvigorating ideology critique: between trust and suspicion

Looking for ideology critique?

Before I problematize their argument, let me first affirm Downey et al.’s assertion that the concept of ideology should be at the heart of a ‘critical media studies’ (p. 379). I agree that we need ‘a more fully worked-out theoretical and methodological approach’ to ideology critique, but not one policed by the impression of a ‘new “school” or party-line’ (p. 883). I agree that ‘detailed empirical work which explores the dimensions of ideology becomes more important than ever’ (p. 883) in a historical moment governed by the politics of austerity. And I agree that the work of Hall and the Birmingham School remains a crucial theoretical reference point in clarifying the objectives and coordinates of ideology critique.

Nonetheless, my differences with Downey et al. begin with how they ambivalently read the legacy of Hall’s influential 1982 essay. On the one hand, they seek to reclaim the spirit of Hall’s analysis, by suggesting that ideology needs to be ‘rediscovered’ once again by contemporary media researchers. Yet, on the other hand, they argue the ‘decline of ideology critique’ (p. 879) was effectively foreshadowed by aspects of Hall’s essay which have gained theoretical prominence in the intervening period but been displaced from his central focus on critiquing capitalist ideology.

Downey et al. link the displacement of ideology critique to a familiar set of targets: the rise of ‘identity politics’, the uptake of a theoretical vocabulary that privileges ‘the discursive’ and ‘the symbolic’, exaggerated notions of audience agency and polysemy, the declining authority of ‘a left perspective in the academy’ and an ‘attack on class reductionism’ (p. 880). They do not frame their argument in the hackneyed terms of the ‘political economy versus cultural studies’ debate; their valorization of Hall implicitly recognizes the inadequacy of that dichotomy. Nonetheless, their diagnosis of the decline cannot but recall those earlier polemics, and the specific charges directed against theoretical approaches aligned with the prefix ‘post’ (post-structuralism, post-Marxism, post-modernism and so on). The displacement of ideology critique is tied to a displacement of capitalism and political economy as objects of analysis. And blame is attributed to the ascent of a set of theoretical assumptions that were partly enabled and consecrated by a one-dimensional reading of Hall’s work.

I find Downey et al.’s argument problematic for different reasons, which necessitate some reflection on how academics articulate their identities in media studies and elsewhere. First, let us consider their stark headline claim: that there is no ideology critique in media studies. They briefly note exceptions to their argument. Fragmentary ‘references to “ideology” may be found in the literature during the last five years’ (p. 879), they concede. However, their significance is immediately disregarded. ‘But these tend to use the word as a synonym for “discourse,” or theme running through a media genre often in the manner of van Dijk’ (p. 879).

Read in one way, Downey et al.’s commentary calls for an empirical response, which would assess their strong impressionistic claims about a diverse field of research. However, rather than simply listing studies they have missed, I want to take a different tack and ask, what might we look for when looking for ideology critique in contemporary media research?

Downey et al.’s answer to the question seems straightforward: we would expect to see something equivalent to Hall’s analysis of Thatcherism transposed to a contemporary conjuncture. And, presumably, we would expect to see something explicitly asserting itself as ideology critique. Anything that dilutes this clear identity is implicitly devalued as a contribution to the critique of ideology, as signalled by their casual dismissal of the concept of discourse.

In valorizing something explicitly framed as ‘ideology critique’, my concern is that Downey et al. run the risk of privileging an explicit approach that is assumed to be discrete from other approaches. To dramatize the point, it is as if they are saying ‘you need to do an “ideology critique” of neoliberalism; a “critical discourse analysis”, or what not, will not suffice’. The problematic nature of this assumption has been humorously captured by Michael Billig (2013) (no slouch when it comes to critiquing ideology) in his analysis of today’s academy. He sees the scholarly obsession with one’s ‘approach’ – and the narcissistic dynamics of showing ‘how my approach is better than yours’ – as a symptom of how the logic of marketing has been internalized in academic writing. To have the legitimacy of a particular kind of social analysis recognized by others, Billig underlines the importance of employing the officially designated approach or terminology, otherwise one’s contribution risks going unnoticed within the logics of circulation and syndication that sustain the academic economy.

I hardly mean to suggest that Downey et al.’s call for a reengagement with ideology critique amounts to nothing more than a marketing ploy. Rather, my point is to suggest there are many media and communication scholars producing critical insights into the workings of ideology, but without necessarily emphasizing a commitment to ideology critique in self-descriptions of their work. Moreover, evaluating the status of ideology critique cannot be separated from a general assessment of the condition of ‘critique’; researchers can do critical analysis without privileging the signifier ‘ideology’. And here it is worth noting how, contrary to Downey et al.’s claims about the absence of (ideology) critique, different authors – who cannot be bundled together as members of the same intellectual tribe (See, for example, Felski, 2012; Latour, 2004; Ranciere, 2009) – have questioned the privileged status of critique in the social sciences and humanities.

Hall’s valorization of ideology critique was emblematic of a particular historical moment in the development of critical theory, when concepts like ‘interpellation’, ‘subjectivity’, ‘signification’, ‘discourse’ were seen as new, urgent and exciting. Nearly four decades on, these theoretical signifiers no longer evoke quite the same intellectual aura and excitement in media studies and elsewhere; indeed, Downey et al.’s claim that the concept of ideology has been displaced by the concept of discourse is imbued with a certain irony, since both concepts have arguably been displaced in the vocabulary of the theoretical ‘turns’ generating most attention today. If Hall’s (1982) discussion of the ‘politics of signification’ (p. 64) might have seemed revelatory in 1982, these theoretical insights are now likely to be regarded as ‘banal’ and ‘obvious’: 101 media studies stuff. Anyone keen to illustrate their up-to-dateness with the state of theory today would likely speak a different vernacular. We might expect to hear a privileging of terms like ‘ontology’, ‘affect’, ‘embodiment’, ‘rhizome’, the ‘non-human object’ and so on, sometimes in explicit opposition to the old fixation on language, signification and representation.

My point here is not to dismiss the significance of recent theoretical developments. Rather, I want to negotiate a position that both agrees and disagrees with Downey et al. Yes, an explicit focus on ideology critique has been displaced, partly because of the emergence of other theoretical vocabularies (if not necessarily the vocabularies they indict). But, no, we should not automatically read this displacement as symptomatic of an indifference to the critique of ideology among contemporary media researchers.

Neoliberalism as a privileged object of critique

Let me elaborate by briefly reflecting on the analysis of neoliberalism. Downey et al. correctly note that illuminating the relationship between neoliberalism and media practices should be a priority of a revived ideology critique. However, in making the point, they should have asked themselves another question: if there really is no ideology critique, why have references to neoliberalism proliferated in recent years, not only in the critical academy but also seemingly in the wider public sphere?

I think we can safely assume that the field of media and communication studies is unlikely to be an outlier to the general trend identified by Peck in 2010. He notes the dramatic uptake of neoliberalism as a ‘social-science keyword’ from 1980 to 2009 (Peck, 2010: 13), a trend that, I suspect, has not been reversed in the years since. Indeed, if anything, Peck’s observation that ‘the deployment of the term neoliberalism in academic discourse has become commonplace’ (p. 13) now speaks to a wider media context (case in point: as I write this, a quick Twitter search records 14 references to ‘neoliberalism’ in the last hour, all damning of what the term signifies, although none quite as pithily as the tweet beginning ‘fuck#neoliberalism’).

Neoliberalism has been critically conceptualized in different ways. It has been variously described as a system of political economy, a system of governmentality, a form of political rationality, a hegemonic formation and an affective regime. And, perhaps most commonly of all, it has been described as an ideology: as an economic ideology, a political ideology and even a cultural ideology.

How much is shaped and determined by the decision to privilege a particular theoretical vocabulary in critiquing neoliberalism? The question is an interesting one and disputing the answer is the very basis of scholarly conversations. Moreover, when scholars assert a particular understanding of neoliberalism, they typically do so in opposition to another approach that is positioned as problematic in some way. We clearly see a version of this logic in Downey et al.’s construction of an implicit binary between ideology critique and discourse analysis (a problematic move for different reasons, not least because analysing the constitutive role of signifying practices was central to Hall’s analysis of ideology in his 1982 essay and, arguably, even more so in his later work).

To make a broader point, is a study that conceptualizes neoliberalism as a system of governmentality a radically different kind of ‘thing’ from a study that conceptualizes neoliberalism as an ideology? Is an analysis of neoliberal political economy a different species of being from an analysis of neoliberal discourse? Hardly, although it is not uncommon to see these kinds of oppositions constructed in the literature. The political economy researcher sets out his or her stall by emphasizing the gaps in the work of discourse analysts, while an inversion of the binary works just as coherently. The governmentality researcher promises insights missed by the conceptual vocabulary of ideology critique. Repeated enough times, these assumptions become institutionalized into a kind of orthodoxy and doxa, where ‘everybody knows’ what the concept of governmentality can magically do that you cannot do with the concept of ideology.

The point to take from these general observations about scholarly discourse is twofold. Yes, media researchers should reengage with the concept of ideology. However, that revival will not get very far if we start by presupposing that ideology critique constitutes an analytical approach that is discrete from other approaches – or, worse, if we blame other traditions for displacing the concept of ideology. We might do better to follow Scannell and think through the relationship between ideology critique and other theoretical traditions. Scannell constructs his media phenomenology approach in opposition to Hall. Yet, he also recognizes that the ‘issue posed by ideology critique remains a crux for the study of culture’ (Scannell, 2007: 229). What’s more, his reflections on the trajectory of cultural studies since the 1980s echo Downey et al.’s concern that glib assumptions about audiences’ capacities to resist dominant meanings have displaced critical analysis of the role of media in reproducing ideological domination.

From what I know (and admire) about the work of Downey, Titley and Toynbee, I very much doubt whether their antipathy to discourse – as a conceptual ‘Other’ – is as absolute or clear-cut as it sounds in their commentary. I realize their critique is made against what they take to be an over-privileging of the concept; it would certainly amount to a strange endorsement of Hall’s 1982 essay if they were to propose that we abandon the concept completely. It is also clear they are not averse to engaging with other approaches: their discussion of Boyle and Kelly’s (2014) research on ‘reality television’ signals an openness to drawing insights from work that, in their assessment, ‘does not engage in an ideology critique’ (Downey et al, 2014, 884–885).

That said, in emphasizing the need for a more ‘fully worked out theoretical and methodological approach’ to ideology critique, Downey et al. missed a chance to acknowledge how this work might be enriched by research done under other conceptual headings. Consider these three examples. First, I agree with their observation that ‘one important way of understanding austerity may be as an ensemble of smaller ideologies’ (p. 884). However, in looking for methodologies to develop these insights, they could have noted the extensive body of critical discourse research on the interdiscursive and intertextual character of socio-political formations, especially in the work of those who explicitly uphold a critical conception of ideology.

Second, they cursorily distinguish ideology critique from ‘depth-less Foucauldian power-knowledge’ (p. 880), as if the prejudices and charges encoded in the elaborate noun phrase necessitated no elaboration. These kinds of quick put-downs of a rich theoretical corpus will not do, especially when later in the essay they cite recent work by McNally (2010) and Peck (2010) to tell us that neoliberalism involves a ‘retasking of the state’ (p. 883) (an insight already clearly captured in Foucault’s (2008) 1979 lectures on neoliberalism).

Finally, Downey et al. favourably cite Boltanski and Chiapello’s (2006) analysis of the ‘new spirit of capitalism’ for its insights into the ideology of entrepreneurship. However, it does not seem entirely churlish to note that they are citing two authors with a sceptical view of the Marxist account of ideology that textures their commentary. The three examples serve to illustrate my general point: the reinvigoration of ideology critique in media studies would productively gain from engaging with other theoretical traditions which – in their headline-billing – do not privilege the concept of ideology. ¹ And critical analysis of the relationship between media and ideology would also be reenergized by opening the field up to different theoretical understandings of ideology, against any monolithic rendering of the concept.

Rethinking ideology critique

In their preface to the Handbook of Political Ideologies, Freeden et al. (2013) situate the book’s diverse theoretical accounts in opposition to a historical belittling of ‘mere’ ideology. Emphasizing how the ‘study of ideology as a political phenomenon’ has been reinvigorated in the political science and political theory literature ‘over the past twenty years or so’, they assert,

No longer can the disparaging remarks of some philosophers or some politicians, to the effect that ideologies are inferior kinds of thinking or distractions from the real world, be taken seriously. (p. v)

Freeden et al.’s reproach imagines different targets. However, they privilege one that maps on to Scannell’s analysis of the dominant tradition in media studies: ‘the investigation of ideology [that] has come out of the shadows of the Marxist tradition’ (p. v). Freeden et al. do not deny the ongoing relevance of Marxist theories of ideology: ‘that tradition still exerts considerable influence’ (p. v). Yet, their characterization of ideologies as ‘an indispensable feature of the political’ (p. v) signifies a clear rejection of a one-sided Marxist tendency to regard ideologies as aberrational (see also Finlayson, 2012). It is a tendency encapsulated in the notion of ideology as ‘false consciousness’, a conceptual shorthand now more likely to be cited by those who want to reject the concept of ideology, rather than affirm the false consciousness thesis. And it is a tendency that animates Scannell’s interrogation of a hermeneutics of suspicion, which distrusts the world of everyday experience because of its capture by the distorting effects of ideology.

Let me end by briefly discussing the work of one figure cited in Freeden et al.’s book, Ernesto Laclau (also an important influence on Hall), who might help us see beyond the impasse identified by Scannell. Characterizing Laclau as a theorist of ideology recalls our earlier discussion of how academic identities are named and circulated, because, in shorthand descriptions, Laclau is more obviously aligned with ‘discourse theory’ and his avowal of a ‘post-Marxist’ identity in his 1985 book with Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001) (indeed, he could conceivably be regarded as an exemplar of some of the theoretical tendencies decried by Downey et al.). Yet, contrary to the assumption that Laclau’s embrace of the concept of discourse entails a rejection of the concept of ideology, his work offers a rich account of ideology that both rejects and recuperates a traditional notion of false consciousness (Laclau, 2006).

Laclau interrogates how the dualisms of representation/reality, surface/depth and false/true consciousness have traditionally operated in ideology critique. We know how these dualisms typically work in media studies: the media representation of a particular social phenomenon is rubbished for ideologically obscuring or mystifying what is really going on. We clearly see a version of this logic in Downey et al.’s (2014) general claim that ideology ‘conceals and misrepresents real historical social relations’ (p. 880). And it is apparent in their casual observation that, although ‘there was at least a certain formal logic’ to how the ‘free market was presented as a fundamental truth whose time had finally come after years of failed state interference and bullying trade-unionism’ in the United Kingdom of 1982, this social imaginary ‘was completely unfounded [italics added] in historical terms’ (p. 883) (as if history constituted its own discrete universe outside the logic of political and discursive representation).

Laclau (1990) rejects the traditional Marxist understanding of false consciousness because it equates ideology with the masking or obscuring of a ‘positive essence’ (p. 92). In this view, what is truly the case is assumed to be hidden by an ideological representation. For example, austerity policies articulated in the interest of the collective really only serve the interests of the dominant class; the idea that they also serve the interests of the working class is entirely false and quintessential ideology.

Laclau’s critique of this view takes an elaborate theoretical route, but his key insight can be put succinctly: the positive essence does not exist because all political identities are discursively articulated and marked by a structural failure to constitute themselves as fully positive identities. What might this mean in the context of our stylized example? Well, given the strong criticisms sometimes made against Laclau, it might be best to start by clarifying what it does not mean. It does not preclude us from invoking the language of class or from articulating the working class as a political subject (aligned in a hegemonic ‘logic of equivalence’ with other political subjects). When Laclau maintains that an identity assigned a positive essence does not exist, he is not claiming that the identity does not exist in any form at all. The nominal identity certainly exists, but in a discursive field that is constitutively vulnerable to charge, rupture and dislocation (although never as perennially in flux as some critiques of post-structuralism would like to suggest).

Rather than treating the working class as a positive identity, Laclau underlines the ontological conditions of possibility of a working class politics. In other words, instead of constructing the working class as a collective subject that already exists as the potential bearer of some historical truth, he would focus attention on the onto-political conditions that bring the working class into being as a radical political subject that are, at the same time, always vulnerable to contestation by opposing political forces that signify the ‘working class’ differently.

Laclau departs from how we normally think of the concept of false consciousness: we can no longer rely on the simple trope of juxtaposing the ‘true’ subject of class against the ‘false’ subject of ideology. However, rather than renouncing the concept, he flips the false consciousness thesis around: instead of involving ‘the misrecognition of a positive essence’, false consciousness would consist of the failure to recognize the ‘precarious character’ of any positive identity (Laclau, 1990: 92). False consciousness would therefore be exemplified by representations of the working class, or any other political subject, as a fully formed positive identity, rather than an identity constructed on grounds that are structurally precarious. ²

Laclau’s reworking of the concept of false consciousness illuminates Scannell’s (1998) criticism of ideology critique for appealing to an unproblematized notion of ‘truth’, which is glibly juxtaposed with the ‘lies and deception’ of ideology (pp. 263–264). ³ However, it also recasts false consciousness as an inevitable feature of social and political life, otherwise every assertion of identity would need to be followed by interminable footnotes and caveats, comically explaining why the identity is, in a strict sense, ‘impossible’. Laclau does not leave us stranded in a relativistic, nihilistic universe where all instances of false consciousness are somehow politically equivalent or where, in our current political moment, we cannot privilege the critique of neoliberal ideology (see Phelan, 2014). However, if ideology is reconceptualized as something that will always ‘be very much with us’ (Freeden et al., 2013: v), rather than something inherently malign, it does suggest that naming a social phenomenon as ‘ideological’ is not, in itself, especially insightful (although, of course, calling someone or something ideological can be a powerful political and discursive weapon). It suggests that the work of ideology critique requires us to do more – to both illuminate the political and social conditions that enable a particular ideological regime to sustain itself and to productively imagine how different (and better) forms of ideological attachment and identification might be made possible.

Larrain’s (1996) discussion of the different inflexions of ideology in Hall’s work, and its re-enactment of tensions evident in the wider Marxist tradition, therefore seems like an appropriate place to end. He argues that Hall fluctuates between asserting a negative and neutral conception of ideology – assailing Thatcherism, while also contemplating a political-ideological alternative. Larrain laments what he sees as the historical dispute between these two different aspects of ideology analysis, since, in his view, they ‘must be complementary … they both perform necessary tasks within social science’ (p. 64). Perhaps it is here, in reconnecting these contrary impulses, that we might find a new, more imaginative horizon for ideology critique in media research.