Althusser Definition Of Ideology

Louis Althusser is among the most influential Marxist philosophers of the 20th century. Althusser has been studied profusely as he laid the foundation for the concept of ideology – a major term in language and media studies. The working definition of ideology is that it is “ideas that legitimize currently existing power relations in society” (Torres, 2017). Each person from the second they are born are immersed in ideology. From that moment forward, ideology surrounds the individual every day and presents ideas to the individual how they should live. To simplify the definition, ideology acts to construct what we know, do and say. In Althusser’s first thesis from his essay Ideology and the State, he says that “ideology represents the imaginary …show more content…
Althusser concludes in his essay that different forms of ideology are called ‘world outlooks’ (Althusser, 1970, pg. 153). The different forms of ideology identified by Althusser are said to be imaginary and are a part of an illusion. World outlooks are an illusion because they offer representations how to imagine, feel, and think about the lives individuals are living. The world views people have in their heads allude to reality. When people interpret the allusions, they can now see the reality of the world behind what they thought represented the world. What this means is that when ideology is created, people do not take the real world they are living in and use that to represent the real world, but they take their relationship to the real world. These two ideas about individual relationships to the real world are different as the second relationship has an imaginary nature and is not the …show more content…
An example of this can be the media. When he states ideology represents the imaginary relationships of individuals to their real conditions of existence, using this example he means that the people imagine seeing themselves in the media, even though it’s other people and not actually them. Individuals do not realize they are picturing themselves in the agency. It is very invisible, as ideology has no beginning and end. This can be applied further to the example of the Apple iPod. In Apple’s silhouette advertisement campaign, depicted is solid coloured human figures dancing with a white iPod. The imaginary relation in this commercial is the viewer imagining themselves in the place of the silhouette; having fun dancing, relaxing, and jamming out to music. The real condition of this advertisement is as follows. It is easy for the viewer to imagine themselves buying and owning this product as the ‘people’ in the commercial are silhouettes. Silhouettes make it easy for individuals to identity with characters in commercials and share the story the company is