Course:WMST307:Student Pages:Meghan McCabe

Ideology: Ideology is a commonly used term in academic settings and other spaces that is defined by the online Oxford Dictionary as "the set of beliefs characteristic of a social group or individual." This definition pinpoints a very base understanding of the word, however in comparison to Susie O'Brien and Imre Szeman's definition of Ideology in Popular Culture: A User's Guide," it is insufficient in explaining the subtleties of the word. While ideology is commonly referred to as a set of beliefs, it also "refers to process by which the set of values and beliefs that bind individuals together in a society becomes 'naturalized.'" Therefore, ideologies do not merely represent a set of morals/values/beliefs, but the normalization or "naturalization" of these moral/value/belief systems. This is extremely important, because this specification changes the perspective commonly associated with popular ideologies. O'Brien and Szeman state: "Ideology names those social and political processes that directly and indirectly mask or hide this historical process by making everyday life seem natural, inevitable, and unchangeable." For example, The American Dream or the popular "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" ideology so pervasive in North American culture (specifically within the United States) promotes the idea that anyone who works hard enough can attain success (and similarly, that anyone who is unsuccessful or poor has no one to blame but themselves); however, this masks the fact that historical processes of institutionalized racism and systematic oppression make The American Dream much more accesible to certain people in comparison to others. In this situation, like many others, "ideology names the processes through which the real conditions in which people live are obscured by other ideas and beliefs, usually for the sake of maintaining political and social power." In simpler (and perhaps more restrictive) terms, ideology deals with "the difference between how things appear to be and what they are really like."

Works Cited: O’Brien, Susie, and Imre Szeman. Popular Culture: A User’s Guide. 2nd ed. Toronto: Nelson Education, 2010. Print. Oxford Dictionaries. "Definition of ideology." Accessed December 2nd, 2012. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ideology?q=ideology