Narrative and Ideology Practice Flashcards

VOCABULARY flashcards covering the key theorists, definitions, and concepts of narrative and ideology as presented in the Chapter 4 breakdown.

Narrative (Toolan's definition)

A kind of political action where stories are not innocent but actively do things in the world.

Ideology (Wales's definition)

Any system of values based on ideas or prejudices and cultural and social assumptions which amounts to a pervasive, unconscious, world-view.

Mode of Thinking (Tambling)

The concept that narrative trains us to see experiences as discrete events with causes and meaning rather than random noise.

Classical Marxism

A foundation of ideology theory where the dominant class owns the modes of production, using culture as a tool of social control.

The Frankfurt School

The perspective (associated with Adorno and Horkheimer) that popular entertainment distracts the masses from their own oppression to keep them pacified and focused on consumerism.

Ideology (Althusser's definition)

A representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.

Interpellation

Also called hailing, this is the process by which cultural texts call out to individuals and position them as certain kinds of subjects.

Subject positions

Specific identities constructed by ideology that individuals are hailed to take up, such as the family man, the singleton, or the career woman.

Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs)

Institutions coined by Althusser that perform ideology's work, including the church, the family, the media, and the education system.

Hegemony

A concept introduced by Antonio Gramsci referring to the dominance of one group's ideas over others, which is never total and allows for resistance.

Negotiated hegemony

The idea that audiences are not passive and can negotiate meaning or subvert dominant ideologies, though resistance is often eventually incorporated by the dominant class.

Cinderella fable (Fiske and Hartley)

The reading of the show Come Dancing as a myth of social mobility that allows contestants to briefly transcend their class before returning to their working-class realities.

Poverty Porn

A critical term for reality TV that claims to document life on benefits but reinforces stereotypes of claimants as scroungers, such as in the show Benefits Street.

Macherey's Gaps

The theory that what a text does not say or what it represses is as ideologically significant as what it does say.

The falsely obvious

A term used by Roland Barthes to describe things that seem natural and neutral but actually carry bourgeois ideology.

Myth (Barthes)

A second-order semiotic system where a sign that already has meaning is hijacked to become a vehicle for ideology, making historical constructs seem eternal and inevitable.

Catharsis

A concept from Aristotle's Poetics involving the arousing of pity and fear to purge emotions, showing that narrative has lasting effects on the audience.

Narrative designs (Phelan)

The recognition that storytellers intentionally shape how audiences think and feel to influence their values.

Implied Author (Booth 1961)

The version of the author that the text itself projects, serving as the author's persona constructed by the narrative.

Ethical turn

A movement in narrative theory (e.g., Altes 2005) that views reading as an exercise in ethical decision-making and training for moral judgment.

Dialogism (Bakhtin)

A property of narrative containing multiple competing voices and a verbal give-and-take where no single voice is fully subordinated to the author.

Monologic narrative

A narrative style where all voices serve the author's single ideological message, contrasting with dialogism.

Metanarratives

Grand, overarching systems like religion, science, or Marxism that claim to offer absolute truth; rejected by postmodernism.

Little narratives

Local and particular narratives that replace grand metanarratives in the postmodern condition (Lyotard 1984).

Cynical reason (Zižek)

The formula "They know what they are doing, and they are doing it," describing a society that is aware of ideological constructs but complies with them anyway.

Naming (News strategy)

A language strategy where word choice (e.g., protestors vs. rioters) assigns blame or legitimacy to the subjects being reported.

Active vs. passive voice (News strategy)

A grammatical strategy where responsibility is either clearly assigned (active) or obscured/agency erased (passive).

Cultural proximity

A news value suggesting that stories need to be relevant to the audience's own culture (e.g., Western news focusing on Western involvement) to sustain interest.