Ideologies Exist Everywhere

An Introduction

The clown, the enemy, the monster, the villain. The nature of, and context of each of these is heavily influenced by the ideologies circulating at the time. These beliefs can be categorised in many ways, but all ideologies fall into the following categories: dominant, emerging and opposing. As suggested, the dominant ideology is one which is one held by most people in any given society, emerging is a new idea and opposing is one that most people are against.

These systems of ideals help by a society may move between categories as people’s values change and evolve. Sometimes however, it still feels as if ideas which we feel should be dominant are emerging or, in some dire situations opposing.

For example, having a baby when not being married may have once been scandalous and only the minority of people thought this was okay, which made it in an opposing ideology, as people’s religious beliefs, thoughts on marriage and acceptance of different relationships changed, the idea of having a baby and not being married became and emerging ideology because it gained traction. I’m not sure if we can say this is a dominant ideology yet, but I’m sure we’ll get there.

As discussed previously the media are hugely influenced by these ideologies. So, the protagonist may represent a dominant ideology, a villain may represent an opposing ideology and the underdog or best friend may represent the emerging ideologies of the time.

There are many ideological systems, and these are the broadest categories for them. But, if you start to understand, or even simply pay attention to the political, economic and social context in which these were created, you can start to see what is being represented, supported and positioned negatively.

Dominant, emerging and opposing ideologies shift and evolve as society does. Ditto, yours may change as you age and learn new information.