The previous chapter introduced you to ideological criticism. We explained that it is a method of rhetorical criticism that exposes the ideology communicated by a rhetorical artifact and interprets how the artifact uses the ideology to exercise power and control. We defined an ideology as a set of shared beliefs and values that forms an interpretation of the world and suggests appropriate ways to act in it. We also guided you through the first two steps of ideological criticism: identifying an appropriate rhetorical artifact and reconstructing its historical context.

In this chapter, we will explain the next three steps: describing the artifact’s ideological message, interpreting how the artifact uses the ideology to exercise power and control, and evaluating how the ideology strengthens or weakens democratic principles.

Describing the Artifact’s Ideological Message

In ideological criticism, the description step entails determining your artifact’s ideological message. To do that, name and describe the ideology your artifact communicates (i.e., the artifact’s content) as well as the rhetorical features it employs to communicate it (i.e., the forms it uses).

Name the Ideology

Critical to ideological criticism is naming the ideology the artifact elevates or challenges. As mentioned previously, an ideology is a set of shared beliefs and values that forms an interpretation of the world and suggests appropriate ways to act in it. Notice that an ideology consists of a set or collection of beliefs and values that coheres into a perspective. Students often mistake a single value or belief for an ideology.

You will know you are naming an ideology when you can identify the collection of interrelated values and beliefs that form the outlook. Box 35.1 offers a list of sample ideologies to help you get started.

Hegemonic Ideologies

In addition to naming the ideology, identify if it is hegemonic or resistant. A hegemonic ideology is an ideology that has become a predominant way of seeing the world and serves the interests of those who hold institutional or social power. You will know an ideology is a predominant viewpoint because it is promoted, practiced, or reinforced through institutional (social, economic, educational, political, and religious) practices and policies, and it is likely reflected in majority opinions.

Hegemonic ideologies typically privilege people who hold positions of power and/or who have dominantly situated positionalities. In chapter 7, we drew on standpoint theory to explain that our social identities influence our knowledge of the world and our perceptions of what is “true” or “normal.” Dominantly situated identities—such as those perceived as white, able-bodied, or native English speaking—occupy positions of social privilege. They are granted more social power and prestige than their marginally situated counterparts, such as those perceived as nonwhite, physically disabled, or nonnative English speaking. Hegemonic ideologies typically promote values and beliefs that reinforce the power of dominantly situated identities, though we often are unaware of this function.

Indeed, hegemonic ideologies are so predominant that most people perceive their values and beliefs as given. That is, these ideologies seem natural, commonsensical, or even ordained by god. In the United States, for example, we might identify such hegemonic ideologies as the following:

• Christianity
• individualism
• heteronormativity

You might support and adhere to one or more of these ideologies. We all support some hegemonic ideologies because we find their beliefs valid and their values laudable. Frankly, it’s very difficult to reject all hegemonic ideologies and belong to a society.

Remember, though, that hegemonic ideologies typically serve the needs and interests of dominantly situated positionalities while ignoring, downplaying, or rejecting the needs and interests of marginally situated positionalities (locally or globally). We’ll return to this notion when we discuss the step of interpreting your artifact’s ideological work. The point here is that it is helpful to identify if the ideology communicated by your artifact is hegemonic and, if so, if your artifact reinforces this ideology or calls it into question.

Resistant Ideologies

Just as there are hegemonic ideologies, there are also resistant ideologies. A resistant ideology is one that directly challenges a hegemonic ideology. To revisit our earlier examples,

Artifacts that challenge hegemonic ideologies often (but not always) also promote a resistant ideology.

Describe the Artifact’s Rhetorical Symbols That Communicate the Ideology

In addition to naming the ideology communicated by the artifact and identifying it as hegemonic or resistant, you must specify how the artifact communicates the ideology.

Focus on the artifact’s verbal, nonverbal, visual, and audio symbols that convey its ideological message. For instance, if your artifact is a photograph,

• How is it visually framed or cropped?
• Is it in black and white or color?
• What is the eye drawn to first?
• Is there text within the photograph itself or superimposed on the photograph?

If your artifact is a music video,

• What lyrics accompany what scenes?
• How are scenes visually shot?
• How is the singer or character in the video dressed?
• What does the lighting emphasize or what is placed in the shadows?
• How does the music change in volume and tempo as the video progresses?

Also consider who or what is missing from your artifact. Use your reconstruction of the historical context to notice conspicuous absences. Overall, look closely at the artifact and help your audience understand how its rhetorical features and absences communicate the ideology.

Which Comes First? Naming the Ideology or Describing the Artifact’s Rhetorical Symbols?

Describing an artifact’s rhetorical symbols goes hand in hand with identifying the artifact’s ideology. You can tackle them together.

However, you may find it helpful to begin with the artifact’s rhetorical symbols and use them to help you name the ideology the artifact communicates. You can, in other words, work backward from the rhetorical symbols to naming the ideology:

• Spend time with your artifact and list its most striking rhetorical symbols, whether they are verbal, nonverbal, visual, or audio, as well as any glaring absences.
• Identify the belief or value each symbol communicates or challenges. This may take some time.
• Then look over your list and decide what ideology pulls the beliefs and values together into a coherent perspective. You may find it helpful to look back through the sample ideologies in box 35.1 or talk with your instructor for help.

Taking time to carefully list all the significant rhetorical symbols of your artifact—and identify what value or belief each communicates—will serve you well. Most directly, it will help you name the ideology communicated by the artifact.

In addition, such work will aid you in identifying and explaining to your audience the specific beliefs and values that compose that ideology. It’s not enough to name the ideology; you need to briefly define and describe its contents as well.

Further, such preparation will also help you name and point out specific rhetorical symbols that communicate the ideology. You may want to pair your descriptions with well-designed visual aids or include an audio or video clip that focuses attention on specific rhetorical symbols. They can help supply evidence needed for your claims about the artifact’s ideological messaging. If you jump to your interpretations without pointing out the presence of ideological features in your artifact, your interpretation will lack validity.

Finally, listing your artifact’s rhetorical symbols will set you up well to make interpretations, which is what we turn to next.

Interpreting How the Artifact Exercises Power and Control

If you only identify an artifact’s ideology and rhetorical symbols but don’t interpret how they function persuasively, you will mostly have summarized or narrated the artifact. You will miss its symbolic action.

To interpret an artifact using ideological criticism, infer how it uses an ideology to exercise power and control. We will unpack what that means—and explain how to do it—by providing the concept of agency as well as additional factors to consider when your artifact supports a hegemonic ideology, when it resists a hegemonic ideology, and when it does not neatly do either.

Agency

Agency is an individual’s ability to act freely or to independently intervene in a situation, their own life, and the world. When you analyze an artifact for agency, you interpret how the artifact depicts an individual or group’s freedom to act. Agency is particularly important in ideological criticism because it helps you discover how artifacts employ ideologies in ways that attempt to expand or contract the liberty of others. You can also reveal the ways democratic participants can resist such messages.

Box 35.6 Agency in #IfTheyGunnedMeDown

If we return to the tweets, we see how the paired photographs drew attention to the agency exercised by major news corporations like NBC News over the images they select to report stories involving people of color. The posts suggested that of the photographs publicly available, the news media chose an image that could be damning when reporting about crime or violence. Relatedly, the posts highlighted the lack of agency that people of color, such as Brown, have over how they are depicted by the news media.

By posting the paired images, however, Twitter (now X) users asserted their own agency and invited audiences to join them in seeking social change. C. J. Lawrence sparked the broad participation through his original tweet when he said, “Yes let’s do that: Which photo does the media use if the police shot me down? #IfTheyGunnedMeDown.” He later shared in an interview that “When I say, ‘Yes, let’s do that,’ my intention was that people would participate.”^[2] His use of “let’s” called out to readers who shared his frustrations to join the campaign. As they did, they promoted positive images of Black individuals, reclaiming some of their agency and circumventing the major news media’s gatekeeping. These photos helped promote the ideology of humanism by depicting themselves in ways all viewers could relate to and identify with.

When you interpret your artifact’s persuasive functions, ask how it renders an individual’s or group’s agency, using the prompts in box 35.7. Your interpretations of agency can and should contribute to your analysis of how your artifact supported hegemonic ideologies, resisted hegemonic ideologies, or both.

When Your Artifact Supports a Hegemonic Ideology

Remember that a hegemonic ideology is a set of values, beliefs, interpretations, and assumptions that becomes a predominant viewpoint and serves the political and economic interests of dominantly situated positionalities. Consequently, they are typically used to portray and legitimize those standpoints as superior to marginally situated positionalities.

If your artifact reinforces a hegemonic ideology, then interpret how the artifact uses that ideology to exercise power and control. Use the questions in box 35.8 to guide your interpretations.

When Your Artifact Challenges a Hegemonic Ideology

Artifacts can, alternatively, challenge a hegemonic ideology, often by exposing the hegemonic ideology as a social construct. A social construct is a category, idea, or description that humans have created to explain reality. The important idea here is that a social construct is a product of human language and interactions rather than something biological, natural, or ordained by God.

The goal of artifacts that challenge hegemonic ideologies is to expose them as social constructs that are human rather than natural conceptions—and therefore alterable. Do women make inferior soldiers, or is that a social construct? Are fathers inherently less nurturing than mothers, or does that explanation enable fathers to spend more time in the workplace and mothers more time at home with children?

For artifacts that challenge hegemonic ideologies, explain to your audience how your artifact exposed a hegemonic ideology as a human (and flawed) production that can and should be changed.

Artifacts that challenge a hegemonic ideology often do so by advocating a resistant ideology. Recall that a resistant ideology is one that directly challenges and counters a hegemonic ideology. In such cases, the critic may also ask how the resistant ideology offers an alternative depiction (or counterpresentation) of dominantly and marginally situated identities. Does the resistant ideology replace a hierarchy with a new hierarchy (perhaps with the groups’ positions switched) or a more equitable or egalitarian depiction?

But What If My Artifact.…?

Perhaps your artifact does not neatly fit into the two previous categories. Not all artifacts wholly reinforce or resist hegemonic ideologies.

You may choose an artifact, for instance, that offers resistance but not in the ways we’ve established. Some rhetors seek to redefine the meaning or application of a hegemonic ideology. Imagine a YouTube video that refers to public school teachers as exemplars of patriotism and recognizes their sacrifice and dedication to their country. Such a video might leave intact the values and beliefs associated with the hegemonic ideology of patriotism but resist its typical narrowed application to military veterans or government workers. As a critic, you might use the guidance in the previous sections to consider how the artifact both upholds and resists a hegemonic ideology.

Other artifacts challenge resistant ideologies and seek to reinstate hegemonic beliefs and values. You might hear a sermon, for example, that critiques egalitarianism when it comes to gender nonbinary people and upholds a gender binary by supporting religious fundamentalism. In such cases, use the guidance provided in the previous section for when artifacts reinforce hegemonic ideologies. You might add to that your consideration of how the artifact strives to counter a resistant ideology by depicting it as a social construct.

A final word of caution about interpretation in ideological criticism: Not everything that is interesting about your artifact and its context may make it into your critique. You are looking, in particular, for one of two things:

• First, you might explain how symbols in your artifact reinforce a particular set of beliefs and behaviors as “natural” when, in fact, these beliefs or behaviors are socially constructed, and how that ideology produces a hierarchy among individuals or groups, perhaps to try to justify a policy or action.
• Second, you may illuminate how symbols in your artifact explicitly challenge a hegemonic ideology and suggest that we can and should think and act differently—especially for the benefit of those groups that are traditionally silenced, overlooked, or politically and economically oppressed.

Evaluating the Rhetorical Artifact

We wrote this chapter because we are interested in educating civically engaged critics. We believe you are more able to participate in and shape democratic organizations when you can recognize how rhetoric and ideology influence ideas and exert social control.

With this in mind, the final step to any rhetorical critique is to help your audiences understand how your artifact relates to democratic principles and practices. In chapter 31, we defined democratic principles as the behavioral standards necessary for democratic governance to exist and thrive, and we gave examples such as the rule of law, the unity or shared identity of community members, and the open and thoughtful engagement of public issues, arguments, and positions.

In your ideological criticism, make certain to argue how the artifact strengthens or weakens democratic principles so your audience members are equipped to be fuller participants in a democratic society.

Did the Artifact Strengthen Democratic Principles? How?

In chapter 33, we explained that an artifact can strengthen democracy directly by explicitly advocating democratic principles or indirectly by modeling or practicing the principles. We further explained that any artifact that practices responsible productive discourse indirectly reinforces democratic principles because it, as defined in chapter 4, draws on the qualities of productive discourse to produce a more inclusive and equitable public sphere. You might, then, illustrate how your artifact strengthens democratic principles by showing the following:

• how it explicitly advocates for specific democratic principles
• how it illustrates qualities of productive discourse
• how it sparks discussion about an overlooked and ongoing societal problem
• how it expands the public sphere by including historically marginalized members of the public and empowering them to act as democratic participants
• how it questions the power of historically dominant members of the public rather than unreflectively granting their perspectives authority

Did the Artifact Weaken Democratic Principles? How?

Artifacts that weaken democratic principles tend not to do the things we just listed. You likely have an artifact that discourages democratic principles if you see that your artifact

• explicitly calls for the dismissal of democratic principles, subjugates them to other values, or refuses their application to particular groups of people;
• exemplifies qualities of unproductive discourse;
• quells discussion about an overlooked and ongoing societal problem;
• restricts the public sphere by actively excluding or denigrating historically marginalized voices; or
• preserves the power of historically dominant groups by uncritically accepting their perspectives.

The important point is that ideological criticism is ultimately interested in social change. Will a critique of Twitter (now X) posts change the way US news outlets select pictures for their publications? Maybe not. Perhaps all an analysis of the Twitter/X feed will do is plant a seed of awareness that will move some audiences to think differently about the way they receive news and the way members of their community are portrayed in the media. Such seeds of awareness, however, have the power to grow and reshape culture when enough people take notice. The power of consciousness raising should not be ignored, as it encourages the sharing of diverse opinions, talents, and knowledge for the good of the whole.

Ultimately, however, ideological critique is most powerful—and most true to its roots—when it opens avenues for more people to participate in their society, culture, and government. An ideological critique should move people to respond and to respond with action. The original proponents of ideological criticism wanted their analyses to help change social structures and material conditions.

As you craft your ideological critique, invite your audience to participate in an action or protest to counter the form of ideological control you analyze or to support the challenge you investigated. You might model such action by producing and publicizing your own artifact that ideologically counters the one you analyzed. Similar to Lawrence’s original tweet, invite your audience to join your efforts. Whatever you do, make your insights available to the public, and invite them to move on this evidence.