Ideology, imagology, and critical thought

The impoverishment of politics

Bibliographic Data

ID6293341
AuthorsJon Simons (0000-0002-4624-4989, University of Nottingham, corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume5
Issue1
Pages81-103
Publication date2000-02-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Political Ideologies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1356-9317 • E-ISSN: 1469-9613
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/135693100112936
OpenAlexW1963714357
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited12

The shift from ideological politics to politics dominated by the media is characterized by Kundera as the rise of imagology. In Habermas's terms, imagology contributes to the systematic distortion of communication and impoverishes politics by undermining critical public reasoning. His view is shared by much recent research on the media and political communication. Deliberative democracy is proposed by Habermas and others as an antidote to imagology. This paper argues that the above line of reasoning errs by assuming that critical reasoning must take the form of verbal argumentation. This assumption leads commentators to over-emphasize the differences between systematic verbal presentation of ideas (ideologies) and visual and narrative representations (imagologies). Following Jameson and Hall, both forms can be understood as ideology in a Marxist sense. Rather than denigrating images as foreign to rational reflection, it is argued with reference to W. J. T. Mitchell that images are as amenable to critical interpretation as verbal argument

Argument (complex analysis · Argumentation theory · Critical theory · Democracy · Epistemology · Ideology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Marxist philosophy · Narrative · Political communication · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Law · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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