Ideology and
Ideological State Apparatus by
Louis Althusser, 1970
By: HAYLEY BUTLER
What is RSA?
According
to Louis Althusser, a French Marxism philosopher, RSA stands for “Repressive
State Apparatus.” Repressive State Apparatus operates by the means of “hard
power” or “by violence.” According to Althusser, Repressive State Apparatus is
controlled by the ruling class since the ruling class has state power. RSA,
according to Althusser, belongs to public domain. Since there is no such thing
as a fully repressive apparatus, RSA functions mainly on repression and secondarily
on ideology.
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RSA
includes: Police, military, government
Ideology,
according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “the set of ideas and beliefs of a group
or political party.”
What is ISA?
According
to Althusser, ISA stands for “Ideological State Apparatus.” ISA represents churches,
schools, families, and all other private domains. Ideological State Apparatus
operates by the means of “soft power.”
ISA
includes: Churches, media, family, and
law
Which one of these (RSA or ISA)
relates to media and
media studies?
Ideological
State Apparatus, or ISA, relates to media and media studies by being the
dominant position in social formations, according to Althusser’s work. Initially,
the church, which is ISA, began publishing and communications and then they
started to become independent from the church, according to Althusser.
According to his work, “all ISAs contribute to the reproduction of the
relations of production.”
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Althusser
said, “Communications apparatus contributes toward [the reproduction of the
relations of production] by cramming every ‘citizen’ with daily doses of
nationalism, chauvinism, liberalism, normalism, etc., by the means of the
press, the radio and television.”
According
to Althusser, ISA uses media to express the ideals of society.
Example of ISA in media and
media relations:
My
interpretation of ISA in the media and media relations would be the
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representation of family in the media. In the media we often see families with
a mother, a father, and a kid or two. Skimming through the channels on you
television you can see that in most cases, not all, that the parents are
raising their kids as a unit. This is because when we think of “family” the
image that comes to mind is a mother and a father with their kids. In the media
people often want to be able to relate to the show they’re watching. They’re
more interested in something if it “relates” to them in some way. By making the
characters in a show traditional, it can reach a bigger audience.
