MYTHOLOGIES
VS. IDEOLOGIES
Mythologies are often misunderstood as
just stories of the ancient Greek culture, but they span much larger than those
stories. Myths are a part of our everyday lives, they are structures that we
live by and we may not even recognize them. The definition of a
mythology as defined
by the field of communications is "a system of communication, that it is a
message cannot be possibly be an object, a concept, or an idea; it is a mode of
signification, a form.” (Roland Barthes) The problem that we run into is now
distinguishing between myth and ideology. Ideology is often a misused term that
people put in place of myth. The term ideology holds equal significance myths
are much larger that ideologies.
Ideologies are defined as "a set of ideas
that constitute one’s goals, expectations, and actions." Which both
definitions we can begin to decipher the significance and difference of both.
Ideology claims its roots from the word idea, and is more of
a rigid structure than anything else.
Using Mythologies it would observe the structure of the story behind the
end product. An example of a structure is finding companionship. The story that
we all follow in getting to that point is finding someone that interests you,
moving on to dating, and eventually over time get married, and have a family.
That is the common myth behind finding love and companionship that people use
throughout their life.
Good examples of how Mythologies themselves are used in
fields of communications are movies and script writing.
Using this map we can trace most movie plots in all
genres.
Now that the basis for how Mythologies are used has been
presented we must now understand how Ideologies are used. It’s easiest to think of a Mythology as the
structure surrounding an ideology.
Marx becomes a big player in the way we use
ideologies in today’s society. Marx' theories play on the ideology of culture and how to use them. Marx often does not get the correct representation of his work due to attributing to the basis for the creation of communism.
Lets take a glass of orange juice for example. The orange juice itself is an ideology, while
the mythology in the photograph would be the glass surrounding the orang juice.
Why is this? The orange juice is the ideology due to its symbol of good health
and good taste. But the Mythology is the glass around it that makes that
ideology possible.
These ideas both work together to steer communication is
certain directions. Just as the map earlier was shown for the basic structure
of all movies most of what the communication field produces to appeal to the
masses use the same structures that apply to many things. Ideologies go hand in
hand with these structures that narrate our lives and what we witness by
creating the moral values and goals that the structures lead to. If you have an ideology of safety the myth in
the ad is the helmet demonstrating the structure followed to achieve this idea
of safety. To show how these are used in ads in today we’ll take a quick look
at an ad.
The Versace ad wants to appeal to the idea of success and
comfort in luxury making it the ideology. The Myth is that wearing Versace will
help you achieve this idea of success.
One last stop along the way is a final example of how myths are used to understand literature works in history. The Monomyth is a structure used to show how the basis for all stories in mythology(ancient Greeks) will go.
Myths and Ideologies are highly important in steering how
communications works and progresses forward. Beyond that understanding the true
understanding of Mythologies and how they differ from Ideologies can help
understand certain structures of life.
