Mythologies VS. Ideologies

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.