Reflection of Western Ideology in the Textsof Western Literature and Mass Media: An Althusserian Notion

Abstract

This dissertation is about the operation and reflection of western ideological hegemony in the texts of western literature and western mass media. Thisresearch presents the argumentthat literature reflects western ideology of supremacy over the east by inferiorizing the latterand its people. And, this hegemonic tendency, later on, isevencarried and sustained by the mass media of the west. The research selects a wide range of textsfrom thecanonical to pop cultural.The canonical literary texts have limited audience. Colonialand colonialist textHeart of Darknessand colonial autobiographical textShooting an Elephanthavingselected readershipreflectthe western ideological hegemonic tendency, but they do not have lesser impacts,and have reflected and shaped occidental mindsets. Pop cultural communications, on the other hand, have unlimited audience which too have hegemonized East from economic domains to epistemological ramifications.Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,two months editorial of theTimemagazine,BBC Have Your Say2000 program topic,Associated Pressare taken as the pop cultural communication texts that have unlimited audience. The study uses wide ranges of tools like ideology, hegemony, power, discourse,Orientalismto support the central ideas of the thesis.