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