IdentiQing Ideology: Media Representations of the Iwing Strike 1994-1996.

Erin Steuter

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Graduate Programme in Sociology York University North York,

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a dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Siudies of York University rn partial fulfillment of the requtrements for the degree of

Permission has been granted to the LIBRARY OF YORK UNIVERSITY to lend or seIl copies of this dissertation, to the NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA to microfilm this dissertation and to lend or seIl copies of the film. and to UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS to publish an abstract of this dissertation.

The author reserves other publication rights. and neither the dissertation nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or otherwrse reproduced without the author's written permission. ABSTRACT

Among scholars there is a persistent confùsion over the significance and multiple rneanings of ideology. Ideology is, however, a profoundly important concept in socid analysis. In this dissertation 1 show that we need to understand it better both in theory and practice, to enmre that it remains a central tool in social analysis. 1 examine the development of ideology as a theoretical concept, exploring the ways in which classical and contemporary theorists have defined and utilized the term. The reader will see that the analyst cm look at ideology in the restrictive sense, emphasizing coherent and well- established political ideologies, or ideology can be viewed in an inclusive sense, in which ideology is said to be present even though the ideas lack the coherence and an easily -recognized label.

After reviewing the literature on media analysis, 1 undertake a case study that highlights the workings of ideology in the news media. This case study focuses on the media coverage of a strike at the Refinery in Saint John, fiom 1994- 1996. The media coverage of this labour dispute provides fertile ground for an analysis of the workings of ideology. A vaxiety of central issues are located here, including: monopoly ownenhip of the New Brunswick media by the Irving Group of

Cornpanies; the concept of "manufactureci" news; the ideological presentation of strikes in general; and the representation of changing labour relations in a post-industrial, globally-oriented society. The media seems a particularly appropriate social institution in which to explore the mature of ideology. My goal here is to examine the way in which a select group of newspapers covered the refmery strike. The papers chosen are the four New Brunswick English-language Mypapers as well as selected English- language papers elsewhere in Canada.

My fmdings support the view that ideology is still manifested in the media

However, it is clear that the nature of ideology is changing. Evidence of resûictive ideologies like "liberalism" and "conservatism" is on the decline, though the Saint John

Telegraph-Journal is the most "neoliberal" of the four New Brunswick dailies. Instead, more inclusive ideologies like "defeatism" and "individualism" were prominently featured in the other papers, as weli as the Telegrclph. Finally, 1 argue that the Irving

Oil Refinery Strike, its media coverage, and the aftermath, suggest that New Brunswick has entered a hegemonic order in the Gramscian sense, in which the curent organization of the provincial political economy appears to be "natural" to a majority of people. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was a team effort, and although it bears my narne, it would not have been completed without the active support and encouragement of many special people.

First of ali 1 wodd like to thank Ray Moms, my supervisor, who rescued me fiom becoming another one of the doctoral attrition statistics. 1 am very grateful to him for believing in me and this work. 1 thank him for his kind guidance, attentive supervision, and constant support. 1 am also very grateN to Gordon Darroch for his positive input and constructive ideas that helped to improve the dissertation. Barbara Hanson deserves credit for keeping me thinking clearly about what questions 1 was asking and what answers 1 was giving. Jan Newson was my fnend at York and shed her confidence in my academic abilities. My external examiners were exceptionally supportive of my project and 1 sincerely appreciate their efforts to create a positive and collegial defense.

1 am also very grateful to Ursuia Kruger who, for eleven years, rernembered my name among the hundreds of graduate students cornpeting for her attentions, and who expedited every administrative detail for me as 1 struggled with the challenges of completing this work fiom New Brunswick. 1 also wish to thank the Social Sciences and Hurnanities Research Council of Canada for the financial assistance they provided for this project. They are a valued but endangered academic resource.

At Mount Allison University, much appreciation goes to my colleagues in the

Sociology/Anthropology department for believing in my potential and heartening me as 1 went through the fuial stages of cornpleting this work. Heather Patterson has shared my interest in labour and social justice and I thaak her for dropping everything on several occasions to help me meet my deadlines. 1 aiso wish to acknowiedge my students who expressed such confidence and support for my continuhg career as a

University professor.

My friends Michael Clow and Susan Machum gave me valuable advice on the expectations of our guild system. Marianne Parsons has been rny staunch comrade throughout our shed rigours in the doctoral programme, 1 wish her success as she continues in the battle. Deborah Wills joined me in many breakfast brain storming sessions that helped develop this work, and has been my specid friend and confidante.

1 wish to thank my mother for valuing education so highly, and for being my strong woman role model. My fondest appreciation goes to my daughter Charlotte who inspired me with her detemined pride, and rny warmest affection for my daughter

Marilla for her loving embraces. My final words are for my husband, Geoff, without whose unwavering support, constant encouragement and intellectual partnership this work would never have been written. He has my profoundest love and appreciation.

vii Table of Contents

LThe Restrictive View of Ideology and its Decline ...... 17 -Pre-history of Ideology -The Idealism-Materialkm Diaiectic -Durkheim and Weber

3.The Struggle Between the Inclusive and Restrictive Views ...... 68 -Antonio Gramsci -The Return of Ideaiism: Lukacs/Mannheim/Frankfurt School -Postwar Ideology: Lefi and Right -Poststructuralism

4.Ideology and the News Media ...... -.-...... 142

6.Case Study: the Irving Group of Cornpanies ...... 194

7.Data Analysis ...... -225

9.Appendix ...... 270 -Chronology of Events: Strike 1994-96 List of Tables

Table 1: Article Length ...... 226

Table 2: Frequency of Coverage...... 27

Table 3: Precentage of Articles DefmedResponded to ...... 248 by various Sources Chapter One: Introduction

Introduction

The conceptual terrain suggested by the word "ideology" is a thorny one: the terni's fiequent and often misleading use has created an overgrown and chaoûc

landscape. As used regularly in the media and in general discussion, ideology is a concept which in its most common usage is frequently presented as a form of propaganda or lie: "1 have truth and you have ideology." Among scholars there is a persistent confusion over the significance and multiple meanings of ideology. Ideology is, however, a profoundly important concept in social analysis. In this dissertation 1 will show that we need to understand it better both in theory and practice, penetrating the labyrinthian growth that often obscures both the concept and its centrdity. 1 will therefore examine the development of ideology as a theoretical concept, exploring the ways in which classical and contemporary theorists have defined and utilized the term.

In addition, I will undertake a case study that highlights the workings of ideology in the media. This case study focuses on the media coverage of a strike at the Irving Oil

Refmery in Saint John, New Brunswick fiom 1994- 1996. The media coverage of this labour dispute provides fertile ground for an analysis of the workings of ideology. A variety of central issues are located here, including: monopoly ownership of the New

Brunswick media by the Irving Group of Companies; the concept of "manufactured" news; the ideological presentation of strikes in general; and the representation of changing labour relations in a post-industrial, globally-oriented society. On the basis of this case study and the theoretical developments of ideology, 1 will provide a more coherent understanding of ideology as a concept for use in academic and public life. In this intmductory chapter 1 will briefly discuss theones of ideology, media theory, the case study, the methodology employed, the questions that

I intend to mer,and 1 will provide a preliminary summary of the IMng Oil Refmery

Strike. This intersection of theoretical and practical investigation will provide an initial exploratory foray into ideology's promising and fertile field.

Theories of Ideology

The study of ideology is reputedly something of a labyrinth. According to this image, a legion of academics--sociologists, philosophers, literary scholars, political scientists, and others-enters the labyrinth in search of a comprehensive account of ideology and no one ever emerges. While this image is no doubt exaggerated, there is a kemel of truth to it. As an area of study, ideology is particularly difficult to describe with any certainty. Each generation of students retums to the same concepts and finds it necessary to cover the sarne intractable ground. Each new work on the subject tries to cope with this terrain, and then tries to make positive and lasting progress, though often the work fdls short of its potentiai and its author's goals.

There are many diflerent views of ideology, and they seem to have roughly eqd validity and legitimacy. Despite the efforts of scholars, the variety of views on the subject of ideology penist because there are a nurnber of contending perspectives that have taken on permanence, in the absence of persuasive arguments that might lead to a scholarly consensus. To begin this inqujr I note that the analysis of the academic usage of the concept of ideology reveals some common interpretations of its meaning.

As I will show in greater detail, for Karl Mannheim ideology is a set of ideas for interpreting and understanding reaiity. it is presented as a neutral term that takes an adjective: such as "capitalist" ideology or "communist" ideology. In Mannheim's theory, if the way yop make sense of the world around you is shaped by certain values, such as fiinctionalism, then your understanding of reality will be based on belief in consensus. In the process of news writing, the ideological orientation-or world view, or "packagew--of the joumalist will necessarily frame the writer's understanding and interpretation of events. nie neutrality of the Mannheirnian definition is very attractive as it seeks to address the ideological nature of this everyday interpretation of the world.

It avoids the association of ideology with false belief and it is more general than some of the other possibilities, such as the Iiberal definition. Yet it does not directly address the issue of the promotion of propaganda, or even the omnipresent shaping of ideas by material forces and agents, or even hegemony.

On the other hand, Karl Marx, especially the later Marx, defines ideology as a set of ideas that distort reali~.Ideas are shaped by the dominant economic class. This can be most clearly seen in the case of capitalist ownership of newspapers, in which selection of editors, and the selection and filtenng of news and editorial materiai, tend to reinforce the views of the ownership. Material production shapes mental production, in other words. As we will see, the Marxist definition of ideology fdls short becaw by defining ideology as false belief, it fint of dl assumes the existence of "me belief' and it fails to account for the existence of a communist or socialist ideology.

Third, Amerka. liberals such as Daniel Bell define ideologies as political ideologies, emphasizing distinct philosophical beiiefs that influence political action. In the 1950s Daniel Bell claimed that we were seeing the end of the dominance of the traditional ngid adherence to grand political ideologies of this type, especially in their most extreme form, like Fascism and Cornmunism. In ternis of media analysis, liberals would identifj turn-of-the-century partisan presses as examples of a bygone age of overtly ideological media that has been replaced with a medium that seeks to be an objective window on the world. These end-of-ideology adherents, or 'Enders', as 1 will refer to hem, declared the end of this former type of ideology and failed to identify the ideological nature of their own political beliefs and activity. The Enders' definition is too restrictive and doesn't allow for analysis of the ideology inherent in the repetitive routines of everyday life, that corne to us through cornmonsense or the common stock of social and cultural knowledge. This is ideologically-loaded material, but it is not treated as ideology when ideology is limited to the restrictive definition. In addition, the daim that the "end of ideology" has arrived is very misleading when we consider ideology in its "inclusive" sense, disregarding for the moment questions that may arise about the validity of the claim for political ideologies.

As can be seen from the discussion above, one of the major debates in the area of ideology is the question of whether ideology should be regarded broadly or narrowly, or to use Martin Seliger's (1977) terms, "inclusive" or "restrictive." This restrictive-

inclusive focus is also a good ordering principle that enables us to discuss the major

approaches to ideology without getting lost in al1 of the complexity. By adding that

these two types are at the ends of a continuum, we also avoid eithedor choices that

obscure the diversity of positions on ideology. An inclusive view of ideology accepts

that many different belief systems are ideologies, whether they present an "accurate," or even coherent, picture of reaiity or not. Further, the inclusive view of ideology suggests that ideologies are widely held, rather than the property of a small elite. In this century, advocates of the inclusive view of ideology tend to believe that ideology permeates al1 social institutions, including education, hedth and religion. Then there is the restrictive view of ideology, in which there are a Iimited nurnber of specific ideologies that aspire towards coherence. These usually include various political ideologies such as Fascism, Conservativism, and Cornmunism. Yet the restrictive view ais0 includes a more critically-oriented use of the term. Here, the restrictive view of ideology in its "negative" sense dehes ideology as a system of ideas which serves to legitimize unequal power relations. Both senses of the restrictive view of ideology contend that only a small number of people hold ideologies, while the rest of the society accepts "cornmonsense" or political culture. 1 will discuss three major, general works on ideology primarily to illustrate the received wisdom in the area.

There are many differences in the work of Larrain (1979), Thompson (1984) and Eagleton (1991), but they do seem to agree that ideology must have a "critical sense," meaning that it reflects unequal power relations. For the concept to be useN,

Larrain (1979: 77) argues, ideology should be defmed as the "restricted negative concept" associated with Marx's work for a number of reasons. He says, in The

Concept of ldeology, that ideology's value as a "tool of analysis and critique" is lost when it "covers the whole range of social and political thought." In numerous places in his work Thompson also argues in favour of a restrictive view of ideology, one that provides a "critique of domination." In the introduction to his well-known book,

Studies in the Theory of ldeology, Thompson (1984: 12-13) says that advocates of a more inclusive definition of ideology fail to justie their view over the more restrictive form. He argues that ideology "cannot be so readily stripped of its negative sense," because epistemological problems are simply pushed into the background and must be dedt with. Thompson (1984: 82-83) argues that the consequence of a general definition of ideology is the tendency to exaggerate "the unity and discreteness of ideologies" and to ignore dl but the official expressions of political ideas in the political system. The reader is stmck by the fact that Thompson's strongly-held preference for a more restrictive sense of ideology are not supported by the reasons he provides. To pose just one question: Why can't ideology be regarded inclusively, allowing for numerous, possibly-contradictory belief systerns that a) critique and propose to overthrow the system of dleged domination; b) justiQ ar deny the existence of domination, and; c) deny the need to address questions of equality, inequality and domination?

The third and most recent of these works, Terry Eagleton's Ideology: An *

6 Introduction, is a strong candidate as the best work on ideology in the English

language. One of Eagleton's (1 99 1: ch. 2) strongest contributions is his straighâonvard

description of the different purposes which ideologies serve, including promoting an

action orientation, as well as rationalization, legitimation, universaliration,

naturalization, and dehistoricization. Perhaps because Eagleton seeks to "introduce" the

reader to ideology, he is much less inclined than the earlier authors to proscnbe any

given form of thinkllig about ideology. Rather, his goal seems to be to search out

errors and contradictions in a variety of the approaches to the subject. Our discussion

of Thompson, Eagleton and Larrain, dong with the other works on ideology, is

designed to provide us with both a general understanding of ideology as well as specific

insights about how ideology works in particular cases and situations.

In this dissertation, 1 will argue that the effort to favour the inclusive or

restrictive view of ideology is less fmitful than recognizing that practical theories fa11

on a continuum with the purely inclusive at one end and the purely restrictive at the

other. Most theories of ideology fall somewhere between these extreme points.

Separate antinomies rarely describe our lived experience in an adequate way. As the reader will see, this inclusive view at the metatheoretical level will allow us to generate a greater number of questions to answer in our case study.

Media Theory

The media seems a particularly appropriate social institution in which to explore the nature of ideology. The culture of contemporary joumaiism daims that the modern news media can produce an objective, truthfid and neutral account of events (Tankard and Ryan, 1977). Indeed objectivity, in many ways, can be considered the cornerstone of mainstrearn journalism. In recent years several arguments have been advanced agaiost this position. The model of objective journalism has been critickd for its positivist outlook, which media scholars argue provides a fdse understanding of the nature of knowledge. Critics point out that 'objective joumalisrn' not only makes false claims about what the product, 'the news', amounts to, but it is a profoundly misleading description of what journaiists actually do as they write the news.

Altheide (1976) argues that due to the organizationd features of journalism, the news inevitably decontextuaiizes events and recontextualizes thern artificially in accordance with 'the news perspective'. As internai factors which shape the news,

Tuchmann (1 978) identifies the newsgathering net (the location of correspondents, camera crews, etc.), bureaucratie interactions within news organizations, and the rhythms of news work, with their associated 'typifications' of newsworthy events and processes.

Other critics argue that, quite apart from journalism's mediation of the social world, language itself cannot fùnction so as to transmit directly the supposedly inherent meaning or tmth of events. In part, this is because labelling implies evaluation and conte* In David Morley's words, neutral, value-fiee language, 'in which the pure facts of the world could be recorded without prejudice' is impossible, because

'evaluations are already implicit in the concepts, the language in ternis of which one observes and records' (Morley, 1976: 246-247).

Recogaiziog the news to be a fûndarnentally ideological constnict, the

'manufacture-of-news' perspective is the moa signifiant in this critical media tradition as exemplified in the work of, for example, Gitlin (1980). Hall (1973, 1974), Knight

(1 982), Murdock (1973), Knight and Dean (1982). The Glasgow University Media

Group (1977, 1980), and Hackett (1984). Arguing that no account of events is 'reality written dowd but only a specific story about reality, the manufacture-of-news approach attempts to show that the news media create accounts of the world that systematicdly rely on and reinforce certain types and forms of social knowledge to the exclusion of othen. Theorists in this tradition argue that the news is never simply a series of facts or a simple mirror of extemal reality. Rather it is a cultural product and the accounts and descriptions of the world it gives are produced from within specific interpretive frameworks.

If news is not then an objective account of events, 'reality written dom', what is it? If it is not separate from the society it purports to represent, and objective, then it must be relative, connected to that society and subjective. To recognize this is to recognize that there is indeed a connection between society and the depiction of reality in the news. Thus for the media to present reality it must necessarily interpret it. To do this it must have a system of interpretation. That system of interpretation is ideology. The Glasgow University Media Group States that ideology is not some set of alien ideas imposed, propaganda-like, upon willing and unwilling hearers. Rather, it is a representation of events or facts which 'consistently favours the petceptual framework of one group' (1980: 230). They acknowledge that 'news talk' occurs within a culturai fiamework which stresses its balance and impartiality. Yet they state that despite this, detailed media analysis reveals that "it consistently maintains and supports a cultural framework within which viewpoints favourable to the status quo are given preferred and privileged readings" (1980: 233).

Similarly, Hall (1986: 72) argues that particular accounts may be ideological,

'not because of the manifest bias or distortions of their surface contents, but because they were generated out of, or were transformations based on, a lirnited ideological matrix'--a set of mies and concepts for making sense of the world which is systernatically lirnited by its social and historical context. Thus the reproduction of ideology need not be intentional.

Hall has argued that given the existence of these news values and news production techniques, one rnust examine the cultural 'codes', so that the ideology of news can be properly seen. Hall defines codes as configurations of meaning which permit a sign to signie, in addition to its denotative reference, other, additional implied meanings. These configurations of meaning are forms of social knowledge, derived fiom the social practices, the knowledge of institutions, the beliefs and the

'legitimations' which exist in a difhed form within society, and which order that society's appreherüion of the world in terms of dominant meaning-patterns. Hall suggests that "news values appear as a set of neutral, routine practices: but we need also to see these des as the fomalization and operationalization of an ideology of news"

(1974: 176).

Contemporary cultural codes allow the often taken-for-granted generation of specific basic hesof reference. Such codes or routine hdings are not always

&y revealed. For although they exist and are used in constructing and manufachiring news, they are so deeply ingrained as cultural assumptions that only occasionally, if at dl, do they surface or are they brought into question.

As we have seen above, contemporary media analysis supports a view that news is not reality written down, but rather a specific story about reality. That leaves us with the question, whose story is being told? Which interpretation of events will the joumalist favour, and by what means will this preference become obvious?

Media coverage of labour issues has been a particularly central subject of analysis in the field of ideology and the media. While some commentaton note that joumalists for the most part are politically liberal or Ieft-leaning and therefore sympathetic in their coverage of labour issues (to the extent of having pro-labour intentions), research results show quite a different story. The work of Bauer (1 986),

DiLorenzo (1 996), Erickson and Mitchell (1996), Grimes (1 987), Harrison (1 9851, Mort

(1992), Mulcahy (1995), and Puette (1992) shows that labour news is presented in a consistently negative Iight that highlights destruction and chaos caused by suikers, trivializes workers' demands, and justifies aggressive action by corporations to end the confiict. The coverage is presented in such a way that it prevents full understanding of the issues by the public.

Case Study

In this case study 1 undertake an andytic critique of contemporary news output.

1 will examine the media coverage of a particular workplace dispute-the two year strike

at the Inring Oil Refmery in Saint John, N.B. This case is of particular interest for a

number of reasons. FUst of dl, the strike proved to be a sign of the changing labour

relations climate, both in North Amerïca and globally. The strike began as a resdt of

significant cutbacks to M, and threats to job security by Irving Oil Ltd., in an effort

to mimic the flexibility and restnicturing of labour seen in the southern U.S. and

elsewhere, as part of the changing face of global commerce. Throughout the strike the

provincial government sided with the company by refusing to intervene, and ignoring

oppomuiities to punue "anti-scabt' legislation. At the strike's conclusion, a humiliating

final contract was imposed by the company that included the dismissal of the entire

union executive, and mandatory ideological te-education programs for returning

workers. It seems clear that this strike was a test case for the Irving Group of

Companies and for industries throughout the country, which were gauging their ability to rollback labour rights and increase corporate power.

My goal here will be to examine the way in which a select group of newspapers covered this issue. The papers chosen are the four New Brunswick English-language daily papers, The Globe and Mail, "Canada' s National Newspaper, " based in Toronto, and a selection of other Canadian newspapers.' These papers will be examined to compare the way in which they represent the two (or more) sides in this issue-that of

0 the employer, union and possible third parties. AI1 of these groups have competing accounts of the issues and events involved in this strike, and a close analysis of the media will reveal how each group was portrayed. The previous literature on this topic suggests that media present a more detailed and favourable representation of the employer than the union in their coverage and as a resdt the public will receive only a limited and partial view of the range of opinion and issues involved in these events.

In terms of media coverage of this particular strike, a number of additional factors are present compared to previous case studies in this literature. The most significant factor for students of ideology in the media is that the Irving Group, which was in dispute with the workers, is the owner and de facto editor of every single

English-language daily newspaper in the province. Thus the adage that "freedom of the press is for those who own one" is particularly salient in this case. Yet, the coverage of this issue reveals that there were differences arnong the New Brunswick papers as well as in The Globe and Mail, and the other Canadian papers. In addition, while the representations of the striken in the Irving papers appears to be largely negative, this was done in a subtle way that prevented many readers fiom recognizing the controi exerted by the publishers over the content of these stories.

This project is aiso focussed on achieving a clearer sense of the nature of ideology. Thus, 1 am interested in examining what we can learn about the restrictive and inclusive versions of ideology and their application to media research through this case study. The restrictive version of ideology involves the dissemination of coherent, politically-oriented ideologies that are fiequently identified through their connection to well known political theories such as Liberalism, Conservativism or Socialism. In the inclusive defdtion, we see a less coherent set of ideas that are reflective of often contradictory amalgam of "cornmonsense" understandings of the world. Thus part of this research will be to see how the different papers "made sense" of the strike. Did they resort to the cornmon stances of traditional political ideologies that wodd be consistent with the restrictive definition of the concept, did they reflect the local vemacular of political culture that advocates of the inclusive definition seek to unravel, or did they do both?

Methodology

In order to explore these questions of media coverage, 1 employ a form of content analysis methodology. This methodological instrument allows us to compare the media coverage of these groups in a nurnber of ways. Standard quantitative issues such as the length and amount of space given to each side will be measured. In addition, more qualitative issues will be examined. Contemporary content analysis incorporates strategies for noting and taking account of emphasis.

Position, placing, treatment, tone, stylistic intensification, striking imagery are al1 ways of registering emphasis. The really significant item may not be the one which continually recurs, but the one which stands out as an exception fiom the general pattern-but which is aiso given, in its exceptional conte* the greatest weight. (Hall, 1975: 17).

Past anaiysis of labour coverage shows that the press typically choose more negative lexical item in reference to workers and their actions, relative to the terms chosen to dkbeemployers. For example, the workers are typically described as 'demanding' while the employers are 'ofTering'. This dissertation will provide a comprehensive investigation into the nature of the language, semantics and heaàiines, the representation of social and historicd background to the issue. In this dissertation the reader will find an evaluation of the media representation of two sides in a labour issue that each have their own histories, ideologies, goals, tactics, degrees of popdar support, and relations to the power elite. This issue will be examined to determine how exactly ideology operates in this kind of news. Ideology is manifested in the news in a number of subtle ways and it is the aim of this analysis to employ qualitative and quantitative techniques to unveil them.

In this dissertation 1 will answer the following questions:

1. How is ideology defined?

2. What evidence is there in this case study to support the restrictive and inclusive def~tionsof ideology?

3. What evidence is there to support Eagleton's mode1 of ideology?

4. 1s there any validity to joumalisrn's daims of objectivity?

5. How were the employer and the union in the Refinery strike represented in the employer-owned papers? In a non-employer owned paper?

6. 1s there a difference in the coverage of this issue among the Irving-owned papers?

7. Are there elements of charismatic or traditional authonty (as opposed to rational-legal authority) in worker and public attitudes to the Irving Group, and how does it affect the working of ideology? 8. What can media analysis literaîure and practice contribute to our understanding of ideology?

9. What can theoretical explorations of ideology contribute to our understanding of media dysis?

10. How does the idea of hegemony, in the Gramscian sense, include but dso go beyond, the various meanings of ideology?

1. The New Brunswick papers are the Times-Transcript, The Daily Gl eaner, The locally-oriented Saint John Times - Globe, and the provincially-oriented Tel egraph- Journal, which is also based in Saint John. The other Canadian Papers examined are Calgary Herald, Halifax Chronicle Herald, Edmonton Journal, St . John's Evening Telegram, Financial Post, The (Charlottetown) Guardian, Halifax Daily News, Hamilton Spectator, Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Toronto Star, Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times Colonist, Winnipeg Free Press. Chapter Two: The Restrictive View of Ideology and its Decline

Introduction

One of the central fadt lines in the literature on ideology, and the one that is of the greatest importance for our study of ideology in the media, is between the restrictive and the inclusive views of ideology. As 1 will show in this chapter and the next, for the two centunes preceding the death of Karl Marx, the restrictive way of thinking about ideology was the dominant one. I believe that the restrictive view of ideology is the dominant one in Marx's wok especially the late Marx, but there is evidence of inclusive forms of ideology as well. The restrictive view of ideology is that tradition which sees ideology as an obfuscating belief, as action-oriented, and as often the possession of a smail political class. This has been the dominant view of ideology partly because the term ideology was coined by reformers who wanted to develop means of transforming the mentalités, or "political culture," of the early modem period.

Further, until Durkheim and Weber, who are transitional thinkers, socialists saw ideology as a major tool of the bourgeoisie to perpetuate its nile.

It is worthwhile remembering that however ideology is defmed, there is a range of meaning that must be accounted for, and that this range of meaning changes over time. Consistent with our view, George Rudé (1980: 7-14) notes that there are ideologies that are "derived" through an intellectual process, which in this work 1 cal1 the "restrictive view of ideology". Further, there are "inherent ideologies", which are traditional ideas found among the people and are sometimes referred to as mentalités (Rudé, 1980: 30). In this discussion, I note that proponents of the inclusive view of ideology Gequently focus thek attention on these inherent ideologies as sites for the analysis of ideology within cornmonsense thinking. According to Rudé, popular protest involves a continually-changing synthesis of these two forms of thought. It is important to our discussion of pre-Marxist ideology that we recognize, with Rudé, that this synthesis changes over tirne, with varying levels of sophistication.

Durkheim and Weber were transitional thinkers in the area of ideology. This is so because they stand rnidway on the continuum between the restrictive and inclusive end points. Unlike Marx, they did not restnct the meaning of ideology to the negative restrictive notion of the system of ideas designed to conceal reality. But they did not go so far as Gramsci and other twentieth century thinkers, who fûlly understood the ways in which ideology was rnanifested in state institutions broadly considered, such as the education, health and religious organizations. As we will see, though, these classic sociologists had a much stronger sense of the ways in which people participated in systems of ideas that organized social life. Durkheim and Weber recognized the changes that Europe was undergoing, including economic development and the increasing power and rote of the state. Consequently, they began a new debate, between those who saw ideology in its inclusive rather than restrictive sense, a "hidden debate" that has consumed much of this century. As we will see, advocates of the inclusive sense of ideology believe that particular ideologies pemeate dl of society, that ideology is not just a coherent system of ideas held by a select few. In this work I will go beyond this debate, and argue instead that we should be seeking evidence,

based on a theoretical examination, for a variety of forms of ideology, rather than

limiting our midy in a partisan sense.

Pre-history of Ideology

Sociological treatments of the history of ideology usually mark the origin of the

term with the 'ideologues' of the French Revolution and Destutt de Tracy's def~tion

of ideology as the 'science of ideas'. While this is an important starting point in the

history of the modem conception of ideology and will be dealt with below, the notion

of a science of ideas has some interesting precedents which deserve attention.

Philosophy has long had an interest in the realm of knowledge and ideas and an examination of some of the classical foundations of that discipline reveal some early approaches to the concept of ideology. As we will see, perhaps because of the

exclusive, rather than inclusive nature, of phiIosophica1 thought before the

Enlightenment, the theones of ideologies that aise follow the restrictive perspective.

Classical philosophy's contribution to the understanding of ideology lies in its discussion of the existence and nature of Truth which was to be distinguished from false opinion. Aristotle examined various methods for obtaining verifiable truth about the world, and Plato made the case that real knowledge could be discovered and was grounded in geometry and arithrnetic. In addition Plato's theory of forms has been identified as one of the first systems of idealism. Plato made the argument that reality does not belong to the ever-changing world of sense, but der, true being is found in the corporeal essences or ideas, which communicate to phenomena whatever permanent existence and knowability they possess. These pure foms exist in a supersemous world by themselves, and in their relation to the world of phenomena is indicated by

Plato only with the help of metaphors.

Modem conceptions of ideology, in the "restrictive" tradition, have long associated it with false belief and distinguished it from a mereality. Plato was an early advocate of this division arguing that the majority of society were influence by base passions and superstitions, while only a privileged few were able to "see the sun", and thus have access to true knowledge. He also proposed that this differential access to truth be used by the elite to perpetuate the 'noble lie' that would manipulate the ignorant masses when the State deemed it necessary. Plato's work not only makes a clear distinction between tmth and illusion, but it is also an early dernonstration of the social basis of knowledge and the conscious manipulation of the masses by the use of false ideas.

Despite the inbom qualities of the guardians in Plato's Re~ublic,they still had to be protected fiom the determining power of social and economic factors by abstaining nom participation in the economic realm. Thus Seliger (1977:17) notes that Plato's belief in the possibility of building the best state rested on the premise that most people must remain subject to the undesirable effects of socio-economic determination, while only the members of a specific class could escape these influences. The Platonic defense of the existence of true knowledge based upon absolute standards and values begins a tradition of using empirical proofs to verify true knowledge and dominated much of the philosophical debate about the nature of knowledge and ideas for centuries to corne.

The Enlkhtenment

The dawn of the Enlightenment brought with it a new faith in the powers of reason and science to explain the naturai world. Yet philosophers soon became aware that if their knowledge of the world was being impeded or even distorted, their new-found reliance on the rationality of the human mind could not be fully tnisted. Thus there arose a new concem among philosophen as to the nature of true knowledge and the obstacles that stood in the way of understanding and advancing it. One of the first participants in this project was Sir Francis Bacon, whose contribution earned him high praise even a century later when Etieme Bonnot de Condillac declared in his

Encyclopédie that "No one knew better than Bacon the causes of our errors. For he realized that the ideas produced by the mind were faulty and had therefore to be remade if the search for the tnith was to advance" (cited in Barth, 1976: 18).

In his 1620 work Novum Organum Bacon argued that human beings were being impeded in their pursuit of tme knowledge because of the presence of idols that distorted the mind's ability to perceive and therefore control nature. Bacon defmed idols as prejudices or biases that keep one fiom seeing the tnith. Horowitz (1961 : 18) notes that Bacon uses the tem id01 "not so much in the religious sense of pagan worship, but rather as a synonym for socially conditioned faulty reasoning."

Bacon developed a typology of four kinds of idols: Idols of the Tribe, of the Cave, of the Marketplace, and of the Theatre. The Idols of the Tribe were biases natural to

humanity in general. Bacon argued that the social preoccupations of human beings

affected their senses and their mind so that "al1 perceptions... bear reference to man and

not to the universe; and the human mind resembles those uneven mirrors which impart

their own properties to different objects... and distort and disfigure them" (Bacon, 1620:

i, 2) Idols of the Cave were the additional distortions created by individuai biases which "comipt the light of nature, either fkom his own peculiar or singdar disposition, or fiom his education and intercourse with others, or from his reading, and the authorïty acquired by those whom he ...admires (Bacon, 1620: i, 21). Idols of the Marketplace arose when the language of commerce distorted people's ability to understand the economic system. Idols of the Theatre referred to the way dogmas and philosophic or scientific systems represented the world in an unreal and detached way. Bacon argued that previous systems of philosophy should now be regarded as "so many plays brought out and perfonned, creating fictitious and theatrical worlds" (1 620: i, 22).

While Bacon made a fundamental contribution to the study of ideology by investigating and documenting the ways through which knowledge of the world is distorted by intemal and extemal factors, he did not break with the betief that a tnie extemal reality that was ultimately accessible to human beings did exist. Bacon believed that absolute tmth did exist and that through the reasoning powers of the rational mind the influence of the idols could be "purged and scraped" and tme knowledge could be known. Bacon believed that the i~atepower of the mind enabled human beings to understand nature tbrough induction, and thus he argued for the

creation of a science "for purging the mind so that it might become skilful in the tnith"

(Bacon, 1620: i, 34). Bacon did not limit this access to tme reality to a specific social

class, as Plato did, but rather saw reason as the means by which al1 people could

overcome superstition and thus tnily understand and control nature.

Hans Barth (1976: 22) notes that it would be difficult to overestirnate the historic

and systematic significance of Bacon's theory of idols. The philosoohes of the eighteenth century expanded Bacon's project to develop a radical political theory of

'prejudice' that they applied to religion, society, and the state. They argued that the prejudices that were preventing the natual order of state and society from being revealed needed to be stripped away and demanded that the old order of divine authority be replaced with one based on secular reason. But it was not only to Bacon that these theonsts owed an intellechiai debt. Horowitz (1961: 24) States that English empiricism was the historical and phenomenological precondition for the cntical social theory of Condillac, Helvètius and other eighteenth-century French thinkers.

The French Revolution

The influence of the preceding debates, as well as intemal social and politicai developments in France in the latter part of the eighteenth century, cornbined to form a critical school of philosophy aimed at explaining the socio-cultural ongins of ideas.

Baron de Montesquieu, impressed with the work of the British empiricists and very critical of the social disorder of the Bourbon dynasty, produced an influentid analysis of the socio-cultural ongins of knowledge. L'Eet des Lois (1748) sought to demonstrate the Uifluence that different climactic, economic, geographical, moral and racial conditions had on the formation of law and govemment Arguing fiom a similar premise, Claude Helvétius in his De I'Emrit (1758) made the case that because social ideas, especially those of the ding class, had such a strong influence on individual ideas, truth required independence fiom institutional and social pressures. Helvétius argued that personal and social passions of pnde and ambition, dong with epistemological distortions block the path to the perfection of ideas. He argued that human beings judge the validity and usefulness of ideas on the basis of self-interest.

He believed that political corruption and religious intolerance were false ideas based on vested interests that distorted the natural order of society. He proposed that every individual has the necessary esprit to see past self-interest and thus realize the higher ideals of a moral and rational society. Paul Holbach shared Helvètius' vision of the new moral order and stated that it was the church and state that were keeping people from true knowledge. Thus he called for "the veils of prejudice to be tom off' so that the truth could be revealed (Barth, 1976: .36). The work of these thinkers, contributed to the critical social theory of the French Revoiution that sought to unmask the old order of religious authority and replace it with one based on human reason and rationality .

Antoine Destutt de Tracy responded to the development of this cntical consciousness about the ongins of knowledge and the role of ideas in legitimating and maintaining social order, by calling for a science of ideas. It was in Tracy's Elements of Ideolow (1796) that the term idéologie was coined for the fvst time in order to distinguish it from the study of ancient metaphysics. Tracy used the term to mean a science which was to discover the ongin and law of ideas (Williams, 1976: 154). As a prerequisite for this science, innate religious ideas about the sou1 or mind had to be rejected on the grounds that they could not be verified by observation. Tracy and the

French ideologues who followed him, saw ideas as the key to reforming society. They argued for a secular education system that would avoid the influence of fdse ideas and would lead the way to tme knowledge and social refomation. This radical agenda of the ideologues prompted the disfavour of Napoleon Bonaparte who eventually distorted the term ideology and used it as a pejorative critique of the work of his cntics.

It is to the doctrine of the ideologues--to this diffbse metaphysics, which in a contrived manner seeks to find the primary causes and on this foundation would erect the legislation of peoples, instead of adapting the laws to a knowledge of the hurnan heart and of the lessons of history-to which one must attribute al1 the misfortunes which have befdlen our beautiful France (N. Bonaparte, cited in Williams, 1976: 154).

Seliger (1977: 15) notes that Napoleon confused two simultaneous preoccupations of the ideologues: their philosophical theory concerning the formation of ideas, and the defence of their political ideals. This conceptuai confusion and the pejorative use of the term remains prominent today so that ideology is often used by theorists on the right and left to describe the presumably fdse or misguided ideals held by their opponents. In this section 1 have examined the eady history of the concept of ideology. We

have seen that as a concept ideology has a long history, following a tradition that goes

back to ancient Greece. In this early period, the study of ideas moved fiom the pnvate

pursuit of a scholarly elite, as it had been in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, to a form of study which had the ability to challenge the "tnith" of the state, thereby

threatening the state, as we cm see ultimately in the conflict between de Tracy and

Napoleon Bonaparte. We see that al1 of these theones fa11 into the restrictive category,

since they emphasize obfuscating or misleading belief, and are the possession of a small intellectual class,

The Idealism-Materialism Dialectic

In this section 1 will examine the place of ideology within the work of a number of thinkers referred to as idealists. In addition, in the second part 1 will look at Karl

Marx on ideology. This may at first seem like an odd pairing, because an idealist like

Hegel and a "materialist" like Marx are often regarded as polar opposites. Such an assessrnent ignores the debt of Marx and Marxism generaliy to the idealist tradition.

As we will see, Marx came into contact with the principles of the Hegelian Left while in University and was consequently influenced by some of the moa challenging and revolutionary elements within idealist thought. Mmadopted fiom Hegel the idea of process, a teleological interpretation of history, the suprapersonal power of history, and an emphasis on the primacy of the collective over the individual. Marx developed

Hegel's dialectical method into a principle of economic and political revolution, and applied to specific aspects of reality. For Hegel, the driving power of history was the

dynamic of the Idea, while for Man< it was the dynamic of economic development,

dialectically giving nse to a series of classes which stmggle, as they develop, for

possession of both the means of (economic and mental) production and the state.

German Idealism

Sociologists tend to define idealism as a type of analysis in which ideas are seen as the ultimate cause of social relations. This type of ideaiism is generally contrasted with materialism whereby economic factors are said to be the primary influence on social phenornena. However, in philosophy idealism has an additional meaning in which it is maintained that the extemal material world is either constmcted by or dependent upon the mind. Kant's definition of idealism provides a representative view of the philosophical usage of the term.

Idealism consists in the assertion that there are no other dian thinking beings, that the other things which we believe ounelves to perceive are only ideas in thinking beings--ideas in fact to which there is no correspondent outside of or beyond the thinking beings (Kant cited in Baldwin, 1901: 503)

Philosophical idealism maintains that the reality of the external world is its perceptibility, in contrast to philosophical realism. Realism maintains that in sense perception we have assurance of the presence of a reality, distinct fiom the modifications of the perceiving mind, and existing independently of our perceptions.

Plato's theory of forms has been identified as an example of early philosophical idealism, as has the subjective idealism of Berkeley. Locke clairned that the mind in dl its thoughts and reasonings had no other immediate object but its own ideas which it alone could contemplate. Kant's epistemoiogical ideaiism is perhaps the most central contribution to the theory and has exerted considerable influence on subsequent ideaiist philosophy.

Gennan Idealism, a theoretical position that has been influentid since its inception in the penod 1780 - 1820, owes a great debt to Kant's work but in many ways differs in kind from earlier idealism and is more ciearly represented in the works of Fichte and Hegel. This type of idealism is important for the student of ideology because it presents a complex but compelling theoretical position that has greatly influenced the work of other ideology scholan such as Marx.

Johann Fichte

The work of Johann Fichte has often been overlooked by many sociologists including those interested in the study of ideoiogy. His reformulation of contradictions in the work of Kant and his critique of excessive structural tendencies in Enlightenment theory influenced the work of Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer and made a lasting contribution to the analysis of idealism. Fichte's primary concem was to champion the concepts of freedom and human agency at a time when Enlightenment faith in mechanistic and invariable laws of human mind and behaviour resdted in a view of

"fiee will" as an outdated and "contemptible remnant of pre-scientific superstition"

(Gardiner, 1982: 112). Whiie many critiqued the Enlightenrnent approach for religious reasons, Fichte's opposition centred upon the issue of human autonomy. He argued that in any theory that treated the human mind and spirit as an appendage of nature, the spontaneity and creative ability of the autonomous and reasoning subject would necessarily be lost.

A fervent follower of Kant, Fichte sought to transform Kantian idealism fiom a 'corrective' of empiricism to a revolutionary idealism in its own right. While Kant and others wodd not endorse the conclusions that Fichte claimed followed from

Kantian thought, much of Fichte's work was indeed an attempt to resolve certain inconsistencies in Kant's transcendental idealism. Kant sought to reclaim the concept of human agency while accepting the Enlightenment premise of invariant causal laws by allowing for human participation in both the phenomenal and noumenal worlds.

Enlightenment thought allowed for human participation solely in the phenomend world which dealt with redity as it appears to the conscious subject, while Kant proposed that in addition humans could interact with the noumenal world which allowed for things as they are in themselves. Kant believed that this formulation transcended the Iimits of a purely naturdistic approach where humans were not phenomenal appearances informed by nature, but could be seen as non-empiricd entities of consciousness and will; members of the noumend sphere who were capable of issuing and obeying laws which were 'independent' of nature and rooted in reason alone (Gardiner, 1982: 114).

While Kant did not see this to be a contradiction, others saw it as a glaring inconsistency and a radical transformation of previously held beliefs about the relationship between the human mind and the natural order. For Fichte, the Kantian emphasis on agency in an otherwise structural formulation represented the basis of a

tnie understanding of human participation in the world but this position was in no way

compatible with any premise of mechanistic laws. Fichte abandoned the Enlightenment

position altogether, rejected Kant's theory of things in themselves, and emphasized

instead elements of purposive agency. To this end, he developed the concept of the "1"

or das Ich which introduced the notion of self and ego as well as "intellectual intuition"

into the debate. Thus he claimed that human interaction with the world could not be

understood without examining the needs and interests that inform the attitudes and

actions of human beings.

We do not act because we know, but we know because we are called upon to act--the practical rewn is the root of dl reason (Fichte, The Vocation of Man, cited in Gardiner, 1982: 120).

This interpretation of humans as practical beings introduced into epistemology the

supremacy of the practical or moral point of view. Gardiner notes that Fichte's emphasis on the practical orientation of human thought had a vital bearing upon the way hurnan beings conceptualized and classified the world around them.

In this manner the world as we expenenced it was not the 'neutral', self-sufficient domain it was typically portrayed as being. On the contrary, when viewed as the fields of our diverse needs, aims, and ...mord aspirations, it was in a crucial sense 'our world', falling within a perspective that could not fail to reflect these at every him (Gardiner, 1982: 120).

In addition, Fichte argued that the human spirit released fiom nature had moral obligations to use this new found self-consciousness to grapple with reality and take responsibility for the world. He maintained that individuals participate in a process whereby the spirit is involved in an unremithg slruggie, constantly seking to master or -end what it has itself produced (Kolakowski, 1978: 50). Ultimately Fichte argued for a form of radical idealism, in which human beings were not in fact subject to nature but rather where the ego was the exclusive source of the world of dl experience. He claimed that ideaiism was nahirally superior to the Enlightenment explmations of the human rnind and behaviour and stated that those who did not accept the idealist premise were intellectually weak and psychologically dependent upon a dogrnatic theory that treated subjects as detemined by nature.

The consequences and influences of Fichte's thought have been far reaching.

His analysis of the role of human agency in shaping hurnan knowledge, which we now take for granted, gained merexpression in the writings of Heidegger and Sartre, both of whom rnaintained that the understanding of everyday life is necessarily influenced by practical or instrumental concems which in tum affect the significance and meaning of a given event. In addition his claim that humans and nature can be seen as the expression of an 'absolute' spirit provided an important starting point for the idealist contributions of Hegel and others (Gardiner, 1982: 124).

Georg W. F. Hegel

Hegelian Idealism or dialectical idealism as it has been cailed differs from other idealist positions of the time and has corne to be the most resonant and influentid version of idealism. Hegel did not share Fichte's renunciation of a logicai solution of

Kant's problem, or his emphasis on the moral will as the core of reaiity. He was also suspicious of the romantic appeals to faith, intuition, and mystical feeling inherent in the aesthetic idealism of Schelling.

Hegel presented the centrai argument of his doctrine of idealism in his

Phenornenolow of S~irit. In this work he described the successive phases of the necessary development of consciousness from pure conscioumess to absolute knowledge. He maintained that this transition takes place through a process of self-awareness, Reason, Spirit (or Mind), and religion and consequently fidfils the purpose of the world, which is identicai with knowledge of the world (Kolakowski,

1978: 57).

Hegel represented history as the self-realization of spirit or God. He maintained that spirit was self-created energy imbued with a &ive to become fully conscious of itself as spirit. Spirit was the subject writ large which includes al1 human beings and everything in human experience. It is the world aware of itself as a self-conscious and comprehensible unity (Solomon, 1983: 284). Nature was spirit in its self-objectification in space, while history was spirit in its ~el~objectificationas culture. This process could be seen in the succession of world-dominant civilizations from the ancient Orient to modem Europe. For Hegel, Spirit actualized its nature as self-conscious being by the process of knowing. Through the mind of human beings, the world achieved consciousness of itself as spirit. This process involved the repeated overcoming of spirit's dienation from itself, which took place when spirit as the knowing mind confionted a world that faisely appeared as objective, or other than spirit. Knowing was recognition, whereby spirit destroyed the illusory othemess of the objective world and recognized it as actudly subjective. Hegel believed that this process reached its conclusion at the stage of absolute knowledge, when spirit was fuially and fully "at home with îtself in its othemess," having recognizèd the whole of creation as spirit

(Marx and Engels, 1978: xxi).

Hegel employed a dialectical methodology which he applied to the world. The dialectic for Hegel was the very activity of philosophical thinking. It was the process of development of an adequate conception of the world, by way of pushing a wide variety of conceptions to their ultimate conclusions (Solornon, 1983 : 278). Essentially this involved the coming together of contradictory forces of the thesis or object and the antithesis or subject which culminated in a new synthesis.

A consequence of this position was that in order to understand any process of evolution, it becomes necessary to relate the part to the whole. Thus, tmth, for example, must be expressed in its entirety and rneaning is understood only in its relation to the complete process (Kolakowski, 1978: 59).

But for Hegel, the diaiectic was not a method that could be separated from the subject-matter to which it was applied and transferred to any other sphere. Rather it was "an account of the historical process whereby consciousness overcomes its own contingency and fuiitude by constant self-differentiation (Kolakowski, 1978: 69). This overcoming of contingency was the equivalent of the fieeing of the spirit. Hegel explored this aspect of the evolution of Mind in his Lectures on the Philoso~hvof Historv. Hegel's theory of history was essentially an account of the spirit's search for

freedom through the variety of past events and the graduai reconciliation of the

subjective will with the generai will of histoncal reason. It was a history that although

appearing chaotic and subjective, was ultimately following a rational path towards

increasing self realization and freedom. Thus the law, state, religion, art, and

philosophy were al1 elements in the progress of the mind towards fieedom. Indeed, the

state was considered the 'ethical whole' where the individual could abandon subjective desires and realize his or her fieedorn as part of the community. Thus the state was considered "the highest form of objectivization of Mind" representing the general will of historical reason and prevailing in disputes between itself and the individual

(Kolakowski, 1978: 73).

Finally, it is important for this project to examine Hegel's concept of the Idea.

The Idea in Hegel's work was dynarnic and gave nse to al1 that exists, so that al1 existence was the manifestation, the actualization, of the Idea. "Only by being actuaiized does the Idea receive its full reality, and only by containing the Idea does the existing obtain its full existence" (Hartmann, 1953: xii). It was the human spirit, the synthesis of the divine Idea and Nature, which made the indeterminate reality of the

Idea determinate in existence (Hartmann, 1953: xiv). The Idea develops in both space and the, so that history is the actualization of the divine Idea or cosmic plan. Hegel maintained that at the end of the historicai process, when the Spirit has fully realized itself, there was a global state of reason of all humanity. It was in this that the absolute Idea would be fidfilled, and historical and spiritual greatness coincide. Thus, since history was considered to be the result of the dynamic of the divine Idea, the idea created al1 that is history.

Hegel's work has been criticized for being difficult to understand and in many places ambiguous and contradictory. Critics argue that Hegel diminishes the importance of the independent value of human life in his philosophy of history, depicting individuafs as merely complying with the demands of universal reason, and authorizing the state to coerce individuals for the sake of higher freedom.

The Ideaiist Iegacy

Afier the death of Hegel, the idealism which he represented began at once to split up into a number of opposing tendencies. The very contradictory nature of much of Hegelian thought resulted in the formation of two very different positions. On the one hand elements of Hegelianism could be read as essentially "conservative" or anti-utopian, condemning any intervention in the course of human history and advocating acquiesence to the inevitability of the status quo. Proponents of this tendency within Hegel's thought argued that any opposition to the status quo arnounted to the actions of an immature consciousness. On the other hand, Hegel's charnpioning of an empincal history that was rational and coincided with the struggle of the spirit to be free, encouraged challenges to an oppressive status quo. Using the imperatives of

Reason, human beings could criticize the existing world and demand reforms. The

Hegelian legacy of most interest to the student of ideology however, is that of the dialectic of the materiai and ideal, which was of such importance for Marx

Karl Marx

The work of Karl Marx has had an enormous impact on the shidy of ideology.

While Marx was not a purely "restrictive" thinker on this subject, much of his work represents the high-water mark of the restrictive view of ideology. Marx's work contains both inclusive and restrictive senses of ideology. As we will see, his restrictive view is connected to the instrumental uses of ideology by the mling class, which cornes out in The Comntunist Manifest0 and other late writings. He uses ideology inclusively when he refers to the permeation of the ruling ideas of an epoch throughout society. As in other aspects of Marx's thought, his followers have picked up on both of these tendencies. In this section I want to focus on Marx's restrictive use, since his twentieth-century followers have so well elaborated on the inclusive use.

It has been argued that it was with Marx that the concept of ideology came of age, only later to be thoroughly contested, as we will see. History-of-Ideas scholars identi5 Marx's work on ideology as "the storm centre" of the Sociology of Knowledge.

Yet, a unifonn theory of ideology is not defined and may not exist in Mm's work.

Scholars must instead cul1 fiom Marx's writings the sometimes contradictory references to ideology and develop a theoretical understanding fiom there. Marx's theory of ideology is located prirnady in The Gennan Ideology and the preface to A Contribution to the Critioue of Political Economv, but the work on dienation in the Economic and

Philoso~hicManuscnots of 1844 and Engels' Ludwia Feuerbach and the Outcorne of Classical German Philosoohv also provide important insights.

It appears that Marx was familiar with the writings on ideology of Destutt de

Tracy and other French ideologues and utilized their ideas in some of his early writings.

Marx observed the shift in usage of the term ideology fiom a 'science of ideas' to a

derogatory dur and tended to be more sympathetic with the latter sense of the word

(Barth, 1976; 38). Like the idealists discussed above, Marx characterized ideology as

relating to the reaim of ideas nich as philosophy, history, law and social and political

thought. It wasn't until the twentieth century that Marxists came to consider empincal

and scientific thought as subject to social forces and class interests. Yet, Kolakowski

notes that Marx was a pioneer in turning attention from debates over whether sornething

was tme or not, to the issue of whose interests would be served by the knowledge.

~olakowski(1 978: 155) States:

In the modem analysis of ideas it is generally accepted that the ideological content mut be distinguished fiom the cognitive value, that the functional-genetic conditioning of thought is one thing and its scientific legitimacy another.

Marx defines ideology as a fom of false consciousness that prevents people

fiom recognizing the social forces that affect their understanding of themselves and

social reaiity. For Marx, true consciousness is associated with the existence of a natural

and unalienated life expenence. The fùlfiiment of people's spontaneous labouring and creative drives allows them to develop an ability to understand themselves and the world around them in an authentic way. For Marx, this is necessady a social process. AS Marx (1978: 4) states, in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political

Economv:

It is not the consciousfless of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

False comciousness comes about largely because of the division of labour and

the consequent alienation of individuals from their species-essence. Thus:

The origin of ideologies and of the 'fdse' ideological consciousness appears to be a direct consequence of the division of labour, just as the entire teleology of history, too, hinges on it It signifies nothing less than the Fall, the original act of sin with which history commences, and with whose abolition history ... comes to an end. The liquidation of the division of labour assumes for Marx the meaning of the salvation and the restoration of man (Barth, 1976: 84).

Thus alienation plays an important role in the development of ideological consciousness for Marx. Dividing labour into separate physical and mental entities is a fundarnental rift in their nanual unity. People increasingly lose control over their work and life processes. Intellectual activity becomes a separate function engaged in by members of a certain class, with the State frequently serving as the voice for the most influentid of these philosophical positions. The consequence of this separation of consciousness fiom being is that ideas corne to be accepted as autonomous and are no longer recognized as socially-generated phenornena.

This aspect of false cowciousness becomes more clear in Engels' writings. In the July 14, 1893 letter to Franz Mehnng, Engels argues that because individuals utilize their mental faculties to deal with ideological matenal, they do not question the origin of the ideas. Rather, they consider the entire exercise to be integral to their own minds and therefore do not recognize the fundamental material roots of the ideologies.

Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, it is true, but with a fdse conscioumess. The real motive forces impelling him remain ULZkIlown to him; otherwise it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence he imagines false or seeming motive forces. Because it is a process of thought he drives its fonn as well as its content fiom pure thought, either his own or that of his predecessors. He works with mere thought material, which he does not investigate without examination as the product of thought, and does not investigate Merfor a more remote source independent of thought; indeed this is a matter of course to him, because, as al1 action is mediated by thought, it appears to him to be ultimately based upon thought (Marx and Engels, 1978: 766).

Historically, once ideologicai consciousness has been established it is characterized by Marx as a deluded consciousness. False consciousness is defined, in part, as the discrepancy between the views or ideology held by a person, group or class, and what would be in accord with that person or group's 'objective' social and economic position. Thus, in so far as the working class held an ideologicai understanding of social life that did not square with their 'objective' material circumstances, they were suffering from false consciousness or ideological delusions.

Ideologicai expressions are primarily manifested in the apparatus of the state including the law, as well as in the form of religious panacea or well-promulgated philosophical doctrine. For Mm, ideologicai consciousness bnngs forth "a supemahual, religious ersatz world that affords man an illusory compensation for his real misery" (Barth,

1976: 100). This philosophy serves to justiQ the existing social conditions and to declare the legal and politicai order underlying them as God's will or the manifestation of reason. The symptom of alienation is the attribution of the source of authority either to some impersonal agency-say the laws of supply and demand, fkom which the rationdity of capitalism is represented as being logically deducible, or to imaginary persons or forces-divinities, churches, the mystical person of the king or priest-or other oppressive myths, whereby men, tom fiom a 'natural' mode of life ... seek to explain their unnatural condition to themselves (Berlin, 1959: 134).

It is thus that the human king becomes the object rather than the subject of history.

At this point it must be made clear that this characterization of tme and fdse consciousness is separate fiom epistemological debates about the nature of social reality that dominated the Eniightenment period. Marx categorically rejects that entire framework of defining tmth and reality. He maintained that faith in the power of logic and rationality to render things tnie have given the erroneous impression that there is a transcendant truth waiting to be unmasked; one that is unaffected by social and material forces. Kolakowski (1978: 175) notes that for Marx the reality of the world cannot be separated from hurnan interests, and therefore to speculate on the relationship between thought and reality-in-itself is inelevant to his concerns here. In Theses on

Feurbach, Marx States:

The question whether objective tmth cm be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man mut prove the truth, that is, the reality and power, the this-sideness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question (Marx and Engels, 1978: 144)

Thus, in the German Ideoloa Marx characterizes as naive the Young Hegelians who posit idealism as an emancipatory tool. Marx maintains that the oppression lies in the material circurnstances shaping social consciousness. To see alienation as the consequence of incorrect ideological understanding is a complete inversion of the tme relatiomhip. For Marx, the true characterization of the situation is that ideas are expressions of material relations and therefore the responsibility for the consequences resulting fiom the dominance of particular ideologies rests in the material realm. The achievement of 'me' consciousness, as Man< conceived it, lay in the redization of the unalienated life. This required an end to the artificial division of labour and the re-birth of species identification among people. Ultimately, it required social revolution in the material base of society. Thus Kolakowski (1978: 176) notes that Marx's epistemology is part of his social utopia.

Communism does away with fdse consciousness, not by substituting a correct image of the world for an incorrect one, but by dispelling the illusion that thought is or can be anything other than the expression of a state of life.

It is in his analysis of materialism that Marx continues his explication of the fûnctioning of ideology. This is given its most evocative and direct expression in the following passage from The Geman Ideologv.

The ideas of the ding class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ding material force of society, is at the sarne time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of matenal production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generdly speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it .... In so far, therefore, as [the ding class] des as a class and detennine the extent and compas of an epoch... they do this in its whole range, hence, arnong other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regdate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the niling ideas of the epoch (Marx and Engels, 1978: 172).

Marx's theory of base and superstructure posits that economic relations of production shape and direct the character of the social and political superstructure, and, in tu, the social consciousness of individuals. Marx reiterates in The Eighteenth Brumaire of

Louis Naooleon, that the individual is not necessady aware of this.

Upon the several forms of property, upon the social conditions of existence, a whole superstructure is reared of various and peculiariy shaped feelings, illusions, habits of thought and conceptions of life. The whole class produces and shapes these out of its material foundation and out of the corresponding social conditions. The individual to whom they fiow through tradition and education may fancy that they constitute the true reasons for and premises of his conduct (cited in Williams, 1977: 76).

While references to the nature of the materialist relationship appear throughout

Marx's work, one of the most important explications of the base-superstructure relationship is found in his 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critiaue of Political

Economv.

In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The modes of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general (Marx and Engels, 1978: 4).

There has been a great deal of controversy among social and political theonsts over the precise nature of the base-superstructure relationship. A number of theorists have understood Marx to mean that ultimately the economic base determines the social and cultural superstructure. According to these theorists, Marxism is a necessarily reductive and deterrninist kind of theory. Raymond Williams characterizes this position as one in which

[n]o cultural activity is allowed to be real or significant in itself, but is always reduced to a direct or indirect expression of some preceding and controlling economic content, or of a political content detennined by an economic position or situation (Williams, 1977: 83).

He &tes that in the perspective of mid-twentieth century developments of Marxism,

"this description can be seen as a caricature" (Williams, 1977: 83). The determinist view tends be anti-dialectical and overly structurai in its interpretation and does not recognize the role of the huma. agent in either interpreting ideology or in organizing resistance to it mile Mmis certainly concemed with issues of structural domination, and would explain the Iack of revolutionary mornenhim in terms of this, he also understood the power of human agency.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transrnitted from the past (Marx and Engels, 1978: 595).

It is important to avoid the abstraction of the concepts of base and superstructure as this results in simplistic and deterministic understandings of the relationship. Rather, it is preferable to recognize that Mm's work primarily expresses the sense of "a visible and formai 'superstructure' which might be analyzed on its own but which cannot be understood without seeing that it rests on a 'foundation"' (Williams, 1977: 77).

Williams (1977: 79-80) supports his view of the 'relational' nature of base and superstructure with reference to Engels' well-known letter to Joseph Bloch of

September 1890: According to the materidist conception of history, the ultimately detennining element in history is the production and reproduction of real Life. More than this neither Marx nor 1 have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transfomis that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure... also exercise their influence upon the course of the histoncal struggles and in many cases preponderate in their determining form.

A convincing argument can be made that the base-superstructure relationship is not to be conceived of as a deterministic one. Rather, it is more fmitful to see the econornic base as infonning the shape and direction of the superstructure, while at the same the the superstructure cm have a formative influence of its own. Marx did in fact dlow for the possibility of social change, in which a societal structure could be overthrown aqd the ideological domination of the ruling class broken.

With respect to the role of the state in the issue of ideological control, Marx argues that while the state daims to represent the common interests of the public, it is merely the form in which the rnembers of the ruling class assert their comrnon interests.

Marx saw the state as an essentially repressive apparatus and understood social life to be held together by coercion.

Since the autonomous social power is perpetuated by the class system, that is, by domination and submission, man's relation to the intellechial order, to ideas and concepts is likewise one of submission. As a reflection of the material order of production, the social power possesses an order that is compelling: any transgression of it is punished by the state as the representative of the interests of the ruling class (Barth, 1976: 9 1).

Yet at the sarne tirne. Marx and Engels, at least, explicitly recognized that the ideological arrangements of society tended to hide material domination, resulting in a system of exploitation that was passive rather than violent in nature.

The state presents itself to us as the fm ideological power o;er mankind. Sociev creates for itsdf an organ for the safeguarding of its general interests agaiast intemal and extemai attacks. This organ is the state power. Hardly corne into being, this organ makes itself independent in regard to society; and indeed, the more so, the more it becomes the organ of a particdar ciass, the more it directly enforces the supremacy of that class (Engels, 1941: 54).

Marx believed that ideological supports in Capitdism were more developed than

in any other mode of production. The capitalist state was seen to employ ideology

actively as a stabilizing force in social relations, utilizing social institutions such as the

family, church, polity and judiciary to serve as justificational supports for the prevailing economic conditions.

Thus, the reality of ideology, for Marx, was a systematic body of concepts covenng al1 aspects of human life that ultimately legitimate the existing power structures and mask the tme nature of power relationships in a given society. The nature and form of the ideology of a given society was shaped by the nature and form of economic production and was disseminated and legitimated through the various structures and institutions of that society. Marx stated that ruling class ideas predominate because the ruling class represents its interests as the common interests of al1 members of society.

That is, it has to give its ideas the fonn of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally vdid ones (Marx and Engels, 1978: 174).

By emphasizing the relationship between ideology and historical contradictions in society, Man< added a hitherto undeveloped dimension to the concept. Larrain (1979: 33) States that for al1 preceding ideology scholars, "the phenomenon analyzed

under the name idol, prejudice, religion or ideology, was almost always considered a

psychological distortion, a problem at the level of cognition." With Marx, however, al1

vestiges of psychologism vanished and these mental distortions were instead related to

historically necessary social conditions. Marx's contribution thus lies in the

illumination of the social origins of bourgeois thought and the connection between

ideology and the social contradictions inherent in society (Larrain, 1979: 34).

In terms of criticism of Mm's characterization of ideology, there are two

specific critiques that 1 have not yet addressed. First, if ideology necessarily means a

distortion, how cm Marx's own philosophical doctrines be exempt? 1s Marx's socialist

ideology also necessarily false consciousness? If not, where does it corne from? Marx

is living in dienation and division of labour, so how does he see authentic reality? How

do others living an alienated life understand Marx before the revolution? These points

ask why the ideology of the proletariat is not also merely the interest-conditioned

ideology of a single class. One possibility is raised by Barth, who suggests that if Man<

were to declare the humanist principles of his early work part of a transcendent view

of social justice, he could avoid the criticism that his own phiIosophicaI doctrines are just another class expression (Barth, 1976: 11 1). Barth suggests an appeal to a higher

sense of justice or good which necessarily requires an existence outside of class

expressions.

Second, if ideas and social values are socially and materially rooted, how is the transcendeme of certain ideas outside of the historical epoch explained? Barth (1976:

98) develops the case that if Marx is conect that superstructural phenornena mch as culture and art are conditional on the materid base, why is Greek art still meanin@ today? Barth (1976: 98) notes that this example highlights the fact that "certain creations of the human spirit prove to be relatively independent of the corresponding stage of material production," and that "certain aesthetic standards are show to outlast fundamental historical changes in the economic structure of society." In the introduction to the Critiaue of Political Econom~,Marx acknowledges that it is possible for intellectual forms to be independent of the current material forces.

It is well known that certain periods of the flowering of art are not at dl directly related to the general development of society, to the materiai basis or skeletal structure of its organization (cited in Barth 1976: 99).

This raises for the first time the issue of the timelessness of an idea. Barth maintains that the philosophy of art uncovers the defectiveness of Marx's theory of ideology while restricting its validity to its proper scope.

Durkheim and Weber

So far in this chapter I have examined studies of ideology that fall Iargely in the restrictive direction, or in the case of Marx, 1have emphasized the restrictive side. This view says that ideologies are action-oriented, they are possessed by a small number of people, they are the product of a clearly intellectual process, and they work at the surface rather than the depths of society. Like Marx, though even more clearly so,

Durkheim and Weber represent movement on the continuum, fmm the restrictive view of ideology to sornething else. This "sornething else" is a more inclusive view, which

dows for greater diversity in terms of what ideoiogy is, and importantly, allows for the

pervasiveness of ideology in society. It is no coincidence that the classical sociologists

were the pioneers of this new form of ideology, since they were the students of the

social institutions of an increasingly complex European society.

Sociology, since its earliest inception, has been concerned with the social origins

and character of ideas. Socioiogy's earliest founders, H~MSaint-Simon and Auguste

Comte, argued that systems of knowledge, dominant ideological positions and moral

sentiments, and societal institutions, could not be isolated from their social context.

They posited that al1 ideas from the legal and scientific to the aesthetic and religious

could be understood in tems of the type of society in which they developed and the

specific state of the development of that society. For Saint-Simon and Comte, al1

societies developed through distinct historical stages. AI1 mental production was seen as reflecting its relative location in history. Even modem science, which claimed to be the only valid path to truth, was also related to the general idea of civilization in which it arose. The growth of positivism itself was influenced by social factors in specific historical circumstances, as was the developrnent of religious and metaphysical knowledge in other historical penods.

These theorists made the case that knowledge and ideas about the social world in these historical periods had no daim as absolute tmth. They argued for the privileging of the sociological approach over competing Enlightenment views, for example, because the foundation of their sociology rendered relative that which had

formerly been treated as absolute; the mind's way of thinking and activity were at every moment inseparable fkom the social context and it was sociology that codd interpret and direct the knowledge of society. Some contradictions within this approach are apparent in the claim that positivism could provide philosophicai unity to knowledge that could be relied upon to provide moral principles by which society could live, and that the ideas of this scientific age enable us to understand the character and transformation of curent societies and previous histoncal periods. Yet, regardless of the universalizing claims attributed to the final stage, the emphasis on the connections of ideas to specific historical periods remains an important starting point for the sociology of knowledge and the understanding of ideology. In the rest of this chapter,

1 will concentrate on the ideas of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber on the question of ideology .

Durkheim

As the founder of modem socioIogy, Durkheim pursued topics of central importance to that discipline. He was concerned with understanding the basis of social order, how societies were formed, what held them together, how individuals were linked to their society, and how common beliefs organized the nature and structure of individual and social life. His concem with the social construction of forms and content of thought make him a pioneer of the sociology of knowledge and his work can be exarnined for important contributions to the development and understanding of the concept of ideology. Durkheim stressed that ideology was an historical product and that in order to understand its significance to modem society, one had to trace its historical development which had produced the layers and combinations of elements that are distinctive of modem social thought (K. Thompson, 1982: 122-123). In light of his predecessors, Durkheim took important steps away fiom the restrictive view of ideology, specifically because he paid much more attention than Marx to non-economic institutions, as would Max Weber.

In order to more Mly understand the central thesis of Durkheim's sociology of knowledge, it is necessary to examine his concepts of the conscience collective and the re~resentationscollectives. The collective conscience refers to an external normative order or social fact which ensures that the actions of al1 individuais conform to cornmonly held noms, values and beliefs. Discussed primarily in The Division of

Labour in Society, it consists of the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society and forms a determinate system with a life of its own

(Durkheim, 1933/1984: 39). Steven Lukes (1985: 4) notes that the French word conscience ernbraces the rneaning of both the English 'conscience' and 'consciousness'.

Thus including in its meaning both moral and religious, as well as cognitive references.

In primitive societies, those which Durkheim described as being govemed by

'mechanical solidarity', this collective consciousness prevailed when "ideas and tendencies common to dl members of the society exceed in number and intensity those that appertain personally to each one of those members" (Durkheim, 1933/1984: 84). Thus, mechanical solidarity required that individual differenca were minimized and the

members of the society were much alike in thek devotion to the common will. "The

solidarity that denves fiom similarities is at its maximum when the collective

consciousness completely envelopes our total consciousness, coinciding with it at every

point" (Durkheim, 1933/1984: 84).

But Durkheim maintained that any society, whether primitive or modem, needed

to be anchored to common sets of symbolic representations, to cornmon assumptions about the world around them, so that moral unity could be assured. Even as society

industrialized and developed what Durkheim ternis a system of 'organic solidarity', whereby the division of labour in society had developed to the extent that individuals were differentiated and isolated from one another, Durkheim maintained that a cornmon faith was still needed, in order to prevent society from degenerating into "a heap of mutually antagonistic and self-seeking individuals. " (Coser, 1977: 132)

A number of theonsts (Talcott Parsons, 1968; Anthony Giddens in Durkheim,

1972; Lewis Coser, 1977; Steven Lukes, 1985) have made the claim that Durkheims's concept of the role of a collective consciousness in organic solidarity changes from his earlier work to his later writings. In his earlier work, Durkheim stated that strong systems of common belief characterize mechanical solidarity in primitive types of society, and that organic solidarity, resulting fiom the progressive increase in the division of labour and hence increased mutual dependence, needed fewer common beliefs to tie members to this society. These theonsts argue that Durkheim later revised this view and realized that only if al1 members of a society were anchored to common sets of symbolic representations, to common assumptions about the world around them, could moral unity be assured. Without them, Durkheim argued, any society, whether primitive or modern, was bound to degenerate and decay (Coser, 1977: 132).

Collective representations are "states of the conscience collective which are different in nature fiom the states of the individual conscience. They express the way in which the group conceives itself in its relations with the objects which affect it"

(Lukes, 1977: 6). Durkheim (1 9 121954: 16) states that the collective representations are

the result of an immense CO-operation,which stretches out not only into space but into tirne as well; to make hem, a multitude of minds have associated, united and combined their ideas and sentiments; for them long generations have accumulated their experience and knowledge.

These coIlective representations held social authonty which Durkheim likened to a special sort of moral necessity "which is to the intellectud life what moral obligation is to the will" (Durkheim, 191241954: 18). He believed that the system of representations have within them "a sort of force or moral ascendancy, in virtue of which they impose themselves upon individual minds." (Durkheim, 19 12/1954: 437)

Yet in spite of this authority, the representations still had to coincide with individual experience. They were constantly tested against other held beliefs and knowledge and if they were found to "jar with experience" they would be abandoned.

Thus a central point in Durkheim's sociology of knowledge is that in order for society to fùnction it had to have common assumptions that would unite and co-ordinate

the understanding of the social world held by individuals living together in a particular

social group. Shared conceptions as to the nature of tirne, space, causaiity, etc. were

fiuidamental to this and were to be considered as categories. Momson (1995: 200-202)

shows that Durkheim believed that religion was the fm "fundamental system of ideas" developed to classi@ the world, and that the categories, while leading to systems of thought, denve from the social group and not from the internai hurnan mind. These categories were considered "permanent molds of the mental life" and al1 reality was explained through them.

At the roots of al1 our judgements there are a certain number of essential ideas which dominate ail out intellectual life; they are what philosophers since Aristotle have called the categories of the understanding: ideas of time, space, class, number, cause, substance, personaiity. They correspond to the most universal property of things. They are like the solid frame which encloses al1 thought (Durkheim, 19 12/1954: 9).

While Kant and other apriorists believe these to be categories of the mind that existed independently of society and individuals, Durkheim claimed that these categories were in fact a social construction which arose from individuals while standing above them.

While Elementarv Forms dealt in part with Durkheim's concept of tmth, it was in his lectures on Amencan pragmatism that Durkheim's position is moa clearly developed. A published version of these discussions derived from students notes is available but is not often discussed (See Lukes 1977: 485-496). Durkheim was an interested observer of pragmatist philosophy and sought to apply a sociological perspective to make viable some of its othenvise controversial claims. Pragmatism, as

embodied in the work of William James, John Dewey, and Henri Bergson, discounted

the traditional ratiodist concept of truth as objective, transcendent and impersonal,

claiming that this vision of truth was stagnant, did not account for human diversity, was

conducive to intolerance and was ultimately unknowable and therefore useless. The

pragmatists &ied that truth was made by human beings to satisfi their needs, and

thus was without any characteristic of logical necessity. Thus the pragmatist approach

posed the question of whether tmth was indeed variable and the product of human

Durkheim supported the pragmatist critique of traditional rationality as he was

also of the opinion that tmth was not to be transcendent to human life, and praised the

pragmatist cal1 for truth to be 'softened', into a less absolute concept that could be

analyzed and explained in terms of human life. He supported their position that Iinked

b thought to existence and life, the emphasis on divenity of minds and consequent

variability of thought over time, and the realization that thought when tied to action in

effect created reality itself. However, As Lukes (1 973: 487-88) notes, Durkheim argued

that the Pragrnatists, especially William James, offered assertions rather than evidence

that truth was unknowable, unchanging, conducive to intolerance, and static. In any

event, Durkheim was not prepared to abandon traditional rationality aliogether, and so proposed a sociological approach that he believed would marry the best of each position. His own position was sïmilar to that of the pragmatists but he added the concept

of collective representations which would transcend individual tmth-making and thus

explain the existence of 'bitter truths' which the pragmatists did not satisfactorily

address. The collective representations would be linked to reality and thus could never

be considered as a pwly 'fantasy reality' with no connection to identified reality.

Durkheim did, however allow for the existence of mythologicai representations which

did not necessarily link to material reality but were tnie in relation to the subjects who

believed them. Scientific tniths, on the other hand, were seen to 'express the world as

it is' but were nonetheless collective representations which reinforced the social

conscience as did mythological thought. They both held the force of social authority,

but scientific tnrths were seen to be more open to diversity and indeed were a product

of a more diverse social structure and an increased intellectual individualization.

[AIS the complexity of social groups ceaselessly grows, it is impossible that society should have a single conception of itself (Durkheim, cited in Lukes, 1977: 494).

But while, scientific tniths had corne to dominate understanding of the naturai world,

mythologicai tmths still held sway in the area of human and social life, where scientific truths had not been sufficiently developed to replace them. Durkheim called for

increased analysis of historically accepted mythological truths so that sociologists could understand the process by which these beliefs came to be accepted 'as hue'.

While Durkheim (1 9Wl984: iiv) notes that in organic societies collective activity has become too complex to be effectively expressed in one organ of the state and thus requires the presence of secondary groups to act as a liaison between

individuals and the state, the state is still the primary moral agency. It is in many ways

the embodiment of the collective consciousness and is thus regarded as the legitimate

regulator of social order. Durkheim's work is of significance to our understanding of

ideology and is generally underestimated. Durkheim was one of the first thinkers to

explain the subjectivity of truth. His work on the collective conscience/consciousness

revealed the social roots of an individual idea The idea that our understanding of the

world is socially constructed Ieads us to aspire to transform this understanding.

Max Weber

Max Weber's most significant contribution to the idealist debate and the concept

of ideology was his 1904- 1905 investigation into the influence of ideas on materiai and

economic forces in society. The Protestant Ethic and the Soirit of Capitalism

challenged the Marxian mode1 of matenal forces as the primary factor shaping the

nature of ideationd culture and showed ideas to be an effective force in history. Weber

sought to introduce new variables into the relationship of ideas and social structure and

by doing so allow for the possibility that causal connections between the two went in

both directions. It is this interest in a multiplicity of causal connections that places

Weber in the middle of the restrictive-inclusive continuum. Utilizhg his ideal-type methodology and determined to include elements of subjective meaning into the socioIogical approach, Weber's work in the Protestant Ethic privileged the realm of ideas as one 'pure' condition for capitaiism. Thus in this particular examination of capitalism he investigated the iduences of Calvinïst Protestant beliefs on the development of early rational capitalism. His analysis showed that certain elements of the ratioml ethics of Protestantism, including an ethic of hard work, an aversion to wastefiil and slothful activity, and a cornmitment to puritan asceticism, encouraged early investment in capital and supported entrepreneurid activities in the early days of modem capitalist development. The Lutheran notion of an occupational calling that applied to al1 Christians, not only the religious vocations of priests, invested new value into work and gave divine sanction to the efforts of those striving to seek perfection in their duties. In addition the Calvinist doctrine of predestination encouraged the hard working Protestants to search for signs of being 'elect' in the prosperity of their entrepreneurid endeavours. The results of this analysis convinced Weber and others that rather than seeing ideas as a simple reflection of material interests, the intellectud and cultural realm had some degree of relative autonomy, and they and the social and economic structure were better characterized as mutually influential and interdependent.

As is befitting for a transitional thinker coming to terms with advanced industrial capitalist societies, for Weber ideology is only part of the cultural formations that support social institutions. In his own day, Weber recognized that other aspects of culture, besides ideology, advanced the rationalization that he saw working in his times.

Cnticisms of Weber's thesis posed by R. H. Tawney (1938) and others have been based on the claim that Protestant sects came to England during the eady days of

Capitalism precisely because of the capitaiist revolution happening there. Samuelsson (1957) has pointed out that the industriai centre of Europe was a Roman Catholic

Belgium and, others locate the impetus of the capitalkt revolution in the hands of the aristocracy instead of the puritan businessmen. Nevertheless, Weber's analysis added an important idealist dimension to an otherwise almost entirely matenalist position.

In addition to the focus on the role of ideas in The Protestant Ethic, Weber was concemed with questions of power and authonty and sought to explain the ideological bais of legitimate de in a given society. While 'power' for Weber was the probability that a person in a social relationship will be able to carry out his or her own will in the pursuit of goals or action, regardless of resistance, he understood 'authority' to be a sub-type of power in which people willingly obeyed commands because they saw the exercise of power as legitimate (Weber, 1947: 152). Thus, Weber was interested in understanding what compels people to follow a leader, what sustains their belief, and ultimately, what transfomis power and domination into legitimate authority.

Examining the changing form and nature of modes of authority in society,

Weber sought to analyze the bais on which individuals or groups claimed the right to legitimate rule and the consequent compiiance of the majonty of the individuals in the society to that nile. He distinguished between three types of authority--Charismatic,

Traditionai, and Rational-Legal, and analyzed the type of ideological legitimacy developed in each.

Charismatic authority rests on "devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism, or exempiary character of an individual person, and of the normative pattern or order revealed or ordered by him" (Weber, 1947: 328). This type of authority was seen to

emerge in times of crisis in which the leader would mobilize followers to bring about

social change. It differs fiom other forms of authority because the basis of legitimation

lies in the person rather than in a system of traditional practices or rational Iaw.

Obedience is given exclusively to the leader as a person, for the sdce of bis non-routine qualities, not because of enacted position or traditional dignity (Weber, 1953: 12).

While charimatic authority rests on the 'faith' in the leader, Weber (1953: 13) argues

that "it does not denve fiom this recognition by the subjects." Weber States that the charisrnatically legitimized leader considers faith in the subjects' acknowledgement of his charisma obligatory and punishes their violation.

Charismatic authority is even one of the great revolutionary forces in history, but in pure form it is thoroughly authontarian and lordly in nature (Weber, 1953: 13).

Parsons (in Weber, 1947: 65) notes that authority of the leader does not express the

'will' of the followers, but rather their duty or obligation. Furthemore, in the event of conflict there can in pnnciple be oniy one correct solution.

The leader does not compromise with his followers in a utilitarian sense. Recognition by them is interpreted as an expression of the moral legitimacy of [the leader's] daim to authority (Parsons in Weber, 1947: 65).

Thus, stability was fragile in this type of authority for a leader had to continuaily demonstrate his or her ability to hold legitimacy.

Obedience is forthcoming onIy so long as people ascribe these qudities to him, that is, so long as his charisma is proven by evidence. His mle falls if he is 'forsaken' by his god or deprived of his heroic strength, or if the masses lose faith in his leadership capacity (Weber, 1953: 12).

In the event of the death of the leader, the disciples either disband or convert charismatic beliefs and practices into traditional or legal arrangements. Parsons (in

Weber, 1947: 66) notes that because charismatic authority is a revolutionary force, tending to upset the stability of institutionalized orders, it cannot itself become the basis of a stabilized order without undergohg profound structural changes. As a result of these changes it tends to become transformed into either the rational-legal or traditional type- Traditional authority rests on "an established belief in the smctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of those exercising authority under hem" (Weber, 1947:

328). This type of authority presupposes some type of advanced social organization.

It differs from charismatic authority because the bais of Iegitimation lies in the sanctity of age-old rules and practices. The person or persons exercising authority in this type are designated according to traditionally transmitted des.

The object of obedience is the persona1 authonty of the individual which he enjoys by virtue of his traditional status. The organized group exercising authority is, in the simplest case, prirnarily based on relations of personal loyalty, cultivated through a common process of education (Weber, 1947: 341).

Obedience is not owed to enacted des, but to the person who occupies a position of authority by tradition or who has been chosen for such a position on a traditionai basis.

Weber States that the der's cornrnands are legitimized in one of two ways:

(a) Partly in terrns of traditions which themselves directly determine the content of the comrnand and the objects and extent of authority. (b) In part, it is a matter of the chief s fiee personal decision, in that tradition leaves a certain sphere open for this (Weber, 1947: 341).

Weber notes that this latter sphere of traditional prerogative rests prïmarily on the fact that the obligations of obedience on the basis of persona1 loyalty are essentially uniimited (Weber, 1947: 341).

Rational-Legd authority rests upon "a belief in the legality of enacted rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such des to issue commands"

(WeberJ947: 328). It is this type of authority that Weber saw as characteristic of the modem Western world.

In rational-legal authority obedience is not owed to anybody personally but to enacted rules and regulations which speci@ to whom and to what rule people owe

O bedience.

Submission under legal authority is based upon an impersonal bond to the generally defined and functional 'duty of office'. The official duty ...is fixed by rationdly established norms, by enactments, decrees, and regulations, in such a manner that the legitimacy of the authority becomes the legality of the general nile, which is purposely thought out, enacted, and announced with formai correctness (Weber, 1946: 299).

Weber (1953: 7) notes that the person in authority also obeys rules when giving an order, namely 'the law', or 'rules and regulations' which represent abstract noms.

Parsons (in Weber, 1947: 58) states that it is important to understand that the fiuidarnental source of this type of authority is the authority of the impersonal order itself. It extends to individuals only in so far as they occupy a specifically legitimized status under the des, an 'office', and even then their powers are lirnited to a 'sphere of competence' as defmed in the order. Outside this sphere they are treated as 'pnvate individuais' with no more authority than anybody else.

As becomes increasingly apparent, bureaucracy represents the purest type of rationai-legal authority for Weber (1953: 8). Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy is generally understood to contain the following common features: a high degree of specialization and a clearly defined division of labour, with tasks distributed as officiai duties; a hierarchicai structure of authority with cleariy circumscribed areas of command and responsibility; the establishment of a formal body of desto govern the operation of the organization; administration based on written documents; impersonal relationships between organizational members and with clients; recruitment of personnel on the basis of ability and technological knowledge; long terni employment, promotion on the bais of seniority or ment, a fixed salary; and the separation of private and official income.

Weber saw bureaucracy as a system of social control or authority that was accepted by members because they saw the niles as rational, fair and impartial. He descnbed rational-legal authority as

domination by virtue of 'legality', by virtue of the belief in the validity of legal statute and functional 'competence' based on rationally created des. This is domination as exercised by the modem 'servant of the state' and by al1 those bearers of power who in this respect resemble him (Weber, 1947: 79).

It was fiom this understanding of the characteristics of dl three types of legitirnate authority that Weber developed his well known theory of the state. Weber defined the state as "a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given temtory" (Weber, 1946: 78). He believed that while a stable state will not use coercion routinely, the clah of the modem state to monopolize the use of force "is as essential to it as its character of compulsory jurisdiction and of continuous organization" (Weber, 1947: 156).

For every type of leadership, there existed a correspondhg ideological apparatus that served to ensure the cornpliance and acceptance of the majority of the population to its de. Weber's discussion of the three types of authority reveals that in no type of dewas social order maintained by coercion aione. While the types of authority characteristic of pre-modern societies were more Iikely to use force or coercion, Weber has descnbed a process of historical development that has radically transformed society's system of domination. He descnbes how society has moved away from a system of social order based on deby the strongest, to a modem system of domination that maintains order through a compiex balance of coercion and consent. Indeed,

Weber's characterization of the three types of authority reveals that the more successfully a leader or leadership is in ensuring the consent of the population to its nile, the more stable and enduring that system of authority will be.

Thus while Weber dealt with issues of coercion, he emphasized at the same time that in order for domination to be successful it needed to be supported by an ideological apparatus that would ensure its Iegitimacy. This ideological support, whether based on belief in the heroism of an individual, traditional practices of a community, or a system of rationalized and bureaucratie procedures, was invaluable in rnaintaining the support of the population for the activities of any leader or leadership.

The concept of rationalization was part of Weber's view of capitalist society as an %on cage' in which the individual, stripped of religious meaning and moral value, would be increasingly subject to govemment surveillance and bureaucratic regdation.

In thinking of the change of hurnan attitudes and mentalities that the process of rationalization involved, Weber fiequently quoted Friedrich Schiller's phrase, the

'disenchantment of the world'. Gerth and Mills note (in Weber, 1946: 51) that

the extent and direction of rationalization is thus measured negativeiy in terms of the degree to which magical elements of thought are displaced, or positively by the extent to which ideas gain in systematic coherence and naturalistic consistency.

Weber saw society as becoming increasingly mechanized and depersonalized and recognized that through the oppressive routinization of increased rationalization, a new and highly successful form of domination of the individual had been achieved.

In many ways the process of rationalization in modem society can be seen as a kind of hegemonic order. Gramsci conceived of a hegemonic order as a way of life in which one system of thought was dominant and diffused throughout society in al1 its institutional and private manifestations. Weber, in tum, described the process of rationalization as the extension of a bureaucratic and routinized system of beliefs and practices into every mode of social and private life. Just as a hegemonic order, for

Gramsci, was reproduced and maintained through ail institutions in society, Weber saw the process of rationalization extend into the state and legal apparatuses, social uistihiti0n.s such as the Church and schools, as weiI as the cultural sphere where it became infüsed in art and music.

Gramsci notes that once the hegemonic order has become dominant, resistance to it becomes more and more marginal. Individuals in a hegemonic order at its height are so successfully socialized toward one way of understanding their social and political surroundhg that they intemalize the dominant values of society and ofien become unable to even articulate or conceive of dissent. Weber describes the extensive bureaucratic operation that provides ideological legitimacy to rational-legai authority over individuals in society. He notes that while individuals may not necessarily morally endorse this system of rule, they come to see it as normal and thoroughly institutionalized and therefore do not question it. Therefore, a strong case can be made that the process of rationalization in modem social life is analogous to a hegemonic order.

Weber, as a methodological individualist, can also understand the domination of individuals found in a hegemonic order. While he would not accept a view that suggested sociai structure determines individual action, he certainly does understand the marner in which social-structural organizations infom individual thought and action.

Thus Weber would see a rational-legal mode of authority becorning dominant as more and more individuals carne to see bureaucratic and routinized procedures as a viable way of ordering sociai life. As these individual's actions become idormed by the goals and beliefs of a bureaucratic way of looking at the world, the rule of a rational-legd authority becomes f'urther legitimized and entrenched.

Conclusion

In this chapter 1 have examined the place of ideology before the French

Revolution, in the Enlightenment, and in work of Mm, Durkheim and Weber. We have seen that on the restrictive-inclusive continuum, until Marx ideology had an exclusively restrictive meaning. With Marx, ideology starts to take on more diverse rneanings. While I have highlighted the restrictive meaning in Mm, 1 recognize that there are at Ieast the seeds of the more inclusive view. This inclusive view is even more thoroughly developed in Durkheim and Weber.

Scholars of ideology pay little attention to Durkheim and Weber, based on the belief that they had little distinctive to Say on these questions. However, in this chapter

1 have shown that these classical sociologists do indeed have many insights into the question of ideology. Durkheim's main contribution is his interest in social order, the conscience colIective, and mechanical and organic solidarity. In the case of Weber, his assertion that ideas play a role in promoting capitalism, as demonstrated in The

Protestant Ethic, as well as his interest in forms of authority, represent a significant contribution to our understanding of ideology. It will also become more clear, as 1 discuss their successors, that Durkheim and Weber set the stage for the major, self- conscious split in this century between the restrictive and inclusive views of ideology.

We have much more work to cover, but what would our list of questions about the media coverage of the Irving Oil Refinery Strike look like if we had to stop right now? From Marx 1 wouid derive questions about the role of ownership in hiring staff and guiding newspapers, as the means through which dhg class ideology would be presented to the public. From Durkheim 1 would ask questions about the relationship of ideology in the media and the collective beliefs of the readership. Did the coverage reinforce existing beliefs, or did it depart from these beliefs? From Weber, 1 wouid generate questions that anticipate Gramsci. What foms of authority existed in New

Brunswick? In Saint John? In the Irving Group? In the union? Were the extant ideologies consistent with these types of authority? Chapter Three:

The struggle between the inclusive and restrictive views

Introduction

In the twentieth century, much of our discussion about ideology has really been about whether the inclusive or narrow view of ideology is the rnost usefbl. In the last chapter I argued that positions on ideology faIl dong a continuum. Rather than seeing students of ideology adopting inclusive or restrictive versions of ideology, most thinkers adopt characterstics of both. Further, thinkers may migrate over their careers, and may aiso use different visions of ideology in different works. As we will see, those thinkers who see ideology permeating social institutions in a widespread way, aided by the centralized state and the rise of broadcast media, fa11 on the inclusive end of the ideological continuum. In addition to Gramsci, Lukacs and the Frankfbrt School tend toward the inclusive view. On the other hand, Karl Mannheim and the advocates of the

End of Ideology tend toward the restrictive end, and in a sense they "reply" to these earlier thinkers. Althusser, like Durkheim and Weber, 1 put squarely in the middle on this question, as 1 do Castoriadis and Foucault much later. E. P. Thompson and Nicos

Poulantzas are closer to the inclusive view, while Miliband is closer to the restrictive end. For the most part, post-stnicturalists and ferninists have taken the inclusive view, so in the last 20 years advocates of the inclusive view, exemplified by Lefort, Laclau and Mouffe, and Griffm, Elshtain and Smith, have dominated the field. Antonio Gramsci

One of the most fiequent criticisms of the Marxist tradition through the 1960s

was its relatively weak theorization of the political state, and of the role the state plays

in reproducing, through coercion and consent, its own domination as well as the

sec* of the capitaiist mode of production. In this section 1 will examine the thought

of Antonio Gramsci, one of the most important thinkers in the Marxia tradition, on the

role of ideology and hegemony in the reproduction of the capitaiist state.

Gramsci, a Marxist active in the Italian Communist Party (PCI), spent many

years devoted to writing about, and organizing for, worker's revolution in pre-fascist

and fascist Italy until his imprisonment in 1926. Under orders from Mussolini, Gramsci

was imprisoned in Turin until shortly before his death in 1937 and it was during this

time that he developed some of his most powerful social and political philosophy. In

spite of immense physical suffering through debilitating diseases that plagued him until

his eventual death, and under the watchfid eye of the prison censor, Gramsci managed

to get down on paper the core of many of his philosophical insights; sometimes only

in point form, other times as a series of questions and occasionally as a full blown

explication. These notes were smuggled out of the prison hospital after his death and

were made public as the Prison Notebooks in 1948. An enormously important

collection of work, the Prison Notebooks contain the central concepts for which

Gramsci has become widely known. This section attempts to explore his concepts of hegemony and ideology and his important dualisrn of coercion and consent. Gramsci's main concem was to explain the failure of the Itdian left to bring

about revolution in the highly volatile pst-war period Indeed, he was interested in the

lack of revolutionary smiggle throughout post-war Europe. In his quest to formulate

answers to these questions, he developed some of his most noted social and political

philosophy. He probed into the nature of intellectuals, questioned the direction of

Marxist philosophy, developed stnking new ùieories of the nature of the State in

modem society, and provided the intellectual world with his concept of egemoniri-

-hegemony .

Hegemon~.Ideology and the State

Gramsci's concept of hegemony arises from his observation that in the

post-feudal world direct coercion is no longer the dominmt mode of State nile in

western society. He conceived of the modem State as a combination of social

hegemony and political governrnent. Social hegemony is the 'spontaneous' consent

given by the majonty of the population to the general direction imposed on social life

by the dominant social class (Gramsci, 1971 : 12). Gramsci notes that this consent is

"historically caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant

group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production." Political

government is the apparatus of State coercive power which 'legally' enforces discipline

on those groups who do not 'consent' either actively or passively. Gramsci (1971: 12) notes that this apparatus is, however, "constituted for the whole of society in anticipation of moments of crisis of comrnand and direction when spontaneous consent has failed,"

Thus a picture emerges where the State maintains control through the creation of a comprehensive conformity of thought and opinion, relying on the use of direct force only at times where the control begins to show signs of weakening. This system of consent extends to ali areas of social and political life and cm be considered an intellectual, moral and political hegemonic order. Gramsci scholar Gwyn Williams

(1960: 587) has described this hegemonic order as

an order in which a certain way of life and thought are dominant, in which one concept of redity is difhed throughout society in dl its institutional and private manifestations, informing with its spint ail taste, morality, customs, religious and political principles, and al1 social relations, particularly in their intellectual and moral connotations.

The hegemonic order is reproduced and maintained through al1 institutions in society.

Thus, Gramsci (1971: 258) notes that

school as a positive educative fùnction, and the couris as a repressive and negative educative function, are the most important State activities ...but, in reality, a multitude of the other so-called private initiatives and activities tend to the same end--initiatives and activities which form the apparatus of the political and cultural hegemony of the ruling classes.

Social hegemony is a powemil force upholding the legitimacy and authonty of the

State. In a revealing military metaphor he compares the hegemony of civil society to a strong fortress, while the coercive apparatus of the State parallels the outer trenches surrounding it (Gramsci, 1971: 238). While a frontal attack may shake the coercive forces of the State, those seeking power are still faced with dismantling "the powerful system of fortresses and earthworks" which is civil society (Gramsci, 1971: 238). It is important at this time to give some attention to Gramsci's definition of the

State. Gramsci scholars have noted that in fact there is some confusion about what he

means by the State and what relation it has to civil society andor political society.

Quintin Hoare and Geofiey Nowell Smith note in their introduction to Gramsci's "State

and Civil Society" that at tirnes he defines the State as "political society + civil society",

and elsewhere as a balance between political society and civil society. In yet another

passage, Gramsci (1971 : 208) stresses that "in concrete reality, civil society and State

are one and the same." Mile these variations can lead to some confusion, Gramsci clearly seems to believe that there is not an organic split between political society and civil society. Radier, he makes the claim that the split is a methodological one

(Gramsci, 1971: 160). The metaphor above seems to show a conception of the State as a combination of the social hegemony of civil society and the coercive apparatus of political society. Yet at the sarne time. the 'State', as it is cornmonly referred to, cm be associated more directly with the coercive apparatus of political society. This seems to suggea that there is no clear dividing line. The metaphor shows clearly that destruction of the coercive apparatuses is not enough to topple the social hegemony of the State, while at the same tirne, dismantling the civil society still requires at some point a fiontai assault on the State's coercive apparatuses. If one can conceive of this type of relation between the various elements of the State, the concepts do not provide as much of a stumbling block as initially thought.

This distinction between fortress (civil society) and trenches (political society) is an important one in understanding Gramsci's dysis of why the Left had not been successfiii in toppling the Italian State. Faced with this realization of the double-barrelled nature of the State, Gramsci came to the conclusion that for the

Modem Prince-the new revolutionary Party-to wrest control fiom the State, it must first win the consent of the majority of the population through the development of a counter hegemony. Thus Gramsci (1971: 57) States, "a social group can, and indeed mut, already exercise 'leadership' [Le. be hegernonic] before winning govemmental power (this indeed is one of the principal conditions for the winning of such power)."

It is only through this method that any new order can challenge the powerful hegemonic structure of the existing State. When a revolutionary group has succeeded in breaking the ideological hegemony of the State, the State will be in a situation of crisis where it has lost the consent of the people and is maintaining dominance through direct coercion done.

If the ruling class has lost its consensus, Le. is no longer 'leading' but only dominant, exercising coercive force alone, this means precisely that the great masses have become detached from their traditional ideologies, and no longer believe what they used to believe previously (Gramsci, 1971: 276).

Gramsci makes the case that it is only under these conditions that a direct frontal attack on the State by the revolutionary group will be successful.

However, the development of a successful counter-hegemony is an ominous and difficult task. By definition, the existing hegemony has close to a monopoly on thought and opinion in social life. The hegemonic order maintains power by presenting its priorities as universai and in the best interests of dl. This is achieved through a skilful combination of force and persuasion. Gramsci's discussion of "Americanism and

Fordism" provides an excellent illustration. Descnbing the rationaikation of production and labour in tum-of-the-century America, Gramsci points out that this process of rationdization was achieved by the destruction of working class trade unionism on a territorial basis (force) combined with high wages, various social benefits, and extremely subtle ideological and political propaganda (persuasion). This combination succeeded in making the whole life of the nation revolve around capitalist production, thereby making true the adage that what is good for Ford is good for the country.

Gramsci (1971: 285) points out that hegemony here "is bom in the factory and requires for its exercise ody a minute quantity of professional political and ideological intermediaries."

Addressing himself to the question of why the populace does not revolt against the hegemonic order, Gramsci makes the daim that the hegemonic order is maintained by the mass of the populace because it appears to them as 'common sense'. Gramsci uses this term to refer to the manner in which the hegemonic ideology becomes embedded into daily life and thought. Mary O'Brien (1984: 88) takes Gramsci to mean that :

Ideology is not a product of naked coercion but of social practice in the realm of everyday life and thought, where consciousness acts on the experiential social context in which the subject is imrnersed, and where men can ody deal with the realities which history presents to them. Thus she conceives of hegemony as the 'motor' of common sense, "defning reality and

organizuig consent to such ruiing class def~tionsof truth'' (O'Brien, 1984: 89).

Gramsci (1971: 339) states that most of the populace cannot explain why they believe

something to be tme, rather it just appears as common sense to them. Thus, he argues

that it becomes very difficult to introduce new ideas to the popular masses particulariy

when these ideas are in contrast with orthodox convictions conforming socially to the

general interests of the ding classes (Gramsci, 1971: 340).

Gramsci also points out that the State seeks to prevent crisis in its hegemonic order by appearing to be dynamic and receptive to social change. While the dominant social class may in fact take into account some needs of the others it has hegemony over, the following quote makes clear that it will not change the economic basis of its hegemony .

Undoubtedly the fact of hegemony presupposes that account be taken of the interests and the tendencies of the groups over which hegemony is to be exercised, and that a certain compromise equilibrium should be formed--in other words, that the leading group should make sacrifices of an economic-corporate End. But there is also no doubt that such sacrifices and such a compromise cannot touch the essential; for though hegemony is ethical-political, it must also be economic, must necessarily be based on the decisive function exercised by the leading group in the decisive nucleus of economic activity (Gramsci, 1971: 161).

At this point it seems worthwhile to discuss another area of importance within

Gramsci's thought--that being the difference between active and passive consent. While

Gramsci clearly states that hegemonic deis rule through consent, there is some ambiguity as to whether this consent is of a passive or active nature. Noted Gramsci scholar Joseph Femia has given some attention to this question, and dtimately argues that passive consent is the form most often granted by the masses Femia (1975: 32)

points out that at times Gramsci implies that consent in a hegemonic situation takes the

form of active codtment, based on a deeply held belief that the superior position of the ding group is legitimate. He points to Gramsci's discussion of social hegemony cited earlier, as proof of this (Gramsci, 1971 : 12). Yet, Femia (1975: 32) also notes that elsewhere in the text, Gramsci suggests that those who are consenting must somehow be tnily convinced that the interests of the dominant group are those of the society at large, that the hegemonic group stands for a proper social order in which al1 people are justly looked after. Here he cites as evidence Gramsci's (1971 : 161) discussion of the pragmatic elements within the State cited at Iength above. Femia

(1975: 32) notes that these passages have led other cornmentators to daim that consent is an "expression... of intellectual and moral direction through which the masses feel pemanently tied to the ideology and political leadership of the State as the expression of their beliefs and aspirations" (Giuseppe Tarnburrano, cited in Femia, 1975: 32).

Femia himself believes that this captures only a part of Gramsci's meaning.

Focussing his analysis on Gramsci's section in the Prison Notebooks entitled "Relation

Between Science, Religion, and Common Sense", Femia (1975: 33) makes the claim that consent is essentially passive.

[Consent] ernerges not so much because the masses profoundly regard the social order as an expression of their aspirations as because they lack the conceptual tools, the 'clear theoretical consciousness', which would enable them effectively to comprehend and act on their discontent-discontent manifat in the activity uniting them 'in the practicai transformation of reaiity' .... The 'active man-in-the-mas' lacks the means witb which to formuiate the radical alternative 'imp1icit in his activity' .... The very f-ework for his anaiysis of the existing system is fued by the dominant vision of the world.

Femia (1975: 34) concludes that the two sides of consent in Gramsci-active and passive-can be reconciled if we recognize that for Gramsci, people's ideas and values are neither consistent over the nor necessarily coherent. "Hegemonic situations differ in intensity, and the degree of variation is rooted in the dynarnics of historical development" (Femia, 1975: 34).

Thus, while this is only a cursory examination of parts of Gramsci's thought, one can see already the significance of his conception of hegemony, and of his important explication of the coercion/consent dualism. Disturbed by the failure of social revolution in times that he believed were clearly ripe for it, Gramsci developed a powemil analysis of the role of the State in ideological reproduction. His insights on this matter have yet to be explored to their fullest, and as we will see, they will prove to be quite helpful in our case study of ideology in the media.

It is valuable at this point to examine some of the similarities between the work of Gramsci and Marx. As a Marxist himself. Gramsci was actively involved in the intellectual and philosophical discussions of his day in which Marxists and non-Marxists debated the validity of various interpretations of Marx's work. Consequently,

Gramsci's own work is thoroughly infused with the thought and language of Marxism.

Both theonsts recognize the pnmacy of economic production in shaping social and political life and begin their analyses fiom this presupposition. Both conceive of

human history as a history of class stniggle of which Capitalism is the pendtirnate

development, and out of which will arise a revolutionary social order devoid of al1 class

distinctions. Both theorists recognk that the modem State is not maintained by

coercion alone, but requires for its preservation a comprehensive ideological apparatus.

This apparatus involves al1 social institutions in society and serves to maintain and legitimate the status quo by presenting the interests of the mling class as the interests of al1 classes. Both theonsts acknowledge that as long as the working-class continues

D to support ding class interests as their own, the Capitalist system will never be seriously threatened. Consequently, as theorists of social change, both lay out sophisticated strategies for the revolutionizing of the working class, so that they will corne to recognize their oppression and throw off their chahs. Finally, both theorists maintain that a communist party will be instrumental in this revolutionizing process, and both see socialism and ultimately communism as the desired end state.

While these similarities have been, and will be, the subject of much analysis by social and political theorists, it is also of interest to examine points at which Gramsci has gone beyond Mm. That is, there are moments when Gramsci has developed new concepts out of a Mancist base which at once include Marxist assumptions and go beyond them.

While Marx can be credited with contributing to social theory a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between base and superstructure, it was Gramsci who really addressed the concept of superstructure and explored its form and content in the greatest detail. Marx's discussion of superstructure tends to be limited. to references to an abstract congiomeration of cultural, legal, political, religious, aesthetic and philosophic elements. The various elements are not analyzed in their own right, and

Marx does not attempt a systematic explanation of the superstructure as a whole. While

Marx has made clear that material conditions in society will shape the superstructure and, in tum, the social consciousness of individuals, the way in which mling class ideologies are developed within the superstructure, and the way in which these ideologies influence the thought and action of individuals in society remains to be explained. This fmd point is of considerable importance, because theorists have often assumed, incorrectly, that the economic forces of society merely imprint a suitable ideology on to the superstructure which in turn imprints that message on to complacent individuals in society.

Throughout his work Gramsci atternpted to expand and develop the understanding of the concept of superstructure. He tried to raise it out of its one dimensional existence, giving it a form and substance, and indeed, in many ways he succeeded. Gramsci believed that increases in the size and sophistication of the economic sphere were necessarily accompanied by comparable changes in the size and complexity of the supersinichire. This was of especial importance to the development of post-Marxist thought because of the fact that Gramsci was writing in a tirne of dramatic econornic and social change that exceeded in many ways the projections and analysis of Marx himself. Gramsci saw an elaborate superstructurai system developing that was accompanied by the ciramatic growth of the role of the State in social life.

While this superstructure still rested on an economic base (or structure, as Gramsci

would say), it did not necessarily respond directly to its every shift and fluctuation.

Gramsci expands on this point in another military metaphor. Here, Gramsci describes a strong and entrenched civil society that is able to withstand assault because of the strength and number of its superstructural supports.

'Civil society' has become a very complex structure and one which is resistant to the catastrophic 'incursions' of the imrnediate econornic element (crises, depressions, etc.). The superstructures of civil society are like the trenches of modem warfare. In war it would sometimes happen that a fierce artillery attack seemed to have destroyed the enemy's entire defensive system, whereas in fact it only destroyed the outer perimeter; and at the moment of their advance and attack the assailants would find themselves confronted by a Iine of defence which was still effective. The same thing happens in politics, during the great economic crises (Gramsci, 1971 : 23 5).

Gramsci saw this newly evolved superstructure not only as strong and occasionally independent of the economic structure but also as dialectical in nature.

Indeed, Gramsci repeatedly and eloquently stressed the need to see Marx as a fundarnentally dialectical theorkt as the following quotation illustrates:

The claim, presented as an essential postdate of historical materialism, that every fluctuation of politics and ideology cm be presented and expounded as an immediate expression of structure, must be contested in theory as primitive infantilism, and combated in practice with the authentic testimony of Marx (Gramsci, 1971 : 407).

Gramsci continues by providing a nurnber of reasons why a structurally detenninist theory is flawed. He argues that, first of dl, structure is very dificult to measure. He points to its changing nature, and States that if it is to be seen as a process, it is

virhially impossible to detect its determining influences. Secondly, he points out that

practices in the superstructure can often be errors rather than direct consequences of

structure. Here, he gives the example of crises which have corne about owing to

inadvertent errors codtted by actors within the superstructure that, in turn, have grave

consequences for the economic sphere. Finally, he points out the possibility that

activities in the superstructure will be caused by organizational necessity. Here, he

argues that it would be pointless to try to locate structural causes for al1 of these

activities. Thus one can see that Gramsci is an aggressive proponent of a dialectically

oriented structure- superstructure relationship.

Indeed, in many ways Gramsci sees a good deal of agency in the concept of

superstructure. While he alludes to this in an abstract discussion on "Unity in the

Constituent Elements of Marxism", the point becomes more clear in his pivotal

discussion of the three moments in the relations of forces. Gramsci's (1971: 183)

moments can be considered both 'moments' and 'levels'. They are ZeveIs because they

are conceptually distinct, in the way that economic, political and strategic-military analyses are distinct. But they are also moments because there is a dialectical sequence,

in which the second moment, the political, mediates between the fust (economic) and the third (strategic-military).

In his section entitled "Analysis of situations. Relations of force," Gramsci descnbes three dialectical 'moments' whose interaction shape social life and form the history of a particular period. The fust of these moments can be seen as structure. It is objective, independent of human will, and can be measured with the systems of the exact or physid sciences (Gramsci, 1971 : 180). The second moment can be seen as superstructure. It is the degree of homogeneity, self-awareness, and organization attained by the various social classes. It corresponds to the various moments of collective political consciousness, as they have manifested themselves in history

(Gramsci, 1971: 181). The third moment is the force of the military. It is the coercive capacity of the State which "from time to time is directly decisive" (Gramsci, 1971:

183). As 1 have said above, Gramsci (1971: 183) States that historical development oscillates continually between the first and the third moment, with the mediation of the second. That is, elements within the superstructure mediate between the economic structures of society and the military forces necessary to back up a system of domination. Gramsci sees these three forces in continual negotiation with one another, occasionally arriving at an impasse in which a powerful "outsider" can intervene as in the case of Caesarism. However, while the second moment or superstructure is seldom dominant it does have a certain agency and autonorny in its relation to the other two.

This view of the interaction beiween structure and superstructure causes Gramsci to make the daim that "structures and superstructures form an 'historical bloc'." The concept of the historic bloc (blocco historico) is one of the most misunderstood in the

Gramscian lexicon. The original Italian (and the French bloc as well) is better translated as "historic union" or "historic coalition" than historic bloc. (Bloc in this case does not mean "party," which would have a purely subjective aspect.)(WiIliams, 1960;

Fernia, 1975). This is partly because 'bloc' in English has a more ngid and fîxd meaning, perhaps because for decades it was most fiequently used in political discourse following the word 'communist'. This historic union, in any event, is a union of both the objective and subjective. The relations of production and technological achievement of a society is matched by a unification of social forces, leading to hegemony. As

Gramsci says, "the complex, contradictory and discordant ensemble of the superstructures is the reflection of the ensemble of the social relations of production."

He states that there is a necessary reciprocity between structure and superstructure, "a reciprocity which is nothing other than the red dialectical process" (Gramsci, 1971:

366).

This argument for a strong and dialectical superstructure has important implications for strategies of social revolution. While Marx conceived of revolution at the structural level--workers taking over the means of production--Gramsci shifts the locus of revolution to the superstructural sphere. His understanding of the nature of the superstructure in modem civil society caused Gramsci to make fundamental advances hmMarx, especiaily in the area of social change and in his discussion of the 'war of position'. Gramsci argued that because of the increasingly sophisticated nature of the superstructure, civil society had become a more serious obstacle to social change than the coercive apparatuses of the State. As seen eariier, Gramsci argued that for a social revolution to be successful it had to frst dismantle civil society by establishing an alternative counter-hegemony. It was only by thus weakening the forces of the superstructure that a revolutionary group codd succeed in a frontal attack and ultimately achieve victory.

While Gramsci's discussion of the structure-superstmctwe relationship provides insight into the nature and form of the superstructures in society, it is his discussion of hegemony which is the key to understanding the role of the superstructure in ideological domination.

Raymond Williams argues that Gramsci's concept of hegemony is a concept which at once includes, and goes beyond, the concept of ideology, in any of its Marxist senses. By the Marxist sense of ideology he intends a system of meanings and values which is the expression or projection of a particular class interest (Williams, 1977: 108).

Williams argues that what is decisive is not oniy the conscious system of ideas and beliefs, but the whole lived social process as practically organized by specific and dominant rneanings and values. It is here that Gramsci's concept of hegernony can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the way in which the ideological superstructure can dominate individuals in society. While ideology is an important and valuable concept, it tends to be more successful in pointing out and explaining the purest and most complete forrns of ideological domination. One cm see institutions upholding policies that refiect a certain ideology, or one can recognize the existence of a ruiing class ideology, but when dealing with situations which are more complex and which involve the necessary contradictions that are in existence in every day life, the concept is often unabIe to provide adequate explanaiion. Consequentiy, much of social

theory has been left with overly conspiratorid or deterministic understandings of the

operation of a dominant ideology in society. Gramsci, in many ways, has resolved a

number of these problems by introducing the concept of hegemony.

While hegemony has historically referred to political de or domination,

especidly in relations between States, Marxism extended the defuiition of rule or

domination to relations between social classes, and especially to definitions of a ding

class. Gramsci then expanded on this definition, developing hegemony into:

A whole body of practices and expectations, over the whole of living: our senses and assignments of energy, our shaping perceptions of ourselves and Our world. It is a lived system of meanings and values - constitutive and constituting - which as they are expenenced as practices appear as reciprocally confirming. It thus constitutes a sense of redity for most people in the society, a sense of absolute..A is, that is to Say, in the strongest sense a 'culture', but a culture which has also to be seen as the lived dominance and subordination of particular classes (Williams, 1977: 11 O).

By understanding hegemony in this way, as a total lived social process, one can begin to understand how the domination of individuals in a hegemonic order cm be so successful. One does not need to resort to theories of brain washing, or indoctrination, to understand hegemony. Rather, one needs to understand that in a hegemonic order one's very framework for anaiyzing the existing system is fixed by the dominant vision of the world. Individuals are limited to dealing with the realities which they are presented with. In contrast to Marx, who tended to see ideology as an identifiable and coherent system of ideas which served the existing system of social order, Gramsci's concept of hegemony was more comprehensive and inclusive. He tried to show that rather than king targets of a somewhat one-directional ideological message, individuais were instead immened in an ideological environment that Iliformed al1 of their thoughts and practices.

In this section 1 have shown the distinctive contribution made by Gnunsci to the study of ideology, through his application of the concepts of hegemony and by his focus on the 'superstructure'. Gramsci takes a inclusive approach to ideology based on the relationship of his concept of hegemony to ideology. Ideologies, and ideological di fferences, O ften exist wi thin a hegemonic formation. This hegemonic formation involves the permeation of ideologies into many aspects of social and cultural life, in addition to the econorny and politics. In some ways, Gramsci's work, despite the fact that it was completed over sixty years ago, represents a plausible "high water mark" in the study of ideology in this century. He provided a very subtle and sophisticated view of ideology, an exemplary mode1 by which later work, ofien regressive by cornparison, can be judged.

The Return of Idealism: Lukacs/Mannheim/Frankfurt School

The failure of the Second Internationale to engineer a global socialist revolution, and the consequent fracturing of the intemetionai socialist movement, led to a number of responses on the part of intellectuals. One was that of Gramsci, just discussed, focussing of the role of ideology and hegemony in explaining the longevity of capitalism. In this section I will discuss another direction, that of the Marxist neo- Hegelians, in the case of Lukacs and the Frankfurt School, dong with the non-Marxist variant in the work of Karl Mannheim. The thinkers that 1 discuss in ulis section have in common the tendency to give pride of place to ideology and consciousness over materid conditions and the economic, regardles of their position on Marxism. 1 will show, however, that they are divided by the question of the restrictive vernis the inclusive, and that Mannheim's adoption of the restrictive view is connected to his affinity for Amencan pragrnatism.

Georg Lukics: Neo-Hegelian

The leading figure of this tendency was the in81

Georg (Gyorgy) Lukics, who made his greatest contribution in the areas of "reification" and class consciousness. Lukacs made a nurnber of central points fiom a neo-Hegelian perspective, especially in his early work. He placed the proletariat at the centre of his theory, which is not unusual in the Marxist tradition, but he made "class consciousness" the central issue, which was more novel. Further, he treated the class as though it was a unity, refemng to "its" consciousness in a purely singular fashion (Lukacs, 1971: 76,

197). In fact, for Lukiics consciousness seems to be a living thing, and a thing which exists above and apart from the members of the class. He claims for example, that:

"OnIy the consciousness of the proletariat can point to the way that leads out of the impasse of capitalism", as though "consciousness" is a transcendent agent (Lukacs,

1971 : 76). His other most significant contribution is his discussion of reification.

His concem for the issue of reification is based on his contention that the expenence of the thirty years up to 1920 showed that the proletariat's "correct insight" and "correct

decision" are "dl-important" (Lukacs, 197 1: 3 12). The proletariat has been wrong as often as it has been right, however, beause of its inability to think diaiectically and therefore to avoid the reified consciousness produced by capitalism. Reification he defuies as a consequence of the division of labour under capitalism. The commodity form penneates dl aspects of life, including social and culturai affairs, which results in the fracturing of the former "holistic" existence. As Eagleton (1991: 98) says: "The

'wholeness' of society is broken up into so many discrete, specialized, technical operations, each of which cornes to assume a semi-autonomous life of its own and to dominate human existence as a quasi-naturd force." Lukkcs proposes that dialectical reason, employing the familiar thesis-antithesis-synthesis formulation, can recreate the totality because it is inherently comprehensive and totdizing.

Lukacs's work qualifies as idealist for a variety of reasons, many of which have been explicated by Terry Eagleton. First, Lukacs has used the concept of the

"proletariat" in such a way that it effectively stands in for Hegel's Absolute Idea in al1 of its synthetic unity (Eagleton, 1991 : 98). Second, Lukacs is idealist in the sense that he substitutes reification (a concept in the "superstructure") for economic exploitation or even class struggle as the central feature of his theory (Eagleton, 1991 : 100). Third,

LukAcs seems to present the class struggle as though it was a struggle among different ideologies, which arise fiom proletkat and bourgeoisie, as though a world-view cm impose "its stamp on the social formation as a whole" (Eagleton, 1991: 101), without accounting for the relations between these ideologies or their formation and dynamism.

Fourth, arguably Lukacs places too much emphasis on consciousness, in typical idealist

fashion, though this is less clearly valid than some of the previous critiques.

LukAcs places so much emphasis on consciousness because of his problematic.

He notes that "objective economic evolutiow" only create the general position and

oppominities for the proletariat, which must act to transfomi society, to free society and

itself fiom reification (Lukics, 1971: 208-9). It is at the level of consciousness that the

proletariat has failed in the past, he is clearly saying. However, Lukacs continuaily

nsks displacing and underplaying the material reality which makes the proletariat the

class of destiny as a result of this emphasis (Eagleton, 1991 : 103). Eagleton (1991 :

102) puts the critique in its starkest form:

[I]n a senes of progressive conflations, he collapses Mmist theory into proletarian ideology; ideology into the expression of some 'pure' class subject; and this class subject to the essence of the social formation.

Al1 of this does not suggest that there is no value in Lukacs's work. One of its most interesting aspects is the fragments that deal with the rise and fa11 of classes over the, associated with the issue of fdse consciousness. Lukiics (1971: 225-228) notes that when the Bourgeoisie rose in eighteenth century Europe, it did so against the dominant feudal class by employing universal Enlightenment values. This class currently saers fiom "false consciousness" specif ically because it is the dominant econornic class in capitalism and yet it cannot find a solution to the economic crisis of capitalism, a cnsis which according to the econornic science of Smith and Ricardo, cannot happen (Lukhcs, 1971: 54). In addition, "[tlhe survival of the bourgeoisie rests on the assmption that it never obtains a clear insight into the social precondition of its own existence" (1971: 225). The bourgeoisie has declined in the nineteenth century,

Lukaes argues, in proportion to the rise in its self-knowledge. The more aware of the real exclusiveness of its character-the fact that not everyone may enter it-the less powerfùl and unified it is. (One codd make the concomitant argument that the bourgeoisie in the West was most powerN in the 1920s and 1980s-'90s when practicai awareness and knowledge of the power and methods of the bourgeoisie was at its lowest ebb.) This has important implications for proletarian strategy, for "the proletariat fought capitalism by forcing bourgeois society into a self-knowledge which would inevitably make that society appear problematic to itself' (Lukacs, 1971: 228).

Karl Mannheim: Continental Pragmatist?

The next thinker is Karl Mannheim, who wrote from an explicitly non-Marxist perspective but qualifies nonetheless as an idealist. Mannheim was both a student and a contemporary of Lukacs and is now considered the founder of the "sociology of knowledge." Like Lukacs, Mannheim's corpus is voluminous, but this account will rely largely on his classic work Ideoloq and Utopia As Louis Wiah (Mannheim, 1936: xviii) notes, Mannheim often cornes close to the position of the American Pragmatists

(Dewey, James); his early work was idealist, but in a different sense than Lukics.

Mannheim did not accept that belief systems were larger than the individuals who held hem, or that they had a life of their own. "There is no such metaphysical entity as a group mind which thinks over and above the heads of individuais, or whose ideas the

individual merely reproduces" (Mannheim, 1936: 2). In this sense Mannheim seems

more Anglo-American than Continental; the reader will also note that the restrictive

view of ideology is disproportionately favoured in the Anglo-Amencan world. But

Mannheim's work is idealist in the "softer" sense, because his subject matter is essentially ideational, dealing with the social context of ideas and whether a belief system is "ideological" or "utopian" based on histoncal analysis.

There is aiso evidence that Mannheim recognized the idealism in his own work.

Ideolow and Utopia was first written in 1929, before the rise of Hitler and the end of the Weimar Republic. Yet in a letter written for publication in 1937, Mannheim (1 971 : cv) &tes that: "Our idealist philosophy has failed in the contemporary situation. When it emerged, it represented an outstanding achievement. But it had placed too much conf~dence in the power of 'ideas'--as if ideas by themselves were capable of tram forming man and society. "

There are a number of points which mut be made in the discussion of

Mannheim's view of ideology. The idea of ideology is based on the awareness of the possibility of different belief systems, and this awareness is the result of the breakdown of the monopoly of the Medieval clergy over a single world-view (Mannheim, 1936:

12- 13). For Mannheim, intellechials are currently "fiee floating," potentially-classless analysts, who can direct their "attention to discovering the approximate tmth as it emerges in the course of historical development out of the complex social processes", instead of trying to discover "which of the contendhg parties has truth on its side"

(Mannheim, 1936: 84). In understanding Mannheim's view of ideology, we must aiso

compare and contrast it with his view of "utopia." Both ideology and utopia are

"situationally transcendent" belief systems, which means that neither is based only on

the social reality that exists. While the sociology of knowledge is based on the Iink

between thought and social context, both ideology and utopia depart fiom pure reliance

on the social context (Mannheim, 1936: 196-97). In fact, it is difficult to distinguish

between the two except in post hoc discussions. This is because "it is possible that the utopias of to-day may become the reaiities of to-morrow," while those ideas which nothing cornes of will be regarded as ideology. Ideology is not false, but it is a set of ideas that cannot be implemented. Mannheim tells us that those who label ideas

"utopian" are in the "dominant group" in the "existing order," whereas those who label ideas as "ideology" are the "ascendent group" in "conflict with things as they are"

(Mannheim, 1936: 203).

Mannheim also distinguishes between utopias and "chiliasms," both of which are connected to "wish-Nfilment-" The former is the projection of an alternative order in space, while the latter is the projection on an alternative order in time. As an exarnple of chiliastic thought, Mannheim (1 93 6: 2 1 1-247) discusses the Anabaptists, a

Millenarian group that focussed on the "presentness" of religious scnpture and the arbitrariness of the. The Other examples are projections in space, specifically movements for "liberal-humanitarianism," "conservatism," and "socialist-communism all three of which were at least partially implemented.

Finaily, Mannheim distinguishes his method of the sociology of knowledge fiom

the "theory of ideology." He says that the shidy of ideology has traditionally defmed

its task "to unmask the more or less conscious deceptions and disguises of human

interest groups, particularly those of political parties" (Mannheim, 1936: 265). This is

what 1 have referred to earlier as the "negative" view of ideology. The sociology of

knowledge, on the other hand, is "concerned with the varying ways in which objects

present themselves to the subject according to the differences in social settings. Thus

mental structures are inevitably di fferently formed in di fferent social and historical

settings."

1 am now in a position to assess Mannheim's work. One central problem that

jumps off the page is the inherently ex post facto aspect of his central theory.

Specifically, Mannheim cannot tell us whether something is ideological or utopian until

after the fact. This is because the analyst must wait and see which ideas prove to be

practical. This only reinforces the idealist tendency, since the social forces that succeed

in achieving power and the hegemony of a particular belief system are obscured.

niings are left for the ideas themselves to sort out. The idea that intellectuals are or

can be classless-"'fiee' intellectuals with a remarkable resemblance to Karl

Mannheim," as Eagleton (1991: 108) has put it--has been discredited over the years.

It may be, as Terry Eagleton (1991: 109) has said, that Mannheim's ultimate treatrnent of ideology is unsatisfactory. Mannheim's ideology is simply "failed utopia," which "sirnply throws us back to the patently iosufficient early Marxian notion of ideology as ineffechlal otherworldliness." Mannheim either defines ideology so broadly-in the context of the sociology of knowledge-that it includes almost everything, or conversely, he defines it overly narrowly as "specific acts of deception"

(Eagleton, 1991: 1 IO).

The Fmnkfkt School: Under the shadow of Nazism

From here 1 move on to the most significant body of twentieth century ideaiist research in the area of ideology, which still resonates in poststncturalism and elsewhere, the Frankfurt School of "Critical Theory." The work of theorists in the

Frankfbrt School is an important contribution to the ideology literature. Formally called the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research (Institut fur Sozialforschung), it was estabiished in 1923 in Germany by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno as a center for interdisciplinary Marxist research. Later members included Walter Benjamin,

Friedrich Pollock, Otto Krkheimer, Franz Neumann, Henryk Grossman, Arkady

Gurland, Leo Lowenthal, Bruno Bettlheim, Nathan Akerman, Marie Jahoda, Erich

Fromm, Herbert Marcuse and Jurgen Habermas. Driven out of Germany by the Nazis in 1933, several of the members convened in New York where they formed the New

School for Social Research in 1935. Some of the members retunied to Germany in the

1950s and re-established the institute until Adorno's death in 1969. In this section 1 will discuss some of the key insights of representatives of the school, and then show how the ideal overshadows the material in Horkheimer's and Adorno's work. Critical Theory represents a signif~cant break fiom the structures of Mafxist

analysis of ideology, yet at the same the remains faithfid to many Marxist goals and

principles. The most obvious manifestation of this can be seen in the primacy of the

superstructure for critical theorists, as opposed to the emphasis on the economy

espoused by preceding generations of Marxists. It is this focus on the superstructure

that gives the Frankfurt School members vimially the most inclusive view of ideology.

It also emphasized a different kind of Marxism; a Hegelian Marxism as opposed to an

'economistic' Marxism which sees the cultural, ideological and political superstructures

as being determined by the workings of the economic base. Critical theory, as with

most modem, western Marxism shifts the focus of anaiysis away from the base to the

superstructure.

The school had multiple research interests associated with its various members,

but in order to try to summarize its main goals the following aspects cm be highlighted.

Critical theory identified itself as a totalizing theory, the aim of which was opposition and criticism of the existing order. The theory was to be reflexive about its own status and that of its interpretive categories: 'the critical acceptance of the categories which rule social life contains simdtaneously their condemnation'. Fascism, for example, could not reaily be understood in the categories of western liberalism, since this was the ideology of a social order which had produced fascism. "He who does not wish to speak of capitalism should also be silent about fascism" (cited in Jay, 1973: 156).

The Frankfurt School seems to have been motivated by some of the same forces as was Gramsci; their goal was to develop the means to grapple with the tenacity of

capitalism's survival in the face of economic depression, war, and fascism. In addition

the audience of the work changed from the proletarian and labour leaders to

intellectuals and academics. As we will see, despite its nominal Marxism, the Frankfurt

School broke in many ways with Marxisrn. It was pessimistic, in that it saw

fundamental social change as highly unlikely, it lacked working class consciousness,

and it had no social base, since it was intellectuaily abstract and elitist and certainly had

an ambiguous attitude toward the contemporary working class.

The Frankfbrt School's agenda was primarily to present a critical analysis of domination, in al1 its guises. Developing into an anaiysis and critique of mass culture

and the culture industry. The critical theonsts identified rationality and rationalization processes in society as the source of a new form of domination of individuals that had

in some ways replaced economic exploitation as the dominant social problem. For

Horkheimer and Adorno the new products of mass culture served to enhance political control and cernent mass audiences to the status quo. They replaced the term mas culture with the concept of the Culture Industry because they felt it was necessary to dispense with the concept of mass, or popular, culture. As Horkheimer and Adorno

(1972: 120-167) &te in The Didectic of Enliehtenment, "we wished to exclude fiom the outset the interpretation agreeable to its advocates; that it is a matter of something like a culture that arises spontaneously fiom the masses themselves. Such notions are false." This is a sentiment echoed by Horkheimer (1972: 302-303) in Cntical Theorv, where he says that culture today is not the product of genuine demands; rather it is the result of demands which are evoked and manipulated.

Marcuse, in particular, emphasized technology as a type of fond rationality that oppresses individuals. Modem technology's egect on culture is determined by and reflects the pnorities of the contemporary political and economic system. Culture disseminated by means of communication by definition reflects an authontarian, hierarchical organization. Technologically mediated mass culture becomes a socializing agent stnicturing assumptions, feelings and beliefs in the intemal consciousness of contemporary individuals. Marcuse revealed the marner in which social control was hidden in pleasant activities and institutions such as television and its pacification of the population or the distractions of sporting events and sexual titillation that diverted social attention away from power accumulation of the elite and increased alienation of the masses. Mass culture is mas-produced by the culture industry for the masses. It has a pacifying, repressive and stupefying effect on people. Like the rest of the xhool,

Marcuse rejected the positivist's claim that knowledge is inherently neutral, and that human values can be kept out of work. "The result was the absolutizing of 'facts' and the reification of the existing order" (cited in Jay, 1972: 62).

Horkheimer and Adorno maintained that the culture industry enslaved people in far more subtie and effective ways than the cmde methods of domination practiced in earlier eras. The false harmony was in some ways more sinister than the clash of social contradictions because of its ability to lull its victims into passive acceptance. They believed that mass culture absorbed the energies which might be directed toward social revolution thus eliminating the chances for the development of negative resistance.

They found that mass culture and what it produced were commodities which reflect the general social conditions of the culture in which they are consumed. For Adomo (1967:

30), the ta& of social criticism must not be so much to search for particular interest groups to which cultural phenomena are to be assigned but rather to decipher the general social tendencies which are expressed in these phenomena and through which the most powerfùi interests reaiize themselves.

In this sense Adorno has attributed the development of fake consciousness within modem post-industrial society not so much to the direct manipulations of a ding elite but to social tendencies inherent within popular culture. Thus, cntical theory emphasizes that the manner in which a given society symbolicalIy represents itself, for example in popular culture, art and media, is part and parcel of the rnanner in which that society materiaily organizes itself. They identified the diaiectical relationship whereby if one changes, the other rnust change, and if one remains unchanged, the other cannot change.

Horkheimer and Adorno (1972: 133-34) referred to the "deceived masses," and identified the "superstnictwe" as the location of the culturai form of domination. To cite a more detailed passage:

As naturally as the ruled aiways took the morality imposed upon them more senously than did the ders themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them.

As for competing ideologies, they say that the choice between two or more ideologies

"always reflects economic coercion," and that in any event this fkedom to choose is simply the "fieedom to choose what is always the same" (Horkheimer and Adorno,

1972: 166.67).

As an exemplar of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, the work of

Horkheimer and Adomo reveals the idealist tendency in the school, including its

Hegelian element. The very term "dialectic of Enlightenment" refers to the thesis- antithesis-synthesis of more or Iess disembodied ideds, the "self-destruction of the

Enlightenment" arising from the clash of its major themes (1972: xiii). This is illustrated in Chapter One of the book, in which they try to show how the

Enlightenment has become totditarian--and has led directly to Fascism and Nazism- because of the dialectical play of its totaiizing project with human fear, irrationality, and increasing competence. As they Say, the "curse of irresistible progress is irresistible regression" (Horkheimer and Adomo, 1972: 36).

Even when they recognize the political-economic roots of culture, the discussion is brief. In explainhg where this monistic culture cornes fiom, they dispute the view that it is exclusively the production of technology or the requirements of a mas society, and say instead that "the basis on which technology acquires power over society is the power of those whose economic hold over society is greatest" (1972: 121). They link the monopolistic culture industry to monopoly capital elsewhere, saying that the "dependence of the most powerful broadcasting Company on the electrical indusûy, or of the motion picm industry on the banks, is characteristic of the whole sphere, whose individual branches are themselves econornically intenvoven" (Horkheimer and Adorno,

1972: 123).

In his analysis of the Frankfurt School, Terry Eagleton (1991: 127) has commented that "[tlhe Frankfurt School of Marxism, several of whose members were refugees from Nazism, simply projects the 'extreme' ideology universe of fascism onto the quite different structures of liberal capitalist regimes. Does & ideology work by the identity pnnciple, ruthiessly expunging whatever is heterogeneous?" Two useful points arise from this, by way of criticism of this brand of idealist thought. They both rest on the likelihood that the analysis may have been valid only for a brief period midway through this centuy. First, it is equally or even more plausible to view

Western culture since the 1960s as quite heterogeneous, as a result of the breakup of the monolithic postwar global hegemony in that decade. In the last thirty years we have witnessed an explosion of cultural foms that are rather hard to link to a single ideology and cultural style. We now live with significant cultural activities ranging from rap music, post-structural writing and reading, body piercing and beach volleyball, and this following al1 of the fads and innovations of the late 1960s, '70s and '80s.

The second problem is that there is no place for what Simmel called "subjective culture," that creative body of culture produced by the individual out of the larger available culture. Perhaps the revival in interest in Simmel in the last twenty years is comected to the rediscovery of just such a distinction in his work. For Horkheimer and

Adorno (1972: 124), individuais have no choice. They clah that

[t]he man with leinire has to accept what the culture manufacturen offer him. Kant's formalisn still expected a contribution nom the individual, who was thought to relate the varied experiences of the senses to fundamental concepts; but industry robs the individual of this hinction. Its prime service to the customer is to do his schematizing for him.

It is apparent that since the late 1960s individuals have exercised much greater choice than Horkheimer and Adorno would ever have imagined, and have created and joined lifestyle-movements ranging from pan-Afncan people's parties to the contemporary

Arnerican Militia movement. Again, adherents of these various organizations hardly seem to be floating down the same river, even albeit in different boats. To follow up on Eagleton's point about the shadow of European totalitarianism, it may be that people had more choice in the 1940s and '50s than they recognized at the time.

In this section 1 have discussed a body of thought that cm be loosely characterized as "neo-Hegelian. " In the case of Lukacs and the Frankfurt School, these thinkers worked in the Marxist tradition, while Mannheim can be situated in the liberai tradition. In fact, Mannheim's view about the possibility that fiee-floating intellectuals could sort out right and wrong among competing theories seems to owe more than a little debt to liberal fiee-market economics, with its emphasis on equilibrium and balance.

However, despite these differences these thinkers had significant commonality.

They al1 decided to emphasize the "superstructure" as the means of understanding the failure of revolution, and in the case of Lukacs, as the means through which revolution was possible. In so emphasizing the superstructure, they placed much emphasis on the

clash of ideals, and in so doing they participated in and facilitated the removal of the

intellecnial fiorn direct contact with the everyday reality of the worker, particularly the aspect of production relations.

Postwar Ideology: Left and Right

In general, the North American understanding and approach to the study of ideology has been very different from that of the Europeans. Ideology has traditionally been understood in Amencan politics and sociology to refer only to extreme, action-oriented political doctrines or belief systems such as Fascism or Cornmunism.

In this section 1 present this conservative view of ideology as it was developed in the

United States, and 1 juxtapose against it the "European response," which was the rise of a new form of Marxism in the late 1960s and '70s known as "Neo-Marxism."

The End Of Ideoloav Debate

The centrai thesis of this restrictive definition of ideology comes from an

Arnerican sociologist, Daniel Bell, who in 1960 wrote his influentid and controversial book, The End of Ideolom. This book argued that civilization had progressed to the point where traditional nineteenth-century political ideologies were now no longer relevant to modem day political reality. It caused a great deal of debate, known to scholars of the time and later as "The End of Ideology Debate". Bell and others who supported his position were labelled 'enders', while some critics, mostly on the left, argued that action-oriented political ideologies still had a role in shaping social order.

Although much of the debate has centred on Bell's book, the initial premise of the enders came to light in 1955 at an international conference in Milan entitled "The

Future of Freedom." The conference was organized by Michael Polanyi, Raymond

Aron, and M. Nabakov to assess the state of capitalist and socialist ideologies in light of recent global upheaval; including on the one hand the rise of the welfare state and changes in capitaiism, and on the other the Holocaust, the rise of fascist movements, and the totalitarianism of Stalin. Aron noted in the introduction to the conference that crimes committed in the narnes of sacred pnnciples of policy in Nazi Germany and the

Soviet Union had al1 lefi "a residue of scepticism among intellectuals regarding their inherited doctrines" (Aron in Waxman, 1968: 52).

The conference was attended by 150 intellectuals and politicians from al1 parts of the political spectrum including the political theorists who would corne to be associated with the enders position--Seymour Martin Lipset, Daniel Bell, and Edward

Shils. In response to the increased perception that distinctions between Right and Left were being blurred, the "enders" concluded that traditional notions of ideological distinctiveness were in decline. Seymour Martin Lipset comrnented that "the ideological issues dividing left and nght have been more or less reduced to a little more or less government ownership and economic planning" (Lipset in Waxman, 1968: 71).

Bell stated that the universalistic ideologies of the 19th cenhiry had lost their tmth and their power to persuade (Bell in Waxman, 1968: 99). The hypothesis then quickly developed that the phenomena the poa World War era was witnessing was in fact the end of ideology.

The "Enders" had a very specific notion of what ideology was and it was on that basis that they were able to declare its demise. In general, they defined ideology as extreme right wing or left wing belief systems which possessed a great degree of unifonnity. Despite some variation in each thinker, Lewis S. Feuer's definition of ideology is representative of the Enders:

An ideology is a world-system based on one's political and social feelings, an attempt, conscious or unconscious, to impose one's political will upon the nature of the universe. It entangles emotions, actions, and ideas into one amalgam, so that one does not know where the emotion ends and the idea begins; it regards every idea as a plan for action, and every idea as the projection of some interest (in Waxman, 1968: 64).

The Enders also particularly cited Marxism as a fanatical, action-oriented dogrna that was in decline as a result of the excesses of the Soviet regime. Edward Shils characterized Marxism as the specific type of ideological politics that was being declared in demise, and in many ways created his definition of ideology for the case of Marxism. He defined ideology as associated with a particular class or group in socieîy, suspicious of traditional institutions and committed to fomenting radical change.

He saw the leaden of these types of political parties as believing their way to be the one true way and of having their belief ovemde al1 other positions. Shils argued that

Marxist ideology had been discredited as an intellectual political system and called instead for a type of civil politics to replace the outwom notion of ideological politics. This civil politics would be rational and reform minded instead of zealous and revolutionary.

Bell and the others also specified that the end-of-ideology phenomenon was particular to the West. Bell admitted that new ideologies of nationalism, race and modernization were arising in the third world, yet he argued that there was a fundamental difference between these ideologies and the traditional ones he claimed were in decline. Bell argued that the ideologies of the 19th century were universalistic, humanistic, and fashioned by intellectuals. The mass ideologies of Asia and Afnca, on the other hand, were "parochial, instrumental and created by political leaders" (Bell in

Waxrnan, 1968: 100). Lipset argued that although ideologies and passion are no longer necessary in the affluent and advanced democracies of the West, they were still needed in the less affluent countries of the world. "In the underdeveloped countries we should encourage the radical and socialist politicians because, only parties which promise to improve the situation of the masses through widespread refo m... can hope to compete with the communists" (Lipset in Waxrnan, 1968: 84). While it is refreshing to see that at lem Bell acknowledged that movements existed outside of the western locus, his characterization of emancipatory social movements in this manner is condescending and perhaps racist.

The enders envisioned the future in which ideology had reached its demise in romantically utopian ternis.

When ideologies recede, humanity may discover for itself a common language and common values. When ideologies recede, it will be the ebb tide of human hatreds, and the energies of men, disenthralled from conflict and suppression, will know new horizons of happiness and achievement (Feuer in Waxman., 1968: 66).

Critics of the Enders

It shodd be no surprise that the enders' thesis attracted a great deal of critkism from the outset, especially from the lefi. C. Wright Mills (in Waxman, 1968: 126, 128) called the end of ideology debate "Nothing more than an intellectual celebration of apathy.... It is a slogan of complacency, circulating among the prematurely middle-aged, centred in the present, and in the rich western societies."

The enders assertion that the problems of the industrial revolution have been solved, that the class system was disappearing and that economic inequality was in decline, dong with the open critique of the significance of Marxist class analysis, prompted an outcry of opposition from lefi wing intellectuals. They pointed to, arnong other things, the curent validity of Marxist analysis and praxis, the continued existence of revolutionary consciousness in the West and elsewhere, and the development of a second technological industrial revolution that meant even greater and more insidious foms of economic slavery for the working poor.

An additional version of this left wing critique, argued that it was Marx who in fact fxst cdled for the end of ideology. Henry David Aiken argued that ideologicd thought and action would end when the institution of private property was abolished and thus the material causes of dienation eradicated. Aiken argued that Marx's historical prophecy of the coming of world sociaiism amounted to a prophecy of the end of the ideological aga (Aiken, in Waxman, 1968: 238).

In response to the enders' position, Robert Haber advanced an interesting argument that pointed out that while the end of ideology theonsts claim a decrease in global conflict because of consensus, they had failed to address the existence of the suppression of conflict in modem Western democracies. Haber argued that the suppression of mass movements for revolutionary social change was achieved through an nurnber of institutional means some echoing the arguments made by Gramsci conceming the success of the hegemonic state in averting crisis. Daniel BeII's own response to these criticisms was often Iess than persuasive. One way that Bell has tned to save his thesis is to argue that the ideological outbreak in the 1960s and '70s was different in kind from that of the nineteenth century. "[Llittle or none of this radicalism spoke to economic issues or was even able ... to formulate a coherent political philosophy" (Bell, 1988: 425-26). He reduces the transnational revolt of that era to "youth culture," "black-power movements," Third WorId "'Iiberation' movements," and anti-Vietnam War protests. As ludicrous as it sounds, Bell claims there was no economic element in the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement, the women's movement, any of the U.S. New Left organizations, or the many other student and other organizations throughout the rest of the world. Aiso, it is also impossible to explain the rise of the New Right in the 1980s and '90s except with reference to "nineteenth century ideologies." Due to the combined eRects of a) the fact that radical opposition waç king

limited within the institutions of the political system; b) that revolutionary violence had

been replaced by a dependence upon evolutionary change; c) that opposition movements

had ignored their public constuency in favour of gaining influence in centres of power;

d) that reformism was being used by political powers to divert revolutionary sentiment;

and e) because anti-communism had been used to tar left wing ideological movements,

there was clearly a radical change in the viability of revolutionary action. Haber notes,

however, that this constituted an "end to politics, but not an end to ideology" (Haber

in Waxman, 1968: 191).

Haber notes that as a result of these external restrictions on revolutionary activity

and due to internai debate over non- revolutionary radicaiism, the lei3 had to change but

still retained its basic ideological character. Even as he acknowledged the

de-radicalization of politics, Marcuse confirmed that this did not mean that politics were

becoming essentially non-ideological.

There were others who disagreed with the breadth of the enders daim, but

differed fiom the lefi, in that these theonsts agreed that socialism was the one part of

ideology that had collapsed. Irving Knstol's statement (quoted in Waxman, 1968 : 1 14)

is typical of this line of argument:

Sociaiism was useful in its time in calling attention to certain unpleasant aspects of modem life; we have absorbed its insights while transcending its dogmatism and naivité.

Indeed, critics on the left have had to acknowledge that "the left has blood on its hands because of Soviet totalitarianism" (Philip Toynbee cited in Waxman, 1968: 117).

in addition, the enders did not include anti-communism as an ideology in decline even though it could be argued that it matches the def~tionof ideology that they propose and appeared to be dive and well in radicd right wing movements in the

United States and in neo-fascist groups in Europe and Japan. Perhaps the most well- supported critique of the ender position focused upon the fact that support for contemporary liberal beliefs was not seen by the enders as ideological but was rather characterized as the belief system of the post-ideological age. "Liberal civilization begins when the age of ideology is over" (Lewis Feuer, 1968: 66). C. Wright Mills stated that the end-of-ideology was of course itself an ideology, with rhetoric that wasn't so different fiom that within the Soviet Union. "Enders are the fashion

CO-ordinatedsocialist realists of the NATO world" he ascerbically remarked (Waxman,

1968: 130). Jean Meynaud reacted to the enders' thesis by stating that:

In reaiity, the deep intent of this theory is to establish that in wealthy societies socialism is def~telyeclipsed. With many persons the theory of decline is a rather banal aspect of anti-communism or, if one prefers, of a new version of conservative oppomuiism (cited in Waxman, 1968: 336).

The Revival of Mamism: Neo-Mancisrn and Humanism

Just as the 1960s and '70s was a penod of social activism, it was also a the of intellecrual ferment. Those decades saw the revival of Marxism in general and the nse of a nurnber of reinvigorated versions of Marxism, which fdl under the categories

"Humanistic Marxism" and f'Neo-Marxism." These new interpretations of Mantism concentrated on the major issues in sociaiist thought, including the question of the

definition of ideology and its role in both bourgeois and revolutionary social formations.

In discussing Humankt and Neo-Marxist views of ideology, it is best to start with Louis

Althusser, one of the earliest Neo-ManÜsts and certainiy one of the its most

controversial and widely criticized thinken.

Louis Althusser is considered the epitome of the new movement toward

"structural Manllsm" in the 1960s. Though these labels are always somewhat

misleading, Althusser's Mancism was structural in two ways, both of which involve his

definition of ideology. He emphasized the reproduction of patterns in capitafist society,

and the transcendent power of capitaiist production relations and bourgeois ideology

over time. As we will see, his version of Marxism is one in which capitalism manages

to reproduce and reinvigorate itself', seemingly against dl odds, and understanding this

process was an added challenge for Marxist thinkers. Second, he was more concerned than many earlier Marxists with the structures or superstructures that arose from and ultimately relied on the economic base in capitdist society. Like Gramsci, Althusser concerned himself with the non-coercive aspects of the bourgeois state, though the similarity between the two thinkers may end there.

To explicate Althusser's views, thus laying the ground for their later critique, 1 must fust present his definition of ideology. In a number of places in his work,

Althusser (1977: 23 1) defines ideology as "a system (with its own logic and rigour) of representation (images, myths, ideas or concepts, depending on the case) endowed with a historicai existence and role within a given society." Ideologies are not part of the consciousness of most people, he says, but are rather "as structures that they impose

[themselves] on the vast majority of men .... They are perceived-accepted-SUffered cultural objects and they act fiuictionally on men via a process that escapes them"

(Althusser, 1977: 233). Like other thinken Althusser recognizes that ideologies are not necessarily me; but he goes well beyond this, and takes the position that they are never tme, under capitalism at least. "Ideology, then, is the expression of the reai relation between men and their 'world', that is, the (overdetermined) unity of the reai relation and the imaginary relation between them and their real conditions of existence"

(Althusser, 1977: 23 3-34).

The sense of the "imaginary" is central to Althusser's theory and is crucial to understanding his distinction between ideology and science. In an April 1970 paper,

Althusser (197 1: 164-5) daims that ideology is inherently 'false representation' . An ideology is a system of ideas, but it is one that cannot show the world as it is, but rather must engage in mystification of the relations of humans with each other and their world. For Althusser ail ideology is the product of a particular class, and at best the ideology will only describe the world view of that particular class.

Bourgeois economic ideology, which focusses on the cornpetition and exchange among 'free labour', capital, and consumer, is an idealized version of economic activity even for the tiny bourgeois class that authored it. As a stmcturalist, Althusser (1971 :

174) treats ideologies as agents, as in when he says that "ideology 'acts' or 'fünctiom' in such a way that it 'recruits' subjects among individuals (it retsthem dl), or

'transforms' the individuds into subjects (it transforms hem dl)." Althusser's (1971:

176) stnicturalisrn, as well as his gender assumptions, are Mer illustrated in the naming of children. "[Ain individuai is always-already a subject, even before he is born .... Everyone knows how much and in what way the unbom child is expected: it is certain in advance that it will bear its Father's Name, and will therefore have an identity and be irreplaceable." There is no role here for agents to defeat the "familial ideological conti~guration"which provides that patrilineation is the nom. Another of Althusser's important distinctions is between ideology and science. Ideology exists in every society, and he anticipates that it will exist even in a classless Cornmunist society, but it is not the highest form of thought. In the words of Althusser's translater

(1977: 252), the difference between ideology and science is that in the former, the

"practico-social predominates in it over the theoretical, over knowledge." To refer to something as "only ideology," as Althusser (1971 : 38) does in the case of philosophy, religion and ethics, is to say that the thought does not comprehend anything beyond its own horizons; that it does not comprehend itself both in its content and also in its problematic, as science does, especially Marxist science. Althusser was a supporter of the Karl Marx of the Caoital period, and he believed that Marx made a break and departed from his "humanism" and "ideological" mode of thinking in his early and middle work and achieved his greatness, in scientific terms, only with Caoital. This is also related to Althusser's distaste for refonn and "moderation" in international cornmunist circlu, resdting in part fiom the embracing of Marx's early humanist

works, including the 1844 Manuscrbts and The German Ideolom. This view was

summed up by Althusser (1971: 22) when he wrote that "the word Humanism is

exploited by an ideology which uses it to fight, Le. to kill, another true word, and one

vital to the proletariat: the class stmeele."

Ultimately, ideologies are part of the means through which capitalism is

reproduced, operating beneath and within "Ideological State Apparatuses" (ISAs), the

latter of which are Althusser's lasting contribution to social theory. Like most postwar

Marxists, Althusser acknowledges that most Marxists have had only a weak understanding of the state. His solution to this is to point out that most Marxists in the past have placed too much emphasis on the "Repressive State Apparatus" (RSA), in which coercion greatly outweighs consent, and have neglected those social institutions which depend much more on consent than on coercion. Whereas there is one RSA, including the governrnent, police, prisons, military and legal systern, there are many

ISAs, which effectively exercise or are expressions of state power. Althusser (1971:

143) identifies religious, educational, farnily, legal, political, trade-union, communications, and cultural ISAs, some of which are public and some of which are private. Following both Gramsci and Lenin, he notes that the distinction between private and public as we know it is itself a phenomenon of the capitalist state-an ideological phenomenon; and mer, that "no class cm hold state power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the Ideological State Apparatuses" (Althusser, 1971: 146).

The Church had been the dominant ISA for many centuries previous to the

1800s, and so it shouid be no surprise that revoIutionary stmggles tended to be anti- clerical and anti-religious in that era (Althusser, 1971: 151). He notes that Education is now the dominant ISA, because it is central to "reproduction of ... submission to the rules of the established order," and because it "teaches 'know-how', but in forms which ensure subiection to the mlina ideology or the mastery of its 'practice"' (Althusser,

1971 : 132-33).

The theory of Althusser is not the only representative of the revival of Mancism, far from it. There are others, which have often been articulated in the form of homages or critiques of Althusser. Such a critique is offered by the reformed Communist and

Hurnanist Marxist E. P. Thompson, a "historical materialist" who, in his classic essay

"The Poverty of Theory," sought to defend an alternative perspective through a critique of stnicturalist "dialectical materialism." Thompson, the practicing historian, makes eight points in cnticism of Althusser's structural Marxism. First, Thompson (1978: 9-

10) challenges the validity of Althusser's epistemology, accusing him of "theoreticai imperialism" by insisting on a philosophic method based on Cartesian logical exegesis,

Spinoza's monadism, and the Parisian dialogue between phenomonology, existentialisrn and Marxism. Second, Thompson (1978: 16-22) argues that a consequence of this epistemology is that Althusser has no category for "experience," which Thompson defines as "social being's impingement on social consciousness," and that Althusser is in fact an "idealist" because he is operating with a fmed, anti-ernpirical "theory" that

seems impe~ousto human intervention. Third, Thompson points out that Althusser

does not distinguish between the "empirical" and "empincist," and so in criticizing the

latter - the position that facts speak for themselves and that our observations of the

world are unproblematic - Althusser opposes the possibility that any experience or

observation can be signifcant in altering our understanding of historical patterns.

Fourth, Thompson (1978: 5, 95) argues that Althusser's structuralisrn departs

from the historical method of Marx and Engels and is in fact a "structuralism of stasis."

Thompson (1978: 72-73) argues that Althusser and othen fdl into a structuralist illusion

in which events are explained by the "windscreen of capitalist society," which

effectively prevents things fiom happening, in the absence of particular human actions

and choices. Uniike Marx and Engels, Althusser has "evicted" both "human agency"

and "histoncal time, or process" from history (Thompson, 1978: 90). Fifth, Althusser

has no adequate categories to explain class stmggle or change, because his stmcturalism

Ieads him to concentrate on fixed, unchanging categories, including "ideology," and because "[mlovement can only take place within the closed field of system or structure"

(Thompson, 1978: 83). Finally, Althusser's works contain many silences and have nothing to say on subjects such as "experience," "culture" and "politics" (Thompson,

1978: 171).

This laves us with the brief task of expressing Thompson's positive views, including those on the subject of ideology. In contrast to the "dialectical materialist," Thompson the historical materialkt studies "historical process" nom a rnaterialist

perspective (Thornpson, 1978: 19). Theory does not precede everything else, but rather

exists in a dialogue with our empincal smundings Historical materialism offers "a

total history of society, in which al1 other histories are convened" (Thompson, 1978:

70). The historical matenalist believes that there is no fixed human nature, that ail

ideas are the product of thek particular era, that "tnah" is not transcendent but rather

histoncally specific, and that human experience cm only be assessed in the relativistic

terms of its specific circurnstances (Femia, 198 1: 115- 16).

Thompson's work involves the study of the interaction of "social being,"

"experience," and "social consciousness," with ideology, like culture, having central

significance in the third category. For Thompson (1963: 12), the development of the

"English working class" was as much a cultural and ideological achievement as a matenal creation, and it was an achievement which the subjects, the members of this

new class, participated in. (They were not just passive victims.) Like many cntics of

structurai Marxism, including Raymond Williams, Thompson also has a strong cornmitment to the importance of human agency, including in the realm of ideology.

Ideology "has its own kind of 'tnith'," because ideologies &se fiom social being and experience, and there is some relationship between various ideologies and the age that produces them.

1 conclude this section on the revival of Marxism of the 1960s and '70s by briefly examining the place of ideology in the so-called "instrumental Marxism- structuralist MaKim" debate between Ralph Miliband and Nicos Poulantzas. This is

another case in which terrns are misleading. Both these authors had nuanced positions

on the issues, but their views were pigeon-holed and therefore simplified, a

phenomenon that happens dl too ofien.

Miliband's work is well known and one does not need to provide an overly

lengthy summary. The purpose of Miliband's (1973: 5-7) book is to demonstrate that the "pluralist-democraticftapproach to Western industrial politics is inadequate, and that a Marxist approach, even a crude one, is superior in explaining the realities of the

Western political economy. The cmde approach, which does deserve the title

"instrumentalist," cornes fiom Marx's famous line from The Cornmunist Manifesta, that

"[tlhe executive of the modem state is but a cornmittee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." Miliband's classic book, however, is an elaboration and modification of that stark view, and does not so clearly deserve the sarne label.

Miliband (1973: 237) argues that the most important fact about Western capitalist states

"is the continued existence in them of private and ever more concentrated economic power." This power is in the hands of "ownen and controllers" who consequently

"enjoy a massive preponderance in society, in the political system, and in the determination of the state's policies and actions."

Miliband (1973: ch. 2) shows the level of concentration of weaith and income in the han& of the few, and then demonstrates how this has an impact on political life.

Despite differences within the capitaiist class, Miliband points out that these differences exist witb a typically narrow ideological range, such as discussions over how the private capitalist economy shouid be run rather than debates over collective versus private ownership of the means of production. Miliband (1973: ch. 3) also discusses the direct role of business people in governance, and the tendency for those in the state elite to accept the business-oriented policies and culture of the civil service. He also notes the role of educational institutions, especially those with the most prestige, of offering highly-biased training that prepares students, often from the "best families," for careers in the govenunent and business elite (Miliband, 1973: ch. 5).

When it cornes to what govemrnents actually do, Miliband finds that in the

1950s and '60s they were overwhelmingly committed to ensuring that the private, capitalist economy functioned smoothiy (Miliband, 1973: ch. 4). But importantly, he does note that govemrnents sometimes do things to anger this business constituency.

Largely for electorai reasons and cultivating consent more generally, govemments "have in fact been compelled over the years to act against some property rights, to erode some managerial prerogatives, to help redress somewhat the balance between capital and labour, between property and those who are subject to it" (Miliband, 1973: 71). As for political party cornpetition, Miliband views this as nddled with weaknesses. The political party with the most money has definite advantages, which ordinarily means the

"conservative parties." The political system itself inclines political leaders, of even workers' or socialist parties, towards compromise rather than hdamental change

(Miliband, 1973: ch. 6). In two of the later chapters Miliband (chs. 7, 8) discusses the process of legitirnation in capitalkt societies, emphasking the consenrative role of religion, of ~tiondistideology, print and broadcast media, educational institutions, and the farnily.

While Miliband spends little tirne addressing ideology explicitiy, much of what he says has implications for the view of ideology. Like E. P. Thompson and others,

Miliband was seriously comrnitted to recognizing the role of human agency in his work.

For Miliband ideology is one of the tools real people use in politicai struggle. The ideology can take the form of propaganda, which is the well-crafted set of ideas explicidy designed to persuade others of the rightness of one's position. Or the ideology can be more subtle, in the sense that it is present in less coherent form in institutions ofken thought to be "non-ideological," such as the educational system, the churches, and the faaiily. Importantly, for Miliband ideology is not a category that exists separately fiom hurnan actions and social movements. It is simply one of a number of tools used by each side to maintain the solidarity of its members and to advance its own cause at the expense of others.

Of al1 of the thinkers discussed here, Nicos Poulantzas cornes closest of offering a homage to Althusser, especially in his early work. In his early work, Poulantzas

(1975: 15-17) presents a nurnber of contentions which place hirn very close to

Althusser's position. He argues that classes arise more or less spontaneously fiom matenal conditions. He refers to the "structural determination of classes," where structure refers to materiality itself, and in which there is a principal role for economic relations. Poulantzas (1975: 16) picks up Lenin's term "class instinct," by which he means that the "economic existence" of the working class will burst through bourgeois ideology and provide the working class with its ideology. Ideology is not a "system of ideas," he says, or a "coherent discourse," but is rather an "ensemble of material practices" (Poulantzas, 1975: 17). Consequently, Poulantzas sees no need for class consciousness, or even concem for the agents who make up a class. The place of a class in the class struggle is more important than "the agents that compose if" and the

"class membership of the various agents depends on the class places that they occupy."

Like Althusser, Poulantzas also places great emphasis on Repressive and Ideological

State Apparatuses, and Poulantzas's list of ISAs looks much like Althusser. Ideology seems to aise from materiality, and ISAs are treated like agents, as in when he writes that "[i]deological apparatuses only serve to fashion and inculcate (materialize) the dominant ideology" (Poulantzas, 1975: 3 1).

In his later work Poulantzas presents a more nuanced picture. He defines ideology as follows: "p]deology does not consist merely in a system of ideas or representations: it also involves a senes of material ~ractices,embracing the custorns and life-style of the agents and setting like cernent in the totality of social (including political and economic) practices" (1978: 28). There is still a "dominant ideology," and also ISAS, but these are treated less abstractly than in the past. The state, specificaily, takes on a greater role-as-agent in this later work. For example, Poulantzas (1978: 32) makes the state central in the production of ideology. "One of the state's functions that goes beyond the mechanisn of concealment-inversion pecuiiar to ideology concems its

strictly or~anizationalrole vis-à-vis the dominant class, including that of formulatinq

and o~enivex~ressing the tactics reauired to reproduce its Dower. The State does not

produce a unified discourse, but several discourses that are adapted to the various

classes and differentially incarnated in its apparatus according to their class destination."

There is still discussion of the "functions" of the state, a staple of stnicturalist thought

because of the emphasis on what the state must do to reproduce capitalism, but at least

in the later work there is the recognition that some agent is fulfilling this function.

The postwar period was an era in which Marxist views of ideology becarne more refined, largely as the result of the theoretical conflicts between Marxists and liberals and within Marxism itself. While the work of Althusser has not aged well, we can see in the work of Miliband and Poulantz& a certain rnaturity and refinement as the result of the debates of that era. As we will see, however, the work of Althusser laid the ground, if ody because of its excess, for another radically different view of ideology, that provided by poststructuralism.

Poststructuralism

In Europe, one of the responses of postwar Iiberalim-in the form of the End-of-

Ideology as well as other movements--was Neo-Marxism, including the structuralism of Althusser. Another form of response, after the failure of the worker-student alliance in 1968, was the abandonment of many of the central principles of Mamism. The legacy of this abandonment is poststructuralism. Ever playful, ever eager to avoid being class-ified, poststnictUi.alists fiequently present their work as retaining the best of the Marxist tradition whiie taking hoaccount of the fin-de-millenium. As 1 will show in this section, if anyihing many of the poststructuralist thinkers, such as

Castoriadis, Lefort, and Laclau and Mouffe. seemed to have adopted liberalism wholeheartedly and have effectively thrown out the "Marxist baby" with the

"stmcturalist bath water." In this section 1 also discuss another cluster of

"poststnicturalist" approaches to ideology, produced by Western feminists in the last 25 years-

Cornelius Castoriadis: Marxism as Obhscation

The fim of the i~ovativesocial theories touching on questions of ideology and arising from the ruins of French struchiralism is found in the work of Cornelius

Castoriadis. In his major work, the Irnaginarv Institution of Societv, Castoriadis provides a revolutionary, non-Mmist-perhaps anti-Marxist--alternative to ou understanding of capitaiist society, our history, and our future. Though Castoriadis says little about ideology directly, this work speaks to some of the same issues. On the subject of ideology, Castoriadis draws on Marx's definition of ideology as that which obscures rather than eniightens, but he applies that to Marxism as it is now understood.

"F]or over 40 years Marxism has become an ideology in the very sense that Marx gave to this term: a set of ideas that relate to a reality not in order to shed light on it and to change it, but in order to veil it and to justifi it in the imaginary. which permits people to say one thing? and do another, to appear as other than they are" (Castoriadis, 1987: 11).

The book is divided into two parts, the £ktof which involves a critique of

Marxism and the structural-fûnctiond view of institutions, and the second which presents Castoriadis's positive alternative view of institutions and the social imaginary.

The critique of Marxism in part one is essentially a critique of the two dominant tendencies in Manrism in the twentieth century: Fust, Marxism-Leninism as thought and practiced in "actually existing socidism" in Eastern Europe and Asia, in the postwar

Western cornrnunist parties, and even the Trotskyite critique; and second, the structural

Manllsrn of Althusser and his followers in the 1950s and '60s. His critique of Marxism focuses on two central aspects, the economic theory and the theory of history.

Castoriadis interprets Marx primdy as an economistic, deterministic, and rigid thinker, perhaps because this has been the dominant use to which his thought has been put since

Marx's death.

In terms of the Marxist theory of history, Castoriadis attacks Marx's dependence of dialectics, saying that the teleological belief in the necessity of a revolution that would overcome and abolish capitalism represents the application of an incorrect theory to social change. He aiso believes that Marx's categories apply oniy to the phase of nineteenth century industrial capitdist development in Europe, and not to previous or later eras as Marx's work implies. Most importantly, Castoriadis denies the possibility of a 'totalizing theory' of society, which can be applied transhistorically--yet this is one of the chief goals of Mancism, he says. He does not believe that we can descnbe history fiom an 'objectivist rationaIist7 viewpoînt, as though history was an object separate fiom us and though we codd study it like the naturai sciences.

As for Maorist economics, Castoriadis rejects the major tenets of Marx's works, incluchg the tendency for the rate of profit to fdl, the increasing immiseration of the proletariat, the imminence of sociaiist revolution, the contradiction between productive forces and the relations of production, human prospects under socialism, the atiainment of communism, and even the centrality of production and the economy. He disputes the view that the materid has more impact on the ideal than vice-versa. He accuses

Marxists of being economic determinists and neglecting class stmggle or other means of revolutionary change. Interestingly, Castoriadis also rejects the possibility that there is a "me Marx" worth saving fiom his own disciples. Rather, he sees a 120 year legacy that Marx himself must bear, and he sees Marx's writing as important historical developments, like dl the technologicai developments, that must be held responsible for

îheir results.

The ideas of the 'institution' and 'social imaginary', developed in part two, are

Castoriadis's alternatives to these defects of Marxism. The book was published afier ten years of silence on the part of the author, during which he studied psychoanalysis, philosophy and linguistics. Castonadis's main contribution is his emphasis on human creativity, at dl tirnes and in al1 places, both in reproducing social systems and in transfomiing them. In the case of institutions, he rejects the fùnctionalist tendency to see social institutions as necessary to a given society, and instead allows for a rnuch more open concept in which institutions are created and disappear through social and personal stniggie.

It is in connection to institutions that alienation occurs. In a position that approaches idealism, Castoriadis (1987: 132) says that alienation "occurs when the imapùiary moment in the institution becomes autonomous and predominates, which leads to the institutions's becoming and predominating with respect to society." This autonorny of institutions precludes both social and individual autonomy, because these institutions are not of the society's or individual's making. They are not the result of human creativity and act like the "dead hand of the past," thus causing alienation.

The imaginary itself is not an easy concept to grasp. He describes it as "the unceasing and essentially undetermined (social-histo rical and psy chical) creation of figures/foms/images, on the basis of which alone there can ever be a question of

'something'. What we cal1 'reaiity' and 'rationality' are its works" (Castoriadis, 1987:

3). The imaginary, which in its revolutionary form may be called the "radicial imaginary," is like a parallel universe, from which every meaning, innovative idea or perspective is drawn. This is like a horizon of thought, which can be altered and drawn fiom and which changes over time. It may also resemble Gramscian hegemony, except that hegemony emphasizes the limits upon the human rnind, while Castoriadis emphasizes its potential expansiveness. It also may be like Simmel's idea of "objective culture," except that objective culture suggests there are limits to that which the imagination cm do, in any given historical epoch. 1

Claude Lefort was Cornelius Castoriadis's collaborator in the journal Socialisme

ou Barbarie, and he was an important thinker in reconsidering the Marxîst tradition,

including the Marxist conception of ideology, in the 1960s through 1980s. Uniike John

Thompson (1984)' 1 see Lefort's work as more different from Castonadis's than it is

alike. So in this section 1 will briefly descnbe Lefort's work and contrast it with that

of his former collaborator.

Lefort has not spent a great deal of time on the question of ideology, but it is

important in his work. His most important contribution to thought about ideology came

in a single article, entitled in the English translation as "Outline of the Genesis of

Ideology in Modem Societies," originally published in French in 1974 and made

available in English in 1976 (Lefort, 1986: 181-236). Lefort begins his discussion by

noting that the concept of ideology has become vague, given its multiple uses. He then considers Marx's use of the term, and notes that for Marx ideology in the nineteenth century context contains a "triple denial" on the part of those who employed it. First, it contains a denial of class divisions. Second, it contains a denial of temporal divisions, those of the pst, the present and hure. And third, ideology denies the division between ideology and practice (Lefort, 1986: 190).

Lefort argues that each form of society is associated with a particular form of ideology, each of which operates differently. He identifies "Bourgeois ideology," which accompanied Bourgeois society in the nineteenth century. Second, he identifies a general Totalitarian ideology, drawn fiom the Nazi, fascist and Soviet models in this centuy. Third, he refers to "invisible ideology," which he argued in the 1970s was the ideology of the present given the form Western society had taken.

For our purposes, Lefort's (1986: 227-233) third category, "invisible ideology," has the most current relevance. Lefort argues the ideology becornes "invisible" when it is submerged in social discourse, which he said in the 1970s was the situation in the indumial West. This ideology is contained within the never-ending conversation on the seemingly ever-present electronic media, which creates the illusion of inclusion, of the

"between-us, the entre-nous." No doubt this situation is now even more advanced both in the West and also globally, than it was when Lefort wrote. He says there is an

"imaginary dimension of communication," because of the key role of television and radio in linking people to social discourse. This invisible ideology advances many of the themes of Bourgeois ideology, but it also permits a great deal of diversity. In fact, this ideology may be unstable precisely because destructive and conflictual voices are encouraged, let alone tolerated. Finally, Lefort sees this new fom of ideology as highly decentrdized, like the society of which it is a part. As he says, "If everything can be said, that which is said will be marked by indeterminacy; hence it perpetuates novelty"

(Lefort, 1986: 233).

Michel Foucault: Ideolom and the 'how' auestions

Michel Foucault, the famous French poststmcturaiist, was a thinker well-known for his interest in thought, but for whom the term "ideology" only rarely appears in his work Foucault is noted for his discussions of "power," "discourse," and "discursive formations," and if anything he was opposed to the use of the concept of ideology. In this section 1 describe Foucault's attitude toward ideology. mer presenting his central point about discourse and domination in liberal societies, 1 find that his view of ideology is based on his greater interest in the how questions rather than the whv questions, since the latter form of questioning addresses more directly the usual subject matter of ideology.

Foucault's corpus was volurninous and developed a great number and variety of ideas (see Smart, 1995; Lechte, 1994). Most of the early work discussed the development of major social institutions, including the mental asylum, the prison, and the health system. Later work focussed on major intellectual epistemic breaks, like those in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as the power-knowledge nexus. In ail of his work there is a general interest in the relationship of the development of discourses and power in an increasing "liberal" society.

Foucault discusses ideology in only a few places in his work. In one his two major theoretical works, Foucault (1972: 185-86) discusses ideology in the context of its relationship to science. Like others, including Althusser and Castoriadis, Foucault appears to view science as a higher form of knowledge than ideology. He recognizes, however, that science can function ideologically, though at no point does he explicitly defuie the latter term. Foucault (1972: 186) notes, for example, that ideology may have scientific elements within it, but that "[t]heoretical contradictions, lacunae, defects may indicate the ideological hctioning of a science."

in an inte~ewlater in the 1970s, Foucault (1984: 60) criticized the concept of

ideology for three reasoas. First, he claimed that ideology "always stands in Wtual

opposition to sornething else which is supposed to count as truth." Second, he says that

ideology refers "to something of the order of a subject," by which he means, presumably, that observers tend to treat an "ideology" as an agent, by importing will and consciousness into a system of ideas. Third, "ideology stands in a secondary position relative to something which functions as its infrastructure, as its material, economic determinant, etc." By this he appears to mean that ideology is inherently

"epiphenomend," in that it is the direct product of other forces, which thernselves also directly impact on reality.

It is clear that Foucault is employing a very simple, if not simplistic, view of ideology, certainly compared to the way in which it is used by other thinkers and in this dissertation. He seems to accept that "ideology" and "tnith" are fundamentally inconsistent; that ideology must inevitably be anthropomorphized; and that ideology will always be subordinated to social forces of some sort. As is well known, Foucault's alternative to ideology is to study "discursive formations," or the "History and Systems of Thought," as his final academic appointment at the Collène de France was entitled.

One of the reasons why the concept of ideology does not appeai to Foucault might be the nature of the questions that he asks. Foucault does not ask why a particular intellechial system was developed, which would focus on the process of creation and selection of some ideas rather than others, as well as the motives and associations of those who had power over the selection process, whether his subject is psychiatry,

imprisonment, or sexuality. Rather, Foucault focusses on the how, and so he hnds the concept of "ideology" less useful because it derives fiom the tradition of "why questions," which takes seriously the links berneen social forces and the ongins of ideas.

Laclau and MoufTe: Is There Anvthin~Lefi of Sociaiism?

One of the most significant and most controversial works addressing general questions of ideology and hegemony in the last fifteen years has corne from the theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chanta1 Mouffe. One of the reasons that the book has been controversiai is that it provides a sweeping critique of the Marxist tradition's basic characterization of Western capitalist society, as well as its strategy of social change.

In this section 1 will describe this effort by Laclau and Mouffe and deal with some of the major criticisms generated mainly fiom the Marxist mainstrearn.

Like the work of Claude Lefort, Heeemonv and Socialist Strategy is the work of two theorists who have departed from the Marxia tradition, and have adopted a poststructural or "post-Marxist" perspective. As we will see, the book contains a major chapter which makes current empirical observations about the crisis on the left and within Marxism, preceded by an introduction and three chapters which explore the ongins and application of the concept of hegemony. The authors' general critique of

Man

to the means of production, and tbat a progressive class (fa the bourgeoisie, Wly

the proletariat) is the a priori centrai actor in transforming the economy and society.

Laclau and MoufTe (1985: 1-2) argue that operathg under this approach, the lefi has

failed to make progress, has witnessed the dispersion of the working class, and has seen

a major split between the theory and practice of revolution and social change.

They propose, therefore, a sweeping alternative to theory and practice on the left.

They advance a new approach to "radical democracy" which rejects "privileged points of rupture and the confluence of struggles into a unified political space, and the acceptance, on the contrary, of the plurality and indeterminacy of the social" (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985: 152). By the first point they mean that the left must abandon the view that the working class is a privileged revolutionary subject, which is the central actor around which al1 stniggles operate under a single political system and based on a single political imaginary. In contrat to this, in their second point they advocate progressive and revolutionary action based on social diversity (the "new social movements"), and the lack of any uniQing principles and problematics which make for a single revolutionary movement.

They argue that this situation came to pass in the contemporary world because of the tendency of the advanced capitalist economy to have a greater and greater impact on al1 aspects of human life. They note that until World War Two, capitalism revolutionized people's work relationships, but it Ieft much of the rest of life less disturbed. However, after 1945, with the reconstruction of capitalism in the West under

the mode1 now known as "Fordism," this changed. Fordism did intensify the

exploitation of labour in the factory (the move to an "intensive regime of accumulation"), but it also emphasized for the fust time the role of consumption in ensuring stability and growth of the capitalist system. They argue that "[t]his penetration of capitalist relations of production ... was to transform society into a vat market in which new 'needs' were ceaselessly created, and in which more and more of the products of human labour were turned into cornmodities" (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985:

160-61). They argue that more and more of people's Iives have been caught up in this production/consumption system, which has increased the "multiplicity of social relations fiom which antagonisms and struggles may originate: habitat, consumption, various services..." People have developed alternative "political identities" based on these diversified social relations, and this has made it impossible to rebuild a lefi-wing coalition, based at least on the nineteenth century idea of the centrality of workers' roles in the production process.

This is the contemporary relevance of the authors' concems, but this is not the major focus of the book. The book is preoccupied with the ongins of the idea of hegemony and the prospect of rebuilding the concept for use in the heterogeneous circumstances described above. They argue that the concept of hegemony was developed originally as a result of a failure in Manllst theory/practice: that "historical necessity" would lead to revolution, but that this never happened. The creation of the concept of hegemony was designed to assign to the revolutionary proletariat the task of domination and leadership, which was most adequately theorized by Antonio

Gramsci in the 1920s and '30s. The authors' argue that this effort to create a revolutionary "historie bloc" based on the hegemony of the proletariat has never worked, and is fiuidamentally flawed. This is pdy because since Marx's the the working class has never been an adequate representative of the "masses." There has never been a stable line of demarcation between workers/masses and capitaiists/elites since the mid-nineteenth century, they argue (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985: 151). As for the construction of a new progressive hegemony, they see hegemony as incompatible with radical democracy. "[Tlhe Iogic of democracy is simply the equivalential displacement of the egditanan imaginary to ever more extensive social relations, and as such, it is only a logic of the elimination of relations of subordination and of inequalities. The logic of democracy is not a Iogic of the positivity of the social," unlike a progressive hegemony which would impose a positive vision of an economy and society (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985: 188-89).

Feminist A~proachesto Ideologv

Feminists have innovated in the area of ideology, and they have also ofien adopted the fault lines that they have inherited fiom the western scholarly tradition. For this latter reason, this section is shorter than might be expected. One of the centrai contributions of femhist analysis to our understanding of ideology is the understanding of how dominant ideological perspectives cm be embraced and supported by those least likely to benefit from them. Feminist development of ideology, in the inclusive sense, advances insights of importance to us, including: Why do people believe in ideas that obviously work against their best interests?

Feminist analysis often falls within three categories, specifically liberal feminism, socialist or Marxist feminism, and 'radical' feminism. As feminists themselves are more than aware (Elshtain, 1982: 131), feminists have often adopted wholesale the defuiition, substance and epistemology of ideology inherent in the larger perspectives they draw fiom. The liberal feminist, for exarnple, often accepts the liberal view of ideology, like that associated with the Enders: that there is ideology versus tmth; that ideology exists mainly or only in explicit political parties and institutions; and that ideology is of little importance in everyday life.

Socidist feminists, on the other hand, fiequently adopt one of the variants of ideology available on the political lefi. This can include ideology as a class-based set of ideas designed to support an economic system of domination; or possibly to undermine such a system. Ideologies may &se more or less directiy from social relations of production, or they may have some "relative autonomy" frorn these production relations (Barrett, 1988).

Probably the most distinctive feminist contribution to ideology cornes from those feminists who have synthesized social theory and psychoandysis and have rethought ideology through a very personal lem, or those who have developed "standpoint theory" as part of rethinking women in social anaiysis (Griffin, 1982; Hartsock, 1987; Smith, 1987). Susan Griffin provides a novel view of ideology based on the connections

between psychoanalysis and social theory. As for radical feminists in general, for

Griffin this personal view is also a political view. Griffi (1982: 275) sees ideology

as the product of the divided self. The dominator produces ideology as the result of his

"denied self." There are aspects of his being that he hates, and these characteristics-

the natural, the emotional, the numirer-must be imposed on another, and labelled its

(iderior) essence. Patnarchical ideology is the definition of the gender roles of just

such an alienated set of characteristics. What women are supposed to be is the sum

total of the characteristics that men hate and deny in themselves.

For Griffin, people develop sets of creative ideas but these become fixed and

inflexible and constitute an ideology. This ideology exists above people, and controls

them. She says that "an ideology holds the promise that one can control reality with

the mind, assert the ideal as more real than reality, or place idea as an authonty above

nature, and even above our sensuai experience of nature" (Griffin, 1982: 278). We are

al1 partly ideologists--Staiin and his victims--because there is part of ourselves that we

hide fiom ourselves, that we deny. The ideologist is intlexible, and fean creativity.

The ideologist in us is as inflexible as the ideology: the ideology defines the acceptable parameters of our lives, and the ideologist within us tells us to conform to those parameters.

Griffin (1982: 279-80) says that an ideology begins as a political theory "bom of genuine feeling of a sense of reality;" it begins "as a cry against the denial of truth, [then] it denies any tmth that does not fit into its scheme." Like the dominator, the dominated also internaiizes the method and substance of ideology. The "part of my mind schooled in ideology projects whatever is unacceptable in myself into othen."

The author then illustrates by telling a story of how, sitting in a restaurant, she feels hostility toward another woman who appears to be sick, and then feels guilt for these feelings of hostility, then feels hostility towards an imagined husband and son who join the woman after she has waited for a time. "From her persecutor, 1 had tumed myself into her champion. And in ail this, 1 avoided confionting or knowing myself' (Gnffm,

1982: 28 t ).

It is inherent in ideology that each ideology "creates its own forbidden, subterranean world of reality." This is because, as 1 mentioned above, ideologies define parameters of proper behaviour. "One is only allowed, through the justifying framework of ideas, to acknowledge certain emotions toward certain people" (Griffin,

1982: 281-82). Women can hate men, workers can hate bosses, but women are not supposed to hate women, and in some quarters women are not supposed to love men.

If they do, they are engaging in "incorrect" behaviour and they mut suppress it.

Sornetimes, as Jean Elshtain (1982: 136) says, women intemdize the ideology of victimization and helplessness to such an extent that women's thoughts becomes circumscribed. "The presumption is that the victim speaks in a pure voice: 1 suffer therefore 1 have moral purity and none can question what I say," Elshtain says. To so question is to engage in incorrect behaviour. Griffui elaborates on the psychologicd approach to ideology in her work on pornography. She sees pornography as a contemporary application of a transhistorical system of thought, in which men fear women, whom they see as the embodiment of eros and nature (Griffin, 198 1: 14). Further, men separate themselves fhm this nature, and declare themselves "cultural" and spiritual. Pornography participates in the dualisms of patriarchical culture; that spiritual love and carnal love cannot be united, and that women are the "blank screen" upon which the denied knowledge of self is imposed (Griffui, 198 1: 19-22).

Another notable feminist contribution to our understanding of ideology is located in "standpoint theory," associated most closely with Dorothy Smith. Uniike many who have contributed to the discussion of ideology, Smith's contribution is not in her definition of the tem. She provides a conventional Marxist definition, from the

Geman Ideoloav era of Marx and Engels' work, but notes that ideology provides

"common perspectivestf for rule, thus avoiding the sense in which one class deceives another (Smith, 1987: 54). Smith's major contribution is in describing how the problem in the human sciences goes well beyond simple gender bias. It is not just that women are discriminated against in sociology, political theory, philosophy, and related fields. Rather, they are not recognized or included at dl. Smith (1 987: 59) explains that there is a serious rupture between women's experience and the dominant ideologicai modes of interpreting Iife. This is illustrated-and caused-by the fact that wornen have played almost no role in creating the culture they have inherited. This is aggravated by the fact that wornen continue to exist "outside the extralocal relations of

dg''(Smith, 1987: 78).

One of the consequences of this is that, for Smith, our systems of knowledge

reflect this exclusion. For example, "women's work routines and the organization of

their daily lives do not confonn to the 'voluntaristic' model or the model upon which

the agentic style of sociology might be based" (Smith, 1987: 66). Further, the

subordinate concrete and material position of women has an impact in the creation of

culture, because women play roles in society which do not have an impact on

conceptual life. She says that "at alrnost every point women mediate for men the relations between the conceptual mode of action and the concrete foms on which it depends," meaning that women's continuing work roles (as homemaker and secretary,

for example) underlie and are necessary for the creation of cultural products but do not directly affect them (Smith, 1987: 83).

Smith's feminist alternative is based on standpoint theory (see also Hartsock,

1987). Unlike positivist social science, in standpoint theory the subject must remain a subject and not be transfonned into an object. "A sociology for women preserves the presence of subjects as knowers and actors" (Smith, 1987: 105). The idea of the standpoint goes beyond the idea of the alternative perspective or world-view; rather, it

"creates the space for an absent subject, and an absent expenence that is to be filled with the presence and spoken experience of actual women speaking of and in the achialities of their everyday worlds" (Smith, 1987: 107). Standpoint theory is not just the substitution of one theory or ideology for another, based on the daim that this tells us the "tnith" about women. It is, instead, a searching for al1 the missing diversity of women, that which we do not know and which we may not yet even have a vocabulary to express. In Smith's (1990: 28) own words, it "positions inqujr but has no specific content Those who undertake inquiry fiom this standpoint begin always fiom women's experience as it is for women. We are the authoritative speakers of our own experience."

Conctusion

In this chapter 1 have exarnined a number of different views of ideology. Our central argument is that the twentieth century has hosted a "hidden debate" between those who hold inclusive versus restrictive approaches to ideology. In the inclusive approach, exemplified by Gramsci, the Frankfirt School, E. P. Thompson, and many feminists, ideology is held by a large number, it is not necessarily coherent, and its central pnnciples permeate society. In short, it is a sensible way to look at a complex, highly-industrialized, urbanized, technology-laden society. The restrictive view, exemplified by Mm,Mannheim, the Enders and Miliband, holds in common the view that ideologies usually have labels, like "liberal" and "socialist," and that ideology is actionsriented and the possession of the activists. Admittedly, the restrictive advocates are divided according to whether they look at ideology as obfuscating, or whether they are simply competing, like brands of soap. In this century, perhaps because of the rise of economic thought in politics and society, the latter view has eclipsed the former. As for the last-discussed poststructural approaches to ideology, these views share

a common distaste for the rigidity of Althusserian structuralism-hence the name. But

beyond that, they have littie in common. There is great variation in whether they accept

the restrictive or inclusive view, though it should be said that the inclusive view seems

to be the dominant one in the last fifieen to twenty years on both sides of the Atlantic.

In general, however, Lefort, Castoriadis, Foucault and Laclau and Mouffe have

reacted to Mmism by adopting an ambiguous attitude toward the intellectual engaged

in action. While they still stand for such engagement, the ground upon which they

stood rnay not be finn enough to support activism. Post-Marxism often means anti-

Marxism, sometimes arising from a sanguine and indifferent outlook. Their work is

ofien more obscure than the obscurities of the Marxists whom they criticize. In contrast to this, the new feminist work on ideology has gone in a more productive direction.

It introduces and rethinks gender and race without abandoning traditional concerns of class. As we will see, its concern for understanding the basis upon which people reach conclusions will help us as we deal with Maritime culture.

The questions that 1 will ask have developed as a result of this discussion. One of the themes of this chapter is that there is a distinction between hegemony and ideology in even the latter's most inclusive sense. Hegemony contains ideology in al1 its senses, but hegemony is about coercion as well as consent In our case study 1 will discuss the benign presence of ideology, but 1 will also go beyond this and examine the myriad of ways in which ideology is imposed. Further, because of the issue of passive consent raised by Gramsci, and the approach to ideology advanced by ferninists Like

Susan Gntf?n, 1 wili pay some attention to the culture of the readership of the Irving papers in New Brunswick. Like women, "Mantirners" in general are a subordinate group in Canadian society, and the majonty of people in New Brunswick are in a subordinate position in terms of class and ethnicity, in addition to gender. This last point is quite important, since it explains how the Irvings have accumulated so much wealth and power in the last thirty years. AIso, it helps us understand the relative absence of public protest when the Irvings interfere in the operations of their newspapers. Chapter Four: Ideology and the News Media

Introduction

So far in this dissertation, 1 have discussed the contribution of the study of ideology over the last two centuries. 1 have found that in the nineteenth century ideology was thought of restrictively, whereas in this century there has been as "hidden" debate between the restrictive and inclusive approaches, the latter of which recognizes the complexity of advanced industrial societies, including the extent of the immersion of the state in civil society. In this chapter, my goal is to raise central issues in the critical anaiysis of news media, in order to prepare for our analysis of ideology in the media coverage of the Irving Oil refinery strike. 1 will proceed by discussing two perspectives that defend the journalistic statu quo, objectivity and consumer sovereignty, and then proceed to several critical news analysis theories including political economy, the propaganda model, and the news construction perspective, and then specific issues in labour reporting.

Objectivity

Much effort has been expended in the 1st two decades undermining the idea of

"objectivity" in the news, but the concept still has adherents and must be discussed.

The culture of contemporary jomalism often claims that the modern news media produces an objective, truthful and neutral account of events. In many ways objectivity is the comerstone of mainstream journalism. In their text, Basic News Reportinp, Ryan and Tankard (1977: 21) note: The traditional philosophy of news reporting for most of this century has been objective reporthg which views the jodist as an impartial witness who writes an objective account of what is personally seen, heard or otherwise learned about.

This view is based on the belief that the jounialist and the news media are detached obsewers, separable eom the social reality on which they report. Within the 'objective reporting' mode1 of professionai joumalisrn, truth, or knowledge, depends upon the observer's/journalist's neutraiity in relation to the object of study; and it is understood that the news media, when 'properly' used, is neutral and value-free and can guarantee the tmthfùiness of the message. It is believed that the news can potentially transmit an unbiased, transparent, neutrai translation of some external redity and thus the modem news media makes the daim that through the news, objects and events in the real world can be known to us as they 'really are' (Skirrow, 1979: 25,30).

McConnack (1983: 457) suggests that the model of 'objective joumalisrn' draws on the vision of positivist social science as seen by the emphasis on 'facts', on keeping

'facts' separate fiom 'opinion', and on writing objective, interpretation-free stories. In recent years several arguments have been advanced against this position. The model of objective joumalisrn has been criticized for its positivist outlook, which media scholars argue provides a false understanding of the nature of knowledge.

[I]omaIistic objectivity... is founded on the appropriation of the centrai doctrine of positivisn. That doctrine is a fierce empiricist belief that what is real is.. .ineludible, uncontrovertible; and that 'facts' are mere descriptions of the unarnbiguously simple (Doman, 1981: 7).

Contemporary positivists in the field of social science defend themselves against this critique by putting forth the notion of inter-subjectivity as a more viable way by which to understand the production of scientific data Babbie (1986:462) swnmarizes this view:

Science, as a collective enterprise, achieves the equivaient of objectivity tbrough ùitersubjectivity. That is, different scientists, having different stjertirr: views, can and should arrive at the same results when they employ accepted research techniques. EssentiaIly that will happen to the extent that each is able to set personal values and views aside for the duration of the research.

In this orientation, scientists essentially argue that the collection and dissernination of knowledge can be compared to an economic mode1 in which there exists a free marketplace of ideas. The multiple subjectivities that abound are cancelled out and a

"balanced" or "truthful" science can emerge. What this view does not account for however, is the context in which science takes place. Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), has presented a view of science in which dominant paradigms govern scientific thinking and methodologies. Monopoly perspectives operate to constrain scientific work in such a way that real diversity is rare. I will argue that the sarne situation exists in the world of journalism where certain ideas are considered too unorthodox within the dominant paradigm that they are marginalized or left out completely fiom this "market place" of ideas.

In addition, it appears that the way in which intersubjectivity is being used by positivists is in fact only a re-definition of objectivity. Babbie maintains that normal methodological meanires can serve to by-pass bias and achieve objective results.

The established techniques of science fhction to cancel out or hold in check our human shortcomings, especially those we are unaware of (Babbie, 1986: 465).

1 wouid argue that even if science were to operate in a situation free fiom the innuences of monopoly paradigms, the use of these methodological tools still would not produce

"objective redts". The very use of these measures involves countiess decisions, judgment calls, and protocols of behaviour that cm only result in a humaniy-created end product that cannot be called the "equivdent" of objective. Babbie describes ideology as something best treated as a "backdrop" to science--separate and apart fiom the process of doing research. Social science may be better understood as a fish imrnersed in the pool of ideology, connected and indistinguishable from the ideologicd context.

As Clow (1985: 18) notes, the fundamental category of the positivist conception of valid knowledge is the fact. Facts are felt to be descriptions of concrete realities, elements of the 'objective' extemal world, entities that 'speak for themselves'. The mode1 of objective reporting is founded on this conception of facts; entities that are thought to exist independent of the observer; to have a simple, unambiguous relation to ouperception of them; and to be additive in a simple way to produce a meaningN assemblage without need of a separate (theoretical) frmework of thought and explmation. Yet instead of 'facts' existing and 'speaking for themselves', Dornan

(1981) notes that facts are artifacts of analysis whose meaning is given by the pre-existing fntmework of anaiysis in the mind of the observer:

Far fiom our interpretations acquiring meaning oniy as they are Iinked to the facts; facts acquire meaning only as we interpret them. Observation is a process by which we impose meaning on the world. There may be an incontrovertible reality, but it is not something we have access to (198 1: 12).

Critics dso point out bat 'objective journalism' not ody makes false claims

about what the product, 'the news', amounts to, but it is a profoundly misleading

description of what journalists achially do as they write the news. Clow (1985: 20)

points out that not only is the news not 'reality written dom', but by the çame token

the news practice, conventions and routines used by jomalists are not

'operationalizations' or even 'close working approximations' of the positive ideal of

objective reporting.

Ericson et al.3 works on newsworthiness also illustrates the problems with

objectivity, which also bears on labour reporting. They note that the very definition of

newsworthiness is subjective. First there is simplification. For a story to be

newsworthy it must be an event, it must be unambiguous, and the closer to home the

better (Ericson et al., 1987: 140). The more ciramatic a story is, the more newsworthy

it is. Personalization is another important aspect of newsworthiness. If a story can be

represented by personalties, especially interesting personalities, then the story is seen

as more newsworthy. For a journdist or a media outlet with a mission, personalization

can "relliforce the potential victimization involved as part of keeping the wider

continuhg story 'dive' and forcing government action" (Ericson et al., 1987: 143).

Ako, "news organizations interested in finding fault and forcing accountability are therefore bound to personalize" (Ericson es al., 1987: 142).' Finally, Newsworthiness

is determined by themes and continuity and consonance. For a story to be newsworthy it must be comprehensible, and it becomes comprehensible when it fits into a "frame" that arises fkom past news stories. A story will aiso be considered of pater interest if it can be covered the same way as past, similar stories, and if it tends itself to coverage through familiar themes.

A recent work by Robert Hackett and Yuezhi Zhao (1998) may well be the most thoughtfid and thorough critique of objectivity in the Canadian context. They discuss the "regime of objectivity," which they define as both the discursive familiarity of objectivity as well as the role of ideology in governing journalists and news outlets.

This regime is a "walking corpse, kept in motion only by the interests vested in it and the absence of a stronger alternative'' (Hackett and Zhao, 1998: 10). These authors second most of the criticisms raised above, but they go on to posit a third alternative to objectivity and its competitor relativisrn. Instead, they propose "criticai realism", which is an approach which recognizes that knowledge is socially constmcted, but that it is still possible--and necessary-to retain the ability to judge the quality of competing depictions of reality (Hackett and Zhao, 1998: 128).

Consumer Sovereignty

The Consumer Soverei'ty perspective is another approach to the news media that tends to accept print media as it is. This approach States that the media has its curent structure based on consumer preferences, and consmers therefore bear responsibility for the shape of the media. Consumers have made choices about the kind of newspapers they want, and the news that these papers contain, so the preference of the audience is the ulthate deteminant of media content This approach employs fiinctionalist and agency-centred logic, in that the consumer choice is always linked to the state of the newspaper. While advocates of this position accept that consumer choice determines the newspaper, they grant the media much less power in forming the tastes of the consumer.

One of the major issues that this perspective addresses is that of inJitainment.

"Infotainment" is a new fonn of news and public flairs coverage which emphasizes entertaining readerdlisteners over informing them. Cntics inside and outside the media point to the superficiality and distortion of this new form of news. As Roger Bird

(1997: 5) puts it, "news has found itself embedded in the atmosphere of entertainment values that pervades our whole culture." Schudson (1978) points to the emergence of a new kind of newspaper; lighter and more entertaining, emphasizing human interest, more sensational in its attention to crime, violence, scandai and stars and having a very large readership in which lower income and education groups are over represented.

However, fiom the consumer sovereignty point of view, infotainment is regarded as the result of consumer choices. Consumers bring entertainment values and preferences to bear when choosing print and electronic news, so those outlets, like USA T'dm that offer the most "fiiendly"and "accessible" news, attract the large number of readers who share those values and preferences.

As 1 have implied above, the chief weakness of this theory is two-fold. First, it absolves the print media from responsibility for the rise of infotainment, or any other contemporary development. Infotalliment can also be explained by the profit-driven nature of the media, since owners will sacrifice quaiity to maintain or increase circulation. Second, the choices that consumers exercise are limited and imperfect

There is no "original position" in which Nly-formed, rationai individuals face and make clear choices between alternatives. Rather, individuals are socidized with value and preference systems, and these may be the best predictors of fùture choices, or they may at least constrain the individual's interest in change. Further, publications evolve over time rather than present clear choices at a given moment. In the newspaper business there are many one-paper cities, which offer no choice at all. In many two paper cities (e.g. Halifax, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary) one of the papers is in tabloid format and appeals to users of public transit, for exarnple, regardless of issues of content. Conrad Black controls al1 the papers in three Canadian provinces, and the

Irvings own al1 of the newspapers in New Brunswick.

Political Economy

A cnticd analysis of the media involves an examination of the ownership and economic control of the media Political economy is a theoretical position that looks for the economic dimension underlying social and political life. "Political Economy [is] the shidy of the social relations, particuiarly the power relations, that mutually constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources" (MOSCO,1996: 25). For example, when applied to the media, political economy would seek to highlight the fact that, to quote the First Lord Thomson of Fleef "[ilt is the business of newspapers to make money." A politicai economy perspective emphssizes the need to examine the

ownership of the press, the economic influence on the press by its for-profit nature, as

well as direct and indirect influences by advertisers andfor governrnent Political

economy emphasizes that the media is directly or indirectly afTected by the social forces

of our society-social forces that fiequently are the expression of dominant econornic

interests and power.

The issue of ownership of the media has always been of centrai interest for those pursuing a critical anaiysis. Ownership is important because it addresses the adage that

"freedom of the press is for those who own one." As John Porter wrote in The Vertical

Mosaic, his landmark study, "the existing pattern of ownership is conservative, supporting the starus quo over a wide range of social and economic policies" (cited in

Hayes, 1992: 135). We can explore how much influence a media owner exerts on the content of the news, either directly through edict, or indirectly through the creation of an ideological climate that shapes the presentation of the joumalists' work. In the case of the direct impact by owners, we have seen examples of this in Canada where a corporate tycoon, such as Conrad Black, buys media outiets in a conscious effort to disseminate his world view through his newspaper chah On taking over Southam,

Black announced his intent to stem the "ovenvhelming avalanche of soft, le& bland, envious pap which has poured like sludge through the centre pages of most of the

Southam papers" (Black in an interview with the Toronto Sm,cited in Canadian

Dimemion, NovDec. 1996). In response to Maude Barlow and The Council of Mm'legd attempts to stop Black's takeover of Southam, Black stated "It's bard not to impute to her the motive of regret that the Southam papers may henceforth be less absolutely reliable and predictable mouthpieces of her feminist, socialist, envious, anti-Amencan views than they have been" (cited in Catholic New Times, January 26,

1997).

Probably Canada's leading media scholar in the political economy tradition is

James Winter, and one of his main focusses is on questions of ownership (Winter,

1992; 1997; Barlow and Winter, 1998). Winter not only expresses grave concems about the impact of private ownership on the media, but he places special emphasis on chah ownership, cross-media ownership, and the interconnection between media, economic and political elites. In his 1997 book Democracv's Oxveen, Winter provides countiess examples of the cozy, long-term links between media owners like Conrad

Black and Paul Desmerais, their senior editors, and major politicians like Jean Chrétien and Brian Mulroney. One of the consequences, he says, is the narrowness of the political discourse in the country's newspapers.

As of June 1997, Black owned 59 of Canada's 105 daily newspapers and owned or had a controllhg interest in over 500 papers world wide. In three provinces, Black owns dl of the daily papers; in Ontario he owns three-quarten of them. Jounialists and editors working with Black report examples of his direct editorial control over the paper. For example in October 1996, CBC-TV presented a two part documentary by veteran correspondent Joe Schlesinger called The Paper King: Conrad Biack and His Newspaper Empire. Black perceived the documentary as critical and rekd to be

inte~ewedfor it. Mer it was aired Black prepared a three page letter termïng the

program a 'snear job' and 'a televised kangaroo couri'. The letter hved in the Black-

owned Southam newsooms with the instructions it be published under the headline,

Conrad Bhck's Respome to the CBC (Canadian Press Newswire, October 26, 1996).

A sharp rightward direction has been noted at papers taken over by Black.

Three editors, Joan Fraser at the Montreal Gazette and James Travers and Peter Calamai

of the Ottawa Cirizen, resigned over the differences in direction taken under Black' s

ownership when his Hollinger group took over the papers. Reporters at the Ottawa

Citizen reported that they had been upbraided for nuining copy from Bntian's left-of-

centre Guurdian instead of material from Hollinger's Telegraph (Maclean 2, Nov. 1 1,

1996). In addition to the rightward tuni in news coverage, Black has undertaken

significant cuts in staff in his papers and has been reported as bragging that joumalists

are "unnecessary to the creation of a newspaper," and that "the ideal newsroom has

three people in it--wih two of them in marketing" (cited in Canadiun Dimension,

NovfDec 1996). James Winter (1997) notes that these cuts are not just an accidental

by-product of Black's quest for profits, but part of a deliberate strategy to shape and

restrict political debate in Canada As we will see below, the Irving Group has extended similar control over New Brunswick papers.

American scholars have also examined the consequences of ownership concentration for media content. Bagdikian (1992) notes that the lack of cornpetition has redted in a homogenous media product that serves the interests of a smdl number of owners. He argues that in the United States, the national news media have been remarkably Wentive to the growing economic and social failures induced by government policies benefitting large corporations and other powemil segments of society, at the expense of the general population.

While Washington and the national media put on their blinders locally- controlled media remained dert to local evidence of policy failures. Predictably, however, these local stories-on, for example, savings and loan failures or fraud in federal programs-seldom made their way into national news that most affects policymakers in Washington (Bagdikian, 1992: xvii).

Bagdikian maintains that owners have always wielded enough influence that stories involving their own interests are reported in their favour. But now when a large corporate owner intervenes, alterations in coverage and anaiysis affect reports reaching millions. He points to the example of Lawrence Grossman, the former president of

NBC News, who when speaking at Brandeis University, said that when the stock market crashed in 1987, he received a phone cal1 from Jack Welch, chairman of Geneml

Electric, owner of NBC, telling him not to use words in NBC news reports that might adversely affect GE stock (Bagdikian, 1992: xvii). John Hannigan echoes these concerns, about the consequences of "global megamedia empires" on the availability of information and ideas (in Singer, 1995: 3 1 1).

This concern with the effect on the media product due to monopoly ownership prompted scholars to examine the widely-held notion that economic cornpetition is the prime path to overcome deficiencies of journdism (Entman, 1989; Donohue and Glaser, 1978; Gormiey, 1980; Hicks and Featherston, 1978; Johannson and Wiklund,

1980; McCombs, 1987). Enman compared the content of newspapers in towns with two completely separate, cornpetitively owned daily newspapers versus towns with one paper. His results showed a singuiar uniformity in both cases. On this basis, Entmm

(1989: 98-100) concludes that monopoly ownership may not be the sole source of an unquestioning media that supports the status quo. Competing newspapers are as Iikely to duplicate each other as differentiate thernselves, and they are as likely to engage in destructive practices such as "investigations of bogus scandais," as they are to pursue the highest quality journalism. For their part, depending on the philosophy of the ownership, "enjoying monopoly status and revenues may dlow a newspaper the freedom to report more extensively, innovatively, and fearlessly than it would under the threat cornpetition poses of losing readers and advertisers" (Entman, 1989: 99).

Some media scholars have responded to this problem of identiSing direct owner control with non-cntical media content by instead focusing on the general pro-capitalist climate of profit-oriented media. As Hackett, Pinet and Ruggles (1996: 264) note:

"Newspaper monopolies, for example, are largely attributable to the economic realities of mas adverthhg and economies of scale in the newspaper industry." In addition to

Entman, Gitlin (1985) and Gans (1980) have examined the decision making processes of large media organizations and have found that there are a number of econornic factors that serve to shape the news product and direct it to a status quo orientation.

"The imperatives of keeping costs down and profits up affect the newsgathering procedures, content, and fom of daily newspapers in every market" (Entman, 1989:

92). These factors include the cost-cutting measUres so familiar to many journalist and media watchers where journdists are laid off. To replace the work of these people, the media rely instead on wire services. The use of wire services has the effect of reducing the amount of local news and irnporting coverage and perspectives fiom centrdized news clearinghouses. The cutback in joumalists usually meaw a reduction in investigative reporting, pumit of non-traditional sources and the reliance on press releases and easy-to-locate officiais and media handlers. Focus is restricted to the same institutions and sources and coverage tends to privilege pre-planned media events as opposed to spontaneous social problems.

The for-profit orientation of media corporations also tends to resuit in a situation where the media try to aid their supporters--namely their advertisen and the wider business community. This orientation can affect news content directly and indirectly.

In terms of direct influence we see joumalists and editors bowing to advertisers' requirements for a hospitable climate for their ads. Air Canada apparently has a policy that it will not allow its print ads to appear within several pages of a story about an airline crash. Therefore it is not dificuit to surmise that there may be moments when magazine editors chose to drop a story about an air crash in order to keep their advertiser happy. In a well known incident in the summer of 1990, The Kingston Whig-

Standard in Ontario saw fust hand the consequences of introducing a story that opposed the interests of their advertisers. The paper ran an article, the f~stin a series, outlining the advantages of self-selling your home. The reai estate advertisers reacted with outrage and organized an idormal boycon of the paper. It worked; the newspaper canned the rest of the series. Media scholars note that such events are rare because the desof the game are generally known within the industry (Lorimer and McNulty, 1996:

48).

In terms of a more indirect affect on media content, observers have noted a rise in upbeat, personality-based news stories. It is argued that these stories, particularly those on television news placed prior to going to commercial break are intended to keep the public in the "buying mood" where a story of poverty or war may cause the audience to react negatively to an advertisement for more unnecessary purchases.

To some readers the preceding pages may seem deterministic, and exaggerate the typical impact of commercial interests and ownership in the media. This may be tme in some parts of Canada, but it does not apply in New Bmswick. Daily newspapers in New Brunswick are more firmly under the control of their owners than most Canadians wodd be accustomed to, and the Irving Group is also a major advertiser in its own papers. This extraordinary degree of influence is illustrated by two examples, the events surrounding the firing and rehiring of Neil Reynolds, and the events of election day, 1997.

Neil Reynolds had been hired in June 1993 to improve the Telegraph-Journal, but as the best account of his early tenure shows, the community and the Irvings were not cornfortable with his efforts (Leger, 1995). Reynolds, a self-proclaimed "fiee- market libertarian," did undoubtedly improve the quality of the paper, but he also dedfeathers in the process. He had improved the look of the paper, the quality of the writing, and the depth of the features. Yet some people complained to the Irvings that they didn't like his changes. The IrWigs fued Reynolds in August 1994, without giving any reasons publicly, though they had hired a private investigator to "dig up dirtl' on Reynolds before the dismissai. They then rehired him in the face of his wrongfid dismissal lawsuit. Importantly, during this process Reynolds told reporters that J.K.

Irving cailed him every day, telling him what he liked and did not like in the paper.

Such close and fiequent contact between the owner and editor-in-chief is denied by those who downplay the influence of owners, but it clearly did exist at the Telegraph-

Journal, as is indicated by the finng, but aiso by the frequent contact between the

Irvings and the editor.

The second incident also illustrates the influence of ownenhip, and the disagreement between the owner and his appointed staff. In the weeks before the June

1997 federal election, the federai Liberal Party in New Brunswick was in electoral trouble. The province, like the region, was tuming against the Chrétien Liberals. So much so, that a few days before the vote the TeZegraph-Journui took an editorial position in favour of Jean Charest's Progressive Conservatives. This was too much for

J. K. Irving, the eldest of the three brothers. His response was to write a letter, published on the fiont page on decrion dcry, repudiating the editonal, and arguing instead that Canada needed a majority govemment and that the Liberals had done a good job and deserved another tenn. (The Irvings, starting with their father, K. C.,

tended to support the Liberals, and J. K.'s son-in-law, Paul Zed @M.P.-Fundy Royal] was one of the Liberal incumbents who wodd go down to defeat later that day, despite

J.K.'s efforts.) This case shows that the IMngs are not involved in the day-to-&y composition of editorials, but it also shows that the Irvings will react when they see something they don? like. In this case, they were angry enough to dress down their editorial board publicly. This case, dong with the earlier one, suggests that when the

Irvings see something they don? like, they'll tell the editorial staff. Further, though no one was fired in this latter election campaign incident, the Reynolds firing gives joumalists reason to worry that they might lose their jobs if the Irvings are displeased.

Propaganda Mode1

The propaganda mode1 of the media cornes out of the work of noted intellectual

Noam Chomsky and his collaborator Edward Herman. At root, Chomsky (1987: 126) contends that "[vliolence, deceit and Iawlessness are nanual functions of the state, any state." Yet in "liberal democracies," like the United States and Canada, such a realization on the part of the majority mut be discouraged, since it might Iead to efforts to transform politics, the economy and society. The "manufacture of consent," achieved through the media and education systems, is the means through which a false, alternative framework is imposed on the population. For Chomsky and Herman, the

"propaganda model" points to the subordination of most private and public media to the interests of the dominant elite. Chomslq argues that key decisions over what happens in an industrial capitalist state are in the han& of a smdl eiite, which control major corporations, media and govemment. This group dominates the way the society is run in economics, law, and government, and they ixnpose their interests through ideologicd and legitimation systems -- one of which is the media. Chomslq argues that this anti-democratic approach is justified in the eyes of the power holders because they subscribe to a philosophy that holds that the people who own the country ought to govem it. He points to Walter Lippmann's comrnents in 1921 that the concept of the manufacture of consent would revolutionize the practice of democracy (Chomsky, 1987: 136).

Lippmann argued that the ruling elite needed this form of social control because the public wasn't up to dealing with the burdens of democracy. Lippmann favoured the use of "necessary illusions" to keep the masses in line so that they wouldn't become so arrogant that they wouidn't submit to civil rule. Thus propaganda was seen as an appropriate tool for these purposes.

For Chomsky, the media are essentially involved in the manufacturing of consent. The elite that owns the economy and controls politics is probably the most class-conscious group, and its members are likely to read The Wall Street Journal. In the Chomskyian theory, the business press provides a more fia& account of the reality of political and, in particuiar, economic news since managers are regarded as needing an accurate understanding of reality in order to make decisions. This is not to say that

The Wall Street Journal is "objective," since there is no such thing. Rather, the press that serves elites can include ideas that the more popular press must avoid. For example, this "know-thy-enemy" principle would explain why The Wall Street Jownal would run a weekly column by Ieft-wing journdist Alexander Cockburn, who normally writes for publications like The Notion, while more centrist papen that apped to a mass audience will not.

Most journalists, opinion leaders, and mainstream academics are both victims and villains, however, since they believe the fdse fiamework and also propagate it throughod society. Material presented in the media will affect the opinions of attentive readers, or provide distraction for the inattentive (Chomsky, 1987: 13 1-32). The majority of the population follow orders and pay the costs of the decisions made by the elites. They just need to be distracted fiom political and economic developments, to focus on sports, entertainment and circuses instead.

The manufacture of consent is facilitated by the media's role in gatekeeping and agenda sening (Cohen and Young, 1981: 17-33). Gatekeepers let in stories that conform to acceptable themes played out in the daily news. As Edward Herman (1992:

12) notes, "[glatekeeper biases are reinforced by the preferences and biases of advertisers, their natural gravitation to convenient and official sources .. ., and their fear of negative feedback (Mc) from bodies and groups that might threaten their position."

Elite media set the agenda for al1 other media by determinhg what is newsworthy.

They do this by emphasis, fiaming, selection of certain events over others, and setting debates within certain limits. Fletcher (1995: 256) notes that it is difficult for those outside the political mainStream to receive coverage. As a consequence politicai

discourse is narrowed and conditioned by elites while at the same tirne, media attention

magnifies the power of certain offices and distorts the nature of the political process.

Chomsky notes that The New York Times is the most important newspaper in the United

States, if not the English-speaking world. The Times creates history, since history is defined as what is in the Newspaper of Recorss back issues and archives. Every evening, the top stories fiom tomorrow's Times are transmitted around the country to regional dailies to tell them what the news and issues are. News media affects public opinion about social and political issues by selecting which stories to use and what priority to give them. Thus by focussing on free trade in the 1988 federai election, the

Canadian media created the impression in most people that this was really the most important issue of the election. Some media theorists believe that the media do not necessarily tell people what to think, but they do tell hem what they should think about.

Chomsky also argues that the manufacture of consent is facilitated by the media's "illusion of debate." The maintenance of debate along liberal-conservative lines is very important in maintaining the illusion of a lively and broad range of opinions.

Specifically, while debate is necessary for the Iegitimation of democracy, the actual range of positions must be limited by the propaganda system. Chomsky's examples usudly corne fiom U.S. foreign policy, and his method involves identi-g the common, tacit assumptions held by "opponents" of oficial policy. In the case of this project, the tacit assumptions 1 would look for are the belief in the private control of

the economy above ail else; the belief that management has the right to nin its business

as it sees fit, within the limits of the law; and that labour is merely one "factor of

production" among many, with no special status. In a long and bitter strike like the one

at the IMng Oïl Refinery, labour and management are likely to hold fewer tacit

asnimptions in comrnon than would otherwise be the case. Yet under the Chomskyan

theory, the media may only present the outstanding bargainingotable items that prevent

an agreement. For the Propaganda Mode1 to be valid, we should be able to identiQ

these sorts of assumptions, even in the ideas of the opponents of the Irvings, so that

they effectively limit the range of debate.

Another way of looking at media coverage of labour issues, which is more

sophisticated than Chomsky, but bears some similarities, is advanced by William

Gamson and his colleagues (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989; Gamson and Stuart, 1992).

With respect to media coverage of nuclear power and nuclear weapons, Gamson er al.

argue that we can situate news stories, commentas, and editorial cartoons within

"packages," which themselves contain "frames" at their core (Gamson and Stuart, 1992:

59). The frame, or "centrai organizing idea," makes use of metaphors, catch phrases and symbols, and allows both the writer and the reader to make sense of the blur of

facts available in the world. Gamson and Modigliani (1989: 4) note that "[nlot every disagreement is a frame disagreement," since two "opposing sides" may be operating within the same package. In addition, they counsel us to "thllik of themes dialectically. There is no theme without a countertheme" (Garnson and Modigliani, 1989: 6). They

have conceived &es and packages in such a way (narrowIy, perhaps) that, dike

Chomsiq, they do find significant evidence of media accounts and commentary

operating fkom different *es. They also make reference to "sponsors," those people

and institutions that support the package, and there is a clear sense that these groups

engage in an unbalanced competition to advance their causes (given the imbalance of

resources).

Further, the authors show that in an issue area one can identify families of

packages, in which different packages serve to support a particular position, ofien in

different degrees at different times (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989; Gamson and Stuart,

1992). Different packages may have a better or poorer resonance in the society in

question. More specificdly, in the case of nuclear power they describe a family of pro-

nuclear packages, including the "progress package," which is based on the belief that

nuclear power is an environmentally sound, relatively inexpensive and safe form of

energy. There is also the "energy independence" package on the pro-nuclear side. On the opposing side, they identify the "sofl paths" package, associated with the Friends

of the Earth (Garnson and Modigliani, 1989: 16); the "public accountability" package, advanced by Mph Nader; the "not coa effective" package, sponsored by the Union of

Concemed Scientists; and finally, the "runaway" package, which emphasizes that "we have nuclear power but it's out of control," which the authors note is oppositional but also somewhat fatdistic and resigned (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989: 19-20). This model rnay be wful in our study of the Inring Oil Refmery Strike. It may

be fhitfid to idenw the frames and packages of the two sides involved in the strike

as well as other active parties, and to trace the rise and fall of influence of these

packages both over the duration of the strike and at the critical moments that 1 will

identiQ.

The News Construction Perspective

The "news construction" perspective is another alternative to the objectivity

school. Arguing that no account of events is 'redity written down' but only a specific

story about reality, the news construction approach focuses on the mechanics of news

production and professional practices as the source of the shape and structure of news

content (Gans, 1979; Gitlin, 1980; Hall, 1973, 1974; Tuchman, 1978; Knight, 1982,

1992; Murdock, 1973; Knight and Dean, 1982; The Glasgow University Media Group,

1977, 1980; Morley, 1976; Hackett, 1984; and Hartley, 1982). Contrary to the daims,

conventions and culture of journalism, the news is not a neutral product. Rather, the

news is seen as a cultural artifact, a sequence of socially manufactured messages which

carry many of the culturally dominant assumptions of our society. From who is

interviewed and what questions they are asked, from selection of stories to presentation of news features, the news is a highly mediated product. It should be noted that unlike the propaganda model, this perspective emphasizes the consequences of professional practices in the news room, re~ardlessof the political-economic organization of the media For example, in his study of The New York Times, Chris Argyris argues that problems of credibility and lack of fainiess in the media are linked to problems within

news organiiraiions, including, in the case of The Times, competitiveness among

reporters, lack of trust between editors and journalists, fear of innovation and

centralized decision making (cited in Desbarats, 1990: 104).

The news is produced on a day-to-day basis by a professionai media elite who

embody in their routine practices ideological assumptions which reinforce certain

stratified cultural perceptions of society and how it should, and does, work (Glasgow

University Media Group, 1977: 340). As we have said, one such practice is

"gatekeeping," in which the joumalist or editor "decides which pieces of prefabricated

news will be allowed through the gate," based on quantitative and qualitative critena

(Shudson, 1997: 9). The news construction perspective involves getting at the

underlying practices and assumptions of routine news work and showing how they

create accounts that systematically rely on and reinforce certain types and foms of

social knowledge to the exclusion of others. In terms of these values and knowledge,

Colette Beauchamp, in her book Le silence des médias, points to the patnarchical and

classist approach to news, in Québec as well as the rest of Canada (cited in Martin,

1997: 242). Theorists of the news construction tradition argue that the routines of joumalisrn, set within the economic and political interests of the news organization,

nomially and reguiarly combine to select certain versions of reality over others. Day

by day, normal organizational procedures defme 'the story' , identify the protagonists

and the issues, and suggest appropriate attitudes toward them. Media outlets usually rely more on "official" and established sources, but as Philip Schlesuiger (1992: 293-94) notes, these are the same sources that are able to pumie effective "source strategies" to ensure that they remain the dominant voice.

Theorists in this tradition argue that the news is never simply a senes of facts or a simple &or of extemal redity. Rather it is a culturaI product and the accounts and descriptions of the world it gives are produced fiom within specific interpretive frameworks. In general, proponents of the news construction tradition would agree with the Glasgow University Media Group (1980: 402) when they define ideology as 'sets of ideas which represent or serve the interests of social groups or classes'. Thus the

Glasgow University Media Group, in its 1977 study Bad News, and its follow-ups More

Bad News and Reallv Bad News, States that ideology is not some set of alien ideas imposed, propaganda-like, upon willing and unwilling hearers. Rather, it is a representation of events or facts which "consistently favours the perceptual framework of one group." They acknowledge that 'news talk' occurs within a cultural framework which stresses its balance and impartiality. Yet they state that despite this, detailed andysis reveals that "it consistently maintains and supports a cultural fkamework within which viewpoints favourable to the status quo are given preferred and privileged readings" (1980: 233). It is important to note that the news construction theonas do not posit a simple 'bias thesis'. Hall et ai. (1978) comment that:

The simple 'bias' thesis is inadequate, based as it is on untenable assumptions of a separation between images and ideas on the one han& and objective, matenal reality on the other. Within the terms of the 'bias' thesis we have no option but to regard joumalists as a mere (and hadequate) reflection of material reality rather than an active materiai process, itself intimately bound up in the construction and articulation of reality (HA et al., 1978: 154).

Theorists in the news construction tradition have taken this conception of ideology and developed a number of sophisticated theories that attempt to anaiyze the process by which the news is ideologically fonned. Hall (1974: 19) argues that the basic principles of 'objective' reporting such as 'consensus', 'balance', 'impartiality' and sticking to 'professional' practices - are themselves not ideologically neutral. These elements of contemporary journalism are, he argues, a set of 'crucial intervening concepts' that direct and guide the journalkt in handling the minefield of political and ideological conflict in a particular way, and in generating a standard kind of news perspective.

The Glasgow University Media Group argue that news accounts are formulated from within limited assumptions as to the nature of the social and political world.

These beliefs give order and form to news accounts--they detemine what information is to be included and what excluded. They are at the heart of what is to be declared as 'newsworthy' and are implicit in the normal practices of joumalists (1977: 340).

Knight (1982) argues that the news must be seen as a social process of production resulting in a fuiished product that simultaneousiy informs and obscures. He makes the point that news accounts are ideological in that they are both selective and occlusive.

While it is clear that news abstracts its raw matends fiom the continuous intersecting processes of everyday social life, an activity that necessarily entails selection fiom an idhite area am of potential data, Knight also notes that this selection takes place in accordance with nom that are so deeply embedded in the practical routines of professional joumalism that they are largely taken-for-gmnted by the practitioners themselves. The selectivity of news is institutional rather than personal (Knight, 1982:

32). Its effect, nonetheless, is that news accounts are partial accounts, structured according to the des of newsworthiness and format, des which 'automatically' include certain data and exclude others. Knight states that the partiality and occlusiveness of news accounts must be understood as the fmction of a particular methodology for knowing and not knowing about the world, and more than simply the preference of journalists for certain types of news stories over others.

Theonsts in the news construction tradition aiso point to Erving GofTman's

'frarne analysis' as a useful method for understanding the news as an ideological constnict. In a world filled with events, fiames are principles of selection, emphasis, and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens, and what matters. ln everyday life, as Goffman (1 974: 10- 1 1) has arnply demonstrated, we frame reaiity to negotiate it, manage it, comprehend it, and choose appropriate repertoires of cognition and action. Thus media frames, largely unspoken and unacknowledged, organize the world both for journalists who report on it and, in some important degree, for those who rely on their reports. Gitlin defmes Media Frarnes as

"persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion, by which symbol-hancilers routinely organize discourse whether verbal or visualt' (Gitlin, 1980: 7).

Yet it is important to note that such naming is not necessarily a conscious process on the part of journdists; it may well be the result of the unconscious absorption of assumptions about the social world in which the news mut be embedded in order to be intelligible to its intended audience. Thus the Glasgow University Media

Group (1980: 402) argues that the news, and the dominant social ideologies, are integrally related. The latter are the "connecting link between the so-cailed facts of the news and the background assumptions which enable us, the audience, to understand these 'facts' ."

Similarly, Hall (1975: 72) argues that particular accounts may be ideological,

"not because of the manifest bias or distortions of their surface contents, but because they were generated out of, or were transformations based on, a limited ideologicai mat&'--a set of niles and concepts for making sense of the world which is systematically limited by its social and historical context. Thus the reproduction of ideology need not be, and indeed rarely is, intentional. The cultural framework of our society is complex and subtle. It is this framework which underpins news construction.

Stuart Hall has dso argued that news values and the apparent neutral ideology of news production require that one examine the cultural 'codes' - so that the ideology of news can be properly seen. Hall defines codes as configurations of meaning which permit a sign to signify, in addition to its denotative reference, other, additional implied meanings. These configurations of meanhg are foms of social knowledge, denved fiom the social practices, the knowledge of institutions, the beliefs and the

'legitimations' which exist in a dimisod form within society, and which order that society's apprehension of the world in tem of dominant meaning-patterns. Hall suggests that "news values appear as a set of neutral, routine practices: but we need also to see these rules as the formalization and operationalization of an ideology of news

(Hall, 1974: 176).

Contemporary cultural codes allow the often taken-for-granted generation of specific basic frames of reference. Such codes or routine handlings are not always easily revealed. For although they exist and are used in constructing and manufacturing news, they are so deeply ingrained as cultural assumptions that only occasionally, if at dl, do they surface or are they brought into question.

While the work of Ericson et al. is not considered part of the news construction perspective, there are many qualities in comrnon. Like the Glasgow Group, they tend to see the presence of "deviance" as a chief feature of news production. They also pay attention to the structure of newsrooms, the culture of journalism, and the process of socialization as explanation of news outcornes (Ericson et al., 1987: 95-139).

In the news construction perspective, change is also achieved by different rneans than in the propaganda model. By changing the typicai practices of journalists, one can change the nature of the news. Again, this will not achieve a mythical objectivity, but rather simply provide a more inclusive and less biased outcorne. News outlets can ensure that they have suffcient staff, so that working journalists do not routinely sacrifice quality to meet copy deadlines. Media outlets can ensure that they provide a

comprehensive selection of beats, so that there is a labour reporter as well as a business

reporter, and that both can develop specialized knowledge of the subject matter. The

outlets can also take steps to send the signal that the labour beat is not the lowest-status

kat, by assigning its best staff there, for example. Finally, editors and joumalists and

outlets can be more self-reflexive, by exposing thernselves to cntical perspectives on

what they do, for exarnple, by recruiting a critically-minded student of the media to

write a media column.

Labour Coverage in the News

There is a notable overlap between media theory and the coverage of labour in

the media, precisely because the media coverage of labour issues has been the "ideal-

type" used to demonstrate media bis. Certainly, it was media coverage of labour that energized much of the witings of the Glasgow University Media Group, and as we will

see, labour coverage remains a central concem for students of the media. There is a strong recognition in the literature that there are identifiable patterns of media bias, and that these patterns are most clearly manifested in the area of labour issues. Even those who oppose the Glasgow group's hypothesis that the media is consistently biased against labour, like Martin Harrison, are forced to concede that certain biases do exist.

For example, he notes that

television news in Britain is a hurried and compressed medium. The average item on industrial disputes ran roughly 70 seconds - around 200 words at conventional newsreadiig speeds.... Even with the greatest verbal and visual economy, this implies severe constraints on what can be conveyed-in particdar, the range of actors and viewpoints, the details in which information cm be provided and the frequency with which it can be repeated if the dispute continues. (Harrison, 1985: 67)

Harrison (1985: 140) also notes considerations that provide the media advantage to employers, which we will see are major factors in the Irving Oil Refmery dispute:

B]t must be admitted that in a sense the very nature of trade unionism makes it more vulnerable than management. By and large the unions have an honourable tradition of debate, of conducting many of their arguments in public, of being readily accessible to news personnel. For both better and worse much of what they do is more open to scrutiny than the workings of management, whose arguments can usually be conducted more discreetly.

In this section 1 will review six significant sources and manifestations of media biases that disadvantage labour, in order to prepare for our analysis of the media coverage of the Irving Oil Refinery dispute.

First, media coverage of labour or workplace issues tend to focus on the "event," not on issues Wight, 1992: 48-49). There are many issues that media coverage could focus on. The media could focus on the state of industriai wages after inflation; questions of workplace safety; the long-term returns to labour; debates over the interna1 governance of unions; the smooth and routine operations of grievance procedures and collective bargaining; union efforts to organize non-union workforces, and so on. This is significant for a number of reasons. By avoiding discussion of issues, the media neglect to educate the public on workplace life. What has happened to industrial wages, and how has the return to labour fared relative to the return to capital over the last twenty years? How common are grievances, and to what extent do grievance procedures ensure peace in the workplace? When a governent makes changes to the

welfare state, how does that affect workers, and what implications does it have on

current and future collective bargainhg processes? Without discussion of these issues

in the media, most lay readers are unable to answer these questions, which can have a

significmt impact on the long-term attitudes to both labour and management in the

population.

Now one might argue that 1 am expecting too much of newspapers, that they are

profit-onented entertainment vehicles and not educational enterprises. This would be

fine, except that newspapers themselves do not accept that they simply entertain. The

serious press, the The New York Times and The Globe und Mail, operate under mottoes

like, respectively, "The Newspaper of Record," and "Canada's National Newspaper."

Newspapers see themselves as inheriton of a long, storied tradition of free inquiry,

which is one reason why they continue to use traditional names inherited from the

nineteenth century. Every day The Globe and Mail quotes Junius approvingly, and perhaps pompously: "The subject who is tdy loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures." Even the Saint-John based TeZegraph Journal urges its readers, with the help of Marcus Aurelius to: "Treat with respect the power you have to form an opinion." Even the lower end of the serious press distinguishes itself fkom the supermarket-tabloids and television infotainment programmes such as

Hard Copy.

The media tend to focus on the event, and not just any event. My second point is that the media focus on a particular form of event known as the "strike" (Edwards,

1979; Schmidt, 1993). If the media chooses to, it can focus on the charitable activities

of unions, on the successful negotiation of collective agreements, or events which note

the relative hamiony that has been created in the workplace. Instead, in practice the

media expresses little interest in workplace issues except when there is a strike. This

tendency to focus on strikes has a nurnber of implications. Even though most collective

agreements are negotiated and signed without any kind of dimption, the media focus on strikes creates an exaggerated sense of workplace conflict (Bauer, 1986: 18). The penon who depends on newspapers and electronic media is likely to get the sense that

"unions are on strike al1 the time." Yet, relatively speaking, oniy a srnail percentage of worker-days are lost every year in the Western capitdist countries, including Canada-

For example, in 1985, days of work lost because of strikes or lockout amounted to only

.13%, or 13 days lost for every 10,000 worked (Labour Canada, 1985: 9).

Third, another example of media bias is the tendency to focus on the effects of the strike, rather than the causes and dimensions of the conflict. And when the media does focus on effects, it tends to emphasize the effects on "innocent third parties," especially, in the case of a postal strike, on mal1 business, and on the social assistance recipients and pensioners who cannot get their cheques (Knight, 1992: 53). Even when the media covers the event, it usually avoids digging too deeply into the root causes of the dispute, fiom the perspective of labour or management, and it often ignores the dimensions of the strike, including the nature of the jobs that the workers perform, and

174 so on. So media coverage of strikes by teachers, university professors, and support staff

is likely to focus on the harm that the strike does to the students; a strike by grocery

workes will probably focus on the inconvenience caused for customers. The media

will often express sympathy for picket fine confrontations involving management who

have to cross the lines, though less sympathy is &ly reserved for other unionized

workers who may have to cross. What is left out, of course, is the hardship suffered

by workers. The media will ofien play up management claims that the workers "are

being generously funded by stnke pay." There is of course a double standard, since

management continues to draw its pay even if production at the enterprise has ground

to a halt. And as Michael Parenti (1986: 85) has noted, the media only rarely enquire

about compensation increases to top executives even when workers are asked to make

concessions.

Not al1 media coverage of strikes is so unsympathetic to workers. Sometimes,

coverage is actually sympathetic, which may happen because there is a "window of

oppomuiity" that reporters of a certain perspective are eager to expIoit. Contradictions

in the management case, or the focus of editorial attention elsewhere, might encourage this more sympathetic coverage. This window of opportunity was illustrated in New

Brunswick in auhimn 1997, in response to Premier Frank McKenna's announcement that he was retiring. Once McKema announced his departure after ten years in office, the provincial media seized on this window of opportunity and became much more critical of the govemment until he actually Ieft ofice. This new criticism appeared to be encouraged by various business-oriented commentators, such as Jefney Simpson of me Globe und Mail, who had previously declared that it was time for McKenua to go.

The fourth bias in media coverage is that strike news is news of the strikers.

This means that strikers are likely to get more attention in the news than management

(Knight, 1992: 54-5). This is partly because the union leadership is generally more accessible than management'; it wishes to be available to the media, and to promote its side of the story to the public. Also, union leaders are availabie outside the picket lines while management is likely to be working inside. Management may be prepared to fight the dispute based on stockpiled inventories, production by replacement workers, andor Company resources (in order to outwait the workers), while the unionists increasingly try to gain public sympathy by using the media. Further, union decisions and debates are more likely to be aired publicly than management, an even more pronounced fact in our case study because the secretive Irvings were management.

While some might see this attention on the strikers as positive, it has at least one negative consequence. It gives the reader or viewer the impression that the strikers always take and have the initiative, and that therefore, they always bear most if not al1 of the responsibility for workplace disputes.

Our fifth point follows on this. The whole language used to adàress workplace disputes is generally biased against workers. Job action is almoa universally referred to as a "strike," even if it is in fact a "lockout" (the latter being at the employer's initiative) (Hartman, 1975176: 17). The ubiquity of the term strike implies, again, that the workers have taken the initiative to go on strike, no doubt in pursuit of unreasonable requests from the employer. The alternative terni labour dimute (why not "management dispute"?) aiso suggests that the workers have taken the initiative. In fact, regardles of the substantive issue, workers are almost aiways presented as making "demands," while employers make "offen" (Bauer, 1986: 18; Walsh, 1988). Even when employers demand concessions, as is now virtuaily the non, the media still refer to the employer's "offer," as though it is a zero-based world in which for every new contract the employer is to be congratulated for offenng anything more than nothing. The language describing the effects of the dispute (on third parties, of course) is often biased, in the sense that words like "chaos" often exaggerate the effects of the dispute

(Knight, 1992: 52). The idea that "chaos" might be cawd in part by management's efforts to keep its business open also does not seem to cross the minds of joumalists.

The final bias that 1 will mention deals with the tenns used to describe the union leadership. While the corporate leader is Iikely to be referred to by title, such as

"General Manager," "President," or "CEO," the union leader is fkequently referred to as "chier or "boss" (Puette, 1992: 64). These latter terms, especially boss, suggests irregularity in the means by which the individual acquired the position, and dso suggests a link to organized crime (e.g. "crimeboss.") Workers are also more Iikely to be described adjectivally, with ternis the connote ernotions, such as "militant,"

"mistrate&" "angry," and so on (Knight, 1992: 55).

The media often base their coverage on assumptions that work against labour. One such assumption is that prices are a "nahiral" phenomenon, while wage claims are -made by people (Morley, 1976: 252). This may be the result of the "tnckling down"

of neoclassical capitalist economic theory, in which it is assumed that dl finns cannot

manipulate the pnces they charge (they are "pnce-takers"), though trade unions act as

a "cartel" and artificially inflate the wages that a firm must pay (see DiLorenzo, 1991,

for an example of this reasoning). This assumption allows management to present itself

as a victim of greedy trade unionists, even though the corporation itself often arnounts to little more than a "union of capital."

Michael Parenti (1986: 84-86) has advanced perhaps the most comprehensive list of typical assumptions and standard operating procedures followed by media outlets.

While some of these have been covered already, it is worth paraphrasing them in their entirety. First, the media generally present unions as senseless and strikes as avoidable, and they neglect the possibility that strikes are part of a larger class stniggle; second, media tend to present managements's offer in the most favourable light, and they tend to downplay workers' grievances; third, the media pays little attention to the entire compensation package offered to top executives, even when workers are asked to accept rollbacks. Fourth, the media create the impression that striking workers are indifferent to the economy as a whole and to third parties, by emphasizing the negative impact of the stnke; fi*, the media is likely to urge workers to accept the offer and unlikely to discuss the damage done to the workers' interests if they do settle; sixth, the media generally ignore solidarity of one group of workers for another; and seventh and fmdly, the govenunent and its agencies are presented as "neutral arbiters" regardles of evidence of their support for management.

My sixth and final point addresses the connection between unions and crime.

If a newspaper has a "labour kat," in which an individual specialks in workplace reporting, that beat usually has low statu, and neither journalism schools nor newspapers necessarily provide much training for such an individual (Verma, 1988:

116- 17). This low status is illustrated by an incident at The Globe and Mail in 1988.

In order to cut costs, Roy Megany, the Publisher, advocated cutting the paper's lone labour reporter, even though there were sevenv business reporters, and even though the

Managing Editor was contemplating creating a "Human Resources Reporter" position.

Even if the labour beat survives, the most capable individual is likely to be promoted in any event. But at many newspapers, the labour beat and the police beat are offen combined, as though knowledge of one is helpful for another. Often, labour news is

Iocated near crime news, which may encourage an association between unions and crime in the minds of the reader (Puette, 1992: 63, 65).

ConcIusion

In this chapter 1 have prepared the ground for our empincal study of the media coverage of the Irving Oil Refinery Strike. After having dispensed with the idea that the media can be objective, I have presented insights fiom the political economy, propaganda and news construction perspectives, as well as offered a specific discussion of the media coverage of labour issues. Rather than relying on a single theory, 1 have opted to generate numerous questions and insights, arising fiom a number of these perspectives, to apply to the media coverage of the refinery strike. Notes

1. BY "forcing accountability, " Ericson et al. are ref erring to the role of political opposition to government that the media sometimes play - Chapter Five: Methodology

In this project 1 am engaged in an analysis of the presentaîional data of news

content and I seek to examine it in terxns of variation across papers both within, and

outside of the Irving Group of Companies. Media data of this type can be analyzed

utilizing quantitative and qualitative forms of content analysis. In my project 1 use both.

Quantitative Content Analysis

Quantitative content analysis has been the traditional form of 'scientific' analysis

of textual content that has dominated the study of news during most of this century.

Berelson (1966: 263)- in probably the most widely cited definition of quantitative

content analysis, defines it as: "A research technique for the objective, systematic and

quantitative description of the manifest content of communication." It is a technique

which begins with the delineation of categories of manifest or apparent content which

are considered to be appropriate to the research hypothesis, and the frequency, or

presence/absence, of each category is tabulated for each unit of analysis. In a news

content study typical categories might be particular words, themes or actors which are

assurned both to describe the message, and to enable inferences to be made about the

detenninants of the message -- particularly the intentions or biases of the communicators. Some of its proponents clah that quantitative content analysis is characterized by objectivity (achieved by following explicit coding des which enable two or more researchers to obtain the same results fiom the sarne material); systematization (reaiized by using consistent criteria for selecting a sample of content); and generaiity (theoretical relevance to other amibutes of content, or to the characteristics of the sender or recipient of the analyzed message). Thus Holsti (1968:

598) contends that since these are conditions of dl scientific inquiry, quantitative content analysis cm be viewed as, the application of the principles of scientific research to the andysis of communication content.

Used extensively in the andysis of enemy propaganda during World War II, quantitative content analysis has since been applied to a broad range of political and linguistic topics. However, its utility as a technique has aiso been called into question.

One of the most common problems with using quantitative content analysis as a sole technique is that social scientists may only descnbe a phenomenon instead of integrating this description with theory. This preoccupation with rneasurement has given the term quantitative content analysis some pejorative associations. Several studies bearhg the label content analysis have been mechanical, superficial tabulations of who says how much of what to whorn. Cartwright (1 953) writes:

One of the rnost senous criticisms that can be made of much of the research employing content analysis is that the 'fmdings' have no clear significance for either theory or practice. In reviewing the work in this field, one is stnick by the number of studies which have apparently been guided by a sheer fascination with counting (cited in HoIsti, 1969).

Some of the earlier definitions of quantitative content analysis required that inferences from content data be derived strictly nom the frequency with which symbols or themes appear in the text (e-g. Pool, 1959). Restncting content analysis to this single system of enumeration has brought much cnticism. For underlying this definition is the assumption that frequency is the only valid index of concern. Often this may in fact be a valid premise, but there is also evidence that measures other than frequency rnay in sorne instances prove more useful.

Qualitative analysis of a lirnited nurnber of crucial communications may often yield better dues to the particula. intentions of a particula. text at one moment in time than more standardized techniques. In line with this reasoning proponents of quaiitative techniques also question the assumption that for purposes of inference, the frequency of an assertion is necessady related to its importance. And they are criticai of what has been called the "if you can't count it, it doem't count" school of thought.

The growing interest in ideology has been associated with the emergence of new methods for reading ideology in media texts. Indeed, the emergence of critical media theory has been accompanied, and partially developed, through the emergence of new techniques for the analysis of news content. Its proponents challenge the scientific claims of quantitative content analysis, arguing that it is thoroughly inadequate to study the ways in which ideology structures media messages. This is partly because quantitative content analysis can deal only with manifest content, with denotative signifers, as its practitioners admit:

The requirement of objectivity stipulates that only those symbols and combinations of symbols actually appearing in the message be recorded. In other words, the coding process cannot be one of 'reading between the lines'. In this sense, content analysis is limited to manifest attributes of text (Holsti, 1968: 600).

Using the terminology of structural linguistics, some media theorists state that quantitative content analysis records the parole (the individual speech act) rather than the langue (the underlying code or set of conventions) as the constituting principle of intelligibility of the individual's speech. In their view, quantitative content analysis fails to penetrate beyond outward expressions to the invisible inner structure. Arguing against quantitative content analysis' restriction to denotative signifiee, cntical media theorists insist on the importance of the sign in its full complexity, and on the intemal stnicturing of a text or message (Woolacott, 1982: 94-95).

Critical media analysts seek to identify consistent relationships between signs.

Ultimately, the object of analysis is the cultural 'codes' which establish the possible combinations of elements which generate meaning within a particular text or corpus of texts. As de Camargo (1 972: 126) explains:

The code is the system of communication conventions which constitute the rules responsible for organizing different meanings .... The use of a code permits the selection and combination of the signs which constitute the message. The code or latent structure which produces the units of significance and is immanent in them, is held to be equivaient to ideology (Sumner, 1979: 115).

An important cnticisrn of quantitative content analysis, then, is that it merely counts repeated denotative signifiers, rather than searching for the underlying code which places the signifiers. The confinement to denotation is also flawed in another respect. The content analysis must assume that denotation is unproblematic and universal; that signifiers mean the sarne thing to everybody. For content analysis to make sense, it must assume (by Berelson's own admission) 'a cornmon universe of discourse' (cited in Sumner,1979: 66). As Hall (1982: 61,O) puts it, content analysis assumes a referential notion of language, in which (through consensual conventions) words can be related directly to their real-world referents. If the media message can be "assumed as a sort of empty linguistic constnict", ,en it cm be held "to mirror the intentions of its producers in a relatively simple way". To illustrate this point, Sumner

(1979: 66) gives the example that "to prove that a politician has an ideology, quantitative content analysis rnight count the number of times he used the words

'freedom' and 'order' in his election speeches." This procedure only makes sense on the assumption that the word 'freedom', for instance, has the same meaning regardless of the discursive context in which it appears. It is assurned that what distinguishes one ideological position from another is the frequency with which this (shared, commonly understood, denotative) signifier is used within the ideological discourse. But if the term 'freedom' has different meanings in different contexts, if indeed the discourse is what lends meaning to the tem, then the counting of its comparative frequency makes no sense. Thus, the word 'freedom' has a different flavour when coming from the

"Promise Keepers" than it does when wdby feminists. As Cicourei (cited in Sumner,

1979: 69-70) argues, frequency counts assume an equivalence of meaning each time a particular elernent appears, regardless of its context. Therefore the repetition of categories is not the best indicator of the structure of the message. In light of such considerations, Sumner argues that quantitative content analysis alone has no theory of significance to establish that the elements or unie it tabulates are indicative of ideology at work. Qualitative Content Analy sis

Thvs critical media theorists propose an alternative to the sole reliance on

quantitative. content analysis when studying the media They argue that literary-critical,

linguistic and stylistic methods of analysis are, by contrast, more useful in penetrating

the latent meanings of a text, and they preserve something of the complexity of

language and connotation which has to be sacnficed in quantitative content analysis in

order to achieve high validation.

Critical media scholan have argued that the technique of locating the presence of fiequency of repetition of particular words or phrases is not sufficient. It does not allow one to examine the relationship of these elements one to another in the text, that is, to the structure of explanation and story-telling in the news report. To analyze these kinds of relationships, which are central to the objective here, the addition of an interpretive and qualitative fom of content analysis is needed.

Theorists in the qualitative tradition argue that it is an error to assume that because quantitative content analysis uses precise criteria for coding evidence it is therefore objective in the literal sense of the term and because a Iiterary or linguistic- based qualitative andysis steers clear of code-building it is rnerely intuitive and unreliable. As indicated earlier, Hal1 (1 975 : 17) makes the daim that literaryflinguistic types of analysis also employ evidence. While theonsts in this tradition argue that content analysis assumes repetition-the pile-up of material under one of the categories-

-to be the most usefid indicator of significance, it should be noted that critical media analysts also employ recurrence as one critical dimension of significance, though this is defended by the fact that these rechg patterns are made understandable by using them as "pointers to latent rneanings fiom which inferences as to the source can be drawntl (Hall, 1975: 15). Cntical media anaiysis focuses on strategies for noting and tahg account of emphasis.

Position, placing, treatment, tone, styiistic intensification, striking imagery are al1 ways of registering emphasis. The really signifiant item may not be the one which continually recurs, but the one which stands out as an exception from the general pattern - but which is also given, in its exceptional conte-, the greatest weight (Hall, 1975: 16).

Ericson, Baranek and Chan (1991 : 54) note that the role of the content analyst is "to constmct a reading of the text -- where the text itself is a sequence of symbols -speech, writing, gesture - that contain interpretations. They note that qualitative content analysis begins by picking apart the order that is presented to us as common sense and involves a process of deconstruction, interpretation, and reconstruction.

Interpretation, understanding, and application are al1 part of the same process in which the analyst makes judgments and ultimately presents daims that compete with those of the people involved in the practices he or she is andyzing. This constructive interpretation is inevitable because the analyst is dready dealing with preinterpreted knowledge of those he or she is studying, and is not interested in shply reproducing their constructions. Inevitable also i n this process is a rnelding of theory and data, subjective reference, and moral evaluation. The human action of reading and producing texts, in social-scientific analysis as in everyday life, selects and privileges rneanings and thereby constitutes preferred texts. It is a social and political activity (Ericson, Baranek and Chan (1991: 55)

Yet the requirement for reliable data remains. The construction of regularities and patterns is accomplished through a combination of numerical data as well as narrative description and commentary. Erïcson et al. (1991 56) note that the data are built up into pattern over the course of the research through a process of reflexive and circdar cornparison, validation, and discovery.

Thus following the work of Hackett and Zhao (1998) 1 would embrace the notion of a "critical realist" perspective that incorporates both qualitative and quantitative content andysis in order to create a useful methodological prograrn that serves to identify important elements in the analysis of media texts.

Operationalization of the Analysis

Ideology enters the news in a number of different ways, from the type of language that is used to what is not said at dl. In addition to using a quantitative fom of classicai content analysis methodoiogy in which the texts are examined for the nurnber of times certain 'loaded' words were used, it seems ciear from the discussion in the preceding chapters that the nature of ideology is often too subtle to be uncovered by this method alone. Rather an additional finer comb needs to be used to go through the materiai. Thus 1 have also adopted the techniques of qualitative content andysis in order to examine reiationships, dig out latent meanings and ascertain those elements of the news text which are given the greatest emphasis. In the effort to uncover the major manifestations of ideology in labour news, a nurnber of salient categories, infonned by critical media analysis theory, can be devised as follows.

Heudhes. Headlines have a crucial importance in the manufacture of news.

They are one of the most important devices for sumrnarizing and drawing attention to a story. Headlines and leads serve as crucial elements in studying ideology and the news by telling the reader how to read the story and activating the context for the reading of the whole text of the news story. Van Dijk (1983: 32) writes:

Headlines and leads orgeattention for specific articles; they allow one to decide whether or not to read the rest of the discourse; they give the main theme, even without Merreading; they activate the relevant knowledge fiom memory that is needed in order to understand the rest of the text; and, 1st but not least, they fom a macro-structure that will serve as an important strategic cue in controlling the local understanding of the subsequent text. Indeed, a lack of title, or a biasing title, can inhibit or fûlly distort the local comprehension of a text.

Langrrage. Attention to the semantics of language used to characterize and depict actors, events and issues is also very important. Thus, Halloran (1970) shows that the descriptions used in the press to characterize participants in demonstrations against intervention in Vietnam ('hooligans', 'thugs', 'mob' , 'horde', etc.) will often have negative implications and the same holds for the actions and properties described by verbs and adjectives. As we have seen above, cntical media scholars have shown that, in the coverage of industrial flairs, the press will typically choose lexical items which denote workers and their actions that are more negative than the items chosen io denote the actions of the employers. For example, the workers are typicdly ciescnbed as

'demanding' while the employers are 'offering'.

Fowler et al. (1979) have focwd in particular on the syntactic structures of sentences. They have discovered that if, for instance, the police are reported to be the agents of violent actions, such agency is not expressed in the more active 'first position subject' position, as is usuai, but rather 'suppressed' in passive sentences and nominalization ternis ('many demonstrators were hurt'). Thus, they note that even at this restncted level of stylistic variation in lexicalization, basic opinions and ideologies about social participants and social actions can be expressed.

Loss of History. Ideology also enters the news in the way that news accounts play down the question of historical comectedness and development. While news stories of major proportions are normally accompanied by some attention to

'background', in which relevant details fiom previous occurrences are provided to 'fi11 in' the current story and assist reader understanding, Knight (1984: 15) writes that what this really amounts to is "the appropriation of the pst without history". The past is called up to 'bear witness', he writes, but oniy in the sense that it is a repository of other 'discrete' events and occurrences.

News empiricism collapses the past into the present, evacuating real history of its historical specificity, and homogenizing its substance into more-of-the-same strikes or crimes or scandals or crises and so on. The past becornes a less immediate version of the present (Knight, 1984: 16).

This Ioss of history is often evident in labour news. Dorothy Smith (cited in Tuchman,

1978: 179) makes the point that ideology is revealed when what ought to be explained is treated as fact or assumption:

News stones eschew andysis, prefemng instead an emphasis on the concrete and the contingency of events as well as present-tirne orientation, to avoid structurai linkages between events.

Many media stories about press coverage of strikes and popular protests, sirnply omit what the stniggle is about The Glasgow University Media Group (1980: xvi) write that with only two exceptions in thek sample, complex industrial disputes were described in such away that the reader couid oniy attribute their cause to the "'unreasonable', because unexplained, action of labour." Similarly, Parenti (1986: 102) wites:

The reader or viewer is left with the question 'Why are these people behaving this way?' The suggestion that they 'just like to hear themselves holler in the streets' becomes dmost plausible in the absence of any reporting to the contrary.

Trivialization. When news stones do in fact report controversial events or issues they ofien offer scant content information or even trivialize or marginaiize the motives and issues involved.

Sources. Clow (1993) emphasizes the importance of examining whose voice is being presented in the media. In his work on the representation of nuclear power issues in the Canadian media, he demonstrated that it was the nuclear indwtry which was most often the dominant voice in the news coverage, while environmentai activists were relegated to a secondary status. Thus it becomes important to identiQ whose voice is being represented in the media and to what effect.

Conciusion

In this brief chapter, 1 have described quantitative and qualitative content analysis techniques. My goal is to use elements fiom both of these traditions in order to gain the benefits of the quantitative summary data as well as gain the insights of a more interpretive form of analysis that recognizes that words in different contexts do not always mean the same thing, and that placement and other similar issues also modify the significance of purely quantitative measures. 1 will look at headlines,

language, loss of history, trivialization, and types of sources, as the key mechanisms in this study through which ideology is manifested in the news media Chapter Six: Case Stndy - The IMng Group of Companies

Introduction

To understand the Irving Oil Refmery Strike, one must understand the Irving

Group as an entity, as weli as its significance in Eastern Canada In this chapter 1 will

comrnunicate some sense of the traditions of the city of Saint John, home of both the

Irving Group, the refmery, and two of the four Irving newspapers. The Irving Group

is composed of around 300 companies, with a net worth of perhaps 6 to 8 billion

Canadian dollars. While it is like a multinational corporation, or a Japanese Keiretsu,

as John DeMont (1991: 220) has suggested, the group has always tended to take on the

character of its brain, initially K. C. Irving, and more recently bis three sons, Jim (J.K.),

Jack and Arthur. The group has always been nui as though it's a "Mom-and-Pop"

smdl business. These companies are limited in liability and publicly registered, but

they are pnvately held, and we know comparatively Iittle about their operations. In this

chapter I will discuss the Irving Group, their newspapers, their labour relations, the city

of Saint John, the IMng goals in the negotiations, and the major events of the strike.

An Outline of the Irving Group

The Irving Empire is so broad and far-reaching that many people deal with it

without being conscious of that fact. It appean that in the development of the empire,

K. C. Irving was animated by a number of principles. His actions, and his few public

statements, indicate that he believed that industrial growth and development was best achieved by starting fiom your area of strength and developing outward. In the 1920s, K.C. Iwing's first major venture was in automobiles, in the form of a Ford dedership in Saint John. He observed that cars consume gasoline, so he got into gasoline. When his father died, KC. bought out his sibling's interest in their father's business, J.D.

Irving Ltd., which at that the consisted of a generd store, a sawmill, and 7000 acres of wood land near , Kent County, in southeastem New Brunswick.

The rest of the senior Irving's career can be interpreted as the result of a conscious attempt to join together the two ends of this nascent business empire.

Though K. C. Irving was not a business theonst, by his own admission, he did strike upon a central means of capital accumulation. Appropriate surplus value from labour, pour it into new and existing enterprises, and continue this process as your enterprises increasingly occupy the dominant place in the monopoly sector of the economy.

Eventually the Irvings would be part of a joint venture to build and operate Canada's largest oil refinery, and they wouid conmct a deep water port in Saint John, called

Canaport, to import and export crude and refined oil via supertankers. The Irvings built gas stations, so they needed construction capacity. They established or bought Ocean

Steel, Ltd., Strescon Ltd., Thome's Hardware, and so on, to keep the control and profits in the group. The IMngs had goods to move, so they bought or created trucking arms, like Midland Transport and Sunbury Transport, and shipping, including Kent Lines, and tug boat capacity, in the form of Atlantic Towing Ltd. To build ships, they acquired the major shipyards in Saint John and Halifax as weil as some lesser operations in the region. They bought both saw mills and wood land at bargain prices, and these acquisitions supported each other. If they were producing

forest products, they should own a Pulp and Paper Mill, which they acquired- To retail

their lumk, they established a hardwdumber yard chain, Kent Building Supplies.

They dso established Kent Homes a house prefabrication Company that ships pre-built

homes dl over the region, and increasingly, dl over the world. It was logicai to

produce newsprint, and to acquire the major customers for newsprint. So over a period of time they acquired al1 four provincial English-language daily newspapers. Other outlets for paper products, like Majesta paper towels and toilet paper, would corne later.

Contemporary Developments in the Group

Beyond the question of the newspapers, there are a number of contemporary developments that are important for this work. Fim among these is the division of labour among the brothers, in the wake of their father's death. J. K. (Jim), Arthur and

Jack work together but are dso individually responsible for different parts of the group, which now often means overseeing the work of the younger generation. Jim, the eldest, nuis the shipyard and the forestry division, with J. D. Irving Ltd. at its centre; Arthur runs IMng Oil and its subsidiaries, including the refinery; and Jack, the youngest, takes the greatest interest in the newspapers, the retail hardware chain, and the Group's many construction cornpanies (DeMont, 1991 : 142-43).

In ternis of the growth of their holdings, the Irvings have gone even farther

&eld. With the acquisition of they are competing with their cross- province rivals, the McCains. They continue to expand, in areas like information technology, and so on. The general nile has been to expand vertically (by buying or

establishing both customers and suppliea in major industries) in a limited geographid

area, rather than competing in a narrow field across a broader geographical domain.

Observen say that if you want to know where the Irvings wil1 expand next, look at

their accounts payable. Of course, it is expected that Irving companies will deal with

other Irving companies, when possible, and the ethos of the group is that "Irving

families" will patronize Irving companies.

1 should also note that the rise of the Irving Group was based not oniy on the hard work of K.C. Irving, his sons, and his thousands of employees, but also on the start the K.C. got from his own family and from New Brunswick taxpayers. In the case of his family, his initial foray into business was supported by his father. Not only did he Iearn business at home, he also first sold Ford cars out of his father's Bouctouche store, and he soon diversified into gasoline (DeMont, 1991: 20). In the case of the provincial government, most of the major initiatives have been supported by municipal tax concessions, cheap water, government grants, low-interest loans, and so on. In

1951, was given a thirty-year schedule of fixed, low municipal taxes, cheap water rates, and protection against "nuisance" cornplaints about its operations (Hunt and Campbell, 1973: 115). The same kinds of concessions were received for the establishment of the refinery, Rothesay Paper, and most of the other large operations. In fact, one of the major reasons K.C. Irving opposed N.B. premier

Louis Robichaud's Equal Opportunity Programme in the 1960s was his belief that it would tbreaten past, and presumably, fiiture concessions of this sort. The Equal

Opportunity Programme, like many similar 1960s-era refonn efforts, involved the

abolition of regional government-the county councils-and the substitution of

centralized authority in Fredericton, the capital city. Irving feared that the past tax

concessions, which had been granted by county and municipal governments, wouid also

be abolished. More recentiy, in the 1990s, the New Brunswick govemment loaned the

Irving Group $10 million to build a Converting Plant in Moncton for , and

the Irvings have over the years received substantial support f'kom the federal Atlantic

Canada Opportunities Agency and its predecessors.

The Irving Group has a certain "character," a particular corporate culture,

inherited fiom its founder and is still present. The culture is based on individualism, and a strong cornmitment is expected from al1 employees. The Irvings have not

favoured job titles within the "Group of Cornpanies." To be sure, people have titles in particular firms, such as "President of XYZ Ltd.", but these seem to be more for public relations or based on regdatory requirements than corporate ethos. In dl of the works on the Irvings, there are scores of stories on the cornmitment employees make. If one of more of the Irvings show up, an employee may be expected to drop everything and cater to them. This may mean giving them a tour by car, it may mean getting them coffee. No job description can stand in the way. The Irving brothers who now control the group have a reputation for long hours, and their employees will often put in long hours too. The Irving Group is not a nine-to-five operation. It success is explained by this fact, in addition to its advantageous market position over the 1st several decades.

The Irving Group and its Newspapers

One of the vital issues in this dissertation is the relationship of the Irving Group to its newspapers. K. C. Irving acquired the province's English-language newspapers over a period of 25 years, beginning with the two Moncton papers, then called the

Times and the Transcript, in 194445. Several years later, he bought the Saint John papers, the Telegraph-Journal and Evening Times-Globe, fiom Howard P. Robinson, the dominant econornic force in Saint John until the 1940s. It took Irving until 1968 to buy The Daily Gleaner, which had ken owned for the previous 17 years by Michael

Wardell, a former Brigadier in the British Army, who was both a confidante of New

Brunswick-born Lord Beaverbrook, and a business associate of K. C. Irving (Hunt and

Campbell, 1973: 165-67).

By the early 1970s the Irvings owned four newspapers, having decided to amalgamate the two Moncton papers into one, now cailed the Moncton Times and

Tramcripl. Though the four papers ultimately have the same ownership, they hardly travel in lockstep. Of the four, the Telegraph is the only paper that aspires to province- wide circulation and coverage. The Times-Globe is a purely local Saint John paper, The

Daily Gleaner covers the Fredericton area, and the Times and Transcript covers the eastern half of the province.

There are also certain differences in business strategy among the four outlets.

In the Iate 1980s, ail four papers were looking dreary and in need of a makeover, both in style and editorial content. The Times-Globe and the Telegrcp>hJomal were the

first, receiving both a visuai redesign as wel1 as substantive changes. The Telegraph-

Journal and Times-Globe Ieft the Canadian Press (CP) consortium, and used the

membership fees saved to hire several New Brunswick-based reporters instead. This

is a particularly interesting move, in the context of the Irving Group, which aspires to

exercise control over every facet of its business. By leaving CP, the Telegraph and

Times-Globe were increasing the amount of copy written by their own staffs rather than

that supplied by an organization headquartered outside of the province and the region.

The paper then subscnbed to cheaper sources of international news, such as the New

York Times Service, and created exchange relationships with other papers, such as The

Ottawa Citizen. The Telegraph-Journal and Times-Globe also created The Reader, a

weekend magazine with its own editorial staff which publishes longer features,

magazine pieces, and book reviews.

The GZeaner and the Times and Transcripr have gone a different route. The

Times and Transcript undertook a visuai redesign in the last two years, but with no real

editorial changes. The Gleaner has not even had a visual redesign, and looks as it has

for at Ieast 25 years. Both of the latter two papers count Irving-owned Summit

Publications Ltd. as their parent Company, and the two papers exchange material. For example, David Meagher covers the N.B. Legislature for The Gleaner, as he has done for fifteen years, but his work now also appears in the Times and Tmcript, above the phrase "Summit New Service." Saint John: The Context

As we have seen, the Irving Group has a culture, a corporate ethos of hard work and individuaiîsm, within a number of resource-extraction and manufachinng industries.

This ethos sits comfortably in the city that represents its core, Saint John, New

Brunswick. Saint John and its people share many of the characteristics of Maritimers, and especiaiiy New Bninswickers. A few of these key characteristics were well presented by David Ekand Richard Simeon (1980), based on a major survey conducted in the late 1970s. They argued that New Bmswickers in particular have low poZitica[ eflcacy, low husf, but have a high level of involvemenr in public life

(Simeon and Elkins, 1980: 4045). This means that relative to other Canadians, New

Bmswickers do not see themselves as able to have an effect on politics; they do not trust political, social or economic elites; yet they do participate quite actively in politics, in terms of voting, political organizing, Party membership, and so on. This latter activism is explained, in part, by the continuing presence of the patronage system.

Individuals rnay get involved in politics, by supporting a potential governing Party, not to have an effect or improve the society, but in order to secure for themselves and their relatives ernployment, contracts, or other benefits.

This brief description of New Brunswick political culture helps us understand the city of Saint John as well as the relationship of New Bmswickers to the Inrings.

Saint John was incorporated in 1785, one year after the colony of New Brunswick was created by the British Crown, thus making it Canada's oldest incorporated city.' Saint John sits on the , on the estuary of the Saint John River. It boa- a year-

round port, which has always been the basis of its prosperity. A visitor from elsewhere

in Canada might be reminded of Hamilton, Ontario-a diversity of neighbourhoods

under the shadow of a large industrial cornplex.

But the visitor will be stnick by the ethnic and racial homogeneity of the city.

It was founded by United Empire Loyalists, those who fied the U.S. War of

Independence. Its fechance at prosperity came in the decades afier 1815, when the

United Kingdom decided to give preferential treatment to British North American timber in response to Napoleon's efforts to blockade British trade with Scandinavia.

But Saint John is as much a city of the Irish and their descendants as of the Loyalists and their's. From the 1830s on, Saint John took in many thousands of Irish immigrants, and the city reflects these two major groups.

In the nineteenth century, Saint John was an industrial town and it continues to be an industrial city. Saint John is the industrial engine of New Brunswick, and perhaps , with the largest collection of industriai enterprises of any municipality in the region. Relative to Fredericton, Moncton, Charlottetown and

Halifax, Saint John is a working class, blue-collar tom, rather than white collar. Three of the first four cities mentioned above are provincial capitais, and dl four, dike Saint

John, are educationd centres in which universities have a strong presence.

Saint John is both an Irving town, as well as a union tom, and it contains the only provincial riding which elected a New Democrat in two successive elections. Our description of the Irving Group indicates how many central enterprises are located in the city. The Irving Group is omnipresent there. But Saint John aiso has a strong tradition of industriai militancy (which 1 will illustrate in the next section), more than any other part of English New Brunswick. In cultural te-, Saint John is both sociaily conservative and economically social dernocratic. It is a very Roman-Catholic City

(and contains the seat of New Brunswick's one English Catholic diocese), which is no doubt both cause and result of the economic and social values just mentioned. Saint

Johners are suspicious of the Irvings (they're Presbyterians), but they are prepared to live with them. They respect the rights of an employer, the top of the hierarchy, but they want their share of the production. It is in this context that the Irving Group and their employees interact.

Labour Relations in the Irving gr ou^

The Irving ethos has clear implications for labour relations in the group, and the

Irving attitude toward trade unions. Canada has a large literature on labour history, but the New Brunswick experience is largely absent from it. One can imagine, based on the above discussion, that K.C. Irving and his successon probably prefer to work without unions. Trade unions represent everyihing the Irvings have worked against.

Instead of individualism, unions represent collectivism; they establish rules and restrict decision makers rather than allowing wide-open discretion; from the Irving perspective, to the extent that unions regulate the shop floor, they undexmine flexibility and lirnit the commitment of workers to the fm. The various biographers of KC. Irving and the Irving Group note, at best, an ambivalence toward unions. Douglas How and Ralph

Costeilo (1993: 84). the authors of the authorized biogcaphy of K.C., daim that KC.

actually encouraged the creation of a union of Irving Pulp and Paper in Saint John in

1946, yet they concede that K.C. proposed "what amounted to a company union" at

Irving Oil's bulk storage facility at Courtenay Bay in 1948 (How and Costello, 1993:

99). As John DeMont (1991: 61) has noted,

the warmth K.C. felt toward the working man had its limits. His clashes with organized labour over the years were legendary. He wasn't exactly against unions: "When they are well led they are excellent for labour and management both," he said. Trouble was, the way he saw things, they were rarely well led.

There has been a long history of labour strife at many of Irving's operations, especially

its largest ones, including the Refinery. Here I will bnefly discuss the Canada Veneers saike and its relocation to Ontario; the Irving Oil Courtenay Bay strike; the 1963-64

refmery strike; the 1991 Pulp and Paper strike; and the more recent "low intensity" tactics employed against Irving truck drivers and the workers at Kent Homes.

Canada Veneers. Few observers of the Irving Group are aware that Canada

Veneers was an important part of K. C. Irving's early business activities. From 1938 to 1949, when K. C. Irving moved the fmto Pembroke, Ontario, Canada Veneers was an important lin. in the chain, as one of the moa profitable units within the ~rou~.~

In 1938, as one of the province's largest connimers of hardwood veneers, Iming assumed control of the troubled company. Irving required the veneer for his bus manufacturing operation, and the company wodd itself be a pot'entiai customer for Irving's raw forest products. Little did Irving know that Canada Veneen would also shortly prosper as a war producer.3 De Haviland was conducting secret research on a wood-clad bomber akcraft, dled the Mosciuito, which was brought into production early in the war. From 1939 to 1943, Canada Veneers increased its production twenty- fold, fiom 200,000 to four million square feet a week, and the workforce mushroomed fiom 180 to 500 employees. The profitability of Canada Veneers was aided by a

"sweetheart" tax deal that predated Irving's involvement. (Hunt and Campbell, 1973 :

101).

Canada Veneers was not only the most profitable Irving operation. It also had the most militant work force. In the spnng of 1940, workers' efforts to unionize were met with serious resistance fiom the Company. Only federal intervention to prevent a strike in a wartime industry prevented a major conflict. In June of 1943, afier the original three-year contract had expired, the workers embarked on a strike that even their own national union president labelled as "wildcat." The union local retumed to work, but not before calling for the resignation of their own national president. In the next three years the workers went on nurnerous, frequently "illegai" strikes to protest firing and reassignment of employees, and other perceived abuses of power.

By 1949, Inring decided to move the plant to Ontario, supposedly because of a shortage of yellow birch logs (Hunt and Campbell, 173 : 104; How and Costello, 1993:

106). It may seem odd that, having bought the D'Auteil Lumber Company in 1943, and the Lands in 1945, that Mr. Irving was unable to supply Canada Veneers. It seerns much more believable that Irving decided to send a signal to the entire work force that the labour troubles at Canada Veneer would not be tolerated. Certainly it was not the last tirne that the Irvings would move or threaten to move an operation in response to union activity.

Courtenay Bay. Another notable conflict occurred in 1948, at the Courtenay Bay bulk storage facility of Irving Oil. In February 1948 the workers at the bulk storage facility were certified as Local 15 of the National Union of Oil Workers. The union proposed pay increases, a shorter work week, time-and-a-half for overtime, and longer paid vacations. Negotiations dragged on into the fall, when the union gave an ultimatum that they would strike unless there was a settlement. Irving told the workers he would fire any man who didn't show up for work. The next moming the union went on strike. According to the celebrated story, on the aftemoon of day one, K. C. Irving showed up, took off his jacket, and offered to fight any man who cared to. The next day, with picket lines still up, Irving himself drove an oil truck through the picket lines

(How and Costello, 1993: 101). There is some divergence in the story at this point.

Some accounts claim K. C. hit a striker, while others claim that one of the vehicles following his hit one or more strikers. The following Monday an injunction was issued preventing picketing, and the strike was settled shortly thereafter.

Irving Oil Refie~Strike, 1963-64. Perhaps the least well-known of the Irving strikes is among the more relevant for this project On September 16th, 1963, the workers at the Irving Refmery Ltd. oil refinery went on strike, one that would last ahost six months, yielding few positive resdts for the workers. The major players were fkom an earlier era but the issues bear a striking, even eerie, resemblance to those of the more recent strike. In its early days the oil refinery was owned by Irving

Refmery Ltd., a legally separate entity from Irving Oil Company, and K. C. was at the height of his power and control (Bertrand, 1987: 187-88). (Irving Oil Company and

Irving Refmery Ltd. were amalgamated in Irving Oil Ltd. in 1973.) The workers were represented by Local 9-691 of the Oil, Chemicai and Atomic Workers' International

Union (OCAW). In the pre-strike negotiation, the workers asked for changes on 19 items, including promotion, wage increases, length of the normal work week, over-tirne, cdl-in provisions, sick and bereavement leave and so on. The key issue, however, was the question of conformity to the wage scale of national cornpetitors, which in Iater years would be refened to as the National Bargainina Pattern. The Irvings said that they could not afXord to meet national refinery pay standards, though they would offer modest pay increases, largely in the form of a merit pay scheme (Jain, 1973: 50-86).

The fascinating aspects of this strike are not particularly the to and fro between labour and management at the bargainhg table, or the outcome (the workers lost), but rather the similarities between the Irving tactics employed then and those of the 1994-

96 refmery strike. First, the Irvings attempted to cornrnunicate directly with the workers, which K. C. Irving did on the first day of the strike. On September 16th, he sent a letter to dl workers warning them of the consequences of going on strike, and in a radio address on January 19th, 1964, he reiterated the same themes (Jain, 1973: 70- 71). But the other similarities, including some of the basic provisions of the Company

position, and the use of legal action to hamper the strike, deserve to be discussed in

slightly more detail.

In defending its position against wage parity with other Canadian refmeries,

Irving Refinery stated that the economics of the Maritime provinces should determine

wage rates; that "increasing wages by blanket increases is inherently wrong and merit

should be alrnost the sole test"; and that the Company cannot fiord to meet the wage

demands (Jain, 1973: 55). One can see here the Irving Group ethos that restrictions on

management's flexibility, like seniority and job categories, is in the Irvings' view a bad

thkg. Further, the legal separation of Irving Refinery Ltd. from the rest of the group

aiso aided the Irving caw. While the Industrial Inquiry Commissioner conceded that

Irving Refinery Ltd. was part of a larger group, he argued that its separateness was a

legal fact and that "even a cunory glance will reveal that Irving Refining Limited, by

itself does not present an overiy-hedthy financial picture" (Jain, 1973: 57). During a

public speech, Mr. K. C. Irving made the claim, which would be repeated again in the

1994-96 strike, that the refinery is "operating since the beginning of the strike by non-

union personnel better than ever before, with more experienced persons doing the sarne job in half the previous man hours" (Jain, 1973: 71).

The Irvings also undertook significant legal manoeuvring in order to gain the

advantage. The first move came two days after the strike, when the Irvings were granted a temporary injunction to prevent workers fiom secondary picketing and Irving gas stations, based largely that picketing a "third party" encouraged Irving Oil to breach its contract to buy gas from lMng Refinery. This injunction became permanent, and the union appealed to the New Brunswick Supreme Court, arguing that Irving Refining and Irving OiI shouid not be considered separate entities. The Supreme Court upheld the restriction on picketing gas stations. At roughly the same time, there were allegations of violence at the refinery, and Mr. Justice West of the provincial Supreme

Court also limited the number of pickets to three at the refinery's main gate and two at other entrances, with a provision that I~ngRefmery could apply for a complete ban on pickets if "there was any Merviolence" (Jain, 1973: 76-78).

Unlike the 1994-96 strike, the Industrial Inquiry Commission was appointed before the 1963-64 strike began. Alan Sinclair was appointed on July 22, 1963, and he reported on the following August 29, roughly two weeks before the strike began.

While the Commissioner took issue with the union's desire for immediate wage parity with other refinery workers, he also rejected the Irving daim that it does 'hot want to upset the economic picture of the area by paying higher wages than most." Any

"student of economics today," Sinclair wrote, knows that "the employer with the higher wage scale and attractions in the nature of fringe benefits attracts and holds the best employees in the area" (Jain, 1973: 65-66). Sinclair did in any event recommend significant pay increases and benefit improvements, even if they did not amount to meeting labour's position. However, the Irvings rejected this set of recommendations out of hand, and in response the workers went on strike. The fmai settlement looked much more like the Irving proposal than it did either the Sinclair recommendations or

the union position. The terms of agreement on March 8, 1964 were simple. Labour

wodd receive the pay increase offered at the beginning of the strike, and there would

be a merit pay system, to be directed "by the company subject to a right of grievance

only in the case of discrimination" (lain, 1973: 81). Achieving the national bargaining

pattern would corne later, as would the dismantiing of that achievement.

Rothesay Papa- Strike, 1990-91. Apt3 of 1990 was a difficdt month for the

Irving Croup of Companies and many of its workers. On April 9, 1990, 89% of the

members of Local 601 of the Energy and Chemical Workers Union voted to go on

strike at Rothesay Paper Ltd., and they were locked out by the company shortly

thereafter. Two days later, Local 691 at the Irving Oil Refinery were on strike, and

workers at Irving Tissue had been on strike for two weeks. Further, Local 907 of the

Energy and Chemical Workers, also employed at Rothesay Paper, honoured the picket

lines of Local 60 1 and refused to go to work. Of these various actions, however, only the legal strikenockout by Local 601 would prove to have historical significance. It is

significant because it lasted ten months, ending on February 25, 199 1 when 58% of the

Local accepted the tentative agreement reached several days earlier by union and company negotiators. More importantly, it was the first major successful battle in the

Irving campaign against the accepted work practices in its large high-productivity operations.

The basic outlines of the strike are familiar enough. The union decided to take job action not to get more money, but to protect what it had, especidy in the area of the work process. The company said that its trades workers at Rothesay were making

$70,000 per year, and the company mus be able to increase productivity, by reorganizing the production process, to remain competitive. To workers, this reorganization meant either "speed up," in which workers would be expected to do more work, andlor, in the tradition of the "Irving Way," workers would be required to act as

"jacks-of-ail-tradeç", and do work that they were not fonnally qualified for. Like so many other conflicts, the Irvings got the final deal that they wanted, which may explain the lukewam support for the agreement on the part of the workers. The final agreement included pay increases of SS%, 5.5% and 6% over the three year contract, but allowed management to reorganize work processes and to offer early retirement or lay off sorne of the 450-person work force.4

Generd Low Intemity Confict- Finaily, there is in general "low intensity" pressure against unionization and demands for pay increases. The Irvings are well known for discouraging unionization of their truck dnvers at Sunbury Transport and

Midland Transport. May 1991 stories in a major trade paper, Motor Tmck, reported that the Irvings have fiequently used "security guards" at Irving gas stations to discourage the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway , Transport, and Generd Workers

(CBRT) from organizing dnvers (Motor Truck, 199 1b). Fmher, thirteen owner/operators working for the Econoline Division of Midland were already members of the CBRT, though Inring was apparently trying to keep unions out of the rest of the operation. Sunbury President Jim Inring was reported to have said that he "had a belly full of unions" (Motor Truck, 199 la).

Despite the Irving Group's professed loyalty to New Brunswick, the Irvings are not above threatening to move operations out of the province in response to either unionization or when faced with a strike. In 1994, Inring's Kent Homes asked its workers at Bouctouche to take a 2.5% pay cut The workers voted 97% against the proposal, and in favour of a strîke. The Company responded by threatening to move the operation to Kent's mothballed facility in Debert, Nova Scotia. The news story noted that 400 people filled out applications for the potential jobs in Nova Scotia. "Every time that we open up the collective agreement, this happens," union local president

Femand Doucet told the Canadian Press ("Kent Hornes," 1994). The strike was settled and the operation is dl1 located in Bouctouche.

K. C. Irving's place of residence from the 1970s on also undermined the myth of the Irving loydty to New Brunswick. In 1971, K. C. Irving moved from New

Brunswick, first to Nassau, and then Bermuda, to avoid Canadian taxes (DeMont,

1991 : 1 17- 18). (Bermuda does not have a persona1 income tax.) Irving's departure from Canada was precipitated by the possibility that the Canadian provinces were going to bring in succession duties, which are taxes on inherited weaith. Since his departue, and until his death in 1992, K. C. Irving kept track of his days in Canada each year so that he would not be in the country more than hdf the year and therefore would not have to pay Canada's personal income taxes. Further, a portion of the Irving Group's corporate income is realized outside of Canada. An offshore company sens oil to the Irving refinery and declares the profits outside of Canada, and many Irving cornpanies are registered in Bermuda or the Bahamas. Finally, even in death K. C.

Irving managed to avoid the tax man. Mr. Inring's will was complicated, and provided that all of his assets be put into a trust. While his three sons would manage the assets, an individual could only access the wealth if he or she was a non-resident of Canada, thus ensuring that such individuds would not pay Canadian income taxes.

What the Irvings wanted in a New Refinery Contract

Throughout the 1994-96 Refmery strike, the Irvings insisted that for the refinery to remain cornpetitive, there had to be changes in the collective agreement. Workers would have to take pay cuts and work more hours on "straight time" rather than overtime rates. The company justified this by pointing to the fact that this was a highly-paid workforce, in which the average worker received a gross salary of $70,000 per year. Most importantly, the company said that there was a need for greater flexibility in the workforce. This meant that rules in the collective agreement defining what a worker could and codd not do would have to be changed, and further, the principle of senionty would have to be altered to ailow management to make judgements about which worker should be trained to work on new equipment, or be promoted, and so on. Presumably, given the outcome of the strike, management also wanted the ability to terminate employees based on a principle other than "last hired, first fued." The reader should note that the Irvings advocated a roll back to the status quo ante beZZum of 1963.

Clearly though, the issue of "competitiveness" was key issue, shce the demand for "flexibilityt' was really based on a clah that to be competitive, the work processes at the refinery had to be changed. As a privately-ownsd corporation, IMng

Oil Ltd. is understandably secretive about its operatioos. Since it is not traded publicly and since no one outside the Irvings own shares, the Company does not have to answer to anyone. However, material that is publicly available casts doubt on whether the drive for competitiveness really required the concessions that the Irvings were asking for. Rather, given the strong competitive position in the region of Irving Oil, it seems more likely that the strike was about increasing profitability and imposing the Irving

Group ethos rather than simply keeping the cornpany's head above water.

1 question these competitiveness daims for a variety of reasons. First, a recent report by Industry Canada (1996) and consultant reports authored by Pewin and Gertz,

Inc. of Dallas, Texas (Crandail et al., 1997a; 1997b; 1997c) note that the Canadian industry as a whole is more competitive than it was fifteen years ago, as a result of a major restnicturing that took place before the Refuiery strike. The Irving refinery is the largest in Canada and one of the most technologically advanced. Irving oil has a dominant position in the Maritimes as a retailer, has a solid foothold in , and also shares with most of the major supply contracts in the region, especiaily those with governments. Finally, unlike most oil companies, the Irving Group is its own best customer for oil products, in its trucking, woodands, construction, shipyard and other divisions-

The 19941996 Refmery Strike

On May 12, 1994, at 4:30 p-m., members of Local 691 of the Communications,

Energy and Papenvorken (CEP) union at the Irving Oil Refkery Ltd., in Saint John,

New Brunswick, went on legal strike. Management took over the refmery with plans to nin it, and Refmery Manager Bob Chalmers commented that without union concessions, the Saint John facility might join the 25 North American oil refhenes that have shut down since 1970. Lamy Washburn, president of Local 69 1, said the Irving

Company was mostly interested in trying to lengthen the work week without paying overtime rates.

Though none of the strikers knew it then, they would be on strike for over two years, and Mer, none of them would have guessed that not al1 striking workers would have the right to go back to work. A strike lasting 27 months is itself quite significant, especially when it involves the interests of the Irving Group, and considering that it affects a major player in the Canadian industry. But this strike is even more important becaw of what it says about the 1990s, a period of expansion and growth for the few and "restraint" and "restnicturing" for most. This strike was not only about wages, hours worked, and the most familiar topics of labour negotiation. It was aiso about the mies of the game, and who sets them. Would the longstanding seniority p~ciplegovem the employment statu and roles of workers, or would the employer be able to insert another p~ciple? Do striking workers have the right to their jobs after the de,or is this just a "conventionn that rests only on the balance of power

between workers and management? In exchange for their willingness to be employees,

and to rem ffom challenging the legitimacy of the employer and its private

accumulation, do the workers "own the work," or does the employer own the work in

addition to the worker's product?

Not long after the strike's fodbeginning, the two parties were in court, a place they would visit often during the bitter strike. On May 16th, however, it was for the company to request, successfully, an injunction limiting numbers on the picket line and to prevent impeding of trac. By June 16, the union was in court on contempt charges for allegedly violating the order of May 18th, but this banle ended with only a warning fiom the judge. ShortIy der this, realizing that they were in for a long strike, the union launched its local boycott, designed to put pressure on Irving Oil Ltd. to corne back to the bargaining table. The New Brunswick Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress pledged their support. Strikers began handling out leaflets in front of Irving gas stations, and Bob Chalmers stated that the refinery was maintainhg its level of production. Chalmers also said that no rnatter how badly the boycott cuts into sales, it would not force the company to change its bargaining stance.

By August and September, with still no bargaining, the union and its allies held a rally and announced their province-wide boycon On October 19, after cornplaints by local residents, Mr. Washburn stated that the refinery should never have been allowed to break normal pollution limits. The week before, the provincial government allowed the refinery to go over emission levels during periods of equipment

mainte~liince,and Environment Minister Marcelle Mersereau says she did not expect the

levels to be so high. Mr. Washbwn said the problems were due to the inexperience of

non-union people ninning the refmery.

The union was in court again in October, but contempt charges were dropped

once the union Local agreed to pay $500 for aileged darnages to tires, and once it

agreed to reduce its number at the back gate to eight strikers at any one time. On

November 23rd, while the union executive was at the CEP National Convention in

Toronto, management sent a letter to dl striking workers encouraging them to corne

back to work through their own picket lines, and at the same time the Company withdrew a number of key concessions from its bargaining position. Refinery management offered work to anyone willing to cross the picket line, and also claimed that business at the refinery had never been better, with production and sales up by 15 per cent.

In December the first "superscab" crossed his own picket line, while the second crossed in January 1995. These were the first two of many. In union parlance, a superscab is a member of the union who crosses his or her own picket line, while a scab is a member of management or an "independent contractor" (the company's term) who does a striking rnember's work. In January 1995 the Refinery management sent out a letter to the striking workers saying that there would be no point in negotiating unless the strikers agreed to the company's Iast offer. . By March 1995 the conflict took on more explicitly political overtones. During that month Local 691 filed unfair labour practices charges against management arguing that Irving Oil has bargained in bad faith. Larry Washburn said the union has been trying to meet with management ever since Bob CMmers wrote a November 21 letter saying the Company was prepared to meet with the union at any tirne. In the

Legislative Assembly, pressure was growing for the govemment to do something.

Elizabeth Weir, the province's lone NDP MLA. introduced Bill 21, which proposed to ban the use of replacement workers during a strike. This provision had been part of the provincial Liberal Party platform, but it had never been introduced into legislation. The bill passed first and second reading and then was sent to the Law Amendments

Cornmittee for hearings. Advanced Education and Labour Minister Camille Theriault said he would not ban the use of replacement workers during strikes.

By May, the two sides met face-to-face for the first time since the strike began, and despite the fact that the two sides went through govemment-sponsored conciliation before the strike, there was no govemment conciliator or mediator present. After this session, management brought forward new demands, including a "Voluntary Severance

Package," which encouraged striking workers to apply for severance during the strike.

Local 691 took management to the Labour Relations Board on the grounds that management was negotiating "away fiom the table," by dealing directly with CEP members. The union won this compla.int, and Irving Oil was told to go back to the negotiating table. During the second summer on strike, labour representatives took the IMng boycott into Maine and leafleted tourists at the Maine-New Bnmswick border.

Nearly two thousand union supporters paaicipated in a Saint John rally in support of

the strikers. The union leaders commented that pressures created by the prolonged

strike were taking their toll on workers. Two of the union members suffered hart

attacks, which Lamy Washbum attributed to financial and family pressures arising from

the strike. By the summer of 1995 45 union members have crossed their own picket

lines.

By November 1995, management brought a new package to the table.

Surprisingly, it contained a list of 86 striking workers that the Company wanted to terminate, dong with other demands. The workers rejected this by a 90% vote, and the

New Brunswick govemment took the unusuai step of appointing an Industriai Inquiry

Commission, composed in this case by Mr. Innis Christie, a prominent Nova Scotia labour lawyer and law professor. Christie announced that he would hold public hearings in Saint John in Febmary 1996, at the same time that managzment was sending termination notices to 54 miking workers. Before the hearings took place, the Iwings tried to quash the authority of Christie and limit his mandate. The hearings began, but

Bob Chalmers, the refinery manager, did not appear despite his sumrnons. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but the process was stalled until late March while the Irvings made four unsuccessful bids to quash the summons and the warrant. Mr. Justice Michel

Bastarache of the New Brunswick Court of Appeals (now of the Supreme Court of

Canada) threw out the I~ngappeais and ordered Chalmers to attend or go to jail. Despite the pressure generated by the public hearings, the Irvings appeared to be too big to lose. More and more workers were defecting fiom the strike, either by taking "volu11tary separation" or by crosshg their own picket lines. The refinery was running sufficiently well to meet the company's sales, largely by using management and replacement worken. Management and labour returned to the table a number of &es, but it was clear that for this strike to end the workers had to make virtually unprecedented concessions. In his final report, Christie told the workers they lost, and they should settle for the best deal they could get Finally, on August 16, 1996, after

27 months, a majority of Local 691 voted in favour of a new contract, which still provided for significant concessions on seniority, flexibility, and for the termination of

37 workers (of roughly 150 left on strike), including al1 of the union executive.

Not oniy did the strike end with the imposition of a humiliating and restrictive finai contract, but workers who remained had to go through a mandatory ideological re- education programme for retuming workers. This process of ideological re-education was a means for the Company to win (or control) the hearts and minds of its now- broken labour force. While there is significant pressure against employees speaking out about this process because to do so would jeopardize their buy-outs or jobs, we do know the basic outiines of the programme. Employees had to spend two weeks at a local hotel with facilitators fiom a U. S. consulting firm, called the Boston Innovation

Group. According to a draft of the programme, entitled Ex~ectExcellence, employees were slated to go through a re-orientation agenda which included "venting emotions", "problem people" and a participation in a "public declaration". Successful completion of the £ktweek of this program was a prerequisite for king "invited" to week two, which involved "team building" exercises for union members and their fellow workers who crossed the picket lines, as well as replacement workers who had been kept on.

Week two in turn was followed by a practical test at the refinery lasting up to four weeks. Workers were assessed every day and did not get full pay until they passed the entire prograrn.

Among the required reading for the course was Arnerican psychologist Judith

Bardwick's book, Danger in the Comfort Zone: How to break the entitlement habit that's killinp. Amencan Business. A "must-read" book for corporate managers, this work describes the phenornenon of a "culture of entitlement" whereby workers are apparently pre-occupied with their rewards raîher than îheir responsibilities. Returning workers at the refinery say that in reality the reorientation program combined a

"bittemess test" and "attitude alteration" exercise. Workers have been told about how they were misled by their union President, La.Washbum, and to doubt the credibility of the executives of their national and local union.

Bob Hicks, President of the New Brunswick Federation of Labour, has stated that "[slome people are descnbing it as de-cleansing of their souls for sins they've done by going on strike. Others have described it as a brain washing session." It seems clear that this strike was a test case for the Irving Group of Companies and for industries throughout the country, which were gauging their ability to rollback labour rights and increase corporate power.

Conciusion

The goal of this chapter has been to present background on the IMng Group of

Companies, of which the Refining Division of Irving Oil Ltd. is a major part. We have seen that the Irving Group is a large, vertically-integrated collection of companies nui by the three sons of the founder, K. C. Irving. The group bears the stamp of the brothers, just as nuely as it bore the stamp of its founder until his retirement fiom full- time activity in the 1970s. In this chapter 1 have also show that there is a history of often-bitter labour disputes between the Irvings and some of their workers, and that some of the contentious issues have been played out before, like in the 1963-64

Refinery Strike.

In this chapter 1 also noted that striving for "competitiveness" had led the Irvings to demand "flexibility," but I questioned whether the competitiveness of the refinery was ever in jeopardy. New Brunswick, and the Atlantic region, are net oil exporters, which suggests that the refinery is internationally competitive. Further, there was a major restructuring in the Canadian refining industry in the 1980s and early '90s, which left the remaining refineries in a much better competitive position. Irving Oil's leadership position in the Atlantic region, its vertical integration, and its ability to win large tendered supply contracts, suggests the refinery's competitive challenges were not as serious as the Irvings claimed. I believe that this anaiysis of the Irving Group of

Companies, their labour history, and the nature of the city of Saint John will help the reader assess the media coverage discussed in chapter seven. Finally, in this chapter

1 provided a "quick account of the strike, in order to provide the reader with a sense of the struggle over those 27 months. 1. The historical references draw on Acheson, Saint John, especially Chs. 1, 2.

2. This discussion relies on the best account of these events, found in Hunt and Campbell. 1973: 100-106.

3. Irving also made significant sums building wooden landing crafts for the invasion of Europe at his shipyard in Bouctouche.

4. "Deeply-divided mil1 workers returning to work,It The Eveninq Times Globe, February 25, 1991, p. 1. The information in this section cornes from a clipping file of Evenincr Times Globe coverage of the dispute. Chapter Seven: Data Analysis

Introduction

An examination of the media coverage of the Refinery strike both provides

support for and introduces new challenges to the familiar pattern of labour news, which

1 examined earlier. On the one hand we see evidence of a media portrayal of striking

workea as demanding, potentially-violent, causing delays, and harassing the public.

Yet in many ways the coverage of this strike differs frorn some of the literature on

mediallabour issues. A close examination of the media coverage of this strike by the

N.B. papers reveals that the Iegitirnation tactics used to justiQ the Company position

were more subtie than previously documented. 1 will do this by looking at headlines,

Ianguage, sources and the use of silence, in both the Irving papers as well as the more

distant outlets.

A total of 377 newspaper articies were examined fiom the four New Brunswick papers, The Globe and Mail, and an assortment of other papers across Canada.' Stones

in the New Brunswick papen tended to be approximately 700 words in length and were placed in the fust or 'A' section of the papers. News articles fiom The Globe and Mail tended to be very short in length; an average of 100 words and were located in the

Report on Business, the business section of the paper. Stones fkom other Canadian papers were approximately 500 words long and were located in the 'A' section of the papers (See Table 1).

Coverage of the Refinery strike in the New Brunswick papers was fiequent. During

the 27 months of the strike, the strike was covered on average once a week in the Saint

John-based papers while coverage was once a month in the Fredericton and Moncton

papers. Outside of New Bdckthe strike was examuied by The GIobe and Mail

less than once a month. Other Canadian papers that 1 examined typically only covered

the Refmery strike 2 or 3 times in total (See Table 2). The length, placement and

fiequency of coverage in the various papers confums the view that local issues are considered to be newsworthy by local media However, the stature of the Company

involved as well as the protracted nature of the strike resulted in a certain amount of national attention on this issue.

Headlines

Analysis of the headlines of the articles in the different papers indicates support for existing literature on media coverage of labour issues and introduces some new eIements to the discussion.

N. B. Dapers

Many of the headlines in the N.B. papers were brief and factually-oriented:

"Strike vote held" flS2April 25, 1994); "Move made to settle strike" (DG,November

10, 1995). These headlines were descriptive in nature and could be considered informative without significant ideological bias. It is interesting to note that these types of headlines were more often seen in the beginning months of the strike. After that tirne, the headlines were more ideologically-laden in that they communicated a message about the strike beyond factual information. This may be because der a certain period of time the publishers/editors andlor journalists developed a specific position regarding the strike aud expressed it in their writing. Yet the headlines did not remain unWersally critical of the strikers and supportive of the Company. Another explmation may be that the headlines were in fact reflecting the range of opinion held by the local population.

Some of the headlines couid be considered favourable to the strikers position:

"Striking Oil workers willing to tdk" (ETG. April 11, 1995); "Worker solidariry will end strike, McDonough sqys" (ETG, JuZy 12, 1995); "Irving OiZ Strikers promise flexibiZÎty" (TY,April 12, 1995). In these headlineq the workers are seen as open to negotiation, and are loyal to each other and the labour movement.

Headlines cntical of the strikers were very much more evident: "Loopholes mean

S32.000 for striker; some workers on oil Refiery picke f line could take home more rnoney fhis year thon haIf of the householdî in Saint John" (TJ. June 7, 1995);

Teaching Out and Laîhing out: picketers at living station smash couple S window"

(ETG, June 1 7, 1996); "Retired couple f visit to gas pump turns inio a nighmare; back window of Douglas and Florence Stewart's Winnebago srnashed by Refines, strikers ut City Road INing station" (TY,June 17, 1996). In these cases the headlines could be considered inflammatory in that the stones that followed them tempered the message of the headline by admitting, for example, that there was more than one version of these events. Nevertheless, the version that was most critical of the strikers was the one that was promoted in the headline. Headlines that couid be considered critical of the company were aiso evident:

'%et S get if settled; Loshg patience; the labour minister is losing patience with INing oil, and says it S tinte the company settled the Refnery strike" (ETG, May 31, 1996);

"Refiney offer caIIed 'a disgruce' by the union" (ETG, November 10, 1995; "Revoke

Ining f Refinery permit, says NDP" (TY,Febmary 23, 1996); "'B.becoming Alabama

East - CUPE" (TJ, Febmary 9, 1995). In these headlines, the company is portrayed as obstnictionist, acting in bad faith and in need of extemal restraint. Yet in each case the criticism is bekig made by a party other than the newspaper. In these examples it is the labour minister, the union, the NDP, and CUPE who make these allegations, not the joumalists themselves. In contrast, the headlines presented above that are critical of the striken are presented as unbiased facts which can stand alone and do not require

"authorship". In this way the paper presents an ideologically-laden message--criticism of the strikers-but masks it with the cover of journalistic objectivity.

Headlines that were directly supportive of the company were rare, but did appear: "Rejinery is Right: Christie: The union lost: Local 691 would still [ose 37 workers - and most of ifsarguments - under the collective agreement that Innis Christie says is fair" (ETG, ApriI 11, 1996). Again in this example, the support for the company is moderated through the voice of the mediator. Thus direct criticism or support of the employer is also identified by the papers as an ideological position and one that requires authorship.

An analysis of the most common theme in the headlines indicates the overall tone of the headlines can be desaibed as defeatist: ''Refinety strike could hgon for years" (ETG, July 25, 1995); "1,800 Job-Seekers fiocking at Refnev's dooc

Screening statts: The Refinery is about to stmt the interview process unless the union makis a rnove" (ETG, April 16. 1996); "Did living workers blow last chance? (IT,

December 13, 1995); ''Refinery strikrs concede defat" (AH 20, 1996). These headlines are somewhat doom-laden and exude a tone of negativity toward the strikers' efforts. Again these headiines have been presented as haWig a ring of objectivity-the voice of truth--and not opinion. In terms of effect, these headlines could be expected to undennine union morale and worker resolve. Indeed, in letters to the editor (which were not included in the news analysis focus of this padcular study), striking workers criticized the paper for working hand in hand with the company in generating scare tactics such as these to try to undermine their resolve to continue the stnke.

The Globe and Mail

The headlines in The Globe and Mail dl conformed to a bulletin style in which the headline would be limited to three or four words, virtually without variation. This is exemplified by "Workers wdk out" (May 13. 1994); "Workers rejea offer"

(November 10, 1995); and "Irving rnakes offer" (Mcry 27, 1995). Although linguistic analysis is more limited with so few words to examine, the headlines here appear to follow the traditional style of media coverage of labour issues. In that tradition, companies are seen to be 'offering' while strikers are portrayed as 'rejectuig'. Even though the IMng Refinery was not a publicly-traded company, the strike was of interest to Globe editors, probably because IrvÏng Oil Ltd. is both a major buyer and supplier, and because a strike like this might well portend the fuhire elsewhere in Canada.

Other DaDers

The headlines in the other Canadian papers were more criticai of the Irving company and more sympathetic to the striking workers than documented in the N.B. papers or The Globe and Mail. '"INing clan S power surfaces at inpuiry" (Vancouver

Sun, Febniary IS, 1996). "Won't recognize senioriîy, INing Manager tells inquiry"

(Toronto Star, Marck 27, 1996). 'Strike ut Irving Oil a battleground /or worker's rights" (Ottawa Citizen, Ju[y 24. 1996) "Board say INing broke labour laws" (Montreai

Gazette. August 9, 1995); and "Irving bhgs in legal top gun to uvoid hearing"

(HuIifbx Daily News. Febmary 22, 1996), al1 indicate a more critical orientation towards the management side. This initial finding already suggests a difference between the coverage of the strike in the N.B. papers and the portrayal of the strike in other mainstream sources. Here 1 argue that the N.B. papes are not as critical of the

Irving's tactics in the strike as other Canadian papers were prepared to be.

Language

Analysis of the use of language in the newspaper coverage of this stnke provides further evidence of traditional semantic practices that more favourably portray companies than workers. As noted above, the existing literahire shows that media depictions of labour issues routinely refer to strikers "refusing" or "rejecting" company

"offers". The bias of this terminology is particularly apparent when the "offer" in question is a rollback fiom the previous contract. Al1 the papers in this study relied on this tenninology and reinforced it in thek coverage. While striking workers and union representatives often rnake a point of referring to their own union contract "offers" in their press releases and public statements, the papen do not cite them as making an offer nor did the papers ever adopt this terminology themselves.

This brings up an interesting issue in media coverage of labour issues.

Throughout its long history, the labour movement has had a specific self-conception of a bath the role of the worker and the nature of the work process itself, but this is not reflected in media accounts of labour issues. For example, the labour movement has its roots in a system of guilds of highly skilled workers or craftspeople. These workers bring skills to their employer and document hem through the possession of working papers or certification records. The employer then offers a wage in return for the employees' labour. While the employee must abide by the niles of the work place, it is most often the case that the employer does not personaily possess the workers' skill for a particula. trade. Thus the arrangement has been that the worker has specialized knowledge and determines the process by which the work must be accomplished. This concept of "ownership of the work" is a central precept of labour and in recent years has become an area of controversy in labour/employer relations as companies have increasingly sought to wrest control over the labour process from workers. This has been accomplished through contracting out in which the work is taken away fiom the skilled employee and given to an individual or group outside of the union. Yet elsewhere in North Amenca, even in the lean, mean 1WOs, workers have managed to put or keep control of work on the agenda. In the fdl of 1996, the

Canadian Auto Workers successfully struck Ford Canada over, in part, the control of work, and the desire to prevent "contracthg out," which were explicit issues. In the

August 1997 UPS strike in the United States, the union won the strike based on improving the terms of work for its largely part-tirne work force.

"Flexibility" initiatives have been a means by which the employer seeks to gain the ability to move workers between jobs at will without restraint by principles of seniority or worker consent. Workers ofien contend that employer control of the work process frequently requires workers to expose themselves to greater risk of injury, involves more repetition and less creativity in problem solving, and reduces worker autonorny. Yet despite the centrality of this issue in employment relations today, the topic is rarely addressed in media When it is brought up it is frequently a parroting of the corporate perspective. The following excerpt from an editorial written at the conclusion of the strike demonstrates this view:

The Irving Refinery strike revolved around the need for change. Goveniments and private sector enterprises are facing global competition and soaring costs. Downsizing and flexibility in the workplace are essential if organizations are to survive in the future. Workers must be prepared to be retrained; to be able to perform more than one fiuiction; and to be flexible in the work place (DG, August 19, 1996).

While the news stories may occasiondly recite the line that the Company is "seeking greater flexibiiity", the actual debate is never layed out for the reader. Thus the opporhinity to develop a deeper understanding of one of the central issues of this strike

as weii as many other labour disputes is 10% leaving the public to wonder what is at

the heart of the conflict. 1 argue that the absence of any discussion of this issue

frequently leaves the reader with a fdse sense of what the sFnke is actually about.

Even though the news articles about the Refmery strike would frequently include a one-

Iine summary of the key issues of the strike-maintaining p~ciplesof seniority and job

security, overtime, limits on contracting out, and increases to the number of workers-

the stories and headlines wouid instead often focus on the relatively high wages of the

most senior of the skilled workers at the Refinery. This then served as an agenda-

sening technique in which the papers put wages on the table for public debate when in

fact they were not the issue in the strike itself. An editonal in the Evening Times Globe

reinforced this view:

THE IRVING REFINERY STRIKE: IT'S TIME TO MOVE ON

We have, up till now, held our fire in the latest turn of events that for the 1st 23 months has altemately saddened, impassioned and finally bored us to death.

We have to admit that we could never exactly understand why more than 200 Irving refmery workers went on strike against the company. A few paid extra hours a week in the context of salaries that ranged upwards of $50,000 seem enviable in these bitter times we are going through.

Who would jeopardize a well-paying job when there are Ph.D.s walking the streets looking for work? And in terms of sheer tactics, who would take on the IrWigs, a company known for playing hardball with strikers and dissidents, especiaily at a time when proven technology could take over a number of their tasks (ETG, April 17, 1996).

Consequent letters to the editor of the New Brunswick papers reveaied the fact that some readers were under the impression that the strike was primarily about wage increases. These writers echoed the sentiment put out by the paper's editoa that given the jobless nature of the current economic recovery/recession, the strikers shodd consider themselves lucky to have a job at dl.

The N.B. papers also echoed the practice of portraying the strikers as causing disturbances and harassing the public. Refmery workers haras a 'scab' who wasn't

(ETG, September 25, 1999, Threats of action by national labour groups and of civil disobedience mark a weekend rally in support of the stnking Irving Refinery union

(ETG,April 15, 1996), Irving OiI suing strikers after ficcas at Gas Station (ETG,July

24, 1996).

The most notable feature about the language use in the N.B. papers coverage of this strike was the tone of defeatism evident in the stories about the strike. The papers portray the strikers as foolish in their attempts to go up againa the might and power of the Irving empire. This is evident in the use of language that reveals an attitude of defeat. The strike is said to be likely to drag on for years (ETG, Jdy 25, 1995), public hearings are said to offer scant hope of resolving the strike (ETG,January 2, 1W6), strikers were told by experts to expect stress to hst (TJ, March 4, 1996). Shortiy before Christmas 1995, the Telegraph Journal reported that the govermnent was giving up on the strike (TJ,December 21, 1995) and later that winter, Refmery manager Bob

Chalmers is featured as saying that the Refinery [while using replacement workers] has set production records and it doesn't need some of its most senior employees (ETG, March 27, 1996).

One example of the defeatist nature of some of the stories in the New Brunswick papas involves an article that came out early in the strike. The article provides information that documents the power of the Irving Company to prevent even small business people from hinng the siriking workers to do odd jobs for extra money because these businesses fear retaliation from the Irwigs in the form of lost contracts or future employrnent if they are seen to support the strikers in this rnanner. Yet instead of emphasizing the monopolistic and totalitarian use of power by this employer, the tone of the article instead presents this situation as the redity of working in a

Company town and predicts that the Refinery workers cm expect to find litde support for their cause in the City of Saint John (TT, May 6, 1995). This tone of defeatism was a centrai characteristic of the N.B. media's coverage of the strike and one that was not paralleled in the other papen exarnined.

The coverage of the report by the Inquiry commissioner, Law professor Innis

Christie exemplifies the focus of the New Brunswick media. While Christie had been outspoken in his cnticisms of the Irving's high handed tactics as they pursued every legal action to avoid participating in the public inquiry, the N.B. media coverage focused on Christie's statement that the unions were foolish and iwational for refusing to bend on the fate of 37 workers Irving had blacklisted. The following article is representative of the coverage of Christie's report. REFINERY IS RIGHT: CHRISTIE THE UNION LOST: LOCAL 691 WOULD STILL LOSE 37 WORKERS - AND MOST OF ITS ARGUMENTS - UNDER THE COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT THAT INNIS CHRISTIE SAYS IS FAIR

Almost 40 Irving refmery strikers will be out of a job in the collective agreement that Inquiry Commissioner Innis Christie has drawn up - an agreement he hopes will end the bitter two-year labour dispute. Working hours and wages will be what the Inrings proposed - not the union.

Strikers retuming to work may be required to take a "reorientation program." But layoffs and recalls will work by seniority, with wide exceptions to keep the refmery efficient.

And the Irvings can continue to contract out certain jobs.

In summary, Mr. Christie's report says that the union lost the strike.

Roly MacIntyre, the Minister of Advanced Education and Labour, said this morning that he will do whatever it takes to se11 the proposal to both sides.

"I'm cautiously optimistic that this may be the solution everyone's Iooking for," said Mr. MacIntyre, whose Saint John-Champlain riding includes the refinery. (ETG,April 11, 1996).

I would argue that the tone of this article reinforces the view of the Irving Company, the N.B. Govemment, and in some respects that of the rnediator, Imis Christie. Narnely that the Irvings don't lose, those who take hem on are foolish and irrational, and that this is the new reality of labour relations in today's economy.

In another article in the Telegraph Journal, the tone reinforces this latter theme.

UNIONS NOW FACING NEW REALITIES: SAINT JOHN REFINERY LATEST BATTLEGROUND AS LABOR LEADERS REAPPRAISE THEIR TACTICS

The scene is calm. almost sleepy: Ten men, some standing, some sitting, some waking slowly back and forth in &ont of the gate, two with binocuiars trained on the grouads of the huge refinery, intent on any movements inside the gates.

Larry Washbum, president of CEP Local 691, leans on a big green Buick, one of a long line of cars parked dong the side of the road, and reads a newspaper.

Characteristic of contract negotiators and strategists, Washburn plays his car& close to his chest. But a hint of things to corne is cryptic: "There's more to conducting a strike than picketing."

And so the posturing continues as both sides jockey for position. It's al1 part of the the-honoured routine of labor negotiations. (TJ, May 25, 1994)

This article utilizes a great deal of military metaphon tu suggest that labour's

relationship with the Irvings is a warlike one. The article refers to a battleground, where

labor leaders are strategists, who are crypfic and play fheir cards close fo the chest. The

strikers train their binoculurs on their opponent. Yet, the language of the article also

suggests that in this conflict the Irving's will emerge victorious. If the strikers are sleepy, and slow, and their leader is leaning against a Iwcury car, reading a newspaper, one may doubt their ability to win as they face the new redities of the global labour

On the one hand this could be merely an accurate journalistic reflection of the mood of many New Bninswickers in response to the overwhelming influence of this particular family in the Iife and history of the province. Other papers may be focussing on the strong-arm tactics of the Irvings because they are surprised by them, while New

Brunswick journalists are well farniliar with this pattern of behaviour fiom this company. However, there has been rising hostility to the Irving Group in the province, during and shce the strike. The evidence for this view tends to be anecdotal, but it becomes compelling in its sheer quantity.

This view is supported by the large turn out at rallies in support of the strikers and by the significant support for the boycott of Iming products by the public. My own site analysis during the strike indicates that support for the strikers, manifested in honking of homs, was common. So too, boycon stickers and signs were visible in Saint

John and elsewhere in the province during the strike. Since the strike, a Select

Cornmittee of the New Brunswick Legislature has called for greater regulation of the provincial gasoline market, because prices are higher than the eastem Canadian average, and because Irving Oil and lmpenal Oil control over 60% of retail sales in the province.

Letters to the Editor in the provincial papers show a balance between pro- and anti-

Irving opinion, rather than being overwhelmingly pro-Irving in content, as tended to be the case in the past. The attitudes of some people have also hardened since the strike.

One citizen of Sackville, NB, reported that in his search for barbecue propane, a service station manager sent him across town to get propane rather than suggest that he buy it from the nearby Irving station, on the grounds that the Irving product was overpriced and the company was unethicaL3 These sentiments are not reflected in the N.B. media coverage of the Refmery strike and it could be that the hand of the Irving publishers is behind this lack of critical coverage.

Further evidence of a connection between the coverage of the stnke and the

Irving-owned media was the singular association of the company with "good news". Thus, what was good for the company was invariably connected to what was good for

New Bninswickers. When Irving Oil maintained high production levels wtiile

replacement workers and management ran the plant during the strike, the media

heralded their accomplishment with laudatory coverage of this as a boon for New

Brunswick's fiscal health. Yet when strikers threaten to initiate a boycott of Irving

products, this was proclaimed as a dire threat to the heaith of the provincial economy.

The Globe and Mail

The language in The Globe and Mail coverage of the Refinery strike follows

some of the patterns seen above where the strikers are seen as a harassing the public,

yet are only a nuisance to the company that clearly has the upper hand. The striken

are reported to have been dropping nails outside Canada's largest Oil Refinery, presenting a threat to vehicles that cross the picket lines (October 19, 1994), yet the

workers are said to have blown theirfinai chance when they rejected the latest proposa1

(December 13, 1995), and the strike's mediator is quoted as saying "TheyLe lost the strike - they're darnn lucky to get anything" (December 13, 1995). This final quote is

of interest, in that mediator Innis Christie's final report was highly critical of the Irving groups' behaviour throughout the strike. Yet it was the defeatist language and the

quotations most critical of the strikers that got the most press coverage.

Parallels exist between this type of portrayal and those observed in analyses of media coverage of international political conflicts where a resistance goup seeks progressive social change in opposition to a state power that resists those initiatives (Steuter, 1997). For example, in the case of the Paleshians and the IsraeIis, western media coverage consistently shows the violent nature of the PaIestinians while ignoring or trivialking the similarly violent actions of the Israelis. Yet in addition the Israelis are also always shown as calmly being in complete control of the situation. 1 would argue that this portrayal positions them as respected forces of law and order enacting restra.int against a violent but ultirnately defeatable opponent. In many ways the coverage of the Refinery strike bears some similarities to this Middle Eastern case.

These particular striking workers who are highly skilled, well paid, senior union activists shodd rightfully be considered a significant voice of resistance to the Irvings' attempts to roll back labour rights. ïhe fact that these particular workers went on strike in the first place instead of just biding their time for early retirement packages, has been interpreted by labour analysts as a symbol of the importance of this strike and the status of labour's power over central principles of workers' rights across the country. Yet, despite references to the threat the strikers pose to tourists and replacement workers, the overall tone towards the strikers is one in which they are represented as foolish in their attempt to cross the Irving oil giant. This type of coverage, whether a conscious decision on the parts of the joumdists and editors or not, has, one could argue, the effect of minimizing the effectiveness of the resistance of the workers and boistering the sense of power of the Company. This sends a message, as we shall see, to other

Irving employees, that the giant can take on dl corners. The theme of workers as aggressive and destructive is also evident in the coverage by other Canadian papers: Strikers wmof tougher tactics (CaIgmy Herald,

May 12, 1996); Strike backes target to wists (Chronick-Herdd, Juiy 27, 1996); Labour threatens IMng blockade (The Guardian, July 19, 1995); strike breakers suing union leaders for intimidarion (Daily News, January 16, 1996); proteston Iash out at Irving

(Daily News, February 25, 1996). Yet despite the inflarnrnatory language, these other papers also contained portrayals of the strike that were not as directly accusative of the workers. The difference in language use between the N.B. papers and the those outside of the IMng control can be clearly seen in the following exarnple. Al1 of the New

Brunswick papers carried the following story issue in the first week of the strike

(emphasis added):

PICKET LINES UP AT THE REFINERY

Picketing energy workers sIowed traffic at Canada's largest oil refinery Friday, the second day of a strike against Irving Oil Ltd.

The workers set up picket lines at both entrances to the plant in this southern New Brunswick city, frustrating tanker-truck drivers trying to pick up gasoline.

IMng continued to operate the refinery with about 170 non-union workers, including management and office staff.

The 267 refmery employees, members of Local 691 of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada walked off the job Thursday. (TJ, DG, TT, ETG May 14, 1994)

The language in this article emphasizes the inconveniences caused by the striking workers, and presents the Inhg company as the party that has to cope with the

situation caused by forces outside of itself. In contrast the following item appeared

during the fvst week of the strike in the Winnipeg Free Press (emphasis added):

TAKlNG A STAND

Workers at the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, N.B., walk the line for the fourth day yesterday. The strike at Canada's largest refmery has been peaceful, as the pickets slow down traffic entering and leaving the site. (Winnipeg Free Press, May 17, 1994).

While this article could not be considered a "pro-labour" piece, it certainly used a different style of language than that found in the New Brunswick papers. The strike is described as peaceful and the workers are described as taking a stand, even while delays in trafic are noted.

halysis of the coverage also revealed that the other Canadian papers were more likely to see the Irving company as a bully in a way that was not seen in either the New

Brunswick papen or 7he Globe and Md. Coverage in these papers include information to the effect that New Brunswick's labour board has ruled that the oil giant violated New Brunswick S labour Zaws (Toronto Star, August 9, 1995); the strike at

Irving Oil a battle ground for workrs' rights (Ottawa Citizen, July 24, 1996), Strikers to face bittemess test (Toronto Star, December 16, 1995); and Irving Oil accused of b2acWisting strikers (Vancouver Sun, January 3, 1996).

One interesting result revealed in the language analysis is the way in which the

New BNnswick papers and The Globe and Md are set apart fiom the other Canadian papers in their apparent unwillingness to use certain language that diectly cnticks the

Irving Company. The other Canadian papers in the study ahost dl, at some point, referred to Irving 'brainwashing' and 'blacklisting' of strikers whereas these words never appeared in the N.B. coverage nor that of The GIobe ond Md.This more cntical coverage is evident in the following item from the Vancouver Sun.

FIRMS TRYING TO ALER VIEWS OF EMPLOYEES

THE PRACTICE HAS SURFACES IN NEW BRUNSWICK WHERE EX- STRIKERS MUST ADAPT TO NEW ATTITUDES

Organized labor is alarmed at a new trend in Canada's workplace;retooling employee attitudes through psychological programming. The practice has corne to light in New Brunswick where the powerfûl Irving family is requiring former strikers to pas a kind of bittemess test before they can retm to their jobs at Irving Oil's Saint John refinery.

An acrimonious, 27-month strike at the refinery ended last August and now about 100 unionized workers who survived the walkout and subsequent buyouts are being put through what the company cdls reorientation.

Labor leaders said Wednesday the reorientation is actually brainwashing and they want the provincial government to investigate on the basis of labor Iaw and possibly human nghts violations.

Sources say the reorientation involves a combination of anger management and attitude aiteration. Former strikers mut socialize with replacement workers who crossed picket lines during the strike; they must be cooperative; they must be appreciative of work and they must accept the union was wrong. (Vancouver Sun, January 30, 1997).

The other papers were also more likely to introduce alternative ways to solve the strike that wouid not be considered in the management's best interest. For example the

Vancouver Sun ran a story featuring an proposal put forward by the New Brunswick N.D.P. leader, Elizabeth Weir, in which she suggests that the N.B. government should

cd1 in the Irving Companies loans if they wouldn't agree to settle the strike. Weir's

press conference was not covered by the New Brunswick papers or The Globe and

Mail.

Thus, in cornparison to the New Brunswick papers and The Globe and Mail, the

coverage in these other papers gave readers more of a sense that the Irvings were

violating labour codes, that worker's nghts were on the line during this strîke, and that

the strikes' conclusion may resuit in a disturbing increase of corporate power through

the introduction of ideological re-education of the work force.

These differences may be explained as follows. The New Brunswick papers, which the Irvings own, use language that is more likely to support Irving 0i1 than the strikers, as we would expect. The Globe and Mail, in its Report on Business, is one of the most Neoliberal newspapers in Canada and it should not be surprising that it is pro-business in its coverage. Many other Canadian papers, during the strike at least, were not accountable to the Irvings, who, because of their vertical integration investrnent strategy, have Iittle influence in Canada west of the Maritimes. One of the consequences of withdrawing fiom the Canadian Press news cooperative is that the

IMngs have also given up influence in that organization as well. So joumaiists, columnists and editors in these papers had the luxury of casting a more critical eye on the Irving actions. Sources

Previous analyses of media (Clow, 1993) have pointed out that in order to

examine ideologicd bias in the news, it is useful to examine who the joumalists have

approached for information and how that information is presented in the news articles.

A news story that tries to achieve a balanced account of a controvenial issue will make

every attempt to include information and quotations from al1 parties involved, and will

not overly rely on one side's account of events. In order to investigate this, one could

code each story for a defining source and a responding source. The defining source

would be the lead person quoted in the article, while the responding source would be

someone on another side of the issue who would respond to the view taken by the lead

source. On occasion supporting sources would be added to elaborate the position of

either the defining or responding source. One would expect that, given the previous

evidence of a decidedly negative tone of the papers toward the strikers, this pattern

would be Mer reinforced. This means that we should expect that the Irving

companies would be given significantly more opportunities to be the defining source

and therefore have a greater oppomuiity to explain their view of the situation to the

readership of the papers, with or without the union as a responding source.

However, this was not the case. The results of this analysis proved to be fairly consistent across al1 the papers covered (See Table 3). The union accounted for 35 per cent of the defining sources while the Company accounted for only 19 per cent. Other defullng sources were govenunent sources at 14 per cent, sources critical of the Table 3 Percentage of Articles DefinedlResponded to by Various Sources

Total Telegraph Times Journal Globe Mail (n = 377) (n = 80) (n = 112) Union Defining 35 36 38 Responding 35 32 44 Company Definhg 19 12 Responding 35 43 Opposition Politicians Definhg 5 1 Responding 4 11 Government Defining 14 22 Responding 8 7 Others - Critical of the Company Defining 12 11 Responding 3 O Others - Critical of the Union Defining 3 7 Responding 5 2 Neutral Defining 12 11 Responding 10. 5 company at 12 per cent, neutral sources (such as local clergy &ing a conclusion to the

issue) also at 12 per cent, opposition politicians at 5 per cent, and other sources who were cntical of the union, at 3 per cent. In tems of responding sources, the union and the company were more evedy matched at about 35 per cent. Neutra1 responders made up 10 per cent, government responden were 8 per cent, those critical of the union were

5 per cent, opposition politicians were 4 per cent of responders, and those critical of the company were 3 per cent of responders. Thus the union was either the defining source in a story or the responding source in 70 per cent of the articles, while the company was the definer or responder only 54 per cent of the time. This means that the union had more oppominities to put fonvard their version of events to the journalists and the readership. This raises the question, why did the headline and language andysis of the strike coverage not reveal a detailed portrayal of the strikers issues? These findings reveal that the company was not featured as the defining source in the stones about the strike. Given the hands-on nature of the I~ing'srelationship as publishers of their papers, it is highly unlikely that the Irving's did not have access to the journalists, directly or indirectly, who were at the same time Irving employees.

Silence as a Bargainhg Tactic

Rather, it seems more likely that the company was not interested in speaking to their own or anyone else's reporters. Why would this be so? The fvst possibility is that the Inriogs assume the naturainess and universality (what we would cal1 hegemony) of their position, so that since the vast majority consents to this position, there is no need to speak to the media. It may be that this was in fact a tactic on the part of the company to utilize the power of silence. Throughout the media coverage of the Refinery strîke, company president Arthur Inring and senior company oficials refused to speak to the press, with only rare comments fiom Refinery Manager Bob Chalmers. In any other context this would result in a lost opportunity for the company to share its side of the story with the public. In addition, most papen would draw attention to this fact and to put pressure on the company to speak up by reporting that the company had 'no comment' to make. Yet this was aiso not evident in the media coverage of the Refinery strike either within N.B. or elsewhere. When the Irving's Say 'no comment', apparently the journaiists retreat. The absence of Irving commentary on the strike is notable and as the coverage of the strike continues over more than two years, the silence starts to become noticeable as the absence of explicit communication.

Silence has been an area of increasing scholarly attention in recent years, particdarly in the area of communications, where emphasis is placed upon the race, gender, and class aspects of silence in interpersonai com~nunication.~This literature suggests that silence is by no means an absence of communication; rather, silence in fact has substance and can, as the adage goes, be much stronger than words. Jaworski

(1993) notes that silence can be used to silence, to threaten, to trivialize, and to withbold information. In addition there has also been some research done on the notion of silence as a political strategy. Bnimmett argues that mueh political power appears to be denved and maintained through the use of silence. He notes that when a public figure violates expectations by silence, the public's attention is riveted on the silence

as it tries to attribute meanings to it (Brummett, 1980: 290). Brummetî (1 980: 291)

cautions that a context for any event must be carved out of the uoiverse that surrounds

events, and the meanings predictably amibuted to silence guide that carving. Thus,

when the public's expectation of an explanation of the Irving company's position on

a more than two year-long strike is met with silence, an attribution of meaning is

developed which in this particular context becomes one of fear and foreboding.

I would argue that this silence was interpreted through the media as a pending

threat. In the absence of statements by the Irvings, the media filled the silence by

highlighting past incidents of other labour disputes in which the Irvings successfully

threatened workers with retaiiation to end their protests. For example, throughout the

Refinery strike the media often referred to a threat made by the Irvings during the strike

at the Kent Homes manufacturing plant in Bouctouche, N.B. (TJ May 25, 1994)' which

was mentioned in Chapter Six. During that strike, the company threatened to move the

factory to Nova Scotia if the workers didn't back off and the company was successful

in bringing about an end to the strike. Although there was never any threat to this effect made by the Irvings in regard to the Refinery strike, or even any possibility that the billion-dollar Refinery-the biggest of its kind in Canada-would actually be moved, nevertheles the threat remained a sinister subtext throughout the strike. nius the

legitimation process worked so that the Irvings didn't even have to coerce the Refuiery workers--the media, their media, did it for them. It can be argued that this tactic not only helped to undermine support for the striking Refmery workers, but it also served as a cautionary note for workers at the Irving-owned shipyards, who were at this time without contracts and were considenng labour action of their own. Those workea read the writing on the wall and signed concession-filled contracts that further extended company control over the labour process.

This silence tactic connects to a further issue highlighted in this strike which is the matter of false balance. It has ken noted by media analysts that media attempts to present a balanced view of an issue usually involves the jomaiists identiSing themselves as "teasonable" observers who seek to identi6 a middle ground between the position of the company and that of the union. Yet when the company's position has been placed to the far right of the debate-in the case of assumed threats to close down the plant-we see a situation where the middle ground takes a sharp rightward shift.

The consequence of this is an ideological legitimation process that not only obscures ou understanding of the issue but endorses a mentality and action of rollback.

Conclusion

When one determines how many words had been written about this strike in the

Canadian newspapers and then consider what had actually been learned by the reader in that process, the results are very disappointing. Taking into account the need to update new readers on the issue, the newspaper coverage of the strike still runs the equivalent of a 300 page book. Yet a comprehensive, balanced, detailed account of the centrai issues and events of the strike are not presented to the reader. When Noam Chomsky was in Saint John and Fredericton in 1996, he spoke about the phenomenon of rollback, whereby once-gained sociaUpolitical/economic progress was being rolled back as econornic instability and recession allowed for a climate in which corporate and govemmental power did not face the impediment of significant social unrest. He documented how hard-won gains of the last 50 years were being eroded in this new climate and highiighted the legitimation processes that accompanied that through various social institutions.' As we have seen, the two year seike at the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John reveals some interesting documentation of this phenomenon in the Canadian context.

The consequence of this strike extends beyond the lives of the Refinery workers in Saint John. It can be seen as the first step in a move toward rollback of labour and democratic bargaining rights that may be increasingly eroded. In addition the parallel legitimization of this rollback intemally through the ideological re-education program, and extemally through the media not only obscures our understanding of this particular labour issue, but it serves to endorse a defeatist mentality in the face of corporate and govemmental intimidation. We see not only more evidence of rollback of labour rights dong with social services and other central features of Canadian society, but we dso witness an increased legitimation of these practices whereby corporations and corporate- controlled media are working to make the unreasonable seem first, unavoidable, and ultimately, acceptable. 1. The other Canadian papers that I examined were the Calgary Herald, The Chroni cle-Herald (Halifax), Edmonton Journal, The Evening Telegram (St . John' s , Fimancial Post, The Guardian (Charlottetown), The Daily News (Halifax), Hamil ton Spectator, Montreal Gazet te, Ottawa Ci tizen, Toronto Star, Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times -Colonis t , and Winnipeg Free Press. 2. Paper names will be abbreviated as follows: ETG - Evening Times Globe (Saint John) TJ - Telegraph Journal (Saint John) DG - Daily Gleaner (Fredericton) TT - Times Transcript (Moncton) 3. Interview with Geoff Martin, Sackville, NB, June 6, 1997.

4. See, for example, Deborah Tannen and Muriel Saville-Troike (Eds . ) ~ers~ectiveson Silence. Norwood, N. J. : Ablex Publishing, 1985.

5. Chomsky's remarks on those occasions, which only touch on the role of the media, follow closely his four-part series in Z Magazine frorn January to April 1995. Chapter Eight: Conclusions

In this conclusion 1 will review the dysis in this dissertation, and offer answers to the questions raised at the end of chapter one. Eady in this work 1 reviewed the variety of ways in which ideology is understood, and 1 focwed on the fact that there is an ideologicd continuum with inclusive approaches at one end and restrictive approaches at the other. As in any continuum, most real-world theones of ideology fall somewhere between the two extreme points. At the restrictive end, ideology is seen as a coherent belief system, is often labelled as "liberal," "conservative" and so on, and is used ?O support or undermine structures of domination. Approaches tending towards this end were dominant through the nineteenth century, while in the twentieth there has been a more open struggle between the restrictive and inclusive views of ideology.

This inclusive view says that ideologies are not necessady coherent, and certainly canno? always be so easily labelled with a descriptive term. Further, whereas the restrictive forms of ideology are usually debated by sociai elites (and the adherents operate at a fully conscious level), the inclusive view says that ideology pemeates society, culture, economy and politics, and is often seen in the assumptions that are accepted by a wide variety of people. In this dissertation 1 also discussed questions of media bias and the methodology of content analysis. 1 provided the reader with background on the Irving Group of Companies, and 1 analyzed media coverage in

Irvingswned newspapers as well as other Canadian news outlets. 1 will also discuss possible policy action to address the concems raised. Ultimately, 1 conclude that this case snidy supports the critical polificol economy

approach to ideology in the media As we saw in chapter four, this approach

emphasizes the role of ownership in selecting editors and staff, the influence of

advertisers in affecthg news and editorial content, and the promotion of conservative

media as a consequence of limited cornpetition. I believe that the other approaches

yield some insights, but this case study largely supports the continuing relevance of a

cntical political economy approach.

In this conclusion 1 will take up and discuss my initial questions in turn.

1. How is ideology defined?

1 have noted above that there is a continuum defined by two major approaches to ideology. In chapter three I concluded that al1 of these approaches to ideology have their place, since they al1 raise valid questions. Approaches tending towards inclusiveness seem to be dominant among non-liberals, and among critically-minded academics, while liberal academics and mon journalists tend toward the restrictive view. I also believe that given the complexity of advanced industrial societies in this century, the more inclusive forms of ideology have continually gained adherents and thus have mounted a major challenge to advocates of the restrictive view.

2. What evidence is there in this case stuày to support the restrictive and inclusive definiions of ideology?

1 believe that the case study on the Irving Oil Refinery Strike shows that media, in this case newspapers, present a range of ideologies fiom the inclusive to restrictive ends of the continuum. However, they are now much less likely to promote ideology in the restrictive seme than the literature suggests, and they now promote ideology in the inclusive sense. In other words, the newspapers in the study, with the partial exception of the Telegruph Joud, did not consistently support "Neoliberaiism," that ideology which gives rise to the strategy that the Irvings employed during this strike, nor did they support any other restrictive ideology. Rather, the dominant sense advanced by the newspapers was a mish-mash of "commonsense" and populisrn. The newspapers were "redistic," in the sense that they promoted "defeatism" among citizens, who should know better than to challenge the Irvings. Also, the newspapers promoted individualism, that is to Say, a seme of isolation, among their readers. They encouraged division within the working clms, which instead of feeling solidarity with the miking workers, was encouraged in the view that the refinery workers needed to be brought dom a few notches to everyone else's level. These elements of defeatism, individualism and populism are ideological, but fit much better into the inclusive sense of ideology than the restrictive sense.

3. Whevidence is there to support Eagleton's mode[ of ideology?

As we have seen from the first chapter, Eagleton's work emphasizes the following aspects of ideology : rationalkafion, legitimization, universalization, dehistoricization, and naturulization. In the case study we saw how the media using the commonsense ideology discussed above supports Eag Ieton's claim.

Rationaiization - As we have seen, the media played a significant role in rationalizing the company's position during the strike. Edito~distswere explicit about the need for

restruchuing, and these assumptions were reasonably cornmon in news stories.

Legitimation - The media also legitimized the changes at the refmery by taking as a

given the rights of ownership to nui the operation as they see fit. There is no

discussion of first principles, in the sense that no one ever asked whether it is

acceptable that a farnily in a small province would be allowed to accumulate at least $9

billion in assets and a great deal of power. The newspapers never asked questions like

whether governments should change a labour relations system that tends to favour

employers. The newspapers never asked why workers should not demand total control

over production if their last bit of control was being taken away. One can hear these

questions on the Street, but the editorialists never asked these questions; neither did the jomalists; nor did their independent columnists. As Chomsky would Say, these questions are simply outside of the elite-defined, acceptable bounds of discourse.

Universaiization - The media also treated these new principles of economic organization as universaMy valid. Instead of seeing restnicturing and re-engineering of the work place as a feature of the technological and political-economic circurnstances of the

1990s, whatever the media had to say was treated as universally mie. This is closely connected to, and perhaps a result of, the next point.

Dehistoncization - We see the lack of history in the sense that at no time did any newspaper look into the history of the Irving Group's industrial relations, which 1 outlined briefly in chapter six. Further, and more specifically, no effort was made to look for commonalities between the refinery strike of 1963-64 with the strike of the

1990s. To some extent, this lack of history is explained by the political economy

approach, which suggests that powerful people are not interested in the Iessons that

good history is prepared to teach. The Irvings know about their industrial relations

past, but they are not dl that interested in encouraging people to identify patterns of

behaviour. Also, this absence of history is partly explained by the News Construction

Perspective on the media. This perspective points to the lack of expertise on the part

of joumalists to do this kind of historical digging, the absence of beats such as one

focusing on labour rights, the pressure of daily deadlines, and the lack of interest in

putting the necessary resources, in an era of limited revenues and profit priorities, into

such a venture. .

Naturalization - These considerations also neatly explain the way that media naturalizes

the existing system in this case. By naturalization 1 mean the media's tendency to

present new initiatives as necessary and normal. Irving Oil Ltd. claimed that cutting

wages, benefits and reorganizing the production process were necessary for the competitiveness of Irving Oil. However, these claims were made without provision of any supporting evidence. Neither the oil industry trade associations nor the consultants to the Govemment of Canada have taken the position that these measures were or are necessary. AI1 the other evidence, presented in chapter six as well, does not support the

Company claims. Yet no print media ran any stories raising any of these issues.

Instead of presenting this context-and there rnay be similar issues that undermine the union side--the Irving papers chose instead simply to present the strike as a power

stmggle, a battie royale, apart fÎom any meaningful background.

4. Is there any vulidity tu joumaIism's claim of objectivity?

To some scholm, this question may seem too obvious to address. However, one

still frequentiy sees reference to "objectivity," so the question must be addressed rather

than ignored. There is a well developed Iiterature which shows how joumalists consciously and unconsciously advance ideologies in the restrictive sense. This research shows that joumalists also advance inclusive forms of ideology. Everything journalists do, every decision that they make, drips with ideology. In no sense do joumalists hold a mirror up to reality. They may strive to be "fair," and to provide "balance," but they are unable, even in theory, to be objective. The critical realism approach, raised in chapter four, is a sound alternative to either objectivity or relativism.

5. How were the employer and the union involved in the refinery strike represented in the employer-Owned papers? In a non-employer O wned paper?

1 have already answered the first part of the question. As for the second part, in chapter seven 1 showed that there were differences between the Irving and non-Irving coverage. Most significantly, the nonoIrving papers, which also happened to be located outside of New Brunswick, and mostly outside of the region, were more likely to recognize as deviant the heavy-handedness of the Irving Group of Companies. As privately-owned, profit-onented enterprises, they did not challenge management rights, nor did they challenge the language of competitiveness and globalization. But they did treat as peculiar the bullying tactics, blackiisting, and brainwashing that the Irvings

engaged in.

6. 1s there a difference in the coverage of this issue within the Irving-owned pupers?

There is not much difference in coverage among the Irving newspapers, but there

is one clear difference that did exist between the Evening Times Globe and the

Telegraph Journal. It should be noted that though these two papers share the same

building on Crown Street in Saint John, they each have their own staffs, including their

own editon, and while they draw from each other's copy, they are nin separately. The

Evening Times Globe is the locally-onented Saint John daily, and its coverage of the

strike was more frequent and also had a different flavour. While the Times Globe did

not criticize the Company, and clearly identified the interests of the Irvings with the

economic health of the city of Saint John, they did undertake some coverage of the

human costs of the strike.

On the other hand, the Telegrcph, the provincial paper, provided less coverage

of the strike and did tend to operate under Neoliberal ideology more than any of the

other papers in the province. There are a number of considerations which explain why

Neoliberal ideology was more likely to make its way into the Telegraph. First, as a province-wide paper the Telegraph tends to focus less on "human interest" articles and more on major public policy issues. Most importantiy, as I described in chapter six, the Telegraph was the first Irving paper to receive a makeover in the early 1990s, of both its layout as well as its content. It aspired to become somewhat more highbrow, and it created a magazine called The Reuder in its Saturday issue, which contains longer feature-length pieces. The Irvings also hired Neil Reynolds, the Editor-in-Chief of the

Kingston Whig-Standard, to corne in to take over the paper. Reynolds, a self-professed

£tee-market libertanan, brought a number of Neoliberals with him, including Scott

Anderson, the Managing Editor during the strike penod. The entire paper, relative to the others in New Brunswick, took a Neoliberal tum during this penod. One was more likely to find commentaries from the Fraser Institute, the C. D. Howe Institute, the

Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, and other right-of-centre sources than alternatives in the centre or left.

The Telegraph, during and since the strike, has proven to be something of a

Neoliberal "brain trust." Reynolds and Anderson have gone to take over Conrad

Black's Ottawa Citizen, and the Editorial Page Editor of this penod, Don Cayo, took a leave-of-absence in 1997 to be President of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, a big-business-backed, Neoliberal think tank located in Halifax. So given the personnel involved, it should be no surprise that Neoliberal ideology did sneak into the Telepph more than the other papers.

7. Are there elements of chmismatic or traditional authoriîy (as oppsed ro rational-

Zegal authority) Ni worker and public attitudes to the I~ingGroup, and how does it affect the working of ideology?

Our earlier discussion of Max weber' raised the possibility that ideology is comected to the type of authority that exists in society. As 1 have said, little work has ken done on the specific culture of New Brunswick However, there is a school of

thought that points to the Maritime provinces as more "traditional" and ''consemative"

than the rest of Canada, owing to the ethnic homogeneity of the area, relative Iack of

urbanization, and the high degree of economic inequality, high rates of unemployment and lack of upward mobility. There is evidence to suggest that part of the authority of the Irving Group rests on charismatic and traditionai authority, exercised by the Irvings, instead of just the rational-legal authority which is now so fmiliar in North American capitalism. K. C. Irving was a charismatic figure; according to al1 of his biographers he was a man who inspired great personal loyaity among his friends, acquaintances, and employees. His three sons are not charismatic, but their words resonate based on the traditional authority of their family narne.

Jack, Jirn and Arthur, and their descendants, are respectively third- and fourth- generation members of a prominent New Brunswick family. K. C.'s father, J. D. Irving

(whose name Iives on in the form of his original forestry company), was referred to as the "Baron of Bouctouche," so the youngest Irvings are in fact the fourth generation in the lineage. In a province where family lineages are important, the Irving name has conferred significant traditional authority upon those who now control the group. This helps explain the presence of the forms of ideology that I have referred to as inclusive.

The cornmonsense defeatism and individualism, which have been as important as anythmg else in the Irving media coverage of the strike, are the product of a society we can still describe as conservative, with a fied hierarchy. By offering this sort of ideology to the reader, the newspapers are confdng Elkins and Simeon's (1980) view of New Brunswick: You don? trust the Irvings, but you know you cannot do anythhg about it, so you might as well figure out a way to live with it.

8. What con media anaiysis literuture and practice contribute to Our understanding of ideology?

I believe that we lem a great deal about ideology as we undertake media analysis, for a number of reasons. First, communication media have overtaken other social institutions, such as education and religion, as the primary forces of legitimization. I Say this because media in al1 of its forms are pervasive in most

Canadian's lives from birth to death, whereas the central social institutions of the past, such as religion, the family and education, have a much more sporadic influence.

Therefore, the contents of the media become quite important from the perspective of perpetuating domination. In addition, the media, including newspapers, are usually the f~stmeans through which ideology is manifested, partly because they have irnmediacy and because they have the capacity to evolve quickly. This means that media analysis like this work can teach us about ideology. For example, our highlighting of the inclusive view of ideology supports the view that focussing on restrictive forms of ideology tends to lead to underestimation of the importance of ideology in social discourse. This is because ideology increasingly takes the form of ideologies outside of the traditional political spectnim, and other ideologies that are easily labelled.

9. What can theoretical explorutions of ideology contribute to our understanding of media unalysi$?

The theoretical discussion of ideology in this dissertation shows that conceiving

of ideology only in the restrictive sense is inadequate. One of the major results of these

theoretical explorations is to undemine the concept of objectivity. One remn why

objectivity persists is that anaiysts operating with the restrictive approach to ideology

think that they are objective so long as they do not support any of the coherent

restrictive ideologies. However, this inclusive view of ideology shows that there are

no circumstances under which there is an absence of bias. Such an insight derives from

the theoretical study of ideology, and also has implications for how we study the media.

This anwer, like many of the considerations in this conclusion, provoke us to

consider the policy implications for the Canadian media and Canadian govemments.

It is well known that the print media are less regulated by govemments than dl other

media, in part because of the precedent of declining interference by the state over the

last 200 years. Additionally, the justification for state interference in newspapers is

weaker than has been the case with broadcasters' use of public radio wages. However,

numerous sources note that over the 1st thirty years the Canadian public has become

quite concemed about the state of Canada's newspapers (Desbarats, 1990; Doman,

1996; Hackett, Pinet and Ruggles, 1996; Osler, 1995; Siegel, 1996). The concem was

manifested in 1970, with the appointment and report of the Davey Cornmittee, the

Special Senate Cornmittee on Mass Media, and later, in 1980, with the appointment of the Royal Commission on Newspapers, the Kent Commission. Both of these bodies expressed great concem over corporate concentration of newspaper ownership. Both

bodies proposed steps to prevent fixrîher concentration, and both predicted that in the

absence of these steps, concentration would continue unabated. These predictions have

corne me. In addition, cross-ownership of uni& in different media (radio, television,

magazines, fih, newspapers) has also become a major issue. It is reasonable to suggest

that since the Canadian newspaper indm is a state-based industry (and not a

globaiized industry), it is especially appropriate to apply anti-combines legislation to

increase competition in the Canadian newspaper market.

However, oucase shidy points not only to the danger of corporate concentration

of newspapers, but also to the pnvate ownership of newspapers and other media The

media coverage of the Irving Oil Refinery Strike was not good in Irving Newspapen,

but we can hardly say that it was exemplary in other outlets. In light of this, we also

need to develop creative alternatives to private ownership, in addition to the concentration issue, and we also need to develop mechanisms to monitor existing newspapers. Finding "creative alternatives to private ownership" is especiaily important in the context of a country that would prefer to see Canadian newspapers stay in

Canadian hands. As a matter of public policy we should require disinvestment of large chahs, the creation of employee-owned or cooperative newspapers, and the strengthening of regional or provincial Press Councils that wodd have the right to publish corrections in cases of unfair reporting or editoriaiizing.

IO. How does the idea of hegemony, in the Gramscian sense, include but also go beyond, the vurious rneanhgs of ideology?

In this dissertation, one of the major issues that has been put off to the side has

been the relationship of hegemony, in the Gramscian sense, to ideology. To be sure,

ideology in the inclusive sense cornes closest to the meaning of hegemony. I Say this because while ideologies like Neoliberalism and socialism may be part of a hegemonic society, they are not, alone, the bais for it. A hegemonic order is a social system in which, through coercion and consent, there is a unity of the "objective" conditions

(material) and "subjective" conditions (ideationaVcultura1) of li fe. These subjective conditions include a dominant ideology, or a related set of ideologies, in the restrictive sense, which are for the consumption of the educated, the opinion leaders, and the elites. But the subjective conditions that support the hegemonic order also include the more ephemerd ideological elements, Iike populisrn, defeatism and individuaiism, that are emphasized by the inclusive approach to ideology.

The point is that the experience of the Irving Oil refinery strike, and the media coverage of the dispute, suggest that New Brunswick (and Canada?) are experiencing a hegemonic order, or something very close to it. Many commentators have thought that the postwar hegemony of the Westem world lasted from 1945 to the late 1960s, or possibly until the early 1970s. The postwar hegemonic order, in the Westem world at least, was based on full employrnent, income growth, genuine democratization and social development As a result of the rise of transnational social conflict in the 1960s and 1970s, the '70s and '80s can be thought of as a non-hegemonic period, in which oppositional forces were strong enough to prevent the uniting of a new set of objective

conditions (as a resuit of economic change) with a new set of subjective conditions.

By the mid-1990s, however, one can argue that this pend of transition is over

and a new hegemonic order has been stabilized. Economically, this order is Neoliberal,

emphasizing the small size of govemment and the dominance of the economy by

monopolistic corporations. This is a permanent, high-unemployrnent regime in which workers, both individudly and collectively, have very IittIe power. Formerly-national economies are increasingly integrated in the global economy. Politically, the state in this order is ineffectual, clairning an inability to act as any kind of check upon the market. Socially and culturaily there is conflict, but also a great deal of resignation and hiniing away from the public sphere. There is certainly significant dissent against this new order, but it is of a small level that is entirely consistent with the daim that the hegemony has been stabilized.

This study of the operation of ideology in the media during the Irving Oil refmery strike of 1994-96 cm be seen as a point of evidence in favour of the view that a new hegemony has been stabilized. The employer went on the offensive, and achieved its goals based on high levels of unemployrnent and the availability of replacement workers, as well as a significant weakening of those social forces that still support the postwar hegemonic order mentioned above. The Neoliberal provincial govemment did nothing, as we would expect. The media played its role by providing

Neoliberal justifications for the attentive public as well as more populist, individualist and defeatist messages for the less educated. Many people in society now see outcornes like the refmeiy strike as purely nad, itseif a sign of the stabiiimtion of Neoliberd hegemony .

In summary, it appears that reports of the death of ideology have been greatly exaggerated. This dissertation has made a contribution to the academic discussion of ideology by asserting that ideology can no longer be so quickly identified with the restrictive view, and dismissed as a resuit of this association. The inclusive view of ideology is growing: yielding a greater understanding of the complexity of recognizing ideologies and understanding their influence. A fNitfu1 social analysis must be rooted in an understanding of ideology as a continuum; by cultivating such a view, we enrich our understanding of the social world. May 12, 1994 - At 4:30 p.m., 264 members of Local 691 of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) union went on legal strike at the Irving Oil Refmery Ltd. in Saint John, New Brunswick. Refhery manager, Bob Chaimers, says without union concessions the refinery is in danger of shutting domUnion president, Larry Washburn, maintains that the Irving Oil is lengthening work weeks without paying overtime or hiring on new staff.

May 16, 1994 - Irving Oil successfulIy requests an injunction limiting numbers on the picket Iine and to prevent impeding of trac.

June 16, 1994 - Irving Oil takes the union to court on contempt charges for allegedly violating the order of May 16th, but this battle ended with only a waming from the judge.

July 18, 1994 - The union calls for a province-wide boycott of dl Irving Oil petroleum products. The New Brunswick federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress pledge their support.

August 13, 1994 - More than 200 people take part in a city-wide union rally in support of the striking workers.

September 10, 1994 - More than 400 people show up for another union rally in support of the striking workers.

October 17, 1994 - IMng Oil takes the union to court again but contempt charges were dropped once the Local agreed to pay $500 for alleged damages to tires and reduce its number at the back gate to eight strikers at any one time.

October 19, 1994 - Irving Oil exceeds pollution emission levels, with permission from the provincial govemment. Local residents cornplain.

October 31, 1994 - IMng Oil attempts to have workers fined for contempt over alleged misdeeds on the picket line. The judge suspends this bid.

November 23, 1994 - While the union executive was at the CEP National Convention, Irving Oil management sent a Ietter to al1 striking workers encouraging them to corne back to work through their own picket Iines. A new contract proposal is made, in which several key Company offers have ken withdrawn.

November 29, 1994 - The union meets with a mediator to look for a break in the strike.

December 20,1994 - Two members of the Saint John Common Council cal1 for the city to get involved in the strike.

January 19, 1995 - The fvst two union members cross their picket line and go back to work.

January 25, 1995 - IMng Oil sends a letter to the union saying there is no point in negotiating unless the striken agree to the company's last offer.

Febmary 2, 1995 - Advanced Education and Labour Minister, Camille Thenault, says he will not ban the use of replacement workers during strikes.

Febmary 12, 1995 - Seven more workers cross the picket Iine.

March 21, 1995 - In the Legislative Assembly Elizabeth Weir, the province's lone NDP MLA, introduced Bill 21, which proposed to ban the use of replacement workers during a strike. This provision was part of the provincial Liberal Party pladorm, but it had never been introduced into legislation. The bill passed first and second reading and then was sent to the Law Amenciments Cornmittee for hearings.

March 21, 1995 - Two more workers cross the picket lines.

April 5, 1995 - CEP Local 69 1 files unfair labour practices charges with the New Brunswick Industrial Relations Board, alleging Irving Oil has bargained in bad faith.

April 7, 1995 - I~ngOil sends a letter to the union stating that the refmery work force will be slashed afler the strike, eliminating 120 jobs.

May 23, 1995 - The two sides meet face-to-face for the first time since the strike began, and despite the fact that they both went through govemment-sponsored conciliation before the strike, there was no government conciliator or mediator present.

May 25, 1995 - Talks break dom. May 26, 1995 - Management brings forward new demands, including a "Volunbry Severance Package," which encouraged striking workers to apply for severance during the strike.

June 22, 1995 - The unions asks the New Brunswick Labour and Employment board to find Inring Oil guilty of unfair labour practices because the severance package proposal was offered directly to the workers. The union claims that Irving Oil violated the Indutriai Relations Act by bypassing the union and bargainhg directiy with its members. 8 July 17, 1995 - Nearly 2,000 union supporters show up at a rally for the striking workers.

Juiy 25, 1995 - Larry Washbum says pressures created by the prolonged strike have taken their toll on workers. Financiai and family pressures resulting from the strike are blamed on the heart attacks suffered by two union members. Forty-five members have crossed the line since the strike began.

August 9, 1995 - The labour and employment board niles that Irving Oil acted in bad faith when it offered early retirement packages directly to striking workers. Irving Oil is told to go back to the negotiating table.

Aupst 12, 1995 - The union extends an offer to the Company to go back to the bargaining table. Talks begin.

October 4, 1995 - Irving Oil brings a contempt of court action alleging that refinery workers have blocked traffic coming in and out of the refinery gates. The judge orders the demonstrators to pay $200 in restitution to repair a car that was damaged.

November 9, 1995 - Ninety per cent of siriking workers vote to reject the latest offer. Ilncluded in the offer is a Iist of 86 striking workers the IrWig Oil does not want back. This Iist includes the entire union executive. Later that night, newly-appointed Advanced Education and Labour minister Roly MacIntyre appoints an Industrial Inquiry Commission, composed in this case by Mr. Imis Christie, a prominent Nova Scotia labour lawyer and law professor.

January 2, 1996 - After mediation fa&, Mr. Christie calls for public hearings into the issue. Fi*-three workers have crossed the picket line since May 1994. Others have left and found other jobs. Some took severance packages. The striking union is down to 180 members. January 15, 1996 - Irving Oil contests a summons issued by Mr. Christie ordering refinery manager, Bob Chalmers, to produce certain documents at the hearing. Irving Oil also seeks to have ML Christie removed fiom the hearings.

January 24,1996 - Mr. Justice Turnbull desthe hearlligs will go ahead in Febniary with Mr. Christie at the helm. However, vital Irving Oil documents are ruled out of bounds.

February 12, 1996 - While public hearings begin, Irving Oil representatives do not show up for their scheduled appearance at the hearings. Irving Oil sen& termination notices to 54 striking worken.

February 13, 1996 - Irving Oil lawyers present a challenge to the New Brunswick Court of Appeai contesting the Mr. Christies' roIe. The Court of Appeal des against the Irvings.

February 13, 1996 - For the second day in a row, Irving Oil officiais don't show up at the public hearings. Later that night, Mr. Christie writes up a warrant for the =est of Mr. Chalmers if he does not show up at the hearings.

Febmary 14, 1996 - Irving Oil mounts a court challenge, staying the arrest warrant. The Company is contesting the summons and the warrant.

Febmary 15, 1996 - Mr. Justice Turnbull does not give Irving Oil a court date.

Febmary 16, 1996 - Pending an appeal of Mr. Justice Turnbull's decision, Mr. Christie adjourns the hearings.

February 22, 1996 - Mr. Justice Michel Bastarache of the New Brunswick Court of Appeds throws out Irving Oil's appeai and orders Chalmers to attend the hearings or go to jail. Mr. Chalmers issues a release saying he will appear at the hearings. Later that night the two sides contact Mr. Christie to tell him that negotiations are back on. The hearings are delayed pending the result of those negotiations.

March 21, 1996 - Negotiations break down. The major obstacle to a settlement was INing Oil's insistence on firing 37 of the striking workers.

March 26, 1996 - Hearings resume and Mr. Chalmers fudlly appears. Bus loads of Irving Oil supporters are brought to the hearings. The strikers are also there in full force. People in the crowd micker when Mr. Chatmers is swom in. During his testimony the refhery manager says that seniority is only good for scheduling vacations.

Aprii 11, 1996 - M..Christie issues his report and says the union has lost the saike. His recommended co11ective agreement clearly favours Irving Oil. In his report, Mr. Christie says the union should return to work minus 37 members the Company does not want back. The inquiry has cost New Bninswick tax payers $90,000.

April 13, 1996 - A seikea' rally in front of the N.B. legislature attracts 700 people. The union calls on the provincial govemment for help.

April 16, 1996 - Mr. Chalmers announces that the refinery has received 1,800 job applications.

May 12,1996 - The second anniversary of the strike. There are oniy 143 strikers left of the 242 that began the strike.

June 2, 1996 - While the union executive is away at a New Bninswick Federation of Labour conference, a Irving Oil offer is delivered to the union.

June 14, 1996 - The union votes on the latest offer. Sixty-seven percent vote against the proposed contract.

June 15, 1996 - Irving Oil Ltd. .sues strikers accused of harassing custorners at an IMng gas station.

August 13, 1996 - After 825 days, CEP Local 691 votes 59% in favour of a new contract, which provided for some concessions on senionty, flexibility, and for the termination of 37 union members.

December, 1996 - Workers at the Irving-owned shipyard accept a contract that reduces worker's beiîefits and expands the Irving's flexibility.

January 1997 - Mandatory reonentation programme for retuniing stnkers is called brainwashing by labour leaders.

March 1998 - Irving Oil announces plans to undertake $600 million upgrade of the refinery. Bibliography

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