Ideologies & Worldviews

Posted by Rochelle White|November 1st, 2024|Worldviews

A comprehensive skill set is to thoroughly analyze the encoded ideologies in the media form when you read or listen to any information. Being able to deconstruct sentence by sentence to see whether the argument stands.

Questions to Ask

1. What bias have they built this concept on?
2. In whose interest does it prefer?
3. Is it logical?
4. Can you see cause-and-effect relationships?
5. Does it stigmatize or overgeneralize?
6. What information is left out?
7. Are the comments fair?
8. What are the pre-conditions that caused this outcome?

It dosn’t matter who we are at any one time, we have blind spots. No one can know everything we are only seeing from one perspective. When you understand this, it helps you to think of a counterargument for any claim.

Often, we speak or write from personal experience. I cannot speak with the same authority as Elon Musk on rockets, as I have not been exposed to that information. I cannot analyze his discussion about rockets because I need more understanding to back that up. However, one who has been through experience and understanding by being involved in the same industry may hear holes in his speech. They will be more likely to hear what is not said and compare the difference in understanding. Therefore, we do not all have the authority to speak on some subjects because we haven’t experienced it.

We can find the dominant ideologies of any institution by observing how they frame ideas.

Many media products on social media platforms have encoded capitalism. More often than not, the platform is after commercial gain. If you observe advertising that has mediated a new form by borrowing influences’ voices to promote certain products as if it is just part of their show, it is a new form of advertising. This is when creators are getting paid by the advertisers for access to their audience. The greater the audience, the more they will pay. They commercialize their platforms by selling their audiences as a commodity to advertisers. The worldwide web has created a convergence culture that brings all people from different nations of the world into one place. It is the trading routes of the economy that has created globalization. However, because of neoliberalism, it has narrowed down the ownership of big tech platforms to a few. This is where they own the means of communication; having as many people as possible on these platforms is in their best interest.

The economic forum declared the new oil of the economy is data. The owners of the means of communication are constantly profiling audiences into targeted demographics and selling that data to advertisers. A new group of platforms has arisen where people sell assets and promote creators because this is the economy’s infrastructure. With information systems, they can promote services. The logic of capitalism and the dominant language of commerce is English. However, they have created tech-savvy platforms where any language can be converted to understanding, which is how they have created successful trading routes. This is why hearing the ideologies behind platform capitalism is important.

Five Types of platforms

1. Renting platforms like Spotify
2. Advertising platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram
3. Industrial platforms like GE and Siemens
4. Lean platforms like Airbnb or Uber
5. Cloud platforms like AWS or Salesforce

They even collect data from the images you take. But not all people have the same access to these platforms, which creates inequality. The use of aesthetics is political, as the cute little bunny or rude images create a stimulus-response by likes, anger, sadness, or love emojis to initiate data collection for commercial ends. Often, spreadable media that goes viral is harmful when people react to negative posts that may stereotype one group, like discrimination or hate speeches, which are used for commercial ends because every reaction is recorded and helps platforms to profile you more accurately. This encourages the kind of posts put there simply to create a reaction. It’s called spreadable media; this is how political parties promote intolerance of another party. It is all in the kind of post that will generate emotional responses.

Often, these videos do not have substance. They target people by framing something sure to create a reaction. Because people do not think interacting with such posts promotes harm even more, this is how faulty narratives are spread. In any news story, we do not see the whole perspective; the reporter has framed a particular aspect, while there could be a completely different narrative than the media portrayed. For this reason we must be people of questions, and we don’t just react to posts because that is the objective. Those types of reactional posts have been put there intentionally for that purpose. Often, people sensationalize and use emotions just to create a response. The best way to stop this kind of harm is by not reacting. When we share negative stuff, we are promoting it.

Practical example

Sometimes, you will see people do this with a woman’s clothing. If we are narrow-minded and not people who question we will react to something as superficial as clothes. If we go back to the 1800s, women wore dresses and corsets, we will never see women in jeans because we are observing a different historical period. Any phenomenon you see that is widespread in culture is because of the broader structures like consumerism promotes womans beauty apparl with clothing styles. Because the economic model is capitalism, we have widespread consumerism. Products like jeans are a reflection of the broader structures. The fact woman do not wear silk is because it is not promoted.

Often, clothing is different from nation to nation. What people wear in India is culturally appropriate and different to America or Australia. It would be strange to see women dressed as they did in the 1800s because of ideology and culture change. That is why culture is fluid; it is constantly changing because the values of a society change sometimes; we don’t see when the cut off point of one culture changes to another, but this is why analyzing the general consensus of the ideas that frame anything anybody says. And to observe the progressive culture and what values are behind that outcome. Often, women and men follow the trends because we have been socialized to conform to the communities we belong. I would not go dressed in a grass skirt with coconuts as a top downtown in my city as it would attract way too much attention because it didn’t fit into the social norms that’s the power and force of conformity.

We must consider things from different aspects

We must hear culturally specific ideologies because often they change if we do not account for that, we can read something through our own lens without considering other perspectives. This is what the convergence culture of the internet has created by bringing all different peoples from different groups and worldviews that may challenge our worldview because it does not fit with our model of the world.

Consider

1. Culture.
2. What is the purpose of this post?
3. Have they got commercial ends as the objective?
4. What drives their content?
5. What are the broader structures that affect any prevalent outcome you see?

Instead of looking at something isolated look from their social location: age, gender, profession, ethnicity, and class. We won’t hear Ray Dalio speaking the same as a Isralie woman as they come from entirely different perspectives based on that information; therefore, we need to consider other perspectives and never let ego get in the way. I love Elon Musk’s philosophy. He embraces negative feedback because others can see what he may not see. If we have pride or ego, we will think they are wrong, and I am right. This is when you are not teachable. Blind spots and ego are two things we all must fight against, but both take humility to hear from another perspective. I cannot write as someone who has been to the top of Mount Everest because that is not my reality. Therefore, I do not understand the trial of that effort or what it actually costs to overcome that feat. Subsequently, before we judge or attack another for something we do not understand, we have no authority unless we have been through the same thing.

Therefore, this is another consideration we want to have when we analyze the worldview behind what someone is saying. It is heartbreaking when you know people agree with a non-truth, but in their mind, they believe it 100%; the only reason you know they agree with a lie is because of life experience. It’s not because of what you know. It is because of what you have experienced. Experience gives a qualified heart surgeon enough information to see someone who hasn’t reached his level of skill understanding to know where they are making an error. It is not pride; it is because he knows from all the thousand times he has operated; therefore, he can see something we can’t see because we don’t have the same information.

Conclusively, ideologies and worldviews are diverse and varied, but being able to see what is missing, what comes from the culture of the earth, how they were influenced to have that perspective, and where that attitude comes from. There is always much more depth behind what anyone says. Always consider that we don’t see from the same perspective, nor could we ever if we have not walked through the same life experiences.

Don’t just react, use your mind to think how they were shaped to think from that perspective.