r/AskSociology

It's weird but this is in noway a new phenomenon. Indeed, it has been going on since the Antebellum era. The Southern Democrats were really obsessed with English romantic and chivalric literature, especially the works of Walter Scott. They even portrayed themselves as the true Anglo-Saxon/Norman civilization of America.

Meanwhile, the Republicans only cared about England in so far as if she may intervene in their Civil War. They didn't even look up to England's abolitionism.

This continued towards the World Wars where the Democrats were far more supportive of intervention in Europe. Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy explicitly sought to make the United States a participant in European affairs and to construct a system of international collective security.

However, the Republicans would stop that from happening and even refused to join the League of Nations, an organization that an American president had created.

The Second World War also continued the pattern but to a lesser extent as both Democrats and Republicans generally favored supporting the United Kingdom matireally, and were both hostile to the Nazis even before the war unlike the Kaiser.

Even during the Cold War where both parties were extremely internationalist and America was far more concerned with Asia, the Democrats still managed to edge out by having a more international tone while the Republicans favored an Americentric one.

This is weird since both parties viewed the European democracies as brother countries but the main difference was what they emphasized. The Democrats emphasized them as well as human rights and stuff to boot while the Republicans mainly talked about just America as the last bastion of freedom.

In classic Marxist, state was considered Machine of repression which ensure ruling class to hold their domination over working class. But Althusser notes that no ruling class can maintain power with repression for a long time, it must also ensure reproduction of relations of production for a capitalist System to survive. Thus, within this framework Althusser introduces distinction between Repressive state apparatus (RSA) and Ideological State apparatus (ISA). Ideological state apparatus includes institutions like schools, churches, Media, which ensures Systemic Stability. It is the ISA which secures reproduction in relations of production. Althusser observed Major shift in Composition of ideological power as in early medieval age the church was primary ideological state apparatus, but it was after French revolution bourgeois class overthrow the church and replaced it with school**.**

Now again we are witnessing a shift in ideological power with digital realm in focus. In Contemporary World, the citizens are no longer dominated by religion, television or school, instead, the dominant ideological apparatus in today's world is social media the algorithmic feed and digital networks. Social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat perform functions of traditional media ideological state apparatus in today's times.

In the past, individuals go to school which trained people according to their skills, do their cultural conditioning but now the same thing is done by digital platforms as they participate in the reproduction of social practices in contemporary times. In traditional era, the institution largely addresses the subject whereas now in the digital Era, this becomes personalized through continuous observations, interactions which later create feedback loop for consumers. This gives us a new type of interpretation, i.e. digital interpretation where social networking apps collect users’ data classified it and serve the user based on their interests, and recommendations. When the individual watches any reel, posts or consumes it, he engages with it as the user recognizes it with its own identity cause Digital platforms are full of recognition mechanisms and the users present themselves through these identities. So, the digital subject is both recognized by individuals and by algorithms. Thus, the Algorithm becomes important mechanism through which specific ideology is distributed. Algorithmic recommendation adds relevance to interpellation by continuously categorizing, addressing and personalizing content for users. Platform servers are important means of digital production, but the platform company generally controls the whole digital infrastructure so from a political economy perspective, the user’s day-to-day digital activities could generate economically valuable data and this further leads to accumulation of capital, central concept in Marxian theory. Thus, digital ideology operates at the intersection of political economy and ideological reproduction: the economic organization of algorithmic platforms shapes the conditions under which ideology circulate, while ideological processes help to reproduce the social relations within which digital capitalism operates.

In conclusion, social media has now become the new ideological state apparatus. Through algorithms, likes, sharing, and notification they influence the user perception and their ideology. The Idea of interpellation is being used by digital platforms forms where individuals are classified, categorized as particular kind of users and then the content is distributed to them. Thus, ideology operates not only through traditional institutions, but it is continuously produced through the interaction between individuals, platforms, algorithms and existing social structures.

References

Louis Althusser 1971 Lenin 1971: Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays

r/AskSociology

Why has the (US) Democratic Party always been more europhilic than the (US) Republican Party?

Why Algorithmic platforms are the new ideological state apparatus: Understanding Althusser Ideological State Apparatus in the 21st century.