IDEOLOGY, ECONOMICS AND JOURNALISM

This chapter focuses on the issue of ideology, economic ideologies, and ideology in economic journalism. Following on from Chapter 2, “Economic Imaginaries, Economics Theories and the Role of Economic Journalism”, this chapter will think about how these economic theories may be present in our everyday life. How what we may think of as “common sense” may be drawn from contested economic theory and ideology. The media is one of the key places where we learn about economic issues, not simply in the finance pages of print newspapers but also across the entire media system. Economic ideologies can be present everywhere, whether in news programmes, talk shows, documentaries or even reality TV. For the purpose of this book, we will concentrate on what is termed business, finance or economic journalism. However, the ideas within can be utilised across the entire media sphere. The chapter will begin by discussing key aspects of ideological theory, drawing from classical thinkers such as Marx and Gramsci and postmodernists such as Foucault. This is an important grounding to understand economic journalism, because economic journalism practice, much like other aspects of journalism and communications, is grounded in ideological structures.