MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS

What comes First? The Text or the Meaning?

What comes First? The Text or the Meaning?

Introduction

A number of researchers believe that a change or adjustment in social reality can led to a change in the way the social reality is alleged. However, Karl Marx offers a contradictory analysis, cleared in his materialist way that looks at various perceptions and ideas as the outcome of historical, economical and material social conditions (Parekh, 1982, p.67). Thus, according to Karl Marx, it is reality that makes the mind, and not the other way around. On the other hand, according to Barthes' Marxist view, ideas are constantly political in being the outcome of certain power structures in a specific society at a specific time. Thus, based on the two critical thinkers i.e. Karl Marx and Roland Barthes, in this paper we will discuss that does Ideology simply expresses the material processes and relations of society (Karl Marx), or do the ideas/representations construct the reality?

Discussion

In accordance with Marks, different beliefs and positions held by people, be it moral, religious etc. are made and formed by their material conditions (Evans, 2003, p.46). In my opinion, this is factual, as Marx indicates in another place, to not only historical class and circumstances but also economical and social circumstances (Pines, 1993, p.89). The debate that consciousness is constructed socially was lifted up earlier than Marx, though it was Marx who made it the basis of his social viewpoint. Marx heavily uses and criticizes the Feuerbach's work who declared that religious conviction is ingrained in man's material and actual circumstances, in man's insight of himself and also that god is nothing but an outcrop of his worldly creators (Marx, K. and Engels, 1970, p.34). On the other hand, Marx believes that Feuerbach fall short to bring into description ...