Tim O'Sullivan - Ideology

Tim O'Sullivan (1998) created the term ideology, which refers to a set of ideas which produces a partial and selective view of reality. Ideology involves a widely held ideas or beliefs which are seen as 'common' sense and becomes accepted by society. Ideology helps us to make judgments about the world and the different views people have within it. It can also be argued, and is one mechanism by which a ruling group tries to deceive and control the ruled.

More about Ideology
Ideology implies that a powerful group can choose how and what messages are leaked to the media, and how that society view these people/messages in certain ways because of expectations. An example would be that the powerful want black people to be represented as gang members which have negative connotations, because they have the power to feed this ideology to society, and believe it to be true as this is what the society are told by the more powerful groups who control the media. Ideology is controlled, the audience have to consume their opinion to be the right one, as the audience have no control. 

Terry Eagleton
Terry Eagleton said "Nobody has yet come up with a single adequate definition of ideology."
Eagleton may be right as far as the wording of the concept of ideology is concerned. However, scholars generally agree on the social nature of ideology: it is about social relations, consciousness, and power struggle which play important parts in carrying out ideological objectives.

Ideology and Society
Because of Ideology we have ideas about the world that we live in. Because the media is so powerful it can control what and how ideas are portrayed to an audience/consumer. The more powerful you are in society, the more control you have over how messages are given to an audience.