So, we’ve encountered three different overviews of what ideology is, but let’s organize our own thinking about it. In this discussion board, think about and comment on the following questions:

1. Keeping in mind the material covered in this lesson, describe how you understand ideology in your own words.
Hint: One way to approach this is as follows
a) Describe what ideology is in a brief paragraph (in your own words).
b) Give an example illustrating what you wrote in (a).
c) Write another paragraph (or two), explaining to your reader with additional details, how you understand ideology.

2. How do you understand the difference between conservative and liberal ideology in US politics? What seem to be the big differences, the dividing line? Given an example to backup your arguments.
Hint: try to identify key words (concepts) that play a big role in making someone consider themselves to be liberal or conservative. Then, explain in your own words what those keywords (concepts) mean.

3. How do you understand Althusser’s definition of ideology? Paraphrase it in your own words. Given an example. Hint: you may have to watch the second video again, and find the few places where Althusser’s position is presented.

Hint: Remember, the discussion boards are crucial for us this semester, because they reproduce our in-class conversations. Try to be thorough and write more, rather than less. I will do the same, and make sure by the time we end our discussion, we have covered the key ideas on the module.


To organize things better, I have broken up our conversation into two parts. After finishing here, head over to Discussion Board 3 – part 2 .


Before posting, watch this video, which will show you how to post your answer to this discussion board:

NOTE: Once you’ve scheduled your post to be published on at midnight on Sunday, you can still go back and edit your post until then, if you want to rewrite and/or add to your post.

As a review, follow the following steps to submit your response:

  1. Click on the “+” button in the black bar at the top of the screen
  2. Type a title for the post (it should include your full name)
  3. Type your response
  4. On the right side, click on Categories: and check “Discussion 3.1”
  5. Important: On the right side, at the top: click on the date next to Publish, and enter your post date, which is this coming Sunday, at 11:59pm.
  6. Click Publish and you’re done.

What will happen next is your post will automatically be published by the OpenLab system on Sunday at midnight. The goal here is for all student posts to be published at the same deadline. After that point, you can begin reading each others’ posts, and you have to comment on at least one other student’s post.

Note: please make sure that you schedule your post to be published on Sunday, midnight, not before.

2 thoughts on “Discussion Board 3.1

  1. Ishra Noor
    Understanding Ideology:
    a) Ideology means the set of ideas and beliefs that shape how people see the world and society. It’s like a pair of glasses through which we view everything around us.
    b) For example, think about the idea of capitalism. It’s the belief in free markets and people owning things privately. So, someone who believes in capitalism might think that competition and making money are really important.

    c) Ideology is like a guidebook for how we understand the world. It helps us make sense of things like politics and society. Whether someone leans towards conservatism, which likes things the way they are, or liberalism, which wants to make things fairer, depends a lot on their ideology.

    Understanding Conservative and Liberal Ideology:
    In US politics, conservatives like things to stay traditional, with less government involvement, and value individual freedoms. Liberals, on the other hand, focus more on fairness and equality, and think the government should play a bigger role in helping people. The big difference between them is how much they think the government should do to fix social problems.

    Understanding Althusser’s Definition of Ideology:
    Althusser says ideology is like a tool used by those in power to keep things the way they are. It’s a way of thinking that supports the people who are already in charge. For example, in a capitalist society, the idea that hard work leads to success supports the rich staying rich and the poor staying poor, even if it’s not always true.

  2. 1) Understanding ideology
    a) Ideology are opinions that people have or opinions that a group of people may have. It’s how we all have our set of views, opinions, beliefs in the world.
    b) An example of ideology is pro-choice and pro-life one group of people may believe abortions are okay. It’s the women’s choice with what they want to do with their body. Another group of people are going to believe abortions are not okay because you’re taking away a life.
    c) Ideology is really just perspectives, it’s how we all view the world. It’s like we have different camera lenses on how we view things. So we are going to have different opioids on certain stuff because we don’t see it the same way.
    2) Conservatives like to do things the way it worked in the past, it’s like they are afraid of change. They don’t support the government. Liberals like to do new things, like trying a new system. As well as they are supportive of the government. One big difference that divides them are their beliefs on the government. One side believes they should do things about social issues of the world this way. While the other side may argue that it should be the opposite.
    3) I understand Althusser’s definition of ideology by ideology shows the relationship people have with real life situations. An example of this is how people have different upbringings, so they might react to things differently, do things differently. May have different opinions then you because you guys didn’t have the same upbringings. You guys didn’t see, learn, hear things the same way they did when they were growing up. It plays a big part in how they see the world.

Leave a Reply