Ideological+Spring+14

Ideological Criticism In Honor of National Autism Awareness Month  Investigating Beliefs and Values By Neal Geller, Elizabeth Morse, and Philip Warner

The Approach

 * Ideological criticism helps discover and make visible the ideology embedded in an artifact.
 * In doing so, it considers the social and political context in which the artifact was located.
 * "An ideology is a pattern of beliefs that determines a group's interpretations of some aspect(s) (sic) of the world" (Foss, 2009, p. 209).[[image:autism-awareness-ribbon-story.jpg width="418" height="260" align="right"]]
 * Ideological criticism considers how the communication act or artifact influences the audience to share the rhetor's ideology.
 * How effective was the rhetor in making their view the dominant view?
 * How effective was the rhetor in silencing opposing viewpoints?
 * The base role of ideology is hegemony.
 * Hegemony "Invites us to understand the world in certain ways, but not in others." (Foss, 2009, p. 210)
 * Hegemony asserts that there is a correct way to view things, and, in doing so, quietly suggests that other viewpoints are incorrect.
 * In summary:
 * Everyone believes and values different things.
 * Those beliefs and values shape our initial reactions to the things that we encounter (Adeney, 1995).
 * The most natural response to a stimulus that contradicts our assumptions is fear.
 * "The fear is different for everyone, whether we want to believe it or not but the reality is - everyone perceives everyone differently" (Abrams, Hogg, & Otten, 2005, p. 101).
 * Understanding the ideology behind an act or artifact that frightens you can can reframe your understanding of it.
 * Understanding often reduces or eliminates fear (Hall, 2005).

The Artifact
Carly was diagnosed with autism at a young age. She is not able to communicate verbally, which means that most people cannot understand her. This violation of expectation has, predictably, even caused people to fear her. Carly wanted a way for people to look beyond her autism, and realize she is able to communicate, even if it is not in the usual way.

This video is the story of a trip that Carly took with her father and sister to a café. This would be a simple task for most people, but not so for Carly.

media type="custom" key="25679958" width="250" height="250" align="left" The presentation of the video is done in a very effective way. You are Carly, you see the world through her eyes, and hear what she wants to say, but is unable to communicate. We experience firsthand the heightened awareness to sound, the delayed blinking, heavy breathing due to frustration and how others either stare or avoid looking at you

Conducting an ideological criticism involves identifying the presented elements of the artifact, investigating what those presented elements mean, and organizing the suggested elements into a framework of understanding.

The Research Question and Ideology
What does Carly believe about herself and, by extension, other autistic people? Of course, in embracing this viewpoint, certain considerations are ignored:
 * They are not unintelligent or crazy.
 * They have the same needs and desires that other people have.
 * They are trapped in bodies that keep them cut off from the rest of humanity.
 * They are often treated like children and denied a voice in basic decisions.
 * This is extremely frustrating.
 * A great deal of time, energy, and technology are needed for Carly to make her voice heard.
 * Nothing was said about the difficulties she faced in convincing the public that the words being communicated were her's.
 * People with severe forms of autism will continue to face these issues.

Conclusion
Carly's video "championed reason as the source of progress in society and privileged the foundation of systematic knowledge" (Foss, 2009, p. 212). It also is a "new form of society...transformed radically by media and technology" (Foss, 2009, p. 212). This postmodernist attempt to communicate the challenges of an Autistic person in dealing with the rest of us is profound in its meaning. This video shows that within Carly's silence is a beautiful mind; a mind that wants to communicate and make visible to all that she is no different than anyone else.