New Media and Ideology: A Critical Perspective

Media is considered as one of the ideological apparatuses. This research is based on the question in parallel of enhancing technology and the formation of new media, as well as change passive audience into the active user, can these media still be called ideological? If so, the question is that how does the new media, despite the adaptation of interaction from the internet, find the ideological function? This paper discusses the role of the concept of the ideology for understanding social media critically. This study based on Althusser's definition of ideology and Habermas's theory about the public sphere creates consultative democracy led it to evaluate new media, their behavior and practices. The paper was developed based on a qualitative approach and descriptive-analytical method. As a result, new media owners are looking to create a two-tier Internet in which commercial content is more important than public content. Commercial content is managed by the ruling power and is governed by an ideology, which is the ideology of the ruling class. On the contrary, public content is controlled by media owners and contains a variety of ideologies that carry different ideas and meanings. The contemporary media system, through its ownership has divided media audiences into smaller groups (specific audiences), and has severely restricted fair access and participation in the public sphere, so that the ideological aspect of new media remains unchanged, but it emerges in the new shapes.