Smiley Face - Marx and Althusser

The conceptions of ideology from Marx and Althusser go hand in hand. On the one side you have Marx who looks at the expression of class structure from ideology and the production of hegemony. What first struck me was his statement on how the class ruling material force rules the intellectual force, and therefore the class in control of material production controls its mental capacity. From this theory, Marx suggests that the ruling class seemingly holds no true function in society for their job truly belongs to the working class, yet the ruling class are the 'thinkers' and shape the functioning of the working class. He shows the reliance of classes upon one another for anyone to be present and functioning in society. The way that the ruling class is able to make their ideologies universal is by making them rational and sensical to those adopting them in society. Secondly, to go to his most broad concept of how every sign is ideological, reflects the work of Sender, the author of one of my CMC 200 readings. The article is a study on advertising and the way that certain adverts hold homosexual qualitites to broaden their target audience. Here, advertising is a good example of how ideology is found in signs, and signs are what advertising agencies rely on to convey their message and ultimately make capital.
On the other side, Althusser was a good review of CMC 100 when the references to the RSA and ISA, as well as the private and public spheres. How analysis of ideology was enlightening and almost shocking, in regards to the theory of ideology having a material existance. At first I was skptical, yet thinking about it ideology is found in signs and signs are found in text, which is physical (whether it is writing in a magazine or a billboard on the side of a highway). Most of these material existances of ideology come from sources that promote these signs...such as advertising companies whose purpose is to convey to the viewer similar images they can relate to as well as making apparent what is in demand.
Overall, ideology is present in advertising by the way that advertising relies on signs to convey certain ideas to make a profit, and then consequently the production of such advertising material makes ideology a material existance.