Ideological State Apparatuses

From MarxWiki

Introduced by Louis Althusser, Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) are an expansion upon Marx's theory of State Apparatus (SA), namely: the Government, the Administration, the Army, the Police, the Courts, the Prisons, etc. Althusser terms this apparatus the Repressive State Apparatus(RSA). Aside from the RSA, Althusser identifies numerous ISAs that function outside the Government per se as distinct, specialized, and often privatized institutions which nevertheless reinforce and 'function' through ideology. Examples of ISAs that Althusser lists include:

- the religious ISA (the system of churches, etc.)

- the educational ISA (the system of schools)

- the family ISA

- the legal ISA (lawyers, jurors, etc.)

- the political ISA (political organizations, parties, etc.)

- the communications ISA (press, radio, television, internet, etc.)

One of the strong Ideological State Apparatuses that operate in perpetuating the hegemonic ideologies would be that of the Camera as an ISA