Interpellation

From MarxWiki

A term created by Marxist theorist Louis Althusser to describe the process by which ideological systems call out to or `hail` social subjects and tell them their place in the system. In popular culture, interpellation refers to the ways that cultural products address their consumers and recruit them into a particular ideological position. Images can be said to designate the kind of viewer they intend us to be, and in speaking to us as that kind of viewer help to shape us as particular ideological subjects. Althusser writes in Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses that `all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects.` In addition, individuals are `always-already` subjects.