Ideology vs Discourse
Ideology refers to a group of ideas that relate to a person’s goals and targets. It is a kind of comprehensive vision of a person or a group of individuals. On the other hand, the word ‘discourse’ refers to debate or oral explanation of some phenomenon or principle. This is the main difference between ideology and discourse.
Ideology aims at bringing a kind of change in the society. On the other hand, discourse aims at making people understand certain dogmas and underlying principles of science or religion. In other words it can be said that ideology is an instrument of social transformation. Discourse is an instrument of social awakening.
Ideology was first used as a descriptive word after the French Revolution. It was referred as the science of ideas. It is interesting to note that Logic plays a vital role in ideology. On the other hand, logic does not play a vital role in discourse but psychology is the underlying subject in discourse.
Ideology is individual in thought and concept. On the other hand, discourse consists in explaining what the other person has said about a phenomenon or a principle. This is also an important difference between ideology and discourse.
For example there can be a discourse on the theory of Relativity based on the ideology of Albert Einstein. Thus, ideology forms the subset of discourse. Discourse became lectures in the later period. On the other hand ideology formed the basis of discourses in the later period. The word ‘discourse’ no longer refers to written communication and it is confined more to oral communication. These are the differences between ideology and discourse.
Okay, obviously the person who wrote this entry doesn’t understand the question. When someone asks the difference between ideology and discourse, they are not asking about the common conception of the word “discourse”, they are asking about the Foucaltian definition of the word. This doesn’t help.