McGee (1980), "The 'Ideograph'"

"Ideographs are one-term sums of an orientation" (p. 7), McKee (1980) notes. They contain an ideological commitment and assume that others will read the same commitment in the term.

1. Ideologies control populations.

People practice ideology and this is a political practice. It has the power to control the public. Such power is preserved through rhetoric. Rhetoric allows us to see how ideology functions to control populations. Ideology impacts the ruler and the ruled.  This is not a top-down approach.

2. Ideographs contain ideological commitment.

Social control is control over consciousness. Ideographs attempt to create a shared political false consciousness. Since ideographs assume that everyone will read a certain term with the same connotation, they create in-groups and out-groups. Those who do not read the term in the "right" way are excluded from society.

3. Ideographs work vertically together to form sense of logic, and horizontally through time to construct myth.

Ideology is a moral issue.  If we know there is a truth, we have a moral obligation to admit it rather than lying to ourselves. Myth is amoral. It functions metaphorically, and therefore is always a lie. A rhetorical model should account for both ideology and myth. McGee (1980) argues that ideology should be the starting point.