This chapter focuses the socio-cognitive processes of interpretation and representation involved in ideological meaning-making and identity formation. Ideology, then, is about certain basic ways of conceiving and representing the social world, which may be related to specific groups or social categories, but which also may be of a more general nature, such as the ideas of the Enlightenment. Identity has to do with feelings and conceptualizations of oneself and one’s belonging to certain groups or social categories, even abstract categories, such as mankind.

Ideological horizons are not present or represented as clear-cut propositions, but are socio-cognitively embedded in meaning-making processes. It will be argued that narration, belief and emotion are building blocks of media-related meaning-making, and accordingly are also constituents of ideological horizons. Based on these analytical units a methodology for analysing ideological horizons in media and citizens’ discourses is proposed and exemplified with concrete examples from reception research.