CMWKSI – Hegemony

The use of the words hegemony and hegemonic may be new to you. In cultural studies, hegemony has to do with the way mass media communications enlist all of us to agree with the status quo of power arrangements. Mass communication presents the interests of the wealthy and powerful as “our” interests, while muting the voices and concerns of the less powerful. This domination occurs so “naturally” that people do not even notice they are being exploited.

Antonio Gramsci formulated the cultural hegemony theory and sought to open people’s eyes to the role that the media play in keeping the social “haves” in charge of the “have-nots.” As you ponder his ideas though, keep in mind how “international” communication theory is, and how important it is to remember that ideas come out of particular social, historical, and political contexts.

Gramsci’s ideas were based in Karl Marx’s notion of false consciousness, a state in which individuals are ideologically blinded to the domination they suffer. Simply, the masses can be duped into buying into a system which exploits them. For Marx, ideologies and especially religion were “opiates of the masses” because of the social complacency they produced while parasitically eating away at the soul and livelihood of the being. For Marx, class consciousness was the only true consciousness. Marx writes that:

… upon the different forms of property [i.e. one’s class position], upon the social conditions of existence, as foundation, there is built a superstructure of diversified and characteristic sentiments, illusions, habits of thought, and outlooks on life in general. The class as a whole creates and shapes them out of its material foundation, and out of the corresponding social relationships. The individual in whom they arise through tradition and education, may fancy them to be the true determinant, the real origin, of his activities.

Yet, true class consciousness is thwarted by the ideology of the ruling class. InThe German Ideology, Marx and Friedrich Engels write that

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it . . . . The individuals composing the ruling class possess, among other things, consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things, rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the idea of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.

Gramsci gave the term hegemony to this process of political domination through ideological domination. He showed how government and corporations use the popular culture, mass media, education, and religion to reinforce an ideology which supports the position of dominant classes — putting words into people’s mouths. Importantly, Gramsci showed how subtle the process of imposing hegemony worked, and that its effectiveness is in getting individuals to actively support a system which does not act in their own best interests.

Please address one of these activities with a carefully crafted response. But before you tackle either of these exercises, please make sure you have read the materials at all of the links in this discussion question.

Activity #1

Take a look at these images from 60 years ago as they portray women’s roles in helping the country during World War II:

1. Do the images show any women of color?

2. Are women encouraged to work outside the home?

3. Are women encouraged to join the military?

You may want to look at some of the other great images preserved by the National Archives. Some deal with the extremely limited social and military roles permitted to African Americans, while others celebrate men’s virility and sacrifice.

Final questions:

4. What messages did the U.S. government and businesses give to women about working outside the home after WWII was over in 1945? Here’s one of them:

5. Why would these images work or not work for today’s society?

6. How can we view media products so that we are not “taken in” by the messages they give us about our age, social class, gender, race or religion?

Often the best way to see “hegemony” at work is to look at images, movies, books, and other cultural products from the past so that we can see how much of what is considered “normal” or “natural” (that is, ideology) has changed.

Activity #2

Cultures are by no means monolithic. There are, of course, clashes within cultures. An example is demonstrated in the 1961 film “West Side Story,” which was based on Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” It’s the story of the clash between two teenage gangs: the Jets (who are white) and the Sharks (comprised of Puerto Ricans). However, there’s even a difference of opinionwithin one of the groups; it takes place on a rooftop where the men and the women debate the merits of living in “America:”

Some questions for you:

1. How is this scene an example of cultural studies? Why or why not?
2. What is the ideology of the women and the men? Is it primarily the same or it is different? Why?
3. What is the source of tension between the men and the women? In what way are these people part of a “hierarchical structure of power”?
4. How is hegemony demonstrated in the scene? Counter-hegemony? And finally, who do you think wins the argument?

 

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