Hegemony

The concept of hegemony (derived from the Greek hegemon, meaning “leader”) describes the process by which the beliefs, values, ideologies, and practices of a particular social class come to dominate the wider society. The beliefs of that particular class become hegemonic when alternative or competing beliefs are excluded, ignored, or repressed. This can occur through conscious or unconscious processes. [Page 160]For example, a particular institution of power (a government, schooling system, or mass-media outlet) may consciously promote or exclude particular viewpoints. However, groups of people may develop patterns of thought or behavior that unconsciously valorize or demonize particular views. In either case, the hegemonic beliefs become the “common sense” of a society. Those beliefs are common, first, because a majority of people adopt them as their own and, second, because the beliefs appear to be natural, inherent, inevitable, and unchangeable. People then lack motivation to question and challenge those beliefs, thus enabling the beliefs to remain hegemonic.

The concept of hegemony is most often associated with Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist theorist of the early 20th century. In an attempt to understand the possibilities of socialist revolution, Gramsci investigated the relationship between culture and capitalist domination. He argued that there are two basic forms of domination: physical force and cultural consent. The first refers to police and military repression, often waged by fascist and dictatorial regimes. The second refers to ideology often found within liberal democracies where notions of freedom, liberty, and rights create a false sense of political agency. Although citizens of liberal democracies are “free to choose” between various and even competing ideologies (between, for instance, liberal and conservative political parties or between different corporate brands), all choices are restricted to the perpetuation of the dominant capitalist ideology. Anyone who questions and seriously challenges that ideology is marginalized by the wider society. This occurs because a majority of citizens are inculcated with, and never think to question, the ideology that shapes their self-understanding. People thus “consent” to their own class oppression. This ideological superstructure depends on and is perpetuated by various institutions—schools, governments, newspapers, court systems, professional sports, organized religions, and even nonprofit organizations that operate according to the dominant ideology. Gramsci argued that committed cultural workers who have sufficiently developed a critical class-consciousness must infiltrate these institutions. These cultural workers are then in a position to work against the dominant ideology, develop and disseminate alternative viewpoints, and establish the cultural conditions for a socialist revolution.

In the latter part of the mid-20th century, cultural critics began investigating the relationship between mass media and hegemonic understandings of gender. Critics like Stuart Hall, bell hooks, and Judith Butler focused on the relationship between mediated representations and the social construction of gender (as well as race, class, and sexuality). For instance, the relationship between biological bodies and performances of gender are normalized and essen-tialized by continual images of men as physically superior, aggressive, and emotionally stoic and of women as physically inferior, passive, and emotionally supportive. Critics argue, however, that there is no inherent relationship between particular body types and enactments of masculinity and femininity. Homogeneous representations also ignore the gender diversity that exists in the world. Gender identities and rituals vary according to ethnicity, culture, age, historical time period, personal experience, family upbringing, and individual predisposition. The media's failure to recognize and represent such diversity not only establishes social expectations that are often unattainable but possibly contributes to low self-esteem, internalized self-hatred, social ridicule, and punishment.

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