Intro.

to Cultural
Studies S4
Pr. A. Behhar

Hegemony
in Mass Media

Spring 2018
Presented by:

• Ghizlane Drissi Elbouzaidi.

• Sara Samiri.
• Salma Razi.
• Abdlemajid Fahim.
• Youssef Zatouli.
• Soufiane Benhida.
Outline
 Introduction
I. Hegemony in mass media
1. How do mass media function ?
2. Polysemy as a strategic tool
II.Illustrating cases
1. Commercial media as a hegemonic ideology
2. Stereotyping
III.Counter hegemony
1. Agency
2. Polyvalence
3. Media Literacy
 Conclusion
Introduction
• Military force might not always be the best possible way to gain
power; in fact it is achieved not with ‘legal and legitimate
compulsion’ but by ‘winning active consent’ of the subordinate
class.
• Thedominant class builds its hegemony in society through
media by generating ‘cultural and political consensus’.

The informational and cultural power is a key factor in

governance.
• Mass media are the means for delivering impersonal
communications directed to a vast audience. Television shows,
movies, popular music, magazines, Websites, and other aspects
of mass media influence our political views; our tastes in
popular culture; our views of women, people of color, and many
other beliefs and practices.

Mass media is a principal and crucial tool that shapes

culture in our society.
• The question is why would people consent to let the
dominant class control them?
I. Hegemony in mass media
• Hegemony is a concept that was first posed by an Italian Marxist
thinker Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937). Gramsci’s hegemonic ideology
is based on the fact that the ‘dominant social group in a society have
the capacity to exercise intellectual and moral direction over society
at large and to build a new system of social alliances to support its
aims’ .

 Hegemony suggests that the dominant class controls the social

class’ consciousness in a society.
• In Hall’s words media are the institutions that ‘not only reflect
and sustain the consensus’ but ‘help produce consensus and
manufacture consent’, acting as an important tool to establish
hegemony.
• For example media gives nowadays attention to the ‘outsiders’,
terrorists, drug addicts, militants etc.
Mass media reproduce the hegemonic ideology via
interpreting and making sense of the world to the masses.
1. How does mass media function ?
• The selection of the news is subjected to many considerations:
o Editors decide that a certain site or event needs to be
investigated for news.
o Reporters decide what to look for at the site.
o Editors decide on how to pitch the story to public.
o Managers set the corporate policy and define the budget.
o Owners of the media who fall into the elite class want to respect
the political economic system in order to gain their own
political and economic advantages.
o Managers make sure that their news operations are carried out
in the way that this is projected, ‘their forms of social control
must be indirect, subtle, and not at all necessarily conscious’.
• Media acts as a window to the world and a provider of social
knowledge are in reality controlled by corporate and political
elites who, by controlling ideological space, are making the
public think what the dominant class want them to so that they
remain in power.
 Hegemony is basically enclosed in the news or programs.
2. Polysemy as a strategic tool
• Scholar John Fiske came up with the term “polysemy” – the
multiple interpretations which the media evokes. “Poly”
meaning many and “Semy” meaning senses – so “polysemy”
means many senses as it allows for different understanding of
certain type of media.
• a. Strategic Ambiguity – The intentional decision on the part
of media makers to craft a vague, semantically rich text that is
open to multiple interpretations.
• b. Resistive Reading – The creation of a textual meaning that
is contrary to the meaning intended by the text’s author,
creator or producer.

Mass media tend to keep things ambiguous when it comes t

o delicate matters.
II. Illustrating cases
1. Commercial media as a hegemonic
ideology
• People who are not consumers might be regarded as outsiders,
such is the trend created by mass media. It has instilled a
feeling that each one of us must become a consumer or aspire
to be one in order to be in the ‘norm’ of the society.
• We have the example of Macdonald’s advertisement and how by
watching just the advertisement a consumer is addressed with
a ‘unique’ sense of craving, the ideology has an effect on the
consciousness of the consumer without him/her realising that
they are in reality a social class exploited by a hegemonic
ideological process.
2. Stereotyping
• Mass media may stereotype people by describing them all the same
way. The media also may stereotype people by always showing the
m in certain roles.
• For example, on television shows, doctors might only be shown as
men, and women might always be shown as nurses. There are m
any women doctors and male nurses in the world, this should b
e shown in the media.

 Stereotypes are mainly related to age, gender, race and

culture.
• Itis important for mass media to avoid stereotyping. When
mass media only show certain people in certain roles, they will
spread the idea that those are the only rules for those people.
This tells a false story or message.

People who are watching a medium constantly may start to

believe stereotypes.
III. Counter hegemony
1. Agency
• The basic idea is that mass media can sometimes go against
the existing dominant hegemonic ideology in a society.
Hegemony is not constant and is always changing by
challenging and resisting the ‘dominant hegemony.

The concept does provide space for critical reasoning

challenging the existing ideology and resisting
manipulation.
• An illustrating example is that of journalists whose
backgrounds or orientation are different. There are important
regional differences in regard to prestige, reliability, and
whether a journalist would use stories from other media in
his/her own reports. the selection of news in mass media is not
always influenced by hegemonic ideology.
 Journalists are not always socialized to dominant ideology.
2. Polyvalence
• Media is open to a range of different interpretations at different
times. This suggests that it is not determined by the media
providers but is created individually by each member of the
audience.
People do not consume media offerings mindlessly but
instead actively and creatively engage with them”.
3. Media literacy
• We should foster our media literacy and increase our critical thinking
through asking the 5 key questions:

1)Who created this message?

2) Which techniques are used to attract my attention?
3)How might different people interpret this message?
4)Which lifestyles, values, and points of view are
represented -- or missing?
5)Why is this message being sent?
 Conclusion

• By using the hegemony concept and analyzing how the media

industry functions, we were able to understand the role that
the media plays in mass culture, and how this role reinforces
hegemony. However, if the latter explains to some extent the
role played by media in society we should not lose sight of the
fact that people are no homogeneous human subjects, they are
different in the sense that they have a different reflective
thought capacity and are free agents.
 References

• https://palv.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/an-attempt-to-understand-the-role-of-the-mass-
media-in-society-through-the-concept-of-hegemony/
• http://www.journalism.org/1998/07/13/background/
• https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/5239_Croteau_Chapter_5.pdf
• https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100621173930.htm
• http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/The%20mass%20media%20today.pdf\
• https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f66b/93d70a3ba41d23704c25d24f0e1a82935d0e.pdf