We are living in an era
of multi-platform world, now media is more than an instrument of
corporatocracy. One can propagate its own set of beliefs or ideas through a
variety of mediums available like YouTube, face book, twitter and many other
social interactive sites to create an impact on majority of audience using
these mediums to receive and disseminate information. However, war of
ideologies is continued unimpeded at new battle fields,
to become dominant.
Hegemony of media is varying
if not fading in its nature in present era of multi-dominant ideas. As Kerlinger[i]
and Luhman[ii]
describe this fact as ‘multiple realities’ and ‘fluidity of meaning’ which then
combine to make a broader picture, a dominant one, widely believed without any resistance.
Now Hegemony is transferring to groups of similar minded people as there is great
flux of ideas one replacing other, sometime every other day. However, mass
media too regaining Hegemony by using these new technologies.
The concept developed
as ‘cultural hegemony’ by an Italian political thinker and Communist party
leader Antonio Gramsci[iii]
who being a Marxist dare to differ from ideas of Karl Marx in his coded jail
note book.
Gramsci talk lot about
ideology (dominant ideology). In media
context “an ideology is a belief system that is constructed and then embedded in
the public consciousness by the media”. In that era of late eighteen and early
nineteen the mass media was generally the newspapers so he and before him Karl
take media as media texts which represent the world usually in order to support
a dominant ideology, such as patriotism, masculinity and race dominant
ideologies.
It all begins with
Karl Marx most influential writings in response of extreme poverty and
exploitation by capitalist regime after the Industrial Revolution. In his two
most famous book Das Kapital (1867)[iv]
and Communist Manifesto (1848)[v]
he speak about class struggles and politico-economical consequences of
capitalist societies.
He argued that in
capitalist the Ruling class or the bourgeoisie dominates and exploits the
working class or proletariat to satisfy their interests. There he talk about dominance
(Hegemony) of ideology, values and beliefs which persuade working class to
accept the power of ruling elites.
The ideas of Marx when
applied to media suggest that construct ideas to persuade the working class to accept
capitalism or ruling ideology as common sense or natural and inevitable, without
questioning that ideology.
Karl emphasizes on
relationships based on social class but Gramsci’s hegemony also applied to the
power relations found in gender, sexuality and race.
Antonio raised the
question why working class being exploited and manipulated do not dare to rise
up or revolt against capitalist ruling class who keep on suppressing them. He
said it is because of hegemony, as ruling class dominate working or ally
classes by influencing the culture of a society in a way that their view look
like as being “common sense” or just “the way things are”. He said that ruling class cannot possibly
rule only by force and rely on the ‘consent’ of the working class. More
precisely he used the term ‘Ruling by Consent’ referring to convincing working
class that the dominant ideology is the only ideology.
John Pilger in his two
remarkable documentaries ‘New Rulers of World’[vi]
and ‘The War You Don’t See’[vii]
used the same term “Ruling by consent” which tells us about how governments and
big corporations like IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organisations manipulate
the facts and dictate to not to print or broadcast anything that ran contrary
to their interests. This was not always by force as Gramsci told in his
writing.
Noam Chomsky in his
book Hegemony and Survival[viii],
also found in Osama bin Laden compound, wrote about notion of Hegemony. He said
as US was preparing its forces for a ‘pre-emptive war’ against Iraq, some of
its institutions were building consent of people on its popular ideology to
make it dominant. He also mentioned the use of mass media to ‘manufacturing
consent’ so that information is being ‘filtered’ through the media so that
they can influence minds of audience. Chomsky does not suggest that this is
done deliberately or conspiratorially however a study by Glasgow University
Media Group (GUMG)[ix] advocates
that although media content does support the interests of capitalist system or
dominant class but it is unintended by-product of the social backgrounds of
journalists and broadcasters and is not conscious capitalist attempt or
conspiracy.
Cynics believed that audiences
are not always passive or easily manipulated. Although sometime they affectees
do not know they are being manipulated and sometimes they show a strong
oppositions to ideologies being presented. Also social situations of
readers, viewers and listeners may lead them to adopt different stances.
However, recent war campaigns by US and UK clearly showed that media filtered
facts to help War ideologies as inevitable, which is a hint for great Hegemony
still possessed by media.
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