Hegemony in Mass Communication

Hegemony in terms of mass media can be defined as the "subtle sway of society's haves over its have-nots" (Griffin, Ledbetter & Sparks, 2015, p. 341).  Looking at this definition only, I couldn't decipher exactly what it meant; the term hegemony for me has a historical definition.  I have a minor in History and hegemony came up frequently in many of my history courses.  Hegemony to me is when a nation or government is dominant over another, or over its people.  People under the dominance are aware of their oppression/domination by government or nation, but do nothing to actually create equality or change their status; they continue the status quo.

This definition helped me understand what hegemony meant in terms of mass communication.  Hall describes the relationship as being a "production of consent" rather than a "reflection of consensus" (Griffin, Ledbetter & Sparks, 2015, p. 341).  I take this to mean that mass media is not a reflection of everyone in society's opinions, only those who hold power in the media.  This makes sense, because the mass media we consume comes from corporations or Washington and information is circulated down to the public.  Consent comes from the public accepting the ideas distributed by the mass media--sometimes because it is in alignment with the public's interests or that do it without consciously knowing that they do.  Hegemony is also described as being particularly influential and present in keeping the power unequal--"maintaining worker unrest at the level of moaning and groaning rather than escalating into revolutionary fervor" (Griffin, Ledbetter & Sparks, 2015, p. 341).  This description is familiar to my understanding of hegemony--people are aware of the power of the media and they may complain (moaning and groaning) but they do nothing to change it and they accept mass communication messages anyway.  This continues the cycle of mass media being circulated by people who have power and those that have not.  




References

Griffin, E. A., Ledbetter, A., & Sparks, G. (2015). A first look at communication theory (9th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

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