HEGEMONY

A concept developed by Antonio Gramsci in the 1930s and taken up in cultural studies, where it refers principally to the ability in certain historical periods of the dominant classes to exercise social and cultural leadership, and by these means – rather than by direct coercion of subordinate classes – to maintain their power over the economic, political and cultural direction of the nation.

The crucial aspect of the notion of hegemony is not that it operates by forcing people against their will or better judgment to concede power to the already-powerful, but that it works by winning consent to ways of making sense of the world that do in fact make sense. They also happen to fit with the interests of the hegemonic alliance of classes, or power bloc. Hence our active participation in understanding ourselves, our social relations and the world at large results in complicity in our own subordination.

The idea of winning consent extends the concept of hegemony beyond the analysis of class as such. In cultural analysis, the concept is used to show how everyday meanings, representations and activities are organized and made sense of in such a way as to render the interests of a dominant ‘bloc’ into an apparently natural and unarguable general interest, with a claim on everyone. Thus studies which concentrate on the hegemonic aspect of culture will focus on those forms and institutions which are usually taken to be impartial or neutral; ‘representative’ of everyone without apparent reference to class, race or gender. Such institutions span both public and private spheres – including the state, the law, the education system, the media and the family. They are prolific producers of sense, knowledge and meanings.

Aside from their ostensible function, their cultural importance lies in their role as organizers and producers of individual and social consciousness. Although they are relatively autonomous from one another, peopled by different personnel with different professional skills and ideologies, nevertheless these cultural agencies collectively form the site on which hegemony can be established and exercised.

It follows that hegemony operates in the realm of consciousness and representations; its success is most likely when the totality of social, cultural and individual experience is capable of being made sense of in terms that are defined, established and put into circulation by the power bloc. In short, hegemony naturalizes what is historically a class ideology and renders it into common sense. The upshot is that power can be exercised not as force but as ‘authority’, and ‘cultural’ aspects of life are de-politicized.

Reference: Hartley, John (2004). Communication, cultural and media studies (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge.