Name:- Vidhya Pandya
Semester:- MA -2
Roll No:- 32
Subject:-The Cultural Studies
Enrolment No:- 2069108420190031
Year:- 2018-20
E-mail id:- vidhupandya10497@gmail.com
Submitted to:- Department of English
Paper no:- 8
Topic:- Media hegemony
Media hegemony is a perceived process by
which certain values and ways of thought promulgated through the mass media
become dominant in society. It is seen in particular as reinforcing the
capitalist system. Media hegemony has been presented as influencing the way in
which reporters in the media – themselves subject to prevailing values and
norms – select news stories and put them across.
A form of hegemony
The concept of hegemony, first put
forward by Antonio Gramsci (1971), refers to the moral, philosophical, and
political leadership of a social group, which is not gained by force but by an
active consent of other social groups obtained by taking control of culture and
ideology. During this process, the leading social group exerts its impact and
gains its legitimacy mainly through social mechanisms such as education,
religion, family and the mass media. Based on the definition of hegemony, media
hegemony means the dominance of certain aspects of life and thought by the
penetration of a dominant culture and its values into social life. In other
words, media hegemony serves as a crucial shaper of culture, values and
ideology of society (Altheide, 1984).
For example, television news departments
are considered as extensions of a capitalistic economic order (Hall, 1979). The
products of the media contain messages that convey the nature of society, the
nature of relation of production within the media and the domain of
institutions and social process (Golding, 1979). Thus it is crucial to decode
media to figure out the latent capitalist ideology within the products of the
media, and more importantly to realize the role of the media as tools to
produce merchandise in a late capitalist economic order.
Altheide (1984) has cautioned against
the "uncritical" application of the media hegemony paradigm to
television news coverage.
Results of media hegemony
Media hegemony is said to operate in
several ways within news reporting. Firstly, the socialization of reporters
including guidance, work norms and orientations will be greatly influenced by
the dominant ideology (Mueller, 1973). Socialization of journalists means that
they are socialized into professional and organizational norms (Gieber, 1960).
And some basic values and norms they share are influenced by ideology, as it is
hard to be independent from the culture that the dominant class shapes (Gans,
1979). Though journalists claim that they are autonomic from the state and
marketing forces and that they are always on the side of the public as social
instrument, it is undeniable that the ideology and control of economic
interests permeate the assumption, orientations and procedure of reporters who
are the direct producers of news stories. Journalists can unconsciously
facilitate the ideological hegemony by the way they use cultural categories and
symbols (Chaney, 1981).
Further, reporters are inclined to
choose and report those issues that are favorable to the dominant ideology and
the status quo. This selection process hinders social change by diffusing
conservative news reports to the public (Golding, 1981). To a large extent, the
formation of public opinion is based on the information spread by status
quo-oriented news media.
Finally, reporters tend to report those
news stories that are supportive of their nation and negative to foreign
nations in globalized communication. It is believed that prejudiced news
reporting will hinder international social change (Artz, 2012). News media may
shape negative stereotypes of foreign countries. Values and ideology are
disseminated through international social communication to exert an impact on
people in foreign nations.
What is Hegemony Power?
Hegemony comes to English from the Greek
word hegemonia which means exposition or explanation. The term was first used
in English in the mid 16th century in reference to the control once wielded by
the ancient Greek statesl and it was reapplied in later centuries as other
nations subsequently rose to power. By the 20th century, it had acquired a
second sense referring to the social or cultural influence wielded by a
dominant member over other of its kind, sach as the domination withinan an industry by a business conglomerate over
smaller businesses. Hegemony is the political, economical or military
predominance or control of one state over other. Hegemony came to denote the
‘social or cultural predominance by one group within a society or milieu’.
According to Wikipedia that, ‘in international relations theor, hegemony
denotes a situation of 1) great material asymmetry in favour of one state, who
has 2) enough military power to systematically defeat any power to
systematically defeat any potential contester in the system, 3) Controls the
access to raw materials, natural resources, capital and markets 4) has
competitive advantages in the production of value added goods. 5) generates an
accepted ideology reflecting this status quo; and 6) is functionally
differentiated from other states in the system being expected to provide
certain public goods such as security or commercial and financial stability.
The Marxist theory of cultural hegemony, associsted particularly with Antonic
Gramsci, is value system and mores of a society, so that their view becames the
words, ‘Gramsci normally uses the word hegemony to mean the ways in which a
governing power wins consent to its rule from those it subjugates.’ Hegemony is the social, cultural, ideological
or economic influence exerted by
dominant group.
Media culture clearly reflects the multiple sides of contemporary
debates and problems. It is for this reason that any reading of the media must
always be a political reading, for examples, recently one dabates increase that
‘Ram Mandir or Babari masjid’ that time
all the news channel set a program about this topic on hour and hour.
They invites many guest on them program. Ram mandir and Babri Masjid dispute:
Asaduddin Owaisi and Subramanian Swamy debate the issue. The disputing parties
find a matually acceptable solution to this decade lonf dispute and the mojor
political leaders and other reacting consciousness. Center stage of national
consciousness. Among them were BJP leader Subramanian Swami and AIMIM chief
Asaduddin Owasi. There we find that the current topic became more political as
well as the Social issue. That we find that media like social media like Facebook,
Twitter, Whats app. And T.V chennal and News chenal support hegemony of
specific power. i would like to give more examples that, recently the Dalit
Samaj or Patidar samaj became more increase that time media also became more
signification way to representation them issue and media also supported to
power. media culture helps reinforce the
hegemony and power specific political, cultural and economic group. The
representations in the media are,
Suggestive
Provocative
This means they suggest
ideologies that the audience, if not alert iimbibes. Media culture doesnot need
to declare its position or ideology openly: it only needs suggest. Showing a
film star guzzling coke in a film or using particular brands of clothinf not
necessarily a marketing strategy for the product. But what it does is to
suggest that stars wear certain kind of the product. We can see our
advertisement there were represent the product we is worthless. I would like to
gives one example on Colgate toothpaste. First of all we used neem stick for
washing or teeth. After the advertisement we started to use colgate. And now
aday they advertisement on colgate and say through actresses that ‘Kya aapke toothpaste me Neem
or Namak Hai?’ that means they everytime suggest us that this is good and that
is bad. It means actresses decided our daily using what we should to use or
what is not. Media culture is Provocative because it sometime asks us to
rethink what we know or reinforce what we believe in. thus the portrayal of Pakistan
as a ‘terrorist state’ in hindi movies
reinforce the political and social images of Pakistan by raising our anger
levels at the injustices of Pakistan’s army. For examples bollywood movie like
Border, Maa tuje Slam, Tengucheli etc we
find that they increase our anger feeling for Pakistan. Recently before the
Sarjikal Stike, Grandmaster Shifuji Shaurya Bhardwaj dissemination video on
Pakistan. He speaked amusing word for Pakistan for the medium of media.
Cultural Studies of popular media cultural seeks to bring to the surface the
ideology and political ideas hidden in mass media entertainment, in the belief
that media culture transmits ideologies that reinforce oppressive structure of
class, gender sexuality and race through popular representations.
Media is no doubt a powerful tool that affects
not only individuals but other institutions including society and culture,
Media are the insititution that ‘not
only reflected and sustained the consensus’ but ‘help produce consensus and
manufactured consent’, acting as an important tool to establish hegemomy, hall
analysis the media through a hegemonic framework, he starts by saying that
public trust media because ideologically they projects independence and
impartiality from the political or economic interests of the state. However
media existing within a state are obliged to follow the ‘formal protocols of
broadcasting’ and depend on the form of state and political system which
licenses them. Hence the question of their operation being state driven is very
likely. Hall mention media as being an ‘ideological state apparatus’ used to
mediate social conflicts. The concluding that news or information selection in
mass media might not necessarily be influence by hegemony ideology and that
journalists are not always socialized to dominant ideology.
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