Hegemonic institutions pervade our culture, as diverse agendas are presented and reinforced by different cultural structures throughout society. It is important to recognize these power structures and the dominant ideals they represent in our everyday lives.

James Lull’s famous essay Hegemony defines the subject as, “The power or dominance that one social group holds over others.” Hegemony is essentially the use of societal influence by the minority ‘elite’ to oppress the weaker majority group (workers) and their ability to influence societal norms in their favor.

Examples of American cultural hegemony are prevalent throughout the world today, most notably regarding film, television and popular music.

For Lull, hegemony represents the power one social group holds over another, but more importantly, it is the “methods of gaining and maintaining power.”

Italian social engineer Antonio Gramsci first coined the term ‘hegemony’ to describe the innate power of cultural annexation as the main producer of ideology.

Lull discusses Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, which refers to the ways in which dominant ideologies are created and distributed throughout a given society. Hegemonic structures surround many different institutions, including race, religion, age, sexuality and gender.

Mass media plays a huge part in this, too, and Lull describes this relationship, and he explains how the dominant class spreads their ideology to the subordinate, or lower classes. What is even more troubling is that for the most part the subordinates accept their plight: Author Lawrence Grossberg implies that the masses are “brainwashed” into believing the false promises of Capitalism.

It is this willingness to agree to the dominant power’s ideology through absolute control of the mass media which helps to push elite agendas as “common-sense.”

Mediamaking: Mass media in a Popular Culture by Lawrence Grossberg explores a variety of ways in which the media are involved in our social lives, including the institutional, economic, social, cultural, and historical aspects. Grossberg argues that there are a multitude of competing ideologies within every society. There is a constant struggle going on “wherever language, culture and media are found.” Contemporary society is described as an “ideological battlefield.” Mass communication cannot be studied apart from the institutions of social life: each one is influenced and defined by the other.

All these commentators explore the critical relationships between the media and the systems of values and differences that organize power in contemporary society. They examine how media is produced and consumed, and what they yield in return. They discuss the media’s relationship to human behavior, politics, technology, the public sphere, globalization – and of course, ideology.

Norman Fairclough is the founder of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). CDA is concerned with the ways in which power is exercised through language, and he believes that discourse internalizes all the other elements without being reduced to them because social relations, social identities, cultural values and consciousness are in part semiotic. In the article The Dialectics of Discourse, Fairclough describes the primary function of CDA as the relationship between discourse and the other elements of social life. He defines ‘orders of discourse’ as the discursive/semiotic aspect of a social order ruled by force.

These media critiques contribute to a better understanding of how hegemony has evolved in post- Cold War, post-9/11 America. Hegemony has reinforced our own “exceptionalist” attitudes, encouraging the belief that the USA is the greatest country on earth and that we can do no wrong.

It has also strengthened our nationalistic feelings – when we already live in hyper-militarized, fascistic police state. These dangerous tendencies have in turn allowed us to wage illegal, global wars for precious natural resources under the pretext of bringing “democracy to the world.”

We live in a media-saturated culture, plugged into technology which is becoming increasingly alien. When studying ideologies and discourse regarding the media, the question we should always ask ourselves is Qui Bono: who benefits?