According to Karl Marx, economy determines the social structure in any society. This theory when applied to media brings out the fact of oligarchy prevailing in the field. Media has become a culture industry with the content production done by a minority. Here the rich not the intellectuals fill the base and the superstructure is of labour class who receives the base-interpreted version of events.Democratic participation is less in such content manufacturing.
But Marxism no longer is based on such a single ideology, as Louis Althusser and Antonio Gramsci points out. Taking a different angle to Marx' socio-economic point of view, these Neo-Marxists say that no institution can exercise one single ideology on the entire mass. According to Althusser, State Apparatus also influence mass in shaping ideologies. Through the term State Apparatus which he himself coined, Althusser means those set-ups that are owned and controlled by the state. Each individual gets affected by the apparatus like family, school, media, religious institutes through out ones life, not just by the mass culture produced by mainsteam media. He comes to such a conclusion through the studies he underwent viewing the mass who receives the cultural industry products as heterogenous, not as ones with a common perspective of events. He argued that every persons' take on an event differs with respect to the socio-cultural background he's from. Constant ideological conflicts are hence prevailing in the society.
Antonio Gramsci went further, introducing a philosophical and sociological theory of Cultural Hegemony, that a culturally diverse society can be dominated by one social class by manipulating the social culture. In his view, this hegemony is the supremacy over the thought process not by force but through building up a constant rational arguement in support of an idea or perspective which convinces the mass gradually to accept it as the true version of event.
i read it and found interesting. What is off-putting is the lack of interest shown by students to engage or participate in discussions.
ReplyDeleteTo me hegemony remains a curious phenomenon. Hegemony is the control exercised by ruling class over others through persuasion. Media plays a hegemonic role by seeding in our minds the thought of or an idea of the world. It constructs a world view and makes us believe, accept or cede to.
How do you come to regard globalisation as a colonisation of mind by commodities and services or a way of the world? We have been dragged into the contours of globalisation in the beginning and gradually now into its womb. We are not conscious of our slow but steady capitulation to market demands that the media is blissfully promoting and perpetuating.
Today, we can say that we are victims of modernity or late modernity or postmodernism. But, we cannot resist from buying all new gadgets. Perhaps, the shock is intolerable when the gas (LPG) price is hiked. Otherwise, we are fine with the commodity world. It has occurred through media's advertisements and content promoting goods rather than the idealistic functional role of providing information. This has happened through hegemonic process, no retaliation, opposition and complaints.
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ReplyDeletesharing thoughts said...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the ideas shared. common people are used to the way each thing is shown by media. They accept differently-abled people as always depended on someone, daughters-in-law as vulnerable and glamourous in soap-operas, mothers-in-law as brutal, without even giving a second thought about the people they have met. This I believe results in stereotyping as well as prejudice in real life. Do anyone care to ask the man's view in a domestic violence case? Women are not always angels in real life as we all know. We discuss much about how a young girl looked after her family securing a job, while we ignore lakhs of men struggling as the only earner of a family...why we don't seem to spare a Word-of- praise for our fathers or brothers. Our thought process seem to be restricted.
Didn't mean to stray away much from the topic, but years of being served the same food of thought has made most of us think similarly... Its time we select our own food.lets think..
I wish this would be my first and last formal post...lets share ideas, check out for real life examples showing how these theories are no longer theories, they have their practical side also..
Please let me know if you don't understand my postings and also share if you have a better version.
Regards.........
Shruthy
but here again economy matters. media is medium of capitalism now which enrich its ideology that is making money only. like globalization or internationalism has created a such situation that gap between haves and haves not, has increased. the rich became more rich and the poor became more poor.
ReplyDeletei think hegemony is a new type of intellectual imperialism. in which, west countries have started to rule again over the world through economy and open market in led of US.
so here i feel that media's ideology is not socialist now. but it is not capitalist completely. it is working on materialistic ideology which is tilted towards capitalism.
Marxism, hegemony and modernism are all new words to me. But they have been around us from the beginning of time and continue to do so. As Shruthy said one of the crimes that media has committed is to create stereotypes of categories of people around us. The media has been successful is generalizing everything that is exceptional. During my UG years I used to be called Osama bin Laden’s Niece, just because am a Muslim who practices it. Since when did he become the symbol of all Muslims? Also the view that people have on girls who wear Hijab is that they are forced, suppressed and don’t have freedom. I do have freedom but I would love it if the people had freedom from the prejudices and preconceived notions in their minds before they judge me. Raheena
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I do agree with Nitesh. Media, apart from its so-called normative functions, is concerned about profit. So, its agenda of giving information to the public is materialistic, apart from being functional. Its commercial interest and its interest to serve readers/viewers/listeners are interlocked. In the process of pushing materialistic content, the media creates newer needs among the audience. The need to own lands, the need to buy new gadgets, the need to buy homes, the need to reach higher positions and the need to satisfy every economic needs - in fact the needs list goes on end. As a result, every individual is concerned about his own self rather than the society. He/she becomes nihilistic; the time one spends with family and children comes down. Because, one is after materialism. Materialism driven by materialistic media, materialistic content.
ReplyDeleteis materialistic ideology of Media completely a negative phenomena.....?????
ReplyDeletefor materialistic ideology, i favour it at same stage... this ideology has been followed by India after Independence in 1947. India kept distance to both pole (US & USSR) on basis of ideology that is capitalism & socialism. for me it is good according to that situation of cold war.
Hegemony is the manufactured consent by all type of medium with the decades or years. Our mindset is feudal capitalist, because of the hegemony of capitalism as dominant ideology . Marxist view on media is , media is only a means of production in the hands of bourgeois ,that is why we cannot consider it as a fourth estate .How can a profit motive industry consider as the pillar of democracy . So media needs a regulatory body than self regulation, otherwise they will mislead the public and public opinion. It was happened in Maharashtra in the form of ‘Paid news ‘. It is not against freedom of speech and expression, because here we have a lot of regulatory body for all industry . Emerging fifth estate is the next people’s medium , I expect a lot from this kind alternative media like ‘wiki leaks’ and social networking . I strongly believe it can change the hegemony of some ideology , which is constructed by so-called forth estate MUHAMMED SAHEED
ReplyDelete@rsaheed roomy..... only three estate r real friend, rest estate/s is/are a imaginary concept(and media consider as fourth estate only).. by the way how can you say that your so called fifth estate will not affected by elite/hegemony class..and will always be voice of people only..????
ReplyDeletehow can u seperate relationship of society and economy with your fifth estate(which is also a utopian thought)......??????
a great initiative friends.
ReplyDeletewhat drives the world today is economics. Media, culture, religion, education etc have become tools for reaching the economic goal of profit. The big question out there is the common man who is the tool and Guinea pig being benefited or exploited?
ReplyDeleteThe assumption that the fifth media would defy the laws of hegemony and gate-keeping has been already proved wrong.
We are putting up a link to your blog on our site. You are welcome to join discussions on similar topics over there.
Cheers
@shaheed: It is true that ethics is an elusive concept as far as media is concerned. At the same time, I am bewildered by the option of having a strict regulation body? I am not sure whether you want one like a Navy or an army to keep its eagle eye on the media and grow sceptic about its functioning. Or a regulatory mechanism like Lok Adalat to look into the media functions? Unfortunately, media cannot be relegated next to Lok Adalat? How many of the press commissions and press and broadcast guilds are we aware of? Media does not talk about these agencies thereby acquiring the powers of the said bodies for themselves. Therefore media itself is a regulatory mechanism - sarcastically speaking - because it informs you, damns your life, tickles you, teases you, entertains you and what not.. Who will bell the thick big cat whose size is ever-growing?
ReplyDelete@Nitesh: materialism may not be very bad as long as it does not drive a wedge between the haves and have-nots.
@haneef sir: a deliberate effort has to be made to listen to alternate voices and to promote channels airing those voices. What challenges today's fourth estate is the lack of plurality in terms of ideologies and opinions. when everyone says the same thing, then there is something being promoted. The audience to a level is smart enough to see through these messages but that "level" is still a mystery.
ReplyDelete@juby: I completely agree with you that there is dearth of plurality of voices. Because every agenda and ideology eventually boils down to 'make quick bucks by bulking up TRPs'. On the other hand, economic (competitive business strategies) are used such as reducing the price of a newspaper to kill diversity and plurality. When the circulation declines, our perception of quality in regard to the flagging newspaper changes (we don't buy it). We end up reading TOI, The Hindu and a few vernacular dailies. I guess in Tamil the three vernacular dailies are doing fairly good giving a run for money to each other. I am curious to know if plurality is issue specific.
ReplyDelete