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The concept of hegemony allows for substantial change in ideas over time, even though the
same groups remain in power. These groups constantly adjust their ideas and find new ways
to gain the consent of those they dominate. Hegemony is a useful concept because it
suggests that people try to understand how the dominant ideas (ideologies) remain dominant.
Dominant Ideologies are the set of common values and beliefs shared by most people in a
given society, framing how the majority think about a range of topics, from art and science to
politics and economics. Dominant ideologies include religions, legal systems, shared moral
codes, etc.
In media terms the Mass Media are a cultural hegemony in that a relatively small
number of big companies, e.g. News Corp., The BBC, Time Warner, Sony etc., control
most of the world’s media, and this in turn allows them to control most of what we see,
hear and know. This, in turn, allows them to control what we think, selecting only
ideas that serve its interests, i.e. bourgeois capitalism. This is known as a ‘Top Down’
model of dominant ideologies.
The Web 2.0, however, represents a ‘Bottom Up’ model of dominant ideologies. Cheap
technology and the interactivity of the Internet allow ordinary people to create their
own ‘Grassroots Media’. As such, they have just as much power to create media
content, and therefore dictate the dominant ideologies of culture, as the major media
corporations do. This is a much more democratic model of media production.
1
ANON, 2007. Cultural Hegemony, Wikipedia: The Free Encylcopedia [Online], 30/07/07,
Available At: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony, [Last Accessed: 31/07/07].