By Stuart Hainsworth

A look at Gramsci’s theory on governing bodies, their ability to control the masses, and the means employed to do so.

Gramsci’s theory of hegemony is born from the basic idea that government and state cannot enforce control over any particular class or structure unless other, more intellectual methods are entailed. The reason and motive behind the concept has been noted to be the way society is structured and exists on a power and class base. Gramsci defined the State as coercion combined with hegemony and according to Gramsci hegemony is political power that flows from intellectual and moral leadership, authority or consensus as distinguished from armed force. A ruling class forms and maintains its hegemony in civil society, i.e. by creating cultural and political consensus through unions, political parties, schools, media, the church, and other voluntary associations where hegemony is exercised by a ruling class over allied classes and social groups. Gramsci argues in his Prison Notebooks (which were written whilst he was incarcerated by Mussolini in Fascist Italy) that the way society is controlled and manipulated is of direct consequence of the practice of a ‘false consciousness’ and the creation of values and life choices that are to be followed. Gramsci argues that the system of hegemony can be classified as “social basis of the proletarian dictatorship and of the Workers State.” It is this process which Gramsci refers to when he tries to explain the way in which organisation of people, media and information controls the thought and actions to create a state of domination though the creation of dominant ideologies. Another aspect of the theory of hegemony includes the economic determination and intellectual and moral leadership, which degenerates into a domination and consensual managing of life choices. The media has a central role in this theory and the practice of the process has become more and more to the fore in study of the way the ideological media are at the centre of the struggle for consumers’ minds and central views. The role of the media has to be taken into account within the context of the theory of hegemony due to the value of the media and the public-imposed powers it yields. Communication from government, between and inside classes, is now controlled by the media and any text consumed by the state has to be considered to be potentially open to the practice of manipulation and therefore, the process of hegemony.

It could be argued that the media exists as a vehicle and tool for consumerism to grow and for society to engage in the current purchase-dominated way. If people are not consumers then they may be considered by some areas of society to be outcasts and different from the ‘norm.’ It is this state of affairs where the media can be key to influencing the people it informs and instilling the thought that one must be a consumer and if not then at least aspire to be. Gramsci may argue that the way in which the media operates could equate to what he envisaged when he talked about a ‘class struggle’ and the creation of values that others must follow. It is this situation where the ideological role of the media can be seen to influence the way in which people can decode and read advertisements, features, television programmes and any text which may hold a hidden meaning, therefore creating the possibility for media to become very powerful in terms of ideological control and leadership. It could be said that the media has become the dominant class in a Western society full of semiotic and hegemonic traits. No longer can the world be seen through one’s own single apathetic eye. Cultural Theory author Andrew Edgar states: “Due to the rise of trade unions and other pressure groups, the expansion of civil rights (including the right to vote), and higher levels of educational achievement, rule must be based in consent. The intellectuals sympathetic to the ruling class will therefore work to present the ideas and justifications of the class’s domination coherently and persuasively. This work will inform the persuasion of ideas through such institutions as the mass media, the church, school and family.” Recently, the proliferation and exploitation of press and interactive media has led to the creation of super media existence, threatening the objective viewpoints society relies upon to keep an ‘open’ state if one were ever to exist. Gramsci was mainly concerned with the determinism within the state of Italy in the early part of the 20th Century. He saw the potential for manipulation and the practice of domination growing in Mussolini Italy. Within the current theoretical climate, the theory has been adapted to include the theory of ‘consent.’ This allows the scope for many theorists to argue that the way society is now run, with the increasing emphasis on education, makes the leadership and decision making process less easy to quantify. The theory of consent exists to try and explain the way in which government policy, legislation and international policy are made and enforced.

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