Hegemony and Ideology

Hegemony and Ideology The media plays a pivotal role in defining the world and providing models for appropriate behavior and attitudes. Ideology has a link with concepts such as belief system, worldview and values, but is broader in context. The media is considered to be an avenue through which dissemination of ideology takes place. Hence, this is one reason why the media is often a subject of political debate.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Hegemony and Ideology specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The media is deemed a root of social evils and problems. In his campaign trail of 2000, President George W. Bush alleged that school violence was due to â€Å"dark dungeons of evil on the internet† (Kornblut and Scales cited in Croteau Hoynes 2003). Also, politicians from across the political realm blamed violent video games for the tragic shootings at Colorado Columbine High School in 1999. The media thus is perceived to sell both ideas and products and this paper will discuss how the media effectively achieves this by paying attention to ideology and hegemony. As shown by Marx and Frankfurt, ideology yields positive results by indicating that social power is operational via the cultural realm of society. People are grouped into social networks of oppression and subordination by ideological systems (Cottle 2000). Marxists often talk of ideology as a belief system used by those in power to justify their actions though distortion and misrepresentation of reality. Media uses ideology as a means to define and explain the world, and make value inferences on this world. Ideology in media does not focus on specific activities shown in newspapers, songs, or movies, rather it is interested in the broader system made up by such activities. Compatibility of images and words in a certain media text, thoughts and definitions of cultural and social issues are fundamental in ideological analysis (Croteau Hoynes 2003). Despite th e fact that mass media texts are comprehended ideologically as means of communication that have a higher regard for some set of ideas and not others, an explicit description of media ideology remains limited. Hegemony on the other hand deals with predominant influence of one group over other groups/group.Advertising Looking for essay on political sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Fiske defined hegemony as â€Å"exertion of a nation’s ideological and social, rather than military or coercive, power over another nation† (Fiske 1998, 310). In contemporary cultural society, hegemony is the dynamic means used by a dominant class to obtain and win the consent of the subordinate class. Ideology is very powerful because it is the means through which dominance of hegemonic institutions is gained. Therefore, consent should be won and re-won because courageous individuals may possess alternative ideologies that make them rebellious to hegemonic ones. Ideology, therefore, is integral in enabling a ruling, hegemonic institutions propagate the required consent for dominance. Media texts are seen as fundamental sites to basic social norms. This is because they play a role in depicting appropriate roles of men and women, employers and their employees, and parents and children. By so doing, the media disseminates the ideologies governing roles by various kinds of people. Ideology is fundamental in reinforcing perceptions and ideas in the minds of the audiences but, for it to have the powerful effect of changing these perceptions and ideas, a hegemonic aspect is essential. Media audiences define their being, and through such means social demarcation prevails. The U.S. cultural historians: Todd Gitlin and Williams, and British cultural studies headed by Stuart Hall, have applied false consciousness as the anticipated end product of hegemony. Hegemony has been deemed as the domination, via ide ology, of the ruling class and development of popular consent by Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist. Hegemony is a concept that integrates persuasion from the dominant classes and consent from the dominated classes. It is used by Gitlin and other scientists to explain the process of the capitalisms promotion. Gitlins study implies that supremacy is maintained when those people who are responsible for the process can easily present the explanations of the subjects under consideration. The ruling class controls ideological space and restricts the thinking of society. The minor/dominated class ignorantly takes part in their domination as hegemony becomes a part of their daily routines and ideas (Gitlin 1980).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Hegemony and Ideology specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Media sites have become a site where cultural contests are staged. This is due to the varying ideological perspectives, which are a representation of different interests varying in power that creates a kind of conflict and struggles within media texts. Hegemony is not all about ideological domination; rather, it operates by using common sense while making assumptions on social life and terrain of things accepted as natural, or conventional. Gramsci says that by shaping commonsense assumptions, effective rule is achieved (1971). Common sense is the way that people conceive and perceive things without the need of critical evaluation. A young woman watches a sitcom on television each evening. The characters on this program, her favorite show, are young, thin, Caucasian, and attractive. She is also young, attractive, and Caucasian; watching the program informs and reinforces her perceptions of her successful appearance, her sense of belonging, and her identity as part of her generation (Gray 2005). Most people are not aware of how presentations of television are developed. The decision by consumers on any pro gram and advertisement is influenced by various parties and institutions. According to Marxist theorists, such parties and institutions are deemed to possess power and privilege. Ideology is useful in understanding contemporary media because it focuses on compatibility of hegemonic ideology with personal or societal ideologies. However, hegemony is more useful because it has an influential role that persuades the audience thereby creating dominance. The ability of the media’s hegemonic ideology to influence the ideology of an individual leads to subordination. Otherwise, hegemony alone is not enough to wage subordination because through hegemonic ideology, the dominated class engages in its domination without realizing it. In the excerpt given above, the ability of the media to shape and reinforce the ideology of the young woman creates a kind of subordination to the program. According to Althusser, ideology is the link between imaginary thinking with real existence: material existence (Althusser 1969, 296). Stuart Hall is one of the contemporary cultural and media critic rooted in Althusserian framework of ideology, and believes that audiences will accept some ideas and reject others depending on their individual differences, particular beliefs and cultural circumstances (Hall 2001).Advertising Looking for essay on political sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Hall regularly contours this scenario in his encoding-decoding typology that postulates the encoding of messages with their unique meanings by the sender, and the decoding of these messages by the audiences (2001). The audiences accept some of these meanings, develop new meanings, and reject some of the desired meanings. Postmodern Marxists embrace Gramscian hegemony characterized by persuasion of individuals and social classes to accept social values and norms of an exploitative system (Gramsci 1971). In the contemporary social world, there are conflicting ideologies as mentioned earlier on. As a result, hegemony comes in and plays an essential role in influencing the decision of the audience. Gramsci describes hegemony as a form of social power that is dependent on voluntarism and willing participation and is seen as common sense that governs people’s understanding of the world (Gramsci 1971, 333). Integration of hegemony in ideology is what defines and helps to understand contemporary media. Individuals, who are lovers of romantic novels and films, begin watching the movie with their certain ideologies in mind, but at the end of the novel or film, their ideologies become influenced and changed via hegemony. In a story of â€Å"I Followed My Dream† (True Romance 1980 cited in Williams 1977), the hegemony of patriarchy influences and changes the feminist ideas of a young woman. The character in this story possesses feminist ideas that guide her thinking. She does not intend to get married to a Chauvinist, who will just regard her as a servant. However, she falls in love and actually performs wifely duties as required of her. This story is influential to the audience, and is an indication of hegemonic ideology. The main theoretical concept that governs contemporary ideology of media is hegemony. Hegemony encompasses culture, power and ideology. The media is perceived to possess a powerful hegemony over the audience thus making them less independe nt. Freedom of the press, which is leading slogan in almost all media stations, should be understood to mean ‘power of the press’. The media has had a powerful influential role on the audiences. Several instances include the rise of nationalism in Serbia (Meeuwis 1993), inciting ethnic hatred in Rwanda and South Africa, as well as triggering the post-election violence in Kenya. Despite the fact that the media depicts various ideologies, hegemony is very imperative in contemporary media as far as power, dominance and influence are concerned. In the Contemporary American society, the media has been referred to as a center of culture wars against fundamental issues related to morality (Hunter 1991). There are struggles over morality and values as the media tries to persuade audiences to accept the images being disseminated. The nomination of Eminem’s album ‘The Marshall Mathers LP’ in the year 2001 stirred up a lot of controversy as a result of the angr y and violent lyrics by the rapper in his depictions of gays, women and lesbians. The media has become the avenue through which change in lifestyle, sexuality and behavior is propagated, and persuades the audiences. Right now, the issue of single motherhood has been swept under the rug just because the media has shown it as acceptable thus most women nowadays are becoming single out of mere choice (Croteau Hoynes 2003). In addition, the Third World countries have been imposed on by the Western countries in terms of clothing, diet, body size, lifestyle, etc. via the media. Hegemonic ideology has been very influential in changing people’s (audiences’) ways and thoughts. The media is an area where change is inevitable noticed, from ideological sense to hegemony. The media, therefore, is a powerful tool that greatly influences the thinking and behavior of the audience. The media is able to perform this role through hegemony/dominant ideology. Hegemonic ideology is able to influence the audiences, making them less independent such that they rely on the media for guidance. This is the reason why the media has been blamed for change and dilution of social norms and especially in Third World countries. References Althusser, L 1998, ‘Ideology and ideological state apparatuses’, in Rivkin, J Ryan, M (eds.), Literary theory: An anthology, Blackwell Publishers, Malden, pp. 294-304. Cottle, S (ed.) 2000, Ethnic Minorities and the Media: Changing Cultural Boundaries, Open University Press, Buckingham. Croteau, D Hoynes, W 2003, Media Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences, Sage Publications, Inc., California. Fiske, J 1998, ‘Culture, ideology and interpellation’, in Rivkin J Ryan M (eds.), Literary theory: An anthology, Blackwell Publishers, Malden, pp. 305-311. Gitlin, T 1980, The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the Left, University of California Press, Berkeley. Gray, JB 2005, ‘Althuss er, Ideology, and Theoretical Foundations: Theory and Communication’, Journal of New Media Culture, 3, 1, ibiblio.org/nmediac/winter2004/gray.html. Gramsci, A 1971, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, International Publishers, New York. Hall, S 2001, ‘Encoding decoding’, in Durham, MG Kellner, DM (eds.), Media and cultural studies: Key works, Blackwell Publishers, Malden, pp. 166-176. Hunter, JD 1991, Culture Wars, Basic Books, New York. Meeuwis, M 1993, ‘Nationalist Ideology in News Reporting on the Yugoslav Crisis: A Pragmatic Analysis’, Journal of Pragmatics 20, 3, 217-237. Williams, R 1977, Marxism and Literature, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Definition and Examples of Crots in Composition

Definition and Examples of Crots in Composition In composition, a crot is a verbal bit or fragment used as an autonomous unit to create an effect of abruptness and rapid transition. Also called a blip. In  An Alternate Style: Options in Composition  (1980), Winston Weathers described crot  as an archaic word for bit or fragment. The term, he said, was revived by  American essayist and novelist  Tom Wolfe in his introduction to  The Secret Life of Our Times  (Doubleday, 1973). This is one of the few great ways that a fragment sentence can be used effectively - they are often used in poetry but can be used in other forms of literature as well. Examples and Observations in Literature New Years Eve on Broadway. 1931. The poets dream. The bootleggers heaven. The hat check girls julep of joy. Lights. Love. Laughter. Tickets. Taxis. Tears. Bad booze putting hics into hicks and bills into tills. Sadness. Gladness. Madness. New Years Eve on Broadway.(Mark Hellinger, New Years Eve on Broadway. Moon Over Broadway, 1931)The Crots of Mr. JingleAh! fine place, said the stranger, glorious pile - frowning walls - tottering arches - dark nooks - crumbling staircases - Old cathedral too - earthy smell - pilgrims feet worn away the old steps - little Saxon doors - confessionals like money-takers boxes at theatres - queer customers those monks - Popes, and Lord Treasurers, and all sorts of old fellows, with great red faces, and broken noses, turning up every day - buff jerkins too - matchlocks - Sarcophagus - fine place - old legends too - strange stories: capital and the stranger continued to soliloquize until they reached the Bull Inn, in the High Street, where the coach stopped.(Alfred Jingle in Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 1837) Coetzees CrotsWhat absorbs them is power and the stupor of power. Eating and talking, munching lives, belching. Slow, heavy-bellied talk. Sitting in a circle, debating ponderously, issuing degrees like hammer blows: death, death, death. Untroubled by the stench. Heavy eyelids, piggish eyes, shrewd with the shrewdness of generations of peasants. Plotting against each other too: slow peasant plots that take decades to mature. The new Africans, pot-bellied, heavy-jowled men on their stools of office: Cetshwayo, Dingane in white skins. Pressing downward: their power in their weight.(J.M. Coetzee, The Age of Iron, 1990)Crots in PoetryAh to be aliveon a mid-September mornfording a streambarefoot, pants rolled up,holding boots, pack on,sunshine, ice in the shallows,northern rockies.(Gary Snyder, For All)Crots in AdvertisingTell England. Tell the world. Eat more Oats.  Take Care of your Complexion. No More War. Shine your Shoes with Shino. Ask your Grocer. Children love Laxamalt.  Prepar e to meet thy God. Bungs Beer is Better. Try Dogsbodys Sausages. Whoosh the Dust Away. Give them Crunchlets. Snagsburys Soups are Best for the Troops.  Morning Star, best Paper by Far. Vote for Punkin and Protect your Profits. Stop that Sneeze with Snuffo. Flush your Kidneys with Fizzlets. Flush your Drains with Sanfect. Wear Wool-fleece next the Skin. Popps Pills Pep you Up. Whiffle your Way to Fortune. . . .Advertise, or go under.(Dorothy Sayers, Murder Must Advertise, 1933) Menckens CrotsTwenty million voters with IQs below 60 have their ears glued to the radio; it takes four days hard work to concoct a speech without a sensible word in it. Next day a dam must be opened somewhere. Four senators get drunk and try to neck a lady politician built like an overloaded tramp steamer. The Presidential automobile runs over a dog. It rains.(H.L. Mencken, Imperial Purple)Updikes CrotsFootprints around a KEEP OFF sign.Two pigeons feeding each other.Two showgirls, whose faces had not yet thawed the frost of their makeup, treading indignantly through the slush.A plump old man saying Chick, chick and feeding peanuts to squirrels.Many solitary men throwing snowballs at tree trunks.Many birds calling to each other about how little the Ramble has changed.One red mitten lying lost under a poplar tree.An airplane, very bright and distant, slowly moving through the branches of a sycamore.(John Updike, Central Park)Winston Weathers and Tom Wolfe on Crots- In its most intense form, the crot is characterized by a certain abruptness in its termination. As each crot breaks off, Tom Wolfe says, it tends to make ones mind search for some point that must have just been made- presque vu!- almost seen! In the hands of a writer who really understands the device, it will have you making crazy leaps of logic, leaps you never dreamed of before.The provenance of the crot may well be in the writers note itselfin the research note, in the sentence or two one jots down to record a moment or an idea or to describe a person or place. The crot is essentially the note left free of verbal ties with other surrounding notes. . . .The general idea of unrelatedness present in crot writing suggests correspondence- for those who seek it- with the fragmentation and even egalitarianism of contemporary experience, wherein the events personalities, places of life have no particular superior or inferior status to dictate priorities of presentation.(Winston Weathers, An Alternate Style : Options in Composition. Boynton/Cook, 1980) Bangs manes bouffants beehives Beatle caps butter faces brush-on lashes decal eyes puffy sweaters French thrust bras flailing leather blue jeans stretch pants stretch jeans honeydew bottoms eclair shanks elf boots ballerina Knight slippers.(Tom Wolfe, The Girl of the Year. The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, 1965)MontagePart of the power of moving images comes from the technique [Sergei] Eisenstein championed: montage. Here the tables turn in the contest between the novel and moving images, for in switching rapidly between perspectives, it is those who share their imaginations with us by writing who are at a disadvantage.Because writers must work to make each view they present believable, it is very difficult for them to present a rapid series of such views. Dickens, with his marvelous alertness, succeeds as well as any writer has: the whistling of drovers, the barking of dogs, the bellowing and plunging of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squealing of pig s; the cries of the hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides [Oliver Twist]. But when attempting to capture the energy and chaos of this stunning and bewildering market-morning scene, Dickens is often reduced to lists: Countrymen, drovers, butchers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade or crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling.(Mitchell Stephens, The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word. Oxford University Press, 1998) See also: Collage EssayIn Defense of Fragments,  Crots, and Verbless SentencesListMinor SentenceSentence FragmentSuite Amà ©ricaine, by H.L. MenckenUsing Sentence Fragments EffectivelyVerbless SentenceWhat Is a Sentence?