Cultural Hegemony

Cultural hegemony: attitudes toward what is popular becomes what is important, and helps decide what part of a culture is important.


I didn't really understand this term when it was spoken about in the beginning of class. Thanks to a separate class that was almost all about hegemonic norms relating to feminism, I feel I have a better grasp at understanding it. We talked about this term along with framing, priming and cultivation and how the media helps the public to form attitudes. I believe that in today's society this term should be taught at a very young age. I am quite astonished that I had never heard the word until I was a senior in college for how prevalent it is in the world.


Journalistic framing has a lot to do with how we view certain groups of people, and certain actions that people take.Firefighters, police officers, coaches, and officials all have a stigma that they are upholders of the law and 'good' people. The only time we see these people (unless we know them personally - which is rare) is through the eyes of a journalist. Although a journalist is supposed to present a fair and unbiased report, that doesn't mean that the tone of the story will be completely neutral. Usually these people are only written about when something really good (or bad) happens to them.


I believe that if these hegemonic ideals that we place around these people were so strong, things such as the Penn State affair might have come to light earlier, or there might be a lesser bias toward someone who was arrested. People are afraid of going against the grain. At the same time, journalism - especially broadcast journalism - seems to have the hardest time distinguishing how much they are perpetuating these norms when they show a black male criminal on TV every night when the majority of crimes aren't committed by black males. Clearly these hegemonic norms keep white males on top, whether they are there by merit or luck, it adds weight to the ankles of anyone different trying to pull themselves up on equal status with a white man.