Ideology and Hegemony

I encourage you to use your blog posts this week to continue to explore the concepts of ideology and hegemony in mass media, especially in the context of the readings this week. Feel free to ask questions, and incorporate them into your posts if you wish. And don't forget to comment on one of your classmates' posts!

I especially encourage you to discuss one of the questions that perhaps we didn't get to today in class. Certain issues that we didn't get to that I think bear more discussion:

• Mass media as a site for competing ideologies and cultural contestation- what role does the media play in these instances? What are some of the competing ideologies today, the controversies?
  
• How do the 5 areas of TV and film that Gitlin explores maintain the hegemonic ideology today? What are some modern day examples? (Can use one or two.)
• Are there hegemonic and/or counter-hegemonic representations and ideas in mass media? Or evidence of hegemonic struggle between the following, or any others you can identify?
  • Patriarchy (traditional male dominance) and liberal feminism (gender equality)
  • Ethnocentrism (and whose ethnicity ) and multiculturalism (respecting difference)
  • Heterosexuality and homosexuality
  • Liberalism (individual freedom) and conservatism (traditional ‘rules’ and morals)
  • Importance of ‘image’ and importance of ‘intelligence’ (or ‘body’ and ‘mind’)
  • Environmentalism (valuing environment) and environmentally ‘careless’ consumerism
  • Free trade (no trade rules or concerns) & fair trade (a fair price for producers of goods)
  • Religion and secularism (rejecting or ignoring religious concerns)