The Media's Hegemonic Influence

 How Much Influence Does the Media Have?

What is "🅗🅔🅖🅔🅜🅞🅝🅨"❔

This sounds like a complicated word when really, it means something very simple. Hegemony is the "preponderant influence or authority over others" or the "social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group". In other words, it means how those in power maintain their control.

There are two types of hegemony:

• Coercion: Hegemony through coercion is when you are forced to think a certain way, usually through the means of the army, the police, the court, etc. This is typical of a dictatorship.
• Consent: Hegemony through consent uses the media and values to persuade the subordinate class that its views or values are legitimate. This is typical of our everyday lives, it relates to the reinforcement of traditional gender roles, the stereotypical depiction of nations, genders and race, the good vs evil narrative in terms of politics, etc.

How does the media exert a "🅷🅴🅶🅴🅼🅾🅽🅸🅲 🅸🅽🅵🅻🆄🅴🅽🅲🅴" over us?

When we talk about media hegemony, we can be talking about many different things. Going back to the second formal definition, the media exerts: 

• Social influence over us; what we know shapes how we behave socially, and nowadays, most of our knowledge on everyday matters such as social issues, comes from the media. Furthermore, through representation, it has also contributed to shaping certain social patterns or reinforcing them, such as traditional gender roles.

• Ideological influence over us; again, where does our knowledge about the world come from? Depending on the levels of education available to us, we can acquire our view on certain subjects through historical, scientific, moral knowledge, etc. However, different ideologies are expressed through representation, through the little moral a film might have, through social media and how it portrays current events, through the news and how they represent certain politicians or ideologies... One could argue that ideologically, the media is dominating us more than ever due to its spread and insertion into our daily lives.

• Economic influence; the media industry moves astounding sums of money that many times extends its influence from the economic to the political. Taking a close look at underlying meanings in films or even in the news, one quickly realises how there is a political motivation lying there if one only cares to find it. Economic and political power go hand in hand.  The media industry has acquired so much power that it is influencing politics, and to what extent is scary to imagine.

So how exactly does the media do this?

We can divide this into 2 categories: conglomerates and representation.

Conglomerates are very large companies made up of smaller and sometimes unrelated ones. They own the controlling interest (more than 50%) of other smaller companies who conduct business separately. In the media industry, there are around 6 conglomerates which control the media landscape, which means there are about 6 media moguls who control what we see everywhere in the media. 

The News is an important source of information and means by which exerting hegemony; by representing certain ideologies, groups of people, politicians, events in a certain way, they shape people's minds. Besides, because most media channels are somehow subordinate to these conglomerates, the news we see everywhere are almost the same ones. Many times, what is omitted is just as important, or even more than what is shown. Political leaders will sometimes use the media to their advantage, but more commonly, the media moguls will have their own political ideologies which will be reflected in the media that they own.

• John T. Stankey (AT&T)- Republican
• Brian L. Roberts (Comcast)- Democrat
• Rupert Murdoch (News Corp)- Republican
• Bob Iger (Disney)- Democrat
• Summer Redstone (National Amusements)- Democrat
• Jeffrey Bewkes (Time Warner)- Democrat

"🅷🅴🅶🅴🅼🅾🅽🅸🅲 🅸🅳🅴🅰🅻🆂" in Film

One might think that films are just for entertainment, and are completely harmless; however, the reality is far from this idea. Usually, directors push hegemonic ideals in the narrative and the representations. Who usually dies first in a horror film? What do superheroes represent? What about Disney princesses?

We need to remember that film production companies are usually subsidiary to the big conglomerates that keep coming up time after time. That is because they are everywhere. The conglomerates. The hegemonic ideals. Everywhere. The difference between a passive and an active audience many times just lays in whether the individuals are media literate, and it is important to know for our media literacy, that there is a meaning behind every representation and piece of narrative in a film, tv show, etc.

Superheroes in films:

Masculinity ideals, moral narratives and other hegemonic ideals are established in superhero films very often. One example of this is Captain America: 

It might not be surprising to some to hear that he represents the strength of the American nation. He is an attractive and powerful superhero made to portray the hegemony of the nation. Many of his great qualities are meant to be guidelines for American citizens, as well as represent America to other countries.

On another note, the hegemonic ideals of masculinity are also portrayed in superheroes. They are strong and muscular, they are made to look like heroes, and are admired by everyone; they 'get' or save the girl and they do 'cool' things like having super strength, superpowers, etc. 

Disney Princesses:

  

Who has not dreamed of being a Disney princess growing up? With their poised and slim figures, thousands of different luxuries and dresses, adoration by everyone and romantic interests, Disney princesses are very appealing to little girls. However, what is the narrative behind their stories? Is it always the same? Just like superheroes being strong, powerful and unemotional, are Disney princesses always dutiful, kind and a little vulnerable? Do their lives become complete and happy when they marry prince charming? 

For those who know the original stories, they are cruder and sometimes even tragic for some characters. The Little Mermaid sees how her prince marries another woman and is given the last choice of saving herself by killing him. She cannot bring herself to do the deed and dies tragically as the sun comes up. She is rescued by the ethereal spirits of air because of her kindness and ends up living an immortal life. Cinderella's ending is cruder towards her stepmother and stepsisters Whether it was to make the crude endings for some of these stories more subtle, or to simplify the plot into the classic "vulnerable girl meets prince and they get married" plot, we don't know, but the storyline created is definitely almost the same principle for the older fairytales. 

             

Another characteristic of older fairytale princesses such as Snow White, Cinderella, Belle or Aurora, is that they are all presented in the same way: gentle, selfless, kind, full of beauty and virtue, and significantly, they are all dutiful with chores and cleaning; whether it is helping her father in the house when he loses his money, made to be the maid by evil stepsisters or doing the chores in the house of the dwarfs, all princesses are shown to be good housemaids. 

It is also worth noting that as society has been changing and especially the role of women has evolved, narratives have become less monotonous with stories such as Moana or Frozen, where not only do they not have a love interest, but this leads them to go on more innovative quests that might be similar in concept to those of superheroes.

Horror Films and the moral behind them:

Have you ever notices who dies first in a horror film? Are there any characters who you know are going to die from the very beginning?

Taking a look at race first, it is always very plausible that the black character will die first, or early on, in a horror film. We need to take a look at when Hollywood first started, which was back in the early 20th century when racial prejudice was very common. Then, some say that there was a curious hegemony being established through narrative, of the villain (for example, a huge dinosaur) killed at the beginning a black, character to establish itself as the biggest threat. This links to racial prejudice of the "scary black man with a black gun" that was much more predominant back then than it is nowadays. 

However, in more recent films, we can see how nice black characters also die very early on in the film, and particularly lack character development. These are sometimes included by the director to content the audience and the more modern society by representing black people in films; however, commonly these characters are there just to please the audience and get killed early on. A similar issue on lack of character development is common of LGTBQ+ characters, in all genres, which usually appear playing the role of "the gay friend" who is not developed much as a character.

Other moral views or hegemonic ideals that are usually established in horror films are those about sexual intercourse outside of marriage. If there is a teenage couple at the beginning of the film, it is probable that one of the characters, or even both, end up dying. This might serve as a moral lesson to those watching, similar to the one used to imply that we should not be so close-minded to supernatural events, because the character who does not believe in the threat at the beginning of the film usually ends up dying as well. Of course, this does not have that much of a moral value than a strategy to get the audience more involved in the horror genre and create the thrill that appeals to its target audience.

Finally, another common conception of horror film characters who die first is white females. A study by the Huffpost took a look at the characters who die first in 25 horror movies among the most popular in Netflix, IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. They found that 52% of characters who dies first in those films where white women. Interestingly enough, white males constitute 24% of that statistic whilst black males constitute 12%. This might or might not debase some of the strength of the argument about racial prejudice, especially nowadays in modern films and society. However, going back to white women, this might represent the moral lesson that evil always poaches the most innocent and weak victims, utilising the stereotype that women are more vulnerable than men. It also sends a warning about the evil that threatens especially women, such as rapists.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/horror-film-deaths_n_4178359?utm_hp_ref=entertainment

What hegemonic ideals do you want to portray in your film?

I still don't know what my film is going to be about; however, I want to reflect the contemporary society that we live in, as well as my values and morals about life, whenever it is relevant.

I want to avoid including minority characters only to get the bonus for representation; if there were to be a homosexual character in my film, their narrative would be developed and not just there for the "bonus points". Similarly, I will make sure that all characters get developed in terms of their role in the narrative and not their gender, skin colour or sexual orientation. I will think carefully about who my audience will be and base the characters and the narrative around their needs in terms of representation.

Masculinity will not be portrayed as a toxic trait or as dominant over femininity, and I will represent other types of strength apart from physical strength, and not make physical strength the centre point of male characters. Similarly, I will not make beauty the main characteristic of the female characters that I include, and I plan on having an empowered and intelligent female lead character.

I am going to aim to stay away from political views or messages because I feel that I do not know enough about politics at my age to have a complete opinion. Also, I will avoid promoting racism through the narrative as well as LGTBQ+-phobia.

In summary:

• Empowered female role- and promoting body positivity, not making beauty an important quality.
• Staying away from traditional gender roles (the blue prince narrative, the only thing that matters is strength/beauty, etc.)
• Representation based on the needs of the audience (no bonus characters who will not be developed).
• Development of characters based on importance in the film.
• Trying to stay away from political opinions.