Gramsci on Hegemony and Popular Culture

Gramsci's Theoretical Writings

Gramsci's theoretical writings stem from his political experiences.
They aim to:
- Combat economism and determinism in Marxist theory.
- Provide a theory for the significance and autonomy of the superstructure, particularly culture and ideology.

Hegemony is defined as the way dominant groups in society maintain control. It is achieved by securing 'spontaneous consent' of subordinate groups through cultural and ideological means.
This involves constructing a political and ideological consensus between dominant and dominated groups.
Hegemony means that a dominant class persuades other classes to accept its moral, political, and cultural values, ideally with minimal force.
Gramsci uses hegemony to describe modes of social control available to the dominant group.
- Coercive control: Direct force or threat of force.
- Consensual control: Subordinates willingly assimilate the dominant group's worldview.
Prevailing culture embodies hegemony via consensual acceptance of dominant ideas and leadership.
Subordinate groups accept dominant ideas not by force or indoctrination, but for their own reasons (e.g., concessions).
Hegemony is one aspect of social control arising from social conflict, not a functional imperative of capitalism.
Supremacy manifests as domination (liquidating antagonistic groups) and intellectual/moral leadership (leading kindred groups).
A group must exercise leadership before gaining power and continue leading even when dominant.
Hegemony expresses subordinate consent to the dominant group's authority, ideas, and values.
It relies on concessions to subordinate groups that don't threaten overall domination.

Hegemony = Ethical-political + Economic

Compromises underlying hegemony are primarily economic (e.g., welfare, wages).
Hegemony includes concessions to subordinate groups' ideas, so their ideas are recognized in the prevailing hegemony.
Hegemony arises out of conflict, and the compromises which resolve it, express the issues, interests and ideas at stake in the conflict.

Police and crime series in the mid-1970s attempted to restore a hegemonic position through addressing law and order.
Dominant groups restored leadership via authoritarian-populist measures and reacting to popular aspirations.
Example series: The Sweeney (1975-1978) and The Professionals (1977-1983).

Hegemony is formed by institutions and groups within civil society. Civil society produces, reproduces, and changes hegemony, while the state is responsible for coercion.
Popular culture and mass media are institutions of civil society where hegemony is produced, reproduced, and transformed.
Institutions of civil society: education, family, church, mass media, popular culture.
Civil society is where culture and ideology are placed, and hegemony is the concept to understand how they work.. Popular culture and the mass media are accounted for by the concept of hegemony.

War of manoeuvre/movement: A swift, frontal attack to win quickly (like insurrectionary action).
- Example: Bolshevik Revolution in Russia (state was strong but civil society weak).
War of position: A long, protracted struggle to replace the dominant group's hegemony.
- Relevant in Western capitalist societies with weaker states but stronger civil societies.
A war of position involves a long, protracted and uneven struggle over the hegemony of the dominant group, and its eventual replacement by the hegemony of the subordinate groups fighting for power and the revolutionary transformation of society.
Revolutionary forces must take civil society before the state by building a coalition of oppositional groups united by a counter-hegemony.

Hegemony is not a fixed set of ideas with a constant function.
It emerges from social and class struggles and shapes them in turn.
It's a contested, shifting set of ideas by which dominant groups strive to secure consent, not a functional ideology indoctrinating subordinate groups.
Hegemony is produced by intellectuals; i.e., those involved in producing, distributing, and interpreting popular media culture within civil society.
Intellectuals here refers to those employed in the production and dissemination of ideas and knowledge (not just great artists or academics).
Intellectuals' function is defined by their occupational positions in civil society, relating to the production, distribution, and interpretation of culture, ideas, knowledge, discourses, etc.
Not all intellectuals have the same power; some produce hegemonic ideas, others elaborate on them, and some execute delegated tasks.

Gramsci's theory may prove a useful way forward for the study of popular culture as long as it recognizes the importance of economic constraints.
Neo-Gramscian hegemony theory insists on a dialectic between production and consumption.
This approach avoids determinism and economism, grounding itself in concrete historical realities rather than theoretical abstractions.