Dominant ideology or Hegemonic aproach✅

Main Ideas

• A more recent, neo-Marxist approach.

• Suggests the mass media spread a dominant ideology justifying or legitimising the power of the ruling class.

• Recognises the power of owners, but unlike the manipulative approach, it suggests that owners, although they have influence, rarely have direct day-to-day control of the content of the media, which is left in the hands of managers and journalists.

Hegemony - Gramsci

• This approach emphasises the concept of hegemony.

• A term developed by the neo-Marxist Gramsci.

• Refers to the idea that, through the spreading of the dominant ruling-class ideology, other social classes are persuaded to accept that the values and beliefs in that ideology are reasonable and normal, and form a consensus that becomes part of everyday common sense.

• This enables the ruling class to rule with the consent of those they rule over.

Media managers and journalists

• The hegemonic approach suggests that media managers and journalists have some professional independence; they still generally support the dominant ideology, but by choice, not because they are manipulated by owners to do so.

• The Glasgow Media Group (GMG) points out that most journalists tend to be white, middle-class and male, and their socialisation means they share a similar view of the world to that of the dominant class.

• They have a set or professional values which suggests that the most reasonable and sensible explanations of events and the way they should be reported are those in keeping with the taken-for-granted, common-sense assumptions of the dominant ideology.

• These assumptions mean the audience is exposed to only a limited range of opinions, in which groups, events or ideas threading the status quo are presented as outside of the established consensus view of the world, and as unreasonable, extremist, ridiculous, funny or trivial, to be ignored, attacked, mocked or not taken seriously.

• Media managers and journalists, while inevitably influenced by the desire not to upset their owners and to protect their careers, also need to attract audiences and advertisers, particularly if they are to produce profits for the owners.

• Journalists’ news values mean that sometimes journalists do not always trot out the dominant ideology, but sometimes develop critical, anti-establishment views which strike a chord with their audiences - such as campaigns against government corruption, excessive bonuses for bankers, or wrongdoing by large companies.

• This means that there can be a range of media content, including some occasional content critical of the dominant ideology, which serves the purposes of attracting audiences, making money for the owners, and maintaining the pretence that routine media content is generally objective and unbiased.

Glasgow Media Group

• The GMG suggests the consensus discussed above means, more often than not, some items are deliberately and routinely excluded from reporting in the media, and audiences are encouraged to think about some events rather than others, such as the appalling damage caused by rioters in British cities in 2011, rather than why people were rioting in the first place.

• This is known as agenda-setting and gatekeeping, and means audiences have little real choice of media content, as newspapers and TV programmes are produced within a framework of the dominant ideology.

• Philo (2012) illustrates this in a study of media coverage of the global financial crisis of 2008 onwards.

• He found the media focused attention predominantly on the views and solutions offered by the 3 main political parties, and the bankers themselves.

• This meant the people the media asked about solutions were those most supportive of the system which created the problems in the first place, and there was very little media discussion of solutions outside the existing system of financial arrangements.

• By the process described above, audiences are unconsciously persuaded to see the dominant ideology as a consensus - a wide agreement about what is worthy, good and right for all, and the only reasonable and sensible way of viewing the world.

• Over time, this reinforces and encourages continued acceptance and maintenance of ruling-class ideology and hegemony in society.

Key terms

1. News values - The values and assumptions held by editors and journalists which guide them in choosing what is ‘newsworthy’, what to report, what to leave out, and how what they choose to report should be presented.

2. Hegemony - Means dominance in society of the ruling class’s set of ideas over others, and acceptance of and consent to them by the rest of society.

3. Agenda-setting - Involves the power to manage which issues are to be presented for public discussion and debate and which issues are to be kept in the background.

4. Gatekeeping - Power of some people to limit access to something valuable of useful. For example, the mass media have the power to refuse to cover some issues and therefore not allow the public access to something information.

Criticisms of the dominant ideology or hegemonic approach

1. The approach underrates the power and influences of the owners. Owners do appoint and dismiss managers and editors who step too far out of line, and journalists’ careers are dependent on gaining approval of their stories from editors. For example, former Sun editor David Yelland said that all Murdoch’s editors ‘go on a journey where they end up agreeing with everything Murdoch says…“What would Rupert think about this?” is like a mantra inside your head’.

2. Agenda-setting and gatekeeping mean audiences have little real choice of media content, as newspapers and TV programmes are produced within a framework of the dominant ideology. This suggests a direct manipulation of audiences more in keeping with the manipulative/instrumentalist approach.

3. Pluralists - Suggests the rise of the new globalised digital media and the internet has undermined the traditional influence of media owners, and put more control of media content into the hands of media users.