Media hegemony

Media Hegemony
The use of content through mass media to influence or control over another country or a group of people by persuading the rule to accept the system of beliefs of the ruling class and to share their social, cultural and moral values.
Strategies
With the ruling class dominating economics, giving them the financial ability to own, regulate and produce the means of mass media, along with their privilege in the upper social hierarchy, people will look up to them. Their ways of conduct and civilized beliefs are channeled through media for the masses to see and conform to their standards. They achieve media hegemony through strategies such as:
· Engineering Consent: Persuasion that the interest of the powerful are common sense, therefore normal or natural, creates an atmosphere of less challenge and criticism.
Edward L. Bernays wrote an essay published in 1947 called “The Engineering of Consent”. It delves in deeper to the fact that everything socially is organized through psychological means.
· Story telling/Narrative: Narratives are the dominant symbolic way we make sense of experience and articulate our values; this is often the vehicle for delivering common sense as ideas, values, beliefs are transmitted through mainstream media.
· Stardom: The fame and prestige of being a star on films, sports, etc. People of renown are used to help sell ideas and beliefs to the public through acting as fictional characters masses can relate to or through advertising products. When people look up to a famous person they look to imitate and relate to them. As they see the celebrity behaving and dressing in certain ways, the mass will follow suit because they relate to their idol. This is also part of conditioning masses.
Conclusion
Governments, religious organisations, entertainers and politicians of the upper classes use these strategies through different media platforms to reach, conform and control the masses. These strategies are what make media so influential and successful.
References
1. The Consent of Engineering by Edward L. Bernays
2. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication by Richard Campbell et al. Publisher Bedford/St. Martins, 2008
3. ‘Mass Media and Everday Life’. Media Impact. Sacremento: California State University. 2015.1-26 by Shirley Biagi

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