Hegemony & Pluralism

Hegemony is a concept by Gramsci, he show’s that everyday things that we do to create a complex system in society, can be feed to use through by a dominate group or class. It shows how we are feed by the media to believe what they tell us to do is correct. For example as Althusse explains in the “ideological state apparatus” that, religion, media, and family can feed us views that we believe in and these 3 things help us structure how we live. Another example is where school students are feed by teachers what they have to do in school, like coming to lessons and school in time. All these example I have given of how many things can brainwash peoples is given the term “indoctrinate and manipulate” by the theorist Marcuse. The hegemonic concept is for a passive audience.

The Pluralistic concept has an active audience, where they interpret media texts for themselves and creates more than one meaning for that text. This creates a negotiated and optional reading for its audience which also link to the reception theory, the media in these texts have to be pluralistic and reflect society. The pluralistic way of looking at the media gives the audience a sense of freedom to view society as how they want.

I feel there is no convening concept as if there was no hegemony in this world then society may not be structure properly, but if there was no pluralism people would have any freedom of speech in how they think the media can manipulate people. There is no concept that is convincing for me, as I think that we need both hegemony and pluralism as with hegemony society is structured and with pluralism it let people speak out.