media hegemony thesis

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Media Hegemony: A Failure of Perspective

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DAVID L. ALTHEIDE, Media Hegemony: A Failure of Perspective, Public Opinion Quarterly , Volume 48, Issue 2, SUMMER 1984, Pages 476–490, https://doi.org/10.1086/268844

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Numerous studies of TV news have been published since Gans's (1972) call for more research on the mass media. A central issue underlying much of this research is control and dominance of the news process. This essay analyzes the logical and empirical adequacy of media hegemony as an explanation of ideological dominance. Analysis of recent research shows that some researchers have uncritically adapted the “dominant ideology thesis” of media hegemony to studies of TV news and have overlooked findings which challenge their claims about (1) the socialization and ideology of journalists, (2) whether news reports perpetuate the status quo, and (3) the nature and extent of international news coverage. Despite the shortcomings of the concept of media hegemony, efforts should continue to develop an empirically sound theoretical perspective for locating the news process in a broader societal context.

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Mass Media and Hegemonic Knowledge : Gramsci and the Representation of the ‘Other’

• First Online: 18 July 2018

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• Salomi Boukala 2  

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This chapter seeks to develop a theoretical framework to enhance Gramsci’s contribution to CDA and media studies. In particular, I first refer to the elliptic relation between CDA and hegemony. Then, I discuss the concept of intellectuals, and the distinction between traditional and organic intellectuals; I reintroduce the concept of hegemony and present those of superstructureand passive revolution. The next section includes discussions on the functions of the mass media, news values and media representations of the ‘Other’. It also refers to the links between CDA and media studies regarding representation of the ‘Other’, and emphasizes the representation of the Muslim ‘Other’ in order to justify why Gramsci’s work is essential to the study of media representations.

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At this point I should mention that Michel Foucault ( 1980 ) also emphasized the concept of power and claims that power does not have directly to do with violence but is similar to a form of control over peoples’ consciences and actions. According to Foucault, what makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it does not only weigh on ‘us’ as a force that says no. It traverses and produces things, induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse. It needs to be considered as a productive network which runs through the whole social body, much more than a negative instance whose function is repression ( 1980 , pp. 117–120, 141–143). Foucault also noted that the ‘mechanizations’, which can produce discourse and knowledge of what is accepted and what is not, are the state, scientists and intellectuals (ibid.). Hence, the first reading of the two concepts shows that Foucault’s power is close to Gramsci’s hegemony . However, I decided to focus on Gramsci’s hegemony because, from my viewpoint, it is more accomplished in relation to Foucault’s concept of power and Bourdieu’s symbolic power ( 1991 ) insofar as it includes class and resistance dynamics (counter-hegemony), and it seems to be a holistic approach to the modern capitalist state and its institutions.

For example, see: Triandafyllidou et al. ( 2009 ), Wodak ( 2008a , b ), Madianou ( 2005 ), Hall ( 1995 , 1997b , 1982 ), Richardson ( 2007 ), KhosraviNik ( 2015a , b ), Lacey ( 1998 ), Morley and Robins ( 1995 ), Hannerz ( 2004 ), Halliday ( 1999 ), Chomsky ( 2001 , 2002 ), and McQuail ( 2000 ).

A presentation of all the studies on critical discourse analysis of media is not possible in the limited space of this book. However, I would like to mention that this study was inspired by works such as: Richardson ( 2004 , 2007 , 2009 ), KhosraviNik ( 2015a , b ), Macgilchrist ( 2011 ), Sandikcioglu ( 2000 ), Meadows ( 2005 ), Tekin ( 2010 ), Le ( 2002 , 2010 ), Oberhuber et al. ( 2005 ), Krzyzanowski ( 2009 ), and Triandafyllidou et al. ( 2009 ).

Van Dijk had earlier examined a number of media-research studies on migrants and their representation in the British press and deduced that minority groups were not represented as being part of British society, but rather as dangerous ‘outsiders’ ( 1987 , pp. 40–45). Moreover, he assumed that the media play a central role in the reproduction of racism through the symbolic polarization between positive ‘Us’ and negative ‘Them’ ( 1993 , pp. 243–252).

Chomsky ( 2002 ), Fairclough ( 2006 ), and Nacos ( 2005 ).

The term ‘war on terror’ had been used by American President Reagan (1983). President Reagan labeled the states of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Latin America as a ‘cancer’, a ‘source of terrorism’, ‘rogue states’ and introduced the term ‘war on terror’ as part of an effort to pass legislation that was designed to freeze the assets of terrorist groups and marshal government forces against them. President G. W. Bush repeated the term in his addresses to the American people after 9/11 (Chomsky 1999 , 2001 ).

See KhosraviNik ( 2015b ), Triandafyllidou et al. ( 2009 ), Richardson ( 2004 ), Schudson ( 2003 ), Fairclogh ( 1995a ), and Fowler ( 1991 ).

Here I should mention that there are other theories, such as the encoding/decoding model of Stuart Hall ( 2005 ), that focus on audiences’ defenses against media power. In any case I cannot ignore these theories, but I do need to highlight the fact that in this study I intend to approach mass media discourse as a form of institutional and hegemonic discourse.

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Boukala, S. (2019). Mass Media and Hegemonic Knowledge : Gramsci and the Representation of the ‘Other’. In: European Identity and the Representation of Islam in the Mainstream Press. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93314-6_3

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• America’s Reckoning with Gaza at Home and the Great Rupture in International Relations

June 4, 2024 | M'Baye, Fatou | Current Affairs , Middle East Studies , Politics

Fawaz A. Gerges—

In May 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama, more than a thousand school students participated in the Children’s March intended to force the city to reckon with the demands to end racial segregation. As vividly recounted by the historian Taylor Branch in his trilogy on the Civil Rights Movement, the Birmingham police force met the peaceful student protestors with overwhelming force, arresting them by the dozens. When Birmingham ran out of paddy wagons and sheriff’s patrol cars to use, they called in school buses to take the students to jail. 

Speaking to many of the parents at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church after the first wave of arrests, Martin Luther King, Jr. told them not to worry. “They are suffering for what they believe,” said King, “and they are suffering to make this nation a better nation.” It would later be said of the many students who were arrested protesting for civil rights that their “zeal overflowed so freely” that they “bent the leaden habits of jail to their own convictions.”

Sixty years later, American universities and local police forces brutalize and arrest scores of peaceful student protesters bravely speaking out against the horrors unfolding in Gaza. This recalls the repression of the peaceful civil rights protestors in Birmingham and elsewhere in the 1960s. Now, like then, politicians accuse the students of naivete and being manipulated by others. Now, like then, “outside agitators” are blamed for inflaming the situation. Now, like then, the students are marched off to jail while they joyfully sing about dignity and humanity.

What is perhaps most startling about this critical juncture in American history is how comfortable President Biden and his Administration are with the moral, strategic, and political costs of his “ironclad” support for Israel. Unlike Presidents Kennedy and Johnson who slowly recognized that the demands of civil rights protestors needed to be met, President Biden appears to be all too willing to ignore the protestors’ demands.

Biden also risks permanently undermining America’s standing in the world while also creating an opening for America’s geopolitical adversaries to exploit the suffering of the Palestinians to undermine American interests globally. 

This is a choice that the United States will come to deeply regret. The current conflict may ultimately represent a turning point in international affairs, hardening long-dormant fault lines between the West and the Global South and shattering the rules-based international liberal order, a pillar of American hegemony since the end of the Second World War.

Instead of respecting the neutrality and independence of the international criminal court whose chief prosecutor Karim Khan requested arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials, Biden objected, calling Khan’s request “outrageous.” Biden and his aides claim that Khan’s decision sets a false equivalence between terrorist Hamas and democratic Israel. This is far from the case, because Khan seeks justice to all victims. Biden had also previously applauded Khan’s swift decision to issue a similar arrest warrant against Russian President Putin after he invaded Ukraine in Feb. 2022.

If there is not a fundamental and immediate change in course, the consequences of the growing north-south polarization will likely have transformative effects on international politics for generations. It will also accelerate the decline of the United States’ global influence. The extent of America’s isolation in the Global South was telegraphed worldwide in the UN general assembly when on December 12, 153 states supported an unconditional ceasefire, with only 10 against and 23 abstentions. In another move that signaled America’s growing global isolation, the assembly voted last week by 143 to nine, with 25 abstentions to back the Palestinian bid for full UN membership.

China and Russia will be the main beneficiaries of the West’s colossal failure in Gaza. Both powers have been challenging the US’s rules-based international order, asserting that the rules are rigged in the West’s favor. Recent opinion polls in the Global South indicate that China and Russia are more popular than the United States and are gaining ground at its expense. As the IDF methodically annihilates Gaza, with US weapons and support, Western protests over human rights abuses in Ukraine and China will now fall on deaf ears across the Arab-Islamic world and much of the Global South.

The longer this conflict goes on, the greater the erosion of American credibility and global authority. As a scholar of international relations, I had never seen so much anger and rage throughout the Arab-Islamic world, Africa, and Asia, directed against the United States and Europe. More and more people in the Global South say there is one rule for “the West” and another for “the rest.” More than seventy-five percent of respondents across the Arab world said the US (and Israel) is “the biggest threat to the security and stability of the region,” according to the first survey conducted by the reputed Doha Institute’s Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in January. Similar findings are reported in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei.   

In an age of America’s global decline versus the rise of China (and a more assertive Russia), it is in the long-term interests of the US to uphold the rules-based international order, not only in words but in deeds. This means defending the same international norms in both Ukraine and in Israel-Palestine, such as opposing occupation and annexation of lands and demanding accountability for gross human rights violations. In a recent CNN interview, Biden said the US was halting arm sales to Israel because it was wrong to attack “population centers.” This was a step in the right direction. He must go much further by supporting the international consensus on Palestinian statehood at the UN and stopping using its veto.

The stakes in the coming weeks are very high, for Palestinians and Israelis, for the Middle East, and for humanity more broadly. United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has repeatedly warned that security and stability in the Middle East and indeed international peace more generally hangs in the balance. Guterres’s plea to the world is to reject a global “epidemic of impunity” and to use this moment to rebuild stronger and more inclusive multinational institutions with new opportunities for balance and justice in international relations.

This is the same plea being made by student protestors in the United States and elsewhere.  They are demanding that their governments end their complicity in the violence in Gaza and are suffering arrest, suspension, and expulsion to make their nations better. The only solution is for Biden to listen to the students’ call to action and exercise America’s tremendous leverage to confront Prime Minister Netanyahu and to put a stop to the violence.

Fawaz A. Gerges  is a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the author of  Making the Arab World , ISIS: A History , and What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East . He lives in London, UK.

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A Culturalist Approach to the Concept of the Mediatization of Politics: The Age of “Media Hegemony”

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Mediatization is nowadays considered an influential theory explaining societal, political, and cultural alterations driven by media technologies. Mediatization research, initiated almost 20 years ago (with its precursory ideas placed in the first half of the 20th century), witnesses at present dynamic theoretical, methodological, and empirical developments , obtaining a status as one of the most essential and ambitious research fields within the social sciences. Mediatization theory deals with (meta)process in which media communication is becoming increasingly complex, takes place more often, covers a growing number of topics, and lasts longer. The goal of this study is to contribute to our understanding of mediatization as well as to make the theory more familiar to non-media scholars by presenting the state of the art and the most promising research lines of scientific inquiry. Starting from conceptualization and operationalization, we also aim to sketch the dimensions, fields, and forms of mediatization as well as to present examples of different domains where mediatization is most advanced, that is, mediatization of culture, society, and politics , or most promising, that is, mediatization of journalism.

Nordicom Review

Juha Koivisto

During recent years, the concept of mediatization has made a strong impact on media and communication studies, and its advocates have attempted to turn it into a refined and central theoretical framework for media research. The present article distinguishes two forms of mediatization theory: a strong form based on the assumption that a ‘media logic’ increasingly determines the actions of different social institutions and groups, and a weak form that questions such a logic, though the latter form emphasizes the key role of the media in social change and singles out mediatization as a central ‘meta-process’ today. Exponents of the weak form have convincingly criticized the notion of media logic. However, the weaker version of mediatization is itself problematic, as its advocates have failed to produce a clear explanatory framework around the concept. We argue that, although the analytical status of mediatization is unclear, fascination with the concept will, in all probability, contin...

Juha Koivisto , Esa Väliverronen

The concept of mediatization has recently made a strong impact in media and communication studies and its advocates have attempted to turn it into a refined and central theoretical framework for media research. This article distinguishes two forms of mediatization theory: a strong form based on the assumption that a ‘media logic’ increasingly determines the actions of different social institutions and groups and a weak form that questions such logic, though the latter form emphasizes the key role of the media in social change and singles out mediatization as a central ‘meta-process’ today. The exponents of the weak form have convincingly criticized the notion of media logic. However, the weaker version of mediatization is itself problematic, as its advocates have failed to produce a clear explanatory framework around the concept. We argue that although the analytical status of mediatization is unclear, fascination with the concept will, in all probability, continue in the years to c...

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Master’s degree recipients to be honored Friday at Graduate Hooding and Commencement Ceremony

June 5, 2024

David Leder

It’s commencement weekend at CWU, and thousands of graduates will be receiving their diplomas and moving on to the next phase of their lives.

But before throngs of CWU graduates walk across the Tomlinson Stadium stage this Saturday, a smaller group of master’s degree recipients will take part in the annual Graduate Hooding and Commencement Ceremony on Friday evening. About 200 of this year’s 453 master’s degree recipients will participate in the ceremony from 6-7:30 p.m. in Nicholson Arena.

President Jim Wohlpart, Provost Patrick Pease, and Associate Dean of the School of Graduate Studies  Rodrigo Renteria- Valencia will deliver remarks to the graduates and their guests. A total of 80 CWU graduate faculty will participate in the ceremony , along with 12 additional faculty who will join the processional and recessional.

Two student speakers, Sophia Litterski and Mariah Sebastiani, will present speeches to the graduates and their families, while two other graduates will be presented with the Dale and Mary Jo Comstock Distinguished Thesis Award . Desiree Cunningham and Kevin Cassidy are the 2024 recipients of the 45 th annual award, named after the CWU alumnus and former dean of Graduate Studies.

Here's a closer look at this year’s speakers and Comstock Award recipients:

Mariah Sebastiani

Graduate student association speaker.

Mariah is a Literary Studies master’s student with specialization in teaching. She graduated from Western Washington University in 2021 with a BA in Creative Writing and Literature, and minors in Environmental Studies and Technical Writing.

The native of Bellingham teaches English 101 as a graduate assistant, and her studies focus on composition pedagogy, poetry, and multimodal creative writing and rhetoric. She also serves as the president of the Graduate Student Association and strives to create meaningful community connections throughout CWU’s diverse graduate programs.

After graduation, Mariah plans to apply to adjunct pools and writing centers across Washington state. Over the long term, she aims to join a cohort of English professors who support student-centered and anti-racist pedagogies and support dialogic, socio-constructive teaching methodologies.

“My grad school experience at CWU has completely transformed me, both professionally and personally,” Mariah says. “When I first came to Ellensburg, I had no idea how much I would be challenged and changed. While I expected grad school to be a place for expanding my knowledge and conducting research, it was the relationships with fellow graduate students and the support from the staff and faculty that genuinely made the experience transformational.”

Sophia Litterski

Graduate hooding and commencement student speaker.

Sophia has always known that she wanted to work with children, going back to her high school days in Seattle. She decided that she wanted to pursue a teaching degree and attended the University of Portland, where she earned her BA in Elementary Education, with a concentration in Social Emotional Learning. She also received a minor in psychology, and eventually gravitated to the child life specialist profession, which led her to pursue her master’s in Child Development and Family Science at CWU.

“After spending months of research and watching videos to learn more, I realized that this profession is what I really wanted to do, and it was a perfect fit for me,” Sophia says. “I applied to a few different master's programs, and CWU's program really stood out to me.”

During her time at Central, Sophia has been able to explore and learn about Ellensburg from people that have grown up here, which made for a more meaningful experience. She also enjoyed working alongside the supportive faculty and fellow students.

“The faculty and my cohort are always there if I have a question, need help, or a good laugh,” she says. “I have been able to work alongside faculty and take on my own course as a graduate assistant, which has helped me step into my emerging profession with confidence, competence, and additional leadership skills. I could not have picked a better program!”

Desiree Cunningham

Dale and mary jo comstock distinguished thesis award.

Desiree is being recognized with this prestigious award for her thesis, “Timescales of Magma Storage and the Pre-Eruptive History for the Most Recent Lava Flow at Mount Baker (Koma Kulshan), Washington.”

Her thesis was focused on using the crystal cargo of the youngest lave flow in the Mount Baker   Volcanic Field — the Sulphur Creek Lava — to determine timescales of pre-eruptive processes for this eruption. Desiree and her research team applied a technique called diffusion chronometry across crystal zones to determine the maximum length of time that the magmas were stored in an eruptible state before the eruption began and how quickly the magma ascended to the surface upon eruption.

The native of Louisiana earned her BS in Geology from Mississippi State University, and it was there that she fell in love with structural geology and volcanology. She had an opportunity to present her undergraduate research project at the 2021 Geological Society of America annual meeting, where she met CWU volcanologist Dr. Hannah Shamloo.

“I reached out to her about prospects for doing a MS in Geology, focused on studying volcanoes,” Desiree says. “Long story short, her passion for volcanos and clear drive for her students’ success were the only motivations I needed to choose her as my mentor through a master’s thesis and CWU as my home for the following two years.” 

Desiree couldn’t be happier with how her thesis came together, and she will be forever grateful to Dr. Shamloo and the Department of Geological Sciences.

“My time here has been anything but easy,” she says, “but both CWU and the Department of Geological Sciences have provided me with every opportunity I needed to be successful. It has been a privilege to get the chance to call myself a CWU Wildcat.”

Kevin Cassidy

Kevin was selected for the Distinguished Thesis Award for his thesis titled, “Generational Leadership in the American Revolution and Early Republic, 1763-1800.”

His thesis examines the Loyal Twenty-Seven, a group of Massachusetts revolutionaries, and their importance in the American Revolution using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods — combined with traditional historical research — to show that there was a generational shift in leadership between the revolutionaries who led early British protests and those who led the Revolutionary War and the Early Republic. The Digital History methods used throughout his thesis helped him examine the American Revolution in a new light.

Kevin is a transfer student from Prosser who earned dual bachelor’s degrees from CWU in History and Teacher Education. He said he was interested in earning a master’s in history, and everything began to fall into place when he met History 302 Professor Dr. Marilyn Levine.

“I wanted to do something on the American Revolution for my MA, but I didn’t know what I would focus on at that point,” Kevin says. “At the end of the quarter, Dr. Levine asked if any students were interested in taking an independent study class that focused on Digital History and the American Revolution, and I decided to take it on.”

Kevin and two of his classmates, Alex Muetze and Bart Hasz — who Dr. Levine dubbed as the “Liberty Wildcats” — went on to submit their research at the 2020 SOURCE conference. That work formed the basis for Kevin’s master’s thesis.

During his time at CWU, he served as a student employee for the Circulation and Archives departments before becoming a graduate assistant in the history department during the past two years. He also was a member of Chi Alpha, a Christian Fellowship on campus, a member of the History Club, and a volunteer history tutor.

“I’m extremely grateful for the connections I formed over the years at CWU,” Kevin says.

Watch online

If you would like to watch the livestream of Friday's Graduate Hooding and Commencement Ceremony, visit  https://youtube.com/live/K-A-ZuS45jQ

by David Leder

Blue Angels pilot credits CWU aviation program with setting him up for success

by Robin Burck

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