Gramsci's Ideology and Hegemony

Ideology and Hegemony

• Ruling class controls society's material aspects and ideas
• Division of labor within the ruling class (thinkers, ideologists, those receiving ideas)
• Ideas aren't independent; they reflect ruling class interests and conditions.

Attempts at Proving Hegemony of the Spirit in History

• Separating ruling class ideas for empirical analysis
• Ordering rule of ideas, showing a mystical connection
• Changing self-determining concepts into personal (self-conscious) ones

Antonio Gramsci's History of the Subaltern Classes: The Concept of Ideology; Cultural Themes: Ideological Material

• Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Communist leader and critic of Mussolini.
• He rejected sensationalism in history.
• Historical unity of ruling class: relationship between state and civil society
• Subaltern history: low-rank people/groups
• Supremacy of a social group's manifest in two ways: domination and intellectual/moral leadership
• Concept of ideology: originally science of ideas, then analysis of ideas and investigation of idea's origins.
• Ideology as a system of ideas.

The Potential Error in Assessing the Value of Ideologies

• Identifying ideology as separate from structure
• Treating a political solution as useless because it's ideological

Two Types of Ideologies

• Historically organic ideologies: needed for a given structure
• Arbitrary ideologies: willed, rationalistic, arbitrary

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs)

• Institutions (schools, media, religious organizations) shape beliefs, values, and identity
• Ideology is more than beliefs; it includes material practices
• Repressive State Apparatus (RSAs): How state controls people through violence/repression.

The Culture Industry and Art and Mechanical Reproduction

• Culture industry as a system of mass production & consumption (film, music) to strengthen capitalism.
• Cultural forms used as instruments for oppression; shifts focus to artificial needs
• Culture industry's characteristics: mass production, commercialization, standardization, ideological control
• Reproduction: technology's impact on art's accessibility and value.

Debate and the Rise of Films

• Two types of performance: Stage and Film
• Film: Audience becomes critical
• Different technicalities in art creation: Painter, Cameraman.
• Film: (Pirandello's “Si Gira”)
• Audience reactions: repeated viewing; direct acceptance
• Production apparatus: camera's role in showcasing environment.
• Dadaism: art that breaks standardization

The Difference of the Human

• Humans and technology are independent
• Technology as an extension of humanity (exteriorization)
• Epiphylogenesis (second memory): cultural and technological memory.
• Tools as extensions of life-preserving human achievements.
• Everything begins with feet (Leroi Gourhan), reconsideration of how tools and technologies shape history and identity
• Rousseau's natural human is challenged. Humans are a continuation of zoological processes (shaped by technology & sociocultural dynamics).
• Advance and delay: Human evolution (rupture and adaptations driven by tension and uncertainty)
• Role of the skeleton: upright posture, enhanced brain development
• Role of equipment: tools as extensions, technological advancements, cognitive and cultural development
• Implications: co-evolution, technological determinism, human-technology symbiosis.

Technical Consciousness and Anticipation

• Technology shapes cognition, perception, and understanding of the world
• Technology is an extension of humans, anticipating the future.
• Role of external memory system in technology
• Technology can be both poison and cure (Pharmakon)
• Mutual influence of human brain, tools, and technology
• Outside perspective (Exteriorization) of human capacities
• Extension of humans' physical and cognitive abilities and transmission of knowledge across generations
• Risk of alienation and dependence on technology.
• Role of symbols and language in shaping human thought, behavior

The Language of the Almost Human

• Language, symbolism, brain development in Homo Fabers
• Early hominid language usage
• Flexible symbols

Propaganda Model

• Edward Herman, Noam Chomsky critiques of U.S. foreign policy and media systems.
• Size, ownership, and profit orientation of the mass media (dominating firms controlled by wealthy people)
• Advertising and business incentives
• Flaks and Enforcers: government responses to media statements.

Five Filters of Propaganda Model

• Media concerns: size, ownership, profit, sourcing news, flak, anti-communism.

Platform Imperialism

• Media landscapes control by Western nations impacting local producers.

Media Effects Theories (White)

• Agenda-setting; uses and gratifications; symbolic interactionism; spiral of silence; cultivation analysis. (Media content influence)

Media Literacy

• Accessing and using communication media analysis, evaluation & creation.

Two Systems of Representation

• Conceptual (concepts, images) and language representations (signs, sounds, images) to communicate and share mental representations.

Technology and Culture (McLuhan)

• Prophet of the information age; analyzes media impact and global village.
• The medium is the message.

Panopticism and Project Torogoz

• Power, control, institutions, and systems.
• Panopticism: Surveillance and control
• Surveillance (Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon)
• Project Torogoz: massive hacking of media & civil society, Pegasus spyware in El Salvador..

The Public Sphere

• Jürgen Habermas's ideas about public sphere.
• The public realm of social life where public opinion is formed, allowing private individuals to form a public body.
• State authority as public authority
• Habermas: Mass Media can affect how public discourse occurs and lead to refeudalization.
• Enlightenment: Ability to critically think, utilize and make decisions
• Timeline of public sphere throughout history.
• Liberal model of public sphere, bourgeoisie’s principles of supervision, early constitutions and rights.
• Political journalism’s transformation and its conviction to commercialism.
• Public sphere limitations due to expansion, fragmentation, role of the state.

Postmodernism

• Pop culture dominates modern aesthetics and expression.
• Deconstruction of expression, weakening of affect, and the fading of 'real' history.
• Nostalgia as a commodity (selling the past)
• Breakdown of the signifying chain (disconnections between words, images, and meanings).
• The 'hysterical sublime' (excess masks meaning)

Postmodernism: Effects on Millennials

• Beliefs, feelings, logic, interpretation, and personal truth.
• Meme factories and attention economy.