Cultural Studies Terms/Hegemony

Hegemony (pronounced [hə.ˈdʒe.mə.ni]) Leadership or dominance; a form of power; social group struggle to achieve a kind of dominance in both thought and practise over others.

Definition: Hegemony is a form of power based on leadership by a group in many fields of activity at once, so that its ascendancy commands widespread consent and appears natural and inevitable.

Antonio Gramsci, chief theorist of hegemony, reduced Marx connection between power and knowledge to class power and interests, but took this thought farther and explained that social groups struggle in many different ways, to win the agreement of other groups to gain dominance in thought and practice over them. He called this hegemony, which is never permanent or reduced to one class model of society.

Related terms: Power/Knowledge;