Gramsci's theory of Hegemonic Representation

1. This is a quotation taken from the prison books of Gramsci, when imprisoned by Mussolini. His thoughts are obviously with relevance to society in general, froma  time before

2. “What we can do, for the moment, is to fix two major superstructural “levels”: the one that can be called “civil society”, that is the ensemble of organisms commonly called “private”, and that of “political society” or “the State”. These two levels correspond on the one hand to the function of “hegemony” which the dominant group exercises throughout society and on the other hand to that of “direct domination” or command exercised through the State and “judicial” government. The functions in question are precisely organisational and connective. The intellectuals are the dominant group’s “deputies” exercising the subaltern functions of social hegemony and political government.”

3. Hegemonic Representation is the idea that a 'ruling class', for example, the upper class (years ago) could manipulate the media and how it is presented in favour of their upper class.

4. It is obvious that there are clear prejudices today in society, and to that extent, these are present in the media. For example, immigrants are often portrayed as troublemakers, criminals, and scruffy, and terrorists in movies are 99% always presented as a stereotypical male from the Middle East.

5. People of a higher class structure are represented more so than lower classes. In film, the rich and famous are represented with greater effort, detail and accuracy, as opposed to lower classes, such as rough sleepers, who are not represented accurately, as the producers have not put in any effort to research them properly, since they view them as inferior, it is less important that they are represented well

6. One example of this is Hotel Babylon, a TV drama in which a hotel staffed entirely of illegal immigrants, are rounded up by the authorities, as if they were animals. Because they are viewed as inferior by society, they are represented as so.

7. Higher classes are biased greatly in all forms of media. One visual representation of this ideology is the champagne glass theory, if you poured a bottle of champagne into a triangular tower of champagne glasses, the top few glasses will end up with much more liquid in them, than the multitude of glasses at the bottom of the structure. This represents the fact that even though the rich and famous and upper classes are a small minority, they are presented more than the majority of 'normal' people, as they are of lesser importance