Means of communication and construction of hegemony

Abstract

The objective of this study is to formulate some general provisional hypotheses that will allow us to discuss the specific structural and superstructural functions of the dominant mass media. Such functions operate within both the social processes or apparatuses of hegemony that promote the reproduction of the capitalist system and the social relations that support it. It is not my purpose to demonstrate which system of cultural apparatuses is dominant in every particular formation (in the Marxist sense of Form)-;-this would require historical-empirical investigation within every society-but only to point out some of the principal hegemonic apparatuses of modern capitalism. The following theoretical and historical reftections will, I hope, contribute to the determination of the role of the dominant mas s media in a capitalist state. To this end I will attempt to specify the function of the mas s media within the process of the reproduction of the capitalist bloc in so far as it is related to the cultural superstructure and its implementing organs.