Hegemony in the UK!

The existence of "Hegemony" is a criticism that I find is quite commonly leveled at major news organizations in the western world, so it's an important thing to understand.  Though it is perhaps a less subtle example than other publications might offer, I think that a recent government spending article in the Daily Mail, a major newspaper in the United Kingdom, effectively illustrates the ideological homogeneity that defines the application of a Hegemony.

A Hegemony is essentially the control of information and ideas by a dominant class in a society, which secures their position and allows them to remain dominant.  Through this control, the dominant class, in a way, creates and defines what reality is for all the lower classes, who go on operating within this framework, the benefits of which mostly belong to the dominant class.  Since they've grown up accepting that this framework is reality, the lower classes give their consent to allowing the Hegemony to continue. 

In the Daily Mail article about government job cuts I have chosen for an example, the headline reads,"200,000 public jobs ALREADY axed after massive government spending cuts".  The word "already" being in all-caps in the headline seems like an attempt to tell the reader that they should be outraged.  The decidedly one-sided article reinforces the impression that the Daily Mail is framing the issue in an unfavorable light, as it only provides quotes from those against the cuts, such as one in particular from a person who says the cuts will cause "widespread misery".     

Again, though it is executed in a less subtle and sinister way than is generally assumed, the article does clearly show that the Daily Mail has its own agenda and attempts to control the public's reaction to certain issues.


-Philip