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ively colorzized the cultural and ideological
sphere' (Hall, 1977, p. 340).
The differences between ci~lturasl tudies and critical political economy have
frequently revolved around the question of ideology, and the ways in which
developments in the economic and cultural spheres are articulated and have
mass-popular impact in contemporary societies. Hall argued that cultural
studies addressed these questio~l through the concept of I~egetrrotry, or 'the
operation of one class upon another in sl~npirlg ntld prodr~citlg collselzt
(through the selective forms of social knowledge made available) ... [that is]
one of the principal kinds of work that the dominant ideologies perform'
(Hall, 1977, p. 339). The notion of ideology as hegemony is derived from the
Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci and, in contrast to the notion of ideology as
reflecting the dominance of one class over another, it implies continually shifting
power balances between social classes, so that 'the concept allows for the
dimension of struggle and opposition, of confrontation between different
cultures, where hegemony has to be negotiated and won' (Newbold, 1995b,
p. 329). It also acknowledges that culture is never a given totality at any
particular place and time as there is the significance of: ideas that do not have
a necessary 'class belonging' (for example, nationalism or religious belief);
intermediate social classes and groupings with their own values and professional
ideologies (for example, intellectuals, state administrators, media
professionals); as well as what Raymond Williams (1965) termed 'residual'
and 'emergent' forms of cultural practice, that have a complex relationship to
the dominant culture of any given historical period.
In an influential series of essays, Hall (1977, 1982, 1986, 1996) developed
the concept of hegemony as one that was central to cultural studies as an
interdisciplinary and politically engaged field of intellectual practice. For Hall,
the concept of hegemony establishes that ideology and culture cannot be
thought of as a 'superstructure' that is large9 shaped through developments
at the level of the economic 'base'. Since ideology is suffused through all
aspects of society and social relations through its relationship to language,
culture, lived experience and the unconscious, there can be no simple relationship
of determination between the economic and the cultural. In other
words, ideology is never simply a tool for class dominance through the
promotion of erroneous ideas, since:
Hegemony cannot be sustained by a single, unified 'ruling class' but only by a particular
conjunct~iaal lliance of class fractions ... hegemony is not a 'given' and perma-
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Theories of Global Media 39
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hegemony: it can only be established, and analysed, in concrete historical
, conjunctures. (Hall, 1977, p. 333, author's emphasis)
Hall also saw hegemony as providing a way forward between the two major
c