Hegemony: Social Class Hierarchy

The concept of hegemony does help us understand the ways in which media representations contribute to our existing social class hierarchy. This can lead to manipulating a certain audience into the wrong direction and can cause new behaviors in the individuals. In order to grasp a better understanding of what hegemony is, I think it’s best to give an explanation on the concept itself. As defined in our textbook, “Hegemony is the power or dominance that one social group holds over others”(Ch.4, 39). Hegemony is more than a social power; it’s a way of everyday life in sense. It’s a method for gaining and maintaining power on any form of spectrum in humanity. It’s evident in all areas of life as we know, but some fail to recognize that. This is

These shows can really alter the way audiences perceive members in society and give off hegemonic ideologies to some of the viewers of a certain show. These shows do it put preconceived ideas into the viewers thought process. An example of a reality show that plays a big impact on today society is Keeping Up With The Kardashians (keeping-up-with-the-kardashians). As previously stated, Hegemony is the power or dominance that one social group holds over other. The members of this family fall perfectly within hegemony. The family exhibits all the characteristics and definition of it. The Kardashians control a power (influence) and dominance (marketplace) that has not been seen with a family brand. The family controls the power and dominances over other social groups (Upper /Middle class) through all sorts of different products and platforms. This is a power moving family who contain all the abilities to gain and maintaining their status as one of the upper elites in the world. The social class that is privilege at this point is the Kardashians (upper class) and their empire. The Kardashions make a decent amount of money off of the lower classes. All the women want to have their make up and products because they think it will make them powerful and attractive like the Kardashions fore say. Hegemony is easy to tell through the Kardashians because they hold such a high power in western society. We have seen products that they enjoy see an increase in sales for that company/product. Everyone wants to hold that type of status and the Kardashians do a very good job in marketing that power in all platforms of