Communication, Culture and Hegemony is the first English translation of this major contribution to cultural studies in media research. Building on British, French and other European traditions of cultural studies, as well as a brilliant synthesis of the rich and extensive research of Latin American scholars, Mart[ac]in-Barbero offers a substantial reassessment of critical media theory.

Popular usage equates hegemony with dominance–a meaning far from Antonio Gramsci′s original concept where hegemony appears as a contested culture that meets the minimum needs of the majority while serving the interests of the dominant class. This text is the first to present cultural hegemony in its original form–as a process of consent, resistance, and coercion. Hegemony is illustrated with examples from American history and contemporary culture, including practices that represent race, gender, and class in everyday life. U.S. cultural hegemony depends in part on how well media, government, and other dominant institutions popularize beliefs and organize practices that promote individualism and consumerism. Corporate dominance and market values reign only through the consent of the majority, which, for the time being - finds material, political, and cultural benefit from existing social relations. As deep social contradictions undermine brittle hegemonic relations, the subordinate majority - including blacks, women, and workers will seek a new cultural hegemony that overcomes race, gender, and class inequality.

Media, Communication, Culture offers a bold and comprehensive analysis of developments in the field amidst the effects of postmodernism and globalization. James Lull, one of the leading scholars in the discipline, draws from a wide range of social and cultural theory, including the work of John B. Thompson, Thomas Sowell, Nestor Garcia Canclini, Anthony Giddens and Samuel P. Huntington, to formulate a well balanced and highly original account of key contemporary developments worldwide. The first edition of Media, Communication, Culture became a well established introductory text. For this new edition coverage has been expanded from six to ten chapters, and has been thoroughly updated to include all new developments in the field. In his familiar and accessible style, Lull brings to life a diverse range of examples and mini case studies which will prove invaluable to the reader. These range from the hip-hop hybrids of New Zealand's Maori youth and the vastly divergent meaning of race and culture in Brazil and the United States to the global impact of McDonalds and Microsoft. Complex theoretical ideas such as globalization, symbolic power, popular culture, ideology, consciousness, hegemony, social rules, media audience, cultural territory, and superculture are explained in a clear and engaging way that challenges traditional understandings. By connecting major streams of theory to the latest trends in the global cultural mix, the book provides a fresh and unsurpassed introduction to media, communication and cultural studies. It will prove essential reading for undergraduates and above in the fields of media studies, communication studies, cultural studies and the sociology of culture.

Analyzes twentieth-century media and cultural theories as they relate to changes in political economy, communication technology, popular culture and collective consciousness in the United States. It argues that much of contemporary media environment is operating as Western capitalist media have for more than a century, making these theories more relevant than ever.

This book examines the circulation and viewership of Bollywood films and filmi modernity in Bangladesh. The writer poses a number of fundamental questions: what it means to be a Bangladeshi in South Asia, what it means to be a Bangladeshi fan of Hindi film, and how popular film reflects power relations in South Asia. The writer argues that partition has resulted in India holding hegemonic power over all of South Asia’s nation-states at the political, economic, and military levels–a situation that has made possible its cultural hegemony. The book draws on relevant literature from anthropology, sociology, film, media, communication, and cultural studies to explore the concepts of hegemony, circulation, viewership, cultural taste, and South Asian cultural history and politics.

Media, Ideology and Hegemony provides what Raymond Williams once called the "extra edge of consciousness" that is absolutely essential to create, both on and offline, a better, more open, more equitable, and more democratic world.

This text is the first to present cultural hegemony in its original form - as a process of consent, resistance, and coercion. Hegemony is illustrated with examples from American history and contemporary culture, including practices that represent race, gender, and class in everyday life.