Hegemony

I'm finding it pretty interesting that we haven't had too much interest in class to Harold Innis and his idea of hegemony. It's a pretty interesting concept. Most societies, even the most oppressive, run on certain consensual assumptions that are created and supported through communications processes. Innis also notes that there is both a tension and a need between different competitive social institutions and their dominant communicative modes, such as state vs. church and state with church. The tension is part of the game.

In Nazi Germany it is clear that there was a real need to use what McLuhan would call hot media such as film, radio and live highly theatrical rallies to drive Hitler to power and keep him there. The opposition was to a large extent those who used text, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Niebuhr from the text-heavy Protestant churches and such intellectual figures like Thomas Mann and Brecht from the worlds of literature and theater. The cool Mother Courage was no challenge to the hot Triumph of the Will.

The Internet today is also a potential means to create consent, and in some cases I'm sure it could. The problem is that it is so diffuse and individualized that it is used more a tool to create dissent or solidify the positions of subgroups. Look at Howard Dean's campaign for a good example. An analog analogue (did I just write that?) to this use of the Internet is direct mail, which looks for the specific rather than the general. MoveOn and Truthout are good example of this on the Internet. The Internet seems to be good at building hegemony within small groups while breaking it down in larger ones. It is, unfortunately, a perfect tool for the National Rifle Association.

As a card carrying member of an organization just categorized as terrorist by the Secretary of Education maybe I better stop now....