Hegemonic or Pluralistic?

The HEGEMONIC MODEL:
.A hegemony is a system where one group is dominated by another. The dominating group achieves its domination by ‘winning’ popular consent through everyday cultural life.
In media studies terms, this model works by achieving dominance through media representations of the world. The media ‘tell us’ what to think, what to believe and how our world ‘should be’.
This works through ideology – a set of ideas which gives a partial or selective view of reality. For example, the ‘powerful’ rule over the ‘poor’ by promoting the idea (the ideology) of privilege and wealth belonging exclusively to a select group of people.There is an argument that all belief systems or world views are ideological. Beliefs become ‘truthful’ or ‘natural’ and this leads to power inequalities.The media can circulate or reinforce ideologies OR it can undermine and challenge them
Ideologies are MYTHIC, i.e. they seem to be ‘natural’ or ‘common sense’ but they aren’t! You can talk about an ‘ideological myth’, or just a ‘mythic idea’.The way myths work is through SYMBOLIC CODES.Advertising, in particular, draws very heavily on myth in terms of the ‘magical power’ of products.

The PLURALIST MODEL:
Predictably enough, the pluralist idea is the exact opposite of a hegemonic one. A pluralist model argues that there is diversity in society (everyone is different) and therefore there is also choice (we can choose what to believe and what not to believe.)
So in media terms, because the audience (society) is diverse, with different points of view, the media is influenced by society. Because the media need to please the audience they will try to reflect the values and beliefs that are predominant in society. In other words, they give us what we say we want rather than telling us what to think and believe, in order to make us stay ‘in our place’.

- I believe in both models, as they have different views and arguments, however I would have to say I am an active audience, therefore I believe more in the pluralistic model.