Modern Hegemony

Although the practice of hegemony has existed for ages, as proven by James Lull, only recently has it become a more serious threat.  Because of the vast array of media that civilization has available to itself now, as well as the vast amount of wealth accumulated by some, the ability for those in the higher socioeconomic circle to impose their views on others has never been easier.

In the early days of hegemony, oppressive ruling powers were more direct about imposing their beliefs on the lower classes.  They simply forced people to obey them by threat of imprisonment or death.  However, their forced imposition of their wills was not met kindly by the masses and led to revolts by the people and the overthrowing of the leaders' institutions.  Nowadays, with a few exceptions, there are more stable governments in existence.  But, most of the wealth is held not by the governments of our world, but by private individuals, and is used by them to further their own personal goals.  Some of these people, such as the owners and CEOs of giant corporations, use this money to pay media companies, or people involved with media companies, to try and indoctrinate the citizens of the world into furthering their causes.  This can be something as small as buying a product or as large as voting for a candidate for political office.  Far less people revolt today because these leaders of industry do not go about their methods in oppressive ways.  This just goes to show that indirect hegemony is more dangerous than direct hegemony.

An example of this can be seen in the 2002 British horror film, 28 Days Later, about a virus that turns everyone into raging zombies and overcomes the population of Great Britain, and perhaps populations beyond the borders of this country. At the beginning of this film, the protagonist wakes up in a hospital and is really thirsty.  After wandering through the abandoned building, he finally satisfies his thirst with, of all things, a can of Pepsi.  Later in the film, after nearly outrunning a horde of zombies and taking shelter with two other survivors in a convenience store, one of the survivors gathers up provisions.  Of these provisions, the majority of them consists of cans of Pepsi.  There is even more product placement for this beverage peppered throughout this film, but my point is made.  According to this film, whenever you are either dehydrated or (please stick with me here) one of the few people uninfected by a deadly virus that has overcome an entire country, one of your best sources of survival is to drink Pepsi.  This is an obviously ludicrous assumption considering how horrible Pepsi is for peoples' health.  So how did this idea present itself in this film?  Obviously, the people in charge of the Pepsi corporation paid the producers of this film to feature their product in it.  The people at Pepsi hope that people will get this message from this film and rush out to purchase their product.  The reason this is possible is because the people at Pepsi control a large amount of wealth and therefore have the power to go about something like this, and the mass distribution of this film ensures that many people will probably go out and watch it.  Therefore, Pepsi's will is indirectly being imposed onto the lower socioeconomic masses of this world.