Marxism and Hegemony

Hegemony refers to the total cultural, economic and political dominance achieved by the ruling elite in a society. One feature of this is that once a group creates "hegemony", their viewpoint becomes accepted by society and is very rarely questioned. One example of this is men are seen as more powerful than women in society, and stereotypically we could say that men have obtained hegemony. Marxism, or Scientific Socialism, is the name given to the body of ideas first worked out by Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). In their totality, these ideas provide a fully worked-out theoretical basis for the struggle of the working class to attain a higher form of human society--socialism.

Another example of hegemony is in 1979 where the conservative party gained hegemony as the obtained power and created policies transforming the economy.

Critical Investigation and Linked Production with 5 key words

Critical investigation- The representation of females in hip-hop videos

Linked production- An opening to a documentary discussing the issues of female representations in hip-hop videos.

Deep focus- A camera technique that allows both near and far objects from the camera to be in focus at the same time.

This is important as it is a very tough skill to master, and could be used very effectively in a documentary to convey meaning.

Low Angle Shot- a shot where the camera approaches the subject from below eye level.

This could be key as when doing a documentary on representation, lower angled shots connote power, which is used frequently in hip-hop videos. For example 50cent-P.I.M.P, a variety of low angle shots are used to connote his power over the females in the video.

Male Gaze- Laura Mulvey's term used to describe what the camera shows in a male's point of view. Therefore the females are also forced to identify with what a male would see.

This term is important as again it shows how women are represented in texts, which is vital as that is what the critical investigation and linked production purely focus upon.

Dominant or Hegemonic reading- A response to a text in which the reader shares the value system of the text and accepts the preferred meaning without questioning it.

This is key as some women may not feel offense to females representations, and just choose to accept it as the texts forces them to.

Documentary- Any film about real life as opposed to being fictional.

It is important to understand this as someone about to produce a documentary will need to understand how they are constructed, for examples the conventions of voice overs, variety of shots ect. This will need to be done to produce and effective and professional documentary.