The Spaces Between Grassroots Documentary ... - Ezra Winton

hands of the few’, and how this ‘set’ interplays with the previous ‘set’ to constitute
historically specific moments of a process he would call ‘hegemony.’ His brilliant, if
chaotic, intellectual investigations continue to inform scholars from disparate disciplines
to this day. Lears attests:
Gramsci can inspire fresh thought…By clarifying the political functions of
cultural symbols, the concept of cultural hegemony can aid intellectual
historians trying to understand how ideas reinforce or undermine existing
social structures and social historians seeking to reconcile the apparent
contradiction between the power wielded by dominant groups and the
relative cultural autonomy of subordinate groups whom they victimize.
(1985, p. 568)
While Lears is clearly prioritizing his own profession, clarifying political functions of
cultural symbols has great use to not only historians, but the not-too-distant social science
cousin of communications as well. Cinema is a global media art form that – in its varied
incarnations – produces cultural symbols through creation, circulation, and meaning-
making with audiences/consumers. Positioning the practices around
distribution/exhibition of cinema (as is done in detail in Chapter V), and examining how
power is being wielded and indeed maintained by specific dominating entities, is an
intellectual activity in understanding cultural hegemony. In other words, by interrogating
the grassroots efforts of d/e around documentary, one component of a complex
relationship between media, global entertainment, and community activism is opened up,
and helps ultimately to understand relations of power.
Lears points out that, for Gramsci, “The concept of hegemony has little meaning
unless paired with the notion of domination. For Gramsci, consent and force nearly
always coexist, though one or the other predominates.” (Lears, 1985, p.568) In the case
of hegemony and media, including cinema, there presently exists a global oligarchy of
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