Thinker
Antonio Gramsci
Who
Italian Marxist theorist, wrote from Mussolini's prisons.
Core Idea
Hegemony — dominant groups maintain power not through force alone but through cultural consent. The battle for power is a battle for the dominant narrative. Civil society is where this battle is fought.
Key Works
- Prison Notebooks (1929–1935)
Relevance
Why civil society communications are not just communications — they are hegemonic contests. When an NGO builds brand authority, they are participating in a Gramscian struggle for narrative legitimacy. This is the frame that explains why your work matters at a political level, not just an institutional one.
Connected To
- Michel Foucault — hegemony through consent vs. power through discourse — parallel theories of non-coercive domination
- Pierre Bourdieu — symbolic capital is the mechanism through which hegemony operates
- Manuel Castells — counter-power as reprogramming the network = counter-hegemony updated
- Ruben Pater — design complicity is designers participating in hegemonic reproduction
