Distinction of Taste Through Hegemony Theory: An Updated Version of Tastes Effect on Social Class Through Television

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Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, takes a sociological stance on cultural taste and its effect on social class. Bourdieu argues, that taste is closely related to social class and indeed acts as a marker of class. He continues to make claims of how people learn of culture and how certain culture belongs to certain social classes who have the cultural competence to understand it. By investigating the educational system, Bourdieu was able to draw conclusions of how taste should be understood and its influence on cultural consumption. Since Bourdieu's Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, was published in 1984 and is based from French culture, it has little real merit on popular culture today and more specifically on television. To truly understand taste and its effects on our society, Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony is arguably more effective. Presently, society is filled with a large diversity of types of culture and diversity of who consumes certain culture. The television is no exception as the audience has shifted from a strict division in class determining who watches what, to more integration of classes watching television shows. For example, the popular reality television show Duck Dynasty, draws in the biggest audience of any television show today. The show is able to cross boundaries of social class to draw in working-class to upper-class viewers. At the same time, the show promotes classic Christian ideals and therefore universalizing them. The universalizing of certain ideas through negotiations according to Gramsci, is a fundamental premise of Hegemony which holds true in present day television. Furthermore, Bourdieu's concept of how taste m...

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Gitlin, Todd. "Prime Time Ideology: The Hegemonic Process in Television Entertainment." Social Problems 23.3 (1979): 251-66. JSTOR. Web. 27 Nov. 2013. .
Lears, T.J. J. "The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities." The American Historical Review 90.3 (1985): 567-93. JSTOR. Web. 25th Nov. 2013.
Storey, John. Cultural Theory And Popular Culture An Introduction. 5th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2009. Print.
Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (notes towards an investigation)." The anthropology of the state: A reader (2006): 86-111.
Gurney, Deirdre, and Scott Gurney, prods. Duck Dynasty. A&E. Manhattan, New York, 21 Mar. 2012. Television.

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