Page 31 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

6 Editors

ruling class and, as the principal subordinate class, the working
class. (Bennett et al. 1986: xiv)
The idea of hegemony does not suggest that domination is achieved
by manipulating the worldview of the masses. Rather; it argues that
in order for cultural leadership to be achieved, the dominant group
has to engage in negotiations with opposing groups, classes, and
values—and that these negotiations must result in some genuine
accommodation. That is, hegemony is not maintained through the
obliteration of the opposition but through the articulation of oppos-
ing interests into the political affiliations of the hegemonic group.
(Turner 1990: 211–12)

Simple and straight oppositions dissolve, while mobile and pro-
visional combinations deriving from different class locations shape
cultural confrontations. The outcome is a mix of imposition, subordi-
nation, opposition, spontaneity and enforcement in multiple permuta-
tions and unsteady proportions (Bennett et al. 1986: xv–xvi).

Practices of Counter-culture

Some cultures play counter-cultural roles at a certain period of time in
a given cultural milieu when particular sections depart from the norms,
codes or values hitherto received by the majority of others. This may
be observed among social sections whose voices are usually repressed
in any field (music, literature, narratives, performing arts, community
festivals, philosophy, etc.), or more generally whatever the field or the
idiom (music, poetry, social action, symbolic or ideological production,
deviant behaviour, alternative conducts, etc.). The concept of ‘alter-
native communication’ carries in this regard a will to emancipation
from the control of the communication industry and established
symbolic systems of social assimilation. But should the idea be simply
equated with ‘non-dominant’ and interventionist attempts of emancipa-
tion from the control of the communication industry? Should ‘counter-
culture’ be necessarily construed as a culture of ‘resistance’?
The term ‘alternative communication’ is used by Vibodh Parthasarathi
in his essay ‘Interventionist Tendencies in Popular Culture’, with
reference to ‘media processes arising from and associated with counter-
cultural politics’. It might be extended to any sort of contest leading