Hip Hop and Inequality: Searching for the "Real" Slim Shady By S ...

constraints which set the boundaries within which culture/ideology and human agency operate. Hegemony is maintained by the dominant culture absorbing some aspects from the subculture while reinforcing the fundamental assumptions of the dominant culture. For this to take place, there is either conscious or unconscious cooperation between structural and cultural/ideological spheres of society.

Hip hop's ascension over the last thirty years into a capitalistic, global marketplace is remarkable. Powerful elements of the dominant culture see the profit potential of varied dimensions of hip hop. The commodification of hip hop has resulted in the marketing of images which serve to reinforce many old stereotypes. Globalization in America and the role of the media, driven by technical innovation, are central to the process of hip hop moving from the back streets to Main Street. The commercial media, dominated by corporations, serve a bardic function. Structured messages put out by the media have to be decoded and interpreted by the audience. To decode, audience members resort to values, norms, and beliefs—root metaphors—that they, the audience, hold in order to make sense of the information communicated. Their response is not only based on the intent of the communicator but also on the values in which the audience has been socialized.

John Fiske and John Hartley's (1978) notion of bardic television is adapted and applied to the entire media. According to them, the media serve their bardic function of framing the “natural” order of things in the world by providing a set of images so the audience members can locate themselves in the social stratification system, by providing justifications for the system of inequality, and by perpetuating images that reinforce the dominant culture/ideology.