Ideological influence is very significant in the progression of social power. Land ownership and industrialism creates conflicts of interest between classes. The cleavage between hegemonic and counter hegemonic forms produces a demand for ideological labor. The intellectual Antonio Gramsci focused much of his work on ideology as applied to the materialist Marxist theory. Gramsci stated in 1920,

 

“ Every revolution which, like the Christian and the Communist revolutions, comes about and can only come about through the stirring within the deepest

and broadest popular masses, cannot help but smash and destroy the existing

system of social organization”.

 

This statement written nearly a century ago reinforces the idea that popular conviction can have the same momentum or the equivalent of material force. Media conglomerates reproduce content and tones that support their agenda far more easily than other social groups because they control major socializing institutions. The influence of media conglomerates gives the dominant classes the ability to set mental and structural limits in which subordinate classes make sense of their subordination in a way that ensures the supremacy of the ruling class. The social groups that control society provides rhetoric in the media that encourages the masses to relate to themselves as market consumers rather than public citizens. Relationships between governmental, socializing, and communications agencies define the essence of hegemony.