CULTURAL HEGEMONY AND DIGITAL DIVIDE DURING COVID 19. A DEEP VIEW INTO BONFIL AND GRAMSCI CONTRIBUTIONS

Abstract

The access and use of information and communication technologies, like internet and mobile
telephony, are the insurance of people to stay informed and connected with their loved ones and
support systems. The Internet has always been an important tool, but due to COVID-19 the colossal
division between the connected and disconnected people is bigger than never. In time of COVID-19,
the digital divide, the hegemony and the supremacy of the dominance of the Global North has
become more and more latent. The violence applied by this cultural hegemony designates the
domination of some actors on the society, leaving a clear mark of power, influence and hierarchy in
it. Many situations are the consequences of the power abuse which fells back on to an oppressed
group or to a group who are on a situation of social inequality. That’s why exists a notorious difficulty
to access to international intellectual contributions under non-Western firms. Being even more
difficult due to the huge amount of information and news related to COVID-19 that overshadows any
type of non-hegemonic contribution. Adding to all this, the big difficulty for accessing the internet due
to this huge digital gap. In this way, it will performed a review of a documentary methodology, where
authors like of Guillermo Bonfil Batalla and Antonio Gramsci will be the focus of the research, and
also taking into account contributions from other authors such as Quijano. Questions of domination,
hegemony and theories of cultural control will be the main point of the research. Some conclusions
will be focused on the role of education as a key way to correct conceptions of cultural domination
that affect all aspects of society, but more specifically more minority populations such as indigenous
peoples.