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 The
article "'Beatlepeople': Gramsci, The Beatles, and Rolling Stone
Magazine," by Michael Frontani, an assistant professor in the School
of Communications, was published in the Summer 2002 edition of American
Journalism.
The research
focuses on Rolling Stone magazine's "underground" period (1967 through
1970), and looks at founder Jann Wenner's use of the Beatles in
promoting the counterculture ideal and promoting the success of
his magazine.
"The establishment
of Rolling Stone as a mainstream publication exemplifies the workings
of Gramsci's notion of hegemony," Frontani points out. "The ground
the Beatles occupied, the area of struggle between the dominant
culture and the counterculture, was also the venue for assimilation
of much of the counterculture's program into the 'compromise equilibrium'
of hegemony. And it was the sphere in which Rolling Stone became
a commercial success and served as a vehicle for integration of
the counterculture into the mainstream."
Frontani also
led a group of Elon students on a Winter Term study tour to London
in January to study the Beatles, culture and Gramsci's theories.
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