Hegemony

Gramsci, 1929-1935
The "spontaneous" consent given by the great mass of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group.

Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci: Ed. and Transl. by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. Eds. International Publishers, 1971[1929-1935]:12

Williams, 1977
The whole lived social process as practically organised by specific and dominant meanings and values.

Williams, R. Marxism and Literature. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1977:109

Comaroff and Comaroff, 1991
That order of signs and practices, relations and distinctions, images and epistemologies – drawn from a historically situated cultural field – that come to be taken-for-granted as the natural and received shape of the world.

Comaroff, Jean & Comaroff, John. Of Revelation and Revolution, Vol. 1: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991:23.

Roper, 2005
Hegemony can be defined as domination without physical coercion through the widespread acceptance of particular ideologies and consent to the practices associated with those ideologies.

Roper, Juliet. "Symmetrical communication: excellent public relations or a strategy for hegemony?." Journal of Public Relations Research 17.1 2005:70.