Hegemony

Web 2.0: Hegemony or participation

House prices

·         The dominant or hegemonic view is that high house prices are good.

·         Lots of coverage – with high prices almost always presented as a good thing. Mostly positive stories.

·         Stories generally presented from perspective of people who already own homes rather than those hoping to buy them – a classic example of the angle favouring the wealthy or ruling class.

·         Very little reference to the fact that house prices and risky mortgages contributed to the major economic crash in 2008.

·         Little coverage of the impossibility of buying a house for young people.

·         However, columns, blogs and comments present different opinions that contradict the dominant or hegemonic view (often written by younger people) 

1) Research the Ian Tomlinson case. What would the traditional, hegemonic view of the police be in a case like this? How did new and digital media create a different story? What does the police officer's subsequent aquittal suggest about the power of new and digital media?

Within the Ian Tomlinson case, the police are portrayed within a very negative manner as this one example of a boy getting killed by a police officer has spread throughout the media, brainwashing people and making them believe that police officers such as himself are spiteful. However, as this was not within the police's intentions to kill the boy, it was made out to look like he was. The new and digital media created a different story by favouring a death of a boy who could have been doing the wrong thing leading to a reason as to why the police officer may have hit him like he did. On the other side of the story, it is said that without the web being there to help favour the victim, the story may have never gone to court.

2) Do you agree that new and digital media challenges the traditional, dominant hegemonic views? Why?

I believe that the new and digital media does in fact alter the way people think and behave as it challenges ideologies of certain things and it puts the power of dictatorship within the audiences' hands within the media as factors such as commenting upon certain articles, videos or other aspects of the media may disagree with certain media put up for everyone to see. The comments may allow on-line wars as for example, if people disagree with something that has been posted up being a video, then more people may be encouraged to put their views across upon the video and may either get their comment reported or may either get their points across into making the video been taken off of the website.

3) What does the author argue regarding whether hegemony is being challenged by Web 2.0? 

Due to the new and digital media being a contemporary tool, we, the audience, no longer depend on 'old school' forms of media such as newspapers or magazines as they can be made and found on-line. I believe that with this new technology, unlike the older times, the audience have just as much power as the publishers allowing certain things of the media either being glorified or taken down. 

4) Use the topic you researched (royal family, NHS, immigration etc.) to provide examples of how new and digital media is used to challenge traditional or hegemonic views.

Hegemonic vs alternative ideologies of:
The Royal Family - Wealthy, big family, UK, positive impact upon society as people may aspire to be like them, Royal Wedding, Royal baby// Good for nothing, doing nothing for the UK.
Education - Bad thing as schools are seen to be failing, exam results have only gone up as exams are now easier than before// Good schools, poor schools.
Police - Good as they look out for society, people feel safe, protect the people//Violent, tragic, abusive.
NHS - UK love them due to it regularly being free unlike other countries such as the US as a lot of people within the UK are struggling to cope with bills// Slow service, keep people in the hospital for days for no reason
Politicians - Money stealing, very negative, not trusted// Great ideas, creative.
The armed forces - Heroes, go out to war fighting for the UK// Violent, killing people, going against peace.