Representation according to Stuart Hall - Coursework Example

Hegemony and the Media Introduction Hegemony refers to an indirect form of governance which uses imperial dominance, so that the leader state (the hegemon) rules over geopolitically subordinate states, through the use of implied power and the maximisation of a threat of a specific threat in lieu of the use of a direct military force. Hegemony can take socio-cultural, economic or even political forms, depending on the interests involved. The case of the prevalence of stereotypes in the media aptly exemplifies a type of cultural hegemony, albeit the political and economic hegemony can still underpin this development. Cultural hegemony refers to the domination of a culturally variegated society by the elite or the ruling class. The ruling class in this case manipulates the tools and elements of socialisation such as the media, beliefs, values, social mores, explanations and perceptions. The manipulation of the tools of socialisation enables the conscience of the society to be synchronised with an imposed worldview as the accepted cultural norm, universally legitimate and dominant ideology. The accepted cultural norm becomes the ideology that explains and justifies the political, economic and social status quo as legitimate, natural, inevitable, sustainable and all-beneficial. In light of the foregoing discussion, it is true that hegemony is not only real and palpable in the modern society, but it also manifests itself in stereotypes, particularly in the media. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that in the discussion, cultural hegemony in the media can be exacted at both the national and international levels, as shall be seen forthwith. One of the ways in which the concept of hegemony helps understand the prevalence of stereotypes in the media is the constant use of symbolic annihilation. Symbolic annihilation refers to the suppression of achievements of a given social group or subgroup in the media. Because of this, the achievements of a particular group or individuals representing these groups often go unreported. At other instances, such achievements may either be trivialised or condemned by the mass media. The use of symbolic annihilation has been used several times and can therefore be used to understand the dynamics that take place in the media. For instance, Kian, Vincent and Mondello (2008, 238) argue that television sports presentations provide scanty details on women’s participation and success. In the event that women excel in readily recognised games (such as the recently concluded London Olympics) that make media coverage inevitable, women’s sports and triumph are sexualised, devalued or trivialised. One of the ways media coverage sexualises, devalues or trivialises women’s accomplishments in sports is by covertly emphasizing the rationale that women’s category of sports competition is less rigorous, compared to that of men. Conversely, some sports competitions are passed on as being a preserve of women. The crux of the matter in the development above is that the sexualisation, trivialisation and devaluing women’s achievements in sports are all attempts to consolidate the cultural hegemony that men had long exerted over the womenfolk. Other instances in which stereotypes in the media are prevalent are visible in race relations. Because of the bias of the British press against blacks, seldom does the outside world hear about the achievements of black scholars such as Paul Gilroy, Stephen Small, Ben Carrington and Barnor Hesse. On the contrary, those of the black descent are given much coverage by the media, when it comes to sports. The insinuation that is normally made by this covert application of double standards is that blacks only excel in the field of sports and entertainment, other than in intellectual fields such as science, technology and academics. It is against this backdrop that many are readily familiar with White British scholars and not their Black counterparts such as Paul Gilroy, Stephen Small, Ben Carrington and Barnor Hesse, though they draw from the same resources and shoulder the same responsibilities. The bottom-line of the insinuation made is that blacks are less intelligent though they are physically endowed. Although now fading in power, the foregoing was a part of an entire scheme which was being used to help the white population maintain the racial hegemony over the black race in the UK. The flipside and magnitude of this development has socio-cultural and economic underpinnings. Particularly, a tinge of social atavism is detectable herein, given that the black population is discounted as being less refined culturally. There are the movies and television programmes which present the black population as lazy, directionless and not good for anything except eating corn and Yantao (2012, 36). Yantao (2012, 37) claims that the case immediately above has economic implications. In the portraits that present the black population as lazy, directionless and only good at eating corn, the disproportionate distribution of resources in the UK or the US along racial class lines becomes explainable. For the black race and other ethnic minorities both in the UK, Africa and other Least Developed Countries (LDCs), appearing in television coverage is readily concomitant with under-achievement in schools, HIV/Aids pandemic, prevalent diseases, poverty, female genital mutilation and general socio-cultural stagnation. Rarely there is some contribution of the Black race into the British society. Groshek and Ying (2011, 1527) are poignant that content analyses of tens of thousands of news items from all over the globe for the past 10 decades can be categorised into the representation of ethnic minorities as criminals, ethnic minorities as a threat, ethnic minorities as a source of moral panics, ethnic minorities as perennial dependents, abnormal, dispensable and invisible. Concerning the portrayal of ethnic minorities as criminals, Cooky, Wachs and Messner, (2010, 147) observe that Black crime enjoys the most prolificacy in media news coverage followed by other people of colour and then the White population. Cooky, Wachs and Messner (2010, 149) specify that Black people, specifically African-Caribbeans, are always portrayed as criminals, members of organised or criminal gangs, drug peddlers and vagabonds, especially by the tabloid press. As touching moral panic, Kian, Vincent and Mondello, (2008, 242) advance the fact that the media has almost always stereotyped the Black race as potentially criminal. So profound this culture was that for the first time in 1970s, Stuart Hall carried out a classic study on the moral panic which had been built around the infamous folk devil of the Black mugger. In 2003, mainstream media houses carried documentaries which were drawing a direct relationship between gangster rap music lyrics and the rise of gun crimes (Glapka, 2010, 66). Glapka (2010, 59) points out that the media has been known for its persistent streak of painting the Black race and other ethnic minorities as a formidable threat to the dominant White culture. Immediately after the September 11th Attacks on America, some British and American media houses have persistently portrayed asylum seekers and immigrants as less patriotic and only being interested in life in Britain as a way of fraudulently benefiting from Britain’s benevolent welfare state. It is against the same backdrop that in the West there is profundity in the notion that Islam is inimical to Western interests and that Muslims are always retrogressive, extremist, misogynist and fundamentalist. In a closely related wavelength, Glapka (2010, 64) waxes polemical that the media in Britain, the US and the West have not yet dropped the penchant for portraying ethnic minorities as somewhat inferior. This is done covertly by the frequent and regular airing of news items about the LDCs which place emphases on the coup-war-famine-starvation syndrome. When analysed critically, the news items subtly insinuate that the root causes of the problems in the LDCs are self-inflicted ,and that they actually stem from sheer stupidity, the failure to exercise family planning, lethargy, tribalism and tribal conflicts, ineptitude and runaway corruption. Fundamental yet external causes such as colonialism, neocolonialism, unequal and unfair systems of world trade and transnational exploitation are seldom mentioned by the British, American and European media (Rucker, 2012, 52). The above case of vilifying ethnic minorities is usually reinforced with general or blanket condemnation (of the ethnic minorities). For instance, the British media and the media in the West have always portrayed clitoridectomy as a culture that is ubiquitous throughout Africa while it is true that there are different ethno-linguistic groups which subscribe to different cultural values and ways of life. At times, totemic representations are used to paint an entire ethnic minority as backward. This development above was recently witnessed on April 17th, 2012, when the Swedish minister of culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth participated in an event that depicted the clitoridectomy of a naked black woman-shaped cake. This event had nothing to do with the world of the pitfalls of female genital mutilation in the African world. This is because the actions performed on the cake were inconsistent with any act of benevolence. Liljeroth cut the cake’s clitoris before proceeding to eating it. Secondly, the aesthetic representation of the cake was meant to ridicule the Black race than to present the world with the reality of female genital mutilation. The cakes outer appearance was blackened as soot while its insides were gruesome red. That the entire event was aimed at cannibalising the character and person of the Black race is a matter that is well underscored by all the attendants then proceeding to slicing the rest of the cake’s ‘body parts’ before consuming them. Clitoridectomy deals with the mutilation of female organs and not the rest of the body parts. In the case described above, the role of the media was pivotal since it was the medium through which this controversial action was disseminated to the public after it was captured in a video presentation. The prolificacy of the media is seen in the video not only being aired by conventional media houses, but also suffusing to online social media such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube. Above all, the Black woman cake incident was targeted at imposing cultural hegemony over the Black race by caricaturing Black women and cannibalising her. The entire Black race could not extricate itself from the feeling of offense since quite often women are used to substantively refer to an entire race or people. Likewise, ethnic minorities have always been presented as abnormal. Cultural practices that the ethnic minorities adhere to are often criticised, questioned and labeled as abnormal or deviant. Many Asians, for instance, contend with the face that the media has treated arranged marriages inaccurately and thus do not reflect the way arranged marriages have undergone metamorphoses over time. At the same time, even though the UK, the US and West are claimed to be multicultural and tolerant, there is still criticism being leveled at the hijab and the niqab, as debase forms of apparels and a threat to security. The hijab and the niqab are portrayed by the media as vestiges of oppressive and patriarchal systems and the very stark exemplification of misogyny and undue subordination of women in Islam. As far as the media presentation of ethnic minorities as invisible and dispensable elements are concerned, Rucker (2012, 56) discloses that the 2005 BBC Online survey underscores the unfair treatment the media has subjected to ethnic minorities. Specifically, the BBC Online survey made note that despite Blacks and Asians are represented as television journalists and newscasters, the range of roles that ethnic minorities assume in TV drama are not only limited, but also take on low status, such as cleaners, shopkeepers and housekeepers. At the same time, Blacks and Asians are always presented as not being fully Black or Asian. Another way in which the cultural hegemony is visible in the media is the discriminatory representation of the ethnic minorities. It is against this backdrop that many sociologists such as Zhaoxia (2011, 195) are convinced that media representations of the minority groups are riddled with problems simply because they reinforce negative racist stereotypes. Beside festering radical sectarianism, this trend ultimately undermines the realisation of a tolerance in multicultural societies. Zhaoxia (2011, 197) is poignant that underrepresentation of the racial minority is one of the modus operandi used to entrench dominance over the minorities. Conversely, the media has also served as a powerful tool for linguistic hegemony over other populations. In the UK and the US blacks and other ethnic minorities were compelled to speak English in spite of British linguistic variety. By and by, these ethnic minorities began to forfeit their native languages. While it is true that a state or a country such as Britain has the prerogatives to designate a specific language (such as English) as official and national language, the imperial Britain did not respect this observation. Immediately the colonial Britain set foot on its colonies, it imposed English over the natives. The media therein would communicate in English, and the natives are the ones who form the demographic bedrock of the colonies as the notwithstanding majority. It is important to remember that language is a very strong cultural preservative and a conduit for the propagation of cultural values and traditions. Specifically, English has a strong anglicising force is a matter that cannot be discounted. It is not fortuitous that before the advent of the colonial white master in Africa and other colonies and protectorates kissing was unheard of and did not feature in the aborigine’s lexicon. However, because of the influence of the media and the insistence on the use of English, non-native English speakers have taken on both English and the English culture thereby being the epitome of victims of cultural hegemony. Conclusion The veracity of the indictments against the media’s failure to extricate itself from hegemonic tendencies and serving sectarian interests is self-evident. However, the same is also well underscored by the formation of homegrown professional media councils and agencies that are managed, controlled and owned by the ethnic minorities themselves. Some of these media agencies include Eastern Eye, Sunrise Radio, The Voice, Asian FX and Snoop. There would not be the need to form these agencies as forms of checks and measures against the excesses of the mainstream media if the excesses such as hegemonic tendencies would not be extant in the first place. The same shows that hegemony in media representations have been and are still rife and can be used to understand the longstanding prevalence of stereotypes in the media. References Cooky, C., Wachs, F. L. & Messner, M. 2010. “Its Not About the Game: Don Imus, Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Media.” Sociology of Sport Journal, 27 (2), 139-159. Glapka, E. 2010. “Ideology in Media Language: Hegemonic Discourse or Multiple Discourses?” At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries, 73, 47-65. Groshek, J. & Ying, H. 2011. “Negotiated Hegemony and Reconstructed Boundaries in Alternative Media Coverage of Globalization.” International Journal of Communication, 5 (2), 1523-1544. Kian, E. M., Vincent, J. & Mondello, M. 2008. “Masculine Hegemonic Hoops: An Analysis of Media Coverage of March Madness.” Sociology of Sport Journal, 25 (2), 223-242. Rucker, M. L. 2012. “The Media, Politics, and Ideology: A Critical-Analytical Perspective.” International Journal of Business & Social Science, 3 (1), 51-58. Yantao, B. 2012. “The Political Economy of the Contemporary Media and Cultural Production.” Asian Social Science, 8 (6), 36-39. Zhaoxia J. 2011. “A Research and Counter-measures of English Cultural Hegemony in China.” Asian Social Science, 7 (1), 194-200. Read More