Working class
People who live in this country and are of the working class tend to see the same drunk lazy person as part of their representation when this is far from reality. No matter what they do they cannot seem to break away from these demeaning and harmful stereotypes. However, is it fully the work of the media?
Well in a hegemony piece of text yes it would be believed that it is the media that has a direct influence on our opinions. A media text I believe applies here is the tv show Shameless that ran from 2004 to 2013. The tv show itself is set in a place of working class and even though there are many different stereotypes we can pull out I am going to be specifically looking at one of the shows main characters- Frank.
Frank fits into all of stereotypes some are: alcoholic, drug users, smoker, at the pub a lot, bad father and unhygienic. The reason for this is hegemonic is it is easier for us to understand something as a visual representation. As we can see, all these factors in front of us are portrayed as characters, so it is hard, unless you have first hand knowledge, to break away from this stereotype. The reason this is bad is this can have an impact on our own thoughts and opinions which could then lead to different political points of view.
On the other hand, pluralism says media has the opposite effect, pluralism says that as a person you have your own thoughts and opinions, and media cannot change what you believe. Instead, they think it is society that has control over the media in that the media does not present what they want us to believe in the present what they want us to see.
The first media text backs pluralism is a daily mirror front newspaper cover with an outrageous quote from Boris Johnson.
This statement uses these harsh adjectives to reinforce stereotypes such as the working class having an unhealthy amount of alcohol also being very dangerous and uncontrollable. However, this is vastly different to the tv show shameless therefore how it affects us will be different. As Shameless was showing you a human face to put the stereotype with while this is just a generalization and someone's opinion who we cannot relate to. If this were our mums saying yes, we would probably be more inclined to take it in, however this is a tory MP. Plus, this newspaper only states his opinion, not that you should agree, it feels like it wants controversy and arguments therefor encouraging you to have your own opinion.
Too add to this, my final media text also sparks room for debate in that you should have your opinion. The media text is a screenshot of one of Katie Hopkins' horrible tweets.
This tweet is so ignorant. She is trying to reinforce in a joke the stereotype that working class people do everything to not work. This lack of understanding of reality is just painful, nevertheless expect nothing less from Katie Hopkins. However, this shows that not all media will make you believe in what the media is portraying as she has put her own opinion on the internet but people are not going to all of a sudden think this way.
This is a really interesting look at not only the representations in the media but the impact and effect of the media. As a staunchly Labour supporting paper The Mirror has decided to try and use Johnson's words against him - to try and expose his ignorant prejudices to their predominantly working class audience. However in a discussion of Hegemony vs Pluralism it's interesting to note that in the ultimate demonstration of pluralism - a general election - Johnson won by a landslide, this must have meant that at least some of the working classes in Britain didn't pay attention to the papers. Or perhaps the continued demonisation of working class people in the UK's media has led to an…