marxism, pluralism and hegemony

NDM: Marxism, Pluralism and Hegemony

1.) In summary, Ian Thompson, an elderly man, was beaten on the leg with a baton by police during  a protest while being suspected to be one of the protesters, while the end result being his death, and while he was innocent, minding his own business, which has caused a lot of controversy regarding the topic of police brutality. 

The preferred hegemonic view of this incident would be to blandly defend the police force as they're thought to protect citizens that do no wrong, and vice versa to criminals. However, any sane person would agree that Thompson was a victim of unnecessary police brutality, and clearly seen from the UGC video Thompson was not apart of the protest and was simply minding his business, to which then the police officer unprofessionally couldn't compose himself with. The new and digital media as a result then challenges this cover up that the media would have bought to defend the police force's image, while UGC clearly says otherwise, presenting objective evidence.

2.) The author, Nick Lacey, explores whether Web 2.0 has really democratised our access to the media, and switched the power from producers to audiences, or whether it has simply become absorbed into the values of 'old media'. In short, Lacey believes that hegemonic values can be challenged by the new and digital media, where social networking apps to spread UGC, therefore we are not this passive audience that simply is subject to being fed news, and that media is no longer 'gatekeepers' anymore.

3.) I think any rational user on the Internet would look one step further, therefore challenge any situation that is happening based on the objective information they see, and this happens to be UGC that seems to be the catalyst to these challenges. Of course too, the media is much less like the 'old media' now, where there is a constant switch between the black and white side of news, and is very hard to give a definitive judgement purely based on what information you're being presented with. As a result, consumers can turn to other alternative news consumption, for example, social networking apps such as Twitter to share your opinions as well as acknowledge other people's opinions.

4.) The hegemonic values of political events, especially concerning presidential candidates have taken their influence and their effect to the point other countries feel as if they're being affected as a result too. Obviously, people would challenge the dominant ideology between their opinion on who should've rightfully been the president of United States, and whether the outcome was the right judgement or not, based on their subjective opinions. This is the same case of Brexit, where people have accused the voters of the winning opposition to have been 'racist'.