Online Activism

In order to under online activism within policing we must first know what activism means. Activism by definition means the intentional action to bring about social and political change. This is similar to advocacy or speaking on behalf of groups usually in relation to legislative change. There are many different forms of activism. The one I would like to discuss is online activism. Online is any thing that can be reposting or a call to action.

Black Lives Matter is an online activism for specifically the black community. This was brought about mainly because many black people had their lives taken from them due to police brutality. This movement started because they did not believe that blacks were getting the right representation in the media when this stuff was happening. They believed that they needed more attention to black people because they were being killed by guns or being found as missing or dead within prison walls. They felt like they needed this to be publicized and put themselves out there so that people are more aware of this issue.

They do this because they would like to do an action in order to bring around social and political change. They want people to be more aware of this issue and then do something to promote change.

Social Media

Social media has changed over the years but it does not change how we use them. Social media is a form of connections with other people. We often see police brutality happen through social media. Social media has grown so much over the years, because it has not been a big thing until just recently. Social media are usually sites like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram. There are many more websites used. They websites all have different meanings and ways that you can use them.

Social media is a new upcoming trend, especially for the generation that we are in now. We are so attached to our phones and with being attached to our phones we begin to be attracted to the social media that comes with it. Phones have gotten better and better the older that we get. We used to have flip phones and not having access to websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Now that we have the access to these websites we are more aware of the things that happen in the world.

 
We see protest more and more and since we have the access to social media more then we have ever had we can build a bias. We see so much talk about police brutality that we think that it happens more frequently than it actually does. And if we do see a side of the story usually it is not all the story and can be framed for a specific audience. Which promotes this constant divide between police and the minority community. Social media can be a good thing, but it can also promote negative things.

Public Relations in Policing

What is public relations? Being in the position of Public Relations is being the mediator between your organization and the public. This is a strategic communication process that mutually beneficial relationships organizations their publics.

Being in this position includes anticipating, analyzing and interpreting the public opinion, attitudes and issues. This also includes counselling management at all levels in the organization with regard to policy decisions, courses of action and communication. Lastly, it is also researching and conducting and evaluating on a continuing basis, programs of actions and communication to achieve the informed.

While doing Public Relations you may run into pitfalls. Pitfalls are assuming similarity instead of difference.

In policing you need a public relations because you need that middle man to explain what is actually going on and keep people up to date. This is so important because this can change how people view police brutality. People having access to this public relations is important. Police Brutality can have many different views and these views can change based off what people see. If people only see police officers beating on minorities the minority community will have certain reactions to police solely off of what they see.

An example of this would be #Ferguson.



This was a big movement that was within the marginalized communities. When you are within the position you can spend a lot of money trying to get this together. Having this promoted can spend a lot of money and also look into the case. You have to determine what to display and what not display. Because what you display can change how people view a situation.

Satrical Cartoons about Police Brutality

Satire has always been an interesting topic of discussion for me. I personally love satirical cartoons or videos. Satire is literacy/ mediated work that diminishes or derogates a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking toward it attitudes of amusement, contempt, scum or indignities. Satire is usually witty and often very funny. The purpose of satire is to criticize in or order to shame someone or something. Within satire their are 3 different kinds of satire in which are Horatian, Juvenalian, and Indirect.

There are also many ways that you can go about using satire. There are 4 specific techniques of using satire. Those ways are Exaggeration, Incongnity, Reversal, and Parody.

Exaggeration is enlarging/ increasing or represent something beyond normal bounds so that it becomes ridiculous and its facts can be seen. Incongnity is to resent things that are out of place or are absurd in relation to their surrounding. Reversal is to resent the opposite of the normal order of events hierarchal order Parody is to imitate the techniques.

The first form of satire is Horatian Satire. This type of satire is when it is gentle, urbane, and kind of makes you want to smile. It is like a wink and a nod. This satire types aims to correct through gentle sympathetic laughter. An example of this would be:
 This is gentle because it is still displaying that sometimes the things that we see on TV are manipulated in some way to send off the wrong message and we have this ongoing conflict. In this photo, it is clear that the man said "Down with Police Brutality" But it is showing the news reporter with scissors and the word brutality on the floor so it just says "Down with Police" This is gentle because if you watch Fox News you know that they often exploit a lot of the things before they broadcast to the world. This is kind of doing the wink and nod that we know how Fox News is, and how they make stuff seem more different than what they are. I would say that is satire is effective by what people will decide to watch for News if they are being accused of not portraying the right news it can, bring there views down due to credibility issues. The technique that is used here is parody because they are imitating what Fox News does.






The second form of satire is Juvenalian Satire. This satire is more biting, bitter and angry contempt, and moral indignation. An example of this would be the photo that is on left. In this photo a man that looks like he identifies as African American (Black) is in the doctors office saying "I'd like to have this birthmark removed.." The birthmark looks just like a "target" that you hit. This is implying that he is tired of being a target. This is more biting because in history African Americans have been know to be a target in many different areas such as police brutality, and racism mostly. This is biting because it is not just a wink and nod and something that you laugh at. This is something that someone made because it is how they see the word and/ or themselves and they are tired of being the target for everything. This is important because it is making a statement saying that this is happening, and it needs to be changed. Many claim that we live in a post-racial society but we still have marginalized people feeling as if they are still a target. I think that this was very effective because it can make people think about what is really going on and let people know that certain groups are still being seen as a target. The technique used for this satirical cartoon is exaggeration. It is something that they enlarged to show the faults.

The last form of satire is Indirect satire. This is expressed through narrative. Characters and/ or groups who are the focus of the satire are ridiculed not by what is said about them but by what they themselves say and do. An example of this could be the movie Clueless.

Police Sex and Gender Abuse

Rape Culture is defined as accepting rape as an everyday occurrence and even a male prerogative. This encourages gender violence, as well as perpetuate "rape myths", ranging from treating rape as merely "rough sex" to blaming the victim for inviting rape. This rape culture validates and rationalize the normative misogynistic practices. This culture shames all female sexuality.

The effects in this is that people fear the acts that can be done to them and have a long term effect on the person. Sometimes this issue is too narrow and also excludes men. In the video displayed above a lady was pulled over for a headlight but then later in the video they wanted to search her for drugs. The cops tell her to lift up her shirt and to shack it, not once but twice! The people on the talk show mention that she is not in the fancy car, it is always the people that do not know the laws or that are poor. This video in specific humiliated the victim. Not only did she have to go through this but now she is also in the media. Although it is great to catch the bad cop, this is public humiliation for her and can have long term effects on her.

In the second video displayed, a lady had gotten pulled over for throwing out a cigarette from window a couple of times while driving. By the end of the video a woman cop does a deep search on the side of the road, public for everyone to see. The lady searched even said that she has had an interesting stop, she has never been stopped and now that this was her first stop she is suing because the way they went about the stop is illegal.

What I find frustrating about our rape culture is that people get away with this all the time not knowing the effects that it can leave on the person assaulted. People I am assuming everyday get sexually assaulted not only by police but by other people who may be strangers or people they even might know. Being touched in ways that are inappropriate, can make them feel differently about themselves, being around that sex that assaulted them (man and woman)  and just always being on high alert because no one wakes up and thinks that they will be assaulted today. This is when rape culture comes in. We see this happening so much, it seems as if we accept rape because it happens so much. There are resources but after that happens to someone they will forever remember every second of them being assaulted and will not be the same person they were before. This is important because since we do not see rape as such a big thing, people are scared to report the crime and get justice. They start to blame themselves for the situation like "Why was I that drunk" "Why did I wear short shorts that day" "Why did I say hi to someone, because they could have felt like I was leading them on" There is no excuse for rape. Just because you are wearing a crop top, shorts, a shirt, or drinking at the bars that does not give someone the right to come up to you and make you do something that you do not want to do. That does not make it okay for them to do something when you have said no. There is NO excuse for rape. Any man or woman who thinks its okay to have sexual activity with someone while drunk or because of what they are wearing or even because they THINK they have authority to do so is lower than dirt and I have no respect for them. 

Acculturation in Policing

Lets start off by defining what acculturation means. Acculturation are attitudes and/or beliefs modified as a result of contact with a different culture. There are 2 different models that can show this. The first model is the Linear Model, this is when acculturation is weakening of ethnic identity. The other model is the 2 Dimensional Model.

The two dimensional model is also known as Berry's Two Dimensional Model. There are 4 possible outcomes to the acculturation. The first outcome is assimilation. When this happens it is usually a movement towards the dominant culture. The second outcome is integration. integration is when you synthesis the two cultures. In other words, you are able to equally function in both cultures. The third outcome is rejection. Rejection happens when you are reaffirming the tradition culture. Lastly, the other outcome is marginalization. This is alienation from both cultures.

It is hard to describe and go into detail with acculturation in policing, but lets try and work through this.

With police brutality the model I will be using today will be the Berrys 2 Dimensional Model to describe acculturation. 

In the video above, you will see an officer playing with the neighborhood kids. With all the negative media going around, this may sound unheard of. We always hear all the negative stuff about police officers and how they want to pull their guns out any chance they get, or that they abuse there power. Even in the video the lady pointed out that when she say the cop car, she was worried for herself and her kids because of the negative stigma that they have. This video can be see as a integration outcome.

 

I believe that this is an integration outcome to the 2 dimension model because it is playing to cultures. Like yes, they have a job and sometimes that job includes being violent but that is not the only thing police officers do. The second part of their job is to serve for the community. This man is in uniform playing football with the neighborhood children. They are able to function into both cultures. He is doing his job by enforcing the law but he is also making sure that the neighborhood is okay.

 

Sometimes we often only see the bad in people when something is done but then we forget about all the good stuff that they do. I also once heard that "People do not like cops, until you need them" which I can see as true. People fear these officers but when they are in need of help that is the first person they call to solve all kinds of problems. I am not justifying that some stuff that police do are okay but sometimes we must step back from the media and see what is really is going on. What is being displayed? What is being hidden? What is being exploited? Is everything we hear in the media true? We also cannot judge the mistake of one officer on all of them. They are their own person and make their own decisions. We should look at both sides of the story. In every story there are 3 sides; His side, her side and the truth. 

TV Race and Class Representation in Everybody Hates Chris Sitcom

A sitcom is usually a situation comedy, half hour series. Within these half hour serious there is usually a problem that gets solved by the end of the show. Examples of sitcoms are: Family Guy, Modern Family and How I Met Your Mother. We study sitcoms because some shows support the status quo while allowing for contrary readings, we like that it is simple, easy, and we know what to kind of expect.

Frames the Working Class  are defined by 5 different characteristics of the working class that are shown in media specifically television shows such as Everybody Hates Chris.

1. Bad Taste
2. Lack of Intelligence
3. Disinterested in Politics
4. Poor Work Ethic
5. Dysfunctional Family 

I will be evaluating the television sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. In this sitcom the minority representation is more of a ridicule. A ridicule means that minorities specifically in this sitcom African Americans are there for amusement, they are not laughing with you, however they are laughing at you. The reporting policy regarding minorities (the issues) is police brutality. In the first video, a son is sitting down with his mother and a guy from a college to discuss  his plans for college. In the meeting, the college professor ask the mom how long she has had a heroin addiction, he then ask if she has multiple fathers for her children. This is indicating bad taste and also possible lack of intelligence and poor work ethnic. After she says that they have one father, he asks if she is aware of the fathers name. She then begins to feel very disrespected because these are stereotypes that are held against African Americans. At the end of the video 4 cops burst into the household during the interview with guns pointed at all the African Americans, one officer says "step away from the white man, out the pamphlets down" The bring Chris down to the floor as well as the college interviewer and they apologize to the white man but not Chris. This can be seen as a Dysfunctional family.

In the second video Chris is thrown in jail at the age of thirteen because of a racial profile saying that he "fit the description "of the person who was identified as robbing a white males house. When you look at the video of what the man actually described he said that it was a black man, medium completion, 6 foot 4 inches, brown eyes, yellow beanie, dark pants, size 14 dark shoes, and birth mark on back of left wrist. You it very apparent and said in the show that all the officer heard was, was that the person who robbed him was black.

I have noticed that within the sitcom although it is funny and points out the negative stereotypes that we have as African Americans it fails to say what to do. I see this show as funny but in reality majority of it is regarding racism that does not get fixed. In reality, we are ridicule, we are the joke essentially. There are a few positive attributes like the father working but he works so much that he is unable to see his wife or kids often. This is not showing a single parent household but they portray all the stereotypes of an African American. It does not help that he is the only black kid in his classes and he gets talked down to all the time. There are some sitcoms that try and make life as a person of color specifically black people, seem like everything is "okay" such as the Cosby Show. This show does not attempt to make life as a black person to seem "okay". They point out what is wrong but fail to address what they can do to fix the problem, instead it seems as if black people are the joke.

Framing Police Brutality

We often hear of the word "framing" but do we truly know what it means? Framing by definition is “selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and making them more salient in a communicating text.” Framing does 4 things

1.      Promotes a particular problem

2.      Causal Interpretation

3.      Moral Evaluation

4.      Treatment Commendation

This is identifying a problem, seeing who is responsible for the problem identified, seeing how media is telling you how to feel, and how to react and fix the problem identified. In this video you can see that the media text I have selected makes certain parts of information more salient, which essentially leads the audience to one perception of reality.

This video is showing two men with the same views on police brutality but difference of opinion when Black Lives Matter subject is brought up. The homicide detective and the police officer agreed that people are over reacting to the police brutality and basically saying it does not exists. The police man on the right agreed. They had the same views when it came to police brutality but when the conversation went to Black Lives Matter occurred the detective on the left said that he thinks that is appropriate to fight or black lives matter but the way they are going about the situation he did not agree with. He also said that he was for "All Lives Matter" instead of "Black Lives Matter" but when bringing that up to the cop you can see the frustration in his voice that he disagreed with anything the detective had to say about Black Lives Matter and said that he was only contributing to the problem. One frame in this video is: Police Brutalty and Black Lives Matter within the community. 

1.      The problem with this media text is Police Brutality and Black Lives Matter

2.      The person responsible are Police Officers around the country

3.      Misuse of weapons, and also knowing what is legal v what is not legal for cops to do.

4.      In order to fix this problem, we protest until the unlawful killings are put to a stop.

This media text is a prime example that the media will only show us only a piece of information that they make more noticeable and meaningful to make us think or feel a certain way. I think that it is great that they showed to differences of opinion on the subject, and also but they barely showed any representation of the other opinions out there on black lives matter. They only showed the people who have authority on society and although they were people of color but still only showed what they want the public to think. If you look at who holds power in society it is typically white, able-bodied, males. These people run the corporations are ran by those people, therefore they can say what get aired and what does not which can control how we think of police brutality. If they show a black man that is against police brutality, and thinks Black Lives Matter is just a joke that can affect how someone sees it. Being an African American women myself, hearing someone of my race expressing their ideas that this is bogus, I may not be persuaded to think differently but it can definitely have some effect on how I view the situation because of how they feel, which is what the media wants us to do. They want us to question what we believe, and persuade us to think the way that they want us to think.

Another frame that we can look at is the detective:

1. The problem the detective sees is how the community goes about spreading the word of Black Lives Matter.
2. The community who are doing rally's and protest are seen as the people responsible for the problem
3. Media is telling people watching to go about the situation and feel different. 
4. In order to fix this problem we must find a different and more efficient way of handling things more efficiently. 

This is problematic because we need people to be on the same page in order to make change in society, This matters because this is a national issue that has yet to see change. 

Is Police Brutality a Real Issue?

 

 

The pictures above that you will find are news articles and a video from YouTube of Police Brutality. I want to show how the frequency of these news articles and YouTube videos correlate to Agenda Setting.

Agenda setting is the media telling us what to think about, and what not to think about. For example, if we see crime on television we automatic see crime to be violent crime. When in reality, crime can also be as non-violent as white collar crime or fraud. Agenda Setting focuses more on demographics like your race, age and socio-economic status (SES). 

Agenda Setting is the media expressing what we should pay attention to/ what we should be thinking about.  It is showing the frequency in how much we see in the media. This is because they want to get the most attention and reactions of people. They are aiming to have people focus on something specific and not the broader picture because people who present media feel like it is something we all find important. Police Brutality falls under this because just recently we have seen an increase in how much Police Brutality has been around the internet due to everyone having access to internet as well as having cell phones because these actions can not only be recorded by individuals unlike the past but also because of the amount of shares it gets once it gets posted. The frequency has changed because over 20 years ago we did not have access to this technology or the ability to record things that go on around the world and now we have that access. Since we are starting to see it all over the news, YouTube, Facebook and other social media websites it causes us to believe that it has some importance.

I typed in “Police” and the first thing that followed police was “Mistreatment” and “Brutality”. When I typed in Police Brutality and over 11, 700, 00 and when you type it in on YouTube over 651,000 videos popped up that involved Police Brutality. Back in the day, we did not have Google, YouTube or even the use of internet which means we did not see Police Brutality as a big problem because we simply did not see it at that time. Now that we have the technology and video, people have the ability to record and post to their own personal Social Medias and other can share and give their opinion which says “this is something that is important and I am sharing this because this is something that we should be paying attention to because it seems to be a problem within our society.

Overall, people may have a difference of opinion of the issues presented but Agenda Setting just expresses something that we all might find important. This matter because I feel like it makes us not thing about other things. They have us so focused on one issue, it distracts us from the other issues that also need attention. 

Melissa Harris-Perry

Just recently, I went to watch Melissa Harris-Perry speak on Black Lives Matter. In the speech she has said that many say that we live in a post-racial society, people believe this because of the election of Barack Obama in 2008. People said that we were not racist anymore because we had a black president to represent the United States of America. She states that this is not true, we are not in a post-racial society just because we have a black president. People referred to his votes as "The Black Votes"

She notes that it is "common" more expected to see fail black bodies. When she say failed black bodies she is talking about dead bodies. She mentions that is it not surprising at all to see that a black person is dead. I like that she notes that not all the dead bodies that we see of black people are not only from cops and white people. Trayvon Martin was not killed by a cop but still cops get looked at as one of the man people who kill black people. Most of the killings that we see are not done by cops but we do see some like Sandra Bland that did die in police custody.

Throughout the speech she mentions that social media is starting to become a part of our society. Our current president knows how to use social media in his advantage. We are starting to see a change in who has power and privilege. Being black seems to automatically put a person at the bottom of the food chain. It is not about having a problem but actually being the problem is how people view you. When you look at Universities they tend to be "too white"  which reinforces who has privilege. People want to be seen, and have a voice in society. She ends with "don't be afraid to fail, failure is certain."

South Park points out White Privilege



Sometimes we have to stop and ask ourselves, what is privilege and do I have this privilege? Let’s first give a definition on what “being privilege” means by definition. Privilege is a special advantage, immunity, permission, right or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual or by class. Basically privilege is having certain rights that others may not have. Let’s also clear up that having privilege has nothing to do with being prejudice or racist. Sometimes we can have certain privileges that we are not aware of but some of us have it and some of us are well aware of the privileges that we have. Having privilege is having imagery tools to help you get through life successfully. Some have more tools than others but they do not have control of how many tools was put in the toolbox.

 

This video first starts of by saying that boy scouts had shot up at a local retirement home and everyone is no longer holding a grudge with the police. The police at this point cheer with excitement. If you take a closer look, all the police officers are white and the person in custody with the police is black. One of the police officers who is white pushing the person in custody who is black in the face and says to shut up. This particular scene in the episode shows privilege in two ways. One way because police have a certain privilege and also being white can give you a certain privilege. The police was able to slap the person in custody without getting in trouble for it, and no one spoke up about it either. We tend to see this as normal because we usually see police as white males, and also black men at a disadvantage. You will also notice that all the police were men and none were women. Men are also put at an advantage in society.

 

Back in the day blacks were not allowed to sit in the front of the bus and if they did sit there they had to give their seat to a while person or they can be charged as a criminal. South Park brings to light this concept when the dad expresses that they have “White Privilege” and that they black man has to sit in the back of the car, no matter how educated or uneducated he is, or even his Socioeconomic status (SES). He had this certain privilege to tell the man that he cannot sit in the front and he has to be in the back. The other kids are at an advantage because they get to decide where to sit.

 

The second part of the video has an interesting piece to it. It shows that privilege is not just about race it can be about other things as well. All boys in the episode are white and in the video they go to a park in which since the boys scouts were accused of shooting up a retirement home they are now at a disadvantage. One of the boys help a lady throw away trash and they had seen it as him trying to harass her when in reality he was helping her, the next guy was starting a fire to keep warmth and they accused him of wanting to set the park on fire. The last guy was intentionally beating a dog but because he had “White Privilege” he did not get in trouble or get looked at wrong.

 

If you do not have this “privilege” that some people have it can often put you at a disadvantage when in certain situations. If you do not have these tools that others have it will make it harder on you as a person.

Family Guy confirms Stereotypes within Police Brutality

A stereotype is defined as a standardized mental picture that is formed overtime and held in common by members of a group. It is also seen as a bias mental picture that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudice, attitude or uncritical judgment. People can often use these judgments to discriminate and it can also lead to violence towards a specific group.

This scene is from Family Guy titled “Southern Sheriff Traffic Stop.” To summarize the video Peter gets pulled over by a police officer and Peter who is a white man who puts on a Harvard sweatshirt and inserts a pipe into his mouth so that he could have more power over the police officer and talk down to them. When the officer comes to the window Peter talks down to him as if he is better, while Cleveland is an African American male apologizing for Peter’s actions towards the officer. Cleveland explains that he is sorry for his friends’ actions and they only want to follow the rules. After this is said the officer gets offended and asks if Cleveland threated an officer. This leads the officer to pull out a bat and break the headlight, and turn signal light while also planting weed inside the trunk of the car and arresting the four men. When he calls into dispatch to make the arrest he describes them as one African American, One Crippled, One Skinny and One Handsome. By the officer calling the men by these names he was stereotyping them.

            A schema is cognitive structures that represent knowledge about objects, people or situations. It is often normal to see police officers abusing the law, using weapons unlawfully and sometimes “planting” drugs on people. In the video there are many stereotypes that can be noticed. You first notice that when Peter gets pulled over he pulls a Harvard sweatshirt on and sticks a pipe in his mouth to look "prestige". This is a schema that if you are white, male, who is educated you can get through life on a clean slate. I am using this media text because it portrays that we do have certain schemas and have the ability to stereotype one another. It is referring to how we see each other, and also who also holds power. Although Peter being a educated man is a positive schema it can be seen as negative because although we see him positively, the officer fails to treat everyone the same. It can be seen as favoritism. We have this organized knowledge that leads us to our guide behavior.

            When you hear about a police officer you tend to picture a bigger man that is white, in his mid-20’s- late 40’s, with brown hair, blue eyes, rude and possible uneducated. This video confirms this schema because the man in the video fits the description of what we believe to see in an officer. We tend to build these schemas based off our past experiences and mainly by the things that are seen in the media. In order to change how we are prejudice behavior we have to bring intention, attention and time. If we do not have all 3 elements we cannot simply change the stereotype, or prejudice that are held against a particular group.

 

 

This video can also be found by going to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlOYlws4EBw 

Excessive Use of Force

Symbols

Symbols are words, gestures, pictures or objects that conveys a particular meaning, recognized only by those who share a culture. An example of a symbol based on the first photo presented is the guns and toy being held by the officer and child in stroller. This is not normal for the police to have a gun pointed at a child. I have chosen this satirical cartoon because the goal of a satirical cartoon is to point out the issues that we are facing with society. It sends a message on how we view police brutality and what we believe is true about society. This satirical cartoon symbols are implying that a baby boy has a toy in his hand and the officers are in defensive stance with their guns pointed at the baby as if their life is in immediate danger. This is highlighting that it is normal for the people who are supposed to protect us, to try and harm us. This work makes me angry because I have read a case to where a boy that was four years old was shot by a police man because the little boy had a toy gun and the officer had mentioned that he thought his life was in immediate threat and shot and killed the 4 year old. In this picture the police officers are white and the people they are pointing a gun at people who are of color and also look like they do not have much money. The boy has a toy in the photo, and you can tell it is a toy but somehow they still say “Drop the weapon” and police in fight mode. Police have a scale in which they can react to something. It frustrates me that they see a toy and the first thing they do is pull out their guns.

 

In the second picture you see “A Black Man Dies in Police Custody” and “Roots Looting” and in the middle of people you see a sign that says “Again”. This is depicting that it is common and also almost normal that a black man to die in police custody. I hate this is how society is. It has always mainly been a black and white world meaning that it had always been that difference between blacks and whites based on who holds power and who does not. Although there are obviously more than black and white people it is often the only two races that get shown the most and talked about.

Heroes

A hero is anyone who is alive or dead, real or imaginary that serve as role models for behaviors. In our culture we have this specific hegemony that we are supposed to look a certain way, be a certain way or be a certain way in order to obtain a high social class. Hegemony is power and dominance that one social group holds over others. If you have a certain hegemony in society it can cause you to gain power and maintain that power. These satirical cartoons promote the hegemony that we have. People who typically hold power in today’s society are males, who are white, able bodied, and heterosexual. In the cartoon you will see the police are white men. The police duties are to protect and serve for the community. The people who the police are pointing the gun at are people of color. Mass media sends out these messages in order to support the status quo and promote the hegemony that we have in society. Mass media can affect how we perceive social roles and also personal roles within society that we hold.

Rituals

Rituals are collective activities considered socially essentially within the culture. The rituals that are displayed in the text is that we read the newspapers for the recent events that are going on and pay attention so that we can be aware of stuff that may happen to us.