Comparative “Hegemony” and “Representation"

Many forms of media contain many different principles that can be applied to the production. Often these different media channels overlap the several principles and production techniques. Looking more closely at specific media channels, "Beyond Beats and Rhymes – representations of men/masculinity and hip hop music" shows reality construction through the use of how many "street rappers" write songs about what they feel is a reality to them. These issues often include issues such as drugs, violence, and abuse of women. In reality, these young artists may live in middle-income suburbia and may have never even been exposed to those types of situations. However, they get this image from many mainstream rappers they see in the media. There are many similarities found in another film "Independent Media In A Time of War – mainstream media representations of the Iraq War." Both films also use emotional transfer by showing explicit, or specific footage to touch the emotions of viewers.

Throughout both of these films, many persuasive techniques are used to persuade viewers to feel a certain way.
Nostalgia is used in both films by showing old news clips and music videos.
Rhetorical questions are used in the films to ask people and their beliefs about war and hip hop in the media.
Group Dynamics are apparent in both films bu saying "we" need to do something for change.
Strength is used by the narrators of both films, showing clear, concise and strong speaking.
Cognitive Dissonance is used in the films to show how the media consciously leaves out certain things and includes other material in order to persuade viewers.
Denial is apparent in both films in that many people in these films chose to turn their cheek and ignore certain things.

Ideology is the organized collection of common ideas by a certain group of people. Both films challenge mainstream ideologies of war in the news, and mainstream hip hop. The ideology of war is challenged by saying that the US is sheltered from real images of war that are seen in media around the rest of the world. Media specifically sugarcoats the news on war for the US because we as a culture are afraid of the reality of it. The ideology of mainstream hip hop is challenged by saying not all hip hop is about drugs, violence, and wealth. Also, that the roots of hip hop was more cultural expression rather than mainstream ideologies.

Hegemony is the dominance of a social group, along with their ideas, and beliefs that influence lesser dominant groups. This can be applied to the topics of both films in that a group of elites in the media or hip hop artists tell the everyday person how to think. These elites instill ideas in us that may not necessarily be true about society, but after hearing them on a national media, we chose to believe these types of ideas, making them true. In hip hop, many things become "normalized" for young listeners, which causes them to think certain violent actions are acceptable. Also, news and media often fail to show us real images of the devastation of war, so many viewers often have come to the conclusion that the war devastation is not as bad as some may think.

Both films discussed present good cases of persuasion. "Independent Media In A Time of War – mainstream media representations of the Iraq War" provided me with the insight on how mainstream media uses cognitive dissonance to leave certain things out of news reports. This film also informed me more about independent media and how often overlooked it is, just because it lacks the popularity of mainstream news such as CNN. It is very interesting that news corporations such as CNN often report the same story with different images to different parts of the world.
The other film observed, "Beyond Beats and Rhymes – representations of men/masculinity and hip hop music" hit home more to me however. This is not because I grew up in hip hop culture, but because I enjoy this type of music. I take every word in the song with a grain of salt, and make sure to not take the lyrics as reality. Hip hop is to me is more about beats than words. This film was influential and persuasive because many people never stop to think about how men and masculinity are represented in hip hop.

Beyond Beats and Rhymes


Independent Media in a Time of War