Hegemony

House prices

The hegemonic view is that the houses with the highest prices are the good ones. If there are high prices, it is always shown as a good thing, especially in the media, they get positive coverage. The stories get shown by a group of people that already own homes rather than those who are hoping to buy them. However, there is very low coverage of the fact that house price and risky mortgages contributed to the major economic crash in 2008. The columns, blogs and comments show different opinions that contradict the dominant or hegemonic view, 

which is usually written by younger people.

The Royal Family

The royal family is a hegemonic view; we have accepted it in our society, as they are the ones who are in control of our country. Whenever something happens in the royal family, they are always in the headlines of all the newspapers. When the royal wedding took place, they were on every front page. This shows that everyone was interested in this topic; they wanted to know details about the wedding etc. Many people watched the wedding on TV, and some people went to Buckingham Palace to go and watch the wedding, showing that the royal family are dominating. Millions of people came from across the world to see the wedding take place. Also, when the royal baby was born, it was on majority of newspapers, which shows how much of a big issue it was. 

Top Boy

In the opening of Top Boy, there are both positive and negative portrayals of young people. In the first minute of the opening there were 4 positive portrayals of young people. The two boys were coming straight home from school and being a part of the kids that ‘hand around’ in the streets after school. Another positive aspect was when the boy rejected the money from one of the guys that was talking to them; they know not to take things from strangers. Another positive portrayal we see is when the kid stays home, as he is worried about his mum not being home. He waits for her and his friend waits with him, which shows how much he cares. Gerberns theory is linked to this as young people are watching this and can see that they should come straight home. This is a positive portrayal of young people. In the eighth minute, there are 2 negative aspects of young people, as they are seen swearing, which shows that there is a bad side to them. Overall, there are 9 positive aspects and 11 negative aspects in the opening of Top Boy.