July--> Bourdieu

Media shapes our minds into numerous universal ideologies, which is unconsciously done to the people by media reporters who are aware of their actions. The media space should be held accountable for their actions, but the audience needs to be able to shape and mold their own ideas into the notions given from discourse. Media faces two alternatives when being produced: going in the direction of the dominant model (which is known as dominant hegemonic readings) or emphasizing on its differences and engaging into a product differentiation (which is known as oppositional readings). Another form of media reading is negotiated readings, which is a mixture of dominant hegemonic and oppositional readings, this form is difficult to detect.

Dominant hegemonic discourse is determined by hegemonies’ ideologies. For example, the NEWS channel is altered to fit certain perspectives that are already casted into society, but it is up to the individual to step out of the box and create their own thoughts. The NEWS channel cast numerous of stereotypes about different cultures and if someone believes and acts in a certain way because of previous notions about that culture, then the participant is associated with dominant hegemonic encoding and decoding.

Oppositional discourse is rejecting the dominant hegemonic reading and creating a newer version of the ideal that was suggested by the media. For example, MySpace is associated with negative labels because of the mishaps that have taken place on this one website. A concerned parent may proceed with caution if their child is a member of MySpace, but she will not make her child delete her account, she will only inform her child about the security issues that has occurred or will occur. Of course, the parent understood the concept of MySpace being a bad place for children, but she undermined all of it and handled the situation in her own way.