Exploring Cultural Hegemony in Media

Activity: Challenging and Changing Racial Categories? Interracial Marriage and Multiracial Americans 

Doing Sociology 12.3 Exploring Cultural Hegemony in Media

In this exercise, you will consider depictions of biracial or multiracial individuals, interracial relationships, and multiracial families in advertisements. 

Write answers to the following questions: 

1. Consider advertisements you see regularly. How often do they depict biracial or multiracial individuals, interracial couples, or multiracial families? When biracial or multiracial individuals, interracial couples, or multiracial families are shown, what do they tend to look like?
2. If you were in charge of creating a television ad or TV series that challenged stereotypes about biracial or multiracial individuals, interracial couples, or multiracial families, who would you include (e.g., a middle-class Middle Eastern woman with a dark skin tone who is married to a wealthy Native American woman)? Why would you choose these characters? How do they challenge stereotypes? What would be your plot? How would it challenge stereotypes?
3. Do you believe the commercials and advertisements are helpful, harmful, or both helpful and harmful for interracial couples and multiracial families? Why? 

Note to Instructors: 
This activity helps students critically analyze the cultural texts they consume. Tom Nicholas’ video “Hegemony: WTF? An introduction to Gramsci and cultural hegemony” may be helpful to show prior to completing the activity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LI_2-qsovo (11:30 minutes). You can have students answer the questions individually, discuss as a group, or upload written or video responses as a homework assignment to your learning management system (such as Blackboard) to demonstrate their understanding of cultural hegemony.