Seeing is Believing: Prison Mediascapes, Hegemonic Discourses, and Oppositional Strategies

Wednesday, March 5, 2025 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM EST
Horizon Hall, 6325

Join the Urban Research Hub as we provide constructive feedback, brainstorm ideas to enhance Jae-lynn's thesis, and advance conversations around new paths for disrupting hegemonic norms surrounding incarceration in society.

Jae-Lynn is a graduate student in the Anthropology department. Her thesis explores how various types of media—including social media, television, film, and news—shape perceptions of the criminal legal system and connect to the hegemony of prisons in the United States. It examines how people accept or reject media representations and derive meaning from them. Two focus groups of Northern Virginia residents from diverse backgrounds engaged in guided discussions on media and the carceral system. Participants analyzed representations, explored their cultural and social meanings, and used lived experiences to affirm or challenge what they had seen. Through this phenomenological inquiry, they reflected on key themes, including the punish-reform dichotomy of the prison system, witnessing injustice on social media, the “prison porn” genre, and how public opinion influences the system via mediascapes. Additionally, discussions revealed how webs of relationships create the conditions for counter-hegemonic narratives, as individuals judged the system through personal and loved ones' experiences. Findings from this study open new inquiries into locating and disrupting hegemonic carceral norms in American society.

Hosted by The Urban Research Hub.