When we first think about political protest, what comes to mind?
○ Attempts to change to laws or legislation
○ Organised political movements
○ Public protests
○ Petitions, marches
However, we can look at political protest in terms of:
○ Cultural resistance
○ Everyday people
Why look at cultural resistance?
○ Overt political protest is uncommon. When it occurs, it often results in a backlash.
○ Even if overt political protest does results in changes in legislation, it won’t necessarily change public
opinion.
○ Culture is what influences people’s hearts, minds and opinions. This is the site of popular change.

Hegemonic: dominant, ruling-class, power-holders
● Hegemonic culture: the dominant culture
● Cultural hegemony: power, rule, or domination maintained by ideological and cultural means.
● Ideology: worldview – beliefs, assumptions and values

Cultural hegemony functions by framing the ideologies of the dominant social group as the only legitimate
ideology.
The ideologies of the dominant group are expressed and maintained through its economic, political, moral,
and social institutions (like the education system and the media).
These institutions socialise people into accepting the norms, values and beliefs of the dominant social
group.

As a result, oppressed groups believe that the social and economic conditions of society are natural and
inevitable, rather than created by the dominant group.

Birmingham school was the first to notice youths which were punks and teddy-boy etc which therefore invented the idea of the teenager.

Bringing race into the picture in the 1980s, Paul Gilroy
highlighted how black youth cultures represented
cultural solutions to collectively experienced problems
of racism and poverty.

Music influenced kids to stand up against racism.

Margret Thatcher proposed black people as a threat to white British citizens.

Police didnt do anything about white on black crimes as they were brainwashed by news papers and the government to believe it was right and that it was black peoples fault.

New cross fire 1981 when a believed white British citizen set alight a group of black people celebrating a friends birthday police said they were on drugs fought and killed each other even though there were witnesses.