Seeing Is Believing: Carceral Media, Hegemonic Discourses, and Oppositional Strategies

The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates per capita in the world, with over two million people incarcerated, at any given time (Prison Policy Initiative, n.d.). This thesis identifies and analyzes some of the hegemonic powers involved in the process of normalizing the prison system. The media is key to this normalizing power of how the American public perceives prisons, incarcerated people, and the criminal legal system. This research employs anthropological approaches, including media content analysis, discourse analysis, historical analysis, and focus group and ethnographic interviews to make connections between Northern Virginians’ perceptions of the carceral system, their everyday lived experiences, and the media they consume. The research revealed that personal experiences act as counter-hegemonic knowledges to carceral media; the restorative justice concept of “webs of relationships are foundational to combatting carceral hegemony; social media’s rise within the last 25 years has allowed communities to take back control of their narratives; and mediascapes link the public directly to criminal legal processes. These findings highlight that the power of media to both reinforce the prison system and be a part of its destruction is key to understanding how to shift the normalization of incarceration to its abolition. Further, this research shows that restorative justice theories