Critical Analysis: Article Review

Critical analysis: article review
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Laughland, Swaine & Lartey (2015), focus on police brutality in the article US police killings headed for 1,100 this year, with black Americans twice as likely to die. Despite calls for better oversight, police violence is still a problem in law enforcement. The police cite threats to their safety and justifiable homicide as reasons for using force to maintain law and order. Media owners push the narrative that the police should not be soft on crime even as they ignore circumstances that lead to use of deadly force by the police. Thesis statement. Police brutality is directed at the poor while the media reporting on over policing is simplistic as it may reinforce the idea that victims are partly to blame for cops using deadly force. This paper uses a Marxist approach to critique the article.
The FBI relies on justifiable homicides to determine the extent of police brutality in the U.S., but this is merely self-reporting on police killings committed against citizens. There is no obligation to report these figures and the number of people who die in police custody could be considerably higher as such cases go unreported. Even in cases where the police are accused of having used excessive force, the authorities rely on reasonable justification to argue the cases. Laughland, Swaine & Lartey (2015), highlight that the police have no case to answer since in many instances, and the justice system is most likely rule in their favor. Marxists assert that the ruling class oppresses the working class, and police brutality against blacks is cited to show the need for urgent action to address the issue.
To understand the Marxist approach to media analysis, there is a need to highlight that there are few individuals and corporations having control over media in the U.S. and media’s role in the society. According to Laughland, Swaine & Lartey (2015), blacks were twice as likely to die because of U.S. police brutality compared to other demographic groups. The main idea behind the article was that there was a racial dimension in police violence that could not be ignored. The police were viewed as heroes for maintaining law and order as exemplified by the responses of victims’ families who stated that the victims posed no immediate threat to cops. The Guardian’s report on police brutality is a departure from popularized notions on the role of over policing to maintain law and order. This is consistent with the Marxist explanation that the ruling class victimizes the working class who may not recognize it (Ott & Mack 2013).
The domination of the mass media by few companies through concentration means that only specific narratives are likely to receive attention in the mass media (Ott & Mack 2013). The owners of capital inevitably try to influence public opinion in a way that serves their purpose. In the case of police brutality, African Americans have limited public space and use of the mass media to highlight the extent of police brutality. Even in cases where they succeed, the narrative changes where they are blamed for being victims of police brutality. Even though, the writers use statistics to highlight the gravity of police brutality on minorities in the U.S., they fail to acknowledge the media’s role in framing discourse on police brutality. The Guardian is a left-leaning newspaper, but the writers fail to highlight that economic disparities often alienate the minorities who are more likely to express anti-cop sentiments.
The Marxist model holds that the superstructure reflects a society’s material conditions including culture, politics, and law. One of the main challenges to tackling police brutality is that there is either incomp...