Representations in the Media
Age
Children
Youth
Old People
Heintz-Knowles (2002) - Children on American TV portrayed as motivated primarily by peer relationships, sports and romance
Rarely shown with coping with societal issues (racism, child abuse and domestic violence)
Representations = positive - pro social actions (telling the truth and helping others)
40% depicted children engaging in anti-social actions (bullying or lying etc.)
Chandler and Evans (2006) - Children represented in advertising in ways that socialise to become active consumers
Emergence of pester power - power of children to train or manipulate parents to spend money on consumer goods that will increase children's status
Pester power creates greater anxiety among poorer parents, who often go into debt to provide for children's desires
Stoller and Gibson (1999) - Negative consequences of ageing for men focus more on occupational success than physical attractiveness
Elderly women shown in social, family and recreational settings and represented as passive, socially isolated, unpleasant and poor
Newman - Upper-class and middle-class elderly people, usually men, are often portrayed in TV and film dramas as occupying high-status roles as world leaders, judges, politicians, experts and business executives and are portrayed as health, fit and socially involved
Age Concern (2000) - elderly are underrepresented across variety of mass media
Grumpy - Portrays old people as stubborn, conservative and resistant to social change
Mentally challenged - Involves loss or decline of mental function
A burden - Economic burden on society and physical/social burden on younger members of families
Lee et al. (2007) - Representation in advertising is low (15%)
in 91% of adverts, Portrays them as happy, active, alert, successful and content
Doesn''t reflect wide range of experiences (loneliness and loss of partner)
Robinson (2008) - Elderly preferred adverts where they were clever, vibrant and having a sense of humour
Cohen (2002) - Young people are relatively powerless and easy to blame for society's ills
Young people (esp. black males) are used as scape goats by media to create sense of unity in society
MORI - 57% of stories about young people were negative
12% were positive and 40% had articles about young people focused on crime
White et al. (2012) - over 40% of viewers were dissatisfied with the way they were portrayed in the media
Cuddy and Fiske - in the US, 1.5% of its characters were elderly, with a majority in minor roles
COVID-19 Pandemic - MPs and PM blamed younger people for spread of virus, even though they made decision to open schools up
Class
Upper Class
Neo Marxists argue mass-media representations of social class celebrate hierarchy and wealth
The monarchy, upper-class and the wealthy receive positive press as celebrities who deserve their position
Nairn (2019) - After WWII the monarchy developed close ties with the media industry and worked with them to reinvent itself as ‘the royal family’ and since then they have been represented in the media as a family that are ‘like us but not like us’, and the narrative of their lives is presented as a soap opera, and is part of our day to day media fabric, which encourages us to identify with the royals
The constant media focus on the lifestyles of wealthy celebrities tends to glamourize such lifestyles, suggesting this is something we should all be aspiring to, rather than focusing on the injustice of how much these people are paid compared to ordinary people
In films such as the King's Speech and shows like Downtown Abbey, an idealised picture is painted of a ruling elite characterised by honour, culture and good breeding
Newman (2006) - Media focus positively on lifestyles of the wealthy and privileged - Media focus heavily on consumer items such as luxury cars, costly holiday spots and fashion accessories only afforded by the wealthy
Middle Class
Many British newspapers (Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph)are aimed at the middle class and their consumption, tastes, and interests in material goods such as computers, music, cars, house, and garden design that can only be afforded by those with good standard of living
Content of newspapers such as the Daily Mail suggests journalists believe that the middle classes are generally anxious about the decline of moral standards in society and that they feel threatened by alien influences (asylum seekers, immigrants and terrorism)
Middle class (higher income) families seem to be over-represented on day time T.V. especially – in shows such as Homes under the Hammer, Escape to the Country and Antiques Show featuring typically very high wealth/ income families, and yet presenting them as ‘the norm’.
Working Class
Jones (2011) - Media coverage of working-class people constitutes a middle-class assault on working--class values, institutions, and communities, assume all working-class people are promiscuous, foul-mouthed racists
Curran and Seaton (2003) - Newspapers aimed at working-class audiences assume they are uninterested in serious analysis of either political or social organisation of UK society
Marxists see The Sun and Daily Star ( newspapers containing content on celebrity gossip and lifestyles and sport) as attempts to distract the working-class audience from the inequalities of capitalism - creating false-class consciousness
Pluralists argue that tabloid newspaper readers want it; in 2013, just under 13.5 million people read the Sun or the Sun on Sunday, whilst the Daily Mail attracts 12m readers
Underclass
Common language used to describe benefits as ‘undeserving’ included:
Fraud and dishonesty (including those such as ‘faking illness’);
Dependency (including ‘underclass’ and ‘unemployable’);
non-reciprocity/lack of effort (e.g. ‘handouts’, ‘something for nothing’, ‘lazy’, ‘scrounger’); •
outsider status (e.g. ‘immigrant’, ‘obese’)
Language used to describe benefits claimants as ‘deserving’ included:
need (‘vulnerable’, ‘hard-pressed’);
disability (‘disabled’, ‘disability’).
Baumberg et al found an extraordinarily disproportionate focus on benefit fraud: 29% of news stories referenced fraud. In comparison the government’s own estimate is that a mere 0.7% of all benefits claims are fraudulent.
Baumberg et al’s (2012) research ‘Benefits Stigma in Britain’ analysed a database of 6,600 national press articles between 1995-2011.
Ruth Patrick (2017) has analysed the representations of those on benefits and in poverty on reality television shows such as ‘Benefits Street’ and Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole.
Such shows emphasize the difference between the working majority (‘us’) and the workless minority (‘them’) and invites us to identify ourselves against benefits claimants, and possibly to see claiming benefits as something which is a choice, long term and morally wrong, rather than as something which is a necessity, usually a short term stop-gap before a return work
Marcus Rashford and campaigns for free school meals - presented in a positive light