SOCIAL CLASS AND THE MEDIA

Social and economic class

All societies have been arranged hierarchically The U.S. is no exception

More uneven in wealth distribution than most industrialized capitalist societies, but not as much so as developing nations

Historical trend toward less economic stratification was reversed beginning in the 1980s

Source: Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-1998,"

Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(1), 2003. Updated to 2005 at http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/saez.

Based on U.S. Census Data

Social and economic class

Social class includes more than income or place within the economic system Education Taste/culture

Manners (breeding) Religion Preferences

Race and gender Residence

Does class exist in America?

Largely denied by U.S. culture “Classless society”

“The belief that the United States is a classless society or, alternatively, that most Americans are “middle class” persists . . . despite pervasive socioeconomic stratification” (Bullock, Wyche and Williams, 2001)

“ It is impossible to understand people's behavior...without the concept of social stratification, because class position has a pervasive influence on almost everything...the clothes we wear...the television shows we watch...the colors we paint our homes in and the names we give our pets... Our position in the social hierarchy affects our health, happiness, and even how long we will live. ” William Thompson, Joseph Hickey, Society in Focus,

2005

Critical analysis

Two flavors: Analysis of news, documentary, political

pundits, etc. in non-fictional content areas Looking for bias, falsehoods, etc.

Analysis of entertainment media Looking for ideological, mythical presentations of

the world

Class-related representations

Portrayals of characters who represent a given class Do the behaviors/attitudes of the character

‘explain’ a position of subordination or superordination?

Do plots, settings, etc. indicate system openness or structure?

What are stereotypes?

Stereotypes are ‘ideal’ characterizations of a member of some identified group

Though often based in some ‘reality’ they are often exaggerated and may be distorted (often in a negative fashion)

Stereotypes

Although we are used to thinking of stereotypes in terms of race and gender, stereotypes exist for all ‘groups’ including class Blue Collar Hillbilly Redneck White trash

Redneck

What do stereotypes do?

They can blind observers to the individual variation among members of the ‘group’ False and potentially demeaning expectations

when interacting with individuals They impact intergroup interactions and

even may become self-fulfilling They justify social inequality of treatment

and/or public policy that relates to groups Blaming the victim

Differences in portrayals across class lines

Upper class

Middle class/ Upper middle class

Working class

Lower class

Amount of representation

Above population levels

Above population levels

Below population levels

Below population levels

News Business interests, commentary

Professionals, expertise in science, medicine

Industrial conflict, crime

Crime

Entertainment

Powerful criminals, Lifestyles, reality

Lawyer shows, family dramas, sitcoms, medical shows

Cops, reality TV, sitcoms

Criminals, Daytime talk

“The prototypical working-class male is incompetent and ineffectual, often a buffoon, well-intentioned but dumb. In almost all working-class series, the male is flawed, some more than others . . . . He fails in his role as a father and husband, is lovable but not respected.” • Butsch, Social Class and Television in

Encyclopedia of Television

What are working-class men in the media like?

Violent Brutish

Unintelligent Prone to hair-brained schemes to get ahead

Focused on cars, sports, sex Racist/Xenophobic Politically right-wing Sexist Lacking in taste and sophistication Noble Loyal Self-sacrificing Strong-willed

ABC’s The Middle

Working-class wives

Working-class wives are depicted “as exceeding the bounds of their feminine status, being more intelligent, rational, and sensible than their husbands. . . . Working-class men are de-masculinized by depicting them as child-like; their wives act as mothers. . . . These results indicate the importance of accounting for class along with gender.”• Butsch, Social Class and Television in

Encyclopedia of Television

Working-class singles

Working-class singles tend to be oversexed, loud and lacking in tact or sophistication They exhibit extreme gender-role emphasis as

good-ol’-boys or redneck women, etc.

Occasionally, though:

The Waltons Police shows (cops on the beat v.

detectives/specialists) The Deadliest Catch CEO switch thing

Lower-class and poor representations

Less contested and ambiguous than are blue-collar representations Mostly represented as extremely flawed

Violent Criminal Drug-taking Unintelligent Sleazy

What are lower-class women like?

Trashy Oversexed Unsophisticated Domestic

Kids Dependant/“Golddigger” Focused on men

Connection to race

Content analyses show a great overrepresentation of African Americans in depictions of the poor

Gilens (1996) content analysis of three major news magazines found African Americans were represented in 62% of stories about poverty though they comprised 29% of poor (no more info available)

Asian Americans, stereotyped as hard working and conscientious, rarely show up in stories about the poor

European Americans greatly overestimate the percentage of African Americans who are poor

Connection to race

European Americans greatly overestimate the percentage of African Americans who are poor

Stereotypes in media and popular culture

African American men—members of “threatening and violent underclass”

African American women—welfare queens or as “ignorant, promiscuous women caught in a self-perpetuating ‘cycle of dependency’”

Emphasis on African Americans tends to render white poor ‘invisible’ in popular culture

Depictions of drug crimes

“Although the ‘typical’ drug consumer and dealer is an employed, high-school-educated European American man, the majority of arrests depicted on reality-based crime programs involve African American and Latino men in densely populated, urban areas (Anderson, 1994).”

Post welfare reform

April-July 1999 newspapers 412 articles 24% contained at least some overt

discussion of race/ethnicity African American articles:

8 focused on chronic poverty and single motherhood

5 focused on fraud 6 highlighted the lives of African Americans

who had triumphed over poverty

Welfare reform

60% of articles took balanced/neutral tone

32% positive (supported services and programs for the poor)

8% negative (fraud, drug addiction, etc.)

Welfare recipients

60% portrayed poor as deserving of support (hard-working families with children in need)

17% portrayed poor negatively (drug users, neglectful parents)

14% neutral 8% mixed

Media facilitate “classless society” myth by:

Presenting the interests of the well-off (e.g., stock, financial portfolios, and leisure time) as universal concerns

Downplaying the structural economic concerns (e.g., job security, income) of the working class and poor

Emphasizing shared interclass concerns (e.g., safety, crime)

Portraying the middle class as the norm, with little representation of interclass tension

Negative class-based depictions:

Imply, if not openly claim, that biological/genetic ‘causes’ of depicted inferiority explain social inequity

Are painful for those they supposedly pertain to

Justify harsh social policy, police action as the only reasonable response to socially objectionable behaviors

What does all this lead to?

Blaming the victim Those who receive less of the system’s output

deserve their fate because they have personality flaws or don’t try hard enough

Maintenance of an uneven social reward system Rewards not fairly tied to performance

Low self-esteem among ‘lower classes’ Exultation of self-interest

Mean World (for real)

Tabloid news shows

Tabloid news shows tended to “focus on stories involving upper-class criminals, particularly celebrities, whereas “highbrow” news programs were more likely to focus on stories involving working-class, unemployed criminals.”

Also tend to show “rags to riches” stories or the “hollowness of wealth”

“Welfare recipients are among the . . . the most hated and stereotyped groups in contemporary society”

Only one among 17 stereotyped groups (feminists, housewives, retarded people, Blacks, migrant workers, etc.) that respondents both disliked and disrespected. Lacking both competence and warmth

However, most common group of welfare recipients is poor children

Media representations concentrate on their mothers

Hegemony

Those who are well off and those who are not accept many of the same assumptions and explanations for their economic lot

Thus, the have-nots act to discipline themselves rather than making demands of the system Workers who accept their role do not present

as much a threat in the mines and factories