Social Class Inequality In Media- Working Class Disadvantage Flashcards
Price
developed the concept of ‘poverty porn’ to describe programmes such as Channel 4’s Benefit Street. Price found this led to the underclass being exploited by the media to shock and entertain audiences. This encourages the underclass to be condemned by the hard working middle and upper classes.
Jones
discusses the use of the word chav (council housed and violent) and explains this has become a way of describing working class culture and people. He developed the concept of ‘chavtainment’ to describe shows that portray a negative view of the working class as ‘bigoted, slothful and aggressive’, This has changed the views from working class being described as ‘salt of the earth’ to ‘scum of the earth.’
Milliband (Marxist)
States that the media is the new “opium of the people” in that it distracts us as the working class masses from real social issues faced in a capitalist society. Miliband states that in a capitalist society inequality is inevitable, justifiable and effective for the ruling class to control the masses - The media is just another way we are controlled.
Who
Price Jones Milliband, helsper
Helsper
points out that the government plans to make public services ‘digital by default’ meaning that these individuals will be unable to access them. They also found out that children from poorer homes are becoming victims of a “digital divide” because their parents lack the skills to help them use the internet as effectively as their middle-class counterparts, says research. Children from better-off backgrounds not only had greater access to the world wide web at home but were more likely to exploit its array of resources.
The ‘digital underclass’ refers to the cohort of people who cannot afford digital communication devices. This lack of devices can lead to disadvantages and inequalities in contemporary society and can mean that they face less social capital as a result.
