Social Class and the media

The powerful influence most denied in the United States

Social stratification

In all societies there is some form of hierarchy Distribution of social rewards/values is not

entirely equal in any society Hierarchy varies

How steep Bases for hierarchy

Social Class

Stratification within a society based on a number of variables Income Education Breeding (Tastes) Blood (Old rich v. nouveau riche)

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)

Reasons for denial

Meritocracy Market system

Equal opportunity Legal blindness to most demographic differences

Upward mobility Overshadowed by other concerns

Race Sex (Gender) Religion Nationalism

Yes—social class exists in America

Vast differences among Americans in their incomes, property, power

Life chances largely determined by social class at birth Education Access to technology Network of opportunities

But things are getting better, right?

What about social mobility?

Mobility among classes is relatively common in the United States, but: Children of the rich tend to be afforded a great deal of advantage in

education, networking, ability to try and fail, etc. People of different classes have fairly limited personal contact

Geographic segregation PRIZM

Intermarriage across widely differing social classes is uncommon Cinderella Pretty Woman Princess and the Pea The Nanny

Old money tends to maintain the class position of the next generation Greatest access to higher circles has been through technology

Social class affects:

Media access/choice Content preferences Interpretation of media content Representation within media content Power over media

Social class and media use

Access to media More expensive media tend to be used more by the

relatively well-to-do Digital divide

Literacy levels Written materials

Taste cultures “High culture” v. “low culture” (popular culture)

Opera v. hip-hop

Internet use by household income

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

LT$15K

$15-25K

$25-35K

$35-50K

$50-75K

$75K+

Use Internet

iPods/MP3 players are gadgets for the upscale. Fully 18% of those who live in households earning more than $75,000 have them; 13% of those living in households earning $50,000 to $75,000 have them; 9% of those living in households earning $30,000-$50,000 own them and 7% of those living in households earning less than $30,000 have them. (20% of respondents did not tell us their household income.)

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project

Source: Mediamark Research, Inc.

Content Preferences

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Primetime Daytime

<$20K

$20-50K

>$50K

Source: 2000 Porter Novelli Healthstyles Survey

Interpretation of content

Class-based worldview influences interpretations

Working-class preferences

“Working-class men preferred shows featuring a character sympathetic to working-class values. They identified with working-class types even when those types were written as peripheral characters or villains. They contradicted the notion of working-class viewers as passive and gullible.”

Stereotypes

Just as for African Americans or women, etc. there are stereotypes that go with being working class or lower class Usually negative for those lower on the status

hierarchy

Prime Time programming

Early television included a number of working-class leads Ralph Cramden Marty

More recent examples All in the Family Roseanne

What are lower-class women like?

Trashy Oversexed Unsophisticated Domestic

Kids Dependant/“Golddigger” Focused on men

What are lower-class men like?

Violent Brutish

Dominant Stupid Ignorant Focused on cars, sports, sex Racist Sexist Engage in hair-brained schemes to get ahead Lack taste

What does all this lead to?

Blaming the victim Maintenance of a heavily hierarchical reward

system Low self-esteem among ‘lower classes’ Ability of the well-to-do to engage in modern

“Social Darwinism” Don’t have to face their own responsibility for poor

conditions many live under Exultation of self-interest

Mean World (for real)

Media facilitate “classless society” myth by:

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

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

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

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

The Hatfiel Clan

Media use

Working-class families used television as background or filler—the TV was constantly on

Middle-class families turned the TV on and off, based on selective viewing of particular content

When lower- and working-class people are depicted

Tend to be portrayed as foolish or ignorant “Trailer trash” can be portrayed in ways that

would cause significant outcry if applied to racial minorities, etc. Archie Bunker Homer Simpson

Clampetts go to Maui

Blue Collar Males

Seen as sexist, racist, violent, unintelligent and entirely lacking in taste Jerry Springer WWE Blue Collar Comedy

Butsch

“The prototypical working-class male is incompetent and ineffectual, often a buffoon, well-intentioned but dumb.” Ralph Kramden Fred Flintstone Archie Bunker Homer Simpson

“He fails in his role as a father and a husband, is lovable but not respected. Heightening this failure is the depiction of working-class wives as exceeding the bounds of their feminine status, being more intelligent, rational, and sensible than their husbands. In other words gender is inverted, with the head of the house, whose occupation defines the families social class, demeaned in the process. . . . Working-class men are de-masculinized by depicting them as child-like; their wives act as mothers.”

Representation

Over-representation of professionals and relatively well-to-do on TV Parallel situation in film, though more varied Working class and poor ‘invisible’

Except as cops and criminals

Occasional representations are often stereotypic

However, the tone of Prime Time is heavily white-collar/professional or upper class

The main exceptions are law enforcement personnel in “cop shows,” ‘reality’ shows and daytime talk shows Often connect poor and working class with

negative depictions, low culture

“In most middle-class series, however, both parents are mature, sensible and competent, especially when there are children in the series.”

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”

Out of 17 stereotyped groups (feminists, housewives, retarded people, Blacks, migrant workers, etc.) welfare recipients were the only one 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

Connection to race

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

Their personal shortcomings lead to a need for care from professionals Problems stem from personal failings (not society,

actions of others) Jerry Springer WWE

Implies that social policy should protect the populace from a dangerous, personally lacking group rather than treating a structural problem

Soap operas

“On soap operas, single mothers are typically portrayed as White, upper-middle-class professionals, with nurturing male friends and an abundance of reliable child care providers (Larson, 1996).” “Teenage girls who were heavy viewers of soap

operas were more likely than lighter viewers to underestimate the relationship between single motherhood and poverty and to overestimate the percentage of single mothers in high-paying jobs.”

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

Popular music draws heavily from urban lower class and rural working class

Social mobility

“Reinforcing the middle-class ideal was an exaggerated display of affluence and upward mobility.”

“Lewis Freeman found that upward mobility in sitcoms of 1990-1992 was achieved through self-sacrifice and resilience, reinforcing the ethic of individualism which makes each person responsible for his or her socio-economic status.”

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).”

“In a recent study of soap operas and their viewers . . . Working-class women viewers of daytime serials rejected the affluent long suffering heroines in favour of villainesses who transgressed feminine norms and thus cast off middle class respectability.”

Butsch

Example

Many media stories talk about the economy overall, citing “recovery” etc. but do not look at the differential class-based effect of various policies and events

“By dedicating little broadcast time or print space to stories that openly discuss class privilege, class-based power differences, and inequalities, the poor are either rendered invisible or portrayed in terms of characterological deficiencies and moral failings (e.g., substance abuse, crime, sexual, availability, violence).”

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).”

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”

Limited number of stories on poverty on national newscasts. 11 per network per year 1981 to 1986

Two categories of stories(Entman, 1995)

239 stories 39% depicted poverty as a source of threat

(e.g., crime, drugs, and gangs) 61% portrayed poverty in terms of suffering

(e.g. racial discrimination, poor health, and inadequate medical care)

Two frames:(Iyengar, 1990)

Episodic frame Personal circumstances of a poor individual

or family More common

Thematic frame Abstract, impersonal approach that looks at

general poverty trends and public assistance

Framing effects

Those exposed to episodic frames in an experiment were more likely to blame the poor for their own poverty and to perceive them as responsible for improving their socioeconomic status. Those exposed to thematic frames tended to make structural attributions for poverty and to regard the government as responsible for social change.

Framing effects

Those exposed to episodic frames in an experiment were more likely to blame the poor for their own poverty and to perceive them as responsible for improving their socioeconomic status. Those exposed to thematic frames tended to make structural attributions for poverty and to regard the government as responsible for social change.

“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

Content analysis of Newsweek 1993-1995

De Goede (1996) found that “the language used in the articles reinforced strong ingroup-outgroup class-based distinctions, simultaneously extolling the moral superiority of the middle class while degrading the values and behaviors of the poor.” Single African American mothers and teenage

mothers often the focus of these negative articles