‘POVERTY PORN’?

REPRESENTATIONS OF POVERTY IN THE MEDIA

BA (HONS) SOCIAL CARE

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SESSION AIMS

This sessions aims to:

• Introduce you to university level BA (Hons) Social Care teaching– focussing on the subject of ‘poverty porn’ and to consider this in relation to studying Social Care;

• Get a ‘taster’ of BA (Hons) Social Care at Manchester Metropolitan University.

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‘POVERTY PORN’?What does this notion mean? Tracey Jensen (2014) suggests that,

• The term emerged through critiques of the representation of poverty in films such as Slumdog Millionaire;

• It is a contested and contentious term;

• It represents a new cultural industry.

Clips from Channel 4's Benefits Street documentary ‘An insight into one of the UK's most benefit-dependent roads’ (Channel 4, 4)

Newsnight discussion of Benefits Street ‘…relentless, almost obsessive hunting down of the most extreme, dysfunctional, unrepresentative people.’ (Owen Jones, 2.33)

The Media Show discussion ‘…the reality is, that is why the public backs our welfare reforms package, to get more people back to work to end these abuses.’ (Ian Duncan Smith, 15:08)

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BENEFITS STREET: BROADCAST 2014 AND FILMED IN 2013 BY CHANNEL 4

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/benefits-street

BENEFITS STREET 2: BROADCAST 11th May

2015

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QUICK TASK – From your viewing of Benefits Street list…

5 positive representations of the community

5 negative representations of the community

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“Such programmes repeat imagined connections between welfare recipients and moral laxity, greed, and even criminality.”

(Jensen, 2014)

Imagined connections -Greed, moral laxity, criminality

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CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:

Do these programmes stigmatise people who claim benefits?

Are they based on stereotypes?

Do they represent the ‘reality’ of life for the majority of benefit claimants?

Do they critique a system that reproduces poverty, or do they individualise blame?

Are these programmes politically motivated?

What purpose do they serve?

Why have they become popular at THIS SPECIFIC period of time?

Why do people watch these ‘documentaries’ anyway?

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FURTHER READING AND SOURCES OF INFORMATION

MacDonald, R., Shildrick, T., and Furlong, A., (2014). ‘‘Benefits Street' and the Myth of Workless Communities'. Sociological Research Online. 19(3)1.

Mooney, G. (2011). Stigmatising poverty? The ‘Broken Society’ and reflections on anti-welfarism in the UK today. Oxfam, Oxford.

Shildrick, T., MacDonald, R., Webster, C., and Garthwaite, T. (2012) Poverty and Insecurity: life in low-pay, no-pay Britain Bristol: Policy Press.

http://www.poverty.ac.uk/

http://www.jrf.org.uk/film/reporting-poverty-stigma-and-stereotypes

CRIMINALS?

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

BA (HONS) SOCIAL CARE

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Child A

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Child B

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1. What do you think should be done to help

these two children?

2. What do you think might happen to them?

3. Are they vulnerable?

4. Are they in danger?

5. Are they victims?

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Your conduct was both cunning and very wicked (Justice Morland) Independent (1993)

the Daily Star offered a £20,000 reward "to trap beasts who killed little James". Guardian (March, 2010)

Detectives who interviewed the boys called them evil freaks of nature, who had killed for a 'buzz'

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FURTHER READING AND SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Pilcher, Jane, and Stephen Wagg. 1996. Thatcher’s Children?: Politics, Childhood and Society in the 1980s and 1990s. Psychology Press.

Green, David A. 2008. “Suitable Vehicles: Framing Blame and Justice When Children Kill a Child.” Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal 4 (2): 197–220. doi:10.1177/1741659008092328.

Hay, Colin. 1995. “Mobilization Through Interpellation : James Bulger, Juvenile Crime and the Construction of a Moral Panic.” Social & Legal Studies 4 (2): 197–223. doi:10.1177/096466399500400203.

King, Michael. 1995. “The James Bulger Murder Trial: Moral Dilemmas, and Social Solutions.” The International Journal of Children’s Rights 3 (2): 167–87. doi:10.1163/157181895X00014.

Rowbotham, Judith, Kim Stevenson, and Samantha Pegg. 2003. “Children of Misfortune: Parallels in the Cases of Child Murderers Thompson and Venables, Barratt and Bradley.” Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 42 (2): 107–22. doi:10.1111/1468-2311.00270.