Politics and Class in Benefits Street

#mac201

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Overview

Social inequality

Realty TV participants

Ethical treatment

Benefits Street

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Social inequality

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The US has ‘become the least socially mobile advanced Western economy’

- Miller, 2007: 5

Social inequality

Thanks to a gigantic clumping of wealth at the apex of the nation, there is now a poor, unskilled, and ill base: forty-six million residents are indigent, fifty-two million are functionally analphabetic, and forty-four million lack health insurance. By contrast with European welfare systems, the capacity to exit poverty for good has diminished over the last two decades of neoliberalism, and the proportion of national income held by the extremely rich is two to three times the level in France or Britain. Race and gender massively stratify access to money and net worth, and the gaps are widening.

(Miller, 2007: 5)

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Social inequality [UK]

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Debt

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UK's budget deficit has fluctuated as a % of the

country's economic output (GDP)

Promises betrayed

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© AAV, 2014

http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/tory-contract-kick-us-out-in-5-years.html

Promises betrayed

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Promises betrayed

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‘We’re paying down Britain’s debts’

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Andrew Dilnot, Chair of UKSA

National debt has risen from

£811.3bn, or 55.3 % of GDP, to

£1,111.4bn, or 70.7 % of GDP

since the coalition entered office in 2010

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/02/cameron-rebuked-uk-

statistics-authority-over-debt-lies

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Black Friday punch-ups…

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Televised welfare

The Scheme (BBC 1, May 2010-11)

People Like Us (BBC 3, Feb 2013)

Skint (Channel 4, May 2013)

Nick and Margaret: We All Pay For Your Benefits (BBC 1, Jul 2013)

How To Get A Council House (Channel 4, Aug 2013)*

On Benefits and Proud (Channel 5, Oct 2013)

Christmas on Benefits (BBC3, Dec 2013)

Benefits Street (Channel 4, Jan 2014)

Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole (Channel 5, Jun 2014)

The Housing Enforcers (BBC 2, Sep 2014)

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Public participation

The shift in television production

practices since the late 1980s has seen

increased reliance on non-actors and

non-professionals in popular reality

formats

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Ethics

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The ‘undeserving poor’

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Fair treatment?

Audiences expect those genres they

associate with public service broadcasting

to treat people better than those genres

with a more populist agenda

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Fair treatment?

‘Similarly, audiences expect members of

the public to deserve better treatment than

public figures and celebrities’

Hill, 2007: p173

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Conflicted opinions

A right to be treated fairly…

But people in reality shows know what they

are getting into?

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Conflicted opinions

If reality performers are shamed and humiliated,

then viewers also feel ashamed by their pleasure in

watching. Their personal interest in seeing people

put in emotionally difficult situations, in watching

how shameless reality performers can be in their

pursuit of fame, makes reality TV both attractive

and repulsive to viewers

- Hill, 2007: 173-4

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Conflicted opinions

In some ways, viewers adopt a shallow ethical

position, placing self-interest first, seeing reality TV

participants as a resource to be managed for

entertainment. In other ways, viewers adopt a deep

ethical position, feeling guilty about the treatment of

participants, and moving towards a more universal

position on the rights of participants.

- Hill, 2007: 173-4

Informed consent

The public’s ‘right to know’

The participant's ‘informed consent’

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Informed consent

‘programme makers should both inform participants about

what is involved in making the programme and advise them

about the possible consequences of transmission’

Hibbard et al, 2000: 7

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Benefits Street (2014, Channel 4)

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Benefits myths

[T]here are two pervasive myths about welfare in the UK which

are routinely retailed by politicians and the media. The first is

the myth of the family where 'nobody has worked for

generations'. The second is the myth of the area where

'nobody works around here'

Declan Gaffney, 2014.

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Ideology

‘implicit and sometimes explicitly stated theories of

contemporary worklessness in the UK’ which, consequently,

can be employed to ‘justify the ramping up of more punitive

policy measures (e.g. increased benefit conditionality or cuts in

benefit levels).’

Macdonald et al, 2014: 1

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Show’s trailer

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The community responds

[W]e couldn’t believe what we were watching. We went mad.

People growing drugs, smoking drugs, shoplifting. That is not

what our street is about. Half the people they showed don’t

even live in our street.

Deidre Kelly in Aitkenehad, 2014

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Reality TV?

Focussing just on the non-retired, non-student population, 52

per cent in both areas were in employment. About a third

were ‘other inactive’, meaning they were neither working nor

seeking work, and 16/15 per cent were unemployed.

Gaffney, 2014

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Meet White Dee

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‘Judgement shots’

‘Reality television relies […] also on

documentary techniques which require the

participant to report direct to camera. It is

this blending of melodrama with

documentary that structures how

participants are called to account for their

actions that are ultimately beyond their

control. These moments – which we call

judgement shots – also prove to be

significant for engaging audiences’

Skeggs & Wood, 2012: p95

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Summary

Widening of macro level social inequality over past 40 years of

neoliberalisation

Politicians evoking tough measures on the poorest

Media echoing these sentiments, fostering environment in

which viewers judge the poor

Political classes use such depictions to reinforce their policies

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Sources

Aitkenhead, D. (2014, March 7). Deirdre Kelly, AKA White Dee: ‘I would never watch a show called Benefits Street’. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/mar/07/deirdre-kelly-white-dee-never-watch-benefits-street

Mark Doughty, Shaun Lawson, Conor Linehan, Duncan Rowland, Lucy Bennett (2014) ‘Disinhibited Abuse of Othered Communities by Second-Screening Audiences’

Hibbard, M., Kilborn, R., McNair, B., Marriott, S. and Schlesinger, P. (2000)

Consenting Adults?, London: Broadcasting Standards Commission.

Hill, A (2007) Restyling Factual TV: Audiences and news, documentary and reality genres, Abingdon: Routledge

Robert MacDonald, Tracy Shildrick and Andy Furlong (2014) 'Benefits Street' and the Myth of Workless Communities, Sociological Research Online, 19 (3), 1, http://www.socresonline.org.uk/19/3/1.html

Miller, T (2007) Cultural Citizenship: Cosmopolitanism, Consumerism, and Television in a Neoliberal Age, Philadelphia: Temple University Press

Osborne, G. (2010) in Wintour, G. 'George Osborne to cut £4bn more from benefits', The Guardian, 9 September. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/09/george-osborne-cut-4bn- benefits-welfare/

Skeggs, B & Wood, H (2012) Reacting to Reality Television: Performance, Audience and Value, Abingdon: Routledge

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