Transcript Representation Of Social Class

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How many social classes are there?
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How would you describe them?
Presented in the stereotypical context of
traditional working class communities such
Eastenders and Corrie, Shameless
 Community values often praised but do not
reflect reality,
 Working class communities have declined
with the collapse of traditional industries
such as coal mining,
 Often presented in the context of trouble,
undesirable welfare scroungers, unable to
cope with their delinquent children.
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Mainly done through the coverage of
the monarchy,
 Seen as well bred and cultured,
 Represented through their accents,
estates, and a taste for shooting and
hunting,
 Usually represented in costume and
period drama.
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Mass media representations of social
classes rarely focus on the social tensions
or class conflict that some critical
sociologists see as underpinning society.
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Contemporary media coverage of the
monarchy has focused positively on
every trivial detail of their lives, turning
the Queen and her family into an ongoing soap opera, but with a glamour
and mystique far greater than any other
media personality.
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Furthermore, mass media representations
of the Queen are also aimed at
reinforcing a sense of national identity, in
that she is portrayed as the ultimate
symbol of the nation. Consequently, the
media regards royal events, such as
weddings and funerals, as national
events.
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Mass media representations of social
class tend to celebrate hierarchy and
wealth. Those who benefit from these
processes, i.e. the monarchy, the upper
class and the very wealthy, generally
receive a positive press as celebrities
who are somehow deserving of their
position.
The British mass media hardly
ever portray the upper classes
in a critical light, nor do they
often draw any serious
attention to inequalities in
wealth and pay or the
overrepresentation of publicschool products in positions of
power.
(1) the Hon. Edward Sebastian Grigg, the heir to Baron Altrincham of
Tormarton and current chairman of Credit Suisse (UK)
(2) David Cameron
(3) Ralph Perry Robinson, a former child actor, designer, furniture-maker
(4) Ewen Fergusson, son of the British ambassador to France, Sir Ewen
Fergusson and now at City law firm Herbert Smith
(5) Matthew Benson, the heir to the Earldom of Wemyss and March
(6) Sebastian James, the son of Lord Northbourne, a major landowner in
Kent
(7) Jonathan Ford, the-then president of the club, a banker with Morgan
Grenfell
(8) Boris Johnson, the-then president of the Oxford Union, now Lord Mayor
of London
9) Harry Eastwood, the investment fund consultant
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The media focus very positively on the
concerns of the wealthy and the
privileged. The media over-focuses on
consumer items such as luxury cars,
costly holiday spots and fashion
accessories that only the wealthy can
afford
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There is also an enormous amount of
print and broadcast media dedicated to
daily business news and stock market
quotations, despite the fact that few
people in Britain own stocks and shares.
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Four broad sociological observations
can be made with regard to mass
media representations of the middle
classes.
The middle class are over-represented
on TV dramas and situation comedies.
 Part of the British newspaper market is
specifically aimed at the middle classes
and their consumption, tastes and
interests, e.g. the Daily Mail.
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The content of newspapers such as The
Daily Mail suggests that journalists believe
that the middle classes of middle England
are generally anxious about the decline of
moral standards in society and that they
are proud of their British identity and
heritage.
 It is assumed that their readership feels
threatened by alien influences such as the
Euro, asylum seekers and terrorism.
 Consequently, newspapers, such as the
Daily Mail, often crusade on behalf of the
middle classes and initiate moral panics on
issues such as video nasties, paedophilia
and asylum seekers.
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 Most
of the creative personnel in
the media are themselves middle
class.
 In news and current affairs, the
middle classes dominate positions
of authority – the ‘expert’ is
invariably middle class.
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When news organisations focus on the
working class, it is generally to label
them as a problem, e.g. as welfare
cheats, drug addicts or criminals.
 Working
class groups, e.g. youth subcultures such as mods or skinheads,
are often the subject of moral panics,
whilst reporting of issues such as
poverty, unemployment or singleparent families often suggests that
personal inadequacy is the main
cause of these social problems, rather
than government policies or poor
business practices.
 Studies
of industrial relations
reporting by the Glasgow
University Media Group suggest
that the media portray
‘unreasonable’ workers as making
trouble for ‘reasonable’
employers.
 Newspapers
aimed at working class
audiences assume that they are
uninterested in serious analysis of
either the political or social
organisation of British society. Political
debate is often reduced simplistically
to conflict between personalities
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The content of newspapers such as The
Sun and the Daily Star assumes that such
audiences want to read about celebrity
gossip and lifestyles, trivial human interest
stories and sport.
Argues that the tabloid media dedicate
a great deal of their content to
examining the lives of another section of
the wealthy elite,
 This dedication invites the audiences to
admire the achievements of these
celebrities,
 Media over focuses on consumer items
such as luxury cars, costly holiday spots
and fashion accessories
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What does this term mean to you?
Chav is used as a term of disgust and
contempt,
 Argues that the media use the
discriminatory and offensive language to
vilify what they depict as a peasant
underclass symbolised by stereotypical
forms of appearance,
 Swale (2006) – usage of the term NEET (Not
in Employment Education or Training),
 Some suggest that those from the
underclass are responsible for their own
poverty. (Daybreak)
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When the news media turn their attention
to the most destitute, the portrayals are
often negative or stereotypical. Often, the
poor are portrayed in statistical rather
than in human terms by news bulletins
that focus on the numbers unemployed or
on benefits, rather than the individual
suffering and personal indignities of
poverty
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McKendrick et al. (2008) studied a
week’s output of mainstream media in
2007 and concluded that coverage of
poverty is marginal in British media, in
that the causes and consequences of
poverty were very rarely explored across
the news, documentaries or drama
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Dramas such as Shameless presented a
sanitised picture of poverty, despite
featuring characters who were
economically deprived,
 Family
issue-based programmes such
as The Jeremy Kyle Show treated
poverty as an aspect of
entertainment.
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Argues that the UK mass media was so
concerned about trumpeting the good
fortune of British capitalism that it paid
less attention to its casualties
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Marxists argue that the content of
newspapers such as The Sun and The
Daily Star is an attempt to distract the
working class audiences from the
inequalities of capitalism.
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Use a micro analysis grid to make as you
watch:
Mise- En Scene
Cinematography
Sound
Editing