POVERTY IN THE NEWS

Abstract

This article provides a framing analysis of mainstream press coverage of poverty (offline and online) in Canada and the UK, and compares mainstream news coverage to coverage on alternative news sites. The research questions the extent to which, and how, coverage of children and immigrants presents contemporary constructions of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving poor’. It is argued that rationalizing and individualizing frames dominate coverage of poverty and immigration. The author suggests that the significance of the dominance of these frames is their ability to privilege and embed market-based approaches to poverty and immigration. An analysis of alternative news content reveals the extent to which social justice frames, the very frames that counter market-based approaches, are absent from mainstream news coverage. Overall, these results indicate that challenging problematic representations and approaches to poverty will require changing representations, an expansion of coverage that runs counter to news norms, and structural investments.

Keywords:

• poverty
• news
• framing analysis
• neoliberal rationality
• Canada
• UK

Notes

Individual interpretation depends on a range of factors including degree of attention, interests, beliefs, experiences, desires, and attitudes (Van Gorp 2007, p. 63).

While the focus of this study is on news coverage of immigrants, given the political and media mixing of discussions of immigrants, migrant workers, asylum seekers, and refugees, it is impossible to discuss news coverage of immigrants in isolation from these other groups. As noted by Gabrielatos and Baker (2008), who analysed UK press coverage from 1996 and 2005, in media coverage there is often confusion and conflation of the four terms.

Bednarek (2006) notes that given the change in formats of broadsheet papers to be more similar to tabloid formats, it may be more useful to categorize the two groups as popular press and quality press. She also outlines some significant differences in readership demographics: the tabloids vastly outsell the broadsheets, the broadsheets draw most readers from the middle classes. Jones notes that the tabloids have a majority working class readership.

Based on Alexa.com search 25 January 2011.

Rabble.ca ranks 5,620 on Alexa.com, and has 1,165 sites linking in (Alexa.com, September 2010). It averages 130,000 unique visitors per month.

Mostly Water has been online since 2004 and grew out of the resist.ca newsfeed. In Canada, the site is ranked 71,193 and 292 sites link to Mostly Water (Alexa.com).

Of the sites analysed, IndyMedia is the most studied (just several examples: Kidd 2002; Platon & Deuze 2003; Pickard 2006; Hoofd 2009). The first IndyMedia Center and site was started in 1999 in Seattle to cover protests against the World Trade Organization. There were more than 150 independent media centres around the world when last counted (IndyMedia 2007). Recent figures indicate that the IndyMedia.org site gets about 100,000 page views a day, with the IndyMedia sites as a whole estimated to get between 500,000 to 2 million page views a day worldwide (IndyMedia 2007).

Red Pepper has been online since 1995 and is ranked 121, 585 in the UK (Alexa.com, September 2010). There are 588 sites that link to Red Pepper.

The exception is Red Pepper, which publishes by-monthly, and so for the immigration analysis content it was analysed from the December/January 2008 and February/March 2008 issues in order to have a sample of at least three articles. The poverty content was sampled from the August/September 2008 issue.

The Toronto Star often presented stories from the perspective of immigrant families, in relation to immigrants and refugees seeking political or policy changes. For example, ‘The Trauma of Raising Kids an Ocean Away’ (15 November 2008), ‘A Mother's Tale Seen Through Eyes of Adversity’ (24 November 2008), ‘Immigrants Saving for Education Study Finds’ (24 November 2008), and ‘Joblessness a Double Blow for Immigrant Family’ (1 December 2008) all focus on family challenges and so broaden depictions of immigrants beyond notions of workers/labour.

For an historical overview of the roots of contemporary poverty discourses (see Golding & Middleton 1982, pp. 6–56; Katz 1990; Fraser & Gordon 1994; Piven & Cloward 1997; Lister 2004, pp. 99–123).

It must be noted that Polly Toynbee's coverage of the End Child Poverty Campaign report and march entitled ‘In the Face of the Apocalypse, Heed not Horsemen's Advice’ (7 October 2008) was unique in my sample and indicates that coverage could be different. In this, Comment is Free piece Toynbee connects the campaign to a critique of the economic crisis and political responses to it as not heavy handed enough. She urges Brown and New Labour in the time left before the election to restore fairness by readjusting tax rates to ensure the rich pay more and the poor pay less. The article is an important one to raise as an example because it serves as a reminder that discourses do not operate within sealed environments. Instead, as Atton (2002) observes, there is a complexity of relations between radical and mainstream media and overlap is apparent when ideological perspectives are shared.

Search conducted 6 May 2009 and 5 July 2010.