Class

• • media editors and executives are almost all m/c
  • drama roles for w/c characters are mostly limited to soap operas
• GUMG

  Suggests media spreads view that w/c are trouble to ensure dominance in capitalist ideology

  • news criticises worker strikes
• Glennon and Butsch

  Looked at 40 years of family on TV

  • 4% of sitcoms featured a manual worker as head of family, reality = 36%
  • nearly half of TV families had a professional and were head of household, reality = 25%
  • most TV families were wealthy and glamorous
  • W/c fathers were portrayed as stupid and comical
• Newman


  Media gives positive attention to things that only wealthy can afford, e.g. newspapers devote attention to stocks and shares, most UK population don’t own any
• Newman

  W/c are blamed for poverty and unemployment

  • when poverty is discussed, media talks about statistics instead of human suffering
• Medhurst

  When m/c students were shown ‘The Royle Family’ (featuring deliberately exaggerated and stereotypical w/c characters) they thought it was an accurate portrayal
• Hall

  Media has always portrayed m/c in a positive light and w/c in negative light

  • media has reinforced people's class identities > helps divide between the classes