The media and inequality
Abingdon; New York:
Routledge
(2023), 264 pp., index
ISBN 978-0-367-61175-0 (pbk); 978-1-00-310447-6 (online)
"This book brings together a vast range of pre-eminent experts, academics, and practitioners to interrogate the role of media in representing economic inequality. It explores and deconstructs the concept of economic inequality by examining the different dimensions of inequality and how it has evolved historically; how it has been represented and portrayed in the media; and how, in turn, those representations have informed the public's knowledge of and attitudes towards poverty, class and welfare, and political discourse. Taking a multi-disciplinary, comparative, and historical approach, and using a variety of new and original data sets to inform the research, studies herein examine the relationship between media and inequality in UK, Western Europe, and USA. In addition to generating new knowledge and research agendas, the book generates suggestions of ways to improve news coverage on this topic and raise the level of the debate, and will improve understanding about economic inequality, as it has evolved, and as it continues to develop in academic, political and media discourses. This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners alike in the areas of journalism, media studies, economics, and the social sciences, as well as political commentators and those interested more broadly in social policy." (Publisher)
Contents
Introduction: The media and inequality / Steve Schifferes, Sophie Knowles
I. UNDERSTANDING INEQUALITY
1 Flat-lining or seething beneath the surface? Two decades of changing economic inequality in the UK / Polina Obolenskaya, John Hills
2 Wealth inequality in the UK / Carys Roberts
3 Social Mobility / Duncan Exley
4 Racial economic inequality: the visible tip of an inequality iceberg? / Kurt Barling
5 Homeownership: the key to wealth inequality? / Pirmin Fessler, Martin Schürz
II. FRAMING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY
6 Poverty and the media: poverty myths and exclusion in the information society / Peter Golding
7 The rhetoric of recessions: how British newspapers talk about the poor when unemployment rises 1896–2000 / Daniel McArthur, Aaron Reeves
8 Factual television in the UK: the rich, the poor and inequality / Joanna Mack
9 The Attention Cycle of Income Inequality in the UK and US Print Media, 1990–2015 / Martin W. Bauer, Patrick McGovern, Sandra Obradovic
10 Comparative trends in the portrayal of poverty and inequality / Jairo Lugo-Ocando, Brendon Lawson
III. PUBLIC OPINION, INEQUALITY, AND THE MEDIA
11 Public attitudes to poverty and inequality / Elizabeth Clery
12 Debating inequality: the case of Piketty's capital in the 21st century / Andrea Grisold, Hendrik Theine
13 The media and austerity / Mike Berry
14 Covid-19, inequality and the media / Steve Schifferes, Sophie Knowles
15 Stuck in a feedback loop: why more inequality leads to lower levels of concern / Jonathan J.B. Mijs
I. UNDERSTANDING INEQUALITY
1 Flat-lining or seething beneath the surface? Two decades of changing economic inequality in the UK / Polina Obolenskaya, John Hills
2 Wealth inequality in the UK / Carys Roberts
3 Social Mobility / Duncan Exley
4 Racial economic inequality: the visible tip of an inequality iceberg? / Kurt Barling
5 Homeownership: the key to wealth inequality? / Pirmin Fessler, Martin Schürz
II. FRAMING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY
6 Poverty and the media: poverty myths and exclusion in the information society / Peter Golding
7 The rhetoric of recessions: how British newspapers talk about the poor when unemployment rises 1896–2000 / Daniel McArthur, Aaron Reeves
8 Factual television in the UK: the rich, the poor and inequality / Joanna Mack
9 The Attention Cycle of Income Inequality in the UK and US Print Media, 1990–2015 / Martin W. Bauer, Patrick McGovern, Sandra Obradovic
10 Comparative trends in the portrayal of poverty and inequality / Jairo Lugo-Ocando, Brendon Lawson
III. PUBLIC OPINION, INEQUALITY, AND THE MEDIA
11 Public attitudes to poverty and inequality / Elizabeth Clery
12 Debating inequality: the case of Piketty's capital in the 21st century / Andrea Grisold, Hendrik Theine
13 The media and austerity / Mike Berry
14 Covid-19, inequality and the media / Steve Schifferes, Sophie Knowles
15 Stuck in a feedback loop: why more inequality leads to lower levels of concern / Jonathan J.B. Mijs
