The media, poverty and public opinion in the UK John H. McKendrick, Stephen Sinclair, September 2008 Anthea Irwin, Hugh O’Donnell, Gill Scott and Louise Dobbie How the media in the UK represents poverty and its effect on wider public understanding. The media fulfi ls an important role in shaping, amplifying and responding to public attitudes toward poverty. This study, part of the ‘Public Interest in Poverty Issues’ research programme, explores the role of national, local and community media in refl ecting and infl uencing public ideas of poverty and welfare. The research aimed to: • compare representations of poverty across different contemporary UK media; • identify the principal factors and considerations infl uencing those involved in producing media coverage of poverty; • understand how UK media representations of poverty relate to the public’s understanding of poverty, and any differences between the responses of different groups; • identify examples of effective practice in communicating poverty issues to the public and derive transferable lessons from these. The researchers analysed coverage of poverty in news reporting; looked at how the same poverty news story was reported across different news outlets; reviewed how poverty was presented across different genres of television programme; interviewed key informants involved in the production, placement and presentation of poverty coverage in the mass media and explored public interpretations and responses to media coverage of poverty through focus groups/ workshops. www.jrf.org.uk Contents List of tables and fi gures 4 1 Introduction: poverty and the media 5 2 Poverty in the UK 8 3 Reporting poverty in the UK news 13 4 Tracking ‘poverty news’ across media 27 5 On-screen representations of poverty 33 6 Reproduction of poverty in the media 39 7 Public responses to media poverty 48 8 Issues and conclusions 54 Notes 58 References 60 Appendix: Research methods for reporting poverty in the UK media 63 Acknowledgements 72 List of tables and fi gures Tables 5 Mentioning of poverty, wealth and ideas related to poverty in the UK news 16 1 Attitudes to poverty in the UK 12 6 Mentioning poverty in the UK news, by 2 Profi le of the people experiencing poverty in media outlet: average number of ‘poverty the UK where such information is available in reports’ per genre 17 the UK news 25 7 Source of the issue that leads to UK A1 Sampling frame for the SPIU audit of poverty being mentioned in the UK news 18 poverty in the UK news 64 8 Mode through which the issue is raised A2 Case studies for tracking poverty news that leads to UK poverty being mentioned reports across media 66 in the UK news 19 A3 Case studies for on-screen representations 9 The issue (subject matter) that leads to UK of poverty 68 and non-UK poverty being mentioned in the UK news 20 A4 Focus group profi le 69 10 Prominence of poverty in the UK news: A5 Key informant profi le 70 UK and non-UK based stories 20 11 Formats in which UK poverty is mentioned Figures in the UK news 21 1 Number of people living in poverty in the UK 12 The way in which UK poverty contributes according to government estimates, 1994–95 to articles and broadcasts in the UK news 22 to 2005–06 9 13 The number of times a UK poverty report 2 Changing composition of people living in mentions a core concept of poverty in the poverty in the UK, 1994–95 to 2005–06 9 UK news 23 3 Where is the poverty that is mentioned in 14 The sources through which UK poverty is the UK news? 14 represented when poverty is mentioned in the UK news 24 4 How poverty in the UK is described when mentioned in the UK news 15 15 Types of information in UK poverty reports that could be used to profi le the population experiencing poverty 24 4 List of tables and fi gures 1 Introduction: poverty and the media More than a quarter of a century has passed for journalists on reporting poverty. The report since Peter Golding and Sue Middleton published starts by considering the signifi cance of the media Images of Welfare: Press and Public Attitudes in furthering our understanding of poverty. to Poverty (Golding and Middleton, 1982). Set against an understanding of the history of social Sources of information about policies for people living in poverty and focused on poverty the late 1970s at a time when economic recession coincided with a welfare backlash, their seminal How we encounter poverty shapes how we study investigated media content, the production understand and respond to it. For example, direct of welfare news and its relationship to public personal experience of poverty, either as a child attitudes to welfare and public understanding of or as an adult, is more closely associated than poverty. any other socio-demographic characteristic with The recognition that the media fulfi ls an liberal attitudes towards poverty (Park et al., 2007). important role in shaping, amplifying and With over ten million people experiencing poverty responding to public attitudes towards poverty in the UK at the current time (DWP, 2008), direct makes the work of Golding and Middleton no less personal experience should have a signifi cant important today. However, times have changed. bearing on how poverty is understood in the UK. For almost ten years, the UK Government has Indeed, poverty dynamics mean that considerably pursued its pledge to eradicate child poverty within more than ten million people in the UK will have a generation. There is no longer a pervasive public had direct personal experience of poverty at some anxiety over welfare, although welfare fraud and time in their lives. whether claimants are deserving of support remain Furthermore, contact between the non-poor concerns of the British public, particularly with and people experiencing poverty means that many regard to immigrants and asylum seekers (Irwin, more than ten million people encounter poverty in 2006). Furthermore, the media has undergone the UK at the current time. Contact takes place profound changes in recent years, with a wider in many settings (workplace, wider public space, range of communication modes being used and social networks, extended familial networks) and more opportunities being afforded for participatory may take the form of fl eeting interactions, client– journalism. service provider associations or close personal Thus, it is an opportune moment to reconsider relationships. the role of the media in helping to shape public However, the extent to which direct personal understanding of poverty in the UK. These issues encounters with and experiences of poverty are are of particular concern to the Joseph Rowntree recognised as poverty is less certain. Research Foundation (JRF) at the current time. Through the has demonstrated that people experiencing ‘Public Interest in Poverty Issues’ programme, the poverty do not always acknowledge that they JRF seeks to better understand attitudes to UK live in poverty (McKendrick et al, 2003). Similarly, poverty, with a view to exploring the implications contact with people experiencing poverty may of these attitudes for communication and change. not always be acknowledged. Unlike earlier This study builds on previous JRF-supported work historical periods, poverty in the UK today is not that highlighted ambiguity and confusions among synonymous with destitution, starving millions and public attitudes to UK poverty. It also complements barefoot children; people experiencing poverty work that is developing a more practical resource in the UK today tend to be clothed, sheltered (if Introduction: poverty and the media 5 not housed) and fed. However, they do not have Third, these new technologies not only are enough wealth or income to partake of what becoming a key source of information for an might be reasonably expected of people living increasing number of people in the UK, but also in the UK. Furthermore, the desire to project a have the potential to transform the media by dignifi ed appearance in public implies that poverty embracing more public participation. For example, encountered is not always poverty recognised. text messaging is widely used as a means for the It follows that poverty is more likely to be audience to communicate with the media and acknowledged when it is described as such when online forums afford more opportunities for the presented through the mass media. Newspapers, public to respond to issues raised in the media. television, fi lms, blogs and radio all present poverty Ownership of news media is pluralised through the to their respective audiences. The media might proliferation of online discussion forums and the focus directly on poverty (such as when the blogosphere. incidence of poverty is reported in the news) or Fourth, new technology has had a signifi cant attention might be drawn to poverty as a signifi cant impact on both news gathering and news context (such as when commentators speculate reporting. Relatively cheap and portable recording on the impact of an economic downturn). In and transmission technologies, the proliferation either case, the media has the potential to be an of broadcasting outlets through digital TV and important source of information about poverty and radio, and the internet, have transformed the news a forum for debate on poverty. It is this potential media landscape. This has led to 24-hour rolling that suggests that the media might play a key role news broadcasts and a corresponding demand for in shaping people’s understanding of poverty. information to fi ll this. One result has been growing demands on broadcast journalists to provide more New media, new times? copy and meet tighter deadlines, while allowing them less time to actually gather the information The media has changed beyond all recognition they need to report (Marr, 2005).