Comprehensive and interdisciplinary, this collection explores the complex, and often problematic, ways in which the news media shapes perceptions of poverty.
Editor Sandra L. Borden and a diverse collection of scholars and journalists question exactly how the news media can reinforce (or undermine) poverty and privilege. This book is divided into five parts that examine philosophical principles for reporting on poverty, the history and nature of poverty coverage, problematic representations of people experiencing poverty, poverty coverage as part of reporting on public policy and positive possibilities for poverty coverage. Each section provides an introduction to the topic, as well as a broad selection of essays illuminating key issues and a Q&A with a relevant journalist. Topics covered include news coverage of corporate philanthropy, structural bias in reporting, representations of the working poor, the moral demands of vulnerability and agency, community empowerment and citizen media. The books broad focus considers media and poverty at both the local and global levels with contributors from 16 countries.
This is an ideal reference for students and scholars of media, communication and journalism who are studying topics involving the media and social justice, as well as journalists, activists and policy makers working in these areas.
Comprehensive and interdisciplinary, this collection explores the complex, and often problematic, ways in which the news media shapes perceptions of poverty.
Introduction: The Problem of Poverty in the News Media Part 1
Principles: Ethical Frameworks for Covering Poverty
1. Communitarian Ethics
and Poverty Coverage
2. The Capability Approach and Media Coverage of Poverty
3. Extreme Poverty as Human Rights Violation: Moral Duties and Public
Engagement in the Global North
4. Precarious Photojournalism: The Ethics and
Aesthetics of the Unrepresentable
5. Shared Vulnerability as a Virtuous
Framework for Poverty Coverage
6. Solidarity in U.S. Journalism: Social
Justice Implications of How Journalists Humanize People Experiencing
Homelessness
7. Social Empathy + Compassion: Building Blocks for Poverty
Coverage
8. Reporting on the Margins But Not Marginalizing with Dustin Dwyer
Part II Poverty: Socioeconomic Need and Its Causes in the News
9. A Very Poor
Watchdog: How the Political Economy Continues to Define News Reporting of
Poverty in the Digital Era
10. Framing Poverty: An Historical Overview of
Ways of Seeing Poverty
11. The Social Construction of Poverty in India: Role
of News Media
12. A History of Media Coverage of Poverty in the United States
Since 1960
13. Ruin Porn and Virtue Porn: Licensing How We Talk About
Perceptions of Urban Decay
14. Neoliberal Poverty Discourses in Canadian
Newspapers
15. Coverage of Poverty in Business News: How Media Represent
Public and Private Concern for People Living in Poverty
16. Living in a
Material World: Celebrity Media Culture and Neoliberal Ideology in the
Digital Age
17. Urban Inequality and Marginalization with Chris Michael Part
III Poor: News Representations of People Experiencing Poverty
18. What
about the Actors Involved in News about Poverty? Disrupting Determinist
Accounts
19. The Picture of Poverty: Visual Images and Their Implications
20.
Settler Colonial Representations of Indigenous Disadvantage
21. Media
Representations of Structural Factors Contributing to Womens Poverty
22. The
Cultural Image of the Fat Poor in German News Media
23. Representations of
the Working Poor
24. Representation, Poverty, and Hillbilly Culture in
Appalachia
25. To Cover or Not to Cover? A Critical Discourse Analysis of
Mainstream Media News Framing of Children in Kenyan Care Homes
26. Not
Sending Their Best: Media Framings of Immigrants as the Parasitic Poor"
27.
News at a Time of Economic Hardship with Judith Matloff Part IV Policy:
Indirect Coverage of Poverty as Part of Watchdog Journalism
28. Keep Calm and
Carry On: Challenging a Discourse of Necessity and Forbearance in News
Reporting of UK Austerity Policies
29. Welfare in the Media: Issues of
Coloniality and Symbolic Power in the Case of Metiria Turei
30. Contesting
the Narrative of Rootless Others
31. Not Just for Christmas: News Media
Coverage of Homelessness
32. Criminalization of Poverty: Fines, Fees, Money
Bail, and Much More
33. From Community Empowerment to Infrastructure
Reinforcement: Exploring the Shifting Media Narrative on Indigent Health
Policy from Reagan to Obama
34. Housing Policy in the News: In Praise of
Markets, Problematizing Residents in Poverty
35. What Lessons May Be Drawn
from Media Reactions to a Universal Basic Income?
36. Water Access and
Solutions Journalism with Jiquanda Johnson Part V Positives: Promising
Practices for Better Poverty Coverage
37. Amplifying the Deliberative Agency
of Indigenous Communities in Philippine News Media
38. Constructive
Journalism and Poverty Reduction in China: The Targeted Poverty Alleviation
Campaign
39. Citizen Media as a Counter-Narrative: Slum Journalism and the
Kibera News Network
40. Refugees, Media Representation and Counter-Narrative:
An Analysis of TedxKakumaCamp
41. Filling the Void? Engagement between the
Nonprofit Sector and Journalists in the Production of News about Poverty
42.
Longform Immersion: Situating Struggle as an In/Outsider
43. Expanding
Journalism Students' Empathy by Writing about the Working Poor
44. Focused on
Results, Building Trust with Monica Morales
Sandra L. Borden (Ph.D., Indiana University) is a professor in the School of Communication at Western Michigan University (United States). She directs the universitys Center for the Study of Ethics in Society and coaches its Association for Practical and Professional Ethics Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl team. Her work has appeared in several scholarly books and journals, including the Journal of Media Ethics, Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism and Communication Theory. Her books are the award-winning Journalism as Practice: MacIntyre, Virtue Ethics and the Press (2007; 2009), Ethics and Entertainment: Essays on Media Culture and Media Morality (co-edited with Howard Good, 2010), Making Hard Choices in Journalism Ethics (with David Boeyink, 2010) and Ethics and Error in Medicine (co-edited with Fritz Allhoff, 2019).
