DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Influence of Media and American Culture

 

Poverty in white America is never really pictured. You would think that because almost half of the population of people in poverty  in the United States are white, that the picture of poverty would be different. So why is there such a misrepresentation of racial groups in poverty? I believe that there are many contributing factors to this misrepresentation, such as the location of many non for profit organizations, the media’s involvement over the years, the history of American culture, and the stigma attached to white Americans living in poverty.

 

 

This misconception of American poverty is so widespread that a more powerful element is at work – American culture and media. Historically, oppression and racism has, and unfortunately always will, play a significant role in American society. Past attitudes towards minorities still perpetuates in the explanations of American poverty and racial contexts today. Of course, poverty is multifaceted, however “racial attitudes and attitudes towards the poor are deeply interwoven” says Dr. Daniel Hopkins, of Harvard University.

 

I spoke with Ms. Emily Williams, the Program Director of the Community Service Scholarship at DePaul University about the source of the misrepresentations of race and poverty and her belief lies in the politics of the United States. “Presidents like Bill Clinton, the Bushes, and Reagan launched campaigns on the problem of welfare and other social service initiatives that aided people living with low incomes or in poverty, and many of the images used to raise awareness were of black people.” Williams goes on to say that “the language that was utilized also aided in the “blackness” of poverty; words such as “urban”, “inner-city”, “single-mother”, “unemployed”, “low-income”, and “housing projects”, were made to have a strong associations with minorities living in poverty. These associations were not only racializing poverty, but also developing negative perceptions about the poor.” And because the racial dimension in American society has been one of racial hierarchy, most likely this assumption that minorities suffer from poverty and the dominant race – white – does not, explains why poverty in white America is not as widely accepted.

 

 

Popular culture and media has helped spread and solidify the skewed dimension of race in American society through television, literature, movies, and advertisements, just to name a few. According to Dr. Daniel J. Hopkins, “the media play[s] a critical role in perpetuating stereotypes. In magazines and on television, Americans are presented with an image of poverty that dramatically overstates the percentage of the poor who are black” (Hopkins 744) or of a minority. These stereotypes influence what groups are perceived to be poor, thus it is important to divulge how the media portrays poverty in the United States, since the majority of the average American’s waking hours are spent with some type of media.

 

 

Diana Kendall, author of Framing Class, explains the way in which “the media emphasizes some ideological perspectives over others and manipulates salience by directing people’s attention to some ideas while ignoring others” (Kendall 5), ultimately influencing how consumers make sense of the world. In other words, in order to sustain the racial hierarchy and social ideology that is so widely accepted and comfortable limits for most, the media will focus attention on  groups of people who fit the social parameters, making them more memorable to the viewer, and ignore those who do not. Simply, media has become the core system for the allocation of ideology and stereotypes.

 

An African American celebrity, Beyonce Knowles is photoshopped for a L'Oreal ad to look lighter than she really is, to fit the standards of what is attractive to society.

 

For example, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, The Associated Press separately captioned two photographs of hurricane victims chest deep in water, foraging for food and survival supplies. However, the photo of a black man refers to him as “looting a grocery store in New Orleans” whereas the photo of a white couple refers to them as “finding bread and soda from a local grocery store” (AP and APF, 2005). Such images of wealth and poverty in regards to race are repeatedly shown by the media, subtly reinforcing readers’ and viewers’ beliefs about inequality. In fact, a survey by the National Opinion Research Center highlights white’s misperception of poverty in America. “…78% of whites thought blacks were more likely than whites to live on welfare; 62% of whites thought blacks were less hardworking; 53% thought blacks are less intelligent” explains Lucy Jarosz and Victoria Lawson, authors of "Sophisticated People Versus Rednecks”: Economic Restructuring and Class Difference in America’s West.

 

 

Statistically speaking, what people believe to be true and what actually exists are drastically different, and leads to the misrepresentation of race and poverty in the United States.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.