Joanna Redden
The Mediation of Poverty: The News, New Media and Politics
My research project is a reaction to the high levels of poverty and income inequality in Canada and the United Kingdom. I argue that how poverty is defined plays a large role in what people choose to do or not do about the issue.
My project focuses on how news coverage of poverty, both news content and the processes involved in the generation of news, influence poverty politics in Canada and the United Kingdom. I look specifically at poverty issue dynamics through a focus on children as contemporary constructions of a “deserving poor” and immigrants as constructions of an “undeserving poor”. Through my cross-national comparison I draw some generalizing conclusions about the influence of neoliberalism and the increasing use of digital technologies on poverty coverage and on the working practices within mediated political centres in both countries.
A frame analysis of mainstream news content shows the extent to which individualizing and rationalizing frames dominate poverty and immigration coverage. I suggest that these frames reinforce and further embed the dominance of market-based thinking and approaches to poverty and immigration. Interviews with politicians, activists, researchers and journalists demonstrate how speeded-up working practices have become as a result of new media use, and how difficult it is to challenge dominant media coverage.
The speed of contemporary news environments means that the influence of news norms and values takes on ever greater significance and limits how poverty is covered. New media tools provide new opportunities to share information and build contacts, but they also present new demands on time and attention. I question and challenge the notion that access leads to influence. I conclude that changing contemporary representations and approaches to poverty will require direct confrontation and challenge of market-based thinking, mobilizations and some very specific institutional changes at media and political levels.
Publications
Redden, J. (2011) ‘Poverty in the News: A Framing Analysis of Coverage in Canada and the United Kingdom’, Information, Communication & Society 14 (6): 820-849.
Redden, J. and Witschge, T. (2010) ‘A New News Order? Online News Content Examined’. In N. Fenton (ed.) New Media, Old News: Journalism and Democracy in a Digital Age. London: Sage.