Mediated Shame of Class and Poverty Across Europe

Description

The key concepts of the book are media, class, poverty, and shaming. The contributors to this book examine how certain social relations and their cultural meanings in the media, namely class and poverty, are transformed into factual or moral attributes of people and situations. Class and poverty are not understood as certain things and actions, or concepts and numbers; both class and poverty are assumed to be, above all, particular social relationships or a set of relations between people, things and symbols.  Without denying that contempt for the destitute Other is an affect found throughout history and in various socioeconomic contexts, the chapters in this book – through their concern with the mediated gaze on class – narrate predominantly the challenges brought about by the media’s spectacular take on poverty and low status as they (at least) coincide with the neoliberal era.  This volume will be essential reading for the scholars specialising in the study of media and social inequalities form the vantage points of Media Studies, Sociology, Anthropology or European Studies.  Acknowledgements About the Book Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures List of Tables Chapter 1: Perspectives on Mediated Shame of Class and Poverty in European Contexts Intersections of the Study of Class and Media A Socio-Cultural Approach to Class and Poverty Shame and Shaming The European Perspective of Class and Poverty as Objects of Shame Chapter Overview References Chapter 2: ‘Benefits Scroungers’ and Stigma: Exploring the Abject-Grotesque in British Poverty Porn Programming Broadcasting Benefits: An Explosion of ‘Poverty Porn’ Beyond the Borders: The Abject and the Grotesque Methodology: Abject-Grotesque Frame Analysis Animating the ‘Benefits Mum’ Internalising ‘Scrounger’ Stigma Embodying Abjection Us and Them, Self and Other: Maintaining the Boundaries Transgressing Limits Transferring or Reinforcing Stigma? Conclusion: The ‘Benefits Scrounger’ as an Abject-Grotesque Figure References Chapter 3: Neural Attunement to Others: Shame, Social Status, and Rewarded Viewing in Reality Television in Sweden Neuroscience and Media Engagement Misconduct on Lyxfällan Shame and Devaluation The Work of Dis-identification: Feelings-in-Common Scorn, Self-Worth, and Social Comparison Emotional Memories: Neural Attunement to Others Conclusion References Chapter 4: Shame, (Dis)empowerment and Resistance in Diasporic Media: Romanian Transnational Migrants’ Reclassification Struggles Shame and Reclassification Struggles in Transnational Contexts Shame and Reclassification Struggles in Public Culture and Discourses: Romanian ‘Badanti’ and ‘Strawberry Pickers’ Corpus and Analytical Framework Findings and Discussion: Reactions to Shame as Forms of Empowerment and Resistance Deprivation, Shame and Emigration Resistance to Shame in the Host Country Resistance to Shame in the Home Country Conclusions References Chapter 5: Mediating Class in a Classless Society? Media and Social Inequalities in Socialist Eastern Europe Class Inequalities, Middle-Class Values and Consumer Culture in State Socialist Societies The Model Workers of State Socialist TV Fiction Conclusions References Chapter 6: Invisibility or Inevitability: Performing Poverty in Czech Reality Television Researching Poverty Performance in Reality Television Inevitable Poverty Performed as Difference in Kind Poverty Made Invisible—Performing the Magic of Disappearance Poverty as Misdemeanour—Shaming in Reality Television Discussion References Chapter 7: Shaming Working-Class People on Reality Television: Perspectives from Swedish Television Production The Social Background and Position of Media Producers Media Work as Interpretative Labour Situating the Producers of Swedish Reality Television Genre Interpretations of Reality Television The Cultural Status of Reality Television Casting and Editing Class Conclusion References Chapter 8: Disparaging ‘the Assisted’: Shaming and Blaming Social Welfare Recipients in Romania and Hungary Theoretical Background and the Local Context Research Design and Methodology Discursive Patterns of Disparaging ‘the Assisted’ Shaming Frames in Visual Content Disparaging Discourses in Comments: Welfare as Referential Strategy and Shameful Attribute From the Language of Welfare to Welfare as a Political Language References Chapter 9: Othering Without Blaming: Representing Poverty in Flemish Factual Entertainment Media Representations of Poverty Methodology: Studying Poverty in Contemporary Flemish Television Televisual Approaches to Poverty Underlying Explanatory Models Production Rationale Discussion and Conclusion References Chapter 10: Inter- and Intranational Mediated Shaming to Justify Austerity Measures: The Case of the ‘Greek Crisis’ Middle-Class Shaming The Greek Crisis Publicity as a Class Shaming Practice Data and Method of Analysis for the Shaming of Greece in the Media Framing the Failed ‘Peer’ Affective Negations: Ridicule, Spite and Contempt Shaming ‘Ourselves’: The Case of the Greek Liberal and Conservative Media Conclusion References Chapter 11: Social Distances Through Scopic Practices: How Czech Reality Television Audiences Negotiate Social Inequalities Scopic Practices and the Concept of Class in a Cultural and Relational Approach to Social Inequalities Methodological Note Foregrounding Class Attributes Relational Analysis Social Distance: Different from the Abnormal Them Moral Condemnation: Different from the Torpid Passivity Emotions of Distance and Proximity Conclusion References Chapter 12: Everybody Is a Fool: Rural Life, Social Order and Carnivalesque Marginalisation in a Hungarian Television Series From Socialism to Post-socialism: Dismantling the Working Class and the Missing Middle Focus on the Countryside Representing and (Re)imagining the Rural Laughing at/in the Village A mi kis falunk and Domestic Disorder Remoteness and Nostalgia Hedonism, Sovereignty and Small Community We Do It in Our Way Ambivalent Representation of Gender Dynamics and Social Divisions In the Critical Crossfire Conclusion References Index