Where's the Poor? Blog 1

                Most of us think the poor are people out sitting in line of a soup kitchen because they ran out of money.  But what we must have is a definition of the poor before we can understand them more.  For most people, the definition of a poor person is someone in the lower class making very few dollars.  According to Tracey Ore, the media will cover the poor based on a middle class viewpoint.  The poor are depicted as drug addicts, people who cheat the welfare system, and who evade taxes (2014).  The media has a lot of power in today’s society in what is discussed at the supper table.

                

               When you flip on the news at home, you expect to see lower class citizens sleeping on the street and selling drugs on the side to make cash for themselves.  Our thoughts at home are that it’s the poor’s fault they got into that situation and we need to be careful to not end up poor. 

              

               In fact there is much more to the story than just what the 5 o’ clock news reports.  Lower class citizens live all around us, in rural areas and cities.  They may be hard working but due to job loss and a depriving economy, they are finding it hard to make a living.  Middle class citizens are now turning into lower class citizens based on the income they are making.  People have the ability to control how much income they make so this is a social class type of stratification because a lower class citizen can find a new job and make enough money to be considered middle class.

              

             Higher class citizens will have more control over what is put out on the media.  That can be considered a weakness because the media is not getting equal representation from all the social classes in the reporting of stories.   The public needs to reconsider everything that is reported through the media.  What viewpoint is the story coming from?  What is not being reported?  Those are a couple of things that a person watching the media needs to ask themselves.  A positive of the media is that information about the lower class citizens can reach a wide range of people and awareness can be spread.  An example of this is drug overdoses in the lower class community causing various agencies to work together and come up with a plan to help the poor.  Another positive of the media is the amount of information that can get out to the public describing the poor in general.  The public watching the media however must not think of media reports of the poor as the only correct answer.

This news clip from MSNBC discusses that there is not enough coverage of the rural poor and more of an emphasis is placed on the urban poor.  This is another example of a weakness of the media about how not everything is covered from all angles and some key angles may be left out.  The reporters discuss that the public needs to be more aware of citizens close to the poverty line.  This also shows that the public needs to have knowledge on issues and not get all of their information just from a single news report.

Here's a MSNBC clip explaining that more can be done with the coverage on the poor:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSAE3CsQTsE

References:

Ore, Tracey E. 2014. The Social Construction of Difference & Inequality. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.