POVERTY

PORN?
REPRESENTATIONS OF
POVERTY IN THE MEDIA

BA (HONS) SOCIAL CARE

SESSION AIMS

Introduce you to university level BA (Hons) Social Care

teaching focussing on the subject of poverty porn and to
consider this in relation to studying Social Care;

Get a taster of BA (Hons) Social Care at Manchester

Metropolitan University.

This sessions aims to:

POVERTY PORN?
What does this notion mean? Tracey Jensen (2014) suggests that,

The term emerged through critiques of the representation of

poverty in films such as Slumdog Millionaire;

It is a contested and contentious term;

It represents a new cultural industry.

Clips from Channel 4's Benefits Street documentary An insight into

one of the UK's most benefit-dependent roads (Channel 4, 4)
Newsnight discussion of Benefits Street relentless, almost
obsessive hunting down of the most extreme, dysfunctional,
unrepresentative people. (Owen Jones, 2.33)

The Media Show discussion the reality is, that is why the public
backs our welfare reforms package, to get more people back to work
to end these abuses. (Ian Duncan Smith, 15:08)

BENEFITS STREET:

BROADCAST 2014
AND FILMED IN 2013 BY CHANNEL 4

BENEFITS STREET
2: BROADCAST 11th
May 2015

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/benefits-street

QUICK TASK From your viewing of Benefits

Street list
5 positive representations of
the community

5 negative representations
of the community

Such programmes repeat imagined

connections between welfare recipients and
moral laxity, greed, and even criminality.
(Jensen, 2014)

Imagined connections Greed, moral laxity, criminality

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:
Do these programmes stigmatise people who claim benefits?
Are they based on stereotypes?
Do they represent the reality of life for the majority of benefit
claimants?
Do they critique a system that reproduces poverty, or do they
individualise blame?
Are these programmes politically motivated?
What purpose do they serve?
Why have they become popular at THIS SPECIFIC period of
time?

Why do people watch these documentaries anyway?

FURTHER READING AND

SOURCES OF INFORMATION
MacDonald, R., Shildrick, T., and Furlong, A., (2014).
Benefits Street' and the Myth of Workless Communities'.
Sociological Research Online. 19(3)1.
Mooney, G. (2011). Stigmatising poverty? The Broken
Society and reflections on anti-welfarism in the UK today.
Oxfam, Oxford.
Shildrick, T., MacDonald, R., Webster, C., and Garthwaite, T.
(2012) Poverty and Insecurity: life in low-pay, no-pay Britain
Bristol: Policy Press.
http://www.poverty.ac.uk/

http://
www.jrf.org.uk/film/reporting-poverty-stigma-and-stereotypes

CRIMINALS?
CRIMINAL JUSTICE

BA (HONS) SOCIAL CARE

10

Child A

11

Child B

1.

What do you think should be done to help

2.

What do you think might happen to them?

3.

Are they vulnerable?

4.

Are they in danger?

5.

Are they victims?

12

these two children?

13

Your conduct was both cunning and very

wicked (Justice Morland) Independent (1993)
the Daily Star offered a 20,000 reward "to
trap beasts who killed little James". Guardian
(March, 2010)

14

Detectives who interviewed the boys called

them evil freaks of nature, who had killed for a
'buzz'

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FURTHER READING AND

SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Pilcher, Jane, and Stephen Wagg. 1996. Thatchers Children?: Politics,
Childhood and Society in the 1980s and 1990s. Psychology Press.
Green, David A. 2008. Suitable Vehicles: Framing Blame and Justice
When Children Kill a Child. Crime, Media, Culture: An International
Journal 4 (2): 197220. doi:10.1177/1741659008092328.
Hay, Colin. 1995. Mobilization Through Interpellation : James Bulger,
Juvenile Crime and the Construction of a Moral Panic. Social & Legal
Studies 4 (2): 197223. doi:10.1177/096466399500400203.
King, Michael. 1995. The James Bulger Murder Trial: Moral Dilemmas,
and Social Solutions. The International Journal of Childrens Rights 3
(2): 16787. doi:10.1163/157181895X00014.

16

Rowbotham, Judith, Kim Stevenson, and Samantha Pegg. 2003.

Children of Misfortune: Parallels in the Cases of Child Murderers
Thompson and Venables, Barratt and Bradley. Howard Journal of
Criminal Justice 42 (2): 10722. doi:10.1111/1468-2311.00270.