Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies - Media, Poverty and Inequality, Jun 2024

This article analyses how economic inequality was framed by UK news media during the pandemic and, drawing from framing theory, considers the implications of the coverage for news audiences. To do so, it uses a data set of 167 articles from the following UK news publications: The Guardian, The Telegraph, the Financial Times and The Sun. There are differences between the publications in terms of salience, tone and there is a wide range of causes and solutions attributed to inequality with no consensus emerging. The coverage is framed mainly by state sources, and there is very little discussion of the finance sector and corporations as causes and solutions to tackle inequality. There are some positive trends emerging, as sustainable finance, climate change and gender equality are highlighted alongside some alternative solutions, indicating a move away from historical trends in news coverage that demonize poverty and focus simply on the individual.

This article analyses 1055 UK national newspaper articles on the cost-of-living crisis published in eighteen months between February 2022 and August 2023. This study utilizes framing analysis to examine the reporting of the crisis, with a specific focus on the presentation of those identified as victims of the crisis. The article also discusses how the news media report individual and macro-economic solutions to the crisis. The study finds that market rationalism and individualist explanations dominate news coverage of a structural macroeconomic crisis. This study finds an apparent deviation from traditional reporting of poverty, in that the news media presents the cost-of-living crisis as universal. As such, the ‘othering’ of people living in poverty is less evident here than in similar studies. The study finds that the framing devices used to communicate the crisis often seek to minimize the impact of inequality, which is at the heart of the current crisis.

Politicians have often suggested that people experiencing poverty need to be encouraged to work, to stop relying on ‘government handouts’ and to become self-sufficient. News coverage of poverty has often repeated those claims, helping perpetuate stereotypes of poverty that stigmatizes the experience, making it difficult for people to seek help and also making spending cuts, like those the UK government announced in late 2022, seem necessary and inevitable. This research examines the coverage of poverty in four US and UK newspapers to understand how the issue was framed during a politically tumultuous time in the two countries. It found that rather than challenging stereotype, news coverage often perpetuated it, even when attempting to include the voices of people experiencing poverty in stories.

The UK-wide Equality Act 2010 forbids discrimination based on age, sex, race, religion/belief, disability, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity – yet no such protections apply to people experiencing poverty and/or class-based inequalities. This legislative ‘blind-spot’ extends to UK media regulation, with most industry ethical codes prioritizing the same ‘protected characteristics’ as the law. As a result, legacy print news outlets and their audiences can freely publish statements about people in poverty that would be defined as hate speech; ruled in breach of ethical codes; and liable for potential prosecution if directed at protected groups. This article explores the prevalence of povertyist hatred on comments published on two conservative-leaning news-sites (www.telegraph.co.uk and www.dailymail.co.uk) in response to articles about rising labour shortages and ‘economic inactivity’ rates during the post-COVID-19 ‘cost-of-living crisis’. It exposes serious gaps in the legal and regulatory framework(s) around protected characteristics, while also posing difficult questions for editors and moderators about the (in)adequacy of their existing policies for safeguarding groups already protected by law.

This article demonstrates how Irish mainstream media supports the neo-liberal policy responses of successive governments in relation to housing through a particular focus on how housing organizers, activists and movements are framed. We suggest here that this framing facilitates the maintenance of binaries of both ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ homelessness and the associated actions which challenge the housing crisis, which in turn compromises the ability for broad-based coalitions of solidarity to be mobilized.