
All societies have been arranged hierarchically

The U.S. is no exception
 More uneven in wealth distribution than most
industrialized capitalist societies, but not as much so as
developing nations
 Historical trend toward less economic stratification was
reversed beginning in the 1980s
Source: Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-1998,"
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(1), 2003. Updated to 2005 at http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/saez .
Based on U.S. Census Data

Social class includes more than income or
place within the economic system


Education
Taste/culture
 Manners (breeding)
 Religion
 Preferences


Race and gender
Residence

Largely denied by U.S. culture


“Classless society”
“The belief that the United States is a classless
society or, alternatively, that most Americans
are “middle class” persists . . . despite
pervasive socioeconomic stratification”

(Bullock, Wyche and Williams, 2001)

“ It is impossible to understand people's
behavior...without the concept of social stratification,
because class position has a pervasive influence on
almost everything...the clothes we wear...the television
shows we watch...the colors we paint our homes in and
the names we give our pets... Our position in the social
hierarchy affects our health, happiness, and even how
long we will live. ”

William Thompson, Joseph Hickey, Society in Focus, 2005

Two flavors:

Analysis of news, documentary, political pundits,
etc. in non-fictional content areas
 Looking for bias, falsehoods, etc.

Analysis of entertainment media
 Looking for ideological, mythical presentations of the
world

Portrayals of characters who represent a given
class


Do the behaviors/attitudes of the character ‘explain’
a position of subordination or superordination?
Do plots, settings, etc. indicate system
openness or structure?


Stereotypes are ‘ideal’ characterizations of a
member of some identified group
Though often based in some ‘reality’ they are
often exaggerated and may be distorted (often
in a negative fashion)

Although we are used to thinking of
stereotypes in terms of race and gender,
stereotypes exist for all ‘groups’ including class
Blue Collar
 Hillbilly
 Redneck
 White trash


They can blind observers to the individual
variation among members of the ‘group’



False and potentially demeaning expectations when
interacting with individuals
They impact intergroup interactions and even
may become self-fulfilling
They justify social inequality of treatment
and/or public policy that relates to groups

Blaming the victim
Upper class
Middle class/
Upper middle
class
Working
class
Lower class
Amount of
Above
representation population
levels
Above
population
levels
Below
population
levels
Below
population
levels
News
Professionals,
expertise in
science,
medicine
Industrial
conflict,
crime
Crime
Business
interests,
commentary
Entertainment Powerful
criminals,
Lifestyles,
reality
Lawyer shows, Cops, reality
family dramas, TV, sitcoms
sitcoms,
medical shows
Criminals,
Daytime talk
“The prototypical working-class
male is incompetent and
ineffectual, often a buffoon, wellintentioned but dumb. In almost
all working-class series, the male
is flawed, some more than others
. . . . He fails in his role as a
father and husband, is lovable but
not respected.”
•Butsch, Social Class and Television in
Encyclopedia of Television











Violent

Brutish

Prone to hair-brained schemes to get ahead
Unintelligent
Focused on cars, sports, sex
Racist/Xenophobic
Politically right-wing
Sexist
Lacking in taste and sophistication
Noble
Loyal
Self-sacrificing
Strong-willed
ABC’s The Middle

Working-class wives are depicted “as
exceeding the bounds of their feminine status,
being more intelligent, rational, and sensible
than their husbands. . . . Working-class men
are de-masculinized by depicting them as
child-like; their wives act as mothers. . . . These
results indicate the importance of accounting
for class along with gender.”
•
Butsch, Social Class and Television in Encyclopedia of
Television

Working-class singles tend to be oversexed,
loud and lacking in tact or sophistication

They exhibit extreme gender-role emphasis as goodol’-boys or redneck women, etc.




The Waltons
Police shows (cops on the beat v.
detectives/specialists)
The Deadliest Catch
CEO switch thing

Less contested and ambiguous than are bluecollar representations

Mostly represented as extremely flawed
 Violent
 Criminal
 Drug-taking
 Unintelligent
 Sleazy




Trashy
Oversexed
Unsophisticated
Domestic



Kids
Dependant/“Golddigger”
Focused on men




Content analyses show a great overrepresentation of
African Americans in depictions of the poor
Gilens (1996) content analysis of three major news
magazines found African Americans were represented
in 62% of stories about poverty though they comprised
29% of poor (no more info available)
Asian Americans, stereotyped as hard working and
conscientious, rarely show up in stories about the poor
European Americans greatly overestimate the
percentage of African Americans who are poor

European Americans greatly overestimate the
percentage of African Americans who are poor



African American men—members of
“threatening and violent underclass”
African American women—welfare queens or
as “ignorant, promiscuous women caught in a
self-perpetuating ‘cycle of dependency’”
Emphasis on African Americans tends to
render white poor ‘invisible’ in popular culture

“Although the ‘typical’ drug consumer and
dealer is an employed, high-school-educated
European American man, the majority of
arrests depicted on reality-based crime
programs involve African American and Latino
men in densely populated, urban areas
(Anderson, 1994).”




April-July 1999 newspapers
412 articles
24% contained at least some overt discussion of
race/ethnicity
African American articles:



8 focused on chronic poverty and single motherhood
5 focused on fraud
6 highlighted the lives of African Americans who
had triumphed over poverty



60% of articles took balanced/neutral tone
32% positive (supported services and programs
for the poor)
8% negative (fraud, drug addiction, etc.)




60% portrayed poor as deserving of support
(hard-working families with children in need)
17% portrayed poor negatively (drug users,
neglectful parents)
14% neutral
8% mixed




Presenting the interests of the well-off (e.g.,
stock, financial portfolios, and leisure time) as
universal concerns
Downplaying the structural economic concerns
(e.g., job security, income) of the working class
and poor
Emphasizing shared interclass concerns (e.g.,
safety, crime)
Portraying the middle class as the norm, with
little representation of interclass tension



Imply, if not openly claim, that
biological/genetic ‘causes’ of depicted
inferiority explain social inequity
Are painful for those they supposedly pertain
to
Justify harsh social policy, police action as the
only reasonable response to socially
objectionable behaviors

Blaming the victim


Maintenance of an uneven social reward
system



Those who receive less of the system’s output
deserve their fate because they have personality
flaws or don’t try hard enough
Rewards not fairly tied to performance
Low self-esteem among ‘lower classes’
Exultation of self-interest

Mean World (for real)


Tabloid news shows tended to “focus on
stories involving upper-class criminals,
particularly celebrities, whereas “highbrow”
news programs were more likely to focus on
stories involving working-class, unemployed
criminals.”
Also tend to show “rags to riches” stories or
the “hollowness of wealth”


“Welfare recipients are among the . . . the
most hated and stereotyped groups in
contemporary society”
Only one among 17 stereotyped groups
(feminists, housewives, retarded people,
Blacks, migrant workers, etc.) that
respondents both disliked and disrespected.



Lacking both competence and warmth
However, most common group of welfare
recipients is poor children
Media representations concentrate on their
mothers


Those who are well off and those who are not
accept many of the same assumptions and
explanations for their economic lot
Thus, the have-nots act to discipline themselves
rather than making demands of the system

Workers who accept their role do not present as
much a threat in the mines and factories