Framing Class: Media Representations of Wealth and Poverty in America

by Diana Kendall

Why do most people think of themselves as middle class? Why do we view people in other social classes the way that we do? Why do many of us spend more than we can afford buying luxury items that we do not need? Framing Class provides answers to these questions. Through extensive content analysis of sources that include the archives of major newspapers and fifty years of television programming, Kendall illustrates how the media use framing to provide a short-hand code for the presumed values and lifestyles of the upper, middle, working, and poverty classes, thereby influencing our opinions of these classes. By doing so, she provides readers with the opportunity to assess for themselves what effect these frames may have on media audiences. Framing Class is the first book to use the sociological imagination in analyzing how popular culture frames social class in the United States and the effect that framing has on our opinions on this vital topic. Framing emphasizes some ideological perspectives over others and directs people's attention to some ideas while ignoring others. This book shows how the media frame class to favorably portray the lifestyles of the upper classes while negatively stereotyping the working class and poor, perhaps contributing to the ever-widening chasm between the haves and the have-nots in the United States.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology

288 pages, Paperback

First published July 21, 2005

Reviews

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the sort of book that makes me wish two things - first, that I'd read it before I'd finished my PhD, since it would have made discussing some of the things I had to there much easier - and second, that I'd written the damn thing myself. Not that I'm sure I'd have done as good a job as she has here, but I think that what she has done, her thinking through the various frames we use to define the types of people who occupy social classes, is so useful that it would pay to do her work again myself, if for no other reason than to get some of the categories into my head and to see how those frames manipulate us.

The point of this book is to go about constructing frames based on Erving Goffman's work, to watch and read lots of media, and then to present how the various classes in society are represented, or framed, by those media. The classes discussed are the very wealthy, the very poor, the working class, and the middle class.

The wealthy get two chapters - one where they are presented as 'those who must be emulated' and a chapter where we look at some 'bad apples'. The frames she presents are:

The Consensus Frame - where the wealthy are presented as 'just like us'. Think of the way that Prince William and Princess Catherine are treated by the media. Endless family photos with their children sitting on the grass and how we are told Catherine took these photos of whatever the children are called all by herself. Or Harry and Meghan - god, I feel like I've known them forever already, in fact, I can even remember when he was a Nazi…

The Admiration Frame - where the rich are shown as being better than we are, think Bozo, the Irish clown, mock-revolutionary, and crap pop singer who seeks to save the world and own shopping malls at the same time, oh, and hug George Bush too, so, not quite your standard revolutionary. Did I mention he doesn't like paying tax?

The Emulation Frame - where the rich are defined as living the American Dream and therefore presenting the life style we should all be seeking to emulate.

The Price-Tag Frame - I assume I need to say Kim Kardashian here, but I just can't bring myself to.

The next chapter shows some of the wealthy who not deserving of our respect, but even so, our criticism is often likely to be tempered, if only by the fact that they are presented as being individuals, not representatives of their whole class. So, we have:

The Sour Grapes Frame - where we are told that money doesn't always buy you happiness. This idea is based on the Aesop fable. But we are never really expected to fully believe this frame - given the frames from the previous chapter that essentially say the only people who live real lives are the rich.

The Bad Apple Frame - This is where we learn that sometimes rich people can do very bad things, but fortunately society punishes these people for these bad things - although, really, even if they have been bad, you have to remember they have had hard lives too, and anyway, they do still have impeccable taste.

If we are expected to cut the rich some slack when they stuff up, we are certainly never expected to do the same for the very poor or homeless.

Statistical Framing - that is, the very poor are often not presented as people at all, and certainly not as individuals, but rather as statistical averages. Nothing quite dehumanises than when we become a faceless number.

Sympathetic Framing - and this is reserved for the 'deserving poor', not that they deserve to be poor, but that they have no power to stop being poor, and so are deserving of our sympathy. This is only available to children, the very sick or the elderly. Focusing on these people instructs us on how to view the other poor who are not deserving of our sympathy.

Negative-Image Framing - where the poor have been made dependent by our overly generous welfare system and this has all too often lead them to become morally depraved. This is exemplified in the highly amusing image of the black American single-mother driving a limousine on the welfare cheques she receives. Are people really stupid enough to believe that? Oh yes, and for decades. And because the very poor are childlike (if incredibly deceitful too) we need to treat them like children - in Australia we are introducing ways that welfare can only be spent on certain goods (food, rent) and that those found having taken drugs will lose their welfare, how they will then survive is not discussed.

Exceptionalism Framing - This is the idea that because one person can escape poverty, then every poor person can. They stop being the exception that proves the rule, but rather become the exemplar that provides the new rule. Often this is again nearly laughable - like Oprah who was apparently from a poor family but made good. I have no idea (and no interest to find out) if this is even true, but even if she was dirt poor and, solely on the basis of her own efforts, became a talk show host, the question has to remain, just how much room is there on daytime television for endless homeless (but made good) talk show hosts? Don't get me wrong, half-your-luck if you pull this off, but you probably have better odds of winning the lottery. As a strategy for over-coming poverty, buying every poor person a lottery ticket is a better option.

Charity Framing - is interesting since it is often very much time bound (drop a can of beans into the basket as Xmas), and says a lot less about the homeless than it does about the rest of society's ability to assuage their own guilt.

The book then turns to the working class. In each of the chapters she gives a history of how the social class has been portrayed in the media, which is really interesting in itself. She provides five frames for the working class:

Shady Framing - where the working class are presented as being greedy (going on strike for more wages and so on, and thereby causing disruption and hardship to good and hardworking people who aren't in unions are aren't, therefore, bad-guys). This chapter also discussing the links trade unions have to organised crime, a constant theme, and presented as a natural link, whereas the much more frequent links of corporations to organised crime are always presented as a curious aberration caused by a few bad apples, as mentioned above.

Heroic Framing - and here we need to think of 911 and the firemen rushing in to save the lives of others while risking their own lives. These heroes often become individualised, or associated with a particular group of workers (the police/firemen etc) - whereas the collective power of working class people, which is where their actual power resides, is ignored. That is, the working class get framed as a few good apples.

White-trash Framing - This is the Roseanne show personified as working class role model. These people are, by definition, without class (in the sense of taste) and are proud of the fact. They are ignorant and stupid - particularly in the US where there appears to be a remarkable 'reverse intellectual snobbery' as the national obsession, that is, where smart people are seen as not only aberrant, but downright dangerous.

Buffoons, Bigots and Slobs Framing - presents the working class as idiot, think Homer Simpson. He is a danger to himself and to the world, but fortunately the more potentially dangerous aspects of his life (he works in a nuclear power plant) are fortunately redeemed, often by his middle class daughter who frequently saves the day.

Fading Blue-Collar Framing - and the loss of jobs then becoming explained by a focus on those terrible Mexicans coming here and taking all of our jobs. This is the origin of the 'build a wall' brigade.

The Middle class is basically everyone else. It is said to represent over half of the US population, even though stats suggest that only about 20% can actually be middle class. The problem is that working class and ruling class don't have an opposite that can be called 'middle class' - that triptych would be upper, lower and middle - and so, the label middle applies to just about everyone without having to worry too much about what they are in the middle of.

The Backbone of the Nation Framing - This is where the middle class is presented as the carriers of all virtues. They save for the future, they delay gratification, they send their kids to university, they climb the ladder, and they are disgusted by crime. Often these are presented as White Middle Class Values - but as the author points out, what is interesting here is that while the family values that are normally associated with this class are quite reactionary in relation to women's rights - wives should stay home and raise a family, husbands should bring home the bacon - there is also the opposite vision of this framing where women are determined to have a career and to be more than just the little woman. I Dream of Lucy is presented as the exemplar here.

Minority middle class values are more complicated. The Cosby show is the archetype, but the one I found more interesting was Good Times, where, apparently, the parents both left the show and the family was then brought up by an older brother - black dysfunction wins out in the end…even if we remain somewhere in the middle class.

Squeeze Framing - is indicative of life in the middle, since changes in society are likely to put the most pressure on those pressed between the poor (who they can all to easily end up joining) and the rich (even if they are not so easy to join). Here the media point out all of the ways in which the middle class are being squeezed - something increasingly evident when even two-income households struggle to make ends meet. What is particularly interesting here is that she shows this framing, of the threats attacking the middle class, has been a standard form for over 150 years.

Victimisation Framing - this is interesting, since you might think the media would seek to protect the very wealthy from negative framing, but here the middle class are presented as victims of corporations seeking to maximise profits by shifting jobs off-shore or polluting the local environment and causing harm to those in the middle. This is where we learn of the obscene bonuses CEOs receive for cutting middle class jobs or sending them to India.

This victim framing is also used to show how those in the middle are being crushed by the poor and homeless, not least since these people are dangerous and so the nice middle class families really do need to lock themselves away in gated communities if they are to have any hope of being protected. There is a horrible bit here where the author talks about how libraries are often used by the homeless as places to stay out of the cold, or to wash themselves, and so on. And that middle class people don't like 'their' space being treated in this way - and so seek to get the libraries to stock more books that are best sellers rather than self-help books - given that self-help books are preferred by those who need help (a bit of a giveaway there). This all comes back to the NIMBY frame - not in my back yard. "Surely, there must be something we can do to keep that type of person out…"

This was a fascinating book - it is interesting that, really, the only 'fully human' people presented by the media are the very rich (and the celebrities who are generally very rich as well). I guess we can hardly expect anything different, given the ownership of the vast majority of the media. How else would the media present those owners and their life styles other than as normal and unexceptional - while looking on with a vague sense of perplexed bewilderment at the life styles of the vast majority of the rest of us in society. I can't recommend this book too highly, lots to think about here.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

in conclusion: fuck the media and fuck capitalism

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book could have been written by anyone that steps foot outside his or her house. If i did not have to read this book for a class, I would have put it down before getting through the first chapter. It is a combination or obvious information about the classes of society. I began to skim the book about a third of the way through and was still able to participate in class discussion about the book simply because the information is so obvious. Save your money, this is not a book worth reading!

[Sally Sugarman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book. I am impressed by the author's scholarship. She quotes a great deal and has provided a model, not only on how I should get my manuscript camera ready, but also on how to take notes for my next book. Using Goffman’s Frame Analysis, Kendall looks at the frames through with the media represents the class system. She makes the point that it is important for us to examine class in this country. Like many other writers, she is concerned about how both wealth and the media are destroying democracy. At the end of the book she laments the fact that there seems to be a dearth of civic journalism. Journalism has become not a source of information but of entertainment. Still it has a powerful effect on how we shape our ideas about the world. She uses the New York Times as her primary newspaper source, using newspaper stories and television as her vehicles for examining the different frames. In some ways things have not changed much in 150 years. The frames for the wealthy are Consensus Framing-the wealthy are like everyone else. The Admiration frame-the wealthy are generous and caring people. The emulation frame-the wealthy personify the American dream. The price tag frame-the wealthy believe in the gospel of materialism. The sour- grape frame-the wealthy are unhappy and dysfunctional. The bad apple frame-some wealthy people are scoundrels. In the case of the wealthy as with the poor, the focus is always on the individual and never on the system. Even when they are bad, people admire the good taste of someone like Martha Stewart. There are far fewer stories about the poor than about the rich. There is the historical frame-the poor you will always have with you. Thematic framing-the poor as statistics, not real people. Sympathetic framing-children, the elderly and the ill. Negative Image framing-dependency and deviance. Exceptional framing-if this person can escape poverty. Just as the rich deserve their wealth, the poor are responsible for their poverty. The working class and the working poor do not fare much better. Historical framing-the working class as lumps of labor. Newspapers and the media are very much anti-union associating them with criminality. Shady framing-greedy workers, unions and organized crime. Heroic framing-working class heroes and victims. For this you need the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, 9/11 and mining disasters. Caricature Framing # 1- White Trashing the working class-also known as trailer trash. Caricature Framing # 2 TV Bigots, Buffoons and slobs. Fading Blue Collar Framing- Out of work or unhappy at work. Last but not least the middle class, the class to which most people think they belong. Middle class values framing-the backbone of the nation. Squeeze framing – caught between aspiration and anxiety. Victimization framing from above and below. In the values section, Kendall talks about the shift in middle class values and also the changing image of the blacks in the middle class. The fact that the middle class can barely get by on two salaries and finance their life style through credit card debt is part of the reason they are anxious. The middle class thought that education was the ticket to social mobility, but social mobility is becoming another one of those American myths or more bluntly lies. At first I thought some of Kendall’s observations were obvious but they have power from the evidence she presents as well as the conclusions she draws. It is not only the stories that are not told but the way the ones that are told are presented. With the power of the virtual affecting all of us and as I keep saying about kids, with indirect experience outweighing direct experience, we need to avoid cynicism and develop critical thinking skills.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another really good, interesting book.