Get an idea for what seminar study feels like in this taster session from the BA (Hons) Social Care programme at MMU.

1. ‘POVERTY
PORN’?
REPRESENTATIONS OF
POVERTY IN THE MEDIA
BA (HONS) SOCIAL CARE
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2. SESSION AIMS
This sessions aims to:
• 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.
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3. ‘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)
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4. BENEFITS STREET: BROADCAST 2014
AND FILMED IN 2013 BY CHANNEL 4
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http://www.channel4.com/programmes/benefits-street
BENEFITS STREET
2: BROADCAST 11th
May 2015

5. QUICK TASK – From your viewing of Benefits
Street list…
5 positive representations
of the community
5 negative representations
of the community
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6. “Such programmes repeat imagined
connections between welfare recipients and
moral laxity, greed, and even criminality.”
(Jensen, 2014)
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Imagined connections -
Greed, moral laxity, criminality

7. 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?
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8. 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
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9. CRIMINALS?
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
BA (HONS) SOCIAL CARE
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10. Child A
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11. Child B
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12. 1. What do you think should be done to help
these two children?
2. What do you think might happen to them?
3. Are they vulnerable?
4. Are they in danger?
5. Are they victims?
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13. 13

14. 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)
Detectives who interviewed the boys called
them evil freaks of nature, who had killed for a
'buzz'
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16. FURTHER READING AND
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Pilcher, Jane, and Stephen Wagg. 1996. Thatcher’s 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): 197–220. 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): 197–223. doi:10.1177/096466399500400203.
King, Michael. 1995. “The James Bulger Murder Trial: Moral Dilemmas,
and Social Solutions.” The International Journal of Children’s Rights 3
(2): 167–87. doi:10.1163/157181895X00014.
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): 107–22. doi:10.1111/1468-2311.00270.
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