Economic Martyrs and Moralised Others: Mass Media Constructions of Social Class in the ‘Age of Austerity’

This study critically explores media constructions of social class within the context of austerity, focusing on the link between class and inequality. Data were drawn from 240 newspaper articles (2010-2016) covering 6 major topics: emergency budget, welfare reform, workfare, bedroom tax, food banks, and zero-hour contracts. Thematic analysis of ideological debate, policy enactment, and policy impact established key patterns of class construction. Selected newspaper extracts were then analysed in greater depth, following the principles of critical discourse analysis, with the aim of establishing how class is constructed, and also what operative function media constructions of class may perform. Findings show the portrayal of class through the frame of economic crisis, with an emphasis on notions of ‘unavoidable scarcity’ (due to market forces), ‘necessary austerity’, and the reigning in of ‘wasteful’ spending. Implied in this pro-austerity stance is a ‘moral divide’ between an exploitative underclass and the vague ‘ordinary people’ - the (classless) ‘rest of us’ - which is used to justify punitive policies and to mask their effects. Alongside this, a nostalgic idealised working class identity is engendered, which hyper-visualises the ‘selfless sense of duty’ to which ‘we’ should aspire. However, as the impacts of austerity become more apparent, a more critical ‘alternative’ discourse emerges, placing issues of structural inequality - the ‘struggle’ inherent to social class - back on the agenda. Concomitantly, class begins to be constructed as an ‘anxious concept’; the potential to fall down the ‘slippery slope’ to precarity open to all. The thesis concludes by suggesting that the position of the commercial media within the competitive capitalist system pre-disposes them towards an elite-serving ideological stance. As this stance comes into conflict with the social realities of austerity, its legitimacy becomes strained, leading to challenges from sources including the media themselves.