Relying on political economy of media theory and the feminist concept of intersectionality, this dissertation explores the framing of poverty by politicians and news media in the United States during the critical discourse moment of the early 1960s.
This dissertation is comprised of three levels of analysis of news articles submitted to the Congressional Record by politicians. First, how was poverty defined? What causes and solutions were offered? Who was the authority on poverty? Second, what was the race, gender, and place of people framed as living in poverty? Third, what were the intersectional identities of people framed as living in poverty?
News articles submitted by Congressional representative to the Congressional Record between 1960 and 1964, the War on Poverty, were examined for the way poverty was framed. The questions addressed were how poverty was defined, the causes and solutions offered, who was framed as living in poverty (gender, race, place), and the intersectional identities of individuals in poverty who were quoted in the articles.
Findings included a focus on structural causes of poverty paired with governmental solutions to poverty, and a relatively equal number of men and women affected by poverty in the articles. An intersectional analysis was difficult to conduct due to a lack of explicit detail regarding race, gender, and place of people in poverty in the articles analyzed. There were instances of negative frames of African American women living in cities in particular along with negative frames of White men living in Appalachia. White women in poverty in rural America were not quoted in any instances.
While the study was exploratory and not intended to provide any basis for generalization, we can conclude that discussions of poverty most often framed people in poverty in a deserving, sympathetic manner. However, the negative frames surrounding African American women in cities predated the common vilification of African American women in cities in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Similarly, the enduring negative frames surrounding men from Appalachia also imply media’s special explanation for poverty among members of the two marginalized groups.