Social Inequalities, Media, and Communication: Theory and Roots provides a global analysis of the intersection of social inequalities, media, and communication. This book contains chapter contributions written by scholars from around the world who engage in country- and region-specific case studies of social inequalities in media and communication. The volume is a theoretical exploration of the classical, structuralist, culturalist, postmodernist, and postcolonial theoretical approaches to inequality and how these theoretical discourses provide critical understanding of social inequalities in relation to narratives shaped by media and communication experiences. The contributors provide class and gender analyses of media and culture, engage theoretical discourses of inequalities and capitalism in relation to communication technologies, and explore the cyclical relationship of theory and praxis in studying inequalities, media, and communication.

The Praxis of Social Inequality in Media: A Global Perspective provides a global analysis of the intersection of social inequalities, media, and communication. This volume contains chapters by an international array of scholars and provides case studies from various countries with critical empirical analysis of social inequalities and how they shape media narratives and experiences. The topics examined here include poverty in the media in Britain and Turkey, technology and inequality in Italy and Bangladesh, gender, inequality, and empowerment in India, Mexico, and Australia, and cross national analysis of rape culture, among others.

This book is among the first to systematically explore the impact of community inequality on reporting political and social change. Although most journalism scholars are still fascinated by the impact of media on society, Media and Social Inequality explores the reverse perspective: the impact of society on media. Using a 'community structure' approach, and rejecting the perspective that studies of media and audiences can be reduced to the individual level of psychological phenomena, all contributions examine connections between community-level 'macro' characteristics and variations in the coverage of critical issues. This innovative book differs from previous community structure volumes in two ways. First, contributions explore a far wider range of community characteristics by employing creative methodologies, modern archives, and databases that facilitate larger, more diverse samples; multilevel and longitudinal analyses; composite measures of both 'content' and editorial judgment; new technologies; and social network analysis. Second, a traditional emphasis on media as instruments of political and social 'control' is replaced by media as potential mirrors of social 'change,' exploring 'bottom-up' measures of 'vulnerability', 'concentrated disadvantage', and 'ethnic diversity/pluralism'. The volume contains two original chapters: one on nationwide US coverage of the "Occupy" movement in the expanded introduction, and another on nationwide US coverage of universal health care. This book was originally published as a special issue of Mass Communication and Society.

"Despite the rediscovery of the inequality topic by economists as well as other social scientists in recent times, relatively little is known about how economic inequality is mediated to the wider public of ordinary citizens and workers. That is precisely where this book steps in: It draws on a cross-national empirical study to examine how mainstream news media discuss, respond to, and engage with such important and politically sensitive issues and trends. Clearly, economic inequalities have become increasingly prominent issues in recent public debates, not least in the context of the latest Great Recession that followed from the financial crash in 2007, and attendant austerity regimes in many countries. This holds true for the debate in the wider public sphere as well as in many fields of academic study, not least in the two specific disciplinary areas most related to this book: political economy and media and journalism studies. Yet, in precisely those two academic fields we find important and parallel 'blindspots' which underline the distinctive focus and contribution of the present book: On the one hand, key issues related to economic inequalities (much like economic processes in general), have been much neglected in the academic fields specialising in news media and journalism studies. On the other hand, the major schools of theory and analysis in mainstream economics have paid relatively little explicit attention to the evolving scope, role or implications of mediated communication. This blindspot applies to both the conduct and performance of economic processes in general, as well as to engagement with the highly sensitive sub-arena of economic inequalities which is of particular interest in this book. In essence, this book is informed by the findings of a distinctive multi-country empirical research project undertaken by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers with economic, media and linguistic expertise. It explores how Piketty's book has been received and represented by news media based across four countries (Austria, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom) in the thirteen months following its publication. The primary aim of this book is to present the findings of a transdisciplinary and cross-national empirical study of news media coverage of economic inequality themes in four European countries. It focuses on the period following the launch of Thomas Piketty's (2014) high-profile and best-selling book 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century' (C21). This study is informed by a distinctive theoretical perspective drawing from institutional and political economy, media and journalism studies fields as well as critical discourse analysis. It is mindful of longer-term trends of rising economic inequality as well as the rather extraordinary series of electoral processes and redistribution policy outcomes across many electoral systems over recent decades. In sum, this book offers novel insights on key features of much-neglected links between how news media select, frame and discuss issues related to economic inequality and how such story-telling links to the specific aspects of the economic and public policy factors shaping the onward march of economic inequality in the long-run"--

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject Sociology - Media, Art, Music, grade: 17 of 20, University of Aberdeen (Department of Sociology and Anthropology), course: Introductory Sociology 2, language: English, abstract: Why do sociologists have to deal with mass media? Mass media is a big part of modern societies. It seems to be omnipresent and therefore has an impact on societies. It influences and changes society, it favours and it discriminates certain groups of the society. The effect on the audience is not arbitrary but dependent on issues of strong interest for sociology namely, class, gender, social context, ethnicity but also other factors like age and sexuality. Since the 1960s media research expanded to examine the effects on the audience and its feedback. In this essay we will examine how the mass media reinforces social inequalities. To do this we will take a brief look at what kind of social inequalities existed in the era before the appearance of the mass media. Then the way of how the mass media reinforces these existing social inequalities today, towards the way in which minorities will be treated. Moreover the focus of this essay will shift to how different groups of people can approach the mass media in terms of its access. Finally this text will give a brief outlook to the possible future development will be presented in its outlines. In addition to that lopsidedness will be avoided by portraying not only the incriminatory theories that affirm the reinforcement of social inequalities through the media like the functionalist theory or the Marxist′s point of view but also some imposing views. ′Media′ is the plural word of ′medium′. "A medium is a means of communication such as print, radio or television. The mass media are defined as a large-scale organization which use one or more of these technologies to communicate with large numbers of people." (Marshall 1996: 313). ′Social inequalities′ are "unequal rewards or opportunities for different individuals within a group or groups within a society" (Marshall 1996: 313). We have to be very critical with that definition otherwise we can find an unjust treatment for every person and therefore everybody would be unequally treated. [...]

This book provides an in-depth comparative analysis of inequality and the stratification of the digital sphere. Grounded in classical sociological theories of inequality, as well as empirical evidence, this book defines ‘the digital divide’ as the unequal access and utility of internet communications technologies and explores how it has the potential to replicate existing social inequalities, as well as create new forms of stratification. The Digital Divide examines how various demographic and socio-economic factors including income, education, age and gender, as well as infrastructure, products and services affect how the internet is used and accessed. Comprised of six parts, the first section examines theories of the digital divide, and then looks in turn at: Highly developed nations and regions (including the USA, the EU and Japan); Emerging large powers (Brazil, China, India, Russia); Eastern European countries (Estonia, Romania, Serbia); Arab and Middle Eastern nations (Egypt, Iran, Israel); Under-studied areas (East and Central Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa). Providing an interwoven analysis of the international inequalities in internet usage and access, this important work offers a comprehensive approach to studying the digital divide around the globe. It is an important resource for academic and students in sociology, social policy, communication studies, media studies and all those interested in the questions and issues around social inequality.

This work examines social inequalities in a diachronic and multivariate approach based on burial grounds in Southwestern Germany.