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The rhetoric of recessions: how British newspapers talk about the poor when unemployment rises, 1896–2000

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  • McArthur, Daniel
  • Reeves, Aaron

Abstract

Recessions appear to coincide with an increasingly stigmatising presentation of poverty in parts of the media. Previous research on the connection between high unemployment and media discourse has often relied on case studies of periods when stigmatising rhetoric about the poor was increasing. We build on earlier work on how economic context affects media representations of poverty by creating a unique dataset that measures how often stigmatising descriptions of the poor are used in five centrist and right-wing British newspapers between 1896 and 2000. Our results suggest stigmatising rhetoric about the poor increases when unemployment rises, except at the peak of very deep recessions (e.g. the 1930s and 1980s). This pattern is consistent with the idea that newspapers deploy deeply embedded Malthusian explanations for poverty when those ideas resonate with the economic context, and so this stigmatising rhetoric of recessions is likely to recur during future economic crises.

Suggested Citation

  • McArthur, Daniel & Reeves, Aaron, 2019. "The rhetoric of recessions: how British newspapers talk about the poor when unemployment rises, 1896–2000," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100546, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:100546
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/100546/
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    Cited by:

    1. Ruth Patrick & Aaron Reeves & Kitty Stewart, 2021. "A time of need: Exploring the changing poverty risk facing larger families in the UK," CASE Papers /224, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    2. Rao, Aliya Hamid, 2021. "Experiences of white-collar job loss and job-searching in the United States," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112455, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Stewart, Kitty & Reeves, Aaron & Patrick, Ruth, 2021. "A time of need: exploring the changing poverty risk facing larger families in the UK," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121530, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. McArthur, Daniel, 2020. "Hidden figures: A longitudinal analysis of the relationship between local context and beliefs about the causes of unemployment," SocArXiv x79fy, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    poverty; print media; recession; stigma; unemployment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General

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