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School of Politics and International Relations

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STUDENT NUMBER 170418306

MODULE CODE POL396
SEMINAR TUTOR N/A
COURSEWORK TITLE How does the portrayal of welfare recipients in the media affect British
social policy?
WORD COUNT 1500

PREVIOUS FEEDBACK AND ACTION

Please summarise relevant feedback received (on this module or elsewhere) and how you have tried to
address it in this assessment.

N/A – This is my first assignment for this module.

SELF-ASSESSMENT

Please evaluate your own work, using any guidance provided by your tutor, and the School’s standard
marking criteria (available at https://qmplus.qmul.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=994571 )

Strengths of your coursework: I believe I have answered the main question expected of me,
showing how the portrayal of welfare recipients in the media affect British social policy, drawing
on examples of like the 2011 London riots, and through the use of several talk shows negatively
stereotyping working class, single parents.

Weaknesses of your coursework: I think it might have lost quality in arguments later down the
essay as I might have lost track.

Things you would do differently: I would probably get to reading most, if not, all sources I can
earlier so I could prepare better for essay-writing and not rush before the deadline.

Things you would like help with: N/A.

Any other comments: N/A.

Summary self-assessment (cross the relevant box; use the SPIR criteria to help):
 Addressing Research Knowledge & Quality of Structure Communication Representation
the task Understanding Argument & Presentation of sources

80+
(High 1st)

70-79
(1st)
65-69
(2i)
60-64 X X X
(2i)
50-59 X X X X
(2ii)
40-49
(3rd)

30-39
(Marginal
Fail)
0-29
(Fail)

What grade you would award yourself (out of 100):

 FEEDBACK SHEET – TUTORS TO COMPLETE

Addressing Research Knowledge & Quality of Structure Communication Representation

the task Understanding Argument & Presentation of sources

80+
(High 1st)

70-79
(1st)
65-69
(2i)
60-64
(2i)
50-59
(2ii)
40-49
(3rd)

30-39
(Marginal
Fail)
0-29
(Fail)

COMMENT ON SELF-ASSESSMENT AND COURSEWORK

HOW TO IMPROVE

Provisional Mark: ___________

How does the portrayal of welfare recipients in the media affect British social policy?

The media’s portrayal of welfare recipients and the role of welfare reform in Britain,

alongside the implementation of a series of either lax or austere social policies

throughout the years, has constantly been the centre of debate and attention

amongst people of all classes in Britain. The role of the media in shaping public

perceptions and opinions about welfare and the benefits system has changed and

has become more prevalent to the point it has had a very detrimental effect in

influencing government reforms from the 1970s onward. This essay will aim to

explain how the media’s portrayal of welfare recipients affect British social policy, the

strategies used to suit their agenda, especially through the use of framing, and why

these strategies and methods have become so powerful in shaping the Britain we

see today.

The portrayal of welfare recipients in the media expose a set of typical biases which

help reinforce negative welfare perceptions among people. These negative

perceptions maintained by the public, and government officials are achieved by a

strategy incorporated by the media; this strategy has been referred to by social

scientists and scholars as framing. The pictures portrayed about welfare recipients

by the media show, or supposedly claim that those who leech off and exploit the

British welfare system likely tend to be white, of a younger age, are European, are

working class females and single parents, and enjoy making fraudulent claims to

exploit the British welfare system in order to live a luxurious lifestyle.

Whilst the media in the United States reinforce negative stereotypes about African-

American single parents to be “lazy, disinterested in education and promiscuous”

(Bullock, 2001: 230), and depict them to be a “welfare queen”, a similar framing

effect is propagated in the United Kingdom, with the focus not necessarily on ethnic

minorities, but on white, single mothers. Essentially, framing effects means taking an

issue and presenting that issue in a certain way as to promote and encourage a

specific form of interpretation or thinking, whilst at the same time trying to discourage

other forms – it is the repurposing of information in a way that is more likely to suit a

particular agenda and produce large changes in public opinion, and further influence

or even direct policy.

Among the many social scientists and political scholars studying European welfare

models, some have made the claim that liberal regimes are the perfect environment

for building negative stereotypes about the poor and those who rely on welfare,

unlike social democratic regimes which are likely to produce a ‘positive’ media input.

The argument proposed is that that this likely happens due to the structure of the

state, the market and other important aspects of political and economic life which

either lessens or further fuels negative stereotypes and political action against

welfare recipients and the poor. In a liberal regime, as Christian Albrekt Larsen and

Thomas Engel Dejgaard (2013: 289) note, a “combination of selective benefits, neo-

liberal labour markets and concentration of social problems produce a social reality

that delivers a constant flow of negative newsworthy stories about ‘the deviant poor’”.

What supports this argument is the comparison of article topics between Denmark,

Sweden and the United Kingdom; there are more ‘positive’ topics and stereotypes

about poverty in Sweden and Denmark than in the UK, and more ‘negative’ topics
and stereotypes about poverty, linking those with fraud, crime and abuse in the UK

than in both Sweden and Denmark. Quite generally, there is 62% of ‘positive’ articles

focused on poverty and welfare in Sweden, and 55% in Denmark, with the UK

ranking the lowest out of both with 41%.

This result is, of course, related to the framing effect and the amount of influence this

specific media strategy has in influencing government policy and swaying public

opinion, especially on the issue of welfare – as often claimed, a ‘negative’ story tends

to be more sensational than a ‘positive one’, and with that, it is more likely to produce

massive political debates around the issue and either directly or indirectly have a

pivotal role in influencing British social policy. This might be precisely the reason why

this strategy is used among the media, typically in liberal regimes like the United

States and the United Kingdom, as it grants these elites, the sheer power to

singlehandedly shift the topic of conversation, and shape government policy. Those

with the most information on a specific issue will almost always be at the forefront

leading the crusade and will be in a position that will allow them to dictate the forms

of discussion, and at times, even dictate policy by painting a biased picture on an

issue they believe should be dealt with in a certain way. As such, framing or

reframing particular issues tends to be a very powerful tool in affecting British social

policy, especially traditional ones, as they can be transformed into new issues which

may have not been in consideration or in focus from the beginning.

A very good example of this is when we come to look at a very important subject in

British social policy; welfare, and the relationship or interconnection of welfare

recipients and the general lower working class with violence and crime. These are
the common stereotypes portrayed by the British media, especially during the 2011

London riots. Throughout this time, the British media covered the riots which included

looting, arson and other forms of crime and vandalism. As the rioting progressed, the

public widely perceived this to be perpetrated by the urban poor, and the media

quickly made the connection that the riots were a result of the British welfare policy

which had led to a petition being sent on the government website calling for rioters to

lose all benefits; this petition rapidly gained more than 250,000 signatures and fueled

a massive government debate on welfare reform and the issue of the deservingness

of welfare recipients.

The harshened views on welfare recipients in the UK can generally be explained by

the working class’ exposure to right-leaning media corporations. In 2010, only 15% of

all newspaper circulation supported the Labour Party which indicates that a very high

percentage are usually right-leaning. The readership in the UK is primarily among

lower social classes, this suggests that the majority of them are continuously

exposed to right-leaning attitudes and arguments, and further indicates why the UK

has a substantial amount of harshness when viewing or discussing the

deservingness of welfare recipients. With the riots being framed as moral failure of

the rioters and not as a response to police injustice, the media managed to

effectively direct the government’s response to this through policy changes to the

welfare system, and influenced the general public opinion on whether or not those

rioters should be shown sympathy.

Sympathy was not shown, especially as the government came out to make public

statements suggesting that people could be thrown out of their houses if they
continued to fuel the riots and misbehave, and that it would be permissible under the

law to remove state assistance from those receiving benefits had they have been

convicted of rioting. The fact is, attitudes towards welfare recipients have massively

diverged and intensified after the riots as people began to believe those on welfare

did not really deserve the help they needed and were being dishonest in claiming

benefits as a result of the framing effect by the British media.

Generally speaking, the London riots are not the only issue where portrayal of

welfare recipients in the media has affected British social policy. Whilst it is, of

course, one of many examples where welfare and the benefit system are directly

affected by the way the media portray the behaviour of those relying on state

assistance, it is not the only one where we can see a hardened, negative

stereotypical outlook on welfare recipients. Talk shows in the UK also feed into the

negative and stereotypical portrayal of the working class, shows like ‘Benefits Britain:

Life on the Dole’ that show the reality of life of those relying on welfare. Most often

than not, the media stirs controversy by bringing on welfare recipients, such as Marie

Buchan, a mother of eight who had been dubbed as the ‘welfare queen’ claiming that

she cannot find suitable work, and that she planned to spend thousands of pounds

on cosmetic surgery, and on a horse to ‘help tackle her depression’. Such framing by

the media tend to reinforce harsh views on her character, notions of disrespect and

render her undeserving of state assistance.

In conclusion, this essay has explained how the media’s portrayal of welfare

recipients affect British social policy, especially by outlining the main strategies used,

such as framing, to fuel debates along the key issues, arguments and interpretations
encouraged among readers and either directly or indirectly influence government

policies on welfare reform, for instance during the 2011 London riots, and throughout

daily talk shows and reality programs focusing strictly on pushing negative

stereotypes of the lower working class and welfare recipients.

Bibliography:

Taylor, Eleanor and Taylor-Gooby, Peter (2010) “Benefits and Welfare”, British

Social Attitudes 32: 1-28.

Baumberg, Ben (2014) “Benefits and the cost of living”, British Social Attitudes 31:

95-120.

Larsen, Christian A. and Dejgaard, Thomas E. (2013) “The institutional logic of

images of the poor and welfare recipients: A comparative study of British, Swedish

and Danish newspapers”, Journal of European Social Policy 23(3): 287-299.

Bullock, Heather E., Wyche, Karen F. and Williams, Wendy R. (2001) “Media images

of the poor”, Journal of Social Issues 57(2): 229- 246.

Chong, Dennis and Druckman, James N. (2007) “Framing Theory”, Annual Review of

Political Science 10: 103-126.

Clawson, Rosalee A. and Trice, Rakuya (2000) “Poverty as We Know It: Media

Portrayals of the Poor”, The Public Opinion Quarterly 64 (1): 53–64.

McKendrick, John H., Sinclair, Stephen, Irwin, Anthea, O'Donnell, Hugh, Scott, Gill

and Dobbie, Louise (2008) “The media, poverty and public opinion in the UK”,

Joseph Rowntree Foundation, September 2008, accessed at

https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/media-poverty-and-public-opinion-uk, 1 March 2021.

Reeves, Aaron and de Vries, Robert (2016) “Does media coverage influence public

attitudes towards welfare recipients? The impact of the 2011 English riots”, The

British Journal of Sociology 67: 281-306.