The Media's Influence On Poverty

All things considered I have chosen the essay written by Diana George tittled “changing the face of poverty.” First and foremost there is an restraint of the endless controversy of poverty. Sadly as Diana Geroge dispute in her essay, the organization with the primitive purpose of abolishing global poverty are possibly the ones endowing to the very problem they battle against (George 676) Her main example wa habitat for humanity, she disputes that the organization is not sending very affective message and that they often fail to which I agree with 100%. The world assumes that they are doing more than what is actually being practiced. Furthermore George disclosed her disagreement concerning these issues. Basically she felt that all photographs that is revealed to the population pesonofi one frame of reference of poverty. She describes it in the beginning of her paragraph where she sees a New Yorker ad for children, Inc and it says “you don’t have to leave your own country to find third-world poverty.” Underneath the copy, from a black and white photo, she illustrates that the young girl, was in torn ill-fitting clothes looking directly at the viewer (George 675).

In culture, the poor are always being stereotyped. People in poverty are generally portrayed as worthless and this is because culture today illustrates a man’s worth from how materially successful they are. Hooks explains how this kind of representation of the poor can mentally and emotionally handicap and entire society of people in poverty. She goes into an example of how a

Society believes those living in poverty are often perceived as lazy, not hardworking or uneducated. Which is often not the case, but rather these families are doing everything in their power to meet daily needs. For instance, my home point of view during my childhood and adolescent years were surrounded by women whom are all educated, and exemplified great independence, strength and work ethic. The woman that was most influential in my upbringing is my mother. My father was absent in my childhood. Therefore, my mother played both parenting roles. Which made things tough. It was not the best situation, but it has molded, and benefited me in many ways: For starters, it taught me how to survive with a limited supply of food, money, and/or resources, etc. My family was not rich, but as my mother would often say, we were “one paycheck away from being poor.” My sisters and I never went to bed hungry, but I can remember on numerous nights we had to be creative with making dinner to feed our four family household.

Ehrenreich goes on to explain on how the book that became a best seller caused so many bad stereotypes on the poor that by the Reagan era poverty was seen as “bad attitudes” and “faulty lifestyles” and not by the lack of jobs or low paying jobs. And they also viewed the poor as “Dissolute, promiscuous, prone to addiction and crime, unable to “defer gratification,” or possibly even set an alarm clock.” At the end of the article she concludes that poverty is just a shortage of money and not a character

Throughout the text, “Changing the Face of Poverty,” Diana George is certainly precise when claiming that the common representations of poverty limit our understanding of it. She expresses that most of our knowledge of poverty becomes misinterpreted due to advertisements, media, and images. Consequently, the way that we look at poverty focuses around that in which is in third-world countries, but poverty can be anywhere, even in your backyard. American citizens are the audience for the text, because Americans typically portray as being wealthy, happy people who are oblivious to the poverty-stricken areas surrounding them. Diana George’s, “Changing the Face of Poverty” expresses to its readers that non-profit organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, utilize unauthentic pictures as a way to convince the public that there are people out there that need help.

The article is thought provoking. It alerts the reader to new less commonly known facts on poverty such as the fact that it takes more money to only combat causes of poverty instead of actually strategically preventing it from happening in the first place.

Poverty is affecting billions of people around our world and the number is growing with each day. Many people think they can avoid the effects of poverty, but it is something that affects all of our daily lives. Many people see poverty as a person who lacks money, although this is true poverty is caused by many more things than being without money. Just the fact that one in two children live in poverty can help people see clearly the impact it has on our world. Poverty truly does influence the type of care and treatment a person will receive when they need it.

One of the factors that contributes to poverty is lack of education. Many of those who struggle with having no education may had been going through major issues that impacted their life. According to the American Psychological Association, “Poorer children and teens are also

The poor are lazy and have nothing to offer: this seems to be the mindset for most of society and media. As bell hooks (1994), a prolific writer, wrote Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor, (an excerpt from “Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations”, published in 1994), she argued that the representation of the poor portrayed by society and the media is far from actuality. In this excerpt, hooks (1994) argument was well accredited with quotes from respectable sources, relations of her own personal life experiences, effective use of emotional appeal. She concludes by offering what she believes to be some solutions to the “problem” at hand.

The term "Sociological Imagination" was introduced by C. Wright Mills in 1959. The definition of Sociological imagination from our textbook is “the ability to understand how your own past relates to that of other people, as well as to history in general and societal structures in particular”. In other words, Sociological Imagination is the ability to recognize that an individual's personal troubles are a product of public issues which aren’t always controlled by the individual. This concept can help to provide a better understanding about the current social problems our nation is facing. Sociological imagination helps an individual understand the society in which they live in by placing an individual away from reality and looking beyond the

Class struggle is a conflict in a particular society or between a society which is caused by the lack of unity in one society and different perspective of a different group in a society. It is also called class conflict or class warfare. One social issue of a class struggle is the social inequality.

After taking the Poverty awareness survey I can see how little I really knew about poverty. I was unaware of what poverty really looked like. I had no understanding of who it really impacts. There were many assumptions that I had about poverty which were untrue. I am unsure of where and how these ideas developed and did not even fully realize that they were

Poverty is one of the most horrific epidemics in our society today. Poverty is the state of being extremely poor. It is a very serious problem that many people suffer from today. Many issues such as illness, hunger, and bad sanitation are all causes of poverty. Statistics show that there are over 35 million Americans that live in poverty. That is almost 10% of the whole population. There are many reasons that cause poverty in America. The lack of jobs that are available for people with a low education. People can’t get the education they need because colleges are too expensive. Statistics have also proven that alcohol and drug addiction affect about 20% of the homeless. Poverty is like a disease that is killing this country. What is the government doing to help save this country?

Media are platforms of mass communication that can be categorized as either new of traditional media, with new media being forms of communication that make use of technologies such as the Internet, and traditional media being more conventional forms of media such as newspapers. Media, primarily new media, is getting more popular and influential, especially in today’s day and age since we are exposed to it a lot more than in the past and also since media is more easily accessible now. The media can shape our behaviours, perceptions and opinions, and it is important to know how people are influenced and impacted by it. The media can influence someone’s perception of social reality, or perceptions of beauty or even influence people’s behaviours and habits and therefore, the media does shape who we are.

Poverty still occurs across the modern world which we live in nowadays. While the majority of people would relate the word poverty with less developed countries the truth is that poverty is to be found everywhere you look. Yet the term, poverty, is brought up to discussion. Because would you consider yourself poor even though you didn’t know the better scenario existed? And isn’t it sometimes enough just to have a bed to sleep in, food to eat and people around who love you? Some might say that whether or not you consider yourself poor are simply up to your mindset. Because sometimes just being grateful for what you have and not trying to search for the unattainable are more than enough. Having all the riches in the world is not necessarily the key to happiness and