Module 3
I have to say I think I had the hardest time thus far in the class connecting to the reading in this module. Not because the material is less important or less impactful, but it just seemed more difficult for me to relate to and therefore understand. I almost feel guilty for that, the readings about poverty had a common thread; that we don’t pay attention to what we don’t’ experience. Although at work, I assist people who are considered low income, some of whom are homeless, I have not personally experienced it. I also struggled with the reading from Sternheimer’s book and the Bruce Bartholow video. While I read and watched them (with some teary eyes) and know the knowledge is important, I cannot write about it this week. I have been sitting at my computer trying to find a way to do so, but the tragedy in Orlando has me not wanting to allow my brain to think about violence any more for a while.
Lankshear and Knobel did an excellent job of explaining the views of Goldhaber in regards to attention economy while expressing their own. In their paper “Do We Have Your Attention?” They clearly stated that “the goal of attention economy is to get enough attention or as much as possible”(Lankshear & Knobel, 2010, p. 4). There were six pieces of relevance to concerns of Lankshear and Knobel; first, in economically advanced societies, school and media are where young people spend a “huge proportion of waking hours.” Second, the three classes within attention economy are the stars, fans, and losers. No one cares about the losers. Third, knowing how to pay and receive attention allows for participation. Fourth, attention technology is a large market. Internet is the best example. Fifth, those who are attention wealthy express themselves fully. Sixth, endless originality is the basis of attention economy (Lankshear & Knobel, 2010, p. 3-5). This list concerns me because I immediately think of kids constantly trying to change themselves to remain relevant in media or wealthy in attention.
The articles about poverty shared many astonishing statistics, which I am choosing not to cover in this blog. They are very important numbers, but I find a few of the quotes more impactful in communicating the way poverty is depicted. In “The Poor Will Always Be With Us,” the authors state, “exceptions aside, the poor seldom even appear on the evening news. When they do, they are relegated mostly to platitudes about their hardships” (deMause & Rendall, 2007, p. 2). This in my opinion lends to the “pity worship” the media tends to show certain groups. I found the photo diary by Asinus Asinum Fricat so interesting. The concept of looking at how much families spend per week on food in different countries was enough. However, adding the different family sizes into the equation was what really made it!
Simon Kuper’s article “Poverty’s Poor Show in the Media” included one quote that stuck out to me. We are always talking about the left wing and right wing media biases, especially in election times like now. Kuper says, “we tend to interview people like us. There are right wing media and left wing media, but all are controlled by the well fed” (2013). Isn’t that what it really all comes down to? Money. Comfort controls a lot of what we do too. Many of us who have not experienced poverty are so far separated from that life that we are afraid to get close. That certainly is true for media too.
In her article titled “4 Problems with the Way Media Depicts Poor People, Shannon Ridgeway lists the problems with examples easy to connect to. The first, “the poor as invisible” defines escapism as “takes us away from the realities of our daily, monotonous lives, and enables us to live temporarily in a world wherein our own problems don’t exist.” In a world of Kardashians and housewives, I think it has been made way to easy for us to practice escapism. Our problems are still there when the show is over and may get worse if we continue to ignore. Second, “the poor as statistics” I noticed this point was made several times “when we hear about the poor on television or read about them in the news, typically they’re described in the form of hard facts and poverty rates, rather than human beings.” I often think about this at work when I’m helping someone and wonder what happened to get them to where they are. Third, “the poor as poor due to their own life choices” the media tends not to cover the outside factors leading to poverty. I’ve noticed media likes to cover the people taking advantage of the system, but not the story of those who legitimately need that system to survive. Lastly, “the poor as the temporarily down on their luck” this point discusses shows about coupon clipping and other money saving tips for a certain “class” of people. “Television tends to focus on the working-to-middle class recently poor and ignore the poor and homeless all together.” This was most drastically seen during the recession. (Ridgway, 2009, p. 1-3)
The most stand out moment in this module, in my opinion was watching Marian Wright Edelman’s 2015 Poverty Report for all of two minutes and thirty one seconds. When she said “out greatest threat to national security does not come from an external enemy, it comes from the internal failure to build a strong citizen area,” I got chills. It is so true. We are building the future for our children and our children’s children and that is something that deserves focus.
