Scroungers: Moral Panics and Media Myths

James Morrison

Scroungers: Moral Panics and Media Myths
Format
Hardback
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Country
United Kingdom
Published
15 February 2019
Pages
332
ISBN
9781786992147

Scroungers: Moral Panics and Media Myths

James Morrison

Scroungers, spongers, parasites …

These are just are some of the terms that are typically used, with increasing frequency, to describe the most vulnerable in our society, whether they be the sick, the disabled, or the unemployed. Long a popular scapegoat for all manner of social ills, under austerity we’ve seen hostility towards benefit claimants reach new levels of hysteria, with the ‘undeserving poor’ blamed for everything from crime to even rising levels of child abuse.

While the tabloid press has played its role in fuelling this hysteria, the proliferation of social media has added a disturbing new dimension to this process, spreading and reinforcing scare stories, while normalising the perception of poverty as a form of ‘deviancy’ that runs contrary to the neoliberal agenda. Provocative and illuminating, Scroungers explores and analyses the ways in which the poor are portrayed both in print and online, placing these attitudes in a wider breakdown of social trust and community cohesion.

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