Telling the truth about power? Journalism discourses and the facilitation of inequality

Abstract

The issue of socio-economic inequality has after many decades of benign neglect, in both the academy and journalism, become an increasingly important question. The economic crisis, beginning in 2007/2008 and followed by years of austerity has exasperated class and regional division. There have been numerous socio-economic and political outcomes from this; not least the Brexit vote in the UK and the election of Donald Trump, both unimaginable a decade ago. The role of journalism and the wider media in the production and reproduction of inequality is an increasingly important issue. Has journalism treated the issue of inequality in a satisfactory fashion? Has journalism challenged powerful interests, or has journalism itself played an ideological role in the reproduction of structures of inequality? This special edition includes eight papers concerned around the area of socio economic inequality and media treatment; including investigations of discourses defending growing economic inequality and discourses around economic policy including the representation of economic ideas. The special edition is also concerned with issues of representation and inequality; including class, ethnicity and gender. And finally the special edition asks how changing conditions faced by journalists themselves may, in fact, act to prevent challenges to the discourses of inequality.