ABSTRACT
This chapter relates the results of a study of print and broadcast coverage of one of the seven case study neighbourhoods – Moyross, in Limerick city. Our work takes place in the context of a wider debate about the ways in which mass media can contribute towards the stigmatising of the socially excluded and the places in which they live (see Devereux, Haynes, and Power, 2011a, 2011b; Golding and Middleton 1982; Lens 2002, p. 144; Bullock, Fraser Wyche, and Williams, 2001, pp. 229–230; Hayward and Yar, 2006, pp. 11–12). Previous research on these themes has examined how mass media and other social forces contribute to the creation of negative stereotypes, which damage the reputations of the neighbourhoods in which the ‘underclass’ or poor reside (see Greer and Jewkes, 2005; Bauder, 2002; Blokland, 2008; Hastings, 2004). Negative and sensationalist media coverage of poor neighbourhoods is consistently referred to in studies that attempt to explain how neighbourhoods come to suffer from endogenous stigmatisation (see Warr, 2006; Oresjo, Andersson, and Holmquist, 2004; Gourlay, 2007; Wassenberg, 2004). The existing research literature demonstrates that negative reputations of such places can, in themselves, have a profound effect upon the life chances, experiences, and self-image of those who live in neighbourhoods that carry a stigma (Permentier, van Ham, and Bolt, 2008, 2009). Our analysis of this issue is guided by two overarching and inter-connected conceptual frameworks, namely social exclusion and political economy (see Levitas, 2000; Byrne, 1999). Through this research, we have sought to address a number of key issues:
to establish how Moyross is depicted in media representations;
to establish how the material and social conditions in Moyross are explained in media representations;
to establish which actors have a role in constructing Moyross in media representations.
We argue that, for the most part, media coverage is stigmatising, highlighting the very real challenges that the neighbourhood faces with regard to crime and social order at the expense of any significant engagement with the positive characteristics of the locale, its residents, their community, and achievements. We argue that this depiction can be best understood within the context of the commercial realities, which progressively impact upon media production, increasing the pressure to absorb rather than just inform and reducing the time available to media professionals to directly connect with the people and places upon which they report (see Ryfe, 2009). In acknowledging these realities, we do not seek to legitimise the stigmatised identity of Moyross, neither do we want to deny the very real problems facing the residents in this neighbourhood, which result from both a combination of long-term state neglect, poor planning, and criminality. Nonetheless, the routinely negative media portrayal of Moyross, in common with other social housing neighbourhoods in Limerick city (such as Southill and St Mary’s Park), has very real and significant malign consequences for its residents and their interactions with non-residents in particular. Barnes (2010), for example, found that students in a middle-class Limerick school replicated the themes that this chapter identifies in media coverage of Moyross, associating the neighbourhood with crime, disorder, and social unrest (Fitzgerald, 2007, p. 7 cited in Devereux, Haynes, and Power, 2011b, p. 126). Negative media portrayals have, according to the Limerick Regeneration Agency, contributed significantly to the poor image of these neighbourhoods as well as to the city as a whole (Limerick Regeneration Agency, 2008) and have stymied attempts to regenerate these areas in social and economic terms.