ABSTRACT
Contemporary austerity has been supported by state interventionism which attempts to build personal responsibility and deflect the responsibility away from government and the failures of capitalism. The mainstream media coverage complemented the UK Government's ideological and policy apparatus in endorsing claims that benefit recipients were impeding global recovery and justifying massive reforms and a new wave of social interventionism. This chapter explains that Gramsci's concept of hegemony which can help in understanding why and how the 'common-sense' ideology of personal rather than state responsibility was supported in media coverage. The cultural politics of neo-liberal 'nudging' – evidenced in discourse and persuasion tactics – can further be evidenced in the way scapegoats emerge from media discourse in relation to the liberal notion of 'individual responsibility' across the cultural landscape. Media representations have an impact on how the public understand poverty.
