ABSTRACT
There are many serious problems concerning media and class in contemporary societies. One of them is as follows: the media have contributed to the immiseration and marginalisation of working-class people by failing to adequately represent the complexity, diversity, and richness of their lives and values. This chapter argues that media production analysis (MPA) can provide tools to help explain dubious media representations of class beyond the class asymmetry explanation. One contribution of MPA to testing the class asymmetry explanation would be to gather new data or seek out and interpret existing data on the class backgrounds of media producers. The chapter analyses new empirical data on issues such as the class composition, practices, and values of media producers. It shows how organisational processes and human judgement interact to shape content. The chapter also analyses how cultural ideas and values shape occupational and organisational understandings of how to do things.
