Err negative – economic data embodies structures that subjugate women and people of color.

The newspapers also used over twice as many visuals of women of color in poverty as whites in poverty. Out of the ten photographs used, seven of the photographs were of women of color. Only three photographs were of white women. Such visual choices further reinscribe images of the poor as women of color. In addition, the majority of the coverage was feature-oriented. Of the thirty-eight stories, 73.68% of the coverage was feature-oriented and 26.32% of the coverage was issue-oriented. These results suggest that very few of the articles discussed the societal realities that contribute to poverty. Furthermore, these data reveal that media reports on poverty adopt a very narrow perspective of poverty and its causes, particularly for women. Placing the Newspaper Coverage of Poverty in Context, Robert Stallings claims that an isolated incident and a series of like events are quite different in terms of the logic required to make them sensible. The isolated incident is easier to dismiss (and to disown) as an aberration, an exception, or a result of improbably circumstances that are unlikely to be duplicated. A pattern, on the other hand, implies regularities, repeated occurrences that are difficult to dismiss as chance. Maintaining the singularity of circumstance can be an important aspect of what Fraser calls depoliticization. Journalists, aided by their news sources, facilitate the depoliticization process through the creation of images in the public arena. Media accounts which link women to singular events (i.e., childbearing outside of wedlock, choosing welfare benefits) preclude an understanding of the systemic reasons for which such "choices" are made. Consequently, the plausibility of poor women being labeled as deviant increases, and the lack of concern for their issues as political matters increases. Further, the media favors personal or psychological explanations over political and social explanations in poverty discourse. These explanations are most likely to be prevalent because they suit the needs of the contributors to media discourse. Finally, focusing on the individualistic aspects of poverty simplifies the communication process for journalists. Feature and event-oriented treatments of poverty are simply easier to write than those containing more complex, socio-economic explanations. Through such explanations for poverty, the media powerfully constructs a value-laden framework on social issues. In the reports on poverty in the New York Times, efforts were made by journalists to use poor people as sources. One might assume that as the use of diverse sources in news coverage grows, social and political explanations of poverty would also increase. However, the story emphases of the newspapers studied did not vary in significant ways. Thus, newspaper representations of poor people occur within a gerrymandered framework. Through political sensibilities and commercial pressures, newspaper stories selectively construct the boundaries within which images of poor people are constructed and maintained. The conclusions drawn from my content analysis offer further support to the claims of theorists that reporters select media events and issues to fit their audience's expectations. Exposure to the resulting stereotypes over time may make poor women and people of color appear consistently threatening and burdensome, demanding and undeserving of accommodation by government. If humane welfare policy is to be further advanced in combination with traditional democratic liberties, the enduring public anger about poor people must be corrected. Such a political approach implies a media discourse that makes connections between hard economic issues and personal "choices." Because mass communication is a fluid process, source diversity models suggest that by using more non-official, non-conventional sources for news stories in a statistically representative manner, the prevailing negative perceptions about the poor could be greatly undermined. Furthermore, by identifying and highlighting news story "elements" that shift responsibility to different actors (i.e., the government and the social forces such as unemployment), different political solutions can be brought to light. In conclusion, this study finds that when media portray people in poverty it focuses on the individual, rather than related institutions. Newspaper representations are ideological to the extent that the assumptions u nderlying media discourse (i.e., i ndividualism and meritocracy) shift our understanding away from social processes to matters of individual, rational choice. Such representations appear natu ral and i nevitable rather than the resu lt of social and pol itical struggles over power. In most instances, when newspapers report on poverty, governmental policy is not challenged and the u nderlyi ng social and economic forces go unexamined. Th us, the mediation of real ity remains a major problem for poor people in the U n ites States' "democratic" society.