Their representations of poverty as an individuated process are wrong – they are linked to institutions.

Manning- Miller 1994 [Carmen L, associate professor at UMississippi, Media Discourse and the Feminization of Poverty, Carmen L. manning-Miller Environmental Engineering Science}, 1994}, Vol 17}, Pgs 79-88 // CPSW-PA

Robert Stallings claims that an isolated incident and a series of like events are quite d ifferent in terms of the logic req uired to make them sensible. The isolated i ncident is easier to d ismiss (and to disown) as an aberration, an exception , or a resu lt of improbably ci rcumstances that are unlikely to be dupl icated. A pattern , on the other hand , impl ies regu larities, repeated occu rrences that are difficu lt to dismiss as chance.23 Maintai ning the singularity of circumstance can be an i mportant aspect of what Fraser calls depol iticization.24 Journalists, aided by their news sources, facil itate the depol iticization process through the creation of images in the public arena. Media accou nts which link women to singular events (i.e., childbeari ng outside of wed lock, choosing welfare benefits) preclude an understanding of the systemic reasons for which such "choices" are made. Consequently, the plausi bility of poor women being labeled as deviant i ncreases , 25 and the lack of concern for their issues as political matters increases . Further, the media favors personal or psychological explanations over pol itical and social explanations in poverty discourse. These explanations are most likely to be prevalent because they suit the needs of the contributo rs to media discourse. Finally, focusing on the individualistic aspects of poverty simplifies the commun ication process for jou rnal ists . Featu re and event-oriented treatments of poverty are simply easier to write than those containing more complex, socio-economic explanations. Through such explanations for pove rty, the media powerfully constructs a val ue-laden framework on social issues.26 In the reports on pove rty in the New York Times, efforts were made by journalists to use poor people as sou rces. One might assume that as the use of diverse sou rces in news coverage grows, social and pol itical explanations of poverty would also i ncrease. However, the story emphases of the newspapers studied did not vary in significant ways . Thus, newspaper representations of poor people occur with in a gerrymandered framework. Through pol itical sensibilities and commercial pressu res, newspaper stories selectively construct the boundaries within which i mages of poor people are constructed and mai ntained. The conclusions d rawn from my content analysis offer further support to the claims of theorists that reporters select med ia events and issues to fit their audience's expectations. Exposu re to the resulting stereotypes over time may make poor women and people of color appear consistently th reatening and burdensome, demanding and u ndeserving of accommodation by government. If humane welfare pol icy is to be further advanced in combi nation with trad itional democratic liberties , the 85 Explorations in Ethnic Stud ies enduring public anger about poor people must be corrected . Such a pol itical approach implies a media d iscourse that makes connections between hard economic issues and personal "choices." Because mass commun ication is a fluid process, sou rce d iversity 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 g reatly undermined. Fu rther, by identifyi ng and highl ighting news story "elements" that sh ift responsibility to d ifferent actors (i.e., the government and the social forces such as unemployment) , d ifferent pol itical solutions can be brought to light. In concl usion, this study finds that when med ia 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 rep resentations 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 pol icy is not challenged and the u nderlyi ng social and economic forces go u nexamined. Th us, the med iation of real ity remains a major problem for poor people in the U n ites States' "democratic" society.