Last week's Budget news highlighted the increase in social-welfare payments as part of this year's developments. Up by £3 - party time for social-welfare recipients. With three extra quid to blow, what would you stock up on? A pint for all your mates? Loads of crisps? Maybe you could go out and have a celebratory coffee - though a cappuccino would set you back at least half your raise.
In fact, £3 on top of a basic rate of around £69 for a single person means virtually nothing. So why are the headlines not saying: "Government insults hundreds of thousands of people with pathetic increase"? Perhaps the Irish media is genuinely pleased for people on social welfare. Maybe there is just a profound lack of understanding of what it means to live in poverty. Or maybe there is a media consensus that Government policy in relation to people on the dole is excellent and they should be happy with three more pounds. (Or if they're not, they should take the hint and go get themselves jobs, so they can avail of the more generous tax cuts.) Defining poverty is not as simple as it might seem. A fairly standard measure is that anyone living on less than 50 per cent of the average wage is deemed to be living below the poverty line. In Ireland, that would amount to 18 per cent of the population. In accordance with current economic policy, by the year 2001, 25 per cent of Irish people will be living in poverty.
That's because, essentially, the policy is to increase social-welfare payments ahead of prices - but not by as much as wages. So, although social-welfare recipients will have a bit more money, increasing numbers will be living in relative poverty. Why is that not making headlines?
not just social welfare
It isn't just social-welfare recipients who live in poverty; sometimes incomes are too low to meet the financial needs of a family. By last month, the extent of poverty among farmers had become so bad that 40,000 marched on the streets of Dublin. If you wrack your brain to remember this event, what was the news story? Was it about poverty - or about traffic disruption in the capital city?
So who are the poor? Mostly they have no voice in the media. In general, when an issue relating to poverty is addressed, the poor are represented by a member of an agency who speaks on their behalf. When "the poor" themselves do appear in news and current affairs programmes, the reports are constructed in such a way that people are reduced to type. The poor include various "types", from the welfare sponger to the needy and deserving. Christmas is a special time of year for the "needy and deserving". The Christmas ethic of giving is an important one for charity organisations dependent on the public for donations. They devise timely campaigns which highlight the needs of the poor, and tell how a small donation will be of enormous benefit. Such charities depend on the media to highlight their campaigns. But the media deals with what's "new" - and what's new about abject poverty year in, year out? Someone has to think up a catchy news angle.
This year, the "news" focus in such stories has been on the Celtic Tiger and how, despite the booming economy, there are still hundreds of thousands of people living in poverty. (Although they do have that extra three quid a week - no need to consume oneself with guilt.)
There is very little media coverage of what it actually means to live in poverty. There are occasional articles and documentaries on the implications of poverty - the effect it has on mental and physical health, self-worth, family lives. But still, it's the media, and their has to be a hook. More often than not, the focus is on what are described by the sociologist Eoin Devereux as "the symptoms of marginalisation such as welfare fraud or petty crime". Other symptoms, such as drugs and violence, are also good angles to take if you're thinking of doing a story about social deprivation. Meanwhile, the daily struggle to survive gets lost in the moral panic.
So, what role does the media play when it comes to poverty? Obviously the symptoms of poverty are visible, important questions which should be raised. But what about the question of why almost a fifth of the population of such a wealthy country lives in poverty at all? If it's ever addressed, the answer is more insinuated than stated: it's poor people's own fault - in which case, there's nothing to be done but give a couple of quid at Christmas time. The media rarely challenge economic policies which lead to an increase in poverty. In this way a consensus on poverty is moulded - a consensus that amounts to: we can do nothing. Does the media actually play an active role in perpetuating a system which creates poverty?