Defining Poverty: Newspaper Op-ed and Internet Blog Discourse

This dissertation examines contemporary discussions on poverty, race and Culture of Poverty theory. I expand upon the dialogue surrounding American opinions toward the poor by doing a contemporary examination of attitudes on poverty as they relate to discussions about race. I look at the relationship between who is defined as poor and how this impacts explanations for poverty and potential solutions. Using both content and discourse analysis, I evaluate mediated discussions via newspaper opinion pieces and editorials (1994-2005) and Internet blogs (2010-2012) as a means of investigating indicators of American attitudes, moral reasoning, and dominant values around race and poverty. In the case of newspaper opinion pieces my results show that, most often, the poor are identified as groups considered deserving of societal support and that outside entities, such as the government, are identified as the source of their financial hardship. In the case of Internet blogs, I find that both conservative bloggers and liberal bloggers use a moral basis for their discussions of the poor. While conservative bloggers see the poor as abandoning their social contract by not adhering to American values personal responsibility and individual work ethic, liberal bloggers appear to see the poor as continuously falling victim to an unequal social system designed to facilitate their failure. My examination of discussions in print and online are important for understanding how poverty is framed and discussed by information gatekeepers and interpretive communities within the public sphere.