Television Representations of Social Class

     Since the 1950s, researchers have surveyed television programming and compiled frequency counts of characters on network television. the most  exhaustive  be­ing George Gerbner’s cultural indicators project that conducted annual surveys over several  years.  Most such surveys concentrated on television drama and situation comedy. although some ventured to  televi­sion news and other programming. A  few  included class as a category. but many more included  occupation, from which class may be deduced. Combining these studies provides an indication of the relative frequency with which each class has been represented on television over several decades. The consistent pattern across the decades has been the near absence of working-class characters and an overabundance of upper-middle-class characters. an example of what Gerbner called "symbolic  annihilation"  of the  working class.,"erased" from the dominant cultural discourse established by television. A common working-class occupation depicted on television is uniformed police officers. and they appear typically as background characters, often without  names,  in  detective and crime series.

     Studies of individual programs, typically very popular ones. are another common form of analysis. This method allows the researchers to examine the quality of representation, such as whether classes are portrayed more or less positively. For example, some studies of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) sitcom Roseanne note its in-your-face challenge of middle-class respectability and its legitimation of working-class tastes and values. stances that are rare on television. Studies of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) sitcom The Cosby Show analyze the family's upper-middle-class status and the mixed message this program presented for and about African Americans.

     Other researchers have extended this method to examine an entire genre instead of a single show. Some book-length studies range over the spectrum of programming forms. with chapters on different genres that address issues of class. Situation comedies. and particularly domestic sitcoms, have been studied in this way. Studies of domestic sitcoms found strikingly persistent representations over five decades of prime­ time television from the late 1940s through the 1990s: working-class men are invariably portrayed as incompetent and ineffectual buffoons, well-intentioned but dumb. lovable but not respected. Ralph Kramden, Fred Flintstone. Archie Bunker. and Homer Simpson are just the most famous examples. Heightening the contrast are wives and children who are often more intelligent, rational, and sensible than their husbands and fathers. Middle-class domestic situation comedies. by contrast. traditionally depict competent and mature husbands and fathers. Even in today's more cynical era, a middle-class male buffoon is a rarity. The persistence of such negative images of the working class appear to arise from the demands of production and stereotypes incorporated into the work culture of the industry.

     Some researchers report the prevalence of affluence and upward mobility on television and argue that these representations implicitly suggest that those who are not middle class or upwardly mobile have themselves to blame. Affluence is generally exaggerated: offices of lawyers, college professors, and other white-collar professionals are more plush than in real life. Whatever the profession, the characters typically are successes. Upward mobility is achieved  through individual striving, reinforcing the idea that one's status is an indicator of one's ability, character, and moral worth. As if to temper the desires of the audience, the economic benefits of upward mobility are frequently counterbalanced on television programs by the personal consequences of disrupted relations with family and friends. The rich are often depicted as unsympathetic and unsupportive of each other and as "bad" or unhappy people. These contrasts between classes convey the moral that money does not buy happiness.

     Even the changed landscape of the television industry in the 1990s and early 2000s maintained many familiar representations of working-class men. In sitcoms with working-class settings and characters, such as Dinosaurs, Roe. Grace Under Fire, King of Queens, and Grounded for Life, the husband/father continues to be depicted as not too bright and not very competent. Series about the middle class, although more varied than in earlier decades, still include plenty of warmhearted and emotionally engaged families. Perhaps the most prominent of these is 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Daughter: This series faced particular problems when star John Ritter, who portrayed a father who worked in his home as a sports writer, died unexpectedly. Rather than canceling the show, ABC wrote the father's death into the story, altering what had been a rather broad comedy into something more serious.

     Some melodramas, however. did explore the difficulties confronted by middle-class families in times of economic constraint. The police procedural N.Y. P. D. Blue often turned to the private lives of hardworking detectives and acknowledged that their relatively low­ paying positions made life in New York an ongoing struggle. This topic was particularly significant in the personal life of Andy Sipowicz, who for some time was presented as the single parent of a small child, then developed a relationship that  led  to marriage-to a colleague who was raising a niece and subsequently became pregnant with Sipowicz's baby. Discussions of money, apartment size. and future expenses were common in this sequence.

     And perhaps the most noted depiction of class came with Home Box Office's (HBO's) The Sopranos. In this ongoing series, "middle-management mafia" types exhibit the trappings of both the newly wealthy and of their working-class New Jersey backgrounds. Class conflicts were particularly evident in the 2003 season-ending episode in which Tony Soprano promised to purchase a shorefront home for his wife, only to have the current owner renege on the deal. Tony's colleagues then bombarded the snobbish resident with unceasing playback of Frank Sinatra recordings at ear-splitting levels.

     These images are reinforced by the proliferation of talk shows that present real-life working-class people as exhibits in a "freak show," deviants who lack self­ respect, moral values, or sexual control. Some researchers, however, have argued that these programs also give "voice" to individuals, groups, and classes previously excluded from television. They see the "freakish" behavior as a direct challenge to the approved decorum of televisual discourse.

Social Class and Television Audiences

     Rarely has class been considered a variable in research on the effects of television viewing. This research tradition has concentrated on generalizations about psychological processes rather than on group differences. The few studies that have considered class conclude that there are no class differences in children's susceptibility to violence on television, in contrast to the usual stereotype of working-class children being more likely to be led into such behavior.

     Studies of family television-use patterns have looked more broadly at how people interact with television sets. However, even in these studies, class is often peripheral. Books on television audiences seldom include social class as a topic in their indexes. One tradition of research has distinguished class differences in television use, contrasting working- and lower-class patterns of heavier and indiscriminate use (patterns that are widely disapproved of) with middle-class patterns of lighter, more selective use. More recent family communication research has continued to use these class distinctions.

     Buried within the 1950s and 1960s sociological literature on working-class lifestyle are a few ethnographic observations on working-class uses of and responses to television. These have confirmed the tendency of working-class individuals to use the TV as filler and background to family interaction. They also reveal distinctive responses to program content: for example, working-class men prefer shows featuring characters sympathetic to working-class values, and these viewers identify with working-class types even when those types are written as peripheral characters or villains. Such findings contradict the notion of working-class viewers as passive and gullible.

     Other studies have found significant differences in the orientations of working- and middle-class women to television shows. These latter studies draw on the British cultural studies tradition focusing on working­ class viewers and their reactions to television. As with early U.S. community studies, British researchers found that working people construct their own alternative readings of television programs. In general, these studies find that, contrary to the stereotype offered in popular television criticism. working-class viewers are not the passive dupes with their eyes glued to the screen, nor are they the bumbling, ineffectual clowns often depicted in television comedies. Rather, working-class viewers use television to their advantage and interpret content to suit their own needs and interests.