At the edge: media constructions of a stigmatised Irish housing estate

Crime Talk in the Suburbs: Symbolic Representations of Status and Security on a Master Planned Estate

“…Captured most clearly by the poor, inner city ghetto (Wacquant, 2007) or the public housing estate (Blokland, 2008;Hastings & Dean, 2003), these neighbourhoods have a 'spoilt identity' (Goffman, 1968) based on negative judgments from others concerning their intractable social problems, their physical and social disorder and the perceived low morals of their tenants. In terms of reputational effects, stigmatisation has been shown to exacerbate a trajectory of decline by undermining residents' own self-image, or by repelling external actors who may otherwise have invested in the area (Devereux et al, 2011).…”

social construction of neighborhood crime by the news media

“…This research, conducted exclusively outside of the United States, focuses on the construction of negative reputations in public housing estates 8 and the consequences of these reputations for residents of these areas. A number of these studies cite the media as a key player in constructing negative reputations of these estates, effectively stigmatizing them in the eyes of the greater public (e.g., Dean & Hastings, 2000;Hastings, 2004;Gourlay, 2007;Kullberg et al, 2010;Devereux et al, 2011a;, though few offer an examination of media reports of these housing estates.…”

“…The work of Devereux, Haynes, and Power (2011a; provides the most insight into the construction of housing estate reputation by the news media. Their studies of the Moyross housing estate in Limerick, Ireland utilize a three-pronged approach, examining media content, the production of media content, and the reception of media content local audiences.…”

“…When residents of a disadvantaged community are identified by their social and behavioral distance from mainstream norms and values, it effectively casts these residents as "others," leading to external perceptions that the residents of a stigmatized community are themselves to blame for the stigma experienced by the community (see also White, 1998). This is unfortunate, as the news media rarely present images of public housing estates in ways that explore the structural social factors that have influenced the disadvantage experienced by the community (Devereux et al, 2011a;.…”

“…It is also likely that the news media play an important role in crafting these reputations, especially when it comes to the crime that occurs within neighborhoods. While many of these studies cite the media as an important player in the dissemination of negative information about a community (e.g., Hastings, 2004;Gourlay, 2007), most do not look into the actual ways that the media constructs these communities (with Devereux et al, 2011a;2011b being exceptions). The current study seeks to identify the ways in which the news media construct the reality of neighborhood crime, thereby providing a foundation for future studies that investigate the consequences of this construction of reality.…”