Twelfth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

In 1994 Jerry Springer transformed a flagging political talk show with a new format that would feature guests with the most salacious and prurient stories that would test the limits of permissibility and taste in American daytime broadcast television. The Jerry Springer Show would grab a younger audience, including a large college audience, and would eventually pass Oprah Winfrey in the daytime ratings through much of the 1990s. Copycat shows followed and the image of the “undeserving poor” became the dominant depiction of poverty in America. At precisely this time, Newt Gingrich led a conservative Republican movement as he ascended to the position of Speaker of the House in the US Congress. Gingrich’s public policy initiatives culminated with the passage in 1996 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act which ended welfare (Aid for Families with Dependent Children) restricting payments to women with children receiving AFDC, requiring recipients of aid to participate in work programs, and terminating lifetime benefits after five years. The American social safety net was eviscerated. Comparing images of the poor from the Progressive era, the Great Depression, and the 1960s, this study explores how images of poverty and the poor in popular media have evolved over the last century and how those changing images of the poor correspond to a variety of changes in public policy addressing the needs of the poor.