Is Poverty a Social Problem for Russians: An Analysis of Mass Media Publications and Polls Results
The article is dedicated to the problematization of the poverty phenomenon within Russian society. The literature on the subject reveals a contradiction between the existence of poverty as a statistically confirmed social phenomenon and the absence of its problematization both in mass media and mass consciousness. Our analysis was conducted by means of comparing two spheres of societal consciousness: mass media publications’ contents and public opinion. The “Argumenty i Fakty” newspaper was chosen as an example of printed media. The results of polls carried out by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2013 have been used for analyzing social opinion on poverty. In mass consciousness, poverty is related to low income and substandard quality of life. This is consistent with representations featured in the “Argumenty i Fakty”. According to the newspaper, the ranks of the poor are being replenished by economically active groups of population not able to satisfy their basic needs. The perceived causes are low wages, reforms in the public sector (education and medicine), and banks’ credit policy. The publications mainly feature the stories of industrial and regional poverty. The female and especially child poverty are not represented in the “Argumenty i Fakty”. Mass consciousness seems to endorse the general opinion that the increasing number of kids in a family leads to poverty. The publications in the newspaper construct representations of administrative, legal, and social problems as the chief factors of poverty. At the same time, socio-demographic factors are barely mentioned. The flaws of state economic policy as a poverty factor are also rarely discussed in the newspaper. The opinions of the population do not mention the economic policy either. We show that treatments of poverty in mass media and mass consciousness partly coincide and, to some extent, differ. At the same time, there is no emphasis on poverty as an acute social issue in either of the two.