With exception of the term middle class, television newscasters largely fail to employ the word class, according to a recent content analysis by Jay Livingston in the Montclair SocioBlog. While approximately as many Americans self-identify as working class as middle class, they are mentioned far less often, and virtually devoid from public conversation are stories using terms to describe the extremes: upper class and lower class. Rather than class, discussion is now framed in the news in terms of income levels. Livingston implies that this failure to recognize classes other than the middle class is consistent with the desire to avoid the specter of class conflict.
Cross-posted at Sociological Images.
