“Now, What Exactly is the Problem?“ Media Coverage of Economic Inequalities and Redistribution Policies: The Piketty Case

Abstract

A clear sign of the heightened interest in economic inequality was the surprising popularity of Thomas Piketty's book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, presenting a dense synopsis and major contribution to the economics of inequality. This article investigates discourses on inequality in news media, through the highly controversial debate raised by Piketty's best-selling book, in selected print media in four European countries. We conceive of the media as having an impact on the perceptions and knowledge of economic processes, thus influencing preferences of the public for economic policy making. This is in line with Veblen, who terms the press an "educational system." Regarding the topics of inequality, we will show that media coverage leads to a biased picture of both inequality and the role of redistribution policies to possibly curb such a development

In search of a Tawney Moment: Income inequality, financial crisis and the mass media in the UK and the USA

“…That is, it is seen to be inherent in ‘technological change’, ‘market’ forces, ‘geography’ and the requirement for ‘economic growth’. In the case of the ‘market’ frame, our findings are similar to those of others (i.e., Bank 2017; Grisold and Theine 2020) in that when inequality is viewed as an inevitable market outcome then there is little that policy makers can or should do about it.…”

“…Consequently, any new and overarching frame of economic injustice would have to enter a crowded field in which the various political interests have a history of attachment to established frames and policy solutions. Future efforts by sociologists to analyse responses to economic crises must begin by recognising the interconnectedness of the economic and political spheres and indeed imbalances of power between different interest groups (see also Grisold & Theine, 2020, pp. 1081–1082).…”

“…So, even though a majority of the articles had inequality concerns, Bank observed that when it came to policy approaches, 'economic liberalism prevails' (p. 4386). The final empirical study adopts a quite different approach in that it examines newspaper reporting of what might be considered a trigger event: the publication of Thomas Piketty's (2014) Capital in the Twenty First Century (Grisold & Theine, 2020). Piketty's book was selected as an exemplar of the mediation of economic inequality in the public sphere and the research examined the press coverage across four countries, namely Austria, Germany, Ireland and the UK.…”

“…In relation to economic consequences, which was the second largest category in quantitative terms, Grisold and Theine (2020, p. 1081) highlighted a rationalisation that featured in articles from all four countries: ‘inequality produces growth, that the poor are actually dependent on the rich, and the rich create value for other people’. To elaborate, this framing urged readers to see high levels of inequality as an important precondition for growth.…”

The power of primary definers: How journalists assess the pluralism of economic journalism

“…In terms of economic policy, established thought has, since the 1970s, gradually coalesced around a set of ‘neoliberal’ ideas, emphasizing, for example, financial and industrial deregulation and the need to curb inflation through budgetary discipline (Cahill and Konings, 2017; Harvey, 2005). Scholars have pointed out that such ideas are often portrayed as commonsensical in journalism, too (Basu, 2018; Phelan, 2014), and that voices that demand, for example, more redistribution policies are dismissed as supporting unrealistic or old-fashioned ideas in public discourse (Grisold and Theine, 2020).…”