media magic - mantsios

The media has a big role in our society. Most of our knowledge comes from what the media feeds us. "'The news media provides meager coverage of poor people and poverty. The coverage it does provide is often distorted and misleading" (Mantsios). With Mantsios stating this, many people who use the media as an educational source can be receive false information which than can form these biases some people may have today.
Having social work as a major, has opened my eyes more to this.  Even though, at one point in time I did feel the same way as people did as Mantsios explained. I used to think how people brought it upon themselves if they were poor, etc. With education, brought to my attention why we victimize the poor and why people actually become poor. There are so many factors that can contribute, family, environmental, the types or employment, societal, etc.
I read this article on my break while I was working. As I was reading all I could think about is the side comments my coworkers would make of certain customers. Working in retail they become "accustomed" to seeing people use the system. They are often disrespectful and judgemental to people who use food stamps and use the food stamps to buy junk food. Often stating comments such as, "why don't they spend their money on healthier food, I bet they are just going to sell it, I can't believe I am supporting these people with the taxes I pay, I should just go on welfare, why don't they try harder to get better jobs." It's hard to hear the comments my coworkers make because they are only seeing these people in this snapshot of a moment. We do not know where they came from or where they are going. Who are we to judge. "the media does put a face on the poor, it is not likely to be a pretty me, The media will provide us with sensational stories about welfare eats, drug addicts, and greedy panhandlers.." How the media portrays the poor does not give us a chance to think otherwise.
"When the media does cover the poor, they are often presented through the eyes of the middle class." We do not see the poor as people we could help. The media portrays the poor just as Mantsios says 'eye sores'. As we talked about in our last class about some of our experiences with the homeless how they cannot be trusted because they must be using the money for drugs..To conclude my rant, we do not try to attempt to help them, we just leave them there to fend for themselves. We do not see the poor issue and a macro issue.