Audiovisual representations of homeless people: between the spectacle of extreme social exclusion and the blaming of the victims

Authors

  • Araceli Serrano Universidad Complutense de Madrid
  • Ángel Zurdo Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Keywords:

Homeless, social representations, socio-hermeneutic analysis, audio-visual documents, mass media

Abstract

This text analyzes social representations of homelessness in a variety of audiovisual documents, displayed in various Spanish media between 2008 and 2010. Looking for this analysis we have recollected a varied and intentional sample of documents from press, television, comics, advertisements, cinema and internet sites. A socio-hermeneutic type of analysis has been carried out with which we could define seven different «ideal-typical» discourses that maintain dynamic relations of implication and contradiction. These discourses are called: the discourse of rejection and exclusion, the individual failure discourse, the one of the spectacle of misery, the discourse of the over-value solidarity commodities, the misfortune discourse, the one of hyper-aestheticized reality and the contextualizing critical discourse. In this article we offer a brief description of each of these discourses, as well as the type of relationships they have with each other.

Author Biographies

Araceli Serrano, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Profesora de Sociología en el Departamento de Métodos y Técnicas de Investigación Social de la Facultad de Sociología de la UCM. Sus líneas de investigación se orientan en torno al estudio de la pobreza y la desigualdad social, las políticas públicas de atención a la exclusión social y la sociología del consumo. En los últimos años se ha interesado por el uso de materiales visuales en la investigación social, tema en torno al cual ha escrito algunos textos.

Ángel Zurdo, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Doctor en Sociología por la UCM. Es profesor de Sociología en el Departamento de Sociología VI (Opinión Pública y Cultura de Masas) de la UCM. Su labor investigadora se ha concentrado fundamentalmente en el estudio de los procesos de participación social (prestando una especial atención al voluntariado) y en el análisis sociológico del «Tercer Sector». En la actualidad participa en varios proyectos de investigación relacionados con la «nueva pobreza» y el «cuidado a la dependencia».

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Published

2013-06-01

How to Cite

Serrano, A., & Zurdo, Ángel. (2013). Audiovisual representations of homeless people: between the spectacle of extreme social exclusion and the blaming of the victims. Spanish Journal of Sociology, (20). Retrieved from https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/res/article/view/65329

Issue

No. 20 (2013): Sumario Número 20

Section

Articles

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