Television and Working Class Identity

PEPI LEISTYNA Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics Graduate Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA, where he coordinates the research program and teaches courses in cultural studies, media literacy, and language acquisition.

Foreword: Stanley Aronowitz Laughing Matters: Entertainment Television's Mockery of the Working Class Economy or First Class: Capitalism and the Class Divide Classified: Media/Network Ownership and Their Attitudes towards Labor- Why Representation Matters Classic Images: The Great American Dream Machine & the Perpetuation of the Myth of Meritocracy Class Clowns: The "Dysfunctional" White, Working-Class Guy. In a Class by Themselves: Cartoon Buffoons & Animated Idiots-Comic Depictions of the Working Class Women Have Class: Watching Working-Class Women on Entertainment TV Cutting Class-From the Margins to the Middle: Images of Upward Mobility of Historically Marginalized Groups Signifying without Classifying: The Elderly and the Disabled No Class: Depictions of Cowboys, Country Pumpkins, Hillbillies, Hicks, Rednecks, and White Trailer Trash Time for Class: Racializing Crime and Criminalizing the Working Class Class Dismissed: Representations of Public Schooling as the Great Equalizer Class Consciousness and Reality TV: Let the Games Begin Class Act: What We Can Really Do!