Devils and Angels: the Rise of Irish Telethon Television

In this article I wish to examine the issue of how the media portray the lrlsh poor with particular reference to the emergence of fund-raising or telethon television. This study Is part of a larger project which examines how the Irish national public service broadcasting organization, Radio Teiefis Elreann (RTE), portrays poverty and the poor through an examination of fund-raising television, factual television (news, current affairs and documentaries) and fictional accounts of poverty (television drama) over a twelve month period. My project represents a significant departure from the existing debate about poverty and the media in an Irish context in that previous research has almost exclusively focused on newspaper coverage of this question. In this article I discuss the emergence of charity television in Ireland; the form and structure of RTE\u27s bi-annual telethon People in Need; I then discuss the messages about poverty and the poor through an examination of four filmed segments\u27 which were broadcast during the telethon in 1992; I conclude by questioning the appropriateness of media responses of this sort to problems such as poverty and need

Devils and angels: the ideological construction of poverty stories on RTE television

This thesis investigates how Radio Telelis Eireann (RTE) constructs television stories about poverty. Using a combination of critical content analysis and an ethnography of the production context of television programmes, the study examines poverty stories on factual, fictional and fund-raising television. The study begins with an account of how existing social science discourse has considered the phenomenon of poverty in the Republic of Ireland. It proceeds to examine the limited amount of debate about media coverage of poverty. The case for a largely qualitative methodological approach is then outlined. The main part of the study is an analysis of how poverty stories are constructed on RTE’s Six-One News, Tuesday File, Glenroe and the People in Need Telethon. Each of these four chapters consider the respective programmes in terms of their history, production context, the content of their poverty coverage, as well as a consideration of the ideology of that coverage. The study adopts Thompson’s (1990) definition of ideology which is concerned with how asymmetrical relations of power and domination are established and sustained in contemporary capitalist societies. The final chapter argues that poverty coverage on RTE television is not only reductive, but also serves to render invisible, significant proportions of the population who are poor. The chapter suggests that Golding and Middleton’s (1982) dichotomy of God’s and the Devil’s poor be recast, to take account of the central role which television coverage offers the agents of the poor. RTE television’s coverage of poverty is shown to reproduce the liberalism which predominates in Irish society. The study concludes with a consideration of the theoretical and policy implications of the project’s main research findings

“You’ll Never Kill Our Will To Be Free”: Damien Dempsey’s “Colony” as a Critique of Historical and Contemporary Colonialism

This article, through a musical, lyrical, and contextual analysis of the Irish recording artist Damien Dempsey’s song “Colony,” probes contemporary discourses concerning colonialism and postcolonialism. In presenting Dempsey’s work through this lens, we seek to interrogate how one singer employs protest song as a vehicle for social critique in a nuanced fashion. Our reading reveals different levels of meaning, in part dependent on contextual knowledge. Furthermore, the simple structure belies the complexity of the issues involved in any discussion of postcoloniality in Ireland and beyond, and because of this the song is rendered all the more potent and persuasive.Cet article, à travers une analyse de l’enregistrement de la musique, des paroles et du contexte de la chanson « Colony » de l’artiste irlandais Damien Dempsey, sonde les discours contemporains au sujet du colonialisme et du postcolonialisme. En présentant les travaux de Dempsey sous ce prisme, nous cherchons à interroger la façon subtile par laquelle le chanteur utilise la chanson engagée comme un véhicule de critique sociale. Notre lecture révèle différents niveaux de sens, dépendant en partie d’une connaissance contextuelle. En outre, la structure simple dément la complexité des questions qui reviennent dans toutes les discussions au sujet du postcolonialisme en Irlande et au-delà, et cette chanson en est, pour cette raison, d’autant plus puissante et convaincante

Citizens, Loopholes and Maternity Tourists: Irish Print Media Framing of the 2004 Citizenship Referendum.

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