The Representation of Social Class in Television

It is almost certain that demographics define a person within society today. Social class is forever becoming more prominant when working out what a person characteristics are like based on where they live, where they went to school and how much they earn. For this reason I chose to research and look indepthly in to the representation of social class in television. Why TV? well because it is a huge platform that people can access from many different componants from phones to tablets. Tv programmes are a huge catalyst for debate.

With programmes like Made in Chelsea and Gogglebox taking over our screens the representation of social class is becoming a big factor in peoples portrayals of one another. Made in Chelsea is set in one of Britains most expensive postcodes, we are taken away from reality for an hour and week and exposed to a life of luxury and wealth. The show is focuses on the lives of several young, rich socialites and as the viewer we have the 'pleasure' of watching them indulge in cocktails in the afternoon, walk along the iconic Kings Road and spend probably a months wages for an average person on a designer handbag. In my opinion the cast on the show are very badly represented due to the fact that we do not see them engage in any kind of work and instead are shwon to be out of touch with real life. Its hard for a working class person to conenct with the cast in Made in Chelsea as I found out in my focus group mainly because their lives are worlds apart. MIC's Binky Felstead took to the internet and wrote a blog for the Huffington Post defending herself and her cast members honour and reputation stating that if we believe that herself and her MIC colleagues are 'glided socialites' and 'privately educated, hedonistic' youngsters whose lives are a seemingly endless jaunt around London's most exclusives bars and clubs then we are in other words sadly mistakened.

She goes on to talk about how they are not all Sloane Rangers and defends her RP accent but also talks about the increasingly growing trend and idea of reverse snobbery. She states that theres a new idea which that if you are upper class you are not real and down to earth. Could this show that the lower classes are turning against the upper classes instead of the previous other way? This also shows how strong a voice and platform TV is in people making judgements and recieving programmes. Does this prove that there is a social divide today and could TV be playing a part of this in falsely representing the classes?

Channel 4's Gogglebox follows families from all different walks of life made up of different classes from lower/working to upper class. Within my focus group one of the participants stated that Gogglebox is on the best programmes on TV and represents the true Britain. The fact there is a variety of classes makes the show stronger in representing all of Britain as opposed to just one paritcular class. However there is an aspect of otherness within Gogglebox due to the fact that the upper class cast members Steph and Dom have been given negative media coverage. The Daily Mail newspaper labelled the pair the 'posh couple' of Gogglebox suggesting that class really does define a person. 'Unemployed graduate' Scarlett Moffatt of the Moffatt family stated that the Parkers do not communicate with any of the other Gogglebox families and said that they would not understand her 'banter' because they are too posh. She also highlighted the fact that Parkers excessive drinking would be deemed unacceptable if they were of a lower class catering to the idea of 'reverse snobbery'.