“Below the Line: The Construction of a ‘Permanent Underclass’ in YouTube Comments”

Abstract

Using a critical discourse studies approach, here I analyse YouTube comments attached to an episode of Benefits Street, a Channel 4 documentary series about welfare recipients. Having qualitatively analysed over 3,000 comments, I argue that commenters use vari-directional double-voicing and enregistered emblems to co-construct a stereotypical, embodied, and othered ‘underclass’ figure. This character is cast as permanently unemployed. Conceptions of a ‘permanent underclass’ are harmful, because they can lead British voters to back policies of austerity, which are not in most people’s interests (Hills, 2017). They are also inaccurate, as unpredictable stints of precarious work are more common than long-term unemployment, which is comparatively rare in the UK – around half the EU average. Despite this, British people are twice as likely as other Europeans to agree that benefits make people ‘lazy.’ Jensen & Tyler (2015, p. 1) call for more research which examines everyday ‘mechanisms of consent’ that help form anti-welfare attitudes. By analysing social class discourses found in YouTube comments, this paper takes a modest step in that direction.

Biography