Media representations of the nouveaux riches and the cultural constitution of the global middle class

SMITH MAGUIRE, Jennifer (2019). Media representations of the nouveaux riches and the cultural constitution of the global middle class. Cultural Politics, 15 (1), 29-47.

Preview

PDF Smith-MediaRepresentationsOf(AM).pdf - Accepted Version All rights reserved. Download (573kB) | Preview

Abstract

The article offers a distinctive account of how the nouveaux riches serve as an anchor for a range of upper- middle- class ambivalences and anxieties associated with transformations of capitalism and shifting global hierarchies. Reflecting the long- term association of middle- class symbolic boundaries with notions of refinement and respectability, it examines how the discourse of civility shapes how the nouveaux riches are represented to the upper middle class, identifying a number of recurrent media frames and narrative tropes related to vulgarity, civility, and order. The author argues that these representations play a central role in the reproduction of the Western professional middle class, and in the cultural constitution of a global middle class — professional, affluent, urban, and affiliated by an aesthetic regime of civility that transcends national borders. The findings underline the significance of representations of the new super- rich as devices through which the media accomplish the global circulation of an upper- middle- class repertoire of cultural capital, which is used both to police shifting class boundaries and to establish a legitimate preserve for univorous snobbishness.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	publication status: accepted
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1606 Political Science; 2002 Cultural Studies; 2001 Communication And Media Studies
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1215/17432197-7289472
Page Range:	29-47
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Elements
Depositing User:	Symplectic Elements
Date Deposited:	24 Jan 2019 10:24
Last Modified:	18 Mar 2021 00:06
URI:	https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/23604

Actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads

Publication Metrics