| Chapter 2: | Review of Relevant Literature |
Review of Relevant Literature
Introduction
There is very little in the academic literature regarding how the media portray homeless people. This section presents: 1) some of the major literature that deals with the informal educational function of the media; 2) studies dealing with the entertainment and education function of the media; 3) the literature that deals with the few studies that show how the media have portrayed the homeless. I conclude with 4) a review of the literature that looks at the poor from a Biblical perspective.
The Informal Educational Function of the Media
Using a historical and structural perspective, social communication studies researcher Enrique Sanchez-Ruiz’ research (1983) analyzed the early days of television in Mexico in order to accurately assess “TV’s predominantly commercial character and what have been the relationships of the medium with the process of economic development and with the State” (Sanchez-Ruiz, 1983, pp. 2–3).
After reviewing a large body of literature, Sanchez-Ruiz concluded that television and other commercial means of mass communication were powerful methods of informal education with much influence and potential influence on society (Sanchez-Ruiz, 1983, p. 1). He called television a “parallel school” (an equivalent to the education gained in a formal educational setting), even though he acknowledged that it is not socially regarded as such (p. 1).
Bearing in mind that TV is, as Sanchez-Ruiz put it, “a pervasive formal educator” (p. 3), he investigated the historical and structural sources of the “school’s” curriculum. Or to put it another way, he wrote that “after determining what historical actors, forces and tendencies” (p. 3) were involved, he set out to explain:
- 1. Who had actually been the ‘informal educators,’ that is, what individuals, groups or classes have had control of the medium;