Exploring the Governmental Intervention, Journalistic Approach, and Theories Involved in Reducing Poverty Journalistic for a Special Project – Feature Story on Non-profit Organization called Circles in Northwest Arkansas

Author

Trevor Wilson Spencer, University of Arkansas, FayettevilleFollow

Date of Graduation

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Journalism (MA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Journalism

Advisor/Mentor

McCaffrey, Raymond

Committee Member

Bouchillon, Brandon

Second Committee Member

Gould, Kara

Keywords

Community; Immersive Journalism; Non-Profit Work; Relative Poverty; Social Capital

Abstract

Over the 60 years since President Johnson declared the War on Poverty, with close to 40 million people currently in poverty nationwide as of 2022, government measures of the issue, like the Federal Poverty Level and Supplementary Poverty Measure, have continued to be significant determiners for who is constituted as poor. Yet, framing of the poor by sociologists has shifted to a more multi-dimensional approach to who constitutes as poor and how to help them. This means that the definition of poverty is beginning to include a larger set of deprivation unaccounted for in a nation where the definition of poverty can change with living standards and technology progressing. And, in this, nontraditional measures like Asset Limited Income Constrained (ALICE) are finding a population of those that struggle socioeconomically that remain unseen my prominent, traditional measures and definitions of poverty. Another issue is that reporting/media coverage on the poor, including this population, has lessened to relative silence. To study and learn about framing poverty today, this study contextualizes and reports on Circles, a national organization dedicated to reducing poverty, that reframes the issue of poverty as one with intersecting causes, such as systematic barriers to economic success, mental health, family crisis, amount of social capital, education level, and discrimination. And, it reorients poverty solutions to include resources like social capital as a means of upward economic mobility. This special project is dedicated to capturing a feature story on a local chapter of Circles in Fayetteville, Arkansas and how they address poverty by untraditional means.

Citation

Spencer, T. W. (2024). Exploring the Governmental Intervention, Journalistic Approach, and Theories Involved in Reducing Poverty Journalistic for a Special Project – Feature Story on Non-profit Organization called Circles in Northwest Arkansas. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/5261