Jade Goody and Class

Jade, the Underclass and the Media Following my blog yesterday, I’ve found a rather interesting article on Goody by Johann Hari in The Independent.

I think Hari’s article is well worth reading. He offers quite a complex analysis, but essentially he argues that Goody was reviled by many in the media because of her class background.

It’s an interesting reflection, and links in to sociological explanations of identity and the mass media. This follows on from yesterday’s blog; was Goody able to escape the identity created for her by the media? Hari even mentions that the media portrayed Goody as representative of “the underclass”. Hari’s use of inverted commas indicates that he is well aware (as he should be, as a Cambridge social science graduate), of the criticisms made of the concept in sociology.

Why do some sociologists criticise the idea of an underclass?

How does the case of Jade Goody show why such arguments may be well founded?