Blog Post

           In America, there are social classes. Society has divided people into three groups based on how much they make from working. The media has affected people’s perspective on social classes.

            There are three classes: lower, middle, and upper. The media has affected some people’s perspective of social classes because of how they portray social classes. The lower class has been portrayed as struggling. They are struggling, some more than others. The problem is some people in the lower class don’t always try to get out. Some people work below the poverty line so they can receive benefits. Others work hard and get out of the lower class. Sometimes work hard is enough to get by. The middle class is portrayed as average. They make enough to get by but they are not struggling. The media portrays the upper class as rich people who always get what they want. Life is seems easy for them while other people have to work hard to where they want to be. Media makes it seem like the upper class is life people would want. Society cares too much about materialistic things. To some people being rich is the American dream and that is what makes a person successful.

            The main topic for the reading is individual opportunity. This affects social class. The media makes it seem like everyone has a chance at obtaining the life they desire. That is not true though. A person with a lot of opportunities does have the chance to succeed in life. Other people do not have all those opportunities. For example, in the essay by Newman and Chen they talk about the group of people who they consider to be the missing class. This class is between the lower class and middle class. There are some people in this group who purposely work less so they can be considered lower class and receive benefits. This lowers their individual opportunity to reach the middle class. It seems the lower class is only getting larger instead of smaller. People are getting less chances at opportunities.