The role mainstream media plays in reinforcing social inequalities is the focus of a new book by academics in University of Limerick.
Critical Explorations of Media and Inequality examines how mainstream media systems reproduce and legitimise unequal social structures by marginalising, sensationalising or blaming those most affected by poverty.
Launched during UL Research Week 2026, the book is the culmination of work undertaken by Assistant Professor Majka Ryan, Associate Professor Martin J. Power and Professor Eoin Devereux at the Centre for the Study of Popular Music and Popular Culture at UL. All three editors have already published widely in this area – most notably research on Media Representations of Food Poverty and Social Welfare “Fraud”.
Co-editor Majka Ryan said: “This book will be of interest to students and scholars in many disciplines. It examines, for example, how the changing work practices have impacted on critical coverage of poverty and exclusion.
“Furthermore, chapters interrogate how dominant discourses about Travellers, migrants, homelessness and food poverty are framed. We hope that the book will have a further impact by informing the work of practitioners in the media industries, NGOs, and policymaking.”
The editors have created a book which is truly global in scope, and features work by many renowned international scholars like Lisa McKenzie and David J. Park.
Professor Jairo Lugo-Ocando of the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates said: “This book is both challenging and provocative. On the one hand, it makes us think deep and hard about inequality in the media space in ways that are not often thought of.
“On the other, it leaves us with the concerning anxiety about media dynamics in which inequality seems to be constantly misrepresented or obscured. It is a must-read!”
The book is an interfaculty collaboration between the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and the Kemmy Business School at UL and showcases UL’s expertise in the Sociology of Media, Journalism and Sociolinguistics.
Contributions have also been made by UL academics and researchers: Assistant Professor Sindy Joyce; Associate Professor Kathryn Hayes; Associate Professor Fergal Quinn; Associate Professor Elaine Vaughan; Dr Audrey Galvin; Associate Professor Henry Silke and Moufida Benmoussa.
Critical Explorations of Media and Inequality is published by Bloomsbury (New York).