Documentary - Benefits Street

Channel Four are filming a new series of the controversial and divisive 'Benefits Street in Stockton -on-Tees. This article in The Guardian hints at some of the reaction the show gains amongst audiences and is interesting in that the journalist calls it  a reality show rather than a documentary although it is commissioned by the Channel Four documentary team.

Audiences may receive or read this text differently depending on their political views.  It is helpful to decide how a left wing or right wing viewer may read this text and the comments at the bottom of the article may help you to understand this.

Watch this clip and discuss your prior knowledge of this programme. What have you heard about it?

Welcome to James Turner Street. Teaser trailer

Analyse the representations in the following clips?

Fungi

Scrappers

Skids

White Dee


Form

So is it a documentary?

• Research John Grierson's definition of documentary to gain a historical perspective of the form.
• Look at Grierson's definitions of documentary as a 'creative treatment of actuality'  Is documentary an attempt to document reality or is all moving image production mediated and therefore representing reality according to the word view of the documentary maker?
• Look at the history of 'fly on the wall' documentaries. 
• Find similar productions

Institutions

It is made by Love productions for Channel 4. Find out about this company and its other ventures which include 'The Great British Bake Off' and a planned 'Immigration Street.'

• Is it falsely representing and exploiting vulnerable people ?
• How does the programme play to 'negative stereotypes' ?
• Why is this termed 'poverty porn' and what other shows can be accused of ,'exploiting vulnerable people'?
• Compare Benefits Street to BBC's Scrappers to see if there is a difference in representations

OFCOM received 900 complaints. Look at some of these and decide if you think they should be upheld according to OFCOMs guidelines. This article outlines some of the issues causing complaint.

The original 'Benefits Street' was filmed in Winson Green in what has now become a famous landmark James Turner Street.

An audience of 5 million watched the original series. The highest ratings for a Channel 4 show this year. Why do you think this was so successful?

White Dee has used her new found celebrity to cretae a career as a DJ and a televion celbrity in Big Brother. What do you make of this? This link will take you to an interview with Deirdre Kelly on Newsnight.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRfRdenFYCA.  Kelly claims that they were never told that it would be called Benefits Street. 

The founder of the Big Issue John Bird offers an interesting account of his response to the show and the issues raised about the state of our welfare state whilst writing in the Daily Mail.

The Guardian newspaper discusses research challenging the representation of joblessness in deprived areas.  The research seems to point out that this myth has been created to suit the purposes of programme makers and politicians.

The final word goes to Charlie Brooker who summarises the whole debate here;
Charlie Brooker on Benefits Street