Selected reading for the week. Serving in Florida and Framing Class

The first reading for the week is titled “Serving in Florida” and although it is about a woman choosing to live in impoverished life of minimum wage jobs, I felt like the one serving a prison sentence having to read page after page of poor attitude and bitterness.
It appears she chose to do the physical activity, but chose to leave the attitude change back at home. All this article is, is paragraph after paragraph of complaining about having to work without any gratitude for the job or perspective outside of being angry at everyone. The owners are mean, servers are mean, building is too hot, building is too cold, trailer is shaped like a dumbbell, dishwashers are disrespected… ENOUGH ALREADY! Putting yourself by choice into a hard situation, then complaining about it is not journalism, it’s just sad. I cannot wait for her follow up article about taking a job as a toll booth attendant, then complain for 6 pages about all the fumes from the cars!!!
The second reading is titled "Framing Class, Vicarious Living and Conspicuous Consumption". It is about how media likes to frame stories about class. Diana attempts to show readers how the subject of class is trivialized by the media instead of being given the respect it is due as “the heaviest of topics”.
I like how the author breaks the different classes up and describes subsets of those classes. She introduces things like Thematic and Episodic framing in a way that gives the reader information without taking a break from the point she is trying to make.
I also like how relevant the author’s material is and how many different media sources are used. Originally I saw reference to FOX network and began to think she was going after some of the more “liberal” media sources. She then followed with ABC, MTV and NBC which thwarted my feeble attempt to categorize this author. She jumps around in a coherent way that makes you want to continue to read the piece.
Great work on the second, it is the singing canary pooping on the newsprint of the first article. Rather you agree of disagree with me, I love that we have a place to share our thoughts.