The Study of the New Perception for the Homeless on the Newspaper

Abstract

          The purposes of the research study were to investigate characterization of image construction of overall image of homeless people appearing on newspaper and to explore the perception of the audiences on homeless people for both before and after interacting with homeless people. This study was conducted under the concept of stereotypes and the theory of media and social construction of reality by the collection of the qualitative data. The first section contained the analysis of the news contents on newspaper by following the study schedule and recording the data. The second section was in-depth interview, specifically semi-constructed interview.

          The result of the study revealed that the newspaper constructed the image perception of the homeless people as the followings. The headline wording and the content wording used the word vagrant most of the time. The images of homeless people constructed by newspaper were described that homeless people wore old, stingy, and dirty clothes. Their personality and behavior were violent and alcoholic. Their sheltering included passenger shelters, bus stops, flyover, under the toll ways, and temples. Their occupations were criminals, garbage collectors, garbage sellers, and prostitutes. The result in the second part was shown that the imagination of receivers to homeless people is according to information which appearances on the newspaper. They found that the information from newspaper does not exactly true. The homeless people does not quite different from us. It has a good or bad people as well. Newspaper were created the negative attitude to reader-response to homeless people without the fact.

          Thus, according to the newspaper, the overall images of homeless people became the vagrants or hobos who wore old and stingy clothes. They often had alcohols, made loud noises, and annoyed people around them. They slept at bus stops or passenger shelters. They were lazy to do any work but stealing from others. They were frightening and dangerous for the society. When audiences read this type of news frequently, the audiences then created the stereotypes in such a way that all homeless people behave that way as the newspapers described. People would feel uneasy, scared, or suspicious when interacting with homeless people.