The Big Issue Part 2

Ex Servicemen would are at risk of them most dangerous and persistent type of homeless, which is MEH(Multiple Exclusion homeless.) The 2012 Armed Forces and Community Covenant says local authorities "should" rather than "must" put housing aside for veterans. Research shows that 66,000 veterans need physical or mental health support in the coming years. Veterans who come back from the battleground, without having obtained any medical conditions etc are not given priority, whilst veterans who have obtained medical conditions are given priority. Some social conditions that veterans face are PTSD, Alcohol, Drugs, unemployed, marriages are breaking down,having to wait for mental health support and benefits, they are also at the bottom of housing priority.
                                                           

STILL AT WAR ISSUE

• Use of green on helmet- links to army
• Black and white - people believeing that war is only good or bad, also makes him anonymous
• The font is similar to a confidential file - links to having PTSD in secret
• Camouflage on helmet - shows hiding
• Still at war - even after war they are still fighting inside + homelessness
• Eyes covered - unable to see the real world / civillian life 
• Helmet protects himself from mental health issues
• Fighting for future generations / own future
• Writing over eyes - means not special
• Futures not being looked after
• Poppy represents remembrance, in Flanders Fields, Poppy's grown after the war
• Red symbolises blood.

Social Context

The Big Issue chose to highlight the issue because it was relevant in that temporal context, as the issue was published on remembrance day, and it helps the reader to become slightly more sympathetic.

The issue might be important for the audience as it directs attention towards the topic

At least 13,000 hero soldiers left HOMELESS after leaving the military - and almost all have PTSD

Les, who was honoured for his heroics in the 1982 Battle of Goose Green, was homeless for six months after suffering post-traumatic stress disorder ."

“The Government is spending more than £1billion to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping.”

Armed forces do not help veterans to merge back to society

30000 troops have lost their jobs since 2010

Most media studies on poverty point in the direction of a recurring observation that usually the poor are presented in one of two contrasting frames: the ‘deserving poor’ and the ‘undeserving poor’.

While the frame of deserving poor employs a sympathetic treatment of the poor, the frame of the undeserving poor is built upon the rhetoric of deficiency in individuals who are portrayed as a burden on the taxpayer due to their dependency on welfare policies 

(see also, scroungerphobia, Golding & Middleton, 1982)

Cultivation theory states that high frequency viewers of television are more susceptible to media messages and the belief that they are real and valid. Heavy viewers are exposed to more violence and therefore are effected by the Mean World Syndrome, the belief that the world is a far worse and dangerous place then it actually is. According to the theory heavy viewing of television is creating a homogeneous and fearful populace, however so many studies have been done in this area that really no one knows how or even if violence on TV or in film negatively or positively affects its audience.

Now cultivation theory has taken on a more general definition in regards to mass media. It now extends to encompass the idea that television colours our perception of the world. For example; if someone stays inside and watch news about crime all day, they might be inclined to believe that the crime rate is far higher than it actually is and they might easily become the victim of a crime. Or in another sense heavy viewership of any media   can perpetuate stereotypes both positive and negative. It really comes down to the question of to what extent does reality shape TV and vice versa.