Majka Ryan – författare

Through case-study research, Majka Ryan offers a systematic microanalysis of discretion in a specific context of residence-based welfare conditionality derived from the labour movement directive 2004/38/EC. The latter is utilised in the coordination of social security benefits for mobile EU citizens across Europe. Ryan reveals that in Ireland and other jurisdictions, official rights, be they supranational or local, when translated into practice are shaped by different political, organisational and decision-making actors, consequently leading to an uneven distribution of substantive rights and unequal outcomes for different groups of people, disproportionately affecting those who must prove their deservingness. This book evidences how residence-based welfare conditions create a context where power is exercised freely by street-level decision-makers and illustrates how that power affects different groups in society, and consequently, how through those practices, the hegemonic discourses around legitimacy of access to public resources are reproduced.

Media discourses play a powerful role in shaping public understanding of inequality—yet they often obscure, distort, or individualize its causes.Critical Explorations of Media and Inequality examines how mainstream media systems reproduce and legitimize unequal social structures by marginalizing, sensationalizing, or blaming those most affected. Bringing together leading and emerging scholars, this edited collection explores the persistent gaps, tensions, and ideological forces at work in media representations of class, poverty, homelessness, welfare, and immigration across diverse global contexts. Organized around the themes of changing media work practices, authoritative voices, representations, and implications, the chapters interrogate how neoliberalism and shifting journalistic norms continue to shape—and limit—the public conversation on inequality. Through rich empirical analysis and interdisciplinary insight, this volume offers a timely intervention into the politics of media framing and the structural silences that sustain social injustice.