From the research that I have conducted, I found that there is actually a lot of stigma attatched to it. For an example, read this article on the accent, headlined as "Worse than silence"
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article3671116.ece (4th April 2008)
People with the Birmingham accent are often thought of as uneducated louts, think Chavs.
The media reinforces this stereotype further by producing fabricated poll results (The poll was on the nations most favoured accent)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3073282/Brummie-accent-voted-least-cool-in-Britain.html (24th September 2008)
Finally, to reinforce this unfair stereotype further, I found an article all about how having a certain accent could boost yourself in the carreer department.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2002916/Having-Glaswegian-accent-hinders-career-Essex-twang-helps-job.html (13th June 2011)
I believe that the information was also fabricated due to the lack of information on how they got these results, It is biased towards the Brummie accent, as it came out as 2nd as an accent "most likely to harm your carreer".
Some shocking findings here! Did you find the (slightly) more positive reseach findings about Brummie being the best accent for telling a joke? I'm not convinced about your comments on 'fabricated' survey results - be critical but argue your points. Note that 'biased' means 'weighted' and can be towards or against - here I think you mean biased against the accent.
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