Bearing Witness: How Controversial Organizations Get the Media Coverage They Want.

Activists need mass media to reach the largest audience possible, but getting media attention is difficult. Although disruptive protests are more likely to get covered by journalists, scholars claim that the resulting coverage is usually undesirable. Getting beneficial coverage presents a tactical d...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Social Movement Studies Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 41 - 60
Autor principal: Evans, Erin M.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Jan2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
fields @attributes:
  recordID: 1
pdfLink:
plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=112860876&site=ehost-live
header:
  @attributes:
    shortDbName: ssf
    uiTerm: 112860876
    longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson)
    uiTag: AN
  controlInfo:
    bkinfo:
    jinfo:
      jid:
        14742837
        J5V
      jtl: Social Movement Studies
      issn: 14742837
      maglogo: N
    pubinfo:
      dt: Jan2016
      vid: 15
      iid: 1
      pid: 377
      pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd
    artinfo:
      ui:
        112860876
        10.1080/14742837.2015.1060158
      ppf: 41
      ppct: 19
      formats:
        fmt:
          – @attributes:
              type: T
          – @attributes:
              type: P
              size: 227KB
      tig:
        atl: Bearing Witness: How Controversial Organizations Get the Media Coverage They Want.
      aug:
        au: Evans, Erin M.
        affil: Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
      su:
        Social movements
        Animal rights
        Mass media
        Animal welfare
        Public demonstrations
      sug:
        subj:
          Social movements
          Animal rights
          Mass media
          Animal welfare
          Public demonstrations
      keyword:
        animal rights
        media
        organizational identity
        organizations
        radical
        animal rights
        media
        organizational identity
        organizations
        radical
      ab: Activists need mass media to reach the largest audience possible, but getting media attention is difficult. Although disruptive protests are more likely to get covered by journalists, scholars claim that the resulting coverage is usually undesirable. Getting beneficial coverage presents a tactical dilemma for activists, and an analytical one for scholars. How do activists get the quality of media coverage they want when the tactics getting them attention result in negative coverage? This project contributes to the literature on movements and media in two ways: (1) I offer a new measure of desirable coverage that will be useful to media scholars: graphic description of grievances; (2) I use this measure to show that disruptive and controversial protest tactics may not always result in negative media attention. The new measure of ‘good’ media coverage helped determine conditions under which newspapers provide activists with the coverage they want. I used the Dynamics of Collective Action dataset to analyze all animal advocacy protests covered in theNew York Timesfrom 1960 to 1995, and found that the reputation of the involved organization may be associated with ‘good’ coverage. Organizations that have established a controversial identity may garner coverage that activists want, even if controversial actions do not. Put simply, it is less what activists do than who activists are that determines the quality of coverage they receive.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
    refInfo:
    copyright:
      @attributes:
        flag: N
    holdings:
      @attributes:
        islocal: N