USE OF OCCUPY WALL STREET GRIEVANCES BY MSNBC AND FOX NEWS

Ellada GamreklidzeJonathan FerranteKristi Williams

Introduction – Occupy Wall Street

OWS is a dissident movement - mass demonstrations of opposition by members of social movements (Cottle, 2008; Dunbar-Hester, 2009; Makar, 2011).

Protesters seek change through peaceful, civil disobedience and direct action.

The movement is a “loosely affiliated, informal, anti-hierarchical” (Lievrouw, 2011, p. 51) network; and it uses media both to relay information and “as a principle field and form of action in itself” (p. 48).

Released Declaration on the Occupation of New York City, September 29, 2011

Coverage of Dissident Movements

Coverage of social justice/dissident movements is traditionally reactive and episodic (Iyengar, 1991).

“Dialectic of escalation” (Boykoff, 2006, p. 203); the coverage intensifies as the likelihood of violence increases.

Media fail to focus on issues; rather they pick ‘spectacle’ and drama in pursuit of public attention.

Coverage of Dissident Movements Traditional Dissident Movement Frames (Boykoff,

2006): Violence /Disruption

This frame is defined as any reference to acts of violence attributed to members of the Occupy Wall Street movement or any suggestion or violence by the group. This frame also includes any reference to the disruption of banking institutions/proceedings, or to disruption caused to the lives of non-protesting residents of New York City.

IgnoranceThis frame is defined as any reference to the OWS protesters as not knowledgeable about the issues the movement purports to protest.

FreakThis frame is defined as any reference to the OWS protesters as being fringe characters as outside of societal norms in both appearance and behavior. Examples include use of any of the following to discredit the protesters or show a negative attitude toward the protesters by the speaker.

Amalgam of GrievancesThis frame is defined as any reference to the OWS protesters as being allied with multiple causes and not being committed to the present movement's causes.

Framing Frames “select some aspects of a perceived

reality and make them more salient in a communicating text” (Entman, 1993, p. 52).

Frames organize discourse by Selection Emphasis Exclusion

The process of frame choice is a way for the political actor to “promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (Entman, 1993, p. 52).

Framing The journalists’ role in the frame production is

paramount but influenced by social actors, corporate and political elites, advocates, social movements.

Iyengar (1987) contends that simply “invoking different reference points triggers completely different strategies of choice or judgment” (p.816) on behalf of individuals.

The citizens that participate in receiving frames from political actors also participate in the creation of frames as well.

Research Question RQ1: Did Fox News and MSNBC report the

grievances outlined in OWS’s Declaration of the Occupation of New York City?

RQ2: How will the networks differ for information provided?

RQ3: How will the networks differ in the types of frames they use in OWS reporting?

RQ4: How will coverage change over time?

Hypothesis

H1: Fox News and MSNBC will not provide thematic coverage of OWS’ grievances but will instead continue to discuss the group in the context of traditional dissident movement frames.

Method and Sample Quantitative content analysis a) Networks:

Fox News (38 Shows)MSNBC (33 Shows)*

b) Census Sample of news shows transcripts obtained by LexisNexis Academic (total number: 103)

c) Sample composition: Fox & Friends, The Five, Special Report with Bret Baier, On

The Record with Greta van Susteren, Fox Hannity, The Journal Editorial Report, The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News Watch, Fox News Sunday, Your World with Neil Cavuto

Hardball With Chris Mathews, Politics Nation with Al Sharpton, The Last Word, The Ed Show, The Rachel Maddow Show, Daily Rundown, Andrea Mitchell Reports

d) Time period (two weeks):Week 1 - 9/29/11 through10/5/11Week 2 - 10/6/11 through10/12/11

*The initial number of the shows was 54 and 49 on Fox News and MSNBC respectively. After getting rid of ‘false positives’ and excluding the sample used to run the intercoder reliability test, the number of shows dropped to 38 and 33 respectively.

Variables Variables:

a)  Independent: network (station), news show (program), broadcast date, broadcast week, agent

b)  Dependent: OWS grievances (extracted from the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City): mass injustice, excessive influence, corporate greed, assertion of rights, unjust work environment, profit over public welfare and lack of accountability. Boykoff’s Frame: Violence/Disruption, Freak, Ignorance, Amalgam of Grievances. Additional frames: OWS positive, Other OWS Grievances, Other.

Unit of AnalysisAssertion:A statement that purports something to be true. It can be a phrase, a sentence, or any combination of sentences or paragraphs that amount to a statement of fact about OWS.

N = 1,235 assertions

For example, in the following exchange:Anchor: “The protesters are right.” Reporter: “What do you mean?”Anchor: “They understand that corporate greed is out of control,” the full assertion would be, “The protesters are right because they understand corporate greed is out of control.”

Intercoder Reliability 16 Shows:(Fox News – 8)(MSNBC – 8) Statistics:Low: average pairwise Cohen's kappa = 0.327 Revised coding materials, didn’t rerun the test due

time constraints. Four coders analyzed the sample for the first

intercoder reliability test. Three members of the group prepared this paper for the conference presentation. Since one of the initial coders withdrew from the project, the researchers can only run the second test after they recruit and train a fourth student to code the sample. Due to the time constraints, it was impossible to do prior to the conference.

FindingsReport of the grievances outlined in OWS’s Declaration of the Occupation of New York City. Neither station ever mentioned OWS’s Declaration as a source.

MSNBCFox News

0

10

20

30

40

Assertions of grievancesPe

rcen

tage

Findings Frame examples:Glenn Beck (Violence/Disruption): Occupy Wall Street Protestors would “pull people from their homes and kill them.”

Representative Eric Cantor (R), Virginia (Freak ): “I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street, and the other cities across the country.”

Al Sharpton (Freak): “They`re concerned about growing mobs. Funny, there was no words Cantor and the Republicans two years ago, when the Tea Party is carrying guns and threatening violence on signs, just listen to how they talked about them last year.”

MSNBC (Percentage of assertions are OWS grievances)

Grievances-Yes Grievances-No0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

HardballPolitics NationThe Last WordThe Ed ShowRachel MaddowPe

rcen

tage

Fox News (Percentage of assertions are OWS grievances)

Grievances-Yes Grievances-no0

102030405060708090

100Cavuto

The Five

Special Report

On the Record

Hannity

The Journal Edi-torial Report

The O'Reilly Factor

Fox News Watch

Fox News Sunday

Perc

enta

ge

Hypothesis SupportedThe hypothesis that Fox News and MSNCB will not provide thematic coverage of OWS’ grievances but will instead continue to discuss the group in the context of traditional dissident movement frames is partially supported by the data in Fox News’ coverage. MSNBC focused more on OWS grievances, but not necessarily those stated in their Declaration.

MSNBC

Fox0

100200300400500

Amalgam of...Freak

Other

Amalgam of GrievancesViolence/Dis-ruptionFreakIgnoranceOther

Num

ber

of

Asse

rtio

ns

Boykoff’s Frames

Discussion No mention of Declaration on either network

Daily Kos posted it on 10/1Keith Olbermann read it in full on 10/5

MSNBC framed OWS negatively through traditional journalism norms whereas Fox News was more overt in their condemnation of OWS (Bennett, 1996).

MSNBC – Agent: Mitt Romney, Eric Cantor, Herman Caine, Glenn Beck

FOX News – Agent: Cavuto, Hannity

Agenda setting (McCombs & Shaw, 1972) and indexing (Bennett, 1990) function of media: Media tell people what to think about:

Agenda setting and indexing on MSNBC: medium-to-medium and sources-to-medium effect.

Limitations

Context of conversation Access to video v. transcripts

(LexisNexis Access) News v. opinion

Quantitative content analysis “…it assumes frequency is allied to

intensity” (Harwood & Garry, 2003, p. 492). Coding does not reflect complexity of

discourse

Future Research

Video analysis Add a qualitative component More television networks More mediums Longer-term sample to see if trends

persist Who, if anyone, and how extensively is

reporting on OWS today? Agenda setting and indexing effect