School Reform and Economic Crisis in Elite News Media: For and by the Elite

• In Event: Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Teachers, Unions, and School Reform in the News

Abstract

In fall 2008, the United States faced an economic crisis brought about more than twenty years of market and banks deregulation, and a failure to account for the 2002 Iraq War expenditures as part of the annual budget, the nation faced default and public and private economic decline (Krugman, 2008). Five years later, the United States and the world-at-large continue to engage in a process of recovery, employing both short-term government subsidies as well as implementing long term austerity measures and policies at the state and federal levels.
At the same time, American and global media has continued its own seismic shift as a result of the Telecommunications Act of 2004, the consolidation and convergence of media, and the explosion of new media as a result of the Internet (Bagdikian, 2004; Cook, 2005; Dwyer, 2010; Jenkins, 2008). Readers’ interests and media content have both changed, with one outcome being a shrinking share of education news reporting and the US public wanting more reporting on education issues (Pelikan, 2005; West, Whitehurst & Dionne, 2009; Pew Center for the Excellence in Journalism, 2010, 2011). Further, while the American public has more access to a wider range of news, opinion, and information due to the Internet’s influence (blogs, news aggregators and news filters, in particular), they continue to rely upon legacy press outlets (in print and online) that reflect elite interests for information (Matheson, 2004; The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2010). Even so, that little coverage helped to create what Bourdieu called “a reality effect”: “The simple report, the very fact of reporting, of putting on record as a reporter, always implies a social construction of reality that can mobilize (or demobilize) individuals or groups” (1999, p. 21).
To illustrate Bourdieu’s point, this presentation reports on a study examining the process of mediatization of school reform policies related to teachers and unions in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the United States’ national paper with widest circulation (http://www.auditedmedia.com; Hajvard, 2010; Lingard & Rawolle, 2004). Employing frame, media and critical discourse analysis (Altheide, 1995; Fairclough, 1995; Reese, 2007), the authors examined news articles, editorials, and commentary (in print and online, 2009-2012) to uncover the dominant narratives regarding school reform and economic crisis. Analysis of data revealed that WSJ reporting and commentary framed school reform policies and economic crisis policies within a frame of “tough choices” in “the new normal.” In doing so, they reported on the problem of school reform during economic crisis, reflected elite interests through expert choice, and posed solutions in the form of specific school reform and economic policies, revealing a cyclical and self-sustaining dominant discourse. Revealing this discourse is important because the relationship between the news media and elite groups is contentious, fraught with struggles over power in which “major news media may themselves be institutions of elite power and dominance, with respect not only to the public at large, but also to other elite institutions” (Altheide, 1995, p. 9).

Author

• Rebecca A. Goldstein, Montclair State University