Speaking for the Public: Journalists' Use of Neutral Frames in the Abortion Debate

• In Event: 394 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Paper Session. Social Movements and Media

Abstract

Mainstream news media are not passive, neutral sources of information. Despite the professional norms of “objective” journalism, journalists produce subtle forms of bias in ways that shape public understanding of social issues. We propose that “neutral speech” is not a homogeneous category, but that it comes in different interpretative packages, which can be used strategically by different groups of speakers. Although literature on media practices and the use of framing devices is expansive, little systematic research places neutral discourse or journalists at the center of investigation. We examine American newspaper coverage of the abortion issue from 1972 through 1994 to analyze neutral framing activities across a diverse set of actors. Using Ferree et al.’s (2002) Shaping Abortion Discourse dataset, we identify five different types of seemingly “neutral” frames. The presence of these frames varies systematically between actors, article characteristics, and the socio-political context. Our findings, based primarily on logistic regression analyses, show that journalists routinely speak on behalf of society, are more likely to deploy ambivalent frames approximating “objective talk” and also highlight conflicts. Article characteristics, such as argument balance and the diversity of speakers, produce different types of neutrality. In coverage of protests, neutral framing is reduced for most speakers except for experts and journalists, who seemingly act as arbiters of neutrality. Our findings provide varied support for our hypothesis that journalists played an active role in shaping the abortion discourse, and underscore the theoretical importance of examining “strategic neutrality” and the speech of journalists.

Authors

• Beth Gharrity Gardner, University of California-Irvine

• Erin Evans, University of California-Irvine

• Tim Sven Mueller, Institute for Future Studies