Redefining a Rape Culture: The Influence of Anti-Violence-Against-Women Organizations on Mass Media Discourse

• In Event: 282 - Student Forum Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 01. Race, Gender, and Media

Abstract

Social movement organizations have increasingly targeted the mass media as a means to disseminate their messages (Andrews and Caren 2010; Rohlinger 2014). While social movement scholars have examined the relationship between social movements and the mass media, they have largely overlook the ways in which the mass media represents a distinct type of cultural outcome (Hart 1996; Earl 2004; Giugni 2008). To investigate how social movement organizations influence mass media discourse as a means of achieving cultural change, I examine the ways in which anti-violence-against-women organizations (AVAWOs) are able to influence the content and media framing of issues related to violence against women. Drawing on mass media coverage of ten AVAWOs over a five-year time period spanning 2011 to 2015, I examine social movement organizational and broader environmental factors that shape mass media coverage of AVAWOs. Incorporating three types of mass media coverage, I construct a dataset that measures the quantity and quality of media coverage. Explanatory measures include movement organizational factors, such as organizational identity, organizational resources, and tactics and media strategies, as well as broader environmental factors including political and discursive media opportunities. The dependent variables indicate the quantity and quality of media coverage each AVAWO receives. Using regression analyses, I assess the movement organizational and broader environmental factors that shape the quantity and quality of media coverage, as well as how movement organizational and broader environmental factors interact to develop a better understanding of how social movements influence mass media as a means to achieve cultural change.

Author

• Allison Reilly McGrath, Vanderbilt University