Elite Experts versus Lay Experts in French and U.S. News Reporting on Gay Marriage

• In Event: 579 - Section on Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 04. News

Abstract

This article traces news media reporting of legal debates over gay marriage and parenting in Le Monde and the New York Times from 1990 to 2013. As decision-makers in both countries grappled with the demands of same-sex couples to have their romantic and family relationships recognized, journalists at these newspapers covered the issues by drawing on specific kinds of information to clarify their reporting. Extant analyses of news reporting use the concept of framing to explain how and why major social issues take on specific meanings in different national contexts. Building on that work, this article looks at the categories of people journalists quote, from scholars and intellectuals to clergy and ordinary citizens, and the kinds of things these people say. In so doing, it reveals that elite experts, such as professors and mental health professionals, dominate French reporting while ordinary citizens and other “lay experts” dominate U.S. coverage. As a result, French media representations of same-sex couples and families are more abstract than those in the U.S., where the lived experiences of LGBT families ground media coverage. This article also finds that most people cited in the New York Times, including elite experts, draw on their personal experience. Because it is shared across people of high and low status, personal experience appears more legitimate in U.S. reporting than French reporting. These differences can help explain why French and U.S. public opinion—as well as legal outcomes—diverges on same-sex marriage and parenting.

Author

• Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer, Université Bordeaux Montaigne