What Explains the Quality of the News Coverage of U.S. Radical Right-wing Movement Organizations in the 1960s?

• In Event: 1566 - Influence

Abstract

What accounts for the quality of news coverage of right-wing movement organizations in mainstream newspapers? How are the determinants different between right-wing organizations and left-wing ones? To answer these questions, we examine all front-page articles in extensive runs of coverage of the two most prominent right-wing organizations of the 1960s, the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society. We develop a story-centered model that argues that the quality of their coverage depends on interactions between the news media, movement actors, and the contexts in which they engage. Given the legitimacy deficits of movement actors, we argue that some movement characteristics and types action, when covered, are more likely to lead to substantive coverage than others. We find that coverage was not highly substantive for either organization, especially as compared to civil rights organizations prominent in the period. Through comparative, regression, and qualitative comparative analyses of more than 200 individually coded articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal, we find support for our claims about the determinants of the quality of coverage. The right-wing organizations had organization characteristics that increased legitimacy deficits, and they were not covered in the context of the sorts of action that would reduce these deficits and instead were covered in action that was likely to deflect substance.

Authors

• Edwin Amenta, University of California-Irvine

• Thomas Alan Elliott, University of California-Irvine

• Nicole Clorinda Shortt, University of California-Irvine

• Amber Celina Tierney, Hartwick College

• Didem Turkoglu, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill