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Framed! Christopher R. Martin

Framed! By Christopher R. Martin

Framed! by Christopher R. Martin


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Summary

Christopher R. Martin argues that the mainstream news media (and the large corporations behind them) put the labor movement in a bad light even while avoiding the appearance of bias. Martin has found that the news media construct common ground...

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Framed! Summary

Framed!: Labor and the Corporate Media by Christopher R. Martin

Christopher R. Martin argues that the mainstream news media (and the large corporations behind them) put the labor movement in a bad light even while avoiding the appearance of bias. Martin has found that the news media construct common ground narratives between labor and management positions by reporting on labor relations from a consumer perspective.

Martin identifies five central storytelling frames using this consumer orientation that repeatedly emerged in the news media coverage of major labor stories in the 1990s: the 1991-94 shutdown of the General Motors Willow Run Assembly Plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan; the 1993 American Airlines flight attendant strike; the 1994-95 Major League Baseball strike, the 1997 United Parcel Service strike, and the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization's conference in Seattle.

In Martin's view, the news media's consumer take on the labor movement has the effect of submerging issues of citizenship, political activity, and class relations, and elevating issues of consumption and the myth of a class-free America. Instead of facilitating a public sphere, the democratic ideal in which the public can engage in discovery and rational-critical debate, Martin says, news organizations have fostered a consumer sphere, in which public discourse and action is defined in terms of consumer interests-the impact of strikes, lock-outs, shut-downs, and protests on the general consumer economy and the price, quality, and availability of things such as automobiles, airline flights, and baseball tickets.

Framed! Reviews

As wages stagnate or decline while executive compensation rises, unions can make a stirring case that their members need a 'living wage' to become respectable consumers (aka readers and viewers).... The media is hardly management's enemy. But if company skirmishes become class warfare, it may become so.

* Harvard Business Review *

Christopher R. Martin lays bare the presumptions and preferences of an industry whose bottom line has become the bottom line.

* The Labor Paper *

Compelling firsthand (and first-rate) accounts of strikes and protests opposing the skewed manner in which they were reported by the media... make for fascinating reportage. With appendices of specific media reports (and reporters), this thoroughly engaging sociopolitical commentary is worthy of Michael Moore and Al Franken, but devoid of their often glib facility, putting scholarship first.

* Publishers Weekly *

Framed! points out that news organizations place coverage of labor, like many other stories, in narrative frames that at the same time help to explain an issue and exclude alternative explanations.

* Columbia Journalism Review *

This volume joins the growing collection of carefully documented studies that demolish the myth of liberal media bias promulgated by the radical Right.... Martin carefully details the way in which the news media use negative framing in reporting stories about labor in general and organized labor in particular.

* Choice *

Framed! raises significant questions for journalists, and not just in terms of how they do their jobs. To what extent, for example, are Guild-represented reporters handicapped-as trade unionists-by the frames through which they view the world as journalists' Can those who accept a consumer perspective ever see themselves as engaged in class struggle?

* The Guild Reporter *

About Christopher R. Martin

Christopher R. Martin is Associate Professor of Communications at Miami University. He is coauthor of Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication.

Additional information

CIN0801488877G
9780801488870
0801488877
Framed!: Labor and the Corporate Media by Christopher R. Martin
Used - Good
Paperback
Cornell University Press
20031119
264
Winner of Winner of the 2003 Book Award for Best Single Auth.
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Framed!