Patriotic Protest, Racist Revolt, or Just Another Event: Television News Framing of the Tea Party Movement

TL;DRAbstract

Research on the relationships between mass media and social movements has focused largely on the ways in which newspapers and mainstream television networks represent leftist movements. The conservative, pro-capitalist Tea Party movement, which began to receive national news coverage in February 2009, provides an opportunity to examine the same types of relationships on the other end of the political spectrum, in order to test generalizability of existing models. The Tea Party has received extensive media coverage by 24-hour cable news networks; these networks have not been included in prior studies on media framings of social movements. Using both qualitative and quantitative content analysis, and building on the theoretical framework of elite mediation, I inquire as to whether and how three major cable news networks and three national broadcast networks differ in their coverage of this movement. I also examine the extent to which frames put forth by movement members are accurately co

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