International Journal of Public Opinion Research Vol. 2 No. 3 0954-2891/90 $3.00
VALUE-FRAMING ABORTION IN THEUNITED STATES: AN APPLICATION OF
MEDIA SYSTEM DEPENDENCY THEORY*
S.jf. Ball-Rokeach, Gerard J. Power, K. Kendall
Guthrie, H. Ross Waring
ABSTRACT
This paper is in the tradition of social analysis aimed at creating frameworks to join massmedia and public opinion processes (e.g. Clarke and Evans, 1983; Gamson, 1975; Gitlin,1980; Hall, 1977; Iyengar and Kinder, 1987; Lang and Lang, 1968, 1983; Lippman, 1922;Mollotch and Lester, 1974; Noelle-Neuman, 1974; Paletz and Entman, 1981; Shaw andMcCombs, 1977; Turner and Paz, 1986). After a brief review of media system dependency(MSD) theory, we illustrate how it may apply to public opinion processes that entailcontested issue 'value-frames' (Ball-Rokeach and Rokeach, 1987). In such cases, the mediasystem is directly implicated in the negotiation of legitimacy of opposing positions on anissue. Our illustrative case is the abortion issue as it has been played out in the UnitedStates over recent decades (Luker, 1984). We focus upon the respective capacities of pro-and anti-abortion movements to control the value-frame of media coverage of the issue(Guthrie, 1989). A value-frame may be conceived as ' . . . the main substantive theme of amorality play' (Ball-Rokeach and Tallman, 1979) wherein the distinction between 'good'and 'bad' hangs in the balance; in this case, between positions on abortion. We suggest thatchange in the value-frame of media coverage and public discourse may be understood, atleast in part, as an outcome of change in contestants' MSD relations.
COMPONENTS OF MEDIA SYSTEM DEPENDENCYTHEORY
MSD theory is a theory in progress. It has macro, middle range, and micro levelsof discourse and analysis.1 The central organizing concept is the MSD relation, a
* This paper is based, in part, upon a paper ('Media system dependency theory in public opinion research')presented to the Annual Meeting of The American Association for Public Opinion Research by G. J. Power, K.K. Guthrie, H. R. Waring, and S. J. Ball-Rokeach, St. Petersberg, Florida (1989). The authors would like tothank an anonymous reviewer for his/her constructive criticisms and suggestions.
1 That MSD theory is most well developed at the micro level is a point that has been missed, for example,by Rubin and Windahl (1986).
250 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
concept that has its origins in the power-dependency exchange theory work ofEmerson (1962, 1972) and Cook (1987).2 A MSD relation is denned as: Theextent to which attainment of an individual's, group's, organization's or system'sgoals is contingent upon access to the information resources of the media system,relative to the extent to which attainment of media system goals is contingentupon the resources controlled by individuals, groups, organizations, or othersystems, respectively. To date, theoretical and empirical work has emphasizedone side of this reciprocal relation, that is, the determinants and consequencesfor others of their relationships with the media system. This paper representsone of the first attempts to explore the equally-important other side of thequestion, the determinants and consequences of MSD relations for the beliefsand behavior of the media system and its organizations and personnel. The latterline of inquiry joins MSD concerns to the production of culture literature (e.g.Cantor, 1971, 1980; Gans, 1979; Gouldner, 1976; Hall, 1977; Tuchman, 1978).
The media system is conceived to be an information system (Ball-Rokeach,1974). Its germane resources are the gathering or creating, processing, anddissemination of information. Information refers to all information that is, insome way, produced by the media system (e.g. entertainment, news, fiction andnon-fiction). More than the material apparatus required for mass communica-tion, a media system has goals, values, roles, and technologies that differentiate itfrom political, religious, and other systems. Depending upon the problem underinvestigation, MSD relations may be conceived to involve the whole mediasystem or one of its empirical parts (e.g. television, radio, etc.).
THE MACRO FRAMEWORK
Theoretical aims are both descriptive and explanatory. An ideal descriptiveanalysis would entail a progressive filling in of all of the cells in Figure 1 toanswer: What are the MSD relations in a society at all levels of analysis; Whatare their relationships to each other; and How did they develop?The way that the MSD relation concept is elaborated into the assumptions andconcepts of MSD theory is rooted in the ecological tradition; particularly as itwas applied to questions about the media system's influence upon socialstructure, change, and control (e.g. Lynd and Lynd, 1929; Ogburn and Gilfillan,1933; Park, 1922; Riley and Riley, 1962; Wiley and Rice, 1933). One basicecological assumption is that macro and micro MSD relations are interrelated.
1 Their fundament*] assumption is that power is the flip side of resource dependency, whether it be ininterpersonal relations—the initial theoretical focus—or in macro structural relations. Adapted to the problemof understanding the conditions under which the media have 'powerful' or 'weak' effects, the M S D frameworkfocuses upon the determinants and consequences of goal-resource relations between the media system andindividuals, groups, organizations, or other social systems (Ball-Rokeach and DeFieur, 1976).
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
FIGURE I Media System Dependency Relations: DimensionsScope
251
Structure(asymmetric-
Level of Analysis symmetric)(broad-narrow) Intensity
Resource Media Substantive (high-low)
Macro System
Organization
Group
IndividualV'Micro
For example, as illustrated in Figure 1, the effects of macro (e.g. system level)MSD relations upon micro (e.g. individual) relations (=>) are conceived to occurmore directly and quickly, than do effects of micro upon macro MSD relations(-+). More generally, explanatory analyses address such basic questions as: Whydo MSD relations develop and, once developed, when or under what conditionswill they undergo change} The approach to such questions is ecological. Themedia system is conceived to emerge, develop, and change in context of a societalorganism that becomes more complex or differentiated over time. As such, themedia system becomes embedded in dependency relations with other systemsand cannot be fully understood in isolation from these relations.
T H E MIDDLE RANGE FRAMEWORK
Explanatory analyses designed to answer middle range questions concern theconsequences of change in MSD relations upon socio-political, cultural, andother aspects of social behavior. In this paper, for example, we seek to explorethe ecological, environmental, organizational, and belief factors that may haveeffected change in the MSD relations of pro- and anti-abortion organizationsand how such change may have effected change in media value-frames.
As indicated in Figure 1, MSD relations may undergo change of structure,intensity, and scope. The structure and intensity dimensions are discussedelsewhere (Ball-Rokeach et al., 1984; Ball-Rokeach, 1985; DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach, 1988).3 Specification of the three scope dimensions is original with thispaper. They are: (1) resource scope defined as the extent to which an MSDrelation is engendered by one or more of the media system's information
1 When media resources ire more broadly requisite to the tnainment of X's (in individual, group,organization, or system) goals, than X's resources are implicated in the attainment of media system goals, thestructure is asymmetric. Intensity concerns the degree to which X or the media system control uniqueresources for goal attainment.
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
252 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
resources (gathering, creating, processing, and dissemination); (2) substantivescope defined as the extent to which the MSD relation is engendered by one ormore goals—for example, at the micro level, one or more of the six dimensionsthat constitute the conceptual typology of individual MSD relations (Under-standing, social and self, Orientation, action and interaction, and Play, social andsolitary);4 and (3) media scope defined as the extent to which an MSD relation isengendered by one or more of the mediums extant in a media system.5
THE MICRO FRAMEWORK
The substantive and media scope dimensions of individuals' MSD relationsrepresent the major points of convergence between the MSD and the Uses andGratifications approaches (e.g. Blumler and Gurevitch, 1979; Blunder and Katz,1974; Palmgreen et al., 1985).6 Intensity of micro MSD relations has been thedominant dimension explored in theory and research. Specific theories ofexposure and the effects process have been tested (Ball-Rokeach et al., 1984;Colman, 1990; Grant et al., 1989).7 They specify structural, environmental,interpersonal, personal, and situational determinants of individual MSD re-lations, as well as cognitive, affective, behavioral and interpersonal consequencesof media exposure under different intensity conditions. The logics of these worksinclude specification of individuals' MSD relations as highly asymmetric instructure and narrow in resource scope (only the media's dissemination resourcebeing implicated). Thus, variation in micro MSD relations occurs with respectto intensity, substantive scope and, though not yet demonstrated empirically,media scope.8
* For 1 discussion of this typology and its development from earlier work by KaQ et at. (1973), see Ball-Rokeach et al. (1984).
' For more detailed discussion of these dimensions, see Ball-Rokeach and Grant (forthcoming).1 A reviewer of this paper, perhaps, put it best by saying: 'The difference between gratifications and
dependency . . . is between the question 'where do I go for gratification of my need' (to which medium) and'why do I go there?' This reviewer correctly points out that at the micro level of uses and gratificationsdiscourse, the two approaches share concerns for the goals/needs that engender individuals' media use and theparticular medium that is implicated in a dependency relation/gratification. This is accurate notwithstandingthe conceptual differences between goals and needs and betwen M S D relations and gratifications.
1 For a discussion of the determinants of the intensity of individual M S D relations, see Ball-Rokeach(1985), Loges (forthcoming) and Waring (forthcoming). For discussion of the consequences upon exposuredecisions, exposure conditions, and effects upon beliefs and behavior, see Ball-Rokeach et al. (1984), Ball-Rokeach (1989), DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach (1088), Power and Ball-Rokeach (1989), Grant et al. (1989), Aydinet al. (1990), and Colman (1990). These works include specific theories of, or hypotheses about, the twinprocesses of selective exposure and individual media effects.
1 For the first empirical examination of media scope, see Ball-Rokeach and Grant (forthcoming).
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
APPLICATION OF THE MEDIA SYSTEM DEPENDENCYTHEORY TO THE ABORTION ISSUE
ACCOUNTING FOR CHANGE IN MEDIA VALUE-FRAMES
Our illustrative analysis of how MSD theory might be applied to the study ofone aspect of public opinion formation and change, value-framing of publicdiscourse about issues of contested legitimacy, is premised on the assumptionthat there was a change in the dominant media value-frame of the abortion issue.This claim could be, but has not been, empirically examined. To simplify ourillustration, we assume a monolithic media value-frame that underwent changethroughout the media system at the same time. In actuality, we would expect atleast some variation in media value-frames. We would also expect variation inthe timing of value-frame change that reflects the structure of inter-mediadependency relations. Such expectations are implicit in Paletz and Entman's(1981) observations about the differentiation of flow in the engineering ofconsensus through elite, prestige, and popular media, and in Strodhoff^ a/.'s(1985) examination of the diffusion of the ideology of environmentalism.
Neither a media value-frame, nor a change in such, suggests that journalists ormedia organizations have adopted an issue position or made a change in theirposition. The change is in their communication behavior, not necessarily in theirorganizational or personal beliefs. Moreover, media adoption of an organiza-tion's issue value-frame is not assured, no matter how strategic the organizationis in developing MSD relations (Gitlin, 1981). Among other reasons, this isbecause organizational MSD relations develop in a larger ecology of MSDrelations, relations that may constrain the range of value-frames that the mediamay adopt without eliciting resistance or opposition from other social systems.Gitlin's (1980) analysis of new left media strategies provides a case in point. Toadopt the new left value-frame would have endangered the media system'srelations with the political and economic systems, relations far more central tomedia system survival and welfare than its relations with the new left.
One reason for our selecting the abortion issue is that contestants are notdirectly attacking systems with which the media system has symmetrical, broadscope, and intense dependency relations (i.e. the political and economicsystems). Media-religious system dependency relations are implicated in theabortion conflict. These relations are conceived to be more asymmetric, lessbroad in scope, and of lower intensity than those between the media and politicaland economic system (Ball-Rokeach, 1985). Moreover, conflict within thereligious system probably modulates threat to media-religious system relationsthat may result from media adoption of one or another abortion value-frame. Inthe abortion case, then, we can properly focus our analysis on the organizationallevel; namely, the MSD relations or pro- and anti-abortion organizations as a
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
major source of change in media value-frames.We can focus on these relations, but we cannot ignore salient features of their
ecological environment. The reason why pro- and anti-abortion, or similarorganizations, develop MSD relations, is not because they independently choosemedia system information resources as their primary communication vehicle,but, rather, because the ecology of MSD relations leaves them little choice. Ofparticular relevance to this case, is the macro media-political system dependencyrelation and its shaping of the micro MSD relation of members of the public. Asillustrated in Figure 2, the media system is the primary link between the publicand the political system. Organizations seeking to attain goals that entail thegarnering of public and political system (policy maker) support must take theseMSD relations into account.
CONCEPTUALIZING THE ABORTION ISSUE
We see the issue of abortion as one of a genre of issues that may be defined as: asymbolic communication conflict waged to establish the legitimacy of onedefinition of morality and/or competence over another in the struggle to win orcontrol scarce resources. The abortion issue thus represents a category of whatmight be called issues of contested legitimacy. Contestants compete to have theirdefinition of the meaning of an issue dominate discourse and decision-making
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
(Collins, 1975; Gitlin, 1980; Hall, 1981; Hallin and Mancini, 1984; Mollotch andLester, 1974). To the victor goes legitimacy, and more important, the legitimacyof their position on the rules of resource allocation (e.g. in this case, the laws thatdetermine rights on matters of abortion).
T H E VALUE-FRAME CONCEPT AND ITS MEASUREMENT
A value-frame is one type of frame (Goffman, 1974; Hall, 1981) that isparticularly useful in understanding matters of contested legitimacy. A value-frame is defined as the criterion by which people, events, and issues are evaluated(Ball-Rokeach and Rokeach, 1987; Guthrie, 1989). The criterion may be uni-dimensional or multi-dimensional. As presently conceived, it is composed of oneor more terminal or instrumental values. Values, thus constitute the issue frame.Terminal values are defined (Rokeach, 1973) as 'desired end states of existence'(e.g. Wisdom, Freedom, Family Security, Equality) and instrumental values aredefined as 'preferred modes of conduct' (e.g. being Responsible, Loving,Broadminded, or Capable).
The value-frame concept highlights the central evaluative function of valuesin peoples' and societies' belief systems. Values are conceived to incorporate twogeneral evaluative dimensions, morality and competence (Rokeach, 1973). Issuevalue-frames are thus conceived as the primary symbolic tools or encoding anddecoding mechanisms (Hall, 1981) that groups employ to wage the struggle forlegitimacy. In other words, the legitimacy contest is waged in the language ofvalues. Contestants seek to cloak themselves and their positions in value-framesthat establish their legitimacy (morality and/or competence) at the expense oftheir opponent. Once established, the dominant value-frame contributes to acondition of 'restrictive power' (Bachrach and Baratz, 1962) whereby publicdiscourse occurs within the rubric of that frame. It is the setting and changing ofthe dominant value-frame employed by the media in its coverage of the abortionissue that we seek to address from a MSD perspective.
Related 'frame' concepts have been well articulated in the research literature(e.g. Gitlin, 1980; Goffman, 19744 Hall, 1977; Hallin and Mancini, 1984).Difficulty in applying many of these concepts arises in research where it isnecessary to specify a substantive frame unit that may be employed to makecomparisons over time, issues or groups. By definition, we have selected valuesas our comparative frame unit. Perhaps closest to our value-frame conception isan analysis of the need for social movements to get people they seek to recruit toemploy the movement's issue frame (Snow et al., 1986). These researchersdiscuss those frames in similar value terms. Values, coming from a shareduniverse of discourse, are frame units that may afford comparative analysis. Asconceived in Rokeach's belief system theory (Ball-Rokeach et al., 1984), values
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
256 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
are universal symbols representing fundamental trans-situational beliefs. People,groups, and cultures are seen to vary, not in the presence or absence of thesebeliefs, but in their relative importance in hierarchically arranged terminal andinstrumental value systems. Participants in public opinion formation and change(interest groups, the media, the public, and policy-makers) may be expected toemploy the same universe of values to encode and to decode their symboliccommunications.
Analytical and observational research tasks are facilitated by the availability ofan established research tool for measurement of value-frames (The RokeachValue Survey, 1967). This tool has been employed in many experimental,survey, diagnostic, field, and content analysis studies (see: Ball-Rokeach et al.,1984, Chapter 3; Rokeach, 1973, 1979). The Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) isparticularly well-suited to analyses of the sort suggested by this paper, analysesthat require concepts and measures that apply across macro (e.g. the mediasystem, pro- and anti-abortion organizations) and micro (individuals engaged inpublic opinion) levels of analysis. In addition, the RVS can serve as a kind ofprojective test that may be contextually as well as statistically interpreted.
MEDIA VALUE-FRAMES
The media are not passive agents in the struggle to control public discourse,particularly with regard to issues, such as abortion, that entail social conflict andpublic debate. It may not be too much of an over-statement to say that the mediasystem has become the nervous system of social conflict. Their role may beconceived as both proactive and reactive. Proactive when the media seek out'newsworthy' events to cover in order to attain their organizational and corporategoals. Reactive when interest groups actively seek to attain media coverage by,for example, mounting protests (Gamson, 1975; Leahy and Mazur, 1980;Wolfsfeld, 1984) or providing an 'information subsidy' (Gandy, 1984) of pre-packaged 'stories' (press releases, background sheets, media-wise staged events,etc.).
Value-frames appear in media coverage of issues because they are powerfuland efficient tools for the organization and symbolic construction of the meaningof issues and events (stories). As shown in Figure 3, we hypothesize that therehave been changes of media value-frame with regard to the abortion issue. Wefurther hypothesize that this change was, at least in part, a consequence ofchanges in the activities of pro- and anti-abortion organizations that altered thestructure, scope, and intensity of their respective MSD relations. We do notsubscribe to the alternative hypothesis that changes in media value-frame weredue to change in public opinion about the abortion issue.
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
258 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
In Figure 4 we present hypotheses about the substance of media value-framesof the abortion issue and how they changed over time. We suggest that theabortion issue was subsumed under the larger women's rights issue during themid-1960s to early eighties period. To be pro- or anti-abortion was generallyaligned with being pro- or anti-women's rights. To be pro-women's rights, wehypothesize, was translated into a pro-Equality/pro-Freedom value-frame thatwas adopted by the media system. We suggest that the Equality/Freedom value-frame dominated public discourse; that is, pro-abortion organizations tended tolegitimate abortion, and the media, the public, and policy-makers tended todiscuss abortion as a matter of women's Equality and Freedom. Opponents ofabortion were thus open to the charge of being anti-Equality and anti-Freedomfor women. Opponents' discourse thus was devoted as much to fending off sucha challenge to their legitimacy as it was to trying to get the media system (andothers) to employ different values to characterize their anti-abortion position.Each of these hypotheses or claims is open to empirical test by, for example,systematic content analyses of the values employed by contestants, the media,policy-makers, and the public.
A challenge in the media value-frame was underway, we hypothesize, by themid-1980s. The abortion issue was partially separated from women's rights and,in the process, the abortion value-frame became more complex. Specifically, wethink that it went from being uni-dimensional (women's rights or pro- or anti-Equality and Freedom for women) to a transitional Pro-Life/Women's Rightsframe and, finally, to a bi-dimensional (Pro-Life and Pro-Choice) value-frame.We hypothesize in Figure 4 that the media system in its transition to the bi-dimensional value-frame, first adopted abortion opponents' transformation oftheir position to a Pro-Life value-frame. It seems reasonable to suppose thatanti-abortion organizations would have sought to get out from under theEquality/Freedom media value-frame. We think they did so by creating andeffectively promoting a new value-frame. That frame consisted of certainreligious and traditional family value priorities—Salvation, Obedience, andFamily Security—a value-frame that carries the implicit legitimacy of being'pro', rather, than 'and', and 'pro' values associated with family and religion(Ball-Rokeach, 1976).
In our hypothetical transition period, we think that women's rights organiza-tions held on to their Equality/Freedom value-frame, but made a subtle shift inthe relative importance of these two values. We hypothesize that contentanalyses of their public statements would show the emergence of a Freedom/Equality value-frame (an increase in the use of Freedom and a decrease in theuse of Equality). Such a shift, if it occurred, would be substantively significant,because the relative importance of Equality and Freedom in the terminal valuesystem has been shown to capture much of the difference between capitalist,
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
socialist, communist, and fascist ideologies (Rokeach, 1973).9 For presentpurposes, our hypothesized shift in the relative importance of these valuestranslates to a move away from the socialist emphasis upon Equality and a movetoward the capitalist emphasis upon Freedom.
In the bi-dimensional form, the anti-abortion position became Pro-Life andthe pro-abortion position became Pro-Choice. These labels signify completionof a process of separating abortion from the women's rights value-frame. ThePro-Choice label, itself, connotes the increased emphasis upon Freedom relativeto Equality. The emergence of two 'pro' positions seems understandable as itpermits organizations to positively espouse their view of morality, albeit alongdifferent dimensions. While our estimates of the timing and the nature ofhypothesized shifts in media value-frames (Figure 4) are informed by theliterature (e.g. Luker, 1984), their accuracy can only be established by futureresearch.
T H E SPECIFIC QUESTIONS ADDRESSED FROM A MSD PERSPECTIVE
Two of the questions raised by the foregoing discussion are: (1) Why did the'women's rights' value-frame lose exclusivity or why did anti-abortion organiza-tions succeed in getting the media system to adopt its new Pro-Life value-frame?and (2) Why did the media value-frame of the abortion issue became morecomplex, from the uni-dimensional women's rights frame to the bi-dimensionalPro-Life versus Pro-Choice value-frame? The first question concerns the changehypothesized in Figure 4 from the dominant media value-frame of the mid-sixties to early eighties period to the transition (mid-eighties) media value-frame,and the second question concerns the change in media value-frame from thetransition period to the late eighties period. In our discussion, we emphasize thefirst of these two questions because the elements hypothesized to account for thefirst change are conceived to carry forward in time to contribute heavily to thesecond change. The factors that we consider for present purposes are summar-ized in Table i.
CHANGE IN THE ECOLOGY OF MSD RELATIONS
The ecology of MSD relations (Table I.I) is hypothesized to have created'structurally conducive' (Smelser, 1962) conditions for organizational levelMSD relations to have any effect at all upon the media value-frame. Macro
' This is the basic premise of the 'two-value model of politics' (Rokeach, 1973) that has received cross-natioiu] empirical support (e.g. Block, 1984; Searing, 1978; Tetloct, 1986).
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
1. Pro: More asymmetry Decrease — Narrowed —2. And: Less asymmetry Increase Increase Broadened —
system MSD relations did not seem to constrain the media system in either apro- or anti-abortion direction. Abortion, differs in this way from the 'new left'issues analyzed by Gitlin (1980). 'New left' organizations were not only upagainst opposition from other organizations, but also up against the two socialsystems with which the media system is conceived to have symmetrical relations;the political and economic systems whose resources are as necessary to theattainment of media goals as media resources are to the attainment of politicaland economic system goals. The ecology of MSD relations was not conducive to'new left' organizations in the United States. Specifically, their organizationalefforts to change media and public value-frames of political discourse activatedmedia system relations with the political and economic systems in such a way asto place the goal attainment activities of the media system at risk. We conjecturethat the abortion issue per se did not activate these symmetric MSD relationsbecause neither the resources nor the goals of political and economic systemswere directly challenged. To the extent there was an indirect challenge, it would
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
seem to have come from the Women's Rights value-frame. We suggest, below,that even this indirect challenge was defused by changes in the social environs.
The one system-level MSD relation that would seem most directly implicatedby the abortion issue is with the religious system. The media-religious systemrelation is conceived to be asymmetric, with media resources more implicated inreligious system goal attainment than the other way around. Such asymmetry,plus the schisms within the religious system about the morality of abortion,lessened the capacity of the religious system to constrain media value-framing ofabortion. It is in this sense that we hypothesize that the political, economic, andreligious system relations with the media were conducive to development ofMSD relations with pro- or anti-abortion organizations that could effect changesin media value-frames.
CHANGE IN THE SOCIAL ENVIRONS
Of the characteristics of the social environs that are generally conceived to affectthe nature of MSD relations (Ball-Rokeach, 1985), three are particularlyrelevant here. As identified in (Table 1.11), they are the theme and rate of (1)change and (2) conflict, and (3) change in content themes that dominate mediadiscourse. Organizations promoting value-frames that flow with the tide, orreflect the tenor of their time, are probably in a better position to affect media-value-framing. Comparing the 1980s with the sixties and seventies, we hypothe-size that the rate, and more important, the themes of change and conflict weremore conducive to the strengthening of MSD relations with and- than with pro-abortion organizations. There was, for example, a decline in the relativeimportance of Equality in the terminal value system of Americans. Out of 18terminal values, Equality was ranked twelfth most important in 1981 comparedto fourth in importance a decade earlier (Rokeach and Ball-Rokeach, 1989). Thisconsiderable drop in importance may have been related to a larger decline ofEquality-oriented social movement activity, and in Equality-based media value-frames. For example, the term, liberal, to describe people and their politicsbecame known as the 'L' word, a stigma for politicians of the eighties. Weinterpret this development as a coded move away from, among other things, thepursuit of Equality as a relevant end state in public discourse. The tenor of thistime, when the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the US constitution wasdefeated (early eighties) may have afforded a more conducive environment forthe emergence of an anti-abortion Pro-Life value-frame; that is, more conducivethan in the sixties and seventies when civil rights movements and conflictsgenerated more media attention to issues framed in Equality/Freedom terms.
The rate of change and conflict is also important. The rate of conflict wouldseem particularly important to this case. Open conflicts about issues of contested
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
262 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
legitimacy tend to be 'morality plays' that are particularly attractive resourcematerial for the media system (Ball-Rokeach and Tallman, 1979; Gamson et al.,1982; Snow et al., 1986). When there are many morality plays going on at once,organizations have a more difficult job of winning media coverage than whenthere are few competing attractions. We believe this was the situation in the1980s (Ball-Rokeach and Short, 1985) when anti-abortion organizations wereengaged in open and dramatic conflict (e.g. abortion clinic protests). In contrast,pro-abortion activities of women's rights organizations tended to decline after1
the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in 1973. Whilethere may have been a sustained effort to work within less dramatic legal andpolitical spheres, pro-abortion expressions and organizations seemed quiescentin the early to mid-eighties.
CHANGE IN ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS AND RESOURCES
Changes in the goals and resources of both pro- and anti-abortion organizationsare hypothesized (Table i.m). The goals and resources of the women's rightsorganizations that constituted the pro-abortion forces became less and lessfocused upon abortion due to its legalization in 1973 and to the rise of manyother economic and legal issues pressing for their place on the women's rightsagenda (Staggenborg, 1988). The fact that abortion became only one of manywomen's rights issues, combined with the depletion of organizational resourcesrequired to pursue increasingly complex goals, seems to have provided anopening for abortion opponents. The 1973 Supreme Court decision, moreover,provided a specific focus around which largely single-issue anti-abortionorganizations could solidify, namely, to overturn the Court's decision.
We suggest that resource creation as well as resource mobilization occurred.The construction of a symbolically powerful value-frame is a particularlyimportant example of resource creation. The Pro-Life value-frame seemsespecially robust because it not only removed abortion opponents from beinganti-women's rights, but also implicitly placed pro-abortion organizations on thesymbolic defensive as anti-Life. The Pro-Life frame is also important for itsdramatic appeal, particularly to the media system. Snow et al. (1986), in theirdiscussion of mobilization of participation, make a convincing argument for theimportance of 'frame alignment' or convergence of the ways in which move-ments and their potential participants define the issue. These researchers alsospeak of 'frame-transformation', a compatible way to describe the transitionfrom an ineffectual anti-women's rights or anti-abortion label to the Pro-Lifevalue-frame. Powerful value-frames also seem to guide movement leaders intheir efforts to create dramatic collective actions that maximize the chance ofmedia coverage. The values of Salvation, Obedience, and Family Security coded
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
in the Pro-Life label, for example, may have guided anti-abortion organizations.They employed many religious symbols and the participation of families inprotest activities was highly visible.
The subtle 'transformation' from a women's rights frame that emphasizedEquality to a frame emphasizing Freedom, the Freedom/Equality transitionvalue-frame of the mid-eighties, may have reflected what we have described asthe tenor of the times. It was not, however, a symbolically powerful counter tothe Pro-Life frame. In its emphasis upon the Freedom of women, the primaryparticipants in pro-abortion protests, it does not effectively counter the implicitanti-Life charge, nor the charge that proponents put their own interests abovethose of the unborn. Thus, while many observers have noted the importance ofmobilizing organizational resources to capture media attention (e.g. Ball-Rokeach and Tallman, 1979; Gamson, 1975; McCarthy and Zald, 1977;Wolfsfeld, 1984, 1988), we focus particularly upon the creation of effectivevalue-frames as a resource that has far-reaching consequences. Maximumutilization of media resources comes when organizations can go beyond mediaattention to affect the media value-framing of the issue and its proponents andopponents. We suggest that the respective changes in the goals and resources ofpro- and anti-abortion organizations produced changes in the nature of theirMSD relations, changes that culminated in media adoption of the anti-abortionvalue-frame during the transition period.
CHANGE IN THE CHARACTERISTICS OF MSD RELATIONS:
CONSEQUENCES FOR THE MEDIA VALUE-FRAME
For present purposes, we assume that media system goals and resources did notchange during this period, and, therefore could not be the source of change inMSD relations. Change in these relations is, thus, hypothesized to be a functionof change in the goals and resources of abortion organizations, as discussedabove. The anti-abortion organization's MSD relation (Table I.IV) became lessasymmetric, more intense, and broader in both resource and substantive scope.It became less asymmetric in the sense that anti-abortion organization resources(e.g. active protest and powerful symbols) became more implicated in the mediasystem's goal attainment (e.g. getting an attentive audience) than they had beenprior to the eighties and prior to the creation of the Pro-Life value-frame. Oneanti-abortion organization, for example, bombed abortion clinics while othersthrust a bottled human fetus in the face of women entering an abortion clinic.The relation became more intense in that the media system became a moreimportant, if not the most important, communication vehicle of anti-abortionorganizations. The hypothesized increase in resource scope occurred when and-
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
264 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
abortion organizations expanded their access to media information resources togo beyond sheer coverage (gathering) and transmission of stories (dissemination)to having an effect upon processing (i.e. affecting the media value-frame).Substantive scope increased to the extent that these organizations came to viewmedia resources as necessary to an increasing number of their organizationalgoals. For example, the goal of publicizing organizational positions may haveexpanded to include the more complex goal of legitimizing those positions. Suchlegitimacy construction would begin with the media system adopting theorganization's value-frame as its dominant issue value-frame.
At the same time as the hypothesized changes in the MSD relations of anti-abortion organizations, pro-abortion organizations' MSD relations became moreasymmetric, less intense, and narrowed in substantive scope. They became moreasymmetric because these organizations left the center stage of dramatic publicprotest, thus becoming less newsworthy and less implicated in media system goalattainment. They became less intense because these organizations were evidentlydevoting more of their energies to non-media strategies of influence, such aslobbying congress and going to court. They became narrower in substantivescope because their attention turned to goals that could be attained withoutaccess to media system resources (e.g. enforcement of equal employment laws).They had, by virtue of their success in winning the Roe v. Wade Supreme Courtdecision, become more administrative (Staggenborg, 1988) or institutionalized(Turner and Killian, 1972) in their goals and activities (e.g. seeking passage ofthe ERA largely through 'regular' channels). During the mid-eighties transitionperiod, then, we hypothesize that the MSD relations of both pro- and anti-abortion organizations changed. They changed in a direction that made it morelikely that anti-abortion, and less likely that pro-abortion, organizations couldeffect changes in the media value-frame.
EMERGENCE OF THE P R O - L I F E / P R O - C H O I C E MEDIA VALUE-FRAME
The hypothesized processes that we have suggested as culminating in thedominance of a Pro-Life media value-frame in the mid-eighties gave impetus tore-activation of public protest by pro-abortion organizations. Part of such re-activation, we think, was the creation of the Pro-Choice counter to Pro-Life. Webelieve that this process was underway before the Supreme Court becamedominated by Reagan appointees who were selected in significant part for theiranti-abortion views. It remains for the future and future research to assess theimpacts of the 1989 Webster and other Supreme Court decisions that portend asubstantial weakening, if not reversal, of the Roe v. Wade decision to legalizeabortion. Our aim is limited to a brief accounting of changes in the MSDrelations of pro-abortion organizations that may be hypothesized in relation to
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
the media system's adoption of the Pro-Choice label. This is not a fundamentalchange, as we have argued that the Freedom/Equality value-frame was de-veloped in the transition period. The change is thus in the label employed tosignify this value-frame, a change from Women's Rights to Pro-Choice.
We account for this change largely in terms of a return to the high prioritygiven to the abortion issue before its legalization in 1973. More specifically, wesuggest that the contest for legitimacy was not going well for pro-abortionorganizations. Whereas they had once had the moral high ground, theirweakened MSD relations combined with the stronger MSD relations that haddeveloped with anti-abortion organizations, placed them in the uncomfortableposition of having to defensively respond within the confines of the Pro-Lifemedia value-frame. We suggest that the Pro-Choice label was constructed as alogical counterpart to Pro-Life. As such, it indicates the dominance of the Pro-Life value-frame, dominance even over the symbolic activities of the newlyawakened pro-abortion organizations. Nonetheless, a counter to the Pro-Lifevalue-frame was needed. The Pro-Choice label came to be incorporated,creating the bi-dimensional Pro-Life/Pro-Choice media value-frame, throughthe same basic process that was hypothesized to account for the prior mediavalue-frame change (from dominance of women's rights to dominance of Pro-Life). We think that the MSD relations of pro-abortion organizations subse-quently became less asymmetric, more intense, and broader in substantive scopedue largely to the successful re-entry of these organizations into the publicprotest arena.
This change in MSD relations could not re-establish the same degree ofcontrol that pro-abortion organizations had over the media value-frame in themid-sixties to early eighties period. The most important reason why suchdominance could not be re-established bears upon one important differencebetween the MSD approach and what are commonly called resource mobiliza-tion approaches (e.g. Gamson, 1975, Gamson et al., 1982; McCarthy and Zald,1977; Wolfsfeld, 1984, 1988). As we have attempted to illustrate, the mediasystem-abortion organization relation is embedded within a social environs andan ecology of MSD relations that may constrain and/or be conducive toorganizations having effects upon media behavior. Earlier in this paper, wediscussed conduciveness with respect to organizations in general, and, morespecifically, with respect to anti-abortion organizations. We now suggest thatthere are constraining effects limiting the capacity of pro-abortion organizationsof the late-eighties to alter the media value-frame and, thus, to improve theirchances of winning the contest for legitimacy.
We now supplement our previous discussion of conducive or constrainingecological and environmental factors to include media content themes as anothersource of environmental constraint upon the effectiveness of Pro-Choice
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
266 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
organizations in the late eighties. If we are correct in our claim that Pro-Lifebecame the dominant media value-frame during what we have called thetransition period, then this historical event could, itself, have lasting conse-quences. Once a value-frame adopted by the media has been integrated into alarger content theme (e.g. the ethics and dilemmas posed by medical tech-nology), it will probably be very resistant to change. This is because the value-frame has become more than a way for the media to efficiently communicate oneissue; it has become structurally connected to the communication of a larger setof issues. We suspect this has happened with respect to the Pro-Life value-frameand bio-medical issues. Add to this the continued active presence of anti-abortion organizations with MSD relations that are at least as strong as those ofthe newly awakened pro-abortion organizations, and it seems reasonable toconclude that pro-abortion organizations can do little more than elaborate themedia value-frame in the way that they have; that is, adding the reactive Pro-Choice to the proactive Pro-Life value-frame. It may be that efforts to dislodgethis bi-dimensional media value-frame will not be successful unless and untilthere is change in the rate and themes of social conflict in the larger socialenvirons.
DISCUSSION
Our analysis has focused upon organizational MSD relations, the ecological andenvironmental factors that affect them, and their consequences for media value-framing behavior. We suggested (Figure 3) that public opinion, per se, does notdetermine the media issue value-frame or its change. We did not, however,elaborate our reasons for ruling out this alternative hypothesis. These reasonscan be summarized by saying that the public, as conventionally treated in surveyresearch, is not an actor comparable to an organization. It is an aggregate ofindividuals who share a common issue focus. As such, the public reduces to theindividual level of analysis. As discussed early in this paper, individuals areconceived to have MSD relations that are most unlikely to affect media systemactivity in general, and media system value-frames ih particular (i.e. highlyasymmetric MSD relations of variable intensity, low resource scope, andvariable substantive and media scope). While aggregation via data analysis ofpoll results may elevate the potential for 'consumer' publics to affect mediaprogramming decisions, it is, we think, less clear that public opinion or trends inpublic opinion will similarly enhance 'public' impact on media news construc-tion. Social and political issue publics, as communicated by survey researchersor media organizations, are not entities that can establish MSD relations.
Lacking MSD relations, it could be argued that publics have effects becausemedia decision-makers pay special attention to their own polls. When the media
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
system creates and processes its own polls, however, it is employing itsgathering, creating, processing, and dissemination information resources tocreate publics and to control, in some sense, public opinion. When, for example,actors within the media system decide what questions will be asked, how theywill be 'value-framed', and how they may be responded to, then the mediasystem is participating quite literally in the creation of public opinion. Probablythe most analyzed form of such construction activity by the media system is theelection poll (e.g. Paletz and Entman, 1981). From the present point of view, wesee such media construction activity as an important part of the media systemparticipation in the value-framing of public discourse. A question for futureresearch might be: Is public opinion technology employed by the media systemin such a way as to create the value-frames of public discourse and social conflict,thereby creating its own 'news' (Cohen and Young, 1973; Gans, 1979; Graber,1980; Lang and Lang, 1983; Roscho, 1975; Tuchman, 1978).
In any case, publics, however created, have relatively little independentcapacity to affect media value-framing behavior. In the particular case ofabortion, we can identify another reason why public opinion is not likely to playa role in media value-framing of the abortion issue. Figure 5 shows percentageagreement with two attitude-statements: 'It should be possible for a pregnantwoman to obtain a legal abortion if she is married and does not want any more
FIGURE 5
100 r-
90
80
70
60
I 50
40
30
20
10
0 I I I I I I I I I I I I
Year
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
268 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
children' and 'It should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legalabortion if the woman wants it for any reason'; data gathered in the NORCGeneral Social Survey between 1972 and 1989 at 15 and 10 points in time foreach item, respectively. For present purposes, the slight variations in agreementthat occurred are not very interesting, but the relatively flat nature of the timeseries is interesting for at least two reasons. First, the absence of wide variationsin response suggests that public opinion about the abortion issue did not vary toa sufficient extent to be able to account for our hypothesized changes in mediavalue-frames. Second, the data suggest the tenability of our characterization ofthe abortion issue as an issue of contested legitimacy. This is because neitherpro-abortion nor anti-abortion positions are consensually endorsed. Dissensus isone of the more notable features of these data as, at no time period, do weobserve a clear majority on either side of the issue.
From the point of view of abortion organizations chronically so close and yetso far from garnering a convincing majority in their 'battle for public opinion'(Lang and Lang, 1983), the slight variations shown in Figure 5 may be veryimportant considerations. Similarly, slight variations in percentage agreementare potentially important consequences of changes in media value-framingbehavior. The logic of MSD theory would suggest that the micro-level activitiesand opinions of members of the public should not be expected to be determi-nants, but should be expected to be consequences of media value-framingbehavior. Probably the most sensitive dependent variable to test in futureresearch in this regard would be the issue-value-frames employed by members ofthe public, a variable that should be highly correlated with their expressions ofagreement or disagreement with issue positions.
The Figure 5 data are not clearly consistent or inconsistent with what wemight have hypothesized had we focused our analysis on the question of theconsequences, rather than the determinants, of organizational MSD relations.Without going into questions about the lag time of such consequences, we wouldlogically expect fluctuations in attitude to occur after a change in media value-frame. In the present case, we do not pretend to have the kind of evidence thatone would need to specify in more than crude terms the timing of ourhypothesized media value-frame changes. Nonetheless, we hope that we havepresented an argument and a way of formulating hypotheses that may contributeto future research on the media system and its pivotal role in the constructionand communication of contested legitimacy issues and the consequences of suchfor the organizations involved and for public opinion.
REFERENCES
Aydin, C. E., Ball-Rokeach, S. J. and Reardon, K. K. (1990): Mass media resources for
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
social comparison among breast cancer patients. Unpublished manuscript. Annen-berg School For Communication, University of Southern California.
Bachrach, P. and Baratz, M. S. (1962): 'Two faces of power'. American Political ScienceReview, 51, 947-52.
Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1974): The information perspective. Paper presented at the AnnualMeeting of the American Sociological Association, Montreal.
Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1976): 'Receptivity to sexual equality', Pacific Sociological Review,19, 519-40.
Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1985): 'The origins of individual media system dependency: Asociological framework', Communication Research, 12, 485—510.
Ball-Rokeach, S. J. and Cantor, M. G. (eds.) (1986): Media, audience, and social structure,Newbury Park, Sage.
Ball-Rokeach, S. J. and DeFleur, M. L. (1976): 'A dependency model of mass mediaeffects', Communication Research, 3, 3—21.
Ball-Rokeach, S. J. and Grant, A. E. (forthcoming): Media dependency relations: Analternative measure of individuals' media use. Paper to be presented at the AnnualMeeting of The International Society for Political Psychology. Washington, DC (July,1990).
Ball-Rokeach, S. J. and Rokeach, M. (1987): 'Contribution to the future study of publicopinion: A symposium', Public Opinion Quarterly, 51, 184—5.
Ball-Rokeach, S. J., Rokeach, M. and Grube, J. W. (1984): The Great American ValuesTest: Influencing behavior and belief through television, New York, Free Press.
Ball-Rokeach, S. J. and Short, J. F., Jr. (1985): 'Collective violence: The redress ofgrievance and public policy'. In L. A. Curtis (ed.), American Violence and PublicPolicy, Hartford, Yake University Press.
Ball-Rokeach, S. J. and Tallman, I. (1979): 'Social movements as moral confrontations:With special reference to civil rights'. In M. Rokeach (ed.), Understanding humanvalues: Individual and societal, New York, Free Press, pp. 82-94.
Berger, J., Zelditch, M., Jr., and Anderson, B. (eds.) (1972): Sociological theories inprogress, Vol. 2, New York, Houghton Mifflin.
Block, E. (1984): 'Freedom, equality, etcetera: Values and valuations in the Swedishdomestic political debate, 1945-1975'. In G. Melischek, K. E. Rosengren and J.Staples (eds.), Cultural indicators: An international symposium, Vienna, Akademie derWissenschaften, pp. 159—76.
Blumler, J. G. and Katz, E. (eds.) (1974): The uses of mass communication: Currentperspective on gratifications research, Beverly Hills, CA, Sage.
Blumler, J. G. and Gurevitch, M. (1979): 'Politicians and the press: An essay on rolerelationships'. In D. D. Nimmo and K. R. Sanders (eds.), Handbook of PoliticalCommunication, Beverly Hills, CA, Sage, pp. 467—93.
Cantor, M. G. (1971): The Hollywood TV producer: His work and his audience, NewYork, Basic Books.
Cantor, M. G. (1980): Prime-time television, Beverly Hills, CA, Sage.Clarke, P. and Evans, S. (1983): Covering campaigns: Journalism in congressional elections,
Stanford, Stanford University Press.
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
27O INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
Cohen, S. and Young, J. (1973): The manufacture of news: Deviance, social problems andthe mass media, London, Constable.
Collins, R. (1975): Conflict sociology: Toward an explanatory science, New York,Academic.
Colman, W. (1990): Health moves to prime-time: Evaluating the impact of a prime-timetelevision movie of the week on viewers' content relevant health beliefs. DoctoralDissertation, University of California, Loss Angeles.
Cook, K. S. (ed.) (1987): Social exchange theory, Newbury Park, CA, Sage.Curran, J., Gurevitch, M. and Woollacott, Jr. (eds.) (1977): Mass communication and
society, Beverly Hills, CA, Sage.Curtis, L. A. (ed.) (1985): American violence and public policy, Hartford, Yale University Press.DeFleur, M. L. and Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1988): Theories of mass communication, 5th edn.,
New York, Longman.Emerson, R. M. (1962): 'Power-dependence relations', American Sociological Review, 27,
3i-4i-Emerson, R. M. (1972): 'Exchange theory, part II: Exchange relations and network
structures'. In J. Berger, M. Zelditch, Jr., and B. Anderson (eds.), Sociological theoriesin progress, Vol. 2, New York, Houghton Mifflin, pp. 58-87.
Forester, J. (ed.) (1985): Critical theory and public life, Cambridge, MA, MITPress.
Gamson, W. A. (1975): The strategy of social protest, Homewood, IL, Dorsey.Gamson, W. A., Fireman, B. and Rytina, S. (1982): Encounters with unjust authority,
Homewood, IL, Dorsey.Gandy, O. (1984): Beyond agenda-setting, Norwood, NJ, Ablex.Gans, H. J. (1979): Deciding what's news: A study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly
News, Newsweek and Time, New York, Pantheon.Gitlin, T. (1980): The whole world is watching: Mass media in the making and unmaking of
the New Left, Berkeley, University of California Press.Gitlin, T. (1981)): 'The new crusades: How the fundamentalists tied up the networks',
American Film, 7.Goffman, E. (1974): Frame analysis, Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania Press.Gouldner, A. W. (1976): The dialectic of ideology and technology, New York, Seabury.Graber, D. A. (1980): Mass media and American politics, Washington, DC, Congressional
Quarterly Press.Grant, A. E., Guthrie, K. K. and Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1989): Media system dependency
theory, television shopping, and television shoppers: Theoretical significance andempirical test. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Communi-cation Association, New Orleans.
Guthrie, K. K. (1989): Mass media and the competition to control value-frames.Predissertation paper. Annenberg School for Communication, University of SouthernCalifornia.
Hall, S. (1977): 'Culture, the media, and the "ideological effect"'. In J. Curran, M.Gurevitch, and J. Woollacott (eds.), Mass communication and society, Beverly Hills,CA, Sage.
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
Hall, S. (1981): 'Encoding/decoding'. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe and P. Willis(eds.), Culture, media, language, London, Hutchinson.
Hall, S., Hobson, D., Lowe, A. and Willis, P. (eds.) (1081): Culture, media, language,London, Hutchinson.
Hallin, D. C. (1985): The American news media: A critical theory perspective. In J.Forester (ed.), Critical theory and public life, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Hallin, D. C. and Mancini, P. (1984): 'Speaking of the president: Political structure andrepresentational form in US and Italian television news', Theory and Society, 13,820-50.
Iyengar, S. and Kinder, D. R. (1987): Nems that matters: Television and American opinionChicago, IL, University of Chicago Press.
Katz, E., Gurevitch, M. and Hass, H. (1973): 'On the use of the media for importantthings', American Sociological Review, 38, 164-81.
Lang, G. E. and Lang, K. (1983): The battle for public opinion: The president, the press,and polls during Watergate, New York, Columbia University Press.
Lang, K. and Lang, G. E. (1968): Politics and television, New York, Quadrangle.Leahy, P. J. and Mazur, A. (1980): 'The rise and fall of public opposition in specific
social movements', Social Studies of Science, 10, 259-284.Lippmann, W. (1922): Public opinion, New York, Harcourt.Loges, W. E. (forthcoming): The effect of dependency relations on newspaper reader-
ship: Theoretical consideration and empirical test. Paper to be presented at theAnnual Meeting of The American Sociological Association, Washington, DC, August,1990.
Luker, K. (1984): Abortion and the politics of motherhood, Berkeley, CA, University ofCalifornia Press.
Lynd, R. and Lynd, H. M. (1929): Middletoam: A study in contemporary Americanculture, New York, Harcourt Brace.
McCarthy, J. and Zald, M. (1977): 'Resource mobilization and social movements: Apartial theory', American Journal of Sociology, 82, 1212-41.
Melischek, G., Rosengren, K. E. and Staples, J., (eds.) (1984): Cultural indicators: Aninternational symposium, Vienna, Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Merton, R. K., Broom, L., and Cottrell, L. S., Jr. (eds.) (1962): Sociology today, NewYork, Basic Books.
Mollotch, H. and Lester, M. (1974): 'News as purposive behavior: On the strategicuse of routine events, accidents, and scandals', American Sociological Review, 39,101-12.
Noelle-Neuman, E. (1974): 'The spiral of silence: A theory of public opinion', Journal ofCommunication, 24, 43—51.
Ogburn, W. F. (1933): Recent trends in the United States: Report of the President'sresearch committee on social trends, New York, McGraw-Hill.
Ogburn, W. F. and Gilfillan, S. C. (1933): 'The influence of invention and discovery'. InW. F. Ogburn (ed.), Recent trends in the United States: Report of the President'sresearch committee on social trends, New York, McGraw-Hill, pp. 122-66.
Paletz, D. L. and Entman, R. M. (1981): Media, power, politics, New York, Free Press.
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
272 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
Palmgreen, P., Wenner, L. A. and Rosengren, K. E. (1985): 'Uses and gratificationsresearch: The last ten years'. In K. E. Rosengren, L. A. Wenner and P. Palmgreen(eds.), Media gratifications research: Current perspectives, Beverly Hills, CA, Sage.
Park, R. E. (1922): The immigrant press and its control, New York, Harper.Power, G. J. and Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1989): A media system dependency approach to
the AIDS epidemic. Unpublished paper. Annenberg School for Communication,University of Southern California.
Riley, J. W., Jr. and Riley, M. W. (1962): 'Mass communication and the social system'.In R. K. Merton, L. Broom and L. S. Cottrell, Jr. (eds.), Sociology Today, New York,Basic Books, pp. 537-78.
Rokeach, M. (1967): Value Survey, Palo Alto, CA, Consulting Psychologists Press.Rokeach, M. (1973): The nature of human values, New York, Free Press.Rokeach M. (ed.) (1979): Understanding human values: Individual and societal, New
York, Free Press.Rokeach, M. and BaJl-Rokeach, S. J. (1989): 'Stability and change in American value
priorities, 1968—1981', American Psychologist, 44, 776-84.Rosengren, K. E., Wenner, L. A. and Palmgreen, P. (eds.) (1985): Media gratifications
research: Current perspectives, Beverly Hills, CA, Sage.Roshco, B. (1975): Nemsmaking, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.Rubin, A. and Windahl, S. (1986): 'The uses and dependency model of mass
communication', Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 3, 184-99.Searing, D. D. (1978): 'Measuring politicians: Administration and assessment of a
ranking technique in the British House of Commons', American Political ScienceReview, 72, 65—79.
Shaw, D. and McCombs, M. (1977): The emergence of American political issues: Theagenda-setting function of the press, St. Paul, MN, West.
Smelser, N. J. (1962): The theory of collective bahavior, New York, Free Press.Snow, D. A., Rochford, E. B., Jr., Worden, S. K. and Benford, R. D. (1986): 'Frame
alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation', AmericanSociological Review, 51, 464-81.
Staggenborg, S. (1988): 'The consequences of professionalization and formalization inthe pro-choice movement', American Sociological Review, 53, 585-606.
Strodhoff, G. C , Hawkins, R. P. and Schoenfeld, A. C. (1985): 'Media roles in a socialmovement: A model of ideology diffusion'', Journal of 'Communication, Spring, 134-53.
Tetlock, P. E. (1986): 'A value pluralism model of ideological reasoning', Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 50, 819—27.
Tuchman, G. (1978): Making news: A study in the construction of reality, New York, FreePress.
Turner, R. H. and Killian L. M. (1972): Collective behavior, Englewood Cliffs, NJ,Prentice Hall.
Turner, R. H. and Paz, D. H. (1986): 'The mass media in earthquake warning'. In S. J.Ball-Rokeach and M. G. Cantor (eds.), Media, audience, and social structure, NewburyPark, CA, Sage, pp. 99-115.
Waring, H. R. (forthcoming): Examining the relationship between mass media and
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
group identity. Paper to be presented at the Annual Meeting of The AmericanSociological Association, Washington, DC, August, 1990.
Wiley, M. M. and Rice, S. A. (1933): 'The agencies of communication.' In W. F.Ogburn (ed.), Recent trends in the United States: Report of the President's researchcommittee on social trends, New York, McGraw-Hill, pp. 167—217.
Wolfsfeld, G. (1984): 'Symbiosis of press and protest: An exchange analysis', JournalismQuarterly, 61, 550-5 and 742.
Wolfsfeld, G. (1988): The politics of provocation: Participation and protest in Israel,Albany, NY, State University of New York Press.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach is a professor of communications and sociology at theUniversity of Southern California and a principal investigator with the InjuryPrevention Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles.
Gerard J. Power is a doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School ForCommunication at the University of Southern California. He is currentlyworking on his dissertation, entitled, 'Mass Communication of Otherness andIdentification: Representations of Homeless People in the US Mass Media'.
K. Kendall Guthrie is a doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School ForCommunication at the University of Southern California. Her research interestsinclude telecommunication policy, political communication and mass mediaresearch.
Ross Waring is a doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School For Communica-tion at the University of Southern California. His interests include social-psychological implications of contemporary mass media. His most recentresearch examines individuals' use of several mass media to define and supporttheir sense of group identity.
at San Diego State U
niversity on January 17, 2012http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/
