Strengthening Qualitative Research Through Methodological Innovation and Integration: A New Approach to Understanding Social Movement Organizations

PI：Edwin Amenta标题：通过方法创新和整合加强定性研究：理解社会运动组织的新途径SES-0752571项目摘要要了解社会变化和弱势群体的政治，需要了解社会运动组织及其媒体报道。运动组织为寻求社会变革、帮助构建政治身份和利益以及促进集体公民参与提供了关键资源，学者们一致认为，大众新闻媒体的关注对挑战者的斗争至关重要，是他们影响力的标志。但是，关于运动组织在运动和时间上的兴衰和持久性的任何方面，都没有很大的经验图景。为了填补这一重大空白，调查人员提议收集自19世纪90年代民粹主义运动以来，全国性报纸--《纽约时报》、《华盛顿邮报》、《芝加哥论坛报》和《洛杉矶时报》--提到美国运动组织的文章的新数据。这些数据现在可以通过ProQuest历史报刊获得，并将以电子方式收集。这些数据将使研究人员能够解决有关运动组织和家庭的几个基本问题：自19世纪90年代以来，哪些美国运动组织和家庭获得了最多的报纸报道？他们是运动学者会引领我们期待的人吗？随着时间的推移，整体和跨运动的覆盖率有何变化？与运动组织规模或活动的标准、有限的衡量标准相比，如组织密度、成员资格、资源调动和抗议活动，覆盖面如何？在对运动组织的报道中是否存在类似于围绕抗议活动报道的偏见的系统性偏见？覆盖率数字是否可以部分替代不易生成的数据？报道的历史轨迹与社会运动的主要理论是否一致？研究人员将通过方法创新和整合来解决这些问题并评估主要的运动理论：通过综合历史调查、形式定性分析和时间序列回归。该项目最重要的影响之一将是对一个多世纪以来在公众意识中留下最大印记的运动和组织的首次长期测绘。运动组织的这一宏大图景将引起普通公众和政策制定者的极大兴趣。该项目还将通过与禁酒令、劳工和民权运动等过去的运动进行比较，促进对当今社会运动的更多了解，如环境运动、女权主义运动和基督教右翼运动。该项目还将促进社会理论、方法整合和研究生培养。

PI: Edwin AmentaTitle: Strengthening Qualitative Research Through Methodological Innovation and Integration: A New Approach to Understanding Social Movement OrganizationsSES-0752571Project AbstractTo understand social change and the politics of the disadvantaged one needs to understand social movement organizations and their media coverage. Movement organizations provide critical resources to seek social change, help to construct political identities and interests, and spur collective civic engagement, and scholars agree that the attention of the mass news media is critical to the struggles of challengers and is a mark of their influence. But there is no big empirical picture of any aspect of the rise, decline, and persistence of movement organizations across movements and over time. To fill this major gap, the investigators propose to collect new data on articles in which U.S. movement organizations were mentioned in national newspapers--the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times, since the populist movement of the 1890s. These data are now available through ProQuest Historical Newspapers and will be collected electronically. These data will allow the researchers to address several fundamental questions about movement organizations and families: Which U.S. movement organizations and families have received the greatest newspaper coverage since the 1890s? Are they the ones that movement scholarship would lead us to expect? How has coverage changed over time overall and across movements? How does coverage compare to standard, limited measures of movement organizational scale or activity, such as organizational density, membership, resource mobilization, and protest events? Are there systematic biases in coverage of movement organizations similar to the biases surrounding the coverage of protest events? Can coverage figures serve as a partial substitute for data much less easily generated? Are the historical trajectories of coverage consistent with the main theories of social movements? The investigators will address these questions and assess the main theories of movements through methodological innovation and integration: by synthesizing historical investigation, formal qualitative analyses, and time-series regression. One of the most important impacts of the project will be the first long-term mapping of the movements and organizations that have made the greatest imprints on the public consciousness over more than a century. This big picture of movement organizations will be of considerable interest to the general public and policymakers. The project will also promote greater understanding of today's social movements, such as the environmental, feminist, and Christian right movements through a comparison with past movements such as the prohibition, labor, and civil rights movements. The project will also advance social theory, methodological integration, and training of graduate students.