Strengthening Qualitative Research Through Methodological Innovation and Integration: Understanding Social Movement Organizations and Media Coverage

要了解社会运动和弱势群体的政治，就需要了解社会运动组织和政治倡导组织（SMOs是两者的缩写）以及它们的媒体报道。学者们认为，SMOs提供了寻求社会变革的关键资源，有助于构建政治身份和利益，并为公民参与提供了场所。同样，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。获得报道也是SMOs影响力的一个标志——衡量他们是否成功地被视为他们声称代表的团体或事业的合法代言人——并增加了他们的支持。然而，在各种运动和报纸中，并没有关于SMOs的兴起、衰落和持续的大的经验图片。尽管报纸的报道可能是唯一可以在许多运动和很长一段时间内分析影响的衡量标准。为了填补这一主要空白，PI将收集自19世纪90年代以来在《纽约时报》、《华盛顿邮报》、《芝加哥论坛报》和《洛杉矶时报》等全国性报纸上提到美国所有SMOs的文章的新数据。然后，PI将使用这些数据来解决有关SMOs和运动家族的几个基本问题：美国哪些SMOs和相关运动家族在本世纪获得了最大的报纸报道？他们是运动奖学金让我们期待的那种人吗？随着时间的推移，整个运动的覆盖率是如何变化的？与标准的、有限的SMO规模或活动（如组织密度、成员、资源动员或抗议事件）相比，覆盖率如何？报道的历史轨迹是否与社会运动的主要理论一致，包括资源动员、新社会运动和政治过程/抗议周期理论？这些理论和其他理论能否预测SMOs获得的地位及其在报道中的可见度或位置？PI将通过历史调查、正式定性分析和时间序列回归分析来评估这些理论模型。在这样做的过程中，PI试图重振正式定性分析的使用，以及评估和发展社会运动理论。更广泛的影响该项目将提供美国SMOs和运动的第一个长期地图，以及他们的报纸报道的质量。该项目建立在主要的全国性报纸上关于社会运动组织的媒体报道数据集的基础上。最初的数据集涵盖了20世纪的《纽约时报》；这个扩展涵盖了从19世纪后期到现在在华盛顿邮报，芝加哥论坛报和洛杉矶时报的文章。这将提供一个独特的纵向数据集，广泛的社会运动和他们最明显的组织。研究结果有可能吸引一般公众和政策制定者，并将提供与过去相比，今天的社会运动的更好的理解。

SES-1023863Edwin AmentaUniversity of California-IrvineTo understand social movements and the politics of the disadvantaged one needs to understand social movement organizations and political advocacy organizations (SMOs being used as an abbreviation for both) and their media coverage. Scholars argue that SMOs provide critical resources to seek social change, help to construct political identities and interests, and provide sites for civic engagement. Similarly, scholars agree that the attention of the mass news media is critical to the struggles of challengers. Gaining coverage is also a mark of the influence of SMOs--a measure of their success in being treated as legitimate spokespersons for the groups or causes they claim to represent--and increases their support. Yet there is no big empirical picture of the rise, decline, and persistence of SMOs across movements and over time through newspapers. This is despite the fact that newspaper coverage is perhaps the only measure of influence that can analyzed across many movements and over long stretches of time. To fill this major gap, the PI will collect new data on articles in which all U.S. SMOs were mentioned in national newspapers--the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times--since the 1890s. The PI will then use these data to address several fundamental questions about SMOs and movement families: Which U.S. SMOs and allied movement families have received the greatest newspaper coverage in the century? Are they the ones that movement scholarship would lead us to expect? How has the coverage changed over time overall and across movements? How does coverage compare to standard, limited measures of SMO scale or activity, such as organizational density, membership, resource mobilization, or protest events? Are the historical trajectories of coverage consistent with the main theories of social movements, including resource mobilization, new social movement, and political process/protest cycle theories? Can these and other theories predict the standing that SMOs receive and their visibility or placement in their coverage? The PI will assess these theoretical models through historical investigation, formal qualitative analyses, and time-series regression analyses. In doing so the PI seeks to reinvigorate the use of formal qualitative analyses, as well as to appraise and develop social movement theory. Broader ImpactsThe project will provide the first long-term mapping of U.S. SMOs and movements, and the quality of their newspaper coverage. The project builds upon a dataset of media coverage about social movement organizations in major, national newspapers. The initial dataset covers the New York Times for the 20th century; this extension covers articles from the late 19th century to the present in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times. This addition will provide a unique longitudinal dataset on a wide range of social movements and their most visible organizations. Research findings have the potential to appeal to the general public and policymakers and will provide a greater understanding of today's social movements in comparison with those of the past.