Conference Presentations by Malaena J Taylor
Critics of public opinion polling in the U.S. often note the problematic relationship between mas... more Critics of public opinion polling in the U.S. often note the problematic relationship between mass media outlets and survey research. One major criticism is that media outlets choose to focus more on issues that divide the public, in order to provide news content that boosts ratings. The assumption is that media use polls to find the contentious issues to report, yet no empirical research has begun to answer the question of whether pollsters ask questions before or after surges in big news stories. Using data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Archives and the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism News Coverage Indices from 2009-2012, this paper examines the relationship between media coverage of issues and polling on those issues. I ask: Do poll questions on specific issues appear before or after peaks in media coverage on those issues? Do polls sponsored by media outlets differ from other types of polls in the timing of these questions? Results of the meta-analysis show a more complex relationship between public opinion polls and the media than critics acknowledge.
Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, NY. Aug... more Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, NY. August 2013.
Papers by Malaena J Taylor
Sociological Forum, 2016
Social movements often want their protests to gain media attention, yet most media coverage negat... more Social movements often want their protests to gain media attention, yet most media coverage negatively portrays activists. Many assume that this negative coverage of protesters precludes substantive coverage of the movement, but our research is the first to test this assumption. Using content analysis of 754 television news reports about the Global Justice Movement and the Tea Party Movement, we find that frames that marginalize the protesters are often coupled with in-depth, factual coverage of social movements. Contrary to common assumptions, the results show that the presence of negative framing is not necessarily bad publicity for social movements. Instead, we find that the news segments that provide unflattering descriptions of protesters are more likely to provide in-depth information about the movement and the activists' grievances and demands.
Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 2019
This article integrates theory on contentious movements and racism to develop what we call the “s... more This article integrates theory on contentious movements and racism to develop what we call the “stigma neutralization model,” which explains how activists challenge stigmatizing identities in order to build a positive collective identity. Using original ethnographic research, we examine the response of a local Tea Party group to charges of racism. If a social movement is seen as racist, their political efficacy may be damaged. By analyzing backstage identity work, we illustrate that the strategies involved in distancing both activists and the movement from charges of racism reflect broader cultural understandings of the U.S. as being a post-racial or “colorblind” society. Our stigma neutralization model illustrates how activists deny, deflect, and distract from charges that activists are racist, thus maintaining and reproducing racist ideology, while reconstituting both individual and movement identities as unspoiled and racially tolerant. We discuss the implications of our findings...
This dissertation examines television news coverage of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movem... more This dissertation examines television news coverage of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements. Theories regarding the relationship between media and social movements are mostly based on outdated models of media and journalistic norms. In addition, the literature on framing is underdeveloped in that it has focused on the process of creating frames and the implications of collective action framing; less is known about the process of frame usage in nonprint media. My dissertation addresses these two problems. I develop the partisan media paradigm, an improved framework for understanding media coverage of social movements, by reformulating a dominant theory of media protest coverage, the protest paradigm, to account for the realities of today’s ideologically segmented media landscape. I contribute to the undertheorized area of framing by conceptualizing frames as gateways and identifying trajectories frames can take in mass media discourse. This research is important for three m...
Mobilization, 2019
This article integrates theory on contentious movements and racism to develop what we call the "s... more This article integrates theory on contentious movements and racism to develop what we call the "stigma neutralization model," which explains how activists challenge stigmatizing identities in order to build a positive collective identity. Using original ethnographic research, we examine the response of a local Tea Party group to charges of racism. If a social movement is seen as racist, their political efficacy may be damaged. By analyzing backstage identity work, we illustrate that the strategies involved in distancing both activists and the movement from charges of racism reflect broader cultural understandings of the U.S. as being a post-racial or "colorblind" society. Our stigma neutralization model illustrates how activists deny, deflect, and distract from charges that activists are racist, thus maintaining and reproducing racist ideology, while reconstituting both individual and movement identities as unspoiled and racially tolerant. We discuss the implications of our findings for antiminority majority social movements more generally.
Since the Tea Party Movement (TPM) emerged, observers have drawn parallels between this movement ... more Since the Tea Party Movement (TPM) emerged, observers have drawn parallels between this movement and the Religious Right (RR). This article deepens our understanding of this relationship by providing a detailed analysis of religiosity in the TPM versus the RR. We find that compared to the RR, the TPM mobilized a religiously heterogeneous membership. Although roughly half of TPM members were also members of the RR, the other half of this movement reported lower levels of religious orthodoxy and commitment, and included relatively large numbers of nonreligious individuals. Yet a majority of TPM members, including disproportionately high numbers of nonreligious members, believed that America is a Christian nation. Our findings complicate the notion that religious " nones " are predictably liberal and that Christian nationalist views are necessarily linked to Christian identity, instead raising the possibility that Christian-America rhetoric can operate—even for some nonreligious individuals—as symbolic boundary-work that marks certain groups as political " others. "
The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, 2016
Social movements often want their protests to gain media attention, yet most media coverage negat... more Social movements often want their protests to gain media attention, yet most media coverage negatively portrays activists. Many assume that this negative coverage of protesters precludes substantive coverage of the movement, but our research is the first to test this assumption. Using content analysis of 754 television news reports about the Global Justice Movement and the Tea Party Movement, we find that frames that marginal-ize the protesters are often coupled with in-depth, factual coverage of social movements. Contrary to common assumptions, the results show that the presence of negative framing is not necessarily bad publicity for social movements. Instead, we find that the news segments that provide unflattering descriptions of protesters are more likely to provide in-depth information about the movement and the activists' grievances and demands.
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Conference Presentations by Malaena J Taylor
Papers by Malaena J Taylor