On News as Rhetorical Texts (with an eye toward race)

From Steven R. Goldzwig & Patricia A. Sullivan (2000) Narrative and counternarrative in print‐mediated coverage of Milwaukee alderman Michael Mcgee, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 86:2, 215-231, DOI: 10.1080/00335630009384290

The News as Text 

Taking their cue from Stuart Hall (1982), Shah & Thornton (1994) observe: "News media are a major source of cultural production and information. Their representations of the social world provide explanations, descriptions and frames for understanding how and why the world works as it does" (p. 142). A news narrative may be read as a rhetorical text. Gitlin (1980) reminds us of the power of news in framing the activities of social activists. He observes: "The more closely the concerns and values of social movements coincide with the concerns and values of elites in politics and in media, the more likely they are to become incorporated in the prevailing news frames" (p. 284). Some activists, of course, know how "to make the journalistic code work for them" (p. 284). Consumer crusader Ralph Nader, for example, is a "respected celebrity" (p. 284). He sports a suit and a tie and represents "mainstream reliability" (p. 284). He fits the frame for elite legitimacy in politics and media. 

The News as Racially Constructed: A Confounding Factor 

Newspaper narratives are particularly problematic in the ways they frame questions of race in the United States. In a race-conscious society, such as the United States, we look to news narratives to help us "make sense" out of our experiences. The news narratives we rely on, however, are "structured by racial ideology" (Shah & Thronton, 1994, p. 142; and see e.g., Entman, 1990; Gray, 1987, 1989; Hooks, 1992; van Dijk, 1991; Williams, 1991,1995). For example, in a study employing both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, Shah & Thornton (1994) found that newsmagazines stereotyped black-Latino interaction as "primordial," "homogenized" individual characteristics, and "differentially valued" the respective "temperaments and lifestyles" treated in the narratives. Additionally, narrative depictions of conflict were decried as ahistorical, astructural, and informed by a "racial ideology." Lule (1995) argues that mainstream media coverage of the Mike Tyson rape trial upheld stereotypes of African Americans as savages and victims, and the coverage may be viewed "as an illustration of modern racism in the press" (Lule, p. 189). Furthermore, because overt expressions of racism are no longer condoned by most reporters or U.S. citizens, covert expressions of racism mark mainstream media coverage. Covert modern racist expressions, grounded in the assumption that African Americans no longer face discrimination and segregation, suggest that "problems facing the black community can be attributed to individual faults [i.e., Mike Tyson was a victim of an impoverished upbringing and therefore destined to become a savage]" (Lule, p. 190). News coverage, then, is marked by covert and overt signs of racial ideology. The problems of race, place, and socio-economic status are "natural" to these hierarchical relations and are translated as sites for contestation in news mediated accountings. The tensions in these processes and in our theoretical explanations of them remain continuing sources of controversy among scholars. Nevertheless, they engage a vital debate.