The Battle Over Marriage: Gay Rights Activism Through the Media (30 page)

relying on civil rights discourses, others insisting that at the core of the issue was “just love,” not equal rights. In analyzing the transcribed interviews, then, I noted how activists framed the issue of gay marriage, the various strategies activists highlighted in working with the press, their successes and chal enges—what they thought worked, what they thought failed. These “big s

ideas” that represented points of similarity and divergence among activists n

served as the basis of my further interrogation and analysis.

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Analyzing News Coverage

As I highlight throughout the book, a major aim of this study was to illuminate how prevalent mainstream media were organizing and structuring

dominant meanings of the marriage equality issue. Cultural studies scholars who examine news look at the ways in which “institutions and texts of journalism are embedded within larger symbolic myths and cultural narratives” (Parameswaran, 2006, p. 45). Newsmakers routinely rely on familiar cultural stories and mythical archetypes to structure stories in order to “give meaning to incredible events, to explain that which cannot be explained and to reaffirm values and beliefs, especially when those values and beliefs are challenged” (Lule, 2002, p. 276). As Berkowitz (2005) explains, “As both part of their culture and storytellers for that culture, journalists construct stories through narrative conventions that are cultural y resonant for themselves and for their audiences” (p. 608). Through “mining” news texts for meaning, this project sought to uncover the predominant cultural myths and narratives

journalists relied upon to construct stories about gay marriage.

To do so, I mostly relied on textual analysis to interrogate the journalistic devices that produced dominant meanings of the controversial issue over time. I used textual analysis to uncover the prevalent frames, sourcing patterns, photographic and graphic images, moving images, voice-over narration, and visual representations of married couples and the LGBT

community more broadly. Of particular interest of mine were prominent,

large-circulation news magazines and national newspapers, evening news

broadcasts on network television, and leading prime-time magazine-format television news programs. As I outlined previously, I analyzed media content across two different time periods in order to capture the major legal and political developments that catapulted the same-sex marriage issue into the mainstream press: 2003–2004 and 2008–2011.

Textual analysis, as defined by Alan McKee (2003), is designed for re-

searchers “who want to understand the ways in which members of various

cultures and subcultures make sense of who they are, and of how they fit into the world in which they live” (p. 1). Cultural studies scholars think of texts, whether they be artwork, clothing, films, advertising, television shows, or, in this case, news stories, as the “material traces that are left of the practice of sense-making—the only empirical evidence we have of

how other people make sense of the world” (p. 15). In this way the process of mining texts for meaning is like looking for clues and making educated guesses about how groups and cultures make sense of their world (Geertz, s

1973). As John Hartley (1992) argues, textual analysis allows researchers nl

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to recover and critically analyze the “discursive politics in an ‘empirical’

form” (p. 29).

This analysis of news texts borrows insights from a body of qualitative

inquiry that employs textual analysis to “reveal the ideological lenses through which news institutions filter discourses of gender, race, class and nation”

(Parameswaran, 2004, p. 379). This body of knowledge recognizes the importance of
contextual
interpretations: the various cultural, historical, political, and organizational contexts within which news is produced and circulates (Fair, 1996). An analysis of media coverage of the gay marriage issue, for example, must contextualize these news discourses within larger popular

culture representations of gay and lesbian identity, the historical role of marriage as a social and political institution, and the legal and political events that pushed the issue to the forefront of cultural debate.

To target these stories, I searched the Lexis-Nexis database for stories about “gay marriage” or “same-sex marriage” during the time period June

2003-January 2005, across multiple media outlets, including television

news, news magazines, and newspapers. The programs and publications

that I selected for analysis were prominent; appealed to large-scale, mainstream news audiences; and substantially and centrally concerned the gay marriage issue. I removed opinion editorials, which, while interesting,

were outside the scope of this study. I also eliminated stories that were only marginally concerned with the issue. For example, if a story covered a presidential candidate’s stance on a number of issues, with a brief comment that he “opposes gay marriage but thinks it should be left to the states to decide,” that story was eliminated, because it was not substantially about gay marriage. If, however, the story was
central y
concerned with a candidate’s position on gay marriage—specifically, how the issue presents a quandary for his campaign and how the issue is likely to affect his electability—then that story was included. Stories were also eliminated from this initial search if they were very short pieces, usually under 20 seconds for television news or under 400 words for print, and were limited to an anchor voice-over with very little or no visual support and no outside reporting. For the 2003–2004

time period, approximately 28 stories remained that fit the criteria in the prominent national media I was interested in, including top feature or cover stories from national news magazines
Time
,
Newsweek,
and
U.S. News &
World Report
; front-page stories from leading national newspapers like the
New York Times
and the
Washington Post
; and episodes of prime-time television news programs
60 Minutes
and
Nightline
in which the entire s

30-minute segment was dedicated to the subject of gay marriage.

n

In addition, for the 2003–2004 time period, these categories uncovered

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tent analysis, which sought to test for many of these same patterns across a broader universe of news stories—namely, the 93 stories central y concerned about gay marriage that appeared on NBC, CBS, and ABC evening newscasts

between June 2003 and January 2005. While textual analysis was designed to allow for a close reading of several dozen lengthy, in-depth news narratives, the content analysis was designed to uncover broad patterns over time across a larger universe of network news stories. I designed a coding instrument to systematically capture the ways in which broadcast news entities framed the issue of same-sex marriage, privileged particular sources over others, and depicted gay and lesbian couples and their ceremonies. Three units of analysis were selected for coding: each individual news story, each source that was cited in a story about gay marriage, and each gay or lesbian couple/

family who was the primary focus of a camera shot.

In its classic conceptualization, “content analysis is a research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication” (Berelson, 1971, p. 18). Through critical analysis of these patterns, content analysis provides a powerful tool for researchers to investigate the “big ideas” that shape cultural meanings, “the contours of the ideological environment” (Thomas, 1994, p. 689). Like textual analysis, content analysis is a tool used to make inferences about the symbolic meanings of texts. But unlike textual analysis, content analysis carries the require-ment that it be
replicable
(Krippendorff, 1980, p. 21). In other words, there are explicit rules that govern the analysis of the content. Different researchers (in this case, different coders) should be able to apply the same research procedure (the coding instrument) to the same data (television news stories) and produce largely identical results. For the content analysis of television news stories during this time period, the test for intercoder reliability (Krippendorff’s alpha) yielded 87 percent agreement for all categories combined.

For the time frame that included January 1, 2008, through March 15, 2010, the same Lexis-Nexis database and search criteria were used to retrieve articles from national print news magazines and national evening television news broadcast transcripts. Analysis included 43 articles from the print edition of national news magazines
Time, Newsweek,
and
U.S. News & World
Report
(before it ceased its print product); 20 television news transcripts from network evening news and CNN; and an additional 28 video telecasts

of network evening news programs from the Vanderbilt Television News

Archive (providing a total of 108 minutes of television news coverage).

Included in the textual analysis of print stories were (1) the photographs and graphic images (with specific attention paid to the racial/gendered/

s

classed identities of news subjects), (2) the captions to the photographs, n

(3) the story headlines and subheads, and (4) the pull quotes. Additionally, l

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for television news programs, analysis included (5) the moving images that accompanied the voice-over (b-roll), (6) the voice-over narration provided by anchors and reporters (I often followed along using a transcript), and (7) the graphic images and taglines used to title the segment.

I conducted a longitudinal examination of the news coverage to detect the predominant themes, frames, tones, and images that emerged. As Berkowitz (2005) notes, seeing these recurring journalistic devices across multiple media outlets points to their widespread use on the part of mainstream news organizations. I began by performing a careful and close initial reading of each news story to determine the dominant themes and images, taking detailed notes. As patterns in content began to emerge, areas of inquiry about media coverage surfaced, which in turn drove the research questions for this project. For example, why are there more stories and pictures about lesbian couples than gay male couples? Why do certain reoccurring graphics and visual images dominate in television news segments, such as same-sex-figurine wedding-cake toppers? When we as television viewers get to “meet” a gay

or lesbian couple, why are they almost always interviewed in their kitchen or dining room? I then read and reread, watched and rewatched, the same

stories and segments multiple times to further flesh out the patterns that were emerging. I also paid special attention to the stories and images that seemed to disrupt dominant thematic trends.

I took detailed notes during these multiple viewings and readings, and

these notes were eventually categorized and subcategorized into broad areas for further analysis. For example, a section on “Protests” included notes on how these stories showed the clash between gay rights and conservative protesters; “Couples/Families” included notes on the gay and lesbian couples and their children that appeared in news stories; “Ceremonies” included notes on the same-sex weddings shown in the news; and so forth. Based on critical perspectives from cultural studies and media studies about the emergence of groups from the margins to the mainstream, these images, narratives, and journalistic devices were analyzed and unpacked for their larger cultural significance.

Organizations Interviewed

Equality California (founded 2007), statewide LGBT rights advocacy organization, San Francisco/Los Angeles, CA.

Family Equality Council (founded 1979), national LGBT family advocacy organization, s

Boston, MA.

n

Freedom to Marry (founded 2003), national marriage equality organization, New York, NY.

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Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (founded 1971), Washington, D.C.–based LGBT rights lobbying organization, Washington, D.C.

Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (founded 1978), New England–based LGBT

litigation and public education organization, Boston, MA.

Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (founded 1985), national LGBT media watchdog organization, New York, NY.

Human Rights Campaign (founded 1980), largest national LGBT advocacy and political lobbying organization, Washington, D.C.

Indiana Equality (founded 2003), state-based LGBT rights organization, Indianapolis, IN.

Lambda Legal (founded 1973), LGBT civil rights litigation and education group, New York, NY.

Log Cabin Republicans (founded late 1970s), national gay and lesbian GOP organization, Washington, D.C.

Marriage Equality New York (founded 1993), state-based marriage equality organization, a branch of Marriage Equality USA, New York, NY.

Marriage Equality USA (founded 1998), national public education organization for same-sex-marriage recognition, Oakland, CA.

Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Caucus (founded 1973), state-based LGBT lobbying organization, Boston, MA.

National Center for Lesbian Rights (founded 1977), national LGBT litigation and policy advocacy organization, San Francisco, CA.