Getting Into The Media or Getting Out the Message: Evaluating Mass - PDF document

Getting Into The Media or Getting Out the Message: Evaluating Mass Mediated Protest Actions As A Tool for Social Movement Framing.

Civil Disobedience and Road Blockades For example, one of the key organizers of the Clayoquot blockades was asked the following question during an interview, “What did the group hope to achieve with the blockade?” Her response illustrates the forementioned observation: Well, blockades are always a last option, its what you do when you’ve tried every possible legal method that’s available to you. ... we have [blockaded] on five occasions .. we are absolutely in support of peaceful non-violent direct action ... Well I suppose [that during] the first four [blockades] what we tried to do was actually [to] stop the logging and we were successful in two places in doing that: on Meares Island and in Sulfur Passage we actually did stop the road building and the logging because [of] our blockade[s]. The others have been largely symbolic, but very much the focus has been to raise public awareness. The media only listens when it’s a sexy issue. And writing a letter to Premier Harcourt isn’t newsworthy, but 800 people getting arrested is [emphasis]. And so through the blockades we have been able to raise the profile of Clayoquot Sound to an international, certainly a strong national level.

Civil Disobedience and Road Blockades A member of a youth environmental organization offered a similar perspective in providing her views on civil disobedience: My views? Well, ... I have been civilly disobedient before in that I have risked arrest and I think that there are two reasons for that and one, which is very very unfortunate, and that's the sensationalism in the media and that's very often one of the best ways to make sure that you get coverage is to have civil disobedience. And then of course the other one, which is more on the roads and blockading, is just kind of a last stand, just when there's no other choice for people and none of the laws existing protect them or the forests and they just feel they have nothing else they can do. And so I definitely support it on an individual level but I don't know if they're the best thing, or the thing that works, blockades I mean, but I can totally understand it because I've grappled with that question myself, whether to blockade or not, so I support them.

Research Question and Hypotheses Is protest an effective tactic for environmentalists in their efforts to get messages about conservation into the print media? H1. Environmentalists’ communications about conservation are more likely to appear in non-protest stories than in protest stories. H2. Environmentalists’ communications that appear in protest stories are more likely to be about protest than about conservation.

METHODS � Sampling Details � Coding Details RESULTS

CODING TEMPLATE: Article ID# Type of Story: (Protest or Non-Protests): Sentence 1 2 3 4 5 # Statements Statements about Statements about Statements about Statements about Forest Environmental Protests Other Forms of Other about Conservation (specifically, Demonstrations, Environmental Environmentalist Other and related Blockades, and other Direct Protest (e.g., Activities (e.g., Issues. processes and Action). letter writing, coalition mechanisms. court action, building, fund boycotts). rasing, information about the environmental group, etc.). 2A 2B ILLEGAL LEGAL ACTIVITIES ACTIVITIES (E.g., (E.g., Blockades, Demonstrations Direct at the Action). Legislature).

Table 1. Frequency of Environmentalist Communications by Type of News Story. Number Percentage of Sentences of Sentences Protest Stories 376 68.9 170 31.1 Non-Protest Stories Total 546 100

Table 2. Frequency of Different Types of Environmentalist Communication. Number Percentage of Sentences of Sentences 1. CONSERVATION: 255 46.7 Statements about forest conservation and related processes and mechanisms. 2. PROTEST: 227 41.6 Statements about environmental protests (specifically, demonstrations, blockades and other direct actions). 3. OTHER: Statements about 89 16.3 other forms of environmental protests; statements about other environmentalist activities; statements about other issues. Note: percentages do not sum to 100% because sentences were coded for multiple categories (for categories 1 and 2).

Table 3A. Presence of Environmentalist Conservation Statements by Type of News Story. Number Percentage of Sentences of Sentences 125 33.2 Protest Stories Non-Protest Stories 130 76.5 2 � = 87.88, df =1, p. < .001. Table 3B. Presence of Environmentalist Protest Statements by Type of News Story. Number Percentage of Sentences of Sentences Protest Stories 217 57.7 10 5.9 Non-Protest Stories 2 � = 129.47, df =1, p. < .001.

Appendix Table 1. Frequency of Different Types of Environmentalist Communication Before Aggregation of Specific Categories. Number Percentage of Sentences of Sentences 1. CONSERVATION: Statements about forest conservation and 255 46.7 related processes and mechanisms. 2A. PROTEST 1: ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES 209 38.3 (E.g., Blockades, Direct Action). 2B. PROTEST 2: LEGAL ACTIVITIES 18 3.3 (E.g., Demonstrations at the Legislature). 3A. OTHER 1: Statements about other 37 6.8 forms of environmental protest (e.g., letter writing, court actions, boycotts). 3B. OTHER 2: Statements about other 29 5.3 environmentalist activities (e.g., coalition building, fund raising, information about the environmental group, etc.). 3C. OTHER 3: Statements about other 23 4.2 issues.