The Social Science Journal , July 1996 v33 n3 p241(15)
Media framing of movement protest: the case of American Indian protest.
Tim Baylor.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1996 JAI Press Inc.
During the late 1960s through the mid 1970s Americans saw Native Americans increase their use of direct action measures, including occasional confrontational tactics. These techniques included seizures of property, marches, and demonstrations. I suggest that these direct action techniques reflected the nature of the protest group itself. American
Indians represented less than 1 percent of the U.S. population during these two decades of heightened social unrest. American Indian social movement organizations (SMOs) were typically small, and lacked significant resources, a structural deficit that included easy access to media attention. As a result, some Indian SMOs aggressively sought media assistance to draw attention to their grievances. Several SMOs composed the American
Indian social movement industry (SMI) of this period.(1) These groups ranged from the mainline National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) to smaller splinter groups, such as the Menominee Warrior Society. The American Indian Movement (AIM), however, dominated the headlines. AIM sometimes pursued the same goals as other Indian SMOs and at other times had its own agenda. Together, the different groups reflected a heightened sense of urgency growing in the Indian community. The increased protest activity of Indian organizations, including some actions directed specifically at the media, resulted in greater media coverage.
MEDIA FRAMING AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
The power of the media to shape social events is a fact beyond dispute. Since the invention of the printing press competing groups have vied for the control and support of those agents and technologies responsible for the distribution of information. The power of these agents has increased as daily living has become more complex, and as the amount of information available to the average citizen has exploded. Those agencies able to offer a concise summary of important information wield considerable power. In this project the focus is restricted to the power of television news identified by surveys as the major source of public information during the period under study.(2) At the same time, the view that portrays the media, including television, as having the power to mold public opinion as it wishes is also rejected. Such a view is far too simplistic. It neglects consideration of some very important relationships between the mass media and its publics. Gamson's "constructionist model" offers a more thorough explanation of what happens between the media and the public.(3)
The constructionist model includes both the media and the public as part of the same cultural system. As part of the same cultural system both parties possess the same cultural
"scripts," "schemata," or "frames." "Frames" represent a set of ideas that interpret, define and give meaning to social and cultural phenomenon.(4) Thus media agents will use frames that are familiar and resonate with both themselves and the public. This view is

very different from one that pictures the media as an outside entity acting on a malleable public.(5)
Social movements and the media are interdependent. Movements often rely on the media to communicate its goals and grievances while reporters search for "copy."(6) This interdependence is usually unequal, as the media enjoys the advantage of multiple stories or events from which they can choose. Many smaller SMOs lack the means to buy directly the service provided by "free" media exposure compared to larger SMOs or interest groups that have enough resources to orchestrate their own media campaign.
Media agents can be selective about the stories they cover, and to what degree they cover them. Social movement organizations, however, often must take what they can get, and should exercise caution when the media is involved. Research suggests, for example, that the way in which the media frames issues affects audience views that can determine subsequent contributions and support from bystander publics, conscious constituents, and others.(7) In addition, there are other structural sources of bias making it less likely that framing of issues occurs in a way that is beneficial to the movement.
NEWS BIAS
Class bias is one factor that significantly affects media framing.(8) Owners of the major print and electronic media generally enjoy close ties with other influential business and political leaders.(9) Observers argue that this decreases the likelihood of sympathetic coverage of movement challengers because the legitimacy or interests of the elite might be undermined by anti-elite messages.(10)
Media class bias is also closely tied to the commercialization of the mass media, including the news media. Ratings and market share analyses like those conducted by the
A.C. Nielsen Company provide the basis for deciding the price of advertising time on a
TV network. Advertising dollars represent the largest source of income for TV stations.(11) The result is substantial pressure to avoid coverage of some actions, or to report on events in a way that would result in the loss of advertising dollars. Business interests tend to take precedence over objective, independent coverage.(12)
A third factor affecting media bias is the routine nature of most news gathering. One study examined 2,850 news stories in the New York Times and Washington Post and found that 78% came from routine channels including official proceedings, government or agency press releases, and public officials.(13) The dependence on routine sources could reflect issues of expediency, lack of initiative, or simply the absence of other sources. It could also reflect a movement's failure to establish liaisons and procedures to ensure the transmission of their own frames. The dependence on routine sources rather than individual investigative work occurred first in the growth of the wire services, and more recently in the diffusion of satellite communications that facilitate media rebroadcasting of events from most anywhere in the world without having to have specific reporters on the scene.(14)

Due to the factors just outlined, a movement organization must often engage in substantial drama to gain media attention.(15) The more extreme and dramatic the event, the greater likelihood of media coverage.(16) Hopefully, media coverage will then secure a chance for an SMO to present its substantive message to a wider audience. The ability to coopt the media in such a manner is not a given. Agents other than movement actors have control over what goes out over the air, and it remains a gamble with the odds against the movement.
DATA
The primary data for this study are evening news segments produced and aired by the
National Broadcasting Company (NBC) between 1968 - 1979. These segments are from the Vanderbilt Television News Archive.(17) I chose NBC as the network to study over the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and American Broadcasting Company (ABC) for several reasons. First, NBC devoted the greatest amount of air time to coverage of
Indian related events during the ten year period, 40% more than CBS and 25% more than
ABC.(18) Second, although CBS led NBC in terms of ratings and shares, NBC was never far behind.(19) Third, NBC was the last television crew to exit the besieged hamlet of
Wounded Knee in the wake of Justice Department orders and escalating violence during the 1973 occupation.(20) Fourth, a comparison of the three networks' coverage of Indian protest revealed that they covered almost all of the same events.(21) All segments of the
NBC nightly news, at least one minute in length, that deal with Indian protest are included in this study.
METHODS
I initially viewed each of the news segments several times during which several patterns or recurring themes appeared. I constructed frames out of the observed patterns and further refined them.(22) Five clear frames, or ways in which the events gained meaning, emerged. I labeled these frames: Militant, Stereotype, Treaty Rights, Civil Rights, and
Factionalism. A colleague and I then content analyzed the news segments using the operationalized frames.(23) I compared the results of both analyses and noted any disagreements about whether a particular frame was present or absent. My colleague and
I both reviewed and recoded these segments. This process resulted in a 97% rate of agreement. The remaining 3% of the total frames coded were dropped from further analysis. Multiple frames are usually evident in each news segment. For instance, the
Militant, Stereotype and Civil Rights frames occur together in the same news segment.
However, it was always clear that one frame is dominant.
FINDINGS
Ninety-three percent of the news segments used at least one of the five frames.(24) This resulted in a total of fifty-two news segments over the eleven year period for use in the analysis. Table 1 displays the occurrence of the various frames.

The Militant frame clearly dominated the nightly news segments. The operationalized
Militant frame included any segment that labeled Indian protesters as "militant" or where the focus was on violence and the breakdown of law and order. This frame included all segments that mentioned or showed the breaking of laws, the use of weapons, gunfire, injury to individuals, and the destruction of property in this frame. The media used the
Militant frame fight from the very start of its coverage. The first NBC segment during this period uses the militant frame. However, it is not just NBC that employs the Militant frame. CBS's first coverage of AIM on June 28, 1970 is a lengthy six minute segment.
This segment refers to AIM as a "militant" group six times. Yet AIM was less than a year old, and it had not yet engaged in any of the major confrontations for which it would achieve notoriety. The media continuously characterized the movement as militant during all of the eleven year period under analysis. This frame occurred in 90% of the total news segments.
The Stereotype frame reveals another problem that many SMOs encounter when they attempt to use the media to communicate with different audiences. The frame itself included any fastening of attention on stereotypical artifacts, actions or characterizations
[TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 1 OMITTED] of Indians. This included pictures of singing, dancing, the peace pipe, tepees, Indians on horseback, feathers, war paint, etc., to characterizations of Indians that ranged from drunkards to being quietly stoic. Like many stereotypes, some of these portrayals reflected a partial glimpse of reality. Many items were important cultural symbols that reflected the ties of protesters to traditionalists on the reservations. Others expressed the emphasis on an indigenous spirituality and world view. However, to the public these images conjure up the idealized, romanticized picture of the noble Indian of a bygone era.(25) While these images may have produced some sympathy in the larger culture, it did little to further an understanding of the current issues.
The last negative frame to discuss is the Factionalism frame that focuses on the divisions among the various Indian groups. The picture usually presented is that of a "small militant minority" who are at odds with their elected representatives, and most other
Indians as well. Forty-four percent of the news segments use this frame.
The Civil Rights frame was the second most frequently used frame, occurring in 56% of the news segments. This frame focuses on the basic social and economic issues of housing, education, health care, and employment. These were the issues that originally provided the impetus for protest. Many of the particular tactics were issue specific, such as building a tent city or occupying various pieces of property to draw attention to housing shortages. It appears from the percentages of frames used by the media that the
Indian protesters were moderately successful in getting their grievances across to the wider public. However, the issue of success becomes less clear when one examines the wider context and the interaction between frames.
The Treaty Rights frame was the least used of the five frames. Only 17% of the news segments use this frame. I include it only because of its importance to Indian protesters.
The protesters repeatedly state treaty rights as part of the justification for their actions and

demands. Seven out of twenty points codified in the "Twenty Points" paper outlining
Indian demands presented at the Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington, D.C. in
1972 address treaty rights.(26) The occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 also highlighted the issue of treaty rights. AIM even supplied a position paper outlining treaty claims as part of a press release made specifically for the media. Why then did the media rarely use this frame? I examine this important question later.
Analysis of the frames in isolation from each other fails to describe adequately the full extent of negative framing. Even more damaging consequences emerge when you examine the interaction between frames. Take as an example the Militant frame. The media's widespread use of this frame was not very advantageous to the movement.
Although it was probably instrumental in mobilizing support from some segments of the
Indian population, such as young urban males, it did little to encourage supportive sentiment in the larger public. The movement wanted the emphasis placed on treaty rights and civil rights. However, only 62% of the news segments use either of these frames compared to 90% for the Militant frame. In 84% of the news segments that use the Treaty
Rights and Civil Rights frames, the Militant frame is also used with them. In other words, the issue of militancy overshadows any presentation of the real grievances and issues behind Indian protest.
The Stereotype frame further hindered attention to the real issues. The Stereotype frame and the Civil Rights frame are used together in the same news segments 52% of the time.
Again, the outcome that results from this mix of frames is the probable neglect of serious grievances due to an entanglement with other images. I do not think it is coincidental that
98% of the news segments use either the stereotype or militant frames. Both frames reflect cultural frames commonly recognized by white Americans. On the one hand there is the "noble red man," and the "ruthless savage" on the other. There is no need to invent or explain them to the audience. They are ready made images common to most of the actors, including the reporter and most members of the audience. Most of the images shown by the media were an actual aspect of the movement, and served important ideological and mobilization functions within the Indian community. The pipe grounded the movement in a spiritual system. Men receiving war paint or brandishing a weapon called on a warrior tradition. However, the media and larger television audience misunderstood these images and failed to grasp their full symbolic and cultural meaning.
Another way to look at the effects of media framing is to consider whether changes occurred over time. Was the media consistent in the frames it used, or did it highlight certain frames at different periods of the movement's life course? To answer this question, I first describe three different stages to AIM's challenge. They correspond to a period of movement mobilization, challenge, and outcome.

The first stage reflects AIM's formation and early period of mobilization. The spread of
AIM from Minneapolis-St. Paul to other communities typifies this stage. AIM's actions during this period tended to be small local demonstrations involving some "national" leaders and local members. These efforts required little coordination or cooperation between distant AIM chapters. The initial meeting when AIM emerged in July 1968 through the Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington, D.C. in November 1972
(AIM's first major national protest) comprises this period. Twenty-one percent of all news coverage during the three periods occurred during this time frame.(27)
The march on Washington, D.C. in November of 1972 signaled AIM's participation and interest in issues of national significance. Although planned by many different Indian organizations, AIM occupied the national spotlight. The occupation of the small village of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation during the first few months of 1973 quickly followed on the heels of the D.C. march. News segments during this period account for 45% of all coverage during the study period. A Louis Harris poll taken during
March 1973 indicated 93% of those polled had followed coverage of the Wounded Knee occupation. The majority supported the protest.(28) If the opportunity for AIM to get its message across to a wider public ever existed, this was it. AIM would never again have this much favorable attention. The period closes with a negotiated settlement that ends the siege of Wounded Knee II.
A more reactive than proactive stance characterizes the last stage. AIM's sponsorship of direct action protest decreases. Internal issues preoccupy the organization. Two issues consume most of AIM's energy and resources. They are the legal defense of Wounded
Knee II defendants, and the concern over informants and social control agents inside the movement. AIM focused inward.(29) The dissolution of the National organization and leadership following the suspicious deaths of John Trudell's family in February 1979 marks the end of this period.(30) Trudell served as AIM's last national chairman.
The description and delineation of the three periods I have just presented set the stage for the analysis of media changes in framing Indian protest. There were changes in framing between the different periods as Table B shows. However, I do not consider these changes significant enough to describe them as fundamental shifts among the three chronological periods.(31) Instead, I would describe the changes more as reflections of events and a natural progression of the media's image of AIM. Although the changes are incremental, that does not mean they are not important. The changes are very consequential considering Downs' idea of the "issue-attention cycle."(32)
Downs argues that the public has a limited attention span, moving from one issue to another. Whether disinterest stems from sheer boredom, the economic costs of solving a problem, or discouragement over the failure to ameliorate a problem, each has important consequences for social movement organizations. SMOs have a limited window of opportunity during which they must convey their message. Failure to do so within this finite period results in a lost opportunity. Social movement activists can never be sure how long this window of opportunity will last. This uncertainty lends added importance to the question of framing. The frame that dominates the period represented by increased

public interest and concern should be the most influential in defining a movement. As a result, questions about whether a frame advances or hinders the movement's cause are very important, as they directly affect movement success or failure.
The second period best typifies a window of opportunity for AIM. The amount of news coverage given to Indians, including AIM, and the apparent public interest as demonstrated by the Hams poll support this conclusion.(33) Unfortunately for AIM, the media emphasizes frames that are largely negative during this period. The Militant frame dominates the period as it does each of the three stages but even more so. It surpasses the other frames in absolute terms (23 news segments use this frame during this period) and in the percentage of news segments using this frame during this period (100%).
The Stereotype frame competes with the civil rights frame for second place. The
Stereotype and Militant frame are each used in fifty-two percent of all news segments during the second stage of the movement's life course. The use of the Stereotype frame actually decreases as a percentage of use from 64% during the first stage to 52% in the second stage, although it increases significantly in absolute terms from seven occurrences to twelve. It decreases further in both absolute terms and as a percentage of use in the third stage. The decline in use over the three stages is interesting. It is about the only positive outcome that is evident when examining Table 2. I can only speculate about the factors that caused the decrease. Continued coverage and contact with the participants may have challenged existing stereotypes. It might mean that some reporters achieved individual ties that decreased the need to depend on stock images. Some might argue that the decline reflects the success of the movement in presenting its own frames. As a result, reporters did not have to rely on their own existing views. Evidence refutes this thesis.
Those frames seen as favorable to the movement - the Civil Rights and Treaty Rights frames - decline in use over the years or remain about the same. The decreasing use of the
Stereotype frame occurs as the use of the Militant frame increases during Stage Two and then remains nearly constant during Stage Three.(34)
[TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 2 OMITTED]
The negative Factionalism frame increases in use both as a percentage and in the number of absolute occurrences over the three stages. It is important when looking at this increase to recognize the degree to which much of the factionalism framed by the media was the result of intentional designs by members of the polity. Social control agents and polity leaders specifically tried to create factionalism to create dissension within AIM's ranks.(35) They understood this would decrease AIMs' ability to mount a successful challenge.
Use of the Civil Rights frame never varies by more than 12% during the three stages. It is the second most often used frame. However, it only appears by itself in one news segment. Otherwise, the Militant and/or Factionalism frame accompanies the Civil Rights frame - detracting from any positive aftereffect its use was likely to produce.

The Treaty Rights frame declines as a percentage of use from the available frames, but reference to it never occurs more frequently. Four of the Treaty Rights nine occurrences take place within the short time frame of the second stage. This outcome demonstrates
AIM's insistence on treaty rights as the foundation for their actions. Seven of the first ten points from the Twenty Points proposal explicitly call attention to treaty rights.(36) One of the factors that led to the occupation of Wounded Knee in February 1973 included the failure to honor the Treaty of 1868.(37) A demand to examine it and other treaties were among the first made by the insurgents.(38) It would have been very difficult for the media to ignore this frame, although they clearly failed to give it the importance AIM attached to it.
The review of frame changes over time mirrors many of the same negative consequences shown when considering each frame individually and their use with each other. The
Militant frame is clearly dominate at each stage of AIM's life course. As a result, I argue there were few, if any, long term advantages gained by AIM and the Indian movement from the visibility provided by the media.
DISCUSSION
This case study raises some serious questions regarding the efficacy of engaging in direct action protest to gain media attention. Although true that these actions often gain media attention, the question for movement actors becomes, "What kind of attention can be expected?" First, evidence suggests that the television news media never had any serious intention of trying to understand and fully cover the Indian movement. NBC never covered more than 50% of Indian protest in any given year.(39) In most years it covered significantly less. The same was true of the other networks. This depreciates the importance Indians attached to their grievances and presents an incomplete picture to the larger public. There is also important anecdotal evidence suggesting limited media interest. An extremely important gathering of movement actors, traditionalists, and Indian leaders took place on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation from June 8-16, 1974.(40)
Advertisements billed this meeting, attended by several thousand people, as an
"International Treaty Convention." The convention examined the sovereign status of
Indian peoples based on their treaty rights. In spite of its importance, the three major news networks did not cover the meeting. I argue that the news reporters failed to cover the event because they had no understanding of its importance. The purpose of the meeting did not fit any of the dominant frames they used to interpret Indian events.
Second, the frames used by the TV news media were those with which they had the most familiarity. They were also the ones most easily understood by their audiences. This is exactly what the constructionist model of media-public relations would predict. The grounding of Indian protest in treaty rights and sovereign status is not a common frame for either the media or the public. Nor does it easily lend itself to one or two minute news bites.
Third, the frames used most often by the news media did not necessarily advance the protesters' cause, and often directly hindered it. For instance, 21% of the time the Militant

frame occurs, the Civil Rights or Factionalism frames are absent. In other words, violence and conflict occur without any kind of justification or purpose. This is not helpful when trying to mobilize movement support.
Fourth, significant news coverage is missing. Besides the failure to cover the
International Treaty Convention and lesser political meetings, there is the failure to cover the violence directed against the movement.(41) For instance, there were some sixty-one violent deaths of Indians on the Pine Ridge Reservation between March 1, 1973 and
March 1, 1976.(42) Most of these deaths were of AIM members or sympathizers that followed in the wake of Wounded Knee II. These deaths resulted in the highest murder rate per capita of anywhere in the United States. Yet these deaths received no national news media coverage. However, the death of two FBI agents on June 25, 1975 on the
Pine Ridge reservation received immediate media coverage. This suggests that it is not as simple as saying violence attracts the media because it draws viewers. For some reason, there was selective coverage of violence here. This observation is reminiscent of the
Black Civil Rights Movement.(43)
How can one account for this often negative, unrepresentative, or incomplete news coverage? Unlike the traditional Black Civil Rights movement, the various SMOs that comprised the Indian movement did not all practice the ideology of nonviolence.(44)
AIM, in particular, was willing to meet violence with violence. This was simply selfdefense from their perspective. However, they lacked the power to see that this framing of their actions prevailed, leaving the media to focus on "militancy." Similarities between
AIM and the Black Panther Party (BPP) exist here. The BPP explicitly interpreted their actions in terms of self-defense.(45) However, the frame that achieved prominence, as with the Indian movement, was that of a "radical, militant" group.
The location of many events further hindered national media coverage. Many protests and events occurred in isolated rural areas where Indians had been removed to decades before on land thought to have little value. It was often simply unfeasible to maintain a reporter in the area all the time. Reporters came and left as "major" events took place. No national correspondents remained behind to report on the less dramatic events, including sporadic episodes of violence. Also, the local news media was often subject to the prejudices of their environment.(46) Covering protesting Indians simply did not make good news. There was little reason to report these events as long as they remained confined to the reservation and did not spill over into surrounding white communities.
There simply was not an interested audience. As one newsman has noted, "The News is above all a consumer good."(47)
There were other types of restrictions reporters experienced besides geography. The
Justice Department denied the media access to Wounded Knee during various stages of siege. As a result, the media had to depend on official press briefings. The FBI also barred the media from the crime scene after the killing of two FBI agents on Pine Ridge in June 1975. Forced to depend on reports from South Dakota State officials, the media distributed some very damaging, but false information about the killings. The truth was not available until five days after the incident when FBI Director Clarence Kelly gave an

updated account to reporters.(48) The various media agents were also interdependent.
When individual reporters were not present at an event, they depended on copy from the
AP or UPI wire services. At the time of the shoot out with the FBI agents on Pine Ridge, the local UPI correspondent was the girlfriend of Tribal President, Richard Wilson.(49)
Each of these examples suggests a bias that would affect issue framing.
Another major factor affecting coverage was competition between stories. There were other news events that were happening which held a much wider interest and affected more people. As one NBC news executive noted:
A newspaper, for example, can easily afford to print an item of conceivable interest to only a fraction of its readers. A television news program must be put together with the assumption that each item will be of some interest to everyone that watches. Each time a newspaper includes a feature which will attract a specialized group it can assume it is adding at least a little bit to its circulation. To the degree a television news program includes an item of this sort . . . it must assume that its audience will diminish.(50)
The Vietnam war, a presidential election, and then the Watergate scandal dominated media and public attention. It was not a very opportunistic environment in which to mobilize for those "minority" groups wanting and needing media attention.
Finally, we must assess the degree to which the movement is to blame for its media problems. As I have already pointed out, some organizations within the movement did not choose the tactic of nonviolence. AIM made it easier for others to attach a militant frame to itself by choosing to confront force with force. I am only pointing out the consequences of this choice and not whether this choice was justified.
It is clear the movement realized early the importance of enlisting the media in their cause. Most protest events, such as the climbing of the Mayflower on Thanksgiving, sought a high profile, thereby insuring media coverage. The media would later accuse the movement of being very media savvy.(51) While there can be no doubt that some leaders possessed the knack for getting attention, all the evidence, including this article, suggests that AIM had little control over the media.
It does not appear the movement floundered in presenting its grievances or goals. Just several weeks after the founding of AIM, AIM established a set of short term and long term goals.(52) These goals later broaden as ties to reservation residents grew. The
Twenty Point position paper presented in Washington, D.C. eventually codified them.
This article made possible a clear understanding of Indian goals and grievances. It framed

issues in terms of a distinctive legal relationship between the Federal Government and the tribes. The basis of this relationship was the Constitution and the hundreds of treaties signed between the two parties. Yet this document received scant media attention and never became the basis for understanding Indian actions.
CONCLUSION
This study suggests that violent tactics will not elicit media support. It also suggests that the decision to stage confrontational events to gain media attention is a risky choice. This is especially true for movements who wish to convey a frame that does not already conform to some widespread and beneficial cultural frame. Unique attributes, details, and other important substantive points possessing little drama are likely to be sacrificed on the altar of media related methods of constructing news and audience ratings if movement events receive coverage. Otherwise, movements are likely to find themselves ignored completely. The belief that an SMO message will receive a fair hearing, or the belief that an SMO can control the media process is somewhat naive. The very process of news gathering and framing issues suggests that a distorted and incomplete picture of a movement's message and goals will result from media coverage.
Given these conclusions, there is a need to take a second look at media and movement dynamics. The Black Civil Rights movement immediately comes to mind. Was the media really helpful? If so, why? How was framing affected by the size and ideology of the
Black Civil Rights movement? Only more comparative-historical research can answer these questions and others. Some of this research will be difficult. For instance it will be difficult if not impossible to obtain news coverage of most protest events before 1968 since the Vanderbilt Television News Archives didn't begin recording the nightly news until 1968. The absence of a reasonably accessible source for the broadcast media may produce a reliance on the print media to study many movements prior to 1968. The use of the print media to answer our questions may not only prove interesting, it might also produce other questions and directions for research. Answers to all these questions raised here may guide future social movement entrepreneurs, and contribute to a deeper understanding of the media's role in today's society.
Acknowledgments: The author would like to thank Anthony Oberschall of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. In addition, the author wishes to express his gratitude to Bart Dredge of
Austin College for his comments and his coding of the TV news segments. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 34th annual meeting of the Western Social
Science Association in April 1992.
APPENDIX
Network News (Sept-April)
ABC CBS NBC
Year Rating Share Rating Share Rating
Share

1970-1971 8.4 16 16.5 31 15.5 28
1971-1972 9.6 20 14.7 28 12.9 25
1972-1973 11.1 21 14.6 27 13.6 25
1973-1974 11.3 22 14.3 27 14.0 26
1974-1975 11.1 21 15.0 28 14.4 27
1975-1976 10.1 19 14.6 27 13.7 25
1976-1977 10.1 18 16.1 30 14.1 26
1977-1978 9.9 19 15.1 29 13.6 26
1978-1979 11.1 21 14.9 28 13.0 24
1979-1980 13.3 24 15.5 28 13.8 25
"Rating" is the percentage of television sets in a given area tuned to a specific station. "Share" is the percentage of television sets that are turned on and tuned to a specific station. Share is the better indicator of how well a station is doing compared to its competitors (Altheide, 1976, p. 39).
Statistics are from Nielsen Media Research 1993.
NOTES
1. J.D. McCarthy and M.N. Zald, Social Movements In An Organizational Society (New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1987).
2. Roper Organization, An Extended View of Public Attitudes Toward Television and
Other Mass Media (New York: Television Information Office, 1971).
3. W. Gamson, "The 1987 Distinguished Lecture: A Constructionist Approach To Mass
Media and Public Opinion," Symbolic Interaction, 11 (1988): 161-174.
4. E. Goffman, Frame Analysis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974).
5. This view is more typical of conservative critiques of the media. See And That's the
Way it Isn't: A Reference Guide to Media Bias, edited by L.B. Bozell, III and B.H. Baker
(Alexandria, VA: Media Research Center, 1990).
6. H. Molotch, "Media and Movements" in The Dynamics of Social Movements:
Resource Mobilization, Social Control, and Tactics, edited by M.N. Zald and J.D.
McCarthy (Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1979), p. 71.
7. T.S. Fine, "The Impact of Issue Framing on Public Opinion Toward Affirmative
Action Programs," The Social Science Journal 29, (1992): 323-334 and W. Gamson and
A. Modigliani, "Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A
Constructionist Approach," American Journal of Sociology 95 (1989): 1-37.
8. Molotch, op.cit., p. 71.
9. D.L. Altheide, Creating Reality: How TV News Distorts Events (Beverly Hills: Sage
Publishers, 1976), pp. 55-58.

10. M.A. Lee and N. Solomon, Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News
Media (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1990), pp. 176-77.
11. For television and radio stations advertising dollars represent almost 100% of all revenue. It is less for the print media which also has revenue from subscriptions.
12. D.L. Paletz and R.M. Entman, Media, Power, Politics (New York: The Free Press,
1981), pp. 10-12 and M. Parenti, The Politics of the Mass Media (New York: St. Martins
Press, 1986), pp. 42-52.
13. L.V. Sigal, Reporters and Officials (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company,
1973), pp. 119-126.
14. Ninety-six percent of television stations have no Washington correspondents of their own. Nor do they depend on stringers. Instead, they depend on wire services, B.H.
Bagdikian, "Congress and the Media: Partners in Propaganda," Columbia Journalism
Review 12 (1974): 3-10. The AP wire service alone is present in 6,000 of the countries' radio and TV stations, Lee and Solomon, op.cit., p. 23.
15. C.N. Olien, P. Tichenoir and G. Donohue, "Media Coverage and Social Movements," in Information Campaigns: Balancing Social Values and Social Change, edited by C.T.
Salmon (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1989), p. 151.
16. These actions are often called "media events" since they are primarily staged for the media. This understanding of a "media event" must be distinguished from other competing definitions. Dayan and Katz for instance use the term in a more Durkheimian fashion. They suggest that "media events" are "Shared experiences, uniting viewers with one another and with their societies," such as a Presidential inauguration, D. Dayan and
E. Katz, Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1992), p. 13.
17. The Vanderbilt Television News Archive is associated with Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tennessee. The Archive under an agreement with the three major news networks began copying the three nightly news broadcasts on August 5, 1968.
18. NBC devoted 2 hrs 3 min. 4 seconds of news time to coverage. CBS devoted 1 hr 13 min. 43 seconds, and ABC devoted 1 hr 32 min. and 20 seconds to coverage of Indian issues.
19. See Appendix for a table listing ratings and shares for the three major networks during the period in question.
20. W. Churchill and J. Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars
Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (Boston: South End
Press, 1988), p. 155.

21. See H. Gans, Deciding What's News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly
News, Newsweek, and Time (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979), pp. 176-179 for a discussion of the factors that produce the similarity between news stories the media covers.
22. The construction of frames required me to content analyze the TV news segments.
For a discussion of content analysis and the construction of "code categories" (frames), see E. Babbie, The Practice of Social Research, 7th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
Publishing Company, 1995), pp. 311-320.
23. My colleague had previously done work in content analysis. See B. Dredge, "Faith,
Hope or Charity: A Look at Church Sermons and Social Class," Sociological Inquiry 56
(1986): 523-534.
24. The remaining seven percent (4 segments) of the total news segments did not clearly employ any of the five frames. It is interesting to note that three of these four segments occur in the first three years of coverage in the eleven year period under study.
25. For a discussion of this stereotype and others in American film see G. Bataille and C.
Silet, "The Entertaining Anachronism: Indians in American Film," in The Kaleidoscopic
Lens: How Hollywood Views Ethnic Groups, edited by R. M. Miller (Englewood, NJ:
Jerome S. Ozer, 1980). See also R.E Berkhofer, The White Man's Indian (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1978) and D.L. Kaufmann, "The Indian as Media Hand-Me-Down,"
Colorado Quarterly (Spring 1975): 489-504 for a review of Indian stereotypes in
American society from the colonial period to the present.
26. A copy of the Twenty Points proposal can be found in Akwesasne Notes, Trail of
Broken Treaties: "B.I.A., I'm Not Your Indian Anymore," 2nd ed. (Rooseveltown, NY:
Mohawk Nation, 1974).
27. The percentage of news coverage cited for the three periods includes both non-AIM and AIM supported events. It is not necessary to separate sponsorship to make the point that the amount of news coverage varied among the three periods. However, I have demonstrated elsewhere that AIM backed protest took place more often than non-AIM protests from 1971 until 1975, T. Baylor, Social Control of an Insurgent Social
Movement: A Case Study of the American Indian Movement (MA Thesis, The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1989) pp.45-47.
28. The survey was a national cross-section of 1,472 households. Fifty-one percent of those questioned supported the occupation, 21% were against it, and 28% were unsure.
See G. Feaver, "An Indian Melodrama," Encounter 44 (May 1975): 29 and N. Hickey,
"Was The Truth Buried at Wounded Knee?" TV Guide (December 1 1973): 8.
29. Although the movement did become preoccupied with internal issues, it was able to maintain some proactive activity. The formation of the International Indian Treaty
Council in June 1974 is the most important example.

30. Twelve hours after Trudell burned an American flag on the steps of the FBI building in Washington, DC, his wife, four children and mother-in-law burned to death in a house fire. Trudell thinks this is more than a coincidence. P. Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy
Horse (New York: Viking Press, 1983), p. 533 and the National Lawyers Guild,
Counterintelligence: A Documentary Look at America's Secret Police, Vol. 1 (Chicago:
National Lawyers Guild, 1980), p. 71.
31. A Chi square test indicated that the changes in the table are not significant. [x.sup.2]
= 4.05040 df = 8 p [less than] = 0.85255
32. A. Downs, "Up and Down with Ecology: The Issue-Attention Cycle," Public Interest
28 (1972): 38-50.
33. This conclusion is based on the March Hams poll mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, there does not exist comparable data to measure public interest during each of the three stages. The questions regarding Wounded Knee and Indian issues were only asked one time.
34. None of the changes between the militant and the other four frames were significant at the generally accepted levels of significance. However, the relationship between the
Militant frame and the Stereotype frame was the least likely to occur through chance alone. [x.sup.2] = 1.48576 df = 2 p [less than] = 0.47574
35. Baylor, op.cit., pp. 70-106 and Churchill and Vander Wall, op.cit., pp. 261-349.
36. Akwesasne Notes 5 no. 1 (Early Winter 1973), p. 30.
37. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1968 guaranteed the Sioux, Cheyenne and several other tribes most of what is today South Dakota, and parts of Montana, Nebraska, North
Dakota, and Wyoming. Congress ratified the treaty following the Powder River War. The
U.S. decided the military approach was too costly and instead reached a political settlement with Red Cloud and other Native American leaders.
38. Akwesasne Notes, op.cit., p. 34.
39. This percentage is based on a comparison of all known protests I have been able to document from all sources with those actually covered by NBC.
40. R.D. Ortiz, ed., The Great Sioux Nation, Sitting in Judgement on America (San
Francisco: American Indian Treaty Council Information Center and Moon Books, 1977).
41. I am indebted to Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado at Boulder for pointing out this particular point.
42. B. Johansen and R. Maestas, Wasi'chu: The Continuing Indian Wars (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1979), p. 83.

43. S. Cagin and P. Dray, We Are Not Afraid: The Story of Goodman, Schwerner, and
Chaney and the Civil Rights Campaign for Mississippi (New York: Macmillan, 1988).
44. Of course, the emergence of SNCC and the Black Panther Party ended the ideology of nonviolence for the Black Civil Rights movement. It should be mentioned that many
Indian groups eschewed violence and disliked some of AIM's confrontational tactics.
45. Panther leader Bobby Seale in Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil
Rights Movement From the 1950's through the 1980's, H. Hampton and S. Fayer with S.
Flynn eds. (New York: Bantam Books, 1990).
46. H. Carter, III, "The Wave Beneath the Froth," in Race and the News Media, edited by
P.L. Fisher and R.L. Lowenstein (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967), pp. 54-57.
47. L.W. Bennett, News: the Politics of Illusion (New York: Longman Press, 1983), p. 3.
48. J.D. Weisman, "About That Ambush at Wounded Knee," Columbia Journalism
Review 14 (1975):29.
49. C. Hamilton. Letter of personal correspondence in author's files.
50. N. Postmon and S. Powers, How To Watch TV News (New York: Penguin Books,
1992), pp. 112-13.
51. N. Hickey, op.cit. (December 15):43-47.
52. F.G. Cohen, The Indian Patrol in Minneapolis: Social Control and Social Change in an Urban Context (Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Minnesota, 1973), p. 47.