Media Coverage of the War for Gay Marriage in America
Meryl A. Surks
12/18/09
A highly controversial topic in America today is the right to allow homosexuals to marry citizens
within their same gender. Throughout the country, state governments are in a constant struggle with
human rights activists as laws and amendments regarding the issue arise. Only one state, Massachusetts
allows two homosexuals to marry, and seven states allow civil unions. The most recent to pass a law on
gay marriage was Washington D.C. There is ample news coverage for this bill, as well as all of the other
bills and amendments on TV, in the newspaper, on the radio, and in pop culture. I am going to take an
in-depth look at the media coverage for this topic and look for biases and patterns based on the sources
of coverage. I will look at objectivity, agenda-setting, the priming effect, framing, social movement’s
relationship to media, and how pop culture plays a role in what I am referring to as “The War for Gay
Marriage”.
The gay marriage debate has supporters and non-supporters that are clearly identified.
Generally, those against gay marriage are conservative, while those for it are liberal. Therefore, it comes
as no surprise that the media outlets that sway more toward the liberal side tend to look more favorably
on the issue than news outlets that are predominantly conservative. For example, I found a unique
difference with how Fox News covered the topic versus how MSNBC covered it. I noticed that on
MSNBC, they were more likely to show clips of homosexual couples being affectionate towards each
other compared to what Fox News depicted. MSNBC, in some stories had clip after clip of gay couples
kissing. Fox News rarely, if at all displayed such affection on television. They would show the couples,
but we saw nothing more than celebration or laughter or a hug, while MSNBC had no problem showing
two men or two women kissing. This is just one of several differences of how right versus left wing news
outlets differ from each other in terms of objectivity or lack thereof in the media.
Another thing I looked at was the priming, framing, and agenda setting aspects within the
coverage. I noticed some trends with that as well. In an article measuring agenda-setting, priming, and
framing of the Gulf Crisis, Shanto Iyengar and Adam Simon define agenda-setting as “the amount of
news coverage accorded various political issues will dictate the degree of importance that the public
attaches to these issues”. (Iyengar, 1993) This concept can be shifted to the gay marriage debate in
several ways. This topic has been a salient issue in America for roughly the past decade. The media
covers every law, proposition, bill, vote, activist event, and opinion relating to the topic. Every time the
topic comes up in politics, journalists from every newspaper write a story on it. Another aspect of the
media these days that makes agenda-setting more powerful is the Internet. It allows someone that is
viewing an article to see articles related to the topic with which they are currently reading. This leads
them to read more and more about that topic and consequently, see it as salient after seeing how much
coverage it gets in a single news outlet.
Legitimate objective news outlets are not the only sources covering a particular topic. Cynical
comedic sources such as Current TV, The Onion, and Collegehumor.com cover the gay marriage issue as
well. These cynical news sources tend to be predominantly liberal, and mock the anti-gay marriage
protesters. For example, collegehumor.com created the clip Prop 8: The Musical. It is a satirical view on
the issue of gay marriage. It is also clearly mocking the right-wing conservatives against gay marriage
including a cameo of Jack Black as Jesus Christ. Clips like this and news articles gain interest and provide
people with a sense of political efficacy. Then, people go online and begin to comment on the clips and
articles, start blogs and vlogs (video logs) voicing their opinions and people read about the topic that
way as well. All of this news coverage of gay marriage produces a snowball effect, and soon everyone
has an opinion on the issue. It is likely that it comes up in various settings such as church sermons, in
schools, around the dinner table, and at the water cooler. All of the buzz and interest sparked over the
topic is a result of the agenda-setting effect. A second way the media drives political interest is through
the priming effect.
According to Iyengar and Simon, the priming effect is “the ability of news programs
to affect the criteria by which political leaders are judged”. (Iyengar, 1993) Priming has the
power to get people thinking about politician’s policies and performance rather than his or
her personality. Some news outlets are forcing readers to think about how politicians view
the war for gay marriage, which, in effect is forcing politicians to continue talking about this
hot-button issue. An article in the New York Times titled “As Gay Issues Arise, Obama Is
Pressed to Engage” is an example of priming. This article, which is written in a liberal light,
criticizes Obama’s actions or lack thereof for the future of gay Americans. The article does
not highlight any particular event or demonstration. The picture that goes with it is of a
recent protest over the Washington City Council’s vote to recognize same-sex marriages
from other states, but the article only mentions the protest in a small paragraph. Instead,
she completely dismisses the protest and talks about all gay issues and how Obama feels
about them. Therefore, the author, Sheryl Gay Stolberg primes readers to take a certain
viewpoint on the President regarding his opinions and policies. After a thorough look at
other articles she and her associates have written, it is clear that these journalists want to
prime readers to feel a certain way about government officials. Another way journalists
manipulate opinions regarding the news is through framing.
Framing in journalism is also a way for journalists to sway one’s thinking one way
or another. What framing does is include some elements as well as excludes other
elements. It also includes how the story looks on a given page of a newspaper, or in a given
context. For example, many of the articles I read via PressDisplay.com had the article
hidden at the tail end pages of the main section of the paper. Also, I noticed that even the
articles that were somewhere towards the front of the paper were often very slim in shape,
and placed on one side of the page, or right at the bottom of the page. Other sources only
had a paragraph written about the topic placed near, long articles with photographs. It was
as if the newspapers did not want someone to see the article, though they were forced to
write it and the editors were ashamed to even print the words “gay marriage” and gave the
article significantly less space compared to other stories. An overwhelming majority of
sources practiced this aspect of framing. However, not all newspapers treated the gay
marriage articles with such bias. Many news outlets look favorably on the social movement
organizations that protest the various laws regarding gay marriage in the government.
When a new law or proposition is passed in government, many activists come out in
support for or against the law. Most of the time, the demonstrations remain peaceful, as
activists want to calmly state their opinion to the government. These social movements
generate media interest and citizen’s interest. There are many social movements for and
against gay rights, and they all come together for these protests. It is hard to determine
which groups are actually represented in the protests, but prominent leaders within the
groups often are given the opportunity to talk to journalists and explain their purposes.
Therefore, several of Gamson’s hypotheses regarding the relationship of social movement
organizations to news outlets apply in this debate.
One hypothesis is that the greater the resources, organization, professionalism,
coordination, and strategic planning of a movement, the more prominent its preferred
frame will be in media coverage.(Gamson, 1993) This is true in many ways. Most of the
social movements for gay marriage have members that are highly educated on the issue
and generally hold some sort of social standing, whether it be in government or on the
community. Therefore, journalists want to speak to these people, because they clearly
know what they are talking about. This sparks interest in the journalist, which, in turn,
sparks interest in readers looking to join the cause through some sort of movement.
Another hypothesis states that the narrower the demands of the group, the more
likely the media coverage will be symapthetic towards their cause.(Gamson, 1993) This
certainly applies to human rights activists, because they simply have one request: equality.
All they ask is that they are given the same priveleges in society as heterosexual couples.
This is a request that most media outlets see as legitimate and the more liberal papers are
in support of these groups, while all news outlets seem to cover the topic regardless of
viewpoints.
One final part of my analysis of the gay marriage debate is how homosexuality is
depicted in pop culture. Ten years ago, an ad featuring two men together was an absurd
idea. Advertisers would never have taken such a controversial risk in fear of losing sales.
However, today, there are many ads on television depicting gay couples or gay love
interests. For example, in 2007, Dolce and Gabanna put out a series of ads depicting two
men that are clearly attracted to each other and flirt throughout the ad, with one man even
putting the D&G watch down his pants. These racy ads sparked a lot of controversy in the
media, but they still ran on the air. This example, and ads like it show how homosexuality is
slowly working its way into the mainstream. If advertisers, and TV shows, and films
continue to depict these images, it is likely that the support for gay marriage will increase
as a result. People are accepting the lifestyle more and more, and it is partially thanks to the
media that this is happening.
The War for Gay Marriage includes supporters for and against the movement. This
has been an issue that is talked about a lot in the media in the past decade, since the
Defense of Marriage Act was passed in 1996 defining marriage as a legal union between a
man and a woman. Then, four years later, in 2000, Vermont allowed civil unions for same
sex couples. Since then, other states have been fighting either for or against the issue
through various laws and propositions. It is a topic covered in the news on a regular basis,
and a topic many people are talking about and everyone seems to have a strong opinion on.
This is a result of an influx of media coverage in the past decade. It seems as if the abortion
issue has been put on the back burner for the time being in order to protect as anti-gay
marriage advocates like to call: “the sanctity of marriage”.