Potential Biases — April 20th Walkout
At 10 am on April 20th, 2018, hundreds of thousands of students across the United States ranging from kindergarten to graduate school walked out of their respective classes. This event, created out of the wake of the Parkland shooting that occurred two months prior, commemorated the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting which marked the beginning of an era defined by gun violence on school campuses. While Columbine arguably brought the greatest collective shock to the nation, it was Parkland that ignited a widespread push for gun reform in the United States. Student activists in the US organized a similar walkout in March, a push for town halls with politicians in local communities, and the March for Our Lives.
These events were heavily reported on by news media organizations representing a wide variety of political leanings. The way these companies covered the events inspired by the Parkland shooting had the ability to either entice people to join the gun reform movement, be ambivalent to the activism occurring, be turned off to the message put forth by the contemporary youth, or even inspire some readers to counterprotest the acts of civil disobedience. It was through this coverage where the topic for this research project came about. What factors played a role in how the April 20th Walkout was covered, specifically in regards to the way that a story was framed? Would the political leanings of a news media organization play a role in determining how the story was presented? The answers to these questions can give not only an insight to the coverage of the April 20th Walkout, but also provide context for how news media organizations as a whole covers socially polarizing issues such as the push for gun violence prevention within the United States.
Methods
In researching this topic, it was important to gather a sufficient amount of articles from various news media organizations representing a variety of political ideologies to discovery any trends in regards to framing based on political leaning. Articles used to understand the political leanings of news media organizations that hold a national presence were gathered from Al Jazeera (international), Vox (liberal), NPR (liberal), the Washington Post (left leaning), the San Diego Union-Tribune (neutral), the New York Post (right leaning), and Breitbart (conservative).
Another important aspect of gathering information about the articles was to reach out to the journalists themselves to try to gain an insight into any motives that the journalists may have had in choosing to cover the April 20th Walkout. A journalist who worked on each article used in this study was contacted via email with questions about what brought their attention to the student run event, what sort of motivation (internal and external) caused them to take on the article, and how long it took them to complete their subsequent pieces. Responses were only received from Al Jazeera, Vox, and the San Diego Union-Tribune. The results of the survey are in the table below.
Framing — Political Leaning and Perceptions
Frames are important to take a look at because how a piece is framed can leave a reader with vastly different takeaways about an event even when factual information is consistent across all mediums. As Robert Entman, a professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, put it: “the mental representations that result from contact with a news frame can be conceived as… an understanding of the reported happening that guides individuals’ interpretation of initial information and their processing of all succeeding information about it” (Entman, 7). This concept both places an enormous responsibility on and gives an extreme advantage to news media organizations, as the way that they frame a piece directly affects the way a reader interprets any given event and resulting events, as well as whether or not the reader will choose to get their information from that news media organization or another in the future.
The findings conducted on the national scale pertained to the framing of the articles, which can be divided into two categories: political leaning and perception of the event. Looking at the political leaning in regards to the coverage of the events, none of the news media organizations gave off the impression of an innate negativeness of the students coming together to protest the issue of gun violence. Even with Breitbart, which has been criticized for being extremely conservative to the point of inaccurately reporting facts, the coverage for the most part fell under a frame of consensus for the purpose to the protest. Even so, there were subtle nuances between each publication that distinguish each article by the political leaning of the news media company that they originated from.
For Breitbart, there were some aspects of a framing that gave some controversy to the Walkout, which would fall in line with their conservative background. The piece by Breitbart was the only one to mention that the Walkout was promoted by Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that they made the point to mention is supported by Michael Bloomberg (Starr), the former Democratic mayor of New York City who tends to be criticized by conservatives for being socially liberal. Likewise, this article was the only one to give quotes of students mentioning intersectionality and the issues of gun violence in marginalized communities. While on the surface this appears to be a more progressive stance, these issues tend to be criticized by those in conservative circles, so the inclusion of these quotes can be interpreted as being used to delegitimize the efforts of the students.
In the article by the New York Post, the framing could be categorized as consensus, as there were no opposing opinions presented to the reader. However, the piece did include the governmental and educational responses of a potential for punishment in the participation of the Walkout. The inclusion of statements like: “The Department of Education previously said it will penalize…students who take part in the gun control protest” (Roberts), allows one to interpret the article as trying to show a more conservative or systemic viewpoint to the Walkout. But by and large, the piece published by the New York Post was, for the most part, neutral.
The article by the San Diego Union-Tribune presented a general frame of consensus, however, there was ample mention of the administrative side to the Walkout, which lead the article to have an greater air of neutrality. One interesting thing was that there was a subtle discourse amongst the two apparent sides to the issues of whether to walk out or not: first the students organizing was presented, followed by the administrative response, and finally a hotline was given for students to call if there was any threat of violence towards protesters (Repard). The San Diego Union-Tribune is generally read by residents of the San Diego area, so giving a local hotline made sense as it was pertinent to the audience of the newspaper. This article, however, did not hint at any political bias.
The NPR piece gave a general air of favorability to the Walkout, although at times both the frames of consensus and controversy were apparent. There was a consensus that the students were on the right side of history for protesting gun violence. However, the controversy that was referenced did not lie in whether or not the students should be protesting; rather, when the article states that: “Alpine students who participated in the walkout without being signed out by a parents ‘are facing 3 days of DAEP — a form of suspension — as well as losing National Honor Society status’” (Wamsley), a subtle critic was made of the negative governmental response to the efforts put forth by students, not just during the April 20th Walkout, but through all of the acts of civil disobedience done by students thus far.
For the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, and Vox, there was a frame of consensus for the Walkout. However, these three articles differed politically in regards to their degrees of liberality. The Washington Post article was the most neutral of the three, opening up a discussion later on in the piece about the potential unorganization of the national event, stating that: “Participants said an array of factors may have contributed to the lower turnout, including a lack of promotion, confusion about the Walkout’s goals, conflicts with mandatory standardized testing and, in some cases, protest fatigue among students” (Lang). The Al Jazeera article, in contrast, focused solely on the student perspective of the Walkout, giving a brief mention to potential repercussions at the very end. The Vox article, arguably the most liberal piece studied, gave no mention to any possibility for administrative repercussions, instead choosing to focus on various aspects of the Walkout as they pertained to students throughout the country, which could be seen as being undeniably favorable to the Walkout.
The framing of the articles in regards to the perception of the events yielded similar results to that of the political framing, however, these differences were not as pertinent to the articles as were the political ideology of the media organization. For all of the articles except the one by the New York Post, there was a thematic frame rather than an episodic one, meaning that there was ample reference to issues surrounding previous student protests, and in some cases, to other acts of civil disobedience entirely. The New York Post gave reference to the Columbine Shooting, however, this offers more of a background to the event than anything else, leading the article to have a more episodic frame, meaning that the piece gave the impression that the Walkout was an isolated act of civil disobedience rather than being a part of a series of responses to the Parkland Shooting.
Non-Political Results
Several of the articles had unique aspects to them that can be attributed to either the location of the news media organization or the political leaning of the company, but that do not necessarily fall under specific categories of framing. While these observations do not offer any general trends that can be expanded to represent news media as a whole in regards to political leaning they still do offer an insight into how news media chose to cover the Walkout.
There was an obvious San Diego-centric viewpoint given throughout the piece by the San Diego Union-Tribune, which made sense, as the newspaper is located in San Diego. The journalist who worked on this piece, Pauline Repard, stated that, even though the event was not heavily publicized prior to occurring, “the walkout is news,” especially to the San Diego area (Sutherland). The article noted of specific schools and cities that were the sites of walkouts, and also noted the amount of San Diego area schools that participated in a similar nationwide student led march that occurred a month before. Further, as previously discussed, the inclusion of a hotline to call in case of the potential of violence was given, not as a partisan push, but rather as a recognition for the safety of San Diego students.
The article by the Washington Post also gave reference to the walkout that took place in March, however, it was done so in more of a comparative light. The piece noted how there was less organization behind the April 20th Walkout, concluding that this contributed to less student participation of and reaction to this event than the previous one. Additionally, while the article gave a lot of notice to the walkouts of the DC Metro area, where the company is located, the piece also gave note to the walkouts happening that day in Florida, where the Parkland shooting took place.
Al Jazeera offered a unique perspective of the walkout, as the organization is a state-funded company from Qatar. The way that international news media chooses to report on any given issue can offer a unique perspective on American issues that national media often neglects on a day to day basis. In the case of the Al Jazeera piece, which was reported on in Ridgefield, Connecticut, the focus was solely on the walkout occurring at Ridgefield High School without comparing it to those of any other schools that participated, giving the impression that what took place in Ridgefield, which included the wearing of a $1.18 price tag, which is in reference to donations given on a statewide basis to the NRA, and speeches from students and elected officials (Dalton), was representative of what took place around the entire country.
The Vox article gave arguably the most comprehensive look into the April 20th Walkout. While the framing of the piece offered a concrete liberal perspective on the event, the reporting done by Vox was so comprehensive because it showed the key players and important events that lead up to the act of civil disobedience, including the citation of lesser known events that took place throughout the country. As was revealed in the survey of journalists who wrote the Walkout pieces, Vox gave a lot of attention to the protest because they had begun an in company series on gun violence following the Parkland shooting (Sutherland).
There were several trends that transcended the realms of political ideology that deserve to be noted. In his book, The Whole World is Watching, Todd Gitlin, a professor of Journalism at Columbia University, writes that in a highly competitive market, news media organizations “develop the strategy of neutralization, incorporating the competing forces in such a way as to maximize its audiences and thus its profits, its legitimacy, and its stature” (Gitlin, 259). This idea sheds some light as to why even the most polarized sources tended not to go to far out of the realm of consensus. In the case of Breitbart, the careful framing of “controversy with consensus” was likely done with the goal of reaching a wider audience that otherwise would have read about the Walkout elsewhere.
Additionally, the inclusion of potential administrative and/or governmental repercussions into most of the articles also aligns with an argument put for by Gitlin in his chapter of social hegemony: “social stability… is what much of the audience longs for: a sense that whatever is wrong in the world, it can be put right by authoritative… agencies” (Gitlin, 266). This essentially states that, regardless of political ideology, there are other factors involved in how a story is reported. In the case of the April 20th Walkout, the inclusion of potential repercussions for the student demonstrators on the part of either school administrations or the government was included to reassure the reader of a sense of normalcy in society, sending an underlying message that the students, while engaging in civil disobedience, would still have some sort of overseeing entity to offer both protection and punishment.
One final trend that went beyond political ideology was the fact that the Walkout was deemed pertinent enough by every news media organization studied despite political leaning. This can be explained by a theory on news put forth by sociologist Herbert Gans in Chapter 2 of his book, Deciding What’s News. In discussing the values of news media, Gans states that social disorder news tends to be a high priority of news media organizations, specifically saying that: “American news media have always emphasized stories of social disorder…Marches…were deemed potential threats to the social order because so many people were involved; consequently, trouble was almost inevitable, and if it did not take place, that fact was also newsworthy” (Gans, 52–53). The idea of trouble not taking place being newsworthy was evident with the coverage of the April 20th Walkout. Because there is a collective idea that protests negatively disrupt society, when one on as large a scale as this one does not lead to any negative outcomes, both news media organizations and their audiences take notice. This notion explains why the Walkout was covered by a variety of outlets spanning the political spectrum; the event was interesting to most Americans.
Conclusion
Throughout this study, it was made clear that the political leaning of a news media organization did have an effect on the framing of an article, if only in a nuanced fashion. While no correlation in an article being framed as either thematic or episodic had anything to do with the political leaning of a news media company, it can be said that polarization had an affect on whether or not articles produced were framed as consensus instead of controversy, as moderate organizations tended to yield a consensus frame while polarized companies tended to yield a controversy frame. Even though the article by Vox would suggest that this correlation is false, the article was the most comprehensive of all of the pieces, suggesting there was more at play with this particular piece than just political leaning, such as time devoted to the Walkout (the article was a part of a series on gun violence prevention following the Parkland Shooting (Sutherland)) and the audience of the company (Vox is an online news media company catering to an academically liberal audience that tends to agree with one another, whereas NPR, the other liberal group used in this study, tends to have an older audience which, while mostly liberal, can have some variety in ideology amongst its readers/listeners).
Looking beyond the political ideology of any given news media organization, there are still some factors that came into play as to how the Walkout was covered. Both Gitlin and Gans offer some insight into other potential factors in the coverage of the Walkout. As explained by Gitlin, the economics behind gaining and maintaining an audience was vital in in the coverage of the national event. Likewise, as explained by Gans, a contradiction to a collective prediction of an outcome can lead to the pertinence of a story, as was the case with the nationwide Walkout.
In conclusion, both political and extraneous factors played a role in the way that news media organizations covered the April 20th Walkout. Gun violence prevention is a polarizing issue in the United States that unfortunately is a debate without an end insight. However, through the reporting of events relating to issues like the Walkout, the age old debate is given new perspectives that hopefully will lead to the progress of safe solutions to this national epidemic.
Bibliography of Articles
Dalton, Ben. “US Students Stage Class Walkout to Demand Tougher Gun Laws.” USA News | Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 20 Apr. 2018, www.aljazeera.com.
Kirby, Jen. “The National School Walkout on April 20 Kicks off the next Wave of Gun Control Activism.” Vox, Vox, 19 Apr. 2018, www.vox.com.
Lang, Marissa J., et al. “Student Activists, Protesting Gun Violence, Time Latest Walkout to Columbine Anniversary.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 20 Apr. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com.
Repard, Pauline. “Local Students Join Walkouts to Protest Gun Violence at Schools.” San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego Union Tribune, 20 Apr. 2018, www.sandiegouniontribune.com.
Roberts, Georgett, and Natalie Musumeci. “NYC Students Join Walkouts on Anniversary of Columbine.” New York Post, New York Post, 20 Apr. 2018, nypost.com.
Wamsley, Laurel. “ 19 Years After Columbine, Students Walk Out To Stop Gun Violence.” NPR, NPR, 20 Apr. 2018, www.npr.org.
Starr, Penny. “No Amendment Is Absolute’: D.C. Student School Walkout Organizer Says We Must ‘Regulate the Second Amendment’.” Breitbart, Breitbart News Network, 21 Apr. 2018, www.breitbart.com.
Bibliography of Sources
Gans, Herbert. “Values in the News.” Deciding What’s News: a Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time. Northwestern University Press, 2004.
Gitlin, Todd. “Media Routines and Political Crises.” The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making & Unmaking of the New Left. University of California Press, 2003.
Entman, Robert. “Framing U.S. Coverage of International News: Contrasts in Narratives of the KAL and Iran Air Incidents.” Journal of Communication. Oxford UP Journals, 1991.
Sutherland, Jacob. “April 20th Walkout Articles”. Survey. 27 Apr. 2018.
