Communication Culture and Critique

Ross,, Karen

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01080.xpmid: N/A

I can scarcely believe that we are already at the end of the third year of publishing this wonderful journal but as I hand over to my successor, John Downing, I know it is being delivered to him in very good health and with a growing reputation for cutting-edge scholarship and a commitment to diversity in all the meanings of that term. As I look back on these foundational years as editor, I am pleased by the way in which the journal has developed, especially the volume and wide scope of manuscripts which are now submitted regularly for consideration. Although the latter sometimes makes the editor's job a little tricky, as when a manuscript comes in which looks really exciting but where likely reviewers do not immediately come to mind, it also means that the content is always engaging, fresh, and interesting–well, at least that's how it seems to me. So, thanks to all those scholars who have submitted work to the journal: Without your support, it would not survive. As this is my last formal issue as Editor, I would like to take the opportunity to thank a number of people who have made my job an absolute joy. First of all, a big thank you to my colleagues at Wiley-Blackwell, especially Margaret Zusky (with whom I had some entertaining early conversations about the black/pink cover), Margot Morse, Michelle McCauley, and Eric Piper. Second, to all the reviewers who have given up stupid amounts of time for almost no reward, to undertake scrupulous, careful, and fair evaluations of the manuscripts which have come their way—a list of you all appears at the end of this issue and if I have left anyone out, please accept my apologies. Third, a big thank you to my wonderful editorial board, most of whom have reviewed for the journal and with some of whom I have shared thoughts over the past 3 years in both real time and virtually: Your insights have been invaluable in further developing the editorial “line” of the journal and giving me lots of food for thought. Fourth, many thanks must go to my two Associate Editors, Carolyn Byerly and Isabel Molina, who have done sterling work in developing the “Critics and Commentary” section and book reviews, respectively—great stuff. Finally, the journal would not go out every quarter without the tireless efforts of my truly fantastic Editorial Assistant, Jane Wynn, who has worked with me for many years and has taught me so much about journal production, the finer points of APA style, and how to excise authors' name from their unwitting inclusion in the articles they submit. Of course, thanks should also go to Mike West at ICA for keeping his careful eyes on the journal. I wish John well as he takes over as Editor of the journal—I am confident that it is delivered into very good hands and that he will bring his own wisdom and proclivities as he steers the journal into the next phase of its life—all good luck. © 2010 International Communication Association

DeFoster,, Ruth

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01081.xpmid: N/A

Abstract The problem of school shootings has attracted extensive media attention, especially since the Columbine shooting, a watershed event that pushed the issue of school shootings to the forefront of media coverage. This paper examines the themes present in British editorial coverage of school shootings in the decade between April 1999, the month of the Columbine shooting, and April 2009, using ideological analysis to identify themes present in British editorial newspaper coverage. Articles were drawn from the Times of London and the Independent. Major themes that emerged were widespread disgust with a disordered and unhealthy American gun culture and firearms legislation, a focus on gratuitous and violent entertainment media, and a frustration with unethical media coverage of these tragic events. The 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, was not the first of its kind. Dozens of similar shootings preceded it, both in the United States and Europe. But the Columbine shooting was notable in one striking way: It was the first to play out before live audiences on cable news. The themes present in the prolonged media narrative that emerged in the wake of the shooting set the stage for coverage of future school shootings that soon followed. It was, in many ways, an analog to the paradigm shift that accompanied news coverage of the first Gulf War—the exhaustive, cyclical, round-the-clock news coverage that followed the shooting represented a permanent change in public discourse about school shootings. Columbine marked a watershed in coverage of these kinds of tragedies. Another thing that set Columbine apart was its scale. At the time, it was the deadliest school shooting in American history, and European media—especially British media—were quick to decry an “epidemic of teenage gun violence” (Whittell, 1999), widely regarding the trend that Columbine signified as a uniquely American epidemic (“Not just an American horror,” 2009). In response to Columbine, there was much hand-wringing over American gun culture in the European press. American society was characterized as a callous environment fueled by violent Hollywood films, teenage solipsism, and lax gun legislation (Moreton, 1999; Wishart, 1999). In the UK, which had recently passed sweeping reforms to gun legislation in response to a 1996 school shooting in Dunblane, Scotland, the Columbine shooting represented an especially acute, and uncomfortably familiar, tragedy. Until very recently, similar school shootings in Europe were seen as a symptom of this ostensibly American problem. A shooting in France the year before Columbine prompted Claude Allegre, the French education minister at the time, to cynically express a hope that America would not further export its “civilization of violence,” saying that France, unlike the United States, was not a country of “gangsters” (Richburg, 2002). Similarly, after a 2002 school shooting in Erfurt, Germany, the head of Germany's police union lamented the fact that “American conditions have reached us” (Richburg, 2002). But by 2009, 10 years after Columbine, when a 17-year-old student killed 15 people in a school shooting in Winnenden, Germany, the European discourse had shifted and expanded to account for a decade seemingly fraught with widespread school violence. The landscape had changed in the decade since the high-profile massacre in Colorado; school shootings could no longer be considered a primarily American problem. The decade that followed Columbine saw a significant increase in the rate of school shootings, both in Europe and the United States. In the 33 years between the University of Texas tower shooting and the Columbine school shooting (1966–1999), there were 18 deadly school shootings in the United States, not counting the Kent State and Jackson State killings. By contrast, in the 10 years after Columbine, there were 19 deadly shootings at American schools. In Europe, there were 12 deadly school shootings between 1989 and 2009, not including the 2004 hostage crisis in Beslan, Russia. Two of these 12 shootings resulted only in the death of the shooter, but many others—like the 1996 Dunblane shooting in Scotland, the 2002 Erfurt shooting in Germany, and the two most recent Finnish shootings in Jokela (2007) and Kauhajoki (2008)—were much more deadly. Notably, 5 of these 12 European shootings occurred in the past 2 years—between 2007 and 2009. In the aftermath of the 2009 Winnenden shooting, news coverage by European media turned inward—what were the reasons for, and the solutions to, the problem of European school shootings? (“My trip to hell,” 2009; “Thousands of students,” 2009.) And why were they happening with increasing regularity, both in Europe and the United States? The following analysis examines the ways in which cultural ideological norms and trends are reflected in and produced by the public discourse that emerged about school shootings in British newspapers. I argue that the patterns and themes that emerged from this coverage produced a public discourse that was largely limited to existing common ideological themes that grew out of Columbine coverage, naturalizing a polarized and constrained public discourse that failed to account for truly alternative viewpoints, nuances, or shades of gray. Literature review “It was once said,” wrote Zelizer and Allen (2002), that journalism “shows its true colors when the world outside darkens, when prospects turn bleak and hope shrinks.” The public craves information about events in their communities and world that shock and horrify, and journalists scramble to provide reliable information about such events as quickly and thoroughly as possible. In the wake of a tragedy caused by human actions, many questions emerge: What really happened, and with what outcome? In the United States, in the early stages of covering such tragedies, the media tend to focus on the personal history of the individual or individuals who directly caused the event, focusing on individual pathology and character (Bullock, 2008; Maxwell, Huxford, Borum, & Hornik, 2000; Scharrer, Weidman, & Bissell, 2003). In Europe, mass media often focus on policy and environment issues surrounding the tragic event: What were the family, community, or cultural factors that facilitated the event? Why was not society able to prevent the tragedy from happening? And how can these sorts of man-made tragedies be prevented in the future? (Jemphrey & Berrington, 2000; Raittila et al., 2008) Several scholars have empirically analyzed media coverage of school shootings. Two large studies in particular approached the problem by applying a two-dimensional framing model that included the time element (past, present, and future) and the space element (whether the article was framed from an individual, community, regional, societal, or international perspective) as separate dimensions of news coverage (Hsiang Iris & McCombs, 2004; Muschert & Carr, 2006). The initial study focused on the coverage of Columbine alone, incorporating the issue–attention cycle, which traces the steps of audience interest in a subject as a conceptualization of issue salience, which is central to framing, and attributes agenda-setting, which they described as “second-level agenda-setting,” wherein the unit of analysis shifts from an object or an issue to attributes of the object or issue (Hsiang Iris & McCombs, 2004). In this context, the researchers approached news frames as attributes of an object, thereby forming the theoretical link between agenda-setting and framing research. This theoretical convergence is important because of the focus on how media build a news event's salience by emphasizing different aspects of the event during its life span. Muschert and Carr (2006) expanded on this first study by examining coverage of nine school shootings over a period of 4 years. The Hsiang Iris and McCombs study (2004) found that most articles about the Columbine shooting adopted a societal frame. They also found that certain frames seemed more relevant than others—in this case, notions of “community” and “present” on the space and time dimensions were most pertinent to the school shooting coverage. The Muschert and Carr study (2006) found that the Columbine shooting garnered the most articles—and, although some shootings were covered more than others, the timing of articles for all nine shootings followed a similar pattern. For each of the shootings, coverage spiked within the first two to four days, and then gradually diminished over the following month. In terms of the space dimension, most articles were again found to adopt societal frames. In terms of the time dimension, most of the articles were found to adopt a present frame—only 12% adopted a future frame and 10% adopted a past frame. Other scholars have examined coverage of school shootings in mass media through the prism of race, class, and gender representations. Leavy and Maloney (2009) found disparities in emphasis on race and class in mass media coverage in their comparison between the Columbine High School shootings of 1999 and the 2005 Red Lake Indian Reservation School shootings, finding that, while Columbine received “saturation coverage,” the Red Lake shooting received relatively little attention and was largely considered a local story, despite the fact that the shooting was, at the time, the most deadly shooting at an American school since Columbine. This research suggests that more factors may be at play in coverage of school shootings than merely the scale of the attack—while Virginia Tech and Columbine both received enormous waves of coverage, Leavy and Maloney suggested that the ways in which coverage creates disparities between culprits of different racial and ethnic backgrounds is problematic and widespread in Western media. Kellner (2008) tied mass media representations of school shootings and other acts of domestic terrorism with hegemonic ideas about masculinity, arguing that these seemingly isolated killing sprees are connected by a thread of media spectacle, increased American proclivities toward war, and an unhealthy masculine relationship with guns in the United States. Altheide (2009) reinforced the landmark status of the Columbine school shooting, arguing that mass media coverage of what are often called “rampage shootings” (especially those that occur at schools) is necessarily filtered through the lens of Columbine and complicated by post-September 11 discourses surrounding fear, terrorism, and victimization. Altheide found that the terms “crime,”“victim,” and “fear” were heavily present in news reports about terrorism, and argued that the use of these words constructs a public discourse that reflects symbolic relationships about order, danger, and threat that may be exploited by those in power in ways that they could not be before September 11. Theory To conduct an ideological analysis of this British coverage, I am drawing on Mimi White's (1992) definition of ideological criticism as being concerned with the ways in which cultural practices and artifacts produce a particular kind of knowledge or a position in their users. Rather than a strictly classic Marxist understanding of ideology as false consciousness, I am focusing on White's updated characterization of cultural artifacts as “expressing and promoting values, beliefs, and ideas in relation to the contexts in which they are produced, distributed, and received,” aiming to understand “how a cultural text specifically embodies and enacts particular ranges of values, beliefs, and ideas” (White, 1992, p. 122). I am focusing on this definition of ideology for many reasons, most notably because it serves the texts in question well, but also because, as Terry Eagleton (1991) pointed out, “Successful ideologies must be more than imposed illusions, and for all their inconsistencies must communicate to their subjects a version of social reality which is real and recognizable enough not to be simply rejected out of hand” (Eagleton, 1991, p. 15). As Anabela Carvalho (2007) clarified, this definition conceives of ideology as a “system of values, norms, and political preferences, linked to a program of action vis-à-vis a given social and political order. People relate to each other and to the world on the basis of value judgments, ideas about how things should be, and preferred forms of governance of the world. In other words, ideologies are axiological, normative, and political.” (2006, pp. 5–6) The above definitions resonate with and build upon Althusser's earlier definition of ideology (an interpretation that itself builds upon earlier work by Marx) as “the system of the ideas and representations which dominate the mind of a man or a social group” (1971, p. 158). Thus, ideology functions as a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. Althusser expands upon this definition by emphasizing that ideology is material, more than a set of abstract ideas. Further, he describes the ways in which individuals are subjected to—or “hailed by”—dominant ideologies, which appear in society via what he calls Ideological State Apparatuses, which include such institutions as educational systems, churches, and mass media. Gitlin (1980) wrote that mass media often unwittingly reinforce and reformulate dominant ideology through media practices that stem from the ways in which media creators themselves are socialized and shaped by mass media throughout their own lives. Although journalists and others who work in media may not be consciously aware that they are upholding dominant ideology, Gitlin wrote that journalists who work in mass media tend to serve the ideological interests of the political and economic elite. Because dominant ideology is so powerful and deeply entrenched in mass media representations, Davidson (2004) wrote that ideological analysis can therefore be considered an attempt to develop oppositional ideologies that challenge dominant ideology by turning a critical eye to their existence and formation. The act of ideological analysis “unmask[s] the mechanism by which ideological apparatuses such as the mass media turn certain values that privilege some and repress others into iron rules. By comprehending its operation, we … might be able to oppose its effects.” (Davidson, p. 5). Editorials in major daily newspapers are one very important system of representation through which individuals experience and understand their world. The news media, in their agenda-setting function, set the tone and the parameters for public discourse about issues of grave public importance, like terrorism and school shootings (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007; Shehata, 2007; Maxwell et al., 2000). The ideology that underpins these narratives is productive of a particular construction of the world itself—productive of the reality in which these shootings take place. For these reasons, it is important to understand how dominant ideologies are reproduced through mass media in the representations of editorial pages in leading newspapers. Method and object of analysis I examined these trends by conducting an ideological analysis of the editorial pages of two major British daily newspapers, the Times of London (including the Sunday Times) and the Independent (including the Independent on Sunday). I obtained 27 articles (features, op-eds, and editorials) that appeared on the editorial pages of these two newspapers between April 1999, the month of the watershed Columbine shooting, and April 2009, a month after the Winnenden shooting and a full decade after Columbine. These articles were obtained using the LexisNexis online database. Of these 27 articles, 18 were from the Times, and 9 were from the Independent. This analysis focused particularly on a few specific aspects of editorial coverage in these two newspapers: interpretations of the causes of school shootings, attributions of responsibility for the events, and generalized proposed solutions that were offered to the problem of school shootings. An analysis of how European editorials frame the causes of, responsibility for, and solutions to school violence over the last decade is currently particularly relevant, both because high-profile episodes of deadly school violence have significantly increased in frequency (both in Europe and the United States), and because 2009 marked the 10th anniversary of the Columbine massacre. An interesting aspect of this analysis is an examination of how the British media narrative changed over the decade since Columbine, a decade that was fraught with school violence. I chose to focus on the Times and the Independent primarily because the greatest amount of editorial coverage of school shooting events appeared in these two daily newspapers. To contextualize the themes that emerged, however, it is important to consider the notable differences between the two newspapers. The Times of London is a very old British daily newspaper, first published in 1785, that has been owned, since 1981, by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which reported a net profit of 5.4 billion U.S. dollars in the 2008 fiscal year (News Corporation Annual Report, 2008). While Murdoch has insisted that he holds little editorial sway in the decisions about coverage made by the Times (Murdoch, 2007), 2005 readership data collected by Ipsos MORI, a British survey research organization, indicates that readers of the Times were significantly more likely to vote for a Conservative candidate than a representative of any other party. The Independent, unlike the Times, is a relatively young daily newspaper, owned by Independent News & Media. The newspaper was created only 23 years ago, in 1986. In the first 6 months of the 2008 fiscal year (the only period in 2008 for which data were available), Independent News & Media reported a net profit of 48.7 million Euros, or about 63.4 million U.S. dollars (Independent News & Media PLC Interim Results Report, 2008). Interestingly, in its early marketing campaigns, the Independent initially positioned itself as a centrist newspaper, balancing out other dailies that were seen as simply mouthpieces for their respective owners, like the Times' Murdoch or the Telegraph's Conrad Black. The Independent's trademark slogan, which it began using in its early years of publication, and which it brought back over a decade later in 1997, was “It is. Are you?” (Macmillan, 1997) But the Independent has come to be considered a somewhat left-leaning paper, which is also reflected in poll data. The same 2005 Ipsos MORI poll found that readers of the Independent were far more likely to vote for a Labour (left) or Liberal Democrat (center) candidate than a Conservative. These differences in political inclination and history are reflected in the audiences for these editorial pages—the readership of these two newspapers. The audience for the Times appears to be typically older, more affluent, and more conservative—News Corporation's 2008 annual report states that “no other quality title in the U.K. reaches more business leaders than the Times and the Sunday Times.” The audience for the Independent, on the other hand, appears to be younger and more liberal-moderate. As of December 2008, the Times' circulation was 600,962, while the Independent's circulation was 200,242 (“ABCS,” 2009). Both have seen significant declines in readership over the last year alone—a change of 3% and 10%, respectively. It is in this context that major narrative themes and patterns appeared in the editorial coverage of school shootings in these two newspapers. In these editorial pages, the particular agenda put forward by the respective editorial staffs of these two newspapers encouraged readers to think about a very narrow and specific set of concerns in relation to the problem of school shootings. Findings There were three primary themes that presented themselves in this decade of Times and Independent coverage as a whole: widespread disgust with a disordered and unhealthy American gun culture and state of firearms legislation, a focus on gratuitous and violent entertainment media, and a frustration with unethical media coverage of these tragic events. A few articles in the sample of 27 contained more than one of these three major themes, but most focused primarily on one theme. All but four of the articles clearly aligned with at least one of the three primary themes. One incongruity in editorial coverage in this particular sample was the marked shift in the Times coverage of school shootings after September 2007, when the tone switched abruptly from an indictment of violent American gun culture to a series of progun op-eds. An American gun culture The earliest and most pervasive theme that presented itself in the editorial coverage of both newspapers was a clear condemnation of U.S. gun culture and firearms legislation. Six of the 18 Times articles (of which all six were among the first seven articles published on the subject), and six of the nine Independent articles, put forward this idea—that American gun culture was not only toxic but contagious, and its gun legislation irrational or nonexistent. In the Times, this theme was uniformly pervasive until late 2007, when the articles on the editorial pages shifted to a series of op-eds that took a progun stance sympathetic to American firearms legislation (all written by the same author, Richard Munday). Before September 2007, however, the Times' editorial pages largely regarded gun laws in the United States as insane and impossible to comprehend. But unlike the Independent, which took a harder line on the tightening of American gun legislation, Times coverage largely regarded gun control as a “salve, not a solution” (Linklater, 2007). Again and again, the gulf between the United States and the UK on the issue of gun ownership was highlighted in these early articles in the Times. In an April 24, 1999 article, Ben Macintyre called the U.S. standpoint on gun ownership “baffling”: The carnage in Colorado happened because only in America do teenagers have such grotesquely easy access to high-powered guns,” Macintyre wrote. “The heavily armed anti-government militia movement in America is exactly the reverse of what the Founding Fathers had in mind. (Macintyre, 1999) The following day, in an article in the Sunday Times, Melanie Phillips characterized the United States as “an angry and violent country,” writing that nearly a million American teenagers carry a gun to school (Phillips, 1999). After the Virginia Tech massacre, the Times' narrative on the deficiencies in U.S. gun laws remained consistent: In an April 17, 2007 article, Gerard Baker referred to the “desensitizing standards of American gun violence,” asking why Americans continued to support gun laws and a culture that condemned “thousands of innocents to death each year.” Many of the Times articles that expressed this theme invoked the archetypal idea of the American “pioneer” with a “frontier mentality”—a long-held romantic stereotype that the writers believed was fueling Americans' disordered attitudes toward guns. On the editorial pages of the Independent, the theme of American gun culture as a culprit for deadly school shootings was even more explicit. An April 17, 2007, editorial stated that Americans have a lethal “ardour for guns,” and further, that if America “does not want to learn” from the tragedy at Virginia Tech—as the editorial suggested—then it is too late for them to “heed the lesson” (“Multiple shootings,” 2007). A long article the following day laid out a detailed analysis of how America's lax gun laws and the high murder rate fit together, concluding that while American gun laws were clearly the means by which teenagers were easily procuring guns to use in school shootings, these laws were unlikely to change anytime soon, given the powerful nature of the U.S. gun lobby—especially the National Rifle Association (Cornwell, 2007). A later editorial in the Independent was simply titled: “America, a nation that believes in violence” (Smith, 2007). But while both the Times and the Independent expressed disgust, early and often, with the state of U.S. gun legislation, they were nearly always careful to add the qualification that it was not Americans themselves who were inherently violent. The overarching idea that contextualized this theme in editorial coverage was that gun violence could—and did—happen anywhere, even in the U.K., but that easy access to guns in the United States was the clear and unequivocal difference in the disparity between the rates of gun violence in the two countries. In an op-ed in the Independent, Richard Wolffe (2007) wrote that random violence in Britain usually came in the form of a beating, or a stabbing, while random violence in the United States was far more likely to involve guns, simply because of lax U.S. gun laws. Almost without exception, however, articles in both papers defended the character of Americans as a whole, even while decrying American gun culture and gun legislation. The Times even criticized a rival paper for its knee-jerk reaction to the Virginia Tech massacre: Irish Times leader writers are instinctively anti-American. This is, of course, a crass and ill-founded generalization, yet no more so than the condescending, xenophobic stereotyping that littered Wednesday's editorial about the Virginia Tech massacre … America is a big place. Its citizens do not speak with a single voice. Moreover, the voices its madmen hear in their heads do not speak with a single voice either. (Fay, 2007) The clear solution put forward by both the Times and the Independent was simple: stricter gun control. But this solution, as one Times writer put it, would involve a “wholesale shift in the national culture” (Linklater, 2007). The desensitization of violent entertainment Another major theme present in the editorial coverage of both papers was the notion that solipsism, social malaise, and desensitization to violence plague Western culture as a whole—especially youth culture, and especially in the United States. Further, these negative effects were thought to be the result of violent and desensitizing entertainment in the form of films, television shows, Internet use, and video games. Five of the Times articles and three of the Independent articles focused on this theme, which became increasingly prevalent over the course of the decade. An early article in the Times' editorial coverage of the Columbine massacre called the two killers “deadly products of a pariah youth culture,” indirectly absolving the murderers of responsibility through the argument that their values were neutralized by peer culture and violent entertainment media. According to this article, these violent media—like the Internet, computer games, and song lyrics—taught kids that it is okay to kill (Phillips, 1999). In another Times article after the Columbine shooting, Magnus Linklater (1999) wrote that the Columbine killers were so inundated with violent media that their main goal was shock value: “In a culture ridden with violence, where images of brutality suffuse film and television, the act that can still shock is the massacre of innocent.” A later Times article that came in response to the Northern Illinois University shooting attributed the responsibility for these attacks to the “pernicious influence of violent video games” (Crampton, 2008). Similarly, the author of a November 10, 2007 article in response to the Finnish Jokela shooting primarily indicted Internet use as the catalyst that sparked lethal shooting sprees, writing that a high rate of gun ownership, widespread depression, and increasing Internet use in Finland combined to produce a perfect storm of angst and opportunity to carry out a school shooting. The author, Aki Riihilahti (2007), wrote that the Internet had fundamentally changed Finnish society, and that “it is the nature of the Internet to push people to ever more extreme sites.” The Independent, too, loudly denounced violent entertainment media—and especially American entertainment media—as a culprit that combined with gun availability to produce an environment conducive to school shootings. In an April 18, 2007 article, Rupert Cornwell wrote that “violence, and the glorification of violence, run deep in American culture,” telling the reader to look to Hollywood output, box-office hits, and top-40 songs as proof. Later coverage in the Independent characterized the Virginia Tech shooter's homemade video as “pure Hollywood,” offering up a comparison of “the spree killer as John Rambo, that enduring icon of American manhood” (Smith, 2007). Even as early as April 1999, when the problem of school shootings was being primarily framed as a gun-control issue in the Independent, its editorial pages offered this complementary violent-media explanation for the phenomenon of school shootings, arguing that the cultural mindset that produced Columbine had “something to do with the increasing solipsism of the world in which our teenagers live … as self-contained as an astronaut's capsule, each with its own TV, stereo system, and wired-up computer,” which produced a worldview that was “increasingly self-reverential and self-validating” (“From a leading article,” 1999). Proposed solutions to the perceived problem of violent entertainment media were far less unified, and less specific, ranging from an exhortation for adults to mentor and parent the world's youth (Phillips, 1999) to “a cold hard look at the human cost” of entertainment media that fuel violent culture (“The larger questions,” 2007). Unethical media coverage A third theme, which was present only in the editorial pages of the Times, was an indictment of news media for helping to fuel school shootings. This theme emerged only in the last 2 years of the post-Columbine decade (notably, only after Virginia Tech). In the four Times articles that focused on this theme, the general argument was that by airing or printing extensive coverage of school shootings, news media—and especially American news media—were fueling a deadly craving for celebrity in mentally ill youth who might have a predisposition toward becoming these sorts of suicidal rampage shooters. These Times articles argued that, by exhaustively and sensationally airing coverage of the shooters' lives and identities after the shootings, the shooters were granted posthumous infamy and positioned as sort of antiheroes, which is perhaps what they wanted all along. In an article titled “Lights, camera, killing: America's deadly craving for celebrity,” Rod Liddle (2007) wrote that America's media system was so obsessed with mindless amusement that it was incapable of functioning without appropriating everything for the purpose of entertainment—violence, murder, and even mourning. The Virginia Tech killer's film, he wrote, was “lapped up” by both a public hungry for violence and news media hungry for ratings: The liberals are probably right about gun control. There are too many firearms in the United States and too many lunatics having hold of them. But that doesn't give you the why. It just gives you the how. A society in thrall to television and the cult of celebrity—no matter how stupid, deranged, undeserving—gives you the why. (Liddle, 2007) All four of the Times articles that focused on this theme (all of which were in response to the Virginia Tech shooting) universally characterized the Virginia Tech killer, Cho Seung-Hui, as simultaneously pathetic, evil, and insane, a disturbed man who used his media savvy to get the news to serve his own deranged purposes. Cho's was a life “without context or meaning,” in which he went to a great deal of trouble to memorialize himself, “but achieved only banality” (Macintyre, 2007). He was a deranged killer with “vague, self-aggrandising justifications for his actions” (Liddle, 2007), and his video package was dismissively referred to as the “Cho Show” (Aaronovitch, 2007). One May 29, 2007 article, in particular, blasted both U.S. and British media for airing the video footage, photographs, and written material that the Virginia Tech killer sent to NBC. In it, David Aaronovitch (2007) wrote that there were three problems with screening this material: First, it was exactly what the killer wanted; second, it was hurtful to friends and relatives of the victims; and finally, it might very well “motivate some other inadequate to take the Cho road to infamy.” This attribution of responsibility to news media was a big shift away from the earlier gun-control and violent-media rationales that followed earlier shootings—it was a turn to the introspective, an indictment of news media themselves. A drastic shift in Times editorial coverage On April 24, 2007, the Times ran an article written by Mick Hume, an “old British libertarian Marxist,” who suggested that—“bizarre and extraordinary” as it might sound—perhaps a tightening of American gun laws would actually render would-be victims less safe from the likes of Cho. This article was followed by a November article about the Finnish school shootings, written by a Finn—then, in a departure from earlier themes present in the Times, by three nearly identical op-eds that took a much stronger progun, antiregulation stance. These three op-eds, all of which were written by Richard Munday between September 8, 2007, and March 13, 2009, argued that shootings in places like Virginia Tech (where guns were not allowed on campus) and Mumbai (which had strict gun laws) proved that gun control did not work (Munday, 2008). Not only did this series of op-eds mark a distinct editorial shift away from the three main themes outlined above, but they were very repetitive in terms of examples that were used and points that were made. In all three op-eds, for example, Munday invoked the British history of gun use, using the literary figure of Sherlock Holmes, with his ever-present revolver, as an example of the innocuousness and normalcy of guns. In two of the articles, Munday also compared the massacre at Virginia Tech to a shooting at the American Appalachian Law School in 2002 that was halted by armed students. And in all three articles, Munday, who has written very similar articles for the Telegraph, and the Washington Times of the United States, wrote that violence in the United States had actually dropped as guns became more readily available: Whereas in the 1960s and 1970s armed crime rose in the face of more restrictive gun laws … over the past 20 years all violent crime has dropped dramatically, in lockstep with the spread of laws allowing the carrying of concealed weapons by law-abiding citizens. (Munday, 2007) The solution to school violence, Munday wrote, is not more restrictive gun legislation but less restrictive legislation—he wrote that “gun controls disarm only the law-abiding, and leave predators with a freer hand” (Munday, 2007). In his last op-ed, on March 13, 2009, in the wake of the Winnenden shooting, Munday proposed arming teachers, Israeli-style, and compared those who would enact stricter gun controls to Hitler, who once remarked that the most foolish mistake would be “to allow the subject races to possess arms.” Discussion The invocation of the gun-control debate in the United States, although it is a time-honored and controversial topic, is now far less prevalent, and less politically expedient, than it is in the UK, where British media observe the debate as outsiders to American culture and politics. In the United States, poll data are—and generally always have been—fairly split on the issue of support for gun control, making it a somewhat taboo topic for politicians who do not want to alienate large swaths of their voters, but the percentage of Americans who support stricter gun control has dropped dramatically in the decade since Columbine, from 63% in 2000 to 49% percent in 2008, according to Harris polls. In this sense, the pervasive progun-control theme in the British press runs counter to much American public opinion, but the striking issue remains that the gun-control issue—the debate over how and whether gun ownership and use should be regulated—is far and away the most consistent theme to emerge from editorial school shooting coverage in both the Times and Independent, two newspapers with very different readerships and editorial slants. Interestingly, agenda-setting research in the United States suggests that this sustained focus on the perennial gun-control debate is often prevalent in U.S. media in the wake of school shootings as well—but that the problem-defining process in the United States is often meant to mirror or buttress actual legislative activity, even when it departs wildly from the actual current legislative process (Lawrence & Birkland, 2004). In the editorial coverage of these two newspapers, it is not surprising that the newspaper with a gentler and more permissive perspective toward conservative American gun use and legislation overall is the Times, owned by the famously conservative Murdoch, and read by a relatively conservative British audience. While the sudden switch toward a progun stance seems drastic and incongruous with earlier themes, it is also possible that the ideological shift in the Times' editorial pages reflected the change of editor that took place the same year. In 2007, Robert Thomson, the editor of the Times, was named the new publisher of the Wall Street Journal after News Corporation acquired it, and James Harding became the new editor of the Times. It is not surprising that the Independent, with a comparatively liberal readership and editorial stance, consistently espoused a view that aligned with stricter gun control. But the fact remains that, when it comes to editorial coverage of school shootings, the polarized issue of gun control is at the top of both newspapers' agendas, conferring the issue heightened status in the minds of its readers and in the public as a whole. And this is where the consistent posttragedy theme of gun control becomes troubling, whether it manifests itself as a more typical British objection to lax American gun laws, or a Munday op-ed that argues vigorously for less gun control. The naturalized result of this limited focus is that a narrow and dichotomous “debate” emerges, a debate that lacks nuance, context, or middle ground. The second prominent theme in this editorial coverage, the focus on violent entertainment media and unhealthy youth culture as a culprit in school shootings, is problematic for a different reason—much of it is based on inaccurate archetypes that grew out of sensational and herd-mentality Columbine coverage. The dominant story about the Columbine shooters, which was repeated and reinforced early and often, was that the two young gunmen were loners, essentially driven mad by violent media and oppressed by bullying. The U.S. and European media almost universally framed the shootings as a kind of “lashing back” on the part of sullen, violent-media-obsessed, picked-on schoolchildren. But as later research has shown, this particular frame of killers-as-angry-Goths was, at best, hyperbolic, and, at worst, wildly inaccurate. The truth, it turns out, is that the Columbine shooters were not members of the Trench Coat Mafia, they were not gay, and neither did they specifically target Christians, jocks, or minorities. They were not parroting violent video games or carrying out the suggestions of violent song lyrics (Cullen, 1999; 2009). Yet this frame, inaccurate as it was—with its clear heroes and villains, its obvious culprits, and its easy assignment of blame to video games and violent lyrics, was the only one news media chose to highlight (Toppo, 2009), and the myths that accompanied it remain ubiquitous. This analysis illustrates that these pervasive and archetypal Columbine myths were neither confined to the United States nor to the few years after Columbine—this ideological attribution of responsibility to violent media and youth culture were nearly universal, and lasted for many years. These recurrent violent-entertainment-and-youth-culture themes, like the recurrent theme of gun control, were naturalized and legitimized as plausible explanations for these kinds of shootings, even when they were significantly at odds with reality, as they were in Columbine. But these explanations and themes were neither inevitable nor natural—they grew out of pre-existing frames that crowded out alternative explanations or attributions of responsibility. As Stuart Hall (1982) wrote, “This movement—towards the winning of universal validity and legitimacy for accounts of the world which are partial and particular, and toward the grounding of these particular constructions in the taken-for-grantedness of ‘the real’—is indeed the characteristic and defining mechanism of ‘the ideological”’ (Hall, 1982, p. 65). The third theme of indictment of media themselves in the Times is the clear departure from the other more routine and conventional themes in this body of coverage. Notably, articles that invoked this specific journalistic criticism only followed American Virginia Tech coverage, a trend that also emerged in the United States, where NBC's decision to air the killer's homemade video sparked a grim and prolonged internal debate about American journalistic ethics. The interesting thing about this particular theme is that it emerged long after Columbine, after 8 years of similarly immersive and spectacular cable news coverage of similar school shootings. It is possible that the sheer scale of Virginia Tech—paired with troubling trends in coverage that seemed to overtly glorify the shooter—was the straw that finally broke the camel's back, which pushed the issue of media ethics and responsibility in school shooting coverage toward the agendas of news media themselves. What is less clear is why the Independent did not express this theme—only the Times argued that unethical coverage of school shootings might lead to more tragedies in the future. It is possible, however, that the sustained focus on gun control by the left-leaning Independent crowded out alternative explanations or problems that may have helped fuel the shootings. Also interesting is how the coverage progressed and flowed over the course of the decade. Most of the articles on the subject of school shootings were written in response to either Columbine or Virginia Tech—two very high-profile events that garnered enormous waves of global coverage. There was very little in between, meaning that the largest amount of editorial discussion was concentrated in the years 1999 and 2007. The themes themselves also shifted over time, from a more standard indictment of American gun culture in the immediate aftermath of a given shooting toward larger questions about other potential underlying issues that were fueling the problem, although these issues themselves were largely limited to existing themes that grew out of Columbine coverage—violent entertainment, angry youth, and a lonely and toxic culture. Conclusion Underlying this analysis of the ideological themes present in school shooting coverage is the effect that the narrative that enfolds and contextualizes these shootings can have on audiences. The ways in which events of pivotal public interest and importance are presented in newspapers can affect not only readers' patterns of knowledge activation, but comprehension, public opinion, and even public policy (Price, Tewksbury, & Powers, 1997; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007). Furthermore, these narratives of public discourse in major newspapers, and the ideologies that inform them, are productive of a particular construction of the world itself—the reality in which these shootings occur. In the mass media, claims about truth and reality are necessarily imbued with certain worldviews; many analyses of representations of political and social issues in mass media have found significant ideological factors involved (Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke, & Roberts, 1978; Van Dijk, 1991). Carvalho (2007) writes that media discourse and ideology are mutually constitutive—that is, media texts result from ideological standpoints, and produce ideology, because news media always reproduce and/or challenge a certain ideology. Media are not merely conduits of power or mouthpieces for the ideologies of others—as Carey (1989) wrote, reading the news is a dramatic ritual act, and the ritual model is not as much about information acquisition as it is “about dramatic action, in which the reader joins a world of contending forces as an observer at a play … News is not information but drama, part of the ritual actions of everyday social life.” (Carey, 1989, pp. 20–21) Mass media have agency in presenting new ideological readings of issues—or simply critiquing dominant views. In the Times and Independent editorial coverage of school shootings in the decade following Columbine, two of the three main themes that emerged (with the exception of the focus on unethical news media) were limited to the common restrictive subjects of gun control and violent entertainment media. In this sense, both the Times and the Independent served to perpetuate an existing “status quo” of narrative and context for these events, rather than exploring alternative explanations or attributions of responsibility. Both the conservative Times and the liberal-moderate Independent focused on these two themes nearly exclusively, revealing a common agenda or focus on these issues that transcended editorial and structural differences. Also, while the Times presented two different perspectives on the issue of gun control, it created both contradiction and instability in its overall message in the process, while limiting the multifaceted gun-control debate to two polarized “sides.” This particular issue represents this text's “ideological problematic” on the issue of gun control, or the “field of representational possibilities offered by a text” (White, 1992, p. 182). The Times framed the gun-control debate as a dichotomous, black-and-white issue, an issue without context, nuance, or shades of gray. The fact that the Times included two different positions on this subject, as White wrote, “conveys an impression of completeness, as if anything that might be said on the issue has been covered. But often only a delimited or circumscribed range of choices is in fact presented to begin with” (White, 1992, p. 138). And so despite the occasional presence of multiple viewpoints on a single issue, the public discourse in the Times and the Independent over the causes for and solutions to school shootings were ideologically both restrictive and incomplete, excluding both alternative themes or concerns from their analyses (potential issues like health care, interpersonal relationships, or, largely, media coverage) and shades of gray within the themes that were presented. 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Denham, Bryan, E.

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01082.xpmid: N/A

Abstract Few studies have offered conceptual explanations of how or why film portrayals might influence audience perceptions of social issues. Even fewer have conceptualized the processes through which films stand to amplify deviant behaviors and thus contribute to moral panics, or disproportionate responses to social problems. In conceptualizing such processes, the current article draws on social identity, attribution, framing, and disposition theories, examining the manner in which popular films have identified and reified internal and external enemies in the U.S. war on drugs. As the article suggests, films have contributed periodically to moral panics surrounding the use of illicit substances, dramatizing the corruptive influence of racialized “others.” The article considers the implications of such portrayals and makes recommendations for future research. Four decades have passed since U.S. President Richard Nixon declared “war” on the use of illicit drugs in American society (see Musto, 1999). Since passage of the initial legislation—the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970—rhetorical battles have been fought in newspaper and magazine articles as well as on radio and television news broadcasts (Chermak, 1998; Johnson & Wanta, 1996). Somewhat overlooked in analyses of drug-issue constructions has been the medium of film (Stern, 2005), which scholars have recognized as a significant contributor to perceptions of social reality (Jowett & Linton, 1989; Nimmo & Combs, 1990; Young, 2000; Zavarzadeh, 1991). The present article seeks to shed light on film as an amplifier of deviant behavior (Young, 1973a), proceeding from an assumption that one drug war cannot be sustained for some 40 years without periodic crises (Jenkins, 1999) and associated moral panics (Chiricos, 1996; Hunt, 1997). Popular films, the article suggests, help to construct media-driven panics by identifying and reifying internal and external enemies (Boyd, 2008; Mackey-Kallis & Hahn, 1994), with “folk devils” (Cohen, 1972; Downes, 1977) bearing responsibility for “skyrocketing” use of substances such as heroin, crack cocaine, and methamphetamine. In developing a conceptual framework, the article draws on research in communication, sociology, film studies, and cultural criminology, beginning with an overview of scholarship addressing deviance amplification and moral panics. Through social identity, attribution, framing, and disposition theories, the article examines the processes through which films help to define symbolic crises, following that discussion with manifestations of processes conceptualized. The article considers the sociocultural implications of current practices and makes recommendations for future research. Deviance amplification and moral panics: An overview As a construct originating in criminology (Wilkins, 1964), “deviance amplification” evolved, in part, from labeling theory (Becker, 1963), which suggests that individuals who have been publicly identified, or labeled, as deviant will be more likely than others to engage in socially objectionable behavior, in many cases developing a self-concept grounded in the rejection of social mores (Farrington, 1977). Mass media serve as primary labelers, or amplifiers of deviance, in this process, with Garland (2008) noting that “media attention and increased social control prompt a hardening of the original deviance, or even an enhancement of its attraction for potential deviants” (p. 14). Media productions, in short, assist authorities in defining deviant behaviors by broadcasting and rebroadcasting prevalent conceptions of acceptable and unacceptable conduct, allowing dominant groups to preserve societal power by characterizing the behaviors of smaller entities as threatening or disruptive. As Young (2009) explained, mass media have the capacity to both titillate and condemn, helping to construct spirals of fear and emotion-based moral indignation among mass audiences. Such a process, Young posited, results in “othering,” and across time, actual behaviors may become less objectionable—or fearsome—than those who engage in them. In his seminal text Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers, Stanley Cohen (1972) applied the term “folk devils” to individuals whose behaviors threaten the social order. Repeated media references to such behaviors may result in a moral panic, or disproportionate response to a social problem (see Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clark, & Roberts, 1978; Jenkins, 1998; McRobbie & Thornton, 1995; Thompson, 1999; Young, 1973b). In generating these symbolic crises, “moral entrepreneurs” seek to associate deviance with “shame, disrespect, and irresponsibility” (Ben-Yehuda, 1990, p. 84), triggering emotional reactions (i.e., moral indignation) from audience members. By definition, deviance does not exist without calls for social reaction (Ericson, Baranek, & Chan, 1987), and when those appeals are made in concert with powerful imagery, reaction becomes increasingly intense. Goode and Ben-Yehuda (1994) identified five characteristics of a moral panic, beginning with a heightened level of concern about an issue or event. That concern creates hostility toward a certain group, and a consensus in society considers the threat real, even though reaction may be disproportionate to the problem. Finally, moral panics are volatile, arising and fading quickly. Moral panics need not—and generally do not—reflect the empirical realities of social issues (see Buchanan, Shaw, Ford, & Singer, 2003; Denham, 2008; Hunt, 1997; Miller, 2006). For their part, mass media, which serve the interests of social and political elites (Graber, 2010), amplify deviant behaviors for mass audiences (see Critcher, 2003, 2006; Gripsrud, 1992), citing official definitions of social problems (Jenkins, 2009) and identifying the perpetrators of deviant acts. Johnson-Cartee (2005) argued that news narratives, steeped in cultural hegemony, contain certain “attitudes” about the issues at hand, and the current article observes that these attitudes evoke emotional responses (i.e., generate disgust and moral indignation) among audiences. Garland (2008) explained that identification of folk devils is not a random process, and discussing white-collar crime, Levi (2009) appeared to agree: “Almost by definition, economic power, prestige and respectability serve as a barrier to entry into folk-devil status, certainly over the longer term” (p. 51). Indeed, even though their crimes may impact society much more than those of drug users, white-collar criminals are less likely to be characterized as “others” (i.e., as members of out-groups), possessing what Levi termed a “chameleon quality” that allows them to convince the masses that they meant no harm and were merely victims of circumstance. In contrast, “others” generally do not have resources to defend themselves against accusations of deviant behavior and therefore must simply endure symbolic crises until the panics fade. “Moral panics often seem ephemeral,” Garland noted, “but over time their cumulative effect can be to create social divisions and redistribute social status as well as building infrastructures of regulation and control that persist long after the initial episode has run its course” (p. 16). Writing about synthetic drug panics, Jenkins (1999) suggested that symbolic crises have generally occurred every 3 to 4 years. In the late 70s and early 80s, he noted, mass media characterized PCP (phencyclidine) as a killer of young people, with films such as Fort Apache the Bronx (1981) helping to define drug hazards for national audiences. Following the PCP panic came fentanyl, with the “ice age” and smokable methamphetamine emerging in the late 80s and early 90s (Jenkins, 1994). In the middle nineties, after an alleged “explosion” in the use of methcathinone, or CAT, “date-rape” drugs such as Rohypnol and GHB appeared, as did “club drugs” such as MDMA (i.e., “Ecstasy”) and Ketamine (Grob, 2002; Hammersley, Khan, & Ditton, 2002; Hollywood, 1997). “In each synthetic panic of the 1990s,” Jenkins (1999) contended, “the media … served as brilliantly successful public-relations workers, bringing local products to the national consciousness in a way that would excite huge professional envy if they were promoting soft drinks or fast food instead” (p. 18). The periodic crises to which Jenkins referred, in addition to those involving cocaine and heroin, have helped to sustain the war on drugs for some 40 years. Drug crises allow public officials to take a stand against those who would corrupt the most vulnerable members of society, rallying constituents with dramatic anecdotes of individuals who died as a consequence of substance abuse. In fact, as Morgan, Wallack, and Buchanan (1989) observed, “The whole idea of a drug war fosters a climate which divides a society, thereby promoting a picture of an ‘enemy,’ that separates us into a community of the righteous and the damned. This division serves to make the battle morally and politically acceptable even if a losing battle” (p. 101). Indeed, public officials and those who seek elected office stand to benefit politically from drug-related crises, as substance-use panics can be linked to individual moral failures, as opposed to social and economic considerations (Morgan et al., 1989, p. 108). Popular films stand to provide visual representations of those who are morally corrupt, amplifying deviant behaviors for mass audiences through dramatic narratives. Cinematic representations of unacceptable conduct may prove especially dramatic in genres such as heroic fiction, which, Sparks (1996) noted, “presuppose some sort of failure of social arrangements” (p. 357). In this genre, heroic protagonists satisfy fed-up audience members by dispensing justice to those whose behaviors ostensibly threaten society. The following section offers a theoretical account of how film stands to magnify perceived threats, thus playing a significant role in the amplification of deviance and the construction of moral panics. Film as deviance amplifier and contributor to moral panics: Conceptual processes Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) suggests that a human tendency to categorize and maintain positive self-esteem leads individuals to identify with certain social groups and to accentuate in-group similarities when those constructed as others (i.e., members of “out-groups”) appear to pose a threat. Social-group memberships thus offer individuals a sense of belongingness and perceived stability as well as indications of behavioral normalcy. In the context of moral panics, when groups that have attained power sense external threats, they may characterize specific out-group behaviors as deviant and morally reprehensible; mass media facilitate these characterizations through narratives of heroes and villains. Jenkins (2009) also stressed the importance of visual imagery in the magnification of deviant behavior (see also Ben-Yehuda, 2009), and research in media psychology has supported his contentions. In a study that compared the effects of documentaries with those of fictional films, Pouliot and Cowen (2007) found that, while study participants considered documentaries more factual, exposure to fictional films yielded greater memory of visual and verbal information as well as more intense emotional reactions. Moreover, the authors observed, films with well-known social themes had greater influence on memory and emotion (see also Marsh, Meade, & Roediger, 2003). Pouliot and Cowen suggested that dramatic narratives can cause audience members to identify with protagonists, increasing emotional involvement in the story. Dramatic narratives also activate cognitive frames, which Entman (1993) defined as “mentally stored clusters of ideas that guide individuals' processing of information” (p. 53). Iyengar (1989, 1991) explained that individuals tend to rely on attributions of responsibility in reasoning about social issues, and when media texts consistently link deviant behavior with certain races or ethnicities, individual audience members may interpret media messages (i.e., apply attributions of responsibility) through cognitive frames in which members of racial minorities appear to commit the preponderance of deviant acts. Relating audience frames to affective responses, Nabi (2003) found evidence that emotions such as fear and anger might effectively serve as frames themselves, noting that “repeated pairing of certain emotions with particular ideas or events eventually shapes the way in which one interprets and responds to those events that in turn affect one's worldview” (p. 227). In short, emotional reactions stand to influence behavioral attributions. “For consumers,” Jenkins (2009) wrote, “the narrative will have maximum impact if it meshes with previous expectations and knowledge, often because earlier movements and controversies have laid the foundation for later explosions” (p. 45). As a conceptual framework in social psychology, attribution theory, Ross (1977) explained, “is concerned with the attempts of ordinary people to understand the causes and implications of the events they witness. It deals with the ‘naÏve psychology’ of the ‘man on the street' as he interprets his own behaviors and the actions of others” (p. 174). In explaining outcomes, the “naÏve psychologist” typically grounds attributions in the personal characteristics of actors or the properties of situations; “fundamental attribution error” pertains to the tendency of individuals to overestimate the influence of personal characteristics while underestimating the importance of situational factors. Because individuals selectively expose themselves to those who share similar values and interests, they may consider behaviors deviant based on a false consensus (Ross, 1977). Citing the cognitive “availability” heuristic (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973), Ross noted that “in a given situation the specific behaviors we have chosen, or would choose, are likely to be more readily retrievable from memory and more easily imagined than opposite behaviors” (p. 192). Daily experiences with familiar ideas stand to bias expectations and behavioral attributions, as does exposure to media texts that assume a shared understanding of reality and a familiarity with those most inclined to engage in deviant behavior. As Nabi (2003) observed, emotion may also impact availability, at the heart of audience frames. On a conceptual level, disposition theory suggests that media enjoyment tends to increase when disliked characters experience negative outcomes and liked characters prevail, consistent with the moral concerns of audience members (see Denham, 2004; Oliver, 2009). When one links disposition theory with social identity and attribution theories, out-group deviant behaviors, the result of an apparent proclivity for wrongdoing, must be stopped. If, as Critcher (2003, 2006) suggested, mass media “map” issues and events onto existing discursive frameworks, then dramatic film representations might provide recurring foundations for drug-issue constructions by creating antagonists and protagonists based on characteristics such as race, social class, gender, and nationality (Shapiro, 2003; Starks, 1982; Stevenson, 2000). Such characterizations may generate affective responses, which stand to normalize responsible reactions to the perceived reality. Across time, audience members may come to assume that individuals from certain parts of the nation—and certain parts of the world—are prone to certain behaviors and should summarily be considered “folk devils.” These assumptions occur because films focus heavily on individual characters and rarely explore the kinds of thematic issues that might affect attributions of responsibility and lead audience members to consider structural issues involving social and economic factors. As an example of how dramatizations may contribute to audiences' perceptions of race and ethnicity, Ramasubramanian and Oliver (2007) conducted research on the activation of hostile and benevolent racism, observing study participants to judge African Americans harshly relative to other minorities; findings pointed to perceived individual shortcomings, as opposed to social injustices and structural prejudices. Finally, in terms of attribution bias as well as cinematic character development, Pizarro (2000) noted that individuals generally do not feel empathy for those they perceive as being responsible for their own predicaments (i.e., those whose behavior does not reflect received knowledge about illicit acts). Audiences show little empathy for those constructed as others, deviants, or outsiders; such constructions, which influence and activate cognitive frames, may appear in both fictitious and nonfictitious media texts. The article now considers how processes conceptualized have manifested themselves in popular films addressing illicit drug use. Manifestations of processes conceptualized With conceptual grounding in social identity, framing, attribution, and disposition theories, the present article suggests that popular films have contributed to moral panics about drug use by identifying and reifying internal and external enemies, a group of “others” whose penchant for deviant behaviors purportedly threatens society. Films amplify deviant behaviors by drawing attention to those most inclined to commit deviant acts, in effect teaching audiences about “others” by casting out-group members as antagonists who have an apparent predisposition for wrongdoing. Across time, these dramatic narratives stand to affect the cognitive frames on which audience members draw in reasoning about social issues. Films elicit emotional responses, which themselves stand to serve as cognitive frames, and when members of certain races or ethnicities routinely appear as antagonists, audiences learn to take satisfaction in their dramatized downfalls, just as they take pleasure in those who dispensed justice. Mass media have contributed to drug-related moral panics since Reconstruction, when “Negro cocaine fiends” became a mediated threat to White women (Cohen, 2006). By 1915, when D.W. Griffith released The Birth of a Nation—a film that celebrated the Ku Klux Klan for coming to the rescue of White females—societal fears of hypersexualized Black men had been perpetuated in both newspapers and silent film. In fact, the moral corruption of White women by men of color appeared routine in drug-related films throughout the 20th century and into the 21st (Boyd, 2008). Films have frequently characterized Black men as violent sexual predators, cultivating fear and “mass emotionalism” in White America (Cohen, 2006; Guerrero, 1993; Provine, 2007; Williams, 2001). Reflecting that cinematic reality, Cohen (2006) has argued that drug policy in the United States evolved from laws established in the Jim Crow South, maintaining that fears of drug use paled in comparison to fears of race mixing. Indeed, rarely have battles in the war on drugs not contained an element of race (see Buckley, Schmoke, McNamara, & Sweet, 2002; Gould, 2002), with White males defining the conversation (Miller, 1998). In film, when raced drug users have not posed a threat, raced drug traffickers have; as Boyd (2002) explained, films have portrayed traffickers as “evil, sadistic, immoral, greedy corrupt outsiders, who lure innocent youth, and draw moral women into drug addiction and crime” (p. 398). Where corruption and the amplification of deviance are concerned, few films illustrate the effects of labeling more clearly than Scarface, a 1983 Brian De Palma picture about a Cuban refugee who becomes a ruthless drug dealer. Tony Montana, played by Al Pacino, arrives in the United States in search of the American dream (Shapiro, 2002), just as Al Capone had done decades earlier. Where Capone made his fortune selling alcohol during prohibition, the Montana character gains fantastic material wealth by selling vast amounts of Bolivian cocaine (see Lake-Benson, 2000). Using military-grade weaponry to defend his drug empire and collect his due (Marez, 2004), Montana epitomizes the cold-blooded, violent gangster (see Springhall, 1998), helping to construct the mediated reality of a drug-infested South Florida and the need to do something about crazed machine-gun-toting Latin drug lords threatening American society. In addition to his propensity for violence, Montana also appeared misogynistic, crudely characterizing sexual intercourse—and his intercourse partner, Elvira, played by actress Michelle Pfeiffer—throughout the picture. “You don't got nothing to do with your life,” Montana laments. “Why don't you get a job? Work with lepers. Blind kids. Anything's gotta be better than lying around all day waiting for me to fuck you.” Montana also humiliates Elvira in front of others, with statements such as “Look at that—a junkie … I got a junkie for a wife … Her womb is so polluted … I can't even have a fucking little baby with her!”1 The manner in which Montana treats Elvira reflects not only his contempt for her, but for anyone who becomes reliant on the substance he provides—until, of course, he joins them and helps to precipitate his own demise. In the early 80s, when Scarface appeared in theaters nationwide, hip-hop music simultaneously became more graphic in its depictions of life in urban America (Tucker, 2008), becoming replete with violent and misogynistic language (Armstrong, 2001). Hip-hop artists quickly drew on Scarface imagery and dialogue in constructing gangster personas. Recalling that labeling demarcates the differences between deviant and acceptable behavior, Scarface helped to establish parameters, of sorts, for what would become gangsta rap (Tucker, 2008). Additionally, taking stylistic guidance from Scarface, the television program Miami Vice premiered in 1984 and provided weekly dramatizations of Latin drug dealers moving in on, and corrupting, American society (Lyons, 2010). In fact, just 1 year after its premiere, in September 1985, Vice actors Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas appeared on the cover of Time magazine, the headline stating “Cool cops, hot show.” But as Stratton (2009) argued, Miami Vice may have become popular not because of its style, but because of its politics; the program capitalized on White anxiety about the increasing number of Latinos entering the United States, with Vice detectives keeping tabs on their deviant behaviors and removing them from the streets of South Florida. From the standpoint of deviance amplification, then, Scarface not only stood to activate cognitive frames and influence behavioral attributions, but also appears to have impacted both the music and television industries, which combined with the film to (potentially) influence those who listened to hip-hop and those who watched programs such as Miami Vice. Few films have magnified deviance as dramatically as Scarface did, and nearly 30 years after its release, quotes from the Montana character continue to resonate in popular culture. In gangster culture, two stand out: “I'm Tony Montana. You fuck with me, you’re fuckin’ with the best!” and “You wanna fuck with me? Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friend!” In stark contrast to the mediated brutality of Tony Montana and the South American drug pushers who supplied his cocaine, American drug kingpin George Jung appears to have possessed a quiet resolve to live the comfortable life his father never could. Actor Johnny Depp played Jung, a real-life cocaine smuggler, in the 2001 film Blow, which begins with Jung, as a boy, watching his father struggle to pay monthly bills and the family mortgage. Vowing that he, himself, will not face such a predicament, Jung turns to those with an apparent penchant for deviant behavior: Mexican marijuana producers and Colombian cocaine traffickers. Jung appears to be an average guy who simply identifies a business opportunity in providing people with drugs they would acquire anyway. Where the Montana character is fierce and does not hesitate to gun down an enemy at point-blank range, the Jung character is somewhat reserved and must turn away when a member of the Pablo Escobar drug cartel casually executes a suspected informant. As Shaw (2007) observed, the film version of Blow differed significantly from the book of the same name, written by Bruce Porter. The film vilified Colombian drug suppliers while creating a sympathetic character in Jung, who loses the (White and demure) love of his life to cancer and then marries an obnoxious, cocaine-snorting and sexualized Latina, Mirtha, played by Penelope Cruz. Mirtha is loud and irrational, utterly void of grace and maturity, and one of her public temper tantrums results in police arresting Jung and sending him to prison. Jung will miss seeing his daughter grow up when he subsequently takes the fall for his underlings, who worked with authorities in setting him up for a final arrest. “The end result,” Shaw posited, “is an Anglo-American hero who is brought down by the treachery and character flaws of his out of control Colombian wife and his treacherous business partner” (p. 32). To the extent that one accepts the above interpretation of Blow, a series of films in the late 80s appeared to illustrate how social and economic pressures lead otherwise intelligent and reasonable White film characters to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. When Less Than Zero premiered in 1987, prophetically featuring Robert Downey, Jr. as a cocaine addict facing an imminent demise, critics quickly suggested that the antidrug climate of the time had led Hollywood producers to significantly alter the book Less Than Zero, written by Bret Easton Ellis, to show what can happen to drug users. In 1988, Michael J. Fox moved from comedy to drama in Bright Lights, Big City, playing a young writer who develops a cocaine problem, and in Clean and Sober (1988), Michael Keaton played a successful real estate agent addicted to cocaine. Additionally, failing at tax-sheltered investments, a character played by James Woods became addicted to cocaine in The Boost (1988), and, later, in Permanent Midnight (1997), Ben Stiller played Jerry Stahl, a screenwriter who develops an expensive drug habit. Taken together, these films limit perceived threats by attributing drug use to situational pressures experienced by the primary characters, as opposed to a predisposition for deviant behavior. The films portray drug use as a problem limited to the characters' predicaments and do not indict cultural institutions. It should be noted that not every film depicting White drug users attributes their behavior to predicaments in which White characters find themselves—films such as My Own Private Idaho (1991), the Bad Lieutenant (1992), Killing Zoe (1993), and Trainspotting (1996) have associated White characters with squalor and urban decay—but on the whole, White film characters have differed behaviorally from people of color in drug-related pictures. In the early nineties, for instance, U.S. movie theaters screened a series of “ghetto movies” (Boyd, 2008), including Boyz n the Hood (1991), New Jack City (1991), Menace II Society (1993), Sugar Hill (1993), Fresh (1994), and Clockers (1995). Unlike many “White” drug movies, these films characterized drug-dealing “gang bangers” as prone to violence and brutality, threatening civil society (Boyd, 2008), with additional films such as Colors (1988), Grand Canyon (1991), Falling Down (1993), and Dangerous Minds (1995) offering visual imagery of life in urban settings. In terms of identity construction, Miller (1998) posited that “Hollywood defines how black males are portrayed on screen which in turn affects how young blacks define themselves” (p. 19). As indicated, images on the screen assist in “hardening” acts of deviance, and this process began long before films in the nineties depicted life in urban centers. In the “Blaxploitation” movies Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), actress Pamela Grier played a sexualized vigilante, using a shotgun to blow the head off one drug dealer and a knife to remove the genitals of another criminal before delivering them to his significant other. Additional drug-related films in the Blaxploitation genre, including Superfly (1972) and Cleopatra Jones (1973), also contributed to perceptions of urban reality in the United States, as Macek (2006) noted: “Since at least the early ‘70s Hollywood films have tended to define the ever-more socially heterogeneous American city as a police problem, an unruly place overrun by dangerous, amoral, usually minority undesirables from whom the rest of society must be vigilantly protected” (p. 204). Blaxploitation movies contributed to that mediated reality, and they also played a significant role in the development of director Quentin Tarantino, whose 1994 film Pulp Fiction told the interwoven stories of underworld characters wreaking havoc on one another in modern-day Los Angeles. For purposes of the current article, Pulp Fiction contained imagery of intravenous drug use that had not appeared in mainstream cinema, and in that respect it became instant fodder for drug-war advocates (i.e., those who blamed Tarantino for not offering sufficient moral lessons about drug use). In one scene, a close-up of a syringe full of heroin is injected into the arm of character Vincent Vega, played by John Travolta. Initially, blood from the arm flows up and into the syringe, followed by injection of the blood and the heroin back into the arm. In a subsequent scene, the Travolta character must attempt to revive Mia, the (White) wife of his (African American, drug trafficking) boss, Marsellus Wallace, after she mistakes Vega's heroin for cocaine and overdoses. In a scene that concludes with a syringe full of adrenaline being stabbed into the chest of actress Uma Thurman, Vega is spared the wrath of Wallace, played by Ving Rhames, when Mia emerges from unconsciousness and sits straight up, the syringe protruding from her sternum. While audiences may have dismissed the general mayhem depicted in Pulp Fiction as pure entertainment, Rosenbaum (1997) offered an astute observation of how such a film creates a stage… in which the world and the media become not so much interactive as interchangeable and indistinguishable, yielding an all-pervasive zone of perpetual disbelief that simultaneously saturates and alienates the viewer, confusing affect with effect, stylish flourish with story, morality with attitude. To a greater or lesser extent, all these movies imply that life can only be what we already see in the media; and since what we see there is invariably false and concocted, all that ultimately matters is the stylishness and purity of gestures, not what these gestures yield or produce. (pp. 172–173) Tarantino used both dialogue and visual imagery to “saturate and alienate” viewers of Pulp Fiction, and his film informed constructions of racialized others as well as amplifications of deviance more generally. In one scene, when Vega informs Lance, his heroin source, that he has just returned from Amsterdam, and that Lance therefore should not attempt to sell him low-grade heroin, Lance retorts, “Am I a nigger? Are we in Inglewood? No. You’re in my home … White people who know the difference between good shit and bad shit—this is the house they come to.” The intimation seems clear: Lance has the high-end heroin not found on the streets of South Central Los Angeles, where Black drug dealers sell an inferior substance. Additionally, in that same conversation, Lance, played by Eric Stoltz, schools Vega on the popularity of various drugs, and Miles Corwin (1996), writing in the Los Angeles Times, drew from the conversation in an article that addressed Generation X and drug abuse: Many young drug users deride cocaine as a yuppie symbol of the 1980s but consider heroin the cool drug of the 1990s, the ultimate act of rebellion, experts say. In the movie ‘Pulp Fiction,’ Eric Stoltz's character tells John Travolta's: ‘Coke is as dead as dead. Heroin is coming back in a big f_ _ _ ing way’… Heroin is a way for Xers to express their alienation, said Richard Rawson, director of the Matrix Center, a West Los Angeles drug treatment and research center. (p. A1) In a related study, Denham (2008) examined how images and events in the music, film, and fashion industries during the nineties created a mediated political reality—and associated moral panic—involving heroin. While the author found little evidence of actual increases in heroin use during that decade, news agencies such as the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post charged that an “old enemy” had returned with “a vengeance,” threatening a new generation of naÏve adolescents, many of whom idolized those linked with “heroin chic” (see also Brumm, 2005; Duterte, Hemphill, Murphy, & Murphy, 2003; McElrath & McEvoy, 2001). In fact, during his 1996 presidential campaign, Republican candidate Robert Dole, serving as moral entrepreneur, charged that films such as Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting (1996) had irresponsibly glamorized heroin use, and he also criticized the administration of Bill Clinton for not waging a vigilant fight against drug abuse (Nagourney, 1996). Additionally, on September 19, 1996, the Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs and Criminal Justice of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight conducted the hearing “Heroin: A re-emerging threat,” at which references to popular culture appeared frequently. Four years after the moral panic surrounding heroin reached its peak, U.S. senators Barbara Boxer, Charles Grassley, Orrin Hatch, and Don Nickles, as well as Congressman Harry Reid and Governor Bill Weld, appeared in Traffic (2000), a film that purportedly scrutinized the U.S. war on drugs. In this film, Michael Douglas plays Robert Wakefield, an incoming drug czar who learns that his daughter, Caroline, played by Erika Christensen, is an addict, prostituting herself in a seedy, inner-city motel for narcotics. Erika has sexual intercourse with a Black drug dealer—a primary source of her descent into a narcotic-induced stupor—as her father, drives the streets in search of her (see Boyd, 2002). Traffic offers several examples of how popular motion pictures use “others” to convey deviant behavior, and in addition to portraying a young White woman descending into addiction, courtesy of a sexualized and potentially violent Black man—the drug dealer pulls a gun on, and threatens to kill, Wakefield when he comes in search of his daughter—the film also features inevitably corrupt Mexican military police who employ sadistic interrogation techniques in order to capitalize on the drug trade. In terms of impact, Traffic officially premiered on January 5, 2001, approximately two months after the visceral drug film, Requiem for a Dream (2000), opened nationally. Requiem for a Dream followed four individuals descending into drug addiction, with substances ranging from amphetamines to heroin. When two of the four characters, Harry and Tyrone, played by Jared Leto and Marlon Wayons, respectively, leave New York for Florida to locate more drugs to sell, Jared's girlfriend, Marion, played by Jennifer Connelly, is left without a drug source. After a bleak telephone conversation with Harry, who loses his left arm to careless needle use, Marion decides to contact a Black drug dealer, Big Tim, played by Keith David, and provide him with sexual favors in exchange for drugs. On her first visit to his apartment, Marion provides Big Tim with oral sex, and when she subsequently returns, she and another female will provide sexual entertainment for a larger group of men, one of whom yells “Ass to ass,” with the two women then having sexual relations to the raucous cheers of the crowd. Marion's degradation and humiliation at the hands of a Black drug dealer is complete, and in her final appearance in the film, she is shown curled up on a couch in a narcotic daze; like Caroline Wakefield, she has defiled herself to obtain a mind-altering substance. The article now considers the implications of dominant representations in drug-related films. Implications of film characterizations Writing about film portrayals of illicit drug use, Hersey (2005) posited that images in the cinema stand to become “received knowledge” (p. 469; see also Combs, 1990; Denzin, 1995; Scott, 2000; Soroka, 2000; Van Zoonen, 2007), and the current article has conceptualized that assertion through social identity, attribution, framing, and disposition theories. As the article has suggested, members of certain races and ethnicities have been linked in film with specific drugs and specific behaviors, just as members of other races—usually those in power—have not been linked with specific drugs and specific behaviors. By amplifying deviance and creating moral panics over the “skyrocketing” abuse of certain substances, those with political and economic power preserve the status quo by characterizing certain behaviors as a threat to the larger society; film images lend support to moral panics through constructions of dangerous “others,” both within the United States and beyond its borders. In terms of labeling, major motion pictures have the capacity to influence constructions of personal and social identity (Miller, 1998), and through the stylishness of pictures such as Pulp Fiction, movies can make deviant lifestyles appear attractive for those who may already view themselves as outsiders. To that end, one might consider a set of lyrics from “Gangsta's Paradise,” a song performed by Coolio and featured in the 1995 film Dangerous Minds: “I'm an educated fool with money on my mind, Got my ten in my hand and a gleam in my eye. I'm a locked out gangsta, set tripping banger, And my homies are down so don't arouse my anger.”2 Films that feature such music frequently portray members of racial minorities as violent sexual predators who appear predisposed to deviant behavior; consequently, films intimate that upstanding members of society had best stay across the proverbial tracks. These portrayals have appeared in motion pictures since the silent-film era, and thus, by the time Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle advised someone to “never trust a nigger” in The French Connection (1971), his advice, as it were, may have traveled beyond the scope of cinema toward the construction and/or reinforcement of cognitive frames and social attitudes. Like more recent films Traffic (2000), Blow (2001), and American Gangster (2007), in which Denzel Washington plays real-life heroin kingpin Frank Lucas, The French Connection blended fiction with nonfiction, and in doing so, it may have helped to normalize certain attitudes and behaviors. Macek (2006) discussed the implications of mediated behavioral patterns: Chastising the ‘underclass’ for impulsiveness, irresponsibility, hedonism, violence, drug abuse, and self-indulgence diverts attention from the fact that the middle class is guilty of these same ‘sins.’ It makes the white, suburban ‘Us’ appear noble, decent, and pure in contrast to the notoriously pathological ‘Them’… The scapegoating of the city, then, appears to perform for the suburban middle class that venerable operation of creating social cohesion through exclusion: It reinforces social solidarity by directing aggression against the weakest, least liked, and most vulnerable members of society… (p. 135) If films have the capacity to amplify deviant behaviors among subsections of the population, government agencies appear to possess the ability to legitimate and reify film characterizations. As an example, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) sponsors annual Prism awards for films that offer the most “accurate” depictions of drug use in society. Thus, in some cases, after law-enforcement agencies have provided film-makers with content guidance (Boyd, 2008; Marez, 2004), news agencies report on awards that recognize accuracy in film, creating mediated political realities of illicit drug use, drug trafficking, and drug-control efforts by citing the contentions of public officials and law-enforcement personnel. With official news sources defining drug issues for mass audiences (Jenkins, 2009), “accurate” depictions of substance use tend to support the interests of government agencies, especially those whose very existence depends on prosecuting the drug war (see Whitford & Yates, 2009). To some extent, the process becomes circular. Additionally, in terms of implications, Dixon and his colleagues have studied how television newscasts report criminal activity, observing in one study (Dixon & Linz, 2000) that Whites tended to be over-represented as crime victims, with Blacks and Latinos more likely to be portrayed as lawbreakers. Given processes conceptualized in the current article, relatively few television-news viewers might notice the disparities, given cognitive frames that have been developed and activated across years of viewing dramatic narratives. Breen (1997) had earlier observed that criminally deviant individuals can become referents for social groups upon repeated characterizations, with media portrayals differing from empirical accounts of crime. Citing the work of Hall et al. (1978), Dixon and Linz (2000) thus posited that “watching crime news may distort perceptions of social reality if these stories misrepresent the extent to which members of racial groups occupy positive or negative crime roles” (p. 547; see also Dixon, 2007). Through the error of false attribution (Ross, 1977), audience members stand to overestimate the role of internal characteristics in explaining the behaviors of “others,” and it appears safe to assert that, for many of those who view television news, reports of crimes committed by members of racial minorities might simply reinforce perceptions of an internal proclivity for deviant behavior—which popular films have helped to construct and reify. In summary, the present article has suggested that film characterizations of drug users and drug traffickers have helped to amplify deviant behaviors associated with “others,” thus assisting in the construction, activation, and reactivation of cognitive frames among audience members. Because individuals tend to reason about social issues through attributions of responsibility, media constructions of “others” stand to affect perceptions of those who would corrupt society. Films have assisted public officials in prosecuting the war on drugs through dramatic narratives and powerful imagery of both internal and external enemies. Communicated across time, drug-related images and narratives contribute to fear-based politics and to drug policies based less on empirical evidence than on dramatic anecdotes. Exemplar-based images are thought to speak for themselves, with policy actors recognizing opportunities to advance their political ideologies and communicate with their constituents, many of whom will have been influenced by popular film. Acknowledgments The author would like to thank the reviewers of this article for their insightful comments and suggestions. Notes 1 " Quotes from the Internet Movie Database. 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, de Souza e Silva, Adriana;Frith,, Jordan

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01083.xpmid: N/A

Abstract This article analyzes 4 months of popular press articles from major publications about location-aware mobile phones. Our results identify 2 main areas: the control these devices offer over public spaces and the lack of control users have over their location information. This lack of control is often framed as a lack of privacy. We argue that the ability to control and personalize public spaces is not new because previous types of portable media already allowed users to manage interactions with public spaces. However, issues of privacy and control over public spaces are more pronounced with location-aware technologies. Our conclusions suggest that popular press discourses often overlook more complex social issues related to privacy in public spaces. Location-aware technologies are mobile interfaces that allow users to retrieve place-specific digital information and connect to nearby people depending on their location. Although mobile phones were initially studied as technologies that removed people from their physical surroundings (Brown, Green, & Harper, 2002; Katz & Aahkus, 2002; Moores, 2004; Plant, 2001), it is now increasingly evident that one of the relevant characteristics of mobile (smart) phones is their ability to allow for diverse types of connections to local spaces and local people (de Souza e Silva, 2006, 2009; de Souza e Silva & Sutko, 2008; Gordon, 2009; Humphreys, 2007). For example, locative mobile social networking (LMSN) software (a.k.a. location-based social networks [LBSN]), such as Loopt and Brightkite, allows users to see the location of their friends on their cell phone screen (de Souza e Silva & Frith, 2010). Likewise, location-based advertising can deliver coupons whenever a user is within a certain distance of specific stores, and geotagging applications such as WikiMe and GeoGraffitti allow individuals to access and upload information that is place specific. Because users have the ability to customize the types of information they are willing to interact with (which friends they would like to see, which coupons they want to receive, and what information they want to access), we argue that individuals can now use these devices to personalize and control their experiences of public spaces in new ways. The ability and desire to control interactions with public spaces did not emerge with location-aware technologies. From the book to the iPod, personal mobile media have empowered individuals to engage with the public on their own terms. For instance, reading a book on a train allows individuals to partially withdraw from the public space of the train into the narrative of the book and pay selective attention to their physical surroundings (Schilvelbusch, 1986). The same goes for the iPod or the Walkman: By adding an auditory layer to public spaces, users are able to control the otherwise “chaotic” interaction with urban spaces (Bull, 2006; Hosokawa, 1984). Although location-aware technologies do share many similarities with these earlier forms of media, three major differences make them unique: (a) the increased control users have upon the personalization of their surrounding space; (b) the ability to interact with location-based information, that is, information that is geographically “attached” to the public space; and (c) the consequential privacy concerns associated with sharing one's location information. With the increased popularization of location-aware mobiles, especially after the release of the iPhone 3G and Google's Android system in 2008, these issues of personalization, control, and privacy have entered the popular discourse of mass media outlets. Location-aware mobile devices have generated utopian and dystopian reactions from users. These reactions are both caused by and reflected in the popular press media. In order to broadly understand how media outlets frame issues related to location-aware technologies, we analyzed 4 months of news from major world and U.S. newspapers, magazines, journals, and web-based publications addressing location-based services (LBS). According to Entman, Matthes, and Pellicano (2010), “a frame repeatedly involves the same objects and traits, using identical or synonymous words and symbols in a series of similar communications that are concentrated in time” (p. 177). The authors therefore suggest that media framing “can have a significant effect on how people make decisions and formulate opinions on any given issue or event” (p. 183). Consequently, popular press discourses about the social implications of location-aware technologies will likely influence how users interact with these technologies. Analyzing how the popular press frames issues related to location-aware technologies is critical for shaping our understanding of how these technologies might influence social norms and policy-making processes in the future. As Castells (2009) states, “The politics of news media is the most significant form of media politics” (p. 302), that is, frames created by the media most likely lead to relevant political decision making and social constructs about technology. In this article, we analyze media discourses about location-aware mobiles to examine how the popular press frames the use of these technologies. Our data analysis highlights two distinct issues. First, articles emphasize privacy concerns that emerge with the use of location-aware technologies, specifically the fears of having one's location tracked and disclosed to unknown parties. These fears are generally related to losing control over personal location information. Second, articles highlight the power these technologies give users to control their interactions with public spaces. Ultimately, these articles focus on how our understanding of privacy and control in public spaces is challenged as location-aware technologies are integrated into public spaces. Our study is unique for two reasons. First, unlike studies that focused on the use of portable media as ways of withdrawing from public spaces (Bull, 2006; Gergen, 2002; Hosokawa, 1984; Plant, 2001), we focus on the ability of location-aware media to manage our relationship to these spaces. Second, unlike studies that focus on privacy as the ability to limit access to oneself or even the right to be left alone (Warren & Brandeis, 1890), we understand privacy in the context of location-aware technology as the ability to control one's surrounding space and one's locational information. In order to develop this argument, we begin by examining former types of mobile media, such as the Walkman and the iPod, emphasizing (a) how they have been used to personalize and exert control over public spaces, and (b) how their use in public spaces often challenged previous conceptions of public and private. We then show how location-aware technologies differ from earlier types of mobile media due to their ability to allow users to locate information and people in their surrounding space, thus raising new privacy issues. This framework leads to our analysis and discussion of 4 months of media discourses on location-based technologies. We conclude by discussing issues that are not represented in these discourses and call for a deeper examination into the possible social implications of location-aware technologies. Mobile media: Personalization, control, and privacy in public spaces Public spaces are often perceived as uncontrolled spaces (Lehtonen & Mäenpää, 1997; Mitchell, 2003). More than a century ago, sociologist Simmel (1950) warned about the growth of urban centers and the consequential overstimulation of senses. For Simmel, the city was incomprehensible in its unfiltered form; consequently, developing a type of mental reserve was necessary to parse out various social situations from the aural and visual chaos of the urban street. He called this mental reserve a blasé attitude, which can be understood as a psychological filter through which the metropolitan resident interacted with the city space. The blasé attitude was a way of (dis)engaging with the public through a rational and calculating reserve, leading to a personalized way of controlling the apparent chaos of urban life, indispensable for survival in the city. For at least 2 centuries, individuals have used mobile media, such as books, Walkmans, iPods, and mobile phones, as technological filters to manage their interactions with otherwise uncontrollable surroundings. These technologies are generally framed as “removing” users from public spaces (Plant, 2001; Puro, 2002; Schilvelbusch, 1986). The book was an early example; readers traveling on a train were said to avoid engagement with other individuals in that space. Similarly, the Walkman was met with derision by those who feared its ability to withdraw users from public spaces (Chalmers, 1994; du Gay et al., 1997). For Hosokawa (1984), the ability to soundtrack movement through public spaces isolates the listener from contact with other people in the vicinity, turning the physical environment into a background to the listener's thoughts. Also, Bull (2001) argued that Walkman use allowed individuals to partially ignore the space they traveled through by imparting a personalized “soundscape” on the public space. In later research, Bull (2006) found iPod users experience public space in a similar manner. Many of the issues raised by the widespread use of Walkmans and iPods are also echoed in recent mobile phone studies. Mobile phones have been regarded as removing users from their physical surroundings (Fortunati, 2002; Gergen, 2002; Plant, 2001; Puro, 2002). Following the idea of networked individualism, Wellman (2002) suggests “mobile phones afford a fundamental liberation from place” (p. 238). We suggest, however, that mobile phones—and the other mobile media discussed above—do not necessarily remove people from physical space, as much as they provide users with an interface that helps them select and control their interactions with public spaces. Whether it is the book, the Walkman, the iPod, or the cell phone, we view these media as filters (interfaces) that mediate users' interactions with public spaces. Ultimately, they function similarly to Simmel's blasé attitude, by which the metropolitan man paid attention to some aspects of public spaces, but ignored others. Therefore, individuals use these personal media as ways of framing their interaction with their surrounding space, not necessarily by withdrawing from it. However, controlling one's interaction with public spaces has often been perceived as an invasion of the public by the private. As we will see, a strand of the articles we analyzed warns us about our impending loss of privacy with the use of location-aware technologies. What popular press rarely acknowledges, however, is that our distinction between private and public is socially constructed and therefore variable and constantly changing. For example, the development of transportation and communication technologies has contributed to the constant shifting of boundaries between the public and the private. Gant and Kiesler (2002) note that, after the development of transportation technologies such as the train, the separation between work (considered public) and personal life (considered private) grew more definitive because people started commuting to work, no longer working and living in the same place. Although transportation technologies contributed to the creation of more distinct boundaries between the public and the private, communication technologies such as the telephone, the telegraph, and the television were said to bring the public within the private space of home, therefore merging these boundaries again (Boltanski, 1999; Moores, 2004; Williams, 1975). Mobile media, however, because they could be used in public spaces, have often been accused of tainting public spaces with the private. As Chalmers (1994) points out in regards the Walkman, “the ingression of such a privatized habitat in public spaces is a disturbing act” (p. 52). Nevertheless, although public and private are socially and culturally defined entities (Mante, 2002, p. 119), although their boundaries have shifted through history, and although both have frequently ingressed upon one another, the fact that we are able to talk about “public” and “private” means there are at least some general conceptions that define them as both different from and complementary to each other. So if public spaces are perceived as “open” uncontrolled spaces, then private spaces are “secluded” controlled spaces. In other words, it is the ability to exert control over spaces that transforms them into perceived private spaces. Communication media, such as the telephone, were claimed to bring the public into the private, thereby “threatening” people's privacy, because these intrusions were mostly uncontrolled. This lack of control over information flows frequently led to fears about losing one's privacy inside the private space of the home (Marvin, 1990). From an opposite perspective, mobile media were generally claimed to “privatize” public spaces. They are responsible for imbuing users with a feeling of familiarity that generally belongs to private spaces. By reading a book or listening to music in public, users felt in control over their physical surroundings and therefore created their own personal spaces in public settings (Bull, 2001; du Gay et al., 1997; Manguel, 1997). Location-aware technologies, however, are different from previous mobile media. All the above-mentioned technologies frame users' interactions with public spaces by introducing an external code that does not belong to them. For example, a book's narrative is not necessarily about the place where it is being read; the voice of a cell phone conversation generally comes from elsewhere; and the iPod's songs are loaded independent of location. Conversely, location-aware devices draw information from the physical surroundings, an interior code. For example, a user equipped with a GPS-enabled mobile phone in Times Square who opens the application WikiMe is able to read Wikipedia articles about Times Square. LBS can also deliver coupons and offers to users depending on their location. Location-aware mobile interfaces might also help users find other people. LMSN applications such as Loopt, Brightkite, Latitude, and Whrll allow users to visualize on a map on their cell phone screen the location of nearby friends or other people using the software. For example, Brightkite allows a user to see the position of any other Brightkite user in the vicinity of a block (200 m), a neighborhood (2 km), an area (4 km), a city (10 km), or a region (100 km). There are three important implications of the use of location-aware technologies in public spaces. First, they allow users to interact with previously existing local information, for example, by accessing a Wikipedia article about a local facility. Second, they allow users to create local information that might be shared with others in the vicinity, as in the case of writing a review about a local restaurant and attaching longlat coordinates to it. Finally, they allow users to select information from the surrounding space they want to interact with. For example, if a LooptMix user is looking for graduate students interested in literature and independent film, she can set her preferences to find people in her environment who are graduate students, like literature and independent films. She is then able to see everyone around her who uses LooptMix, attends graduate school, and likes literature and independent film. So, if Simmel's blasé attitude worked as a psychological filter to public spaces, location-aware media literally selects from that space what users would like to interact with. Public space then might be differently experienced by each LooptMix user. This personalized social space, filtered through the mobile interface, shows only other nearby people and information that matches the user's interests. This context prompts us to ask two main research questions: (a) How are privacy concerns surrounding location-aware technologies framed in ways that are different from other mobile media? and (b) How is the personalization of space promoted by the use of location-aware technologies perceived differently from previous mobile media? To answer these questions, we analyzed popular press discourses on the use of location-aware media. Our analysis revealed two main themes: (a) a somewhat careful approach to the privacy concerns associated with locative media, and (b) a distinctly positive attitude toward the ability to personalize and control public spaces. Methods We conducted a LexisNexis search of articles spanning a 4-month period (February 1 to June 1, 2009), which corresponds to a time-frame roughly 6 months after the release of the iPhone 3G and 1 year after the release of Google's Android system in the United States (June 2008). We focused our analysis both on major world and U.S. print and web publications because we aimed at analyzing a wide range of news articles targeted at different segments of the population. According to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (2008), “traditionalists,” who rely mostly on traditional media sources, still represent the majority of news audience (46%). However, we should not discard the increasing number of net-newsers (13% of the population who point to the web as their primary source for news) and integrators (23% who use both print and web media outlets). Therefore, including both traditional sources and web publications in our search guaranteed that we had news that reached wider segments of the population. With this in mind, we selected newspapers (e.g., The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Guardian), magazines and journals (e.g., Revolution, Progressive Grocer, PCWeek), and web-based publications (e.g., eWeek.com,CNN.com, Business Week Online). It is important to note the limitations of our data. Because of language limitations, we were only able to analyze English-language articles. Although our analysis does include data from publications outside the United States (e.g., Korea Times), we were limited to international publications that appear in English. We felt that limiting the print publications we analyzed to national U.S. outlets would skew our data in comparison to the web publication data because many English-language web publications feature international content or are housed outside the United States. It is important to recognize, however, that our data likely does not give a full representation of how location awareness is framed by the popular press outside United States or even how issues of privacy and surveillance might be culturally constructed. As Ito (2005) argues, we cannot lose “sight of the specificities of social, cultural, and historical contexts in structuring the development and deployment of mobile phones” (p. 2). Future research will hopefully expand our analysis to encompass how the media in other nations are framing these technologies and take into consideration specific local cultural and political contexts. We used the exact search term (location-based OR LBS OR “location-aware”) AND phone so that we could retrieve all articles that dealt with phones and LBS/location-aware technology. These terms were purposefully broad: Although the focus of our analysis was the personalization of space and privacy, we did not want to start with predefined search terms, such as “privacy,”“personalization,” or “control” that would narrow the results of our search. We chose to use LexisNexis because it archives a diverse set of news sources and it allows for advanced search techniques (Krippendorf, 2003). LexisNexis is an established resource that is frequently used by researchers interested in performing content analyses (Hoerl, 2007; Saukko, 2006; Landau, 2009; Scharrer, 2002). Our search returned 331 articles. After eliminating obvious duplicates, we were left with 285 articles. From this pool, we discarded articles that were irrelevant or too cursory to contribute content to our analysis. For example, some articles appeared in the results because they featured “lbs.” as an abbreviation for “pounds.” Also, many articles were clearly advertisements or direct copies of press releases. After discarding nonrelevant articles, we ended up with 83 articles, from 11 web-based publications (40 articles), 14 newspapers (30), and 6 magazines and journals (13) (for an itemized list of sources, see Appendix, Table A1). Before beginning the data analysis, we agreed that the verbal unit of analysis would be any meaningful phrase, sentence, or paragraph that could address one of the research questions. Data were analyzed by an iterative method of category creation using constant comparison (Geisler, 2004; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). After an initial reading of the data, we developed emerging categories, which corresponded to the major topics addressed in the articles. We coded the sample individually and then met in order to discuss the categories. We then did “check coding” to refine the categories (Miles & Huberman, 1994). We compared the results of our initial reading and found that most articles dealt with topics such as control, advertising/ marketing, privacy, security, tracking/stalking, and dating/social networks. These topics became our initial categories. Then we reread the articles, recording which categories were present in each article. Many articles addressed more than one category. For example, the same article could address privacy in the context of social networks and deal with issues of security. We then color-coded meaningful quotes from each article according to each category and cut and pasted these quotes into a separate document. As more quotes were added to the document, the relationships among categories gradually began to solidify. As we worked through the data, we observed that articles dealt mostly with three categories: advertising/marketing, social networking, and security. These categories then constituted the overarching structure of our analysis. In addition, we realized that topics of privacy and control permeated each of these categories. We thus corelated privacy and control with advertising, social networking, and security. Finally, we coded all articles for tone—positive and negative. Results The articles we analyzed focused on three distinct but overlapping uses of location awareness: advertising/marketing (32), social networking (29), and safety and security (10). Articles approached these uses by focusing on two different themes associated with the technologies: the loss of private (location) information (27) and the ability to control and personalize public spaces (34) (Table 1). The analysis that follows addresses these two main themes. In the next section, we analyze the different types of privacy concerns present in the articles, discussing how these concerns are differently presented when dealing with location-based advertising, social networking, and security. Then we move on to an analysis of articles that argue that people gain control over public spaces with location-aware technologies. Table 1 Number of Articles that Addressed Issues of Privacy and Control Correlated to Advertisement, Social Networking, and Safety and Security . Advertising/ Marketing . Social networking . Security . Positive . Negative . Neutral . 1. Privacy 10 16 5 13 8 5 2. Control 16 12 4 25 3 3 . Advertising/ Marketing . Social networking . Security . Positive . Negative . Neutral . 1. Privacy 10 16 5 13 8 5 2. Control 16 12 4 25 3 3 Open in new tab Table 1 Number of Articles that Addressed Issues of Privacy and Control Correlated to Advertisement, Social Networking, and Safety and Security . Advertising/ Marketing . Social networking . Security . Positive . Negative . Neutral . 1. Privacy 10 16 5 13 8 5 2. Control 16 12 4 25 3 3 . Advertising/ Marketing . Social networking . Security . Positive . Negative . Neutral . 1. Privacy 10 16 5 13 8 5 2. Control 16 12 4 25 3 3 Open in new tab The loss of privacy An immediate consequence of being able to locate people and things is that one can also be located. The possibility of having one's location information disclosed leads to serious concerns about privacy, especially when the person being located has no apparent control over who accesses location information. Privacy has been conceptualized in many different ways (Solove, 2008), and we are not attempting to come up with yet a new definition of privacy. However, as Solove suggests, privacy issues should be studied contextually. In America, privacy was originally conceptualized as “the right to be left alone,” following Warren and Brandeis (1890) article “The right to privacy.” The idea of privacy has also been frequently addressed in relation to forms of power: as power to limit access to the self (Bok, 1983), power to conceal information about oneself (Posner, 1998), and power to control one's personal information (Fried, 1969). Solove (2004) claims that, in the context of computer databases, privacy concerns have departed from the traditional “secrecy paradigm” (p. 42), and shifted toward not only a fear of losing control over personal information collected over the Internet, but also the lack of understanding about the process of information collection. Similarly, Gordon (2009) suggests that, with location-aware interfaces, privacy “is no longer defined solely as control over a geographic domain; it is control over the access and production of data within flexible information flows” (Gordon, 2009, p. 26). Following Solove and Gordon, we understand privacy in the context of location-aware technologies as related to control over one's (locational) information. Indeed, the articles that bemoaned the lack of privacy with location-aware technologies almost invariably pointed to a situation where users lost control over their information, leading to a lack of control over who can track them. The concern with lack of control is not inherently different from previous mobile media and follows traditional models of interacting with public spaces: If one is able to exert some form of control over those spaces by “privatizing” them, an individual might feel safer (Lehtonen & Mäenpää, 1997; Simmel, 1950). However, the articles we analyzed did not all deal with privacy in the same way. Privacy and advertising The first type of privacy concern represented by the media is related to location-based advertising—advertising that targets users depending on their physical location. These articles frame the fear of losing privacy as an Orwellian, top-down type of surveillance, pointing to a future where large entities, sometimes corporations, though more often the government, can use individuals' location-aware phones to track them without their knowledge. Individuals lose control over their location information when one application sells their information to an advertising agency, the government, or even an unknown party: People are being told that they are signing up for marketing when in fact they are being opted into a massive surveillance strategy. (The Guardian, April 2) No one knows whether this mountain of data will turn into a volcano that overwhelms the privacy of all within reach. (The Guardian, March 14) Privacy experts are warning users to make sure they’re aware of what it means to sign up. (CBC News, February 4) Other articles used typical Orwellian language to express concern with governmental surveillance, arguing that we are heading toward a future where the government tracks our every move: A truly Orwellian development that has been described by privacy campaigners as “a catastrophic corruption of consent.” (The Guardian, April 2) When it comes to government surveillance, the legal interface between law enforcement and your phone and Internet service providers is a shadowy place, and it's often unclear what kinds of data companies are willing to provide to the government. (eWeek, May 5) Privacy and social networking A more prevalent discussion of privacy and location-aware mobile phones concerns location-aware social networking. This exemplifies what we call colateral surveillance, a phenomenon described by the CBC as “people tracking.” Tracking, in this sense, is related to the dangers of letting other people know one's location: But isn't that still a form of tracking movement that some people could find slightly creepy? (The Daily Telegraph, April 28) Let's just imagine that a jealous partner gains access to your unattended phone and enables Latitude without your knowledge. (The Times, March 28) You may use your phone to find friends and restaurants, but somebody else may be using your phone to find you and find out about you. (The New York Times, February 17) The news outlets that addressed the privacy concerns associated with colateral surveillance argue that disclosing information about a person's location to other peers often seems scary, creepy, connected to unwanted surveillance, and an invasion of privacy. News outlets that warn about the fear of losing privacy point to a situation where people have lost control over their location information, but they have not ceded control to large entities; rather, they have ceded control to other individuals. Privacy and security An interesting strand of the privacy discussions about location-aware mobiles concerned the articles dealing with safety and security. In these cases, losing control over one's privacy/location information is not framed as “creepy” or “unwanted surveillance,” but rather as a welcome, comforting situation: The professionals, managers, executives and businessmen segment, which values convenience and security, would appreciate services such a Child Tracker and Vehicle Security. (The Edge Malaysia, May 11) Privacy issues aside, the service could prove invaluable for people traveling alone in unfamiliar areas or dangerous situations. (CNN.com, March 11) The ability to always know where friends and family are can revolutionise our use of technology and will outweigh any privacy concerns. (Irish Times, March 27) News sources claim that location-aware mobile phones can increase safety and security by equipping loved ones with tracking devices to assure they are safe. These articles most commonly dealt with tracking children and vehicles. Other articles, like the CNN article quoted above, referenced tracking spouses or situations where users allow themselves to be tracked to assure security. In these cases, individuals control whom they cede their locational information to, increasing their control over their safety in public spaces. We coded five references to safety and security that fell inside the privacy theme and four that fell inside the personalization theme; however, unlike with the other topics, we chose to include all articles in this section rather than split safety and security into two distinct themes. By definition, using location-aware technologies to gain safety and security involves giving up private information. For that reason, in the context of safety and security, we chose to include both references to personalization and privacy in this section. Personalization and control over space The second overarching theme we identified in the media discourses dealt with how location-aware mobiles allowed users to control and personalize space. Most of the articles that dealt with control and personalization did not mention privacy (23 of 34). For these articles, the potential of location-aware mobile phones is mostly portrayed positively, focusing on the way people can use these technologies to control their interactions in public space, generally in the form of location-based advertising and social networking. Just as losing privacy is generally portrayed positively when it is used for safety and security, the use of location-aware mobiles is portrayed positively when they give people control over public spaces. Control and advertising Although we earlier mentioned a negative portrayal of location-based advertising by The Guardian, most articles about this topic were unquestioningly positive, focusing on the opportunities for personalization. The appeal for advertisers is obvious; they can target people by preference when they are near a store and more likely to shop there. Articles also point to benefits for consumers. Many of the articles portrayed location-based advertising as a powerful new tool people can use to manage their surrounding space. People using these services move through a shopping space where they receive advertisements and coupons tailored to both their personal preferences and their location in physical space. Articles claim users can choose and personalize those preferences, and control the offers they receive: A mobile service that will match a user's profile and whereabouts with offers from nearby restaurants of leisure facilities. (Caterer, February 26) Hold up the phone and the screen will have names or business cards floating above the heads of pedestrians, and have advertisement menus appear next to restaurants. (Korea Times, May 11) What this means is in the future, ads will get so contextually relevant that they won't be considered ads, they’ll be considered as relevant information. (eWeek, February 5) Many of the articles that matched this category imagine a future where advertisements become so personalized and contextually relevant that one no longer recognizes them as advertisements, working similarly to Amazon's book suggestions, but brought into physical space. Control and social networking Earlier, we discussed articles that dealt with colateral surveillance as a serious privacy concern. These articles argued that people can lose control over their information and consequently their control over their interactions with public space because they cannot control who can locate them. Many articles that dealt with social networking, however, did not adopt such a negative frame, arguing that when users have control over their location information they should not fear losing their privacy. Most importantly, what we see from these articles is that, although privacy is an issue, the ability to control one's personal space often outweighs privacy concerns. One way of controlling what information is disclosed in social networking software is through opt-in features. Users have to opt in to the services and they can invite only trusted friends to know their location. (Caterer, February 26) Because the service [Latitude] is opt-in, these fears [of stalking] are irrational. (Revolution, March 1) Ensuring all information and updates are controlled by you, the subscriber. (Space Daily, March 30) Google's Latitude's privacy settings allow people to choose the level of detail they want to provide about their location, such as whether they only want to share the name of the city or pinpoint what intersection they’re at. Users can also hide their information, turn the service off temporarily, or lie about their location by setting it manually. (CBC News, February 4) These defenses of LBS almost always had to do with the issue of control. They argue that when people have control over whom they share information with, privacy is not much of a concern. By allowing people to opt-in to these services, the technologies are portrayed as giving people control over who they share their information with. Note that the above-mentioned quote states that individuals are also allowed to lie about their location. With cell phones, users could also tell they were in places in which they were not. However, having one's position visualized on a map at a fake location theoretically gives users increasing control over their surroundings. Although earlier mobile media were often described as isolating individuals, these articles also do not describe location-aware mobiles as isolating people, but rather allowing them to connect to others nearby. Consequently, these applications are framed as social. Frequently, they are contrasted to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace stating that, unlike the stationary Internet use, they allow people to actually meet in physical spaces. By imparting a personalized social network on a public space, people can meet up with the other people they share their location with (de Souza e Silva & Frith, 2010; Humphreys, 2007). So, rather than disengaging people from physical space like earlier mobile phones, location-aware technologies are imagined to enable users to reconnect to their physical surrounding. People can go to restaurants recommended by like-minded others, find friends in crowded public spaces, or find other people who have similar interests: Increasingly location data will be crowdsourced, so you know the places used by people like you. (The Guardian, May 7) The two met after dinner at a bar, where they were joined by another former Stanford student who noticed on his display that they were socializing together. (New York Times, February 17) With new software like Google Latitude, which allows you to see where your friends are in relation to your location, expect the emphasis to shift towards localised services, becoming more connected to the people and places around you. (The Daily Telegraph, February 21) Discussion and conclusions The media outlets we analyzed do not all portray location-aware mobiles as either negative or positive. However, as one would likely suspect, they emphasize certain aspects of location-aware technologies while ignoring others, evidencing the case of one-sided framing. According to Entman (2009), “one sided framing is the emphasis of some elements and suppression of others to promote evaluation and salience of attributes that privilege one actor's interpretation over another's.” That is, by choosing to highlight certain aspects of location-aware technologies and ignore others, these media outlets influence public opinion about how people perceive the social use of these technologies (Entman, Matthes, & Pellicano, 2010). Castells' (2009) has also performed extensive work on media frames, showing how the way media outlets frame information plays a major role in public perception of political issues. The articles that bemoan the loss of privacy often ignore the safeguards in place (opt-in features), and the articles lauding these technologies' potential for sociability often elide many possible negative consequences of location awareness. A deeper and more informed discussion about the social implications of location-aware technologies are mostly absent from the media discourses. For example, what happens to our ability to navigate public spaces and interact with nearby people when users are able to impart maps of their social networks on public spaces? What are the power issues raised by the use of location-based advertising? Will certain groups be excluded from interacting with others in public spaces due to the location-aware filters present in some of these applications? When someone searches for restaurants on a Google map, it is almost as if the restaurants that are not listed do not exist. Could the same thing happen to people in public spaces? When it comes to social networking, few academic works have explored the social implications of location awareness. In their study of the location-based game Mogi, Licoppe and Inada (2009) describe a case in which a female player felt she was being stalked by a nearby unidentified player who could see her on his mobile screen, but refused to reveal him/herself. The proximity of an unknown player generated fear, mostly because a player's location was disclosed to an unidentified other. Awareness of location might also lead to power asymmetries. Licoppe and Inada (2006) describe situations in which both players see each other on their mobile screen, but only one claims he or she can see the other in the physical space of the city, leading to uncomfortable and almost fearful feelings from the player who loses her anonymity. Embedded in the assumptions and fears of Mogi players (or any other social networking users) is a shift in the nature of how individuals perceive and acknowledge each other in city spaces. Individuals are typically anonymous in urban spaces, which offered people a sense of privacy and distance from the “public” (Lehtonen & Mäenpää, 1997; Simmel, 1950). With location-based mobile games and LBSNs, location becomes shared. Licoppe and Inada (2009) suggest that the wide use of location awareness will force us to question how we manage social interactions in public spaces, leading to “the development of an interaction order founded on the public character of locations” (p. 123). Likewise, the discussions of locative advertising ignore serious issues. Many of the articles about advertising systems paint a picture of users gaining increased agency over their interactions with advertising in public spaces, arguing that users always opt-in to advertising services and set personal preferences; however, users often do not sign up with marketers. They sign up for one location-aware application that then provides their information to advertisers (de Souza e Silva & Frith, 2010; Farrel, 2009). We can apply the same argument to governmental surveillance. Although the future of location-aware mobile phones is likely not as dystopian as the portrayal of articles that imagine an all-encompassing, Orwellian surveillance system, there are serious concerns about government surveillance that need to be addressed. Many location-aware applications have unclear user agreements that do not address whether they store users' location and whether they are willing to turn over locational history to an interested government agency, reflecting the current status of online privacy where large web companies like Amazon and Google have repeatedly turned over private information to governmental agencies (Solove, 2008). However, we must acknowledge that discussions about traditional models of top-down “Orwellian” surveillance are likely outdated and cannot always be applied to the complex relationships that arise among location-aware technologies, users, and information providers (de Souza e Silva & Sutko, 2009; Solove, 2004). Finally, we need to problematize the discussion about safety and security. The use of mobile phones for safety and security has been widely acknowledged in the literature (Castells, Fernández-Ardevol, Qiu, & Sey, 2007; Cohen & Lemish, 2005; Dányi, 2005; Gordon, 2007; Ling, 2004). What is new with location awareness, however, is that location is sometimes automatically given, so even if targeted individuals cannot speak on a phone call, their location can be disclosed. There are products being marketed with the rather ominous taglines like “Track your Wife!!” that are ignored by the media outlets we analyzed. Also, although people might not object to tracking a 4-year-old, where should they draw the line? Should they be tracking their children's every move? At what age is this no longer appropriate? The same question can be applied to the old, the mentally unwell, or people who break the law (Monmonier, 2002). Previous research has shown that users are willing to give out private locational information depending on their perception of the usefulness of the application offered to them (Ackerman, Kempf, & Miki, 2003; Ackerman et al., 1999; Barkuus & Dey, 2003). But, as Perusco and Michael (2007) argue, the issues of privacy and control associated with location-aware technologies are complicated and cannot be adequately addressed through superficial, dystopian/utopian arguments. Finally, we need to interrogate commonly accepted notions of privacy. Some of the sources we read claim that the meaning of privacy may be changing: If you’re not nitpicky about your privacy (which is such a 20th century ideal, anyway), the potential is huge. (The Globe and Mail, April 24) A full-blown map-based, location-aware mobile world would entail rethinking basic American notions of privacy. (New York Times, February 17) These articles indicate an acceptance of LBS as something unavoidable in the near future. As happened with other media, such as radio, television, or even electric light, which were perceived as dangerous and disturbing at their inception, these articles suggest that individuals will eventually get used to having their location information disclosed. It is early to say whether location-aware media will influence how we understand privacy, especially locational privacy. However, like many older types of mobile media, we suggest that they might already be challenging the boundaries of what we perceive as public and private, forcing us to reconsider some of these issues. Whether we are witnessing a shift that will transform location into public information, colateral surveillance as a new model of power and control, or privacy as a form of control, we hope that these issues help start a conversation about the possible social implications of location-aware technology that moves past the typical utopian and dystopian discourses that accompany all new communication technologies. Location awareness is neither inherently good nor bad. Tracking and sharing location can be used for positive purposes, such as increasing children's safety, and they can be used for negative purposes, such as governmental and corporate surveillance or colateral stalking. As Lessig (1999) and McChesney (2007) have argued about the Internet, we are at a stage where we can shape the adoption of these technologies and the policies that govern their uses. Hopefully, by analyzing the frames being made in the popular press and identifying topics not being considered, this article is an initial gesture in that direction. Appendix Table A1 Itemized List of Sources . Title . Source . Date . Type of publication . 1 Mobile GPS Revolution April 1, 2009 Magazine 2 A man walks into a bar and says, “Did you hear this is gonna be the year of mobile marketing?” Advertising Age March 30, 2009 Web 3 Alcatel-Lucent jumps into mobile advertising Techweb May 21, 2009 Web 4 Many developers not interested in pre, symbian Techweb April 9, 2009 Web 5 Opera adds location awareness Techweb March 26, 2009 Web 6 NAVTEQ LocationPoint advertising launches in Europe Space Daily May 25, 2009 Web 7 Still long way to go for mobile advertising New Straits Times February 16, 2009 Newspaper 8 Compact new 12 volt DC gearmotor develops 60 in. lb. torque at 78 rpm Product News Network February 3, 2009 Web 9 Eco-aware while on the run The Globe and Mail March 12, 2009 Newspaper 10 Skyhook plug-in improves cell phone location accuracy Techweb May 21, 2009 Web 11 Now phones are all Apple-flavoured Daily Telegraph February 21, 2009 Newspaper 12 Nokia introduces new LBS Total Telecom April 1, 2009 Web 13 Who, where, why?; GPS has made smart phones more connective than ever. But will they really bring us closer together? Globe and Mail April 24, 2009 Newspaper 14 Pizza chains use social networks for ordering, tracking Progressive Grocer February 13, 2009 Magazine 15 Cellphone locator system needs no satellite New York Times June 1, 2009 Newspaper 16 The cellphone, navigating our lives New York Times February 17, 2009 Newspaper 17 Locale adds skyhook wireless for better location on android Space Daily April 19, 2009 Web 18 Telmap unveils MOND2 to improve mobile navigation Total Telecom February 5, 2009 Web 19 Clickatell social network customers poised to monetise demand Total Telecom May 12, 2009 Web 20 United States: Abaq.us announces support for myGeoDiary on android-powered devices Tendersinfo May 22, 2009 Web 21 Analyst: Google Latitude not a threat to Facebook, MySpace eWeek February 5, 2009 Web 22 New technology boost for mobile internet links The Weekender March 12, 2009 Newspaper 23 Technology: Can Google Latitude get my stolen phone back? The Guardian February 26, 2009 Newspaper 24 Technology: The end of privacy?: Forget Street View, there is a far more subtle—and pervasive—invasion of your private life being carried out—this time through your mobile phone. The Guardian April 2, 2009 Newspaper 25 United States: Vodafone joins mobile application race Tendersinfo May 14, 2009 Web 26 In an emergency, who do you call? Cnn.com March 11, 2009 Web 27 In-depth—Location-based ads—Vodafone to trial mobile map ads Revolution June 1, 2009 Magazine 28 Google people tracker raises privacy issues CBC News February 4, 2009 Web 29 Calling up the best deals Sydney Morning Herald March 14, 2009 Newspaper 30 WHERE consolidates leadership position as top provider of local content Space Daily March 30, 2009 Web 31 Vodafone enters app store battle Techweb May 12, 2009 Web 32 Google promises memory loss for Latitude eWeek March 5, 2009 Web 33 Technology: Opinion: A short stroll around my hyperlocal The Guardian May 14, 2009 Newspaper 34 Technology: Opinion: Nokia—soon to come with apps The Guardian May 7, 2009 Newspaper 35 Some parents find it useful The Straits Time April 2, 2009 Newspaper 36 Turn online social networks into real world interactions Space Daily March 30, 2009 Web 37 Smartphone sales ride the economic storm Vnu.net February 2, 2009 Web 38 Special report—The shape of things to come Marketing March 18, 2009 Magazine 39 Mobile app store users to quadruple by 2014 Techweb March 26, 2009 Web 40 Is Korea turning into Internet police state? Korea Times April 9, 2009 Newspaper 41 Some teething problems for Nokia's new online store The Irish Times May 27, 2009 Newspaper 42 MWC Nokia announces Smart Store Ovi eWeek February 16, 2009 Web 43 Cell broadcasts could help avert catastrophe CNN.com February 5, 2009 Web 44 BlackBook ACCESS mobile perks program launched for location-based marketing Space Daily April 24, 2009 Web 45 Reminders from out of the blue New York Times April 2, 2009 Newspaper 46 Yahoo rolls out mobile apps Techweb April 1, 2009 Web 47 10 secret iPhone powers PC Magazine February 12, 2009 Web 48 Motorola's new mobile device mixes flexibility, functionality Progressive Grocer March 9, 2009 Magazine 49 A wealth of information at the push of a button; How does Acxiom know I'm right-handed and own a cat? asks Rowena Mason The Daily Telegraph April 28, 2009 Newspaper 50 Google's looking at you, kids …; The internet giant's new Street View function is great fun, but could it mean the end of privacy, asks Robert Colvile The Daily Telegraph March 20, 2009 Newspaper 51 Location based technologies launches additional PocketFinder Smartphone apps Space Daily February 23, 2009 Web 52 Telmap unveils personalised location companion Total Telecom February 16, 2009 Web 53 THE NEXT NET Business Week March 9, 2009 Web 54 Customers on the radar Caterer February 26, 2009 Web 55 Phone and beyond Korea Times May 11, 2009 Newspaper 56 RIM TMobile throw curve with new BlackBerry eWeek February 23, 2009 Web 57 Google's Schmidt talks privacy, Internet domination PC Magazine April 18, 2009 Web 58 Special focus: Exciting mobile market The Edge Malaysia May 11, 2009 Newspaper 59 Turning nightlife into phone game New York Times March 16, 2009 Newspaper 60 New here? The phone shows you around New York Times April 23, 2009 Newspaper 61 Google online tool lets you track friends Newsday February 5, 2009 Newspaper 62 Where Google meets Facebook meets GPS The Globe and Mail February 26, 2009 Newspaper 63 Opera and Skyhook wireless bring geolocation to the web Space Daily April 19, 2009 Web 64 Google gives you Latitude to track friends employees via Google maps eWeek February 4, 2009 Web 65 Stuck in the web The Times March 28, 2009 Newspaper 66 Searching for the new; New gizmos are being launched every day, but which ones will make it big? Danny Fortson tries to find out The Sunday Times April 19, 2009 Newspaper 67 Nokia rolls out E52 Smartphone Techweb May 6, 2009 Web 68 BlackBerry Curve 8900 hits AT&T Techweb May 22, 2009 Web 69 Reality check Revolution April 1, 2009 Magazine 70 New Google search changes enables small biz owners to boost ranking Progressive Grocer April 10, 2009 Magazine 71 Virgin readies Ocean 2 Smartphone Techweb February 2, 2009 Web 72 The best iPhone apps for the unemployed PC Magazine April 12, 2009 Web 73 Trapeze networks announces Newbury active asset 4.0, WLAN asset tracking and management Product News Network April 21, 2009 Web 74 Drive to succeed part of game; Profile—Rory Buckley The Age March 17, 2009 Newspaper 75 GETAC introduces its new fully rugged GPS/PDA with on board camera, altimeter and E-compass Product News Network March 5, 2009 Web 76 ScenSor low energy radio chips for use in wireless sensors The Irish Times March 27, 2009 Newspaper 77 Technology: Game theory: Put down the controller and get some fresh air The Guardian May 28, 2009 Newspaper 78 Tell us, where are you exactly?: Jemima Kiss is in the right place to spot Austin's major trend this year: Where you’re at The Guardian March 19, 2009 Newspaper 79 Google watch—Google kills Bambi, but not data fears Revolution March 1, 2009 Magazine 80 Consumer control brings brand loyalty; Mobile program less about advertising, more about positioning for future of banking Advertising Age March 30, 2009 Web 81 Google starts twittering news headlines Techweb April 28, 2009 Web 82 Air Force concerns highlight popularity of GPS 461899 eWeek May 23, 2009 Web 83 Beam your ads directly into their brains—well almost Revolution May 1, 2009 Magazine 84 DDS award for outstanding body of work—by Alex Dunsdon Campaign April 11, 2009 Magazine . Title . Source . Date . Type of publication . 1 Mobile GPS Revolution April 1, 2009 Magazine 2 A man walks into a bar and says, “Did you hear this is gonna be the year of mobile marketing?” Advertising Age March 30, 2009 Web 3 Alcatel-Lucent jumps into mobile advertising Techweb May 21, 2009 Web 4 Many developers not interested in pre, symbian Techweb April 9, 2009 Web 5 Opera adds location awareness Techweb March 26, 2009 Web 6 NAVTEQ LocationPoint advertising launches in Europe Space Daily May 25, 2009 Web 7 Still long way to go for mobile advertising New Straits Times February 16, 2009 Newspaper 8 Compact new 12 volt DC gearmotor develops 60 in. lb. torque at 78 rpm Product News Network February 3, 2009 Web 9 Eco-aware while on the run The Globe and Mail March 12, 2009 Newspaper 10 Skyhook plug-in improves cell phone location accuracy Techweb May 21, 2009 Web 11 Now phones are all Apple-flavoured Daily Telegraph February 21, 2009 Newspaper 12 Nokia introduces new LBS Total Telecom April 1, 2009 Web 13 Who, where, why?; GPS has made smart phones more connective than ever. But will they really bring us closer together? Globe and Mail April 24, 2009 Newspaper 14 Pizza chains use social networks for ordering, tracking Progressive Grocer February 13, 2009 Magazine 15 Cellphone locator system needs no satellite New York Times June 1, 2009 Newspaper 16 The cellphone, navigating our lives New York Times February 17, 2009 Newspaper 17 Locale adds skyhook wireless for better location on android Space Daily April 19, 2009 Web 18 Telmap unveils MOND2 to improve mobile navigation Total Telecom February 5, 2009 Web 19 Clickatell social network customers poised to monetise demand Total Telecom May 12, 2009 Web 20 United States: Abaq.us announces support for myGeoDiary on android-powered devices Tendersinfo May 22, 2009 Web 21 Analyst: Google Latitude not a threat to Facebook, MySpace eWeek February 5, 2009 Web 22 New technology boost for mobile internet links The Weekender March 12, 2009 Newspaper 23 Technology: Can Google Latitude get my stolen phone back? The Guardian February 26, 2009 Newspaper 24 Technology: The end of privacy?: Forget Street View, there is a far more subtle—and pervasive—invasion of your private life being carried out—this time through your mobile phone. The Guardian April 2, 2009 Newspaper 25 United States: Vodafone joins mobile application race Tendersinfo May 14, 2009 Web 26 In an emergency, who do you call? Cnn.com March 11, 2009 Web 27 In-depth—Location-based ads—Vodafone to trial mobile map ads Revolution June 1, 2009 Magazine 28 Google people tracker raises privacy issues CBC News February 4, 2009 Web 29 Calling up the best deals Sydney Morning Herald March 14, 2009 Newspaper 30 WHERE consolidates leadership position as top provider of local content Space Daily March 30, 2009 Web 31 Vodafone enters app store battle Techweb May 12, 2009 Web 32 Google promises memory loss for Latitude eWeek March 5, 2009 Web 33 Technology: Opinion: A short stroll around my hyperlocal The Guardian May 14, 2009 Newspaper 34 Technology: Opinion: Nokia—soon to come with apps The Guardian May 7, 2009 Newspaper 35 Some parents find it useful The Straits Time April 2, 2009 Newspaper 36 Turn online social networks into real world interactions Space Daily March 30, 2009 Web 37 Smartphone sales ride the economic storm Vnu.net February 2, 2009 Web 38 Special report—The shape of things to come Marketing March 18, 2009 Magazine 39 Mobile app store users to quadruple by 2014 Techweb March 26, 2009 Web 40 Is Korea turning into Internet police state? Korea Times April 9, 2009 Newspaper 41 Some teething problems for Nokia's new online store The Irish Times May 27, 2009 Newspaper 42 MWC Nokia announces Smart Store Ovi eWeek February 16, 2009 Web 43 Cell broadcasts could help avert catastrophe CNN.com February 5, 2009 Web 44 BlackBook ACCESS mobile perks program launched for location-based marketing Space Daily April 24, 2009 Web 45 Reminders from out of the blue New York Times April 2, 2009 Newspaper 46 Yahoo rolls out mobile apps Techweb April 1, 2009 Web 47 10 secret iPhone powers PC Magazine February 12, 2009 Web 48 Motorola's new mobile device mixes flexibility, functionality Progressive Grocer March 9, 2009 Magazine 49 A wealth of information at the push of a button; How does Acxiom know I'm right-handed and own a cat? asks Rowena Mason The Daily Telegraph April 28, 2009 Newspaper 50 Google's looking at you, kids …; The internet giant's new Street View function is great fun, but could it mean the end of privacy, asks Robert Colvile The Daily Telegraph March 20, 2009 Newspaper 51 Location based technologies launches additional PocketFinder Smartphone apps Space Daily February 23, 2009 Web 52 Telmap unveils personalised location companion Total Telecom February 16, 2009 Web 53 THE NEXT NET Business Week March 9, 2009 Web 54 Customers on the radar Caterer February 26, 2009 Web 55 Phone and beyond Korea Times May 11, 2009 Newspaper 56 RIM TMobile throw curve with new BlackBerry eWeek February 23, 2009 Web 57 Google's Schmidt talks privacy, Internet domination PC Magazine April 18, 2009 Web 58 Special focus: Exciting mobile market The Edge Malaysia May 11, 2009 Newspaper 59 Turning nightlife into phone game New York Times March 16, 2009 Newspaper 60 New here? The phone shows you around New York Times April 23, 2009 Newspaper 61 Google online tool lets you track friends Newsday February 5, 2009 Newspaper 62 Where Google meets Facebook meets GPS The Globe and Mail February 26, 2009 Newspaper 63 Opera and Skyhook wireless bring geolocation to the web Space Daily April 19, 2009 Web 64 Google gives you Latitude to track friends employees via Google maps eWeek February 4, 2009 Web 65 Stuck in the web The Times March 28, 2009 Newspaper 66 Searching for the new; New gizmos are being launched every day, but which ones will make it big? Danny Fortson tries to find out The Sunday Times April 19, 2009 Newspaper 67 Nokia rolls out E52 Smartphone Techweb May 6, 2009 Web 68 BlackBerry Curve 8900 hits AT&T Techweb May 22, 2009 Web 69 Reality check Revolution April 1, 2009 Magazine 70 New Google search changes enables small biz owners to boost ranking Progressive Grocer April 10, 2009 Magazine 71 Virgin readies Ocean 2 Smartphone Techweb February 2, 2009 Web 72 The best iPhone apps for the unemployed PC Magazine April 12, 2009 Web 73 Trapeze networks announces Newbury active asset 4.0, WLAN asset tracking and management Product News Network April 21, 2009 Web 74 Drive to succeed part of game; Profile—Rory Buckley The Age March 17, 2009 Newspaper 75 GETAC introduces its new fully rugged GPS/PDA with on board camera, altimeter and E-compass Product News Network March 5, 2009 Web 76 ScenSor low energy radio chips for use in wireless sensors The Irish Times March 27, 2009 Newspaper 77 Technology: Game theory: Put down the controller and get some fresh air The Guardian May 28, 2009 Newspaper 78 Tell us, where are you exactly?: Jemima Kiss is in the right place to spot Austin's major trend this year: Where you’re at The Guardian March 19, 2009 Newspaper 79 Google watch—Google kills Bambi, but not data fears Revolution March 1, 2009 Magazine 80 Consumer control brings brand loyalty; Mobile program less about advertising, more about positioning for future of banking Advertising Age March 30, 2009 Web 81 Google starts twittering news headlines Techweb April 28, 2009 Web 82 Air Force concerns highlight popularity of GPS 461899 eWeek May 23, 2009 Web 83 Beam your ads directly into their brains—well almost Revolution May 1, 2009 Magazine 84 DDS award for outstanding body of work—by Alex Dunsdon Campaign April 11, 2009 Magazine Open in new tab Table A1 Itemized List of Sources . Title . Source . Date . Type of publication . 1 Mobile GPS Revolution April 1, 2009 Magazine 2 A man walks into a bar and says, “Did you hear this is gonna be the year of mobile marketing?” Advertising Age March 30, 2009 Web 3 Alcatel-Lucent jumps into mobile advertising Techweb May 21, 2009 Web 4 Many developers not interested in pre, symbian Techweb April 9, 2009 Web 5 Opera adds location awareness Techweb March 26, 2009 Web 6 NAVTEQ LocationPoint advertising launches in Europe Space Daily May 25, 2009 Web 7 Still long way to go for mobile advertising New Straits Times February 16, 2009 Newspaper 8 Compact new 12 volt DC gearmotor develops 60 in. lb. torque at 78 rpm Product News Network February 3, 2009 Web 9 Eco-aware while on the run The Globe and Mail March 12, 2009 Newspaper 10 Skyhook plug-in improves cell phone location accuracy Techweb May 21, 2009 Web 11 Now phones are all Apple-flavoured Daily Telegraph February 21, 2009 Newspaper 12 Nokia introduces new LBS Total Telecom April 1, 2009 Web 13 Who, where, why?; GPS has made smart phones more connective than ever. But will they really bring us closer together? Globe and Mail April 24, 2009 Newspaper 14 Pizza chains use social networks for ordering, tracking Progressive Grocer February 13, 2009 Magazine 15 Cellphone locator system needs no satellite New York Times June 1, 2009 Newspaper 16 The cellphone, navigating our lives New York Times February 17, 2009 Newspaper 17 Locale adds skyhook wireless for better location on android Space Daily April 19, 2009 Web 18 Telmap unveils MOND2 to improve mobile navigation Total Telecom February 5, 2009 Web 19 Clickatell social network customers poised to monetise demand Total Telecom May 12, 2009 Web 20 United States: Abaq.us announces support for myGeoDiary on android-powered devices Tendersinfo May 22, 2009 Web 21 Analyst: Google Latitude not a threat to Facebook, MySpace eWeek February 5, 2009 Web 22 New technology boost for mobile internet links The Weekender March 12, 2009 Newspaper 23 Technology: Can Google Latitude get my stolen phone back? The Guardian February 26, 2009 Newspaper 24 Technology: The end of privacy?: Forget Street View, there is a far more subtle—and pervasive—invasion of your private life being carried out—this time through your mobile phone. The Guardian April 2, 2009 Newspaper 25 United States: Vodafone joins mobile application race Tendersinfo May 14, 2009 Web 26 In an emergency, who do you call? Cnn.com March 11, 2009 Web 27 In-depth—Location-based ads—Vodafone to trial mobile map ads Revolution June 1, 2009 Magazine 28 Google people tracker raises privacy issues CBC News February 4, 2009 Web 29 Calling up the best deals Sydney Morning Herald March 14, 2009 Newspaper 30 WHERE consolidates leadership position as top provider of local content Space Daily March 30, 2009 Web 31 Vodafone enters app store battle Techweb May 12, 2009 Web 32 Google promises memory loss for Latitude eWeek March 5, 2009 Web 33 Technology: Opinion: A short stroll around my hyperlocal The Guardian May 14, 2009 Newspaper 34 Technology: Opinion: Nokia—soon to come with apps The Guardian May 7, 2009 Newspaper 35 Some parents find it useful The Straits Time April 2, 2009 Newspaper 36 Turn online social networks into real world interactions Space Daily March 30, 2009 Web 37 Smartphone sales ride the economic storm Vnu.net February 2, 2009 Web 38 Special report—The shape of things to come Marketing March 18, 2009 Magazine 39 Mobile app store users to quadruple by 2014 Techweb March 26, 2009 Web 40 Is Korea turning into Internet police state? Korea Times April 9, 2009 Newspaper 41 Some teething problems for Nokia's new online store The Irish Times May 27, 2009 Newspaper 42 MWC Nokia announces Smart Store Ovi eWeek February 16, 2009 Web 43 Cell broadcasts could help avert catastrophe CNN.com February 5, 2009 Web 44 BlackBook ACCESS mobile perks program launched for location-based marketing Space Daily April 24, 2009 Web 45 Reminders from out of the blue New York Times April 2, 2009 Newspaper 46 Yahoo rolls out mobile apps Techweb April 1, 2009 Web 47 10 secret iPhone powers PC Magazine February 12, 2009 Web 48 Motorola's new mobile device mixes flexibility, functionality Progressive Grocer March 9, 2009 Magazine 49 A wealth of information at the push of a button; How does Acxiom know I'm right-handed and own a cat? asks Rowena Mason The Daily Telegraph April 28, 2009 Newspaper 50 Google's looking at you, kids …; The internet giant's new Street View function is great fun, but could it mean the end of privacy, asks Robert Colvile The Daily Telegraph March 20, 2009 Newspaper 51 Location based technologies launches additional PocketFinder Smartphone apps Space Daily February 23, 2009 Web 52 Telmap unveils personalised location companion Total Telecom February 16, 2009 Web 53 THE NEXT NET Business Week March 9, 2009 Web 54 Customers on the radar Caterer February 26, 2009 Web 55 Phone and beyond Korea Times May 11, 2009 Newspaper 56 RIM TMobile throw curve with new BlackBerry eWeek February 23, 2009 Web 57 Google's Schmidt talks privacy, Internet domination PC Magazine April 18, 2009 Web 58 Special focus: Exciting mobile market The Edge Malaysia May 11, 2009 Newspaper 59 Turning nightlife into phone game New York Times March 16, 2009 Newspaper 60 New here? The phone shows you around New York Times April 23, 2009 Newspaper 61 Google online tool lets you track friends Newsday February 5, 2009 Newspaper 62 Where Google meets Facebook meets GPS The Globe and Mail February 26, 2009 Newspaper 63 Opera and Skyhook wireless bring geolocation to the web Space Daily April 19, 2009 Web 64 Google gives you Latitude to track friends employees via Google maps eWeek February 4, 2009 Web 65 Stuck in the web The Times March 28, 2009 Newspaper 66 Searching for the new; New gizmos are being launched every day, but which ones will make it big? Danny Fortson tries to find out The Sunday Times April 19, 2009 Newspaper 67 Nokia rolls out E52 Smartphone Techweb May 6, 2009 Web 68 BlackBerry Curve 8900 hits AT&T Techweb May 22, 2009 Web 69 Reality check Revolution April 1, 2009 Magazine 70 New Google search changes enables small biz owners to boost ranking Progressive Grocer April 10, 2009 Magazine 71 Virgin readies Ocean 2 Smartphone Techweb February 2, 2009 Web 72 The best iPhone apps for the unemployed PC Magazine April 12, 2009 Web 73 Trapeze networks announces Newbury active asset 4.0, WLAN asset tracking and management Product News Network April 21, 2009 Web 74 Drive to succeed part of game; Profile—Rory Buckley The Age March 17, 2009 Newspaper 75 GETAC introduces its new fully rugged GPS/PDA with on board camera, altimeter and E-compass Product News Network March 5, 2009 Web 76 ScenSor low energy radio chips for use in wireless sensors The Irish Times March 27, 2009 Newspaper 77 Technology: Game theory: Put down the controller and get some fresh air The Guardian May 28, 2009 Newspaper 78 Tell us, where are you exactly?: Jemima Kiss is in the right place to spot Austin's major trend this year: Where you’re at The Guardian March 19, 2009 Newspaper 79 Google watch—Google kills Bambi, but not data fears Revolution March 1, 2009 Magazine 80 Consumer control brings brand loyalty; Mobile program less about advertising, more about positioning for future of banking Advertising Age March 30, 2009 Web 81 Google starts twittering news headlines Techweb April 28, 2009 Web 82 Air Force concerns highlight popularity of GPS 461899 eWeek May 23, 2009 Web 83 Beam your ads directly into their brains—well almost Revolution May 1, 2009 Magazine 84 DDS award for outstanding body of work—by Alex Dunsdon Campaign April 11, 2009 Magazine . Title . Source . Date . Type of publication . 1 Mobile GPS Revolution April 1, 2009 Magazine 2 A man walks into a bar and says, “Did you hear this is gonna be the year of mobile marketing?” Advertising Age March 30, 2009 Web 3 Alcatel-Lucent jumps into mobile advertising Techweb May 21, 2009 Web 4 Many developers not interested in pre, symbian Techweb April 9, 2009 Web 5 Opera adds location awareness Techweb March 26, 2009 Web 6 NAVTEQ LocationPoint advertising launches in Europe Space Daily May 25, 2009 Web 7 Still long way to go for mobile advertising New Straits Times February 16, 2009 Newspaper 8 Compact new 12 volt DC gearmotor develops 60 in. lb. torque at 78 rpm Product News Network February 3, 2009 Web 9 Eco-aware while on the run The Globe and Mail March 12, 2009 Newspaper 10 Skyhook plug-in improves cell phone location accuracy Techweb May 21, 2009 Web 11 Now phones are all Apple-flavoured Daily Telegraph February 21, 2009 Newspaper 12 Nokia introduces new LBS Total Telecom April 1, 2009 Web 13 Who, where, why?; GPS has made smart phones more connective than ever. But will they really bring us closer together? Globe and Mail April 24, 2009 Newspaper 14 Pizza chains use social networks for ordering, tracking Progressive Grocer February 13, 2009 Magazine 15 Cellphone locator system needs no satellite New York Times June 1, 2009 Newspaper 16 The cellphone, navigating our lives New York Times February 17, 2009 Newspaper 17 Locale adds skyhook wireless for better location on android Space Daily April 19, 2009 Web 18 Telmap unveils MOND2 to improve mobile navigation Total Telecom February 5, 2009 Web 19 Clickatell social network customers poised to monetise demand Total Telecom May 12, 2009 Web 20 United States: Abaq.us announces support for myGeoDiary on android-powered devices Tendersinfo May 22, 2009 Web 21 Analyst: Google Latitude not a threat to Facebook, MySpace eWeek February 5, 2009 Web 22 New technology boost for mobile internet links The Weekender March 12, 2009 Newspaper 23 Technology: Can Google Latitude get my stolen phone back? The Guardian February 26, 2009 Newspaper 24 Technology: The end of privacy?: Forget Street View, there is a far more subtle—and pervasive—invasion of your private life being carried out—this time through your mobile phone. The Guardian April 2, 2009 Newspaper 25 United States: Vodafone joins mobile application race Tendersinfo May 14, 2009 Web 26 In an emergency, who do you call? Cnn.com March 11, 2009 Web 27 In-depth—Location-based ads—Vodafone to trial mobile map ads Revolution June 1, 2009 Magazine 28 Google people tracker raises privacy issues CBC News February 4, 2009 Web 29 Calling up the best deals Sydney Morning Herald March 14, 2009 Newspaper 30 WHERE consolidates leadership position as top provider of local content Space Daily March 30, 2009 Web 31 Vodafone enters app store battle Techweb May 12, 2009 Web 32 Google promises memory loss for Latitude eWeek March 5, 2009 Web 33 Technology: Opinion: A short stroll around my hyperlocal The Guardian May 14, 2009 Newspaper 34 Technology: Opinion: Nokia—soon to come with apps The Guardian May 7, 2009 Newspaper 35 Some parents find it useful The Straits Time April 2, 2009 Newspaper 36 Turn online social networks into real world interactions Space Daily March 30, 2009 Web 37 Smartphone sales ride the economic storm Vnu.net February 2, 2009 Web 38 Special report—The shape of things to come Marketing March 18, 2009 Magazine 39 Mobile app store users to quadruple by 2014 Techweb March 26, 2009 Web 40 Is Korea turning into Internet police state? Korea Times April 9, 2009 Newspaper 41 Some teething problems for Nokia's new online store The Irish Times May 27, 2009 Newspaper 42 MWC Nokia announces Smart Store Ovi eWeek February 16, 2009 Web 43 Cell broadcasts could help avert catastrophe CNN.com February 5, 2009 Web 44 BlackBook ACCESS mobile perks program launched for location-based marketing Space Daily April 24, 2009 Web 45 Reminders from out of the blue New York Times April 2, 2009 Newspaper 46 Yahoo rolls out mobile apps Techweb April 1, 2009 Web 47 10 secret iPhone powers PC Magazine February 12, 2009 Web 48 Motorola's new mobile device mixes flexibility, functionality Progressive Grocer March 9, 2009 Magazine 49 A wealth of information at the push of a button; How does Acxiom know I'm right-handed and own a cat? asks Rowena Mason The Daily Telegraph April 28, 2009 Newspaper 50 Google's looking at you, kids …; The internet giant's new Street View function is great fun, but could it mean the end of privacy, asks Robert Colvile The Daily Telegraph March 20, 2009 Newspaper 51 Location based technologies launches additional PocketFinder Smartphone apps Space Daily February 23, 2009 Web 52 Telmap unveils personalised location companion Total Telecom February 16, 2009 Web 53 THE NEXT NET Business Week March 9, 2009 Web 54 Customers on the radar Caterer February 26, 2009 Web 55 Phone and beyond Korea Times May 11, 2009 Newspaper 56 RIM TMobile throw curve with new BlackBerry eWeek February 23, 2009 Web 57 Google's Schmidt talks privacy, Internet domination PC Magazine April 18, 2009 Web 58 Special focus: Exciting mobile market The Edge Malaysia May 11, 2009 Newspaper 59 Turning nightlife into phone game New York Times March 16, 2009 Newspaper 60 New here? The phone shows you around New York Times April 23, 2009 Newspaper 61 Google online tool lets you track friends Newsday February 5, 2009 Newspaper 62 Where Google meets Facebook meets GPS The Globe and Mail February 26, 2009 Newspaper 63 Opera and Skyhook wireless bring geolocation to the web Space Daily April 19, 2009 Web 64 Google gives you Latitude to track friends employees via Google maps eWeek February 4, 2009 Web 65 Stuck in the web The Times March 28, 2009 Newspaper 66 Searching for the new; New gizmos are being launched every day, but which ones will make it big? Danny Fortson tries to find out The Sunday Times April 19, 2009 Newspaper 67 Nokia rolls out E52 Smartphone Techweb May 6, 2009 Web 68 BlackBerry Curve 8900 hits AT&T Techweb May 22, 2009 Web 69 Reality check Revolution April 1, 2009 Magazine 70 New Google search changes enables small biz owners to boost ranking Progressive Grocer April 10, 2009 Magazine 71 Virgin readies Ocean 2 Smartphone Techweb February 2, 2009 Web 72 The best iPhone apps for the unemployed PC Magazine April 12, 2009 Web 73 Trapeze networks announces Newbury active asset 4.0, WLAN asset tracking and management Product News Network April 21, 2009 Web 74 Drive to succeed part of game; Profile—Rory Buckley The Age March 17, 2009 Newspaper 75 GETAC introduces its new fully rugged GPS/PDA with on board camera, altimeter and E-compass Product News Network March 5, 2009 Web 76 ScenSor low energy radio chips for use in wireless sensors The Irish Times March 27, 2009 Newspaper 77 Technology: Game theory: Put down the controller and get some fresh air The Guardian May 28, 2009 Newspaper 78 Tell us, where are you exactly?: Jemima Kiss is in the right place to spot Austin's major trend this year: Where you’re at The Guardian March 19, 2009 Newspaper 79 Google watch—Google kills Bambi, but not data fears Revolution March 1, 2009 Magazine 80 Consumer control brings brand loyalty; Mobile program less about advertising, more about positioning for future of banking Advertising Age March 30, 2009 Web 81 Google starts twittering news headlines Techweb April 28, 2009 Web 82 Air Force concerns highlight popularity of GPS 461899 eWeek May 23, 2009 Web 83 Beam your ads directly into their brains—well almost Revolution May 1, 2009 Magazine 84 DDS award for outstanding body of work—by Alex Dunsdon Campaign April 11, 2009 Magazine Open in new tab References Ackerman , L. , Kempf , J., & Miki , T. 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Hatfield, Elizabeth, Fish

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01084.xpmid: N/A

Abstract Two and a Half Men chronicles the experiences of 2 brothers living together in Los Angeles. This television show provides the opportunity to compare alternative portrayals of modern masculinity. The current project studies the masculinity of the show's main characters by examining its first 5 seasons using narrative thematic analysis. Literature on gender and hegemonic masculinity frames this research project, offering both a historical perspective and a critical understanding of media representations. I argue that the performances of hegemonic and subordinated masculinity on Two and a Half Men reconstruct and reinforce the dominance of hegemonic masculinity within our society as the only acceptable performance of manhood. Effeminate masculinity, an alternative masculinity, fails to find legitimate cultural articulation within the show. The May 2009 cover of Esquire Magazine included only one line of text: “How to Be a Man.” Indeed, this magazine, whose tagline claims to portray “Man at His Best,” devoted May's entire issue to addressing the simple question of “What is a man?” In answer to this question, the magazine writes: “A man carries cash. A man looks out for those around him—woman, friend, stranger. A man can cook eggs. A man can always find something good to watch on television. A man makes things—a rock wall, a table, the tuition money. Or he rebuilds—engines, watches, fortunes. He passes along expertise, one man to the next. Know-how survives him. This is immortality… A man knows how to bust balls… A man gets the door. Without thinking.” (Chiarella, 2009, p. 61) While this answer speaks to traditional masculine ideals—framing man as a capable provider flexible in his knowledge of the world and part of a broad network of interconnected maleness—it implies that these actions are critical elements of a “real man.” What happens to men who cannot physically make things? Who do not have so-called male expertise? Gender studies of the media often focus on the comparison between men and women (see, e.g., Cooper & Cooper, 2009; Glascock, 2001). Though observing how male and female characters are treated in media representations is an important endeavor, we also have much to learn from addressing differences within each group. Women and men experience a wide range of realities based on performance, class, and race. Several researchers discuss the existence of what has been called the “new man” or “soft man”—an alternative masculinity accepting of gender equality and shared household responsibilities—yet no study has delved into the details of constructing multiple masculinities within a single class or race group. The purpose of the current study is to address that absence by analyzing Two and a Half Men's main characters, Alan and Charlie, for their very different portrayals of masculinity as white, upper-middle-class males. Additionally, the character of Alan's son, Jake, will also be considered as a supporting character within the series. Multiple masculinities is a concept that has been introduced in communication and sociological literature, yet has not often been teased out through comparison; Two and a Half Men offers a media case study—a chance to evaluate side-by-side media portrayals of alternate versions of “what it means to be a man” (Lorre & Aronson, 2003a). The popular sitcom Two and a Half Men chronicles the everyday experiences of these brothers who live together due to personal circumstances. Charlie and Alan Harper present an updated version of previous sitcoms such as the Odd Couple and Full House, where adult males live together, share household duties, and raise a family. Without a female character living in the home, Two and a Half Men demonstrates how media producers grapple with the need to fulfill traditional “feminine” tasks around the home while preserving masculinity. Gender and masculinity Research in the 1990s largely ignored masculinity as a socially constructed ideology, whereas deconstructing femininity was a popular focus of feminist studies starting in the 1970s (MacKinnon, 2003). However, recent years have seen an increased interest in masculinity and men's studies as they interact with, and influence, culture. Masculinity has long been intertwined with a powerful social position in its hegemonic forms based on class, race, and sexuality. Reynolds (2002) argues that masculinity gains power through performance: Performing power is performing masculinity. Gender as performance is a cyclical pattern in which bodies become gendered over a period of time (Butler, 1988). Butler argues that our actions, as performances, constitute the illusion of a gendered self. To maintain power, this gendered self adapts its performance as cultures shift over time, seen by considering mid-20th century definitions of manhood. Historically, traditional masculinity was defined through sex-role ideologies, as Chapman describes: A whole panopoly of professionals were enlisted to persuade men that the breadwinner ethic was the only normal state for an adult male and that the achievement of maturity necessitated the successful completion of a number of ‘life tasks' namely marriage and fatherhood. Failure to complete these tasks was incompatible with adult masculinity; those who failed were characterized as either not fully adult, or not fully masculine. (1988, p. 233) Until the 1950s, masculinity was achieved through economic success as the heterosexual family provider and head of household (a model which still exists). This model was challenged in the 1950s as Hugh Hefner introduced Playboy and its hedonistic lifestyle to America—an update to masculinity that freed men from familial obligations (Chapman, 1988). This modern man, a gender warrior changing accepted behavior, served as a contradiction to the “old man” while maintaining a socially superior position to women and other groups of men. Hefner's portrayal of bachelor masculinity offered an acceptable, alternative masculinity that reinterpreted the male patriarchal stereotype of the macho and the wimp, again situating alternative forms of masculinity as “other.” Within societies, a gender order usually exists, ranking one gender as more powerful and prestigious than other(s) (Lorber, 1990). Most often this is seen through men's dominance over women or, alternatively, women's dependence on men. Though “gender benders” (who do not clearly prescribe their gender identity to their sex identity) exist within American culture, these people are not legitimized as third genders, but instead reinforce existing gender boundaries (Lorber, 1990). MacKinnon (2003) argues that there are social rewards for men and women who perform the normative, socially prescribed gender roles and do not deviate from the script. Indeed, many scholars discuss the act of social sanctioning as a method for enforcement of appropriate gender roles (Bussey & Bandura, 1999; Butler, 1988; Lorber, 1990). The limitations of Lorber's binary gender order are addressed by Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity identifies the hegemonic position of males within many Western cultures and argues that men's multiple, performed masculinities grapple for cultural power along a continuum (Connell, 1987). Dominant masculinities within hegemonic masculinity subordinate both women and other men—allowing men who perform this ideal masculinity to retain high social status and control (Carrigan, Connell, & Lee, 1985; Connell, 1987). With hegemonic masculinity, masculinity becomes much more complex than sex role arguments—combining ethnicity, sexuality, economic power, and personal characteristics to determine status. Though hegemonic masculinity may be the “culturally exalted form of masculinity, the hegemonic model so to speak, may only correspond to the actual characters of a small number of men” (Carrigan et al., 1985). MacKinnon argues that men who embody hegemonic masculinity may be fantasy figures needed to sustain the cultural ideal, an ideal likely to be displayed and promoted by the mass media (Carrigan et al., 1985; MacKinnon, 2003). Though few men may embody hegemonic masculinity, as a concept it stands as the point from which other masculinities are positioned (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). Historically subordinated masculinities include gay and effeminate men (Carrigan et al., 1985; Jackson, 1990). Working to gain cultural articulation is one modern version of masculinity: the role of the “new man” or “soft man” (Mallan, 2002). This soft man is a “caring, sensitive, domesticated father/partner”—an example of feminized masculinity that Mallon calls the “diminutive, infantilized male within the domestic setting” (Mallan, 2002, p. 24; see also Jackson, 1990). MacKinnon (2003, p. 13) notes the soft man “embodies anti-sexism” which is seen in the egalitarian relationships he forms with women. This male does not portray the “natural” traits of masculinity, instead taking on “unnatural” feminine characteristics such as housework and emotional literacy (Chapman, 1988, p. 233). In 1985 Carrigan et al. (1985, p. 592) described this masculinity: “For the most part there is no very clear social definition of heterosexual effeminacy. It is popularly assimilated to a gay identity when it is noticed at all.” The authors' comment points to the fact that as a society we are indeed uncomfortable dealing with a less concrete standard for singular masculinity, and use sexuality as a default classification system. Pleck (1998) identifies this new, soft man as a cultural ideal, but not a reality. Most men continue to identify with the role of breadwinner and head of household (even in dual income households where both adults contribute to the family income), subordinating women within the family structure (Pleck, 1998). Analyzing television and representations of masculinity Television sitcoms have been a site of study for many researchers interested in depictions of masculinity. Media representations continually reproduce masculinity according to social norms (Hanke, 1992, p. 187) with sitcoms illustrating cultural myths about male roles that do not actually exist in the real world (Cantor, quoted in Hanke, 1992, p. 191). Hanke (1998) argued that the shows Coach and Home Improvement bring masculinity to the forefront in a “mock-macho” style. Glascock (2001) analyzed the demographics of television characters and found that females are underrepresented on television and typically portrayed in lower-paying, lower-status jobs than men. The television show Roseanne, which featured the strong Roseanne and her “soft” husband Dan, was ranked as the least desirable family model by Olson and Douglas' participants (1997), with Home Improvement coming in next. The authors attribute Home Improvement's undesirability to its male character Tim Taylor being rated as the highest in spousal domination. This study indicates polarized views on masculinity—men who are hyper-masculine or effeminate are both identified as undesirable family models. Other studies have addressed various depictions of masculinity in thirtysomething, Evening Shade, Will and Grace, and Hill Street Blues (MacKinnon, 2003). Fictional television can be seen either as an influence on, or reflection of, culture—the shared norms, values, and beliefs held by a society. Yet many groups exist within a society and multiple value systems may be at play; therefore, television ultimately offers a site of struggle for creating legitimized meaning for those groups. Studying the messages communicated on television allows researchers to better understand mass culture and the values portrayed through fictitious depiction. The creators of Two and a Half Men comment on the season's DVD set that they wanted to develop a show about men: “We were looking to do something that was a little more male-centric, that reflected a little bit more about our experiences as men … Men wrestling with what it is to be a man” (Lorre & Aronson, 2003a). This sitcom portrays an ideology of hegemonic masculinity as a normative value system to be decoded and interpreted by audiences. Two and a Half Men has been on the air since 2003 and has led the sitcom genre in popularity during its first five seasons, averaging 15 million viewers per week (Richmond, 2009). Charlie Sheen, playing the show's main character, currently earns $825,000 per episode (Martinez, 2008)—the highest paid actor on any television show, a reflection of the show's demand by viewers. The show's older episodes lead syndication rankings for sitcoms, and Two and a Half Men is the second most popular television show for 18–24-year-old male viewers following Family Guy (Albiniak, 2007). The show has been nominated for dozens of awards since its 2003 inception. To analyze the series Two and a Half Men, a narrative thematic analysis was employed. A narrative thematic analysis “keeps a story ‘intact’ by theorizing from the case rather than from the component themes (categories) across cases” (Riessman, 2008, p. 53). Similar to a thematic analysis, narrative analysis expands the unit of analysis beyond small segments of dialogue used in thematic analysis to examine the entire story as it develops and impacts the characters. Therefore, it is valuable to consider the complete series, rather than a sample of episodes or smaller increments allowing the researcher to analyze the series' recurring themes that speak to this idea of “what it is to be a man.” Five seasons of Two and a Half Men were available on DVD and analyzed for the current project (with Season 6 in progress). Each season consists of 19–24 episodes, which originally were aired in 30-minute increments (about 18–22 minutes each on DVD); all 115 episodes were reviewed and analyzed for narrative themes and exemplars. Once all episodes were reviewed, the researcher then coded her notes to identify recurring themes and storylines as instructed by Riessman's text. Analysis In her introductory chapter, Riessman (2008, p. 3) discusses narrative analysis: “Events perceived by the speaker [person communicating] as important are selected, organized, connected, and evaluated as meaningful for a particular audience.” This is particularly true for the analysis of a television sitcom, which may be assumed to have a script written precisely to include important elements about the characters. What producers and writers have chosen to share with viewers about Charlie's and Alan's characters can be considered valuable information about their history. Bruner (2002, p. 14) writes: “A self is probably the most impressive work of art we ever produce, surely the most intricate.” Creating the characters of Charlie and Alan—their “selves”—is a complicated act for producers. Bruner continues, noting that “it is not just who and what we are that we want to get straight but who and what we might have been.” Because the show's time is limited to around 20 minutes per week, producers must carefully concoct the important events in Charlie and Alan's lives. Charlie and Alan each perform a different masculinity on the show Two and a Half Men. Charlie's bachelor lifestyle rejects traditional values, whereas Alan contrasts this by mourning his divorce and continually hoping to remarry. Charlie bears no responsibility in his life, whereas Alan must constantly fret about money, take care of his son, and manage his practice. Charlie is confident and successful, whereas Alan is dependent. Through the first five seasons of Two and a Half Men, one thing is clear—only Charlie's version of masculinity is communicated as successful. The show continually reminds viewers that Alan's enactment of masculinity fails, even though Alan embodies many typical American values. Two and a Half Men offers a media representation of hegemonic masculinity through the performance of gender by the two main characters (and many supporting characters as well). Arguably, neither Charlie nor Alan neatly fits within traditional notions of masculinity. I claim instead that Charlie's Hefner-like bachelorhood and Alan's soft man negotiate hegemonic order within the series, ultimately identifying Charlie's performance to be the dominant masculinity. Of hegemonic masculinity's nature, Connell (1987, p. 183) writes, “Hegemonic masculinity is always constructed in relation to various subordinated masculinities as well as in relation to women.” As a concept, hegemonic masculinity relies on other masculinities to maintain power; through the relationship and interactions shared by Charlie and Alan, hegemony is demonstrated. The third male in the series, Alan's son Jake, will also be discussed in my analysis. Through interaction with his two male role models, Jake's character reproduces masculinity as he matures from a childish 10-year old in Season One to a teenager in Season Five. Jake's behavior and interactions navigate the strengths and weaknesses of Charlie's and Alan's performances, offering a commentary on what it means to be a man and ultimately a third masculinity within the series.1 In this analysis, I describe the narrative themes resulting from viewing the first five seasons that support and explore portrayals of masculinity. Three initial themes shed light on how the narrative illustrated men's gender roles within the series including the characters' gender performance, subordination, and social success. Performing masculinity CreatorChuckLorre:TheseTwo Men Defending Their Masculinity— That's WhatiLove About This Series. Each brother on Two and a Half Men performs a role—acts out a personality that is consistent with his identity and world view. These performances offer visual depictions of the show's goal: “what it means to be a man” (Lorre & Aronson, 2003a). Riessman (2008) writes of narrative performance: “To emphasize the performance is not to suggest that identities are inauthentic, but only that identities are situated and accomplished with an audience in mind” (Riessman, 2008, p. 106). For Two and a Half Men, performing masculinity allows Charlie and Alan to physically embody alternative masculinities through visual and other cues meant to guide audience interpretations. The simplest element of Alan's and Charlie's performances can be found in their attire. Alan dresses very neatly with a button-up shirt that is always tucked into his ironed pants. His style reflects the character's personality, as the creators described the part: “anal-retentive, uptight, anxious.” Charlie Sheen's character, Charlie, has a laid-back California style; he wears untucked, short-sleeved bowling shirts with shorts in almost every episode. The predictability of both brothers' clothing taste is manipulated within the series, often by either dramatically changing their style or mimicking it to emphasize a storyline. For example, several characters, impressed by Charlie's ability to attract women, show up dressed exactly like Charlie. The clear visual cues of the bowling shirt and shorts identify the producers' motives and are often humorous. At one point, Charlie fears he has illegitimate children with a past fling, partially based on the fact that upon meeting her sons, he sees they both dress exactly like him (Lorre & Aronson, 2003a). Just as Charlie and Alan's clothes work to identify their contrasting personalities, the use of banter structures the writing of the show, allowing producers to both develop and exploit the familial nature of the two characters' relationship. Easthope writes of banter: The content of banter has a double function. Outwardly, banter is aggressive, a form in which the masculine ego asserts itself. Inwardly, however, banter depends on a close, intimate, and personal understanding of the person who is the butt of the attack. It thus works as a way of affirming the bond of love, while appearing to deny it. (Easthope, 1990, p. 87) Banter works in this way to entertain audiences, while exposing the brothers' simultaneous competition with and love for one another. Whereas typical male friendships may be optional based on affection or shared interest, the blood relationship of brotherhood provides a strong tie between these two very different men. To expose those differences, every episode uses this quick-witted linguistic tool to drive home the producers' goals. Through banter, Charlie and Alan establish dominance and comment on each others' lives. Yet, the use of banter, as Easthope argues, works particularly well for the series because of its intimate nature. Charlie and Alan are brothers who have shared a lifetime together—though they may mock or kid, ultimately, they protect and care for each other. Easthope notes: In banter explicit antagonism between two masculine egos covers the implicit male bond. Personal criticism like this would never be allowed to an outsider for it depends on a disavowed, but fond awareness of ‘how like you that is.’ And much of the viewer's pleasure arises from appreciating this. (1990, p. 90) Often, Charlie directly puts Alan down through banter—the criticism Easthope identifies as impermissible with someone not intimately known. The enjoyment of watching these interactions may come from the illicit nature of inappropriate comments—what people wish they could say in their own lives but never would. Banter is not limited to Charlie and Alan within the series, but a tool used by all the family members in conversation. As a performance of masculinity, the outcome of banter often leaves Charlie having trumped Alan in conversation—as will be seen throughout the examples used in this article. For Alan, banter does not leave him in a superior position, but reiterates his performance of subordinated masculinity. He's so gay, but not gay Kandi:WheniWas A Little Girl,iUsed To Love Playing Bride. Alan:Me, Too. Alan, played by Jon Cryer, performs effeminate masculinity. As Carrigan et al. (1985) argue, effeminate males confound the typical two-gender system, and effeminate characteristics are assumed to be markers of a gay identity. Carrigan et al. explain, “A subordinated masculinity can be produced collectively as a well-defined social group and a stable social identity. A now familiar case in point is the ‘making of the modern homosexual’” (p. 591). Effeminate males who identify as either straight or gay are assumed to be gay. The producers of Two and a Half Men use this cultural assumption to define Alan's character. Rather than legitimize Alan's effeminate heterosexuality as the “new man,” the producers mock it. Effeminate masculinity finds cultural articulation on the show, yet Two and a Half Men communicates the impossibility of separating this form of masculinity from the subordinated, stereotyped gay identity. Often, a he's so gay, but not gay storyline exposes itself blatantly—such as when Alan accidentally pierces the “gay” ear (Lorre & Aronson, 2008b) or a wedding occurs on the show. Alan immediately snaps into his wedding planner mode—bringing out his file folder, sitting cross-legged at the kitchen table and holding conferences with the bride. Not only does he act as a wedding planner, a role typically filled by women and gay men in mainstream media (see, e.g., the movies Father of the Bride, The Wedding Planner, or 27 Dresses), but he clearly enjoys it. Discussing a potential wedding for Charlie and Season Three girlfriend Mia (which does not happen), Charlie proposes not having a wedding cake at their wedding (Lorre & Aronson, 2008a): Alan: No cake? Where would you put the little bride and groom? Which reminds me, I just found my old wedding folder and guess what was in it? Charlie: The claim check for your manhood? Alan's effeminate performance often results in him either being teased by Charlie for being gay or being confused by others as a gay man. The writers play up this element of Alan's demeanor to build contrast between Alan and Charlie, whose regular sexual pursuits demonstrate his heterosexuality. At times, Charlie and Alan are perceived to be a gay couple within an episode, but this only occurs when placing Alan in the situation. Alone, Charlie's sexuality is never questioned and Charlie controls others' impressions. During Season Three, Charlie must attend a party at a gay professional acquaintance's home (Lorre & Aronson, 2008a). He asks Alan to join him as his partner: Alan: If you want to engage in a fraudulent escapade, have one of your oafish poker buddies be your life partner. Charlie: You see, right there. Escapade, oafish. What poker buddy of mine talks like that? But you, a couple squirts of Paco Rabane and you’re good to go. Later, Charlie discusses Alan's exaggerated performance during the party: Charlie: You’ve got to pull back a little, you are gonna set off the smoke alarm. Alan: What do you mean? Charlie: I mean, if you flame anymore you are gonna set the drapes on fire. On a different occasion getting ready for a date, Alan comes into the living room dressed to leave (Lorre & Aronson, 2003b): Alan: How do I look? Charlie: Incredible. All men want to be you. All women want to be with you. Alan: Can you at least look at me before you answer? Charlie: I stand corrected. All men want to be with you. Charlie's mocking evaluation of Alan is important for viewers—reinforcing his superiority and guiding viewers' own assessments of Alan's character. It is Alan who offers a believable gay performance reiterated continuously through banter over the five seasons. A final example occurs during Season Five; the producers place Charlie and Alan in a situation where both consider their sexuality. Alan begins a friendship with a gay father from his single parents group, Greg. A preteen Jake and Greg's daughter discuss their fathers, and Jake begins to believe his dad is gay. When he tells Judith (Alan's ex-wife), Judith smirks and soon after we learn that she, Evelyn (Charlie and Alan's mother), and Berta (the housekeeper) all had an ongoing bet as to whether or not Alan was gay. When Judith tells Alan how happy she is that he has realized he is gay, Alan becomes confused about whether or not he is actually gay. Meanwhile, Greg shows an attraction to Charlie, and their interactions prompt Charlie to also briefly question his masculinity. However, Charlie tells Alan that: “There is a big leap between glowing and flaming” (Lorre & Aronson, 2009), concluding that he (Charlie) is not gay. Charlie exerts his heterosexuality throughout the episode even though he questions it; Alan responds by testing his attraction to the friend with a kiss. Greg: What are you doing? Alan: Um, I'm just, you know, checking. Greg: Checking what? Alan: Well, I, I, I, it's not important. I just thought that possibly that I might be … Greg: Alan, you are not gay. Alan: Are you sure? Greg: Do you find me sexually attractive? Alan: No. Greg: Do you find any man sexually attractive? Alan: No … uh, maybe George Clooney. Greg: Clooney doesn't count. Trust me, you’re not gay. Alan: Okay. Greg: You seem disappointed. Alan: I just feel like I'm letting a lot of people down. Greg: Alan, its okay to be straight. (Lorre & Aronson, 2009) With gay masculinity an established identity, the character of Alan struggles with his failure to successfully portray either traditional masculinity or this newer, accepted form of masculinity. How to be a man Charlie:aMan's Reach Must Exceed His Grasp, Or What's A Penis For? In contrast to Alan's effeminate masculinity, Charlie's performance leaves little room for confusion about his sexuality and masculinity. His male friends engage in stereotypical bonding activities like poker games and cigar smoking. In one episode, he lifts weights while drinking bourbon. Alan briefly moves out during Season Five and Charlie updates the bedroom by replacing Alan's fold-out couch bed with a full-size pool table. When Charlie dates Mia in Season Three, she forces him to eat vegetarian food. Charlie proclaims: “No man should eat anything with the word curd in it” (Lorre & Aronson, 2008a). Out at a vegetarian restaurant with Mia, Charlie decides he has had enough, looks around at the other men in the restaurant and tells them and Mia: “I'm a big old bourbon-soaked, cigar-huffing ass. As God in his infinite wisdom meant me to be—as he meant all men to be (one man claps). You guys are disappointing God.” What it means to be a man is directly communicated—as Charlie's drinking, red meat-eating, cigar-smoking masculinity. The core of Charlie's masculinity on the show is defined by his relationships (or lack of relationships) with women. In an exchange that highlights Charlie's heterosexuality and Alan's ambiguous masculinity, the brothers discuss Alan's spandex bike outfit and Charlie's most recent fling, a French woman: Charlie: Hey, everybody's good at something. You, for instance, have no shame. (He looks at Alan's spandex bike outfit.) Alan: Excuse me, this is what they wore in the Tour de France. Charlie: Alan, I just took the Tour de France and the only thing I was wearing was a smile and a condom. (Lorre & Aronson, 2009) Every episode Charlie pursues young, attractive women with what seems to be a revolving door to his bedroom. Sexual desirability offers one of the most consistent and strongest ways for identifying Charlie's successful and Alan's failed masculine performances. Charlie's sexual pursuits take center stage in Season Two when he learns a website has been created called www.CharlieHarperSucks.com picturing him as a devil and giving women a forum to vent about their experiences with Charlie. Writes one woman: “How long can you date Charlie Harper? Depends on how late you sleep.” Charlie tries to discover who started the website by visiting his past flings; all five women he visits (in a single afternoon) end up having sex with him again then learn about each other from new postings on the website. Even angry women cannot refuse him. Charlie's masculinity is characterized by his aversion to traditional committed relationships. In Season One, Charlie and Alan discuss their views on relationships: Alan: You know, Charlie, if you put half the energy you put into manipulating casual sexual encounters and used it to build a relationship, you'd be a lot happier. Charlie: Hard to imagine. Alan: Are you saying you never want to settle down? Charlie: You mean get married? Let me tell you something, bunky. If you’ve got someone to clean your house and do your shopping and you’re getting some action on a regular basis, the only reason you need a wife is if you have some sick compulsion to give away half your stuff. (Lorre & Aronson, 2003a) Two seasons later, when Alan calls Charlie a misogynist, Charlie is bothered and discusses it with his neighbor Rose: Charlie: Rose, do you think I'm a misogynist? Rose: Oh, wow, yeah (laughs). Why, did somebody say you weren't? Charlie: How could I be a misogynist? My whole life is a testimony to my love for women. Rose: Oh, it's sweet that you think that. But what you call love is really just an obsession to control and dominate based on mistrust and dishonesty Charlie: Yeah, so? (Lorre & Aronson, 2008a) As their conversation continues, though Rose agrees with Alan, it becomes clear that she both fantasizes about her past one-night stand with Charlie, as well as her ongoing desire to be with him. Rather than push Charlie to change his behavior, Rose tells him: Rose: It's okay, Charlie. The world is filled with women who seek out misogynists, women who need men to mistreat them and provide them with angry, aggressive sex in order to satisfy their own twisted pathology (with a dreamy look on her face). Charlie: (Thoughtfully) I see. Well, I guess I’ll have to just have to look for a woman like that. Rose: Marco! (a comment signaling her desire to be that woman). (Lorre & Aronson, 2008a) These two conversations communicate that not only is Charlie a misogynist, but that this behavior is acceptable. He is not urged to change his behavior with women, but instead is encouraged to simply target a population of women willing to put up with his treatment. The text ultimately condones his misogynistic behavior by implying that women actively perpetuate it, as confirmed by Rose's attraction to Charlie. Misogyny only adds to Charlie's manhood rather than detracts from it. Though Alan also dates on the show, he easily becomes emotionally involved and every season believes he has found a woman to marry. Often he relies on Charlie to help him meet women or maintain confidence with women. His character is not portrayed as a desirable mate—particularly because of his living situation. Evelyn (his mother) tells him: “No offense, but since you are dirt poor and living with your brother, one must ask, what kind of woman would want to marry you? That she's a little slow or looking for a green card?” (Lorre & Aronson, 2003b). Alan comments on his own desirability: Alan: Charlie, gorgeous women like that are not interested in pasty little guys like me unless we are in line for the British throne. Charlie: So you give up without even trying? Alan: Yep, that's my motto. Why waste time on Tens when you are already getting rejected by Sixes? By contrast, though Charlie does not want to commit, women continually desire him and want more from their relationships. For Two and a Half Men, performing masculinity is closely tied to sexuality and masculine independence. Charlie's heterosexuality and Alan's effeminate performance communicate their attractiveness as mates, but also support further evidence of subordinating alternative masculinities within the series. Subordination Subordination by men Charlie: [Alan'sCar] Looks Like My Car's Hot Little Girlfriend. Two and a Half Men's narrative is centrally concerned with power. Connell writes: Ascendency of one group of men over another achieved at the point of a gun, or by the threat of unemployment, is not hegemony. Ascendency which is embedded in the religious doctrine and practice, mass media content, wage structures, the design of housing, welfare/taxation policies and so forth, is. (Connell, 1987, p. 184) Connell describes a power not necessarily achieved by force, but rather deeply embedded in our society. There is no reason Alan should not be considered successful—he is a medical professional and owns his own chiropractic practice. He is educated, white, and upper-middle-class. Yet his circumstances strip any power he might have claimed within the microcosm of the show—Charlie's house. The show centers on action within the home—a place where Charlie clearly dominates. The design of housing on the show immediately communicates that Charlie is in charge. Several episodes bring up the housing arrangement and always reinstate Charlie's dominant position within the home. Though the show focuses on a non-traditional living arrangement, viewers quickly see that Charlie acts as the male head of the household while positioning Alan as secondary. The traditional breadwinner masculinity is appropriated as part of Charlie's bachelorhood, transforming gender roles to fit this non-traditional arrangement. Charlie owns the home, makes the most money, and takes no responsibility for household tasks. Alan lives in the home because he pays alimony and child support to his ex-wife Judith and, after these costs, cannot afford his own housing. To participate in the household, Alan contributes in ways typical of traditional women's roles. For example, while grocery shopping, the brothers share this exchange: Alan: So, any thoughts on what you'd like for dinner this weekend? Charlie: (Sarcastically) You decide, honey. I love everything you cook. Alan: Oh, so all of a sudden I'm a woman because I cook and try to make a nice home for you? (Lorre & Aronson, 2008a) Alan's participation in household tasks results from his identity as a liberated, “new man” who believes in egalitarianism. Yet this belief ultimately undermines his place within the household—subordinating him and his beliefs to a position that no longer enjoys the benefits of equality. Season Five highlights this when Alan buys a bowl for the coffee table that Charlie dislikes and vetoes. Alan is upset: Alan: Obviously, we disagree about my role in this household. Charlie: We sure do. You think you have one, and I don't. Alan: I'm not bluffing, Charlie. If you are not willing to acknowledge me as an equal member of this household, then I can't live here anymore. Charlie: Is that all it will take to get you to leave? Buh-bye! (Lorre & Aronson, 2009) In a similar episode, when Alan challenges his place in the household, his subordinated position within the home becomes unambiguous. He moves out and looks for a place to live, but quickly realizes his limited choices. Coming back to Charlie's home, he tells him: “You’re the boss. I'd rather be a second-class citizen here in paradise, than king of a urine soaked firetrap next to Burbank Airport” (Lorre & Aronson, 2008a). Charlie has virtually no responsibility in his day-to-day life; he spends his time drinking, meeting women, and occasionally working from home as a television jingle writer. He has a housekeeper who shops and cleans for him and an accountant who pays all of his bills and manages his finances. His incapability to handle even mundane responsibilities around the home can be seen in the following interaction, which takes place during Season One when Charlie's housekeeper Berta temporarily quits: Charlie: She left before she made the coffee. Alan: So? Make your own coffee. Charlie: How? (Alan pushes a button on the coffee maker) Charlie: So now we just wait? Alan: Yes. It takes a couple of minutes. (Lorre & Aronson, 2003a) Charlie literally does not know how to make coffee using his own coffeemaker. Though the storyline focuses on an all-male household, all of the tasks that women were historically responsible for—such as cleaning, managing a household, and taking care of the children—are outsourced or taken on by Alan. As Charlie describes Berta in Season One, “She's like a wife that leaves before you wake up and doesn't mind if you sleep around” (Lorre & Aronson, 2003a). Charlie is not a male who takes care of himself or is liberated, but rather he has enough money to pay other people to do all the tasks that are required of owning a home. Though the show is not violent in the traditional sense used to describe television programs or hegemonic masculinity, elements of violence weave through the narrative to further establish Charlie as the dominant male and appropriate demonstration of masculinity. Connell (1987, p. 184) writes: “Though ‘hegemony’ does not refer to ascendancy based on force, it is not incompatible with ascendancy based on force. Indeed it is common for the two to go together.” Charlie inflicts physical harm on Alan throughout all five seasons. This violence is usually minimal such as a slap on the head. Yet its subtle message works to portray just one more way that Charlie dominates. Of the physical harm, Alan says: “All I ever wanted was his approval and all I ever got was my underwear wedged up to my skull. And the sad part is I looked forward to the wedgies because that's the only form of love I ever got” (Lorre & Aronson, 2003b). Later in that episode, Alan is shown duck-taped to a downtown electric pole by Charlie and his friends. Subordination by women Alan:I'm Not Capable Of Rejecting Another Human Being. Charlie:Wow, You'd Think After All These Years You'd Want To Get Even. Alan's subordination extends beyond living arrangements to include subordination by women, a twist on hegemonic masculinity that emphasizes the low status of Alan's performed masculinity. Alan is a professional male, yet his income cannot overcome his obligation to pay alimony and child support. In Alan's ongoing relationship with Judith, she clearly dominates the relationship. When Alan and Judith begin dating again in Season Three, Alan says: “Charlie, you can't overlook the fact that we still have a lot in common.” Charlie replies: “Yeah, neither of you have any respect for you” (Lorre & Aronson, 2008a). Alan's performance of masculinity subordinates him not only to men but also to women. After the divorce in Season One, Judith still demands his help around their previously shared home including repairs, bringing the trash cans in and out, and paying the bills. Charlie discovers Judith's demands on Alan: Charlie: Where you going? Alan: Oh, I have to bring the garbage cans back in. Charlie: But today wasn't garbage day. Alan: Oh no, not here. At Judith's. Charlie: At Judith's? Alan, your wife threw you out. Alan: Well that doesn't mean she doesn't need me. Charlie: Yeah, it kind of does. Alan: Well she's still my wife, it's still my house and she still counts on me to do a few chores. It's good. It leaves the door open for reconciliation. Charlie: So how do you lift those garbage cans without a spine? Alan: They’re on wheels. (Lorre & Aronson, 2003a) Here we see Alan takes on responsibility above and beyond what is expected—even if, as Charlie points out, the responsibility is no longer his. Charlie would never let a woman treat him the way Alan lets Judith. In Season Three, when Judith forbids Alan to take Jake (their son) to Las Vegas with him and Charlie, Charlie comments: “You know what I think? If [Judith] wanted to keep you on a leash like a neutered poodle, she shouldn't have divorced you. We are men Alan, single men. We go where we want and how we want, usually without so much luggage and toiletries, but I'm trying to be flexible” (Lorre & Aronson, 2008a). In addition to Judith's demands, Alan also remarries and divorces during Seasons Three and Four. This leaves Alan paying alimony not only to Judith, but also to his second wife Kandi. Young Kandi's ditzy demeanor lends humor to the show. Often she appears to have more in common with Jake than with Alan. Yet they marry in Vegas on a whim and during the divorce, Alan learns that Kandi may be ditzy, but is smart enough to get a good divorce lawyer. Charlie tells Alan, “Come on, Alan, you have got to have a sense of humor about this. A broke ass middle-aged guy marries a 22-year-old knuckle head just before he wins a half a million dollars, then she takes him for everything he's got—that's hilarious. Okay, maybe you’re too close to it now, but trust me it's funny” (Lorre & Aronson, 2009). Kandi leaves Alan once again strapped to alimony payments and broke. At times, Alan's subordination by women is even more blatant. In Season Four, Alan tries online dating. He goes on a date with a significantly taller woman, who sneaks out after tying him to the bed dressed in women's undergarments. Here Alan was physically dominated by the woman, in addition to emotional dominance by Judith and others. During Season Five, Alan strategizes with Charlie how to avoid physical harm when ending a mundane relationship. Alan's nice guy persona often explains his subordination—he values women and genuinely tries to get to know them. As a result, women control their relationships with Alan, in comparison to Charlie's strict womanizing. During Season Two, Alan spends time getting to know both Berta and Rose, the neighbor. His efforts remain fruitless, however, as ultimately Berta is loyal to her employer and Rose is in love with Charlie. Though Rose and Alan do go on a couple of dates, she only does this to get closer to Charlie, thus positioning Charlie as the ideal. The right way to do gender Social sanctioning CreatorChuckLorre:We Punish [Alan] Mercilessly For Just Being A Regular Guy A final theme woven throughout the narrative is reward for Charlie and punishment for Alan. Social sanctioning and modeling offers one way that people may learn about appropriate gender roles. Bussey and Bandura (2005, p. 30) write: “Gender differences vary depending on the anticipated consequences.” Though Alan operates as the good, responsible brother, things never work out for him. Viewers watching Alan are shown that his performance of masculinity often leads to negative impacts. For example, in Season One, while doing Charlie's laundry, he gets kicked in the face by a sleeping Charlie. When Alan goes to the Department of Motor Vehicles, he waits all day after an attractive woman convinces him to switch places with her. Another time Alan and Charlie are at a bar and Alan attempts to flirt with a table of women. He is laughed at, but when Charlie speaks to the same women a moment later the women return the flirtation. The message is clear—Charlie is the charming and attractive brother. Charlie's actions appear never to have consequences, whereas Alan constantly receives retribution. Slater argues that when deviant behavior, such as Charlie's womanizing and drinking, is enacted by an attractive, likeable main character who does not suffer consequences for his behavior, viewers may “identify with the protagonist to redefine the behavior as nondeviant” (Slater, 2002, p. 176). An entire episode during Season Two centers on Charlie's amazing ability to avoid true penalties, as Alan tells him, “Sooner or later, it's going to catch up with you. Eventually you will have to pay the piper.” Charlie responds with, “Who says?” (Lorre & Aronson, 2003b). During Season Five, Charlie's career appears to dry up; however, he lucks into a new role as popular children's performer “Charlie Waffles.” Comparatively, to bring in extra money during this time, Alan joins a pharmaceutical trial that leaves him with hair loss and hives. When Charlie decides to get a vasectomy, he does not go through with it and instead ends up dating the nurse from the doctor's office. Rather than dislike Charlie for his degrading treatment of women, women often find him even more attractive. Rose comments: “I understand how hurtful it is to be rejected by Charlie. I found the only way to get through it is just to love him more” (Lorre & Aronson, 2003b). Charlie often dates inappropriate women he meets through Alan including Alan's divorce attorney and her assistant, married women, Jake's elementary teacher, ballet teacher, and many others. Alan comments: “Every time you rut with any woman who is remotely connected to my life, I end up suffering” (Lorre & Aronson, 2008b). When Charlie's actions have consequences, it is Alan who is affected by them. In Season One, Charlie secretly dates Alan's divorce lawyer; she becomes possessive and angry when she learns of Charlie's indiscretions. As a result, she gives everything to Judith in the divorce leaving Alan with almost nothing and a big alimony check to pay each month. When Charlie makes a sexist comment, Judith tries to take Alan's custody away. When Alan is extremely ill, Charlie and Jake accidentally eat the soup sent over for Alan by Evelyn, their mother. That Alan is never rewarded for his actions is a part of the storyline that is particularly rich—stretching back into Charlie and Alan's childhood. In Season One, Alan does not want to double date with Charlie because in high school, Charlie got the attractive sister and Alan found his date unattractive. When Jake is in counseling, we learn that Alan had to see a counselor as a child whereas Charlie did not. Alan has had only two girlfriends his entire life, whereas Charlie has had many. Linde (1993, pp. 135–137) argues that by showing that a situation has existed in one's life for a long period of time—even stretching back to childhood—one can establish adequate causality for a current situation. In Two and a Half Men, use of richness of account appears to be a tool that allows the writers to further establish the character's personalities and shared history. By showing that Charlie has always been more successful than Alan, viewers can expect this of the future. Direct competition Charlie:Last Thing You Want Is For Her To Start Comparing You With Me. In many episodes, Charlie and Alan compete directly. In a two-part episode during Season One, Charlie flirts with an attractive woman who is beating a car with a baseball bat. Alan warns Charlie that this is a bad idea, but becomes interested in the woman when she tells Charlie she thinks Alan's profession as a chiropractor is really admirable. At this point, Charlie and Alan both try to win her attention (Charlie to sleep with her, Alan because he is genuinely interested). The unlikelihood of Alan potentially getting the girl is highlighted in this exchange: Alan: So you just assume that if we were both interested in the same woman, you would come out on top? Charlie: Of course I would. (Lorre & Aronson, 2003a) Alan does win her attention, but the audience has clearly been shown that she is defective—she kidnaps her daughter, is in the middle of a custody battle, has a court-ordered psychiatrist, and was bashing in a fancy car with a bat when they met her. Therefore, although Alan wins, it is not the prize Charlie usually achieves. Charlie later tells him, “Oh come on Alan, every woman you’ve ever been involved with has been damaged and needy” (Lorre & Aronson, 2003a). Alan has no response to this comment. On another occasion, Alan dates a woman who previously dated Charlie. His issues—an internal competition with Charlie—end up ruining the relationship for Alan. He discusses these issues with the date before they have sex: Alan: It's kind of hard to explain. For example, once when I was at camp I lost my swim trunks and I had to wear an old pair of Charlie's and I just couldn't enjoy the pool at all. Sherry: What are you saying? I'm a pair of used swim trunks? Alan: No, I think in this case you'd be the pool. Sherry: Maybe this was a bad idea. Alan: No, no it's a great idea. It was right up there with the wheel and fire and refrigerators that give you ice through the door. Sherry: I don't want to do this anymore. Alan: What? Why? Why? Sherry: Because clearly you can't be with me without this being some sort of competition with your brother. Alan: It's not a competition. And even if it was, shouldn't we do it first before you decide who wins? (Lorre & Aronson, 2003b) The woman kicks him out and Alan “loses” the competition. The reproduction of masculinity Charlie:That's Some Great Kid.Yeah, Sick As A Dog And All He Wants Is A Little Action. Alan:Well, He Gets That From You. Charlie:You Think So? Because I Do Try To Be A Role Model. If social sanctioning results in the likelihood of others to repeat a behavior, Alan's son Jake offers an important commentary on masculinity throughout the series. As a 10-year-old, Jake is stereotyped as an oblivious male who loves to eat and does not yet understand the adult humor peppered through Charlie's and Alan's conversations. In many ways, Jake takes on the role of the Greek chorus—his comments solidify what the audience might have been thinking, offer commentary on the situations facing Charlie and Alan, and interpret action. As Jake matures through the five seasons, his masculinity solidifies in response to the two male role models in his life. Jake's relationship with Alan situates Alan as the “female” within the household, whereas Charlie becomes the sex-role model of traditional fatherhood. Alan frets over father/son talks, panics that his son is growing up too quickly and serves as the primary caretaker. Though Charlie impacts and cares for Jake, it is in an optional role taken on only when convenient for him. When Charlie feels an obligation to Jake that limits his own behavior, Alan congratulates him for feeling like a parent. Charlie replies: “Hmm, how inconvenient” (Lorre & Aronson, 2003b). Roles of “part-time father” and “full-time mother” are often reiterated through the media (Sunderland, 2006; Wall & Arnold, 2007), and by positioning Alan as the “mother” within this household, this viewpoint is perpetuated through Alan's feminized masculinity. Charlie may feel minimal responsibility for Jake, yet it is Charlie's performed masculinity Jake mirrors. This is most obvious when Charlie and Jake respond to Alan with the exact same comment, usually juxtaposing Alan's failed masculinity against his son's capability. However, it is also seen when Jake faces a social dilemma and turns to Charlie and Alan for advice. It is Charlie's advice that Jake most frequently defers to, whereas Alan's advice is either ignored or unsolicited by Jake. During Season Three, Charlie, Alan, and Jake sit around the dinner table after Jake gets dumped by his girlfriend: Alan: Want some advice? Jake: Yeah (pause). What do I do, Uncle Charlie? Alan: I meant from me. Jake: Oh, no thank you. (Lorre & Aronson, 2008a) When a date cancels plans to attend a school dance with Jake, it is Charlie who suggests Jake immediately invite another girl from the class to come with him. Jake soon has a new date who is the hottest girl in his class. Just as Charlie constantly reaps rewards, following Charlie's advice rewards Jake. While Alan parents Jake, Charlie befriends him as a fellow conspirator. Jake and Charlie's similar, successful masculine performances are defined through comparison with Alan. When Jake gets in trouble for drawing a picture of a girl at school, “Boobra Schmidt,” Alan's disappointment in Jake is contrasted by Charlie's response: “Dude, why'd you sign it?” (Lorre & Aronson, 2008a). Charlie is only upset Jake got caught, not that Jake drew an insulting picture of a classmate. After Jake decorates his room with provocative posters of women, Alan asks Jake who they are, whereas Charlie immediately recognizes them. Charlie and Jake are again portrayed similarly when Jake begins taking dance lessons to help Charlie date the instructor. Soon Jake also develops a crush on the instructor and Charlie decides to stop pursuing her because of “guy code.” This indicates a respect for Jake's masculinity that Charlie does not display when competing with Alan over a woman. Yet the limitations of their masculine “equality” emerges through banter. Charlie: Wait till you see Vegas Jake. There's action everywhere you look. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Jake: How does that help me? I can't gamble and I have to be in bed by 9:30. (Lorre & Aronson, 2003b) It is Jake who must remind Charlie of his age and restrictions—another indicator of Charlie's optional parenthood. Ultimately, however, Jake demonstrates for audience members that Charlie's masculinity is the socially desirable performance. While Jake's masculinity is cued by Charlie's guidance, it also offers a space of contention for examining Charlie's womanizing ways. Jake's character works to make sense of the relationships his father and Charlie engage in, ultimately finding both characters failed romantic role models. During Season Two, an 11-year-old Jake and Charlie discuss Alan: Jake: I think [Alan] needs to have sex. Charlie: I was kidding about prison, Jake (Jake looks confused). Umm, what do you mean he needs to have sex? Jake: Well he's been grumpy lately and you’re usually in a good mood. I figure it's because you have sex. Charlie: Jake, it takes more than sex to make a man happy. You also need money. (Lorre & Aronson, 2003b) Jake tries to understand adult relationships as he witnesses them in Charlie's home. During the next season, Charlie and Jake discuss his feelings for a fellow classmate. Charlie encourages Jake to “never confuse cupcakes with love” so he can avoid being “stuck eating the same damn cupcake for the rest of your life” (Lorre & Aronson, 2008a). Later, during Season Four, Jake comments on Alan's failed marriage to Kandi, saying he is never getting married. Yet he also tells Charlie, “Why should I talk to you when you’ve messed up every relationship you’ve ever been in?” For Jake, neither his father nor Charlie offers a suitable model for heterosexual relationships. Concluding thoughts The television series Two and a Half Men displays men performing various forms of masculinity. Charlie is positioned as the ideal—the fantasy figure of hegemonic masculinity described by Connell (1987) and MacKinnon (2003). His lifestyle of effortless convenience appeals to the traditional male and contrasts the many challenges faced by the more effeminate Alan. A narrative analysis of the first five seasons of the show reveals several themes each reinforcing Charlie's superior performance of masculinity, one which yields him social power and dominance. By constantly insinuating that Alan's straight character is gay, the show degrades his masculinity by refusing to legitimize effeminate heterosexuality as an appropriate form of masculinity. As Lorber (1990) pointed out, gender benders such as Alan do not alter our gender order, but rather serve to reinforce it. Even though gender as a construct changes over time (such as movement toward legitimizing gay masculinity or bachelorhood), heterosexual male gender expectations appear quite rigid. Rather than portray Alan's masculinity in a positive or even neutral light, it is endlessly mocked. Charlie's hyper-masculinity demonstrated through his rampant sexual encounters, income level, and hobbies contrasts Alan's. Trapping Alan's masculinity between gay stereotypes and a heterosexual performance framed as undesirable forces effeminate masculinity to remain obscured. Effectively, viewers are left to wonder whether Alan is the “Half Man” of the show's title. As a result of his demeanor, Alan is subordinated not only by Charlie but women as well. The subtle use of violence throughout the show reiterates Alan's weak masculine position. If viewers are not clear about which character is superior, the show consistently reminds them that Charlie subordinates Alan/self-centered misogynistic masculinity subordinates new, egalitarian masculinities. Finally, a consistent system of rewards for Charlie and punishments for Alan makes clear that only Charlie's masculinity should be emanated by viewers. The positive response given to Charlie's behavior defines this behavior as socially successful. Alan: Should I change? (asking about his clothing) Charlie: You should, but after all these years I doubt you will. (Lorre & Aronson, 2003b) While the script plays with the gay identity and effeminate masculinity, ultimately a heteronormative tone prevails. As found by other media studies, Two and a Half Men reinscribes an updated version of hegemonic masculinity promoting an idealized bachelor lifestyle. Connell (1987, p. 186) notes that Hegemonic masculinity is constructed in relation to women and subordinated masculinities. These other masculinities need not be as clearly defined – indeed, achieving hegemony may consist precisely in preventing alternatives gaining cultural definition and recognition as alternatives, confining them to ghettos, to privacy, to unconsciousness. Repetitive storylines over many years of Two and a Half Men stick to a plotline dependent on identifying Charlie as a real man, while Alan's alternative masculinity does not achieve true cultural articulation. 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Liebler, Carol, M.

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01085.xpmid: N/A

Abstract This textual analysis explores media self-critique in response to news coverage of missing women. The study finds evidence of intermedia agenda setting and news repair. Critiques emphasize race, and racism is identified as the primary cause of the Missing White Woman Syndrome. But class, age, and appearance are not investigated in any depth, and more subtle aspects of the phenomenon go unexplored. Findings indicate that critiques themselves may face the constraints and influences true of any news work. y = Family Income x (Abductee Cuteness ÷ Skin Color)2 + Length of Abduction x Media Savvy of Grieving Parents3 (where y = minutes of coverage). (Jon Stewart, 2004, p. 155) The tendency for news media to confer importance and urgency upon the disappearance of some girls and women but not others has garnered notice, and not just from Jon Stewart. Saturation coverage of Laci Peterson, Elizabeth Smart, and Natalee Holloway, and a host of others like them, has reached such an all-time high that there is now a name commonly assigned to this phenomenon: The Missing White Woman Syndrome or MWWS. Its coinage is attributed to Gwen Ifill of PBS, and the term references the media's fascination with missing women who are white, young, pretty, and often from middle- or upper-class backgrounds, and media's simultaneous apparent lack of regard for those who do not fit this description. It was the summer of 2005 that sparked the public outcry over the extraordinary selection of some missing persons over others, which had been noted in the mass communications literature the previous year (Liebler, 2004). National media appeared obsessed with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, an 18-year-old blonde young woman from Birmingham, Alabama, who disappeared while visiting Aruba on a senior trip. Cable news channels ran the story continuously—indeed, a search of the LexisNexis database reveals 1,880 print and broadcast stories from May 30, the date of Holloway's disappearance, to Labor Day that same year. In sharp contrast was the lack of coverage of Latoyia Figueroa, a 24-year-old Latina, pregnant with her second child, who disappeared in Philadelphia on July 18, 2005. It took until 9 days later for CNN to pick up the story; this was after local blogger Richard Blair (allspinzone.com) drew attention to Figueroa's disappearance by writing a scathing critique of the media's inattention and sending it to Nancy Grace of CNN. By no means was Latoyia Figueroa the first woman of color to be symbolically annihilated by the media. Saturation coverage of Laci Peterson's California disappearance was in sharp contrast to that of 24-year-old Evelyn Hernandez, a pregnant El Salvadoran immigrant who disappeared with her 4-year-old son in San Francisco. Bay Area and national media largely ignored Hernandez; her decapitated body later washed up on the shores of the Bay, but her son was never found. Yet it was not until 2005 that the juxtaposed cases of Holloway and Figueroa, following on the heels of “runaway bride” Jennifer Wilbanks, brought the MWWS to the national spotlight. Critiques raged in cyberspace, accusing news media of sloppy reporting at best, and racist pandering at worst. What is particularly interesting, however, is that members of the news media themselves weighed in online, on air, and in print, offering stories and commentary on the MWWS. Contributors came from a wide variety of media outlets, some mass market and others clearly situated as alternatives to the “mainstream.” The current study examines this media self-critique, questioning the construction of gender, class, and race within these critiques, as well as the degree to which the MWWS practice is truly problematized and challenged. News paradigm theory (Bennett, Gressett, & Halton, 1985) suggests that such critiques are mechanisms of professional journalistic control, maintaining and reinforcing current standards and practices. Bennett et al. call attention to this “news reconstruction process,” and urge scholars to attend to problematic news, such as the MWWS, more fully. Haas (2006, p. 351) points out that relatively little research has addressed media self-criticism, and suggests that “genuine news media self-criticism … would require journalists to reflect on how their own and others' reporting is shaped, if not constrained, by the commercial interests of news media owners and advertisers, organizational pressures and work routines, and various news gathering and reporting conventions.” This study, therefore, explores these issues within the context of coverage of missing women. This venue offers a particularly significant domain in which to examine media self-critique, as it provides a potentially rich forum for discussion of media influences upon news and diversity issues such as race and class privilege. Moreover, this study offers an opportunity to investigate media self-critique across a variety of media forms. Background literature Three decades ago, researchers (Gerbner, 1978; Tuchman, Daniels, & Benet, 1978) noted that mass media symbolically annihilate less powerful members of society, a phenomenon that would appear to explain patterns in coverage of missing people. Carter and Steiner (2004, p. 13) describe the symbolic annihilation of women: “The media function … by either effectively erasing women's presence, by fundamentally denying them their humanity, trivializing or mocking them, or by reducing them to a single ‘feminine’ characteristic, even if that characteristic could be regarded as ‘positive’…” Similarly, in many regards the MWWS is merely symptomatic of news media practices that have, for years, constructed people of color as “the other.” In discussing coverage in Canada, Fieras (1994) argues that news coverage has persistently framed minorities as stereotypes, invisible, tokens, and social problems. U.S. communications research has found these same tendencies repeatedly (e.g., Entman & Rojecki, 2000; Gandy, 1998). Heider (2000) suggests that incognizant racism—the tendency for majority reporters to ignore minority issues because they are not on their radar screens—may be at least partly responsible, but other reasons suggest themselves as well: Minorities are devalued in U.S. society whether it be in the criminal justice, education, or media system. Researchers report similar findings when it comes to class (cf. Heider, 2004), and women crime victims are no exception. For example, Meyers (1994) textually analyzes coverage of an Atlanta woman murdered by her husband and finds Wanda Walters was symbolically reduced to “white trash” (p. 60). More recently, Meyers (2004) uses Black feminist theory in her discourse analysis of Freaknik to examine news coverage of violence against Black women. She argues “the convergence of gender, race and class oppressions minimizes the seriousness of the violence and portrays its victims primarily as stereotypic Jezebels” (p. 96). Liebler's (2004) case study of two missing college students highlights disparities in the nature and amount of coverage, which she attributes to both class and race. The relatively privileged White girl garnered considerably more local media attention than did her Black counterpart, in part because her media-savvy parents orchestrated media events. Coverage emphasized the African American girl's working class background, and for both of the girls reports implied that they may have been culpable in their own disappearances. Liebler concludes that media coverage of missing girls and women appears destined to reinforce social hierarchies. Researchers (Jiwani & Young, 2006, p. 912) reach similar conclusions in Canada, where missing and murdered women are marginalized in news coverage due to their Aboriginality and sex worker status: “…society demarcates those who deserve our attention, and thus our sympathy and intervention, and those who remain marginalized, outside the pale of the civilized, normative order.” It is thus clear that news reports of women crime victims, including those of missing women, are problematic on a number of fronts. However, it is important to note that the focus of the current study is on the subsequent critique, not on the initial coverage. The question remains, therefore, whether media self-critique of this reporting is an effective means of illuminating these troublesome news practices. As suggested by Haas (2006), scholarly work on media self-analysis or critique has been limited. Yet this gap in the literature cannot be explained by a lack of data: Fengler (2003) argues that one can no longer claim that a “conspiracy of silence” exists among media professionals as the past decade has brought an “explosion” of media self-criticism, with the creation of “media beats,”“media critics,”“media writers,” and “media columnists.” Indeed, the notion of monitoring news accuracy to keep one's readers happy is not new, according to the Organization of News Ombudsmen (www.newsombudsmen.org/): A paper in Japan first started a committee to handle reader complaints in 1922, and the tradition continues at news organizations around the world. Although the duties of ombudsmen or “readers' representatives” are often centered on handling reader complaints, contemporary media critics extend this role by engaging in evaluative review of media performance across media outlets that does not necessarily include their own. Fengler finds through in-depth interviews that, although media critics have the potential to be rich sources of media regulation, many appear more comfortable criticizing politicians and big business than fellow journalists, media managers, and owners. If this is the case, one might expect to find recurring parameters constraining media self-critiques. There is limited discussion of why news organizations engage in media criticism. Haas (2006) draws the distinction between “media criticism” and “media self-criticism,” and suggests a number of possibilities for why news organizations may allow the latter, most notably assuaging public concerns and upholding commercial interests. Haas points out also that self-criticism is rare and calls for future research in this area. Several case studies have explored critiques within the context of news repair or paradigm repair: the tendency for journalists to control the news by bringing errant news media back into the fold of the dominant hegemonic means of conducting news work. Bennett et al. (1985, p. 55) provide this conceptualization: If a news paradigm exists, then, like all paradigms, it will be confronted with the occasional problem of how to handle anomalous or troublesome cases that fall partly within the defining logic of the paradigm, yet fail to conform to other defining characteristics of the paradigm. Such anomalies…threaten to expose the limits and biases of a paradigm by suggesting that important properties of the real world have been excluded from the representational system. Berkowitz (2000) reaches a similar conclusion in his analysis of the Princess Diana ‘what-a-story,’ writing that “…. when an occurrence emerges that breaks from the everyday and leads toward paradigm scrutiny, journalists engage in the enactment of other rituals to reassert the validity of their paradigm both to society and to themselves” (p. 140). More recently, Eko and Berkowtiz (2009) examine news paradigms in France via their analysis of Le Monde's coverage of “the Mohammed cartoons affair,” and conclude “the paradigm exists … to defend the status quo that allows the craft to exist and function” (p. 199). Hindman (2005) discusses news repair in the context of The New York Times and Jayson Blair, finding that the Times not only worked to restore its own image and that of journalism as a whole, but also took responsibility for what had transpired and made changes in the newsroom. Hindman suggests that the Times' response indicates paradigm change. McCoy (2001) and Robinson (2006) both suggest that the Internet, and blogs in particular, may change the news landscape and the standards to which traditional news organizations are held. McCoy finds that news repair included re-establishing the authority of traditional media over new media, whereas Robinson (p. 81) concludes “the world of postmodern journalism is tapping at the door of the mainstream press embodied in a blog.” According to Ruggerio (2004, p. 102), however, “concerted effort by journalists to repair the dominant news paradigm against incursion by the Internet, while stronger a decade ago, has weakened over time.” Based on the foregoing literature, this study poses the following research questions: How do media critiques construct the Missing White Woman Syndrome, and what roles do race, class, age, and appearance have in these explanations? According to media critiques, who or what is responsible for the MWWS? To what degree do critiques engage in news repair? Method Textual analysis was conducted on a purposive sample of stories and critiques published or aired by media organizations from 2004 to 2006. The central theme of a story or critique needed to be the MWWS in order for it to be included. The sample encompassed mass-market and ethnic media outlets, but did not include blogs unless journalists at news organizations had generated them (j-blogs). This is an important and necessary distinction, as the focus here is on traditional media outlets and not on citizen bloggers. News copy was obtained either through Google or the LexisNexis database using “Missing White Wom(a)n” as the search term, and all stories that met the above criteria were included. In all, the analysis includes 31 media artifacts including an editorial cartoon, op-ed pieces, j-blogs, and news stories. By far, the majority of stories and critiques were published in 2005 (Figure 1), and critiques were most likely to be found in newspapers (Table 1). Figure 1 Open in new tabDownload slide Number of Articles Published by Year. Figure 1 Open in new tabDownload slide Number of Articles Published by Year. Table 1 Number of Articles per Medium Medium . N . Newspaper 15 Internet—Television newsa 5 Internet—Online newspapersb 4 J-blogs/Online chats 2 Television 2 Radio 2 Magazine 1 Medium . N . Newspaper 15 Internet—Television newsa 5 Internet—Online newspapersb 4 J-blogs/Online chats 2 Television 2 Radio 2 Magazine 1 a“Internet—Television news” refers to articles posted on major network or cable news websites, such as cbsnews.com. b“Internet—Online newspapers” refers to articles posted on websites devoted to news, such as blackpressusa.com. Open in new tab Table 1 Number of Articles per Medium Medium . N . Newspaper 15 Internet—Television newsa 5 Internet—Online newspapersb 4 J-blogs/Online chats 2 Television 2 Radio 2 Magazine 1 Medium . N . Newspaper 15 Internet—Television newsa 5 Internet—Online newspapersb 4 J-blogs/Online chats 2 Television 2 Radio 2 Magazine 1 a“Internet—Television news” refers to articles posted on major network or cable news websites, such as cbsnews.com. b“Internet—Online newspapers” refers to articles posted on websites devoted to news, such as blackpressusa.com. Open in new tab The analysis was generally focused on the nature of the coverage; the degree to which journalists acknowledged that the MWWS exists; the explanations provided for the phenomenon and who provided them; and constructions of gender, class, and race within critiques. Each article was reviewed multiple times with these general research foci in mind, but the analysis was largely inductive, providing ample opportunity for other aspects of the coverage to emerge. This approach was consistent with the strategies used in grounded theory: “The researcher does not approach reality as a tabula rasa—[s/he] must have a perspective [to] see relevant data and abstract significant categories” (Glaser & Strauus, 1967). The analysis below is structured around the main themes found in the coverage. Quick! Repair that news! Generally speaking, intermedia agenda setting, news repair, and finger pointing characterize the coverage. There is considerable overlap in what is actually said or written, in part because writers often relied upon the same sources and each other in constructing their critiques. They simultaneously pointed the finger at media other than themselves while trying to “fix” the problem. The coverage media begins with two critiques in late summer 2004, one in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the other on ABC.com, yet it appears that few other media pay attention. One year later tells a different story. In the wake of the coverage of “runaway bride” Jennifer Wilbanks, in May, 2005, NPR's News and Notes With Ed Gordon runs a commentary by Deborah Mathis, a syndicated columnist and professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Four days later, the Chicago Tribune publishes a commentary by Douglas MacKinnon, former press secretary to U.S. Senator Robert Dole. Both commentaries refer to Wilbanks, and question the large amount of coverage about her disappearance. It appears, however, to be Eugene Robinson's column in the Washington Post on June 10, 2005, that really grabs the attention of other media. Headlined “(White) Women We Love,” Robinson writes a scathing indictment in which he questions who gets media coverage and why (discussed below). Robinson satirically refers to news coverage of “Damsels in Distress” as one of our era's major themes, along with such topics as terrorism and globalization. Other writers pick up the term “damsel,” most notably George Curry of the Washington Informer who titles his column, “White Damsels in Distress.” Robinson apparently strikes a nerve: According to the Washington Post, his column elicits more than 600 letters and he follows with an online chat on June 14. Following Robinson's lead, several other media outlets run similar critiques. A month later, the blogosphere truly enters the picture when, despite Robinson's article, the disappearance of Latoyia Figueroa goes unnoticed in the mass-market press and Richard Blair of allspinzone.com condemns the media's lack of attention. Prompted by such online critics, many more critiques follow. It is therefore in June and July of 2005 that we witness a cluster of critiques, seemingly a result of intermedia agenda setting (Figure 2). Figure 2 Open in new tabDownload slide Number of Articles Published by Month in 2005. Figure 2 Open in new tabDownload slide Number of Articles Published by Month in 2005. Further evidence of intermedia agenda setting is found in the content of the critiques. For example, Mark Memmott of USA Today begins his June 15th piece with the disappearance of Tamika Huston, an African American who had received little to no coverage. In his June 17 column, Howard Kurtz writes, “Here's the USA Today piece by Mark Memmott that got me thinking anew about this…” He then quotes the article's profile of Huston at length, followed by Eugene Robinson's description of a damsel. A month later, Kurtz has Robinson on as a guest on CNN's Reliable Sources. The symbolic annihilation of Huston's case is particularly interesting because her aunt worked in public relations, and knew her way around the media but still was unsuccessful in attracting media attention. Huston's case is referenced repeatedly, as though she is the only non-White person missing. Similarly, once Richard Blair of allspinzone.com champions Figueroa's case, she is frequently referenced as well. Better late than never—perhaps. Intermedia agenda setting is also evidenced with the sources cited in the critiques. The most frequently appearing is Eugene Robinson, who is sourced in five of the articles. Similarly, Tom Rosenstiel, Director of the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism, and Mark Effron, vice president of news at MSNBC TV, each are quoted in four of the critiques. Once Robinson attracts so much attention with his column, it is incumbent upon other media to respond. However, it does not serve the economic interests of the industry for dominant news values to be truly questioned. In fact, the MWWS is not so unique—as pointed out earlier, it is merely a blatant example of everyday news processes that systematically privilege some members of society over others. It was therefore necessary for media to control the damage by reappropriating the issue under different cover. One can sense the collective handwringing in the flurry to air or publish a story that would frame the debate and contain the damage. On CNN's Reliable Sources (July 31, 2005), Robinson overtly broaches (and mildly criticizes) what appears to be news and paradigm repair: “So this (coverage of Latoyia Figueroa) is the beginning of a change, or this is what in the NBA would be called a makeup call, and we’ll go back to the way things were. I'm not sure.” BET's website provides a counterhegemonic interpretation with a web minisurvey that asks respondents why the news media began to cover the disappearance of Latoyia Figueroa. One possible survey response: “They’re just covering this story to appease the Black community.” Unlike Hindman's (2005) study on the Jayson Blair case and The New York Times, the media analyzed here do not attribute self-blame. Accounts refer to “media” in the third person, as though they, themselves, are not part of the problem. Examples include headlines referencing “media obsession” from the Oakland Tribune and “Media skews missing cases…” in The Decatur (Tenn.) Daily News. Writers point their fingers at their competitors, and this tendency is most apparent in the case of print media taking cable news to task for its saturation coverage. This tendency, which may explain the above headlines, was evident in Mark Mammott's article: “One question is whether the national media, especially cable networks, give too much attention to stories about missing young white women as opposed to cases involving minorities and men.” Another example is Cynthia Tucker of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (August 28, 2005), who takes cable news to task. After praising Bob Costas for refusing to host an hour-long Larry King Live discussion about Natalee Holloway, she points out that CNN went with a different host: “And CNN's viewers were subjected to yet another report on a case with no developments, few ramifications for anyone beyond Holloway's loved ones and friends, and indeed, no real mystery.” She goes on to criticize FOX News and Greta Van Sustern for their saturation coverage. Members of the ethnic media also failed to critique themselves. Rather, they pointed to the flaws of the majority press. For example, BlackPressUSA.com cited the lack of “national news coverage,” and George Curry in The Washington Informer criticized “the White-owned news media.” Given that White women are not a high coverage priority for most ethnic media, self-critique would have been misplaced and its absence is not surprising. Anatomy of a syndrome Most of the media critiques made some effort to define or explain the MWWS, though they did not necessarily use this label. The degree to which the phenomenon was problematized varied. Columns or blogs tended to argue most vociferously against the coverage and assign blame, whereas news stories often provided a “balanced” view with network officials arguing that no systematic bias exists. Perhaps the most hard-hitting attack comes from Eugene Robinson, of the Washington Post, in his initial June 10, 2005, column. He names the “damsel elite” and their characteristics: …. the damsels have much in common besides being female…A damsel must be white. This requirement is nonnegotiable. It helps if her frame is of dimension that breathless cable television reporters can credibly describe as “petite,” and it also helps if she's the kind of woman who wouldn't really mind being called “petite,” a woman with a great deal of princess in her personality. She must be attractive—also nonnegotiable. In describing a damsel, Robinson emphasizes race and appearance. Notably missing is class, unless one considers the term “princess” such a reference. He is one of the few, however, who discusses appearance in any detail. Unlike Robinson, other journalists of color took the opportunity to not only criticize the coverage but also to emphasize the women who were ignored by the media. Fahizah Alim, a Sacramento Bee staff writer, is one such journalist. She begins her June 28, 2005, story profiling Evelyn Hernandez, Ardena Carter, and Tamika Huston, devoting a paragraph to each. Her fourth paragraph states simply, “The disappearances of these three women—all minorities—received spotty local media coverage. None ever made the national news.”Essence magazine ran a spread on eight missing African American women, including a photograph and description of each. Such text helps to humanize these women by pulling them out of obscurity, but there is no evidence here that such coverage would have ensued without the MWWS critique. The latter may have prompted the ethnic press to reconsider its coverage of missing people. Other critiques also began to profile missing persons who had up to that point received no coverage. These included White men, Black men, and Black women, and were frequently accompanied by FBI statistics revealing how many people disappear each year. This content aided in the efforts to repair the news by attempting to show that these media really did value and care about all missing people. Interestingly, the binary of Black and White permeated many such critiques—Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics were mentioned much less frequently. This emphasis on race over other indicators of the MWWS such as class, age, or appearance (recall that the women who garner coverage typically fall within the beauty ideals of White middle-class America) was common. Headlines are indicative of this tendency, with 25 of them mentioning race. For example, “Racial Profiling?” (Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post, June 17, 2005); “White women missing? Not on cable news” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 28, 2005); “Missing white female alert. Why won't the media cover missing minority women?” (Chicago Tribune, May 8, 2005); “Race Bias in Media Coverage of Missing Women?” (CNN Showbiz Tonight, March 17, 2006). Not only is race privileged over other attributes here, several of the headlines literally question whether the coverage presents a problem at all. Kristal Brent Zook, of Columbia University, is quoted in the June 16, 2005, Decatur (Tenn) Daily News challenging this emphasis on race: “Who's appealing? Who's sexy? … It has a lot to do with class and sexuality and ageism, not just race.” Ironically, the story's headline, which once again questions whether there is a problem, reduces it to race: “Media skews missing cases of minorities?” Zook is not alone in her recognition that class, age, and gender are also important considerations. The other striking example is an editorial cartoon appearing in the Scranton Times-Tribune (June 13, 2005). It shows an African American reporter at the door of his editor's office. The White editor is at his desk reading a newspaper with the front page headline, “HORRORS! Another White blonde teen girl is missing!” Reporter: Boss—Got a great missing girl story for tomorrow. Editor: Is she blonde? Reporter: Er…No. Editor: Teenage? Reporter: Uh…. Editor: White? Reporter: … Editor: Put it inside the Local Section. For the most part, however, the critiques indicate that race remains the most important signifier—this practice is reified by the label Missing White Woman Syndrome. It is noteworthy, however, that many critiques did not use this terminology, yet emphasized race nonetheless. Just as the original coverage symbolically annihilated many missing persons, the construction of gender in these critiques frequently dehumanizes and diminishes the girls and women who did receive coverage. Eugene Robinson begins this trend when he introduces the label “damsel,” and the term “Damsels in Distress.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, damsel was originally used to connote a “young unmarried lady of noble birth,” although today the label includes those of other social classes as well. Often found in medieval romances, damsels are helpless, not particularly intelligent, and in need of rescue by knights in shining armor. Damsels in distress are evidenced contemporarily in other forms of popular culture, such as victims in video games in which they are likely thrown over a shoulder and carried off (e.g., Dietz, 1998). Regardless of the venue in which they are located, damsels are rarely (if ever) the source of respect. The term is therefore simultaneously sexist, patriarchal, and disempowering. So while most of the critiques rightly highlight news biases, the strategy of some is to do so by caricaturizing the women or girls who the media covered. Damsel is not the only demeaning term used to describe the missing (and/or dead) White women. MSNBC quotes Tom Rosenstiel, of the Project for Excellence in Journalism: “To be blunt, blond white chicks who go missing get covered and poor, black, Hispanic or other people of color who go missing do not get covered.” In the same piece, Zook, of Columbia University, refers to “The virginal, pure blond princess…” (emphasis added). Both quotes appear in other critiques as well. Such gendered language is consistent with other descriptions of women in the news, such as “runaway bride,” which is also used repeatedly in the critiques. The blame game: It's not my fault The critiques offered a variety of reasons for the MWWS, several of which paralleled the influences on news discussed in media sociology literature (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). These include individual-, organizational-, and societal-level factors. One of the most oft-cited reasons was the nature of the journalistic workforce. Many critiques suggested that increased diversity would lead to a greater awareness and broader definition of newsworthiness. The Sacramento Bee's lengthy story on June 25, 2005, was characteristic, providing examples of missed stories, and ASNE and RTNDA workforce statistics. The New York Times (August 7, 2005) even quoted former president Bill Clinton at the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists, who said individual experiences affect news decisions. In the Bee story, Dori Maynard, of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, put it this way: “…because these decision makers are predominately white and middle-or-upper-middle-class, these young white women are people they can identify with. They think, ‘It could be my wife, my daughter or sister.’” Many of the critiques seem to blame what Heider (2000) calls incognizant racism—the fact that majority reporters fail to pick up on events and issues outside their own experiences. Take for example the Mathis commentary (mentioned above): “It doesn't take a conspiracy to put a Tamika Huston on the back burner. It's not necessarily that TV producers or hosts meet and decide not to cover the mystery of Tamika's fate. It's that it never occurs to them to cover it” (emphasis added). Rowland Martin of the Chicago Defender and WBON Radio, appearing on CNN's Showbiz Tonight on March 17, 2006, put it this way: “I think part of the problem is, frankly, you have mostly bookers in television, producers who are white and it's a comfort zone. That's what you know, that is what you expect and so, you don't leave the comfort zone to think about other types of stories.” And George Curry in The Washington Informer, “…we’re seeing some White's editors viewing the world through their own limited prisms.” Several sources referred to the notion of an “unconscious bias,” which seemed to free media workers of responsibility. Critiques also pointed to newsgathering routines or news values as culpable in producing what Howard Kurtz on CNN called “runaway” coverage (a take-off of the “runaway bride” label assigned to Jennifer Wilbanks). Several critiques suggested slow news days, a possible cause most typically suggested by network executives. Others pointed to the traditional news value of “unusualness.” Mark Effron, vice president of news at MSNBC, appears in several critiques defending the amount of coverage: “…it's like saying ‘99 percent of the nations in the world are not at war so why are you focusing on war?’ But Iraq is an extraordinary event involving Americans. What makes news is the unexpected.” Some critiques took a grimmer view of how unusualness affected the coverage. Quoted in the Sacramento Bee, Dori Maynard of the Maynard Institute suggests that majority audiences do not consider it unusual for something bad to happen to a minority. “If (minorities) come up missing, the assumption is that some pathology is involved,” she states. This linkage is consistent with research showing that news media often portray African Americans in relation to crime. In the age of reality TV and the increased blurring of news and entertainment, it is not surprising that critiques pointed to the nature of news itself. Such is the case in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in its early critique on August 15, 2004: “Cases like Peterson's and Lori Hacking's fit perfectly into a news diet increasingly built on tasty little tapas—gossipy snippets that are easy to digest and cost little in thought… So what if we lose the ability to distinguish what matters from what doesn't? We may not be informed. But at least we’ll be titillated.” One wonders, of course, who “we” is—seemingly the majority White, middle-class audience. Similarly, quoted in the Sacramento Bee, Karen Dunlap, president of the Poynter Institute, likens the coverage to a soap opera. “The best character for the soap opera is one the public will identify with, and that makes it less likely that the character will be a person of color.” Others also reference the “drama” of the missing White woman linking the story to race. Most explicit was Eugene Robinson writing in the Washington Post: “It's the meta narrative of something seen as precious and delicate being snatched away, defiled, destroyed by evil forces that lurk in the shadows just outside the bedroom window. It's whiteness under siege. It's innocence and optimism crushed by cruel reality. It's a flower smashed by a rock.” And later in the online chat: “There is the sense of the ‘lady fair’ being threatened by dark forces—and I mean dark in the literal sense.” Here, Robinson clearly refers to the fears of the White viewer, contextualizing the coverage in broader cultural narratives. Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution similarly writes about the construction of the “other”: “And it may go back to our primitive beginnings, to an instinct for identifying the ‘other’ as dangerous.” Racism is also linked with market forces that privilege some over others. “Reporters and editors defend their choices by saying they are responding to the market, giving the viewers what they want. It's reminiscent of the store owners who said they didn't have a problem accommodating Negro customers, it was their white customers who didn't want Negroes in the store,” writes Brenda Payton, in an Oakland Tribune editorial. Cynthia Tucker says that the “fine science of marketing research” will probably prove FOX News right: Saturation coverage attracts viewers, while Douglas MacKinnon in the Chicago Tribune writes of ratings and quotes an anonymous cable network source: “We showcase missing, young, white attractive women because our research shows we get more viewers. It's about beating the competition and ad dollars.” This marginalization of minorities was also discussed in critiques that argued that media devalue the lives of some members of society. In the American Chronicle (December 16, 2005), writer Rasheen Akron Allen concludes, “…the news media's actions show an overall negative view and borderline disdain for the lives of minorities.” Peter Roy Clark of the Poynter Institute, quoted online by ABC News, situates the MWWS historically: And some old racist views of crime still influence subconsciously the decisions we make. There was a time in American life that in big newspapers in big cities, the terrible distinction was made between good murders and bad murders. The bad murder was the poor gang member killed in the projects. The good murder of the rich white socialite, or the murder of the debutante perhaps killed by her ex-boyfriend. Conclusion This study has explored the extent to which media critique provides an effective forum for exploring the influences on whom and what becomes news, or whether such reports and columns merely provide window dressing to rationalize weak and/or racist reporting. Haas (2006) suggests that effective media criticism will include consideration of commercial interests and organizational pressures, as well as journalistic routines and norms. He also states that criticism should be directed both at oneself and others. Although self-criticism is absent here, critiques did, in the aggregate, cover the factors Haas suggests. Few writers discussed all of them, but many did not shy away from hard-hitting analyses. The data indicate that minority journalists or news organizations produced the most comprehensive critiques. This finding is not surprising as Whites are less likely than nonWhites to recognize White privilege, here manifested in the MWWS. Critiques originated with newspapers more than any other medium, and they were most likely to blame cable news for the MWWS. Cable news provided an easy target, given its around-the clock-coverage of the Holloway, Peterson, Wilbanks, and other cases. But all types of news organizations, newspapers included, had failed to cover cases such as those of Evelyn Hernandez and Latoyia Figueroa. They, too, should have been held responsible for the MWWS. One possible reason newspapers were not taken to task was that critics did not look in the mirror, failing to reflect upon the performance of their own news organizations. Haas (2006) suggests that genuine self-criticism is rare, and this finding is further consistent with past research (Fengler, 2003, p. 353) that finds that news critics are loath to engage in self-critique “for fear of upsetting their employer and their business practices.” This lack of self-critique promises little for transformative change. It may be that, in the competitive arena of contemporary media, media critique serves primarily as a means of promoting one's own self interests—look how bad the other guys are, and in comparison, we are doing okay. As for paradigm change, disparities in coverage remain and continue to be noted. For example, BlackPressUSA.com ran a story in April, 2009, titled, “Double Standard: Missing Black Women Still Get Less Media Than Whites.” Similarly, The Tamika Huston Foundation for the Missing (TamikaHuston.org) cites the following on its homepage: “The Foundation, dedicated to the memory of Tamika Antonette Huston, particularly seeks to draw attention to the thousands of open missing person cases across the United States that fail to garner local, regional, or national media attention—an important component which often aids in the search of missing persons.” Indeed, the Internet has become a venue for widespread criticism from minority groups, feminists, and other social activists, but most of these discussions take place outside of mainstream media circles. Clearly, for a true paradigm change to occur, news needs to transform in order to more fully embrace members of all segments of society. Phenomena of which the MWWS is symbolic continue to manifest in daily news coverage that engages in symbolic annihilation, marginalization, demonization, and trivialization (Artz & Murphy, 2000). Notably, these practices are not unique to U.S. news coverage, as indicated by studies such as Jiwani and Young's (2006) and Gilchrist's (2008) analyses of Canadian Aboriginal missing women. This study analyzed news media-generated copy only. Yet even within this context it is apparent that the Internet had influence. Television news was more likely to put a critique online than on air, indicating that cyberspace may be perceived as a safer place to engage in media criticism. J-blogs and online chats were used minimally, but offered the opportunity for audience engagement. Further exploration of the role of the audience in media self-critique is warranted, as it is not the focus here. Also, one wonders whether many of these critiques would have been produced at all if online media and communities had not prompted the discussion, so the relationship between the Internet and media critique generation should be examined further. Interestingly, according to these critiques, the factors leading to the MWWS are congruent with individual, organizational, and extramedia influences discussed in the mass communications scholarly literature. Critiques pointed to racism at all of these levels as responsible for the MWWS, an encouraging sign given past research on media coverage of race. Again, however, it would be more impressive had these issues been discussed in terms of one's own news organization. Perhaps not possible in a news story, but columnists could certainly tackle such issues. The construction of gender is troubling here, with columnists and sources taking jabs at the women who had received media attention—a new take on “blame the victim.” While past research has identified news media's tendency to report women as culpable in their own victim status (Liebler, 2004; Meyers, 2004), it is particularly striking that some critics seemed to view the coverage as a zero-sum game. As a result, some of the subtleties and complexities surrounding the MWWS went unexplored, as class, age, and appearance received only passing reference as adjectives to describe what types of women attract media attention. As Andrew Hacker (1995, p. 3) writes in Two Nations. Black and White, Separate, Hostile and Unequal, race has remained “an American obsession since the first Europeans sighted ‘savages’ on these shores.” In such a cultural context, it is perhaps unsurprising that media critiques focus on race and fail to address the intersectionality of missing women's identities: News organizations are more likely to respond to allegations of racism, whereas less identifiable dimensions of difference such as class go unnoted. bell hooks (1995) argues that American mass media are well entrenched in sending a message of White supremacy; if this is the case, allegations of racism must be explained away so that the dominant news paradigm remains intact. This study suggests that the evolution of media to allow for more critical forums has allowed for critiques that might not have appeared in the past. But these critiques themselves seemingly face the constraints and influences true of any news work and have not yet evolved to include the less obvious aspects of the phenomena they examine. Moreover, the present analysis indicates that mass-market media organizations may engage in critique in order to appropriate the criticism that has surfaced outside their boundaries, in an effort to dilute it. For example, in the Latoyia Figueroa case cited above, it was only when such criticism surfaced in the blogosphere that news media outlets paid heed. As the Internet increasingly becomes a mobilizing tool, it would appear that traditional definitions of newsworthiness reflective of a dominant paradigm will be further challenged—whether it be in the United States or elsewhere. Those who are invested in maintaining the validity of their paradigm to both themselves and the public (Berkowitz, 2000) will need to rationalize and contain problematic allegations. In an environment in which news media are struggling to keep their audiences, the question then becomes whether we will witness a paradigm shift, or simply more efforts at paradigm repair. References Artz , L ., & Murphy , B. O. ( 2000 ). Cultural hegemony in the United States . Thousand Oaks, CA, USA : Sage . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Bennett , W. L. , Gressett , L. A., & Halton , W. ( 1985 ). Repairing the news: A case study of the news paradigm . Journal of Communication , 35 , 50 – 68 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Berkowitz , D . ( 2000 ). Doing double duty: Paradigm repair and the Princess Diana what-a-story . Journalism , 1 , 125 – 143 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Carter , C ., & Steiner , L. ( 2004 ). Critical reading: Media and gender . Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK : Open University Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Dietz , T. L . ( 1998 ). An examination of violence and gender role portrayals in video games: Implications for gender socialization and aggressive behavior . Sex Roles , 38 , 425 – 442 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Eko , L ., & Berkowtiz , D. ( 2009 ). Le Monde, French secular republicanism and ‘The Mohammed Cartoons Affair.’ Journalistic ‘re-presentation’ of the sacred right to offend . International Communication Gazette , 7 , 181 – 202 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Entman , R. M ., & Rojecki , A. ( 2000 ). The black image in the white mind: Media and race in America . Chicago : The University of Chicago Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Fengler , S . ( 2003 ). Holding the news media accountable: A study of media reporters and media critics in the United States . Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly , 80 , 818 – 832 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Fieras , A . ( 1994 ). Media and minorities in a post-multicultural society: Overview and appraisal . In J. Berry & F. Laponce (Eds.), Ethnicity and culture in Canada: The research landscape (pp. 267 – 292 ). Toronto, Ontario, Canada : University of Toronto Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Gandy , O. , Jr. ( 1998 ). Communication and race . London : Arnold . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Gerbner , G . ( 1978 ). The dynamics of cultural resistance . In G. Tuchman, A. K. Daniels, & J. Benet (Eds.), Hearth and home: Images of women in the mass media (pp. 46 – 50 ). New York : Oxford University Press . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Gilchrist , K . Invisible victims: Disparity in print-news media coverage of missing/murdered aboriginal and White women . Paper presented at the annual meeting of the The Law and Society Association, Hilton Bonaventure, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 27, 2008 Retrieved May 23, 2009 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p239140_index.html Glaser , B . & Strauus , A. ( 1967 ). The discovery of grounded theory . Chicago : Aldine . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Haas , T . ( 2006 ). Mainstream news media self-criticism: A proposal for future research . Critical Studies in Media Communication , 23 , 350 – 355 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Hacker , A . ( 1995 ). Two nations. Black and white, separate, hostile, unequal . New York : Ballantine Books . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Heider , D . ( 2000 ). White news: Why local news programs don't cover people of color . Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Heider , D . (Ed.). ( 2004 ). Class and news . 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Livingstone,, Sonia

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01086.xpmid: N/A

Abstract Inspired by the “Keywords in Communication” theme of the 2009 ICA conference, this paper observes the pivotal role played by “the interview” in the history of audience research. Although interviewing implies bidirectionality, research following Lazarsfeld constructed the powerful interviewer and obedient interviewee, a tradition challenged by the critical turn in reception studies and its emphasis on interviewee expertise. This enabled research to pose crucial challenges to media and communication theory through giving the audience a voice. Yet today, this challenge risks being undermined as textbooks emphasize traditional methods, as the analysis of new media repositions mass audiences as “passive,” and as researchers seem reluctant in practice to go out and talk to the public. Inspired by the “Keywords in Communication” theme of the 2009 ICA conference, this paper observes the pivotal role played by one research method, “the interview,” in the history of audience research. Simonson (2009) notes that the “interview” originally referenced the ceremonial meetings of royalty—in an interview with the Queen, power lay with the Queen, with the interviewer as supplicant. More recently, Simonson suggests, interviews have figured within diverse “ecologies of power” but one approach has undoubtedly predominated, in direct contrast with the royal model. When Lazarsfeld (1944) specified the techniques of open-ended interviewing for studying public opinion, power lay clearly with the interviewer—constructed as a scrupulously impersonal expert trained to “gather” uncontaminated information from obedient subjects. Furthermore, it was this approach that framed the early decades of audience research, including uses and gratifications, attitudinal, and some effects studies. Although the Lazarsfeld tradition persists in the toolkit approach of many text books, it has been strongly challenged. In Keywords, Williams (1983) traced historical shifts in the power relations underlying each keyword, noting that “the primary goal in each entry was to unsettle any (usually conservative) fixing of the meaning of a keyword” (Jones, 2006, p. 1210). Scrutiny of the term “interview” surely emphasizes its bidirectionality (“inter”), and it was a renewed recognition of this power of interviewees to grant an interview (as well as recognition of the potential abuses of power on behalf of interviewers) that stimulated critical rethinking of the relation between researcher and researched. Half a century on from Lazarsfeld, critical researchers do “research with” rather than “research on” their interviewees (once “subjects,” then “respondents,” now “informants” or “participants”), treating them with respect, checking findings with them to test their credibility, and designing research so as to be beneficial to interviewees as well as to the (still generally more powerful) interviewer. In terms of feminist methodology, this is to undermine the “masculine paradigm” in which “interviewing necessitates the manipulation of interviewees as objects of study … [although, paradoxically,] this can only be achieved via a certain amount of humane treatment” (Oakley, 2005, p. 218). In other words, the masculine paradigm encourages a deceptively gentle approach that ensures the interviewee provides just what the interviewer requires in a manner far from the egalitarian power relations implied by the notion of interview (Doucet & Mauthner, 2008). The critical alternative, then, enables interviewees to negotiate the terms of the interview and express themselves freely, including scope for them to question, surprise, or challenge the interviewer. It was this potential for surprise, in the rethought “interview,” that proved so generative in the history of audience research and, consequently, in the wider field of media and communications. In the 1980s and 1990s, the critical turn, drawing energy from parallel developments in, most notably, cultural studies, social semiotics, feminist research, consumption studies, and the anthropology of everyday life, determined to give the audience a voice, and this opened the way to a sea change in the wider critical analysis of media power (Livingstone, 1998). Findings from a series of interview studies (including the individual interviews of Hobson, 1982; Hodge & Tripp, 1986; Lewis, 1991; Radway, 1984; Schrøder, 1988, as well as the focus group interviews of Liebes & Katz, 1990; Livingstone & Lunt, 1994; Morley, 1992) demanded that “the audience,” singular, had to be rethought as “audiences,” plural—for audiences turned out to take up, with alacrity, wit, and enthusiasm the polysemic invitations of media texts. The audience, noun, had to be rethought in terms of verbs—engaging, interpreting, negotiating, playing, critiquing, even audiencing (Fiske, 1992)—whereas the noun was appropriated by industry and state (Ang, 1996). Most important, interviewing audiences became the Trojan horse that opened up new forms of inquiry. First, it undermined the authority of elite textual analysts who had long conjured up model readers and sutured subjects without checking if empirical readers were dutifully following. Second, it revealed the everyday microtactics of appropriation that reshape and remediate media forms and goods, forcing academic recognition of marginalized voices, unexpected experiences, and the importance of the lifeworld in the circuit of culture. Third, it challenged theories of political economy and media imperialism, revealing processes of reappropriation, glocalization, counterflow, and, occasionally, resistance to dominant media power. Finally, it helped explain why the universalistic claims of media effects theories only ever apply contingently, for media influence always depends on the context. In short, drawing on a rich mixture of semiotic theory, cultural critique, anthropological methods, and the feminist revalorization of the “everyday,” audience reception studies, accompanied by audience ethnographies, launched a successful challenge to hitherto dominant theories of mass communication. This story is no longer new, but in the subsequent rush to embrace ever more ethnographic methods, we should not overlook this history as much has been gained interviewing; much has been gained by talking to or directly asking the audience (interview methods can complement and compensate for the limitations of observational ones; Höijer, 2008). This is not to advocate a naive empiricism, but rather to emphasize that, when claims are taken for granted about what audiences do or think or understand—claims which are often homogenizing, dismissive, or patronizing—the very act of going out to speak with them can be critical (Hartley, 2006). For this reason, accounts of audience research often begin with the thesis to be critiqued or the myth to be countered—that soap opera audiences are mindless or that talk show audiences are voyeuristic—in order then to reveal a more complex and illuminating picture of interpretative activity in context. To give two examples from many, van Zoonen (2001) found by listening carefully to the audiences for Big Brother that the show provides an opportunity to renegotiate established boundaries between public and private, even questioning the ways that elites maintain their privilege (see also Livingstone & Lunt, 1994, on the talk show). Second, as Fiske (1992, p. 191) argued of audiences for a popular sitcom, their calling it “the most ‘realistic show’ on television” does not make them stupid but rather reveals how they use “its carnivalesque elements as ways of expressing the difference between their experience of family life and that proposed for them by the dominant social norms.” Audiences' engagement with supposedly trashy genres may allow them to explore what is real and how things could be otherwise, especially in relation to the gender and class relations of everyday life (Ang, 1996; Morley, 1992; Radway, 1984). This argument is not intended to assert naive notions of audience autonomy or overblown claims of resistance, for “these models of audience activity were not … designed … to make us forget the question of media power, but rather to be able to conceptualize it in more complex and adequate ways” (Morley, 2006, p. 106). It is for these reasons that Schrøder, Drotner, Kline, and Murray (2003, p. 143) reframe what it means to “ask the audience” thus: Reception research methodology is predicated upon the qualitative research interview, which is used as a discursive generator for obtaining an insight into the interpretative repertoires at the disposal of the informants as they make sense of a specific media product. The interview is thus, ultimately, a vehicle for bringing forward the media-induced meanings of the informants' lifeworld. In short, to undermine the authority of text analysts is not to deny the role of media forms and texts. To recognize local processes of meaning making is not to deny the political-economic might of media conglomerates. To see media influence as contingent is not to deny its existence. To recognize the shaping role of diverse lifeworlds is not to deny the social structures that, in turn, shape those lifeworlds. My defensive tone arises from the fact that all these and other claims have, over the years, been levied at practitioners of audience research, notwithstanding the critical force of their theoretical and empirical insights, as I have sought to document in brief here. Yet for some, going out and asking audiences still seems difficult—students and even colleagues betray a rather practical reluctance to going outside the university, perhaps a distaste for risky negotiations with “real people” on their home ground. They look a little guilty when it is pointed out that, although they have diligently studied media production, coded media representations, or examined public accounts of daily practices, they have omitted a key element in Johnson's (1986/1987)“circuit of culture,” for this includes consumption as well as production or, for Hall (1980), decoding as well as encoding or, indeed, as for Habermas (1987), the lifeworld as well as the system world. Yet how else can research move beyond positioning audiences as the most spoken for and presumed about constituency in today's mediated ecologies of power? Although the critical potential of giving the audience a voice has been recognized, now that theories and methods are once again being rethought for a digital age, it seems that we risk slipping back. When one hears that Internet use is active by comparison with passive television audiences, or that interactive texts pose interpretative challenges unprecedented in media history, or when one is presented with analyses of new media forms packed with unspoken assumptions about how people (often rendered singular as “the user”) engage with them, it seems the argument for active audiences is easily forgotten (Press & Livingstone, 2006). Indeed, taking audiences for granted seems to come naturally. Each year when I teach my course on audiences, I find that students readily forget to distinguish implied from actual audiences, not noticing whether a book about Big Brother includes audience interviews, and not noticing that Schrøder (1988) did speak to Dynasty audiences but that Gripsrud (1995) did not, that Radway (1984) engaged with empirical audiences and Modleski (1982) did not. Curiously, it remains easy to presume that one knows what other people think or feel. Although audience studies have left behind Lazarsfeld's “masculine” paradox of impersonal humanity, Hermes (2006) suggests that a new paradox has inspired and, simultaneously, undermined the critical potential of empirical work: “The impetus behind audience research is precisely motivated by the wish not to speak on behalf of others even though, as a researcher, one does exactly that” (p. 156). This reminds us that at the heart of the interview is not only speech but also listening. A poorly conducted interview may be marked both by an interviewee reluctant to speak and by an interviewer who fails to listen carefully. But ask we must, and listen we must, for it is vital to go out and meet the audiences we theorize about. References Ang , I . ( 1996 ). Living room wars: Rethinking media audiences for a postmodern world . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Doucet , A ., & Mauthner , N. ( 2008 ). Qualitative interviewing and feminist research . In P. Alasuutari, L. Bickman, & J. Brannen (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of social research methods (pp. 328 – 343 ). London : Sage . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Fiske , J . ( 1992 ). Audiencing: A cultural studies approach to watching television . Poetics , 21 , 345 – 359 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Gripsrud , J . ( 1995 ). Dynasty years: Hollywood television and critical media studies . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Habermas , J . ( 1987 ). The theory of communicative action. Lifeworld and system: A critique of functionalist reason (T. McCarthy, Trans. Vol. 2 ). Cambridge, UK : Polity . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Hall , S . ( 1980 ). Encoding/decoding . In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, media, language . London : Hutchinson . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Hartley , J . ( 2006 ). ‘Read thy self’: Text, audience, and method in cultural studies . In M. White & J. Schwoch (Eds.), Questions of method in cultural studies (pp. 71 – 104 ). Oxford, England : Blackwell . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Hermes , J . ( 2006 ). Feminism and the politics of method . In M. White & J. Schwoch (Eds.), Questions of method in cultural studies (pp. 154 – 174 ). Oxford, England : Blackwell . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Hobson , D . ( 1982 ). Crossroads: The drama of a soap opera . London : Methuen . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Hodge , R ., & Tripp , D. ( 1986 ). Children and television: A semiotic approach . Cambridge, UK : Polity . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Höijer , B . ( 2008 ). Ontological assumptions and generalizations in qualitative (audience) research . European Journal of Communication , 23 ( 3 ), 275 – 294 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Johnson , R . ( 1986/1987 ). What is cultural studies anyway? Social Text , 16 , 38 – 80 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Jones , P . ( 2006 ). Thirty years of Sociology , 40 ( 6 ), 1209 – 1215 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Lazarsfeld , P. F . ( 1944 ). The controversy over detailed interviews—an offer for negotiation . Public Opinion Quarterly , 8 , 38 – 60 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS WorldCat Liebes , T ., & Katz , E. ( 1990 ). The export of meaning . Oxford, England : Oxford University Press . Lewis , J . ( 1991 ). The ideological octopus: An exploration of television and its audience . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Livingstone , S . ( 1998 ). Making sense of television (2nd ed.). London : Routledge . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Livingstone , S ., & Lunt , P. ( 1994 ). Talk on television . London : Routledge . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Scholar Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Modleski , T . ( 1982 ). Loving with a vengeance . New York : Methuen . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Morley , D . ( 1992 ). Television, audiences and cultural studies . London : Routledge . 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( 1988 ). The pleasure of ‘Dynasty’: The weekly reconstruction of self-confidence . In P. Drummond & R. Paterson (Eds.), Television and its audience: International research perspectives . London : British Film Institute . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Schrøder , K. , Drotner , K., Kline , S., & Murray , C. ( 2003 ). Researching audiences . London : Arnold . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Simonson , P . ( 2009 ). The interview . Paper presented at the 59th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, Chicago, IL. Williams , R . ( 1983 ). Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society . London : Fontana . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Van Zoonen , L . ( 2001 ). Desire and resistance: Big Brother and the recognition of everyday life . Media, Culture and Society , 23 ( 5 ), 669 – 677 . 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Mitra,, Rahul

doi: 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01087.xpmid: N/A

Abstract I examine organization–media linkages in an emerging economy context, specifically India, tracing how the media upholds organizational ideologies/interests, while silencing dissidence. I provide a conceptual framework to understand the reification and disbarment strategies at play, which are seen to operate through 4 core themes: national progress through globalization, the new national citizen, media surveillance of the State, and reframing the dissident as antinational. This study extends current theory on organizational colonization/silencing by suggesting new mechanisms of legitimization, neutralization of organizational power, personalization, and objectification/subjectification of dissidents. It also problematizes being Indian in the global age for the organization, media, and (both urban and rural) citizens. Although free flow of communication via global media is often regarded a basic pillar of democracy, critiques of mainstream media point toward an oligarchy-type cartel among media firms, corporations, and States, which severely undermines the public sphere and downplays democratic processes (Bendel & Bendel, 2007; Conrad, 2003; Gunaratne, 2005; Herman & McChesney, 1998). Although the media plays a vital role as watchdogs for State apparatuses, their record has been less than perfect as far as Big Business is concerned (Deetz, 1992; Roush, 2004). Ideological/institutional linkages among organization–State–media ensure a tepid critique of corporate policies, while marginalizing/silencing arguments opposing neoliberal ideologies (Menon & Nigam, 2008). For Clair (1998), voice/silence occurs dialectically: Silencing groups of people may take on a multitude of forms that we have only begun to explore. Silence may be achieved through coercion or through hegemony. It may be created through discursive practices that privilege some and abandon others. Silence may be systematically structured through institutions or informally imposed through informal conversation. (pp. 67–68) Thus, although organizations and media may achieve “incessant and noisy discourses” (p. 68) by canvassing a preferred point of view, there are other more subtle mechanisms to stifle alternative voices. Accordingly, to examine the full spread of corporate power, it is not enough to consider merely corporate actions/discourses, but also the representations of such, and the linkages among various organizational forms. In this article, I examine the media construction of an organizational project that recently gained some notoriety/fame in the emerging economy context of India. On January 10, 2008, India's largest automobile company Tata Motors (hereafter referred to as T.M.) unveiled the world's cheapest car, the Nano. Billed the “people's car,” it had been in the works for at least the better part of a decade, as Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata's “vision” for a modern India (Tata, 2008). Here, I analyze the media discourse surrounding this project, tracing how the media upholds organizational ideologies and interests, while silencing dissenting voices. I provide a conceptual framework to help understand the reification and disbarment strategies at play through media coverage in the emerging economy context. Despite a large body of research on emerging economy organizations (particularly those in East Asia), there has been relatively less work on media–organization linkages, especially in India. Most scholarly work has focused on managerial strategies, since the Indian economy's liberalization in 1991 (Chittoor & Ray, 2007; Khandwalla, 2002; Som, 2002). Although it has been recognized that the Indian organizational context involves constant negotiation between “modernizing clusters” and “reciprocal opposition” (Nelson & Gopalan, 2003), there have been few attempts to see how this plays out with the mainstream media, the corporate sector, the State, and society at large. The bulk of critical media research in India focuses on political communication, rather than the media–corporate relationship (e.g., Rao, 2008). Thus, this article attempts to fill an important gap in the literature straddling communication, globalization, organizations, media, and culture, recognizing the various “flows of disjuncture” (Appadurai, 2000) that transform and appropriate modernity (Fairclough & Thomas, 2004). In the following section, I elaborate on the media–organization linkages and colonizing/silencing strategies that may operate in the emerging economy context. Next, I introduce the case and discuss the method of data collection and analysis used in this study. I then explicate the core themes and specific strategies of reification and disbarment evident in the media discourse. Finally, I discuss the study's implications: extensions to colonization/silencing literature and conceptualizing globalization in the emerging economy context. Organization–Media Colonization Borrowing from Habermas' (1987) thesis of the increasing permeation of life by capitalist logics, Deetz (1992) argues that the rise of the transnational corporation is akin to “colonization” of the lifeworld, in terms of imposing/promoting dominant value systems and practices. “The modern corporation has emerged as the central form of working relations and as the dominant institution in society. In achieving dominance, the commercial corporation has eclipsed the state, family, residential community, and moral community” (p. 2). Munshi and Kurian (2007) point more explicitly to a “nexus” between corporations, government agencies, and corporate proxies that reifies organizationally preferred views, while silencing dissident opinions. However, corporate power needs to be seen as “not monolithic but more like a web that has sites or nodes of decision and control,” at once “centralized and dispersed,” as it creates organizational reality (Deetz, 1992, p. 23). It acts through lobbying governments, financing campaigns, capital ownership/mobility, litigation, media agenda-setting, propagation of neoliberal ideologies (like “development” or “fair trade”), and reification of existing marginalities (Bendel & Bendel, 2007; Menon & Nigam, 2008). Media–organizational ideologies Such a view of corporate dominance invites further qualifications. First, as Clair (1998) asks, while examining organized silencing of dissidents, “How does the existence of one organization provide the legitimacy for another?” (p. 189). She urges closer study of how organizations are interconnected, so as to “highlight the shadows of the practices that provide support for injustices from institution to institution and from one institutional practice to another” (p. 189). In particular, institutional relationships between corporations and mass media become important. Deetz (1992) observes that “media messages elaborate ideology into common sense and everyday practices by reproducing social conflict in terms derived from the dominant ideology” (p. 33). The emphasis on organizationally preferred “frozen” or fragmented images/stories blurs the moral dimension to “make sense” of reality, so that a potentially untrue “social memory” is created, reiterating corporate domination. Although press conferences, media releases, pseudoevents, and “exclusive” interviews have traditionally facilitated these institutional links, recent instruments such as media ownership, advertising deals, and media tie-ups/conglomeration have become important (Roush, 2004). Second, colonization operates not just through institutional sources of power, but also through the spread/reinforcement of ideology. Conrad (2003) refers to the prevalent belief in the power of the market—what he terms “free market fundamentalism”—as the most remarkable achievement of the conservative Right. Here, I understand ideologies to be “significations/constructions of reality (the physical world, social relations, and social identities), which are built into various dimensions of the forms/meanings of discursive practices and which contribute to the production, reproduction, or transformation of relations of dominance” (Fairclough, 1992, p. 87). Ideology thus coordinates socially shared representations, affecting both in-group and out-group communication and reality. Deetz (1992) notes a tendency for the mainstream media to relax their conventionally recognized “watchdog” role while reporting on corporations, whereas Bendel and Bendel (2007) see a “blind acceptance of neoliberal economic ideology, such that many journalists are bemused by, and disinterested in, fundamental critiques of the economic system” (p. 62). In India, Menon and Nigam (2008) argue that the media has increasingly sided with neoliberal ideologies/agents to define “common sense” in terms that reduce/redefine democracy as “a set of abstract rules sans politics and people” (p. 13). For Herman and McChesney (1998), The global media are the missionaries of our age, promoting the virtues of commercialism and the market loudly and incessantly through their profit-driven and advertising-supported enterprises and programming. [However,] This missionary work is not the result of any sort of conspiracy; for the global media TNCs developed organically from their institutional basis and commercial imperatives. (p. 37) Importantly, although extant research often draws a clean divide between State-owned and commercial, local and global, authoritarian and liberal media, such a stance ignores the dynamic developments on the ground, wherein macrolevel hegemonic discourses are locally modified/appropriated (Appadurai, 2000; Fairclough & Thomas, 2004). Thus Gunaratne (2005) argues for a humanocentric theory of the press, steeped in local–global interactions and social responsibility. Colonizing and silencing strategies In this article, I examine some of the strategies whereby organizational ideologies may be reflected in media discourse, colonizing the lifeworld. Deetz (1992) argues that these processes of “systematically distorted communication” (p. 174) are not solely organization-sponsored, but continuously (re)negotiated via social interaction. Hegemony is taken to be “a constant struggle in the creation of positions” (Clair, 1998, p. 51), so that colonizing/silencing strategies may be revealed from the “frozen images” (Deetz, 1992) in media discourse. These strategies both reify the organizationally preferred view of reality and negate/disbar opposing and/or alternative streams of thought. In the first instance (reification), Deetz (1992, 2005) and Clair (1998) identify how the preferred view is naturalized by obscuring its sociohistorical antecedents and reframing it as a rational decision or “common sense.” The dominant/preferred view denies its own power/value position to neutralize its larger social implications. It is legitimized by invoking higher-order explanations, experiences, ideologies, and/or authorities. Hegemonic actors also conceal vested interests by using ambiguous wording and inscribing “plausible deniability.” In the second instance (disbarment), social actors/practices opposing the dominant view find themselves disqualified on various grounds from the accepted/mainstream norm. Topics at odds with the status quo are actively (and passively) avoided or discouraged. Alternative views may be subjectified, or attention refocused from the systemic to the individual, to avoid amending the status quo. Seeming engagement with alternative interests may only be hollow pacification, as hegemonic actors make a show of dialogue, but offer very little by way of compromise. Clair (1998) adds another strategy to this common list: Hegemonic actors often personalize/privatize alternative discourses, hiding them from the public gaze and rendering them uncontestable in a public sphere (p. 39). This is especially true in the case of sexual harassment at the workplace, where everyday acts/practices hide harassment by rendering the sexual as strictly “personal,” not to be brought up in the professional/public sphere. Extant research has focused on strategies within the corporate environment, making it unclear as to whether (and how) these operate in the media. Given the close links between corporations and mainstream media, it is likely that the silencing mechanisms and media construction of social/organizational reality are closely aligned. This is not to suggest an essentialist approach to silencing strategies; rather I hold to an interdiscursive/intertextual relationship (Fairclough, 1992, 1998) between organizations and mainstream media. The two main research questions guiding this study are RQ1: How does the media coverage create or reify a social/organizational reality reiterating the organization-preferred view? RQ2: How does the media coverage silence/disbar voices opposed to the organizational project? Method On the basis of Gramsci's notion of hegemony as domination by consensus, this article takes colonization as based on “constructing alliances and integrating rather than simply dominating subordinate classes” (Fairclough, 1992, p. 92). For Mumby (1988), “an explicitly political reading of narrative [is required,] which attempts to overcome a naive acceptance of stories as politically neutral and independent from the socioeconomic structure in which they are articulated” (p. 109). Thus, I provide an in-depth reading of media discourse here, using the case study approach, which is well suited to explore the real-world functioning of organizations, stimulate reflection on alternative perspectives, and serve as an impetus for future action (May, 2006). Background T.M. is India's largest automobile company, with revenues upward of US$8.8 billion, the world's fourth largest truck manufacturer and second largest bus manufacturer (OICA, 2007; T.M., n.d.). Its Chairman Ratan Tata conceived of the Nano“to provide safe, all-weather personal and family transport at an affordable price of Rs 1 lakh” (T.M., 2008a, p. 5), around US$2,500, making it the cheapest car in the world. This was a shrewd business move: In a country with very low car penetration (only 7 cars per 1,000 people) and a large gap between two-wheeler and small car prices, there was “a huge opportunity” for a cheap entry-level car to “address this huge potential in demand” (p. 30). The economic rationale was supplemented with humanist narratives appealing to the emerging economy aspirations of a country perceived to be moving from the “developing” category to the ranks of the “developed”; for instance, the tagline of the Nano, “More dreams per car.” The project “attracted unprecedented global attention and catapulted Tata Motors onto the world stage” because of the seemingly “unachievable” (p. 5) price. During 2004–2006, while the company's engineering team was working on the car, its upper echelons were scouting around for possible locations of the new factory. T.M. already had “integrated auto clusters” at four different sites; these were run like minitowns, organized around the factory, project area where employees lived, and several smaller units for ancillaries/vendors (T.M., n.d.). These clusters are/were highly prized by individual state governments, several of whom offered T.M. land for the Nano project. Finally, on May 11, 2006 the West Bengal state government announced it would acquire 997 acres in Singur, 40 km away from the state capital Kolkata, to house T.M.'s new factory. West Bengal was the leading state in the country's eastern region but had witnessed a severe outflow of business since the 1970s, and bagging the prestigious T.M. project was seen by many as a reversal of fortunes. A quotation attributed to Ratan Tata in a press release states: “We look forward to the opportunity of revitalising the automotive industry in the state” (T.M., 2006). In Singur, the reaction was mixed. Owners of the land to be acquired were monetarily compensated by the State, and because many of them were absentee landlords with no real investiture in the plots, few objected. Several unemployed people in the area, who did not own/farm any land, were also keen on the project because T.M. had promised to train and employ them in the new factory. The main opposition stemmed from landless agricultural laborers or sharecroppers. While close to 400 sharecroppers would be compensated (Thakurta, 2006), it was not so much a monetary issue at stake as it was the loss of a way of life, argued Pal and Dutta (2009). They note an underlying subaltern narrative involving deep ancestral ties to the land, which is treated as permanent/stable while money is transient, and their own money-management skills are recognized as insufficient in a modern/global economy. These subaltern narratives were largely ignored by the media, which wondered instead why the State was “on the backfoot” (Thakurta, 2006) and forced to retreat. Another voice of dissent came from environmentalists who charged that large-scale production of the Nano would result in unparalleled pollution and congestion in India's cities/towns. Prominent climate scientist Dr Rajendra Pachauri, who chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said he had “nightmares” about the expected pollution (Associated Press, 2008). The link between environmentalist protests and community dissidence became stronger when several prominent personalities involved in an environmental dispute in the state of Gujarat entered the fray at Singur. The media reported allegations that activist Medha Patkar's involvement in Singur was funded by a rival company (Konar, 2006), and when the State barred outsiders from entering the area, following outbreaks of violence, Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy exclaimed, “Do you need a visa to enter West Bengal?” (TOI, 2006a). Owing to the Nano's prominence, political parties inevitably got involved. Opposition parties in the national Parliament disrupted legislative proceedings, calling for a halt to land acquisition (PTI, 2006), and the leader of the main state-level opposition party, Mamata Banerjee, organized protests/rallies at Singur. The situation came to a head on March 14, 2007, resulting in the death of 50 protestors at Nandigram, another site earmarked for land acquisition (ET, 2007), but the State blamed Banerjee's party for the violence (Sen, 2007). Through most of the conflict, the company maintained silence, delegating voice to the State. Although the media speculated that T.M. would relocate if the situation did not calm down, senior executives quelled these rumors (TOI, 2006b). It was only in September 2008–8 months after the Nano unveiling—that a press release acknowledged the ongoing protests at Singur and suspended construction work (T.M., 2008b). Data collection This article examines the news stories/editorials published in The Times of India (Mumbai edition; hereafter referred to as TOI) over 3 months—December 2007, January 2008, and February 2008—in the immediate prelaunch, launch, and postlaunch periods of the Nano, respectively. TOI is India's largest read English daily with an audience of 13.3 million (Media Research Users Council & Hansa Research, 2008a). Given that the reach of Indian dailies grew by 12.8% during 2005–2008 to 313 million (Media Research Users Council & Hansa Research, 2008b), the scope for organizational colonization through newspaper media is significant. In addition to TOI, its parent media group owns the second largest local/city daily in India's financial capital of Mumbai, the country's largest business daily, most popular news Web site, and two prominent news channels on television, establishing itself as an influential newsmaker. During the period studied, 29 articles referring to the Nano appeared in TOI: These amounted to 105 pages, double-spaced, Arial font size 11. In keeping with Fairclough's (1992, 1998) call for interdiscursive analysis, so that appropriation of discourse across texts/contexts is noted, the TOI coverage was supplemented with readings of T.M.'s corporate Web site, most recent annual report, Ratan Tata's speech at the Nano unveiling, and several news reports dating back as far as 2006, to trace the unraveling of the Singur protests. Analysis There were two stages of analysis: The first involved an inductive search for relevant themes, followed by their deductive testing/verification; the second saw a deductive ordering according to general/specific strategies of organized silencing (Lee, 1999). The process has been depicted in Figure 1. Although the unit of analysis was a single sentence, emergent themes were not discrete categories—on the contrary, there were several instances where a combination of two or more was apparent—and, in most cases, a nuanced meaning was possible only in relation to preceding/following instances and themes. As Gunaratne (2005) points out, themes in everyday life are rarely discrete, being intricately interconnected and interactive. Also, because a purposive sample was used, no attempt was made to list the theme frequencies. Figure 1 Open in new tabDownload slide Conceptual Framework of Themes and Strategies. Figure 1 Open in new tabDownload slide Conceptual Framework of Themes and Strategies. Stage one I used Owen's (1984) criteria of thematic analysis to examine colonizing/silencing strategies in the TOI coverage: recurrence, repetition, and forcefulness. Although “repetition” looks at superficial/explicit repeated use of the same wording, “recurrence” addresses repetition of the text's latent meaning, through perhaps different wording. “Forcefulness” refers to “vocal inflection, volume, or dramatic pauses, which serve to stress and subordinate some utterances from other locations” (p. 275). This is also seen through capitalization, italicization, underlining, increased print size, using exclamation marks, strong/descriptive parts of speech, superlatives, and emphatic statements of other kinds. The following excerpt may be used to illustrate this process: They come to see hope emerge on wheels. For this ‘lakhtakia’ car, as street people have already named it, has enabled millions to dream of a life beyond the motorbike. And, to the discerning observer, has the potential of changing the demography of car ownership in India…. As Ratan Tata himself said later in the day, it was the image of a lower middle-class man on a scooter—the elder kid standing in front of the driver-father and the wife riding pillion with a baby on her lap—that kept playing on his mind. “Why can't this family own a car?” Tata's Rs 1 lakh car project was the outcome of that nagging image that kept tugging at his soul. (TOI, 2008e) The repeated use of the “1 lakh” key term (INR1 lakh = US$2,500) and the “image” that Ratan Tata “dreamt” showcase “repetition.” The marker of the common man's car “recurs” throughout the excerpt, and is “forcefully” articulated through Tata's “dream” and the hyperbolic description of how the new car means a new “hope” for “millions.” In all, 17 “minor” themes were identified, akin to what Maitlis and Lawrence (2007) called first-order concepts. To avoid confusion, I will refer to these hereafter as markers. Each marker was compared with the remaining data to ensure its representativeness (Lee, 1999; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Some of the markers were accordingly revised: What was originally taken to signify the “multitude” or “community” was later changed to the “delivering on aspirations” marker. Also, the constant comparison necessitated differentiation of two related but dissimilar markers, “harbingers of future advances” and “delivering on aspirations,” where the former signified macrolevel (state, organizational, or industry) anticipations, whereas the latter applied to the citizen/local community. While ordering the markers along macrolevel core themes, two other revisions occurred: First, a new core theme of “watching the State” was added; second, coverage of environmentalist and land acquisition protesters, earlier regarded as first-order markers, were moved to the mesolevel with their own markers. Once the revisions were complete, seven new markers emerged and thematic saturation occurred. The left side of Figure 1 shows the categorization of markers according to core themes. Stage two The right-hand side of Figure 1 represents the second stage of analysis, where core themes and markers were deductively ordered according to strategies of organizational colonization/silencing. Although the general strategies of reification occurred throughout, disbarment was especially strong in the “watching the State” and “reframing the dissident” themes. These were then compared to the specific strategies outlined by prior research (Clair, 1998; Deetz, 1992, 2005). For instance, markers of the “national progress through global footprint” core theme employed specific reification strategies of (a) legitimization via national identity, history, fame, economic growth, community welfare, expert pronouncement, and technology; (b) neutralization of organizational power by identifying with common/national good; and (c) plausible deniability via technology. Similarly, specific reification and disbarment strategies were evident for each core theme, as in Figure 1. Two additional notes are important here. First, the categories shown do not represent a causal relationship; rather, they serve as a framework to conceptualize the colonizing/silencing strategies in the media context. Second, although extant research shows silence or the lack of a voice as an important strategy in itself (Clair, 1998), it is not included explicitly among Owen's (1984) criteria. Thus, I have added the criterion of silence or lack of media coverage/voice to this analysis, especially in regard to the last two core themes. Findings In this section, I show how the media discourse may construct a “social memory” (Deetz, 1992) of the organization, the State, media, protesters, and citizens, through four core themes. National progress through global footprint Table 1 depicts the markers and specific strategies under the “national progress through global footprint” core theme. The first marker, emphasizing the historical nature of the Nano launch, was apparent in instances where “the world's cheapest car” was compared to the Ford Model-T or the Moon landing (mentioned also in Tata's 2008 unveiling speech). This was often used in the context of fame on the global stage, technological advances, national identity, and expert pronouncements. Regardless of whether one was “a chronicler of history or an industry specialist or just a plain automotive enthusiast” (Darukhanawala, 2008a), the Nano would “make automobile history” (Mamgain & Athale, 2008). Table 1 Data Supporting the Theme “National Progress Through Global Footprint” Markers . Examples . Specific strategies . Historical nature 1.1. Tata Motors pavilion at the Pragati Maidan would be the place to be, if you are a chronicler of history or an industry specialist or just a plain automotive enthusiast. (Darukhanawala, 2008a) 1.1. Legitimization via history and technology 1.2. More than 1,000 people—journalists, VIPs, and industrialists—packed an auditorium on Thursday as Tata Motors Ltd unveiled its long-awaited “People's Car” in a media circus more worthy of a pop concert or an Oscar ceremony. (Reuters, 2008b) 1.2. Legitimization via fame, history, and national identity; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 1.3. Tata reeled off the car's specifications and compared it to innovations such as the first man on the moon…. (Reuters, 2008b) 1.3. Legitimization via technology and history 1.4. It made news on almost every media outlet … causing one wag to remark that the US was hit by the “El Nano” effect. (Rajghatta, 2008) 1.4. Legitimization via fame, national identity, and history 1.5. They believe it would make automobile history. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 1.5. Legitimization via expert pronouncement and history Direct rivalry 2.1. He praises his colleagues, takes a crack at detractors such as the Suzuki boss who had predicted in 2006 that the car wasn't possible. (TOI, 2008f) 2.1. Legitimization via participation, technology, and national identity 2.2. Clearly the project was much too daunting to have even precluded the normally focused Japanese small car giants to cry off. It also eliminated the Chinese for this was an all-new out-of-the-box concept which hadn't been made before and therefore couldn't be copied. The Europeans were scared after the painful exercise with the Smart…. (Darukhanawala, 2008b) 2.2. Legitimization via technology and national identity; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 2.3. For decades, Detroit has been the center of the automobile world and home to the Big Three auto giants. The fact that the city appears to be in terminal decline seemed to bring a greater focus on the landmark development in design and the fledgling market in India…. (Rajghatta, 2008) 2.3. Legitimization via national identity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 2.4. The bulk of Ford's losses came from its home market where it has faced a steady loss of market share to Asian rivals…. (AFP, 2008a) 2.4. Legitimization via national identity and economic growth Global collaborations 3.1. The whole buzz that the Tata one-lakh car Nano may face problems in attracting buyers in the Western world may not be correct. The people's car, Nano, has far exceeded the expectations of the foreign media and mediapersons ET spoke to. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 3.1. Legitimization via economic growth, technology, and national identity 3.2. Britain launches a mighty push for a ‘new deal’ with India on Monday with an ambitious stars-in-our-eyes dream blueprint for Tata to become the 21st-century's Nissan by using the UK as a beachhead for the large and lucrative European market. (Lall, 2008) 3.2. Legitimization via economic growth, national identity, and expert pronouncement; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 3.3. The body structure of the new Rs one lakh Tata Nano car will be built by NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul-owned Caparo Group. (PTI, 2008c) 3.3. Legitimization via technology, national identity and global participation 3.4. Samco Machinery Ltd, a Canada-based roll forming system manufacturer, will supply auto parts for world's cheapest car Tata Nano…. (PTI, 2008b) 3.4. Legitimization via technology, national identity and global participation Technological advancement 4.1. Innovative bonding technology … have all played small but critical roles in slashing materials costs and weight resulting in the car's fuel efficiency. (Darukhanawala, 2008c) 4.1. Legitimization via technology, national identity, economic growth, and expert pronouncement; plausible deniability via technology 4.2. If that isn't good value engineering, pray tell us what is, for a car that you can buy for the price of top notch TAG Heuer sports watch? (Darukhanawala, 2008b) 4.2. Legitimization via technology, fame, and expert pronouncement; plausible deniability via technology 4.3. “It's far better than what I expected,” says US-based NewsWeek Magazine reporter Jason Overdorf. “It's a world-class innovation that has come from India. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 4.3. Legitimization via technology, national identity, fame, expert pronouncement; neutralizing organizational power by identifying with national good 4.4. Yes, Indian engineers—given the right challenges and leadership—can out-innovate and out-engineer others. (Prahalad, 2008) 4.4. Legitimization via technology, national identity, expert pronouncement; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 4.5. … his group last year signed an agreement with MDI, a private French company developing cars driven by compressed air. (IANS, 2008) 4.5. Legitimization via technology and national identity; intersects with global collaborations and harbinger for future advances Harbinger for future advances 5.1. The proposal, which is both a significant—and symbolic—indicator of the great tectonic shift eastwards in the new geo-politics of economics, comes just days after Tata generated headlines worldwide with Nano…. (Lall, 2008) 5.1. Legitimization via national identity, history, and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 5.2. The Nano also sheds light on how to leverage emerging markets as innovation hubs…. We can also use constraints as levers for breakthrough thinking. (Prahalad, 2008) 5.2. Legitimization via national identity, history, economic growth and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 5.3. Second, it will bring out niche outsourcing opportunities arising out of India. Tata's Nano car has shown Indian firms have a lot to offer in terms of engineering and design. (Sachdeva, 2008) 5.3. Legitimization via national identity, economic growth, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 5.4. Telfer School of Management Dean Michael J Kelly said Canadian companies should not miss great business avenues in India. “… As a market, back office, research and development hub and source of future competitors, India should be on top of the mind for Canadian top executives….” (PTI, 2008b) 5.4. Legitimization via national identity, fame, economic growth, expert pronouncement, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with national good Markers . Examples . Specific strategies . Historical nature 1.1. Tata Motors pavilion at the Pragati Maidan would be the place to be, if you are a chronicler of history or an industry specialist or just a plain automotive enthusiast. (Darukhanawala, 2008a) 1.1. Legitimization via history and technology 1.2. More than 1,000 people—journalists, VIPs, and industrialists—packed an auditorium on Thursday as Tata Motors Ltd unveiled its long-awaited “People's Car” in a media circus more worthy of a pop concert or an Oscar ceremony. (Reuters, 2008b) 1.2. Legitimization via fame, history, and national identity; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 1.3. Tata reeled off the car's specifications and compared it to innovations such as the first man on the moon…. (Reuters, 2008b) 1.3. Legitimization via technology and history 1.4. It made news on almost every media outlet … causing one wag to remark that the US was hit by the “El Nano” effect. (Rajghatta, 2008) 1.4. Legitimization via fame, national identity, and history 1.5. They believe it would make automobile history. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 1.5. Legitimization via expert pronouncement and history Direct rivalry 2.1. He praises his colleagues, takes a crack at detractors such as the Suzuki boss who had predicted in 2006 that the car wasn't possible. (TOI, 2008f) 2.1. Legitimization via participation, technology, and national identity 2.2. Clearly the project was much too daunting to have even precluded the normally focused Japanese small car giants to cry off. It also eliminated the Chinese for this was an all-new out-of-the-box concept which hadn't been made before and therefore couldn't be copied. The Europeans were scared after the painful exercise with the Smart…. (Darukhanawala, 2008b) 2.2. Legitimization via technology and national identity; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 2.3. For decades, Detroit has been the center of the automobile world and home to the Big Three auto giants. The fact that the city appears to be in terminal decline seemed to bring a greater focus on the landmark development in design and the fledgling market in India…. (Rajghatta, 2008) 2.3. Legitimization via national identity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 2.4. The bulk of Ford's losses came from its home market where it has faced a steady loss of market share to Asian rivals…. (AFP, 2008a) 2.4. Legitimization via national identity and economic growth Global collaborations 3.1. The whole buzz that the Tata one-lakh car Nano may face problems in attracting buyers in the Western world may not be correct. The people's car, Nano, has far exceeded the expectations of the foreign media and mediapersons ET spoke to. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 3.1. Legitimization via economic growth, technology, and national identity 3.2. Britain launches a mighty push for a ‘new deal’ with India on Monday with an ambitious stars-in-our-eyes dream blueprint for Tata to become the 21st-century's Nissan by using the UK as a beachhead for the large and lucrative European market. (Lall, 2008) 3.2. Legitimization via economic growth, national identity, and expert pronouncement; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 3.3. The body structure of the new Rs one lakh Tata Nano car will be built by NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul-owned Caparo Group. (PTI, 2008c) 3.3. Legitimization via technology, national identity and global participation 3.4. Samco Machinery Ltd, a Canada-based roll forming system manufacturer, will supply auto parts for world's cheapest car Tata Nano…. (PTI, 2008b) 3.4. Legitimization via technology, national identity and global participation Technological advancement 4.1. Innovative bonding technology … have all played small but critical roles in slashing materials costs and weight resulting in the car's fuel efficiency. (Darukhanawala, 2008c) 4.1. Legitimization via technology, national identity, economic growth, and expert pronouncement; plausible deniability via technology 4.2. If that isn't good value engineering, pray tell us what is, for a car that you can buy for the price of top notch TAG Heuer sports watch? (Darukhanawala, 2008b) 4.2. Legitimization via technology, fame, and expert pronouncement; plausible deniability via technology 4.3. “It's far better than what I expected,” says US-based NewsWeek Magazine reporter Jason Overdorf. “It's a world-class innovation that has come from India. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 4.3. Legitimization via technology, national identity, fame, expert pronouncement; neutralizing organizational power by identifying with national good 4.4. Yes, Indian engineers—given the right challenges and leadership—can out-innovate and out-engineer others. (Prahalad, 2008) 4.4. Legitimization via technology, national identity, expert pronouncement; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 4.5. … his group last year signed an agreement with MDI, a private French company developing cars driven by compressed air. (IANS, 2008) 4.5. Legitimization via technology and national identity; intersects with global collaborations and harbinger for future advances Harbinger for future advances 5.1. The proposal, which is both a significant—and symbolic—indicator of the great tectonic shift eastwards in the new geo-politics of economics, comes just days after Tata generated headlines worldwide with Nano…. (Lall, 2008) 5.1. Legitimization via national identity, history, and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 5.2. The Nano also sheds light on how to leverage emerging markets as innovation hubs…. We can also use constraints as levers for breakthrough thinking. (Prahalad, 2008) 5.2. Legitimization via national identity, history, economic growth and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 5.3. Second, it will bring out niche outsourcing opportunities arising out of India. Tata's Nano car has shown Indian firms have a lot to offer in terms of engineering and design. (Sachdeva, 2008) 5.3. Legitimization via national identity, economic growth, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 5.4. Telfer School of Management Dean Michael J Kelly said Canadian companies should not miss great business avenues in India. “… As a market, back office, research and development hub and source of future competitors, India should be on top of the mind for Canadian top executives….” (PTI, 2008b) 5.4. Legitimization via national identity, fame, economic growth, expert pronouncement, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with national good Open in new tab Table 1 Data Supporting the Theme “National Progress Through Global Footprint” Markers . Examples . Specific strategies . Historical nature 1.1. Tata Motors pavilion at the Pragati Maidan would be the place to be, if you are a chronicler of history or an industry specialist or just a plain automotive enthusiast. (Darukhanawala, 2008a) 1.1. Legitimization via history and technology 1.2. More than 1,000 people—journalists, VIPs, and industrialists—packed an auditorium on Thursday as Tata Motors Ltd unveiled its long-awaited “People's Car” in a media circus more worthy of a pop concert or an Oscar ceremony. (Reuters, 2008b) 1.2. Legitimization via fame, history, and national identity; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 1.3. Tata reeled off the car's specifications and compared it to innovations such as the first man on the moon…. (Reuters, 2008b) 1.3. Legitimization via technology and history 1.4. It made news on almost every media outlet … causing one wag to remark that the US was hit by the “El Nano” effect. (Rajghatta, 2008) 1.4. Legitimization via fame, national identity, and history 1.5. They believe it would make automobile history. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 1.5. Legitimization via expert pronouncement and history Direct rivalry 2.1. He praises his colleagues, takes a crack at detractors such as the Suzuki boss who had predicted in 2006 that the car wasn't possible. (TOI, 2008f) 2.1. Legitimization via participation, technology, and national identity 2.2. Clearly the project was much too daunting to have even precluded the normally focused Japanese small car giants to cry off. It also eliminated the Chinese for this was an all-new out-of-the-box concept which hadn't been made before and therefore couldn't be copied. The Europeans were scared after the painful exercise with the Smart…. (Darukhanawala, 2008b) 2.2. Legitimization via technology and national identity; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 2.3. For decades, Detroit has been the center of the automobile world and home to the Big Three auto giants. The fact that the city appears to be in terminal decline seemed to bring a greater focus on the landmark development in design and the fledgling market in India…. (Rajghatta, 2008) 2.3. Legitimization via national identity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 2.4. The bulk of Ford's losses came from its home market where it has faced a steady loss of market share to Asian rivals…. (AFP, 2008a) 2.4. Legitimization via national identity and economic growth Global collaborations 3.1. The whole buzz that the Tata one-lakh car Nano may face problems in attracting buyers in the Western world may not be correct. The people's car, Nano, has far exceeded the expectations of the foreign media and mediapersons ET spoke to. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 3.1. Legitimization via economic growth, technology, and national identity 3.2. Britain launches a mighty push for a ‘new deal’ with India on Monday with an ambitious stars-in-our-eyes dream blueprint for Tata to become the 21st-century's Nissan by using the UK as a beachhead for the large and lucrative European market. (Lall, 2008) 3.2. Legitimization via economic growth, national identity, and expert pronouncement; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 3.3. The body structure of the new Rs one lakh Tata Nano car will be built by NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul-owned Caparo Group. (PTI, 2008c) 3.3. Legitimization via technology, national identity and global participation 3.4. Samco Machinery Ltd, a Canada-based roll forming system manufacturer, will supply auto parts for world's cheapest car Tata Nano…. (PTI, 2008b) 3.4. Legitimization via technology, national identity and global participation Technological advancement 4.1. Innovative bonding technology … have all played small but critical roles in slashing materials costs and weight resulting in the car's fuel efficiency. (Darukhanawala, 2008c) 4.1. Legitimization via technology, national identity, economic growth, and expert pronouncement; plausible deniability via technology 4.2. If that isn't good value engineering, pray tell us what is, for a car that you can buy for the price of top notch TAG Heuer sports watch? (Darukhanawala, 2008b) 4.2. Legitimization via technology, fame, and expert pronouncement; plausible deniability via technology 4.3. “It's far better than what I expected,” says US-based NewsWeek Magazine reporter Jason Overdorf. “It's a world-class innovation that has come from India. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 4.3. Legitimization via technology, national identity, fame, expert pronouncement; neutralizing organizational power by identifying with national good 4.4. Yes, Indian engineers—given the right challenges and leadership—can out-innovate and out-engineer others. (Prahalad, 2008) 4.4. Legitimization via technology, national identity, expert pronouncement; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 4.5. … his group last year signed an agreement with MDI, a private French company developing cars driven by compressed air. (IANS, 2008) 4.5. Legitimization via technology and national identity; intersects with global collaborations and harbinger for future advances Harbinger for future advances 5.1. The proposal, which is both a significant—and symbolic—indicator of the great tectonic shift eastwards in the new geo-politics of economics, comes just days after Tata generated headlines worldwide with Nano…. (Lall, 2008) 5.1. Legitimization via national identity, history, and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 5.2. The Nano also sheds light on how to leverage emerging markets as innovation hubs…. We can also use constraints as levers for breakthrough thinking. (Prahalad, 2008) 5.2. Legitimization via national identity, history, economic growth and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 5.3. Second, it will bring out niche outsourcing opportunities arising out of India. Tata's Nano car has shown Indian firms have a lot to offer in terms of engineering and design. (Sachdeva, 2008) 5.3. Legitimization via national identity, economic growth, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 5.4. Telfer School of Management Dean Michael J Kelly said Canadian companies should not miss great business avenues in India. “… As a market, back office, research and development hub and source of future competitors, India should be on top of the mind for Canadian top executives….” (PTI, 2008b) 5.4. Legitimization via national identity, fame, economic growth, expert pronouncement, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with national good Markers . Examples . Specific strategies . Historical nature 1.1. Tata Motors pavilion at the Pragati Maidan would be the place to be, if you are a chronicler of history or an industry specialist or just a plain automotive enthusiast. (Darukhanawala, 2008a) 1.1. Legitimization via history and technology 1.2. More than 1,000 people—journalists, VIPs, and industrialists—packed an auditorium on Thursday as Tata Motors Ltd unveiled its long-awaited “People's Car” in a media circus more worthy of a pop concert or an Oscar ceremony. (Reuters, 2008b) 1.2. Legitimization via fame, history, and national identity; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 1.3. Tata reeled off the car's specifications and compared it to innovations such as the first man on the moon…. (Reuters, 2008b) 1.3. Legitimization via technology and history 1.4. It made news on almost every media outlet … causing one wag to remark that the US was hit by the “El Nano” effect. (Rajghatta, 2008) 1.4. Legitimization via fame, national identity, and history 1.5. They believe it would make automobile history. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 1.5. Legitimization via expert pronouncement and history Direct rivalry 2.1. He praises his colleagues, takes a crack at detractors such as the Suzuki boss who had predicted in 2006 that the car wasn't possible. (TOI, 2008f) 2.1. Legitimization via participation, technology, and national identity 2.2. Clearly the project was much too daunting to have even precluded the normally focused Japanese small car giants to cry off. It also eliminated the Chinese for this was an all-new out-of-the-box concept which hadn't been made before and therefore couldn't be copied. The Europeans were scared after the painful exercise with the Smart…. (Darukhanawala, 2008b) 2.2. Legitimization via technology and national identity; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 2.3. For decades, Detroit has been the center of the automobile world and home to the Big Three auto giants. The fact that the city appears to be in terminal decline seemed to bring a greater focus on the landmark development in design and the fledgling market in India…. (Rajghatta, 2008) 2.3. Legitimization via national identity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 2.4. The bulk of Ford's losses came from its home market where it has faced a steady loss of market share to Asian rivals…. (AFP, 2008a) 2.4. Legitimization via national identity and economic growth Global collaborations 3.1. The whole buzz that the Tata one-lakh car Nano may face problems in attracting buyers in the Western world may not be correct. The people's car, Nano, has far exceeded the expectations of the foreign media and mediapersons ET spoke to. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 3.1. Legitimization via economic growth, technology, and national identity 3.2. Britain launches a mighty push for a ‘new deal’ with India on Monday with an ambitious stars-in-our-eyes dream blueprint for Tata to become the 21st-century's Nissan by using the UK as a beachhead for the large and lucrative European market. (Lall, 2008) 3.2. Legitimization via economic growth, national identity, and expert pronouncement; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 3.3. The body structure of the new Rs one lakh Tata Nano car will be built by NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul-owned Caparo Group. (PTI, 2008c) 3.3. Legitimization via technology, national identity and global participation 3.4. Samco Machinery Ltd, a Canada-based roll forming system manufacturer, will supply auto parts for world's cheapest car Tata Nano…. (PTI, 2008b) 3.4. Legitimization via technology, national identity and global participation Technological advancement 4.1. Innovative bonding technology … have all played small but critical roles in slashing materials costs and weight resulting in the car's fuel efficiency. (Darukhanawala, 2008c) 4.1. Legitimization via technology, national identity, economic growth, and expert pronouncement; plausible deniability via technology 4.2. If that isn't good value engineering, pray tell us what is, for a car that you can buy for the price of top notch TAG Heuer sports watch? (Darukhanawala, 2008b) 4.2. Legitimization via technology, fame, and expert pronouncement; plausible deniability via technology 4.3. “It's far better than what I expected,” says US-based NewsWeek Magazine reporter Jason Overdorf. “It's a world-class innovation that has come from India. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 4.3. Legitimization via technology, national identity, fame, expert pronouncement; neutralizing organizational power by identifying with national good 4.4. Yes, Indian engineers—given the right challenges and leadership—can out-innovate and out-engineer others. (Prahalad, 2008) 4.4. Legitimization via technology, national identity, expert pronouncement; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 4.5. … his group last year signed an agreement with MDI, a private French company developing cars driven by compressed air. (IANS, 2008) 4.5. Legitimization via technology and national identity; intersects with global collaborations and harbinger for future advances Harbinger for future advances 5.1. The proposal, which is both a significant—and symbolic—indicator of the great tectonic shift eastwards in the new geo-politics of economics, comes just days after Tata generated headlines worldwide with Nano…. (Lall, 2008) 5.1. Legitimization via national identity, history, and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 5.2. The Nano also sheds light on how to leverage emerging markets as innovation hubs…. We can also use constraints as levers for breakthrough thinking. (Prahalad, 2008) 5.2. Legitimization via national identity, history, economic growth and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 5.3. Second, it will bring out niche outsourcing opportunities arising out of India. Tata's Nano car has shown Indian firms have a lot to offer in terms of engineering and design. (Sachdeva, 2008) 5.3. Legitimization via national identity, economic growth, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with national good 5.4. Telfer School of Management Dean Michael J Kelly said Canadian companies should not miss great business avenues in India. “… As a market, back office, research and development hub and source of future competitors, India should be on top of the mind for Canadian top executives….” (PTI, 2008b) 5.4. Legitimization via national identity, fame, economic growth, expert pronouncement, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with national good Open in new tab The construction of a direct rivalry, economic and technological, between India and the West was seen in instances where Tata's “all-new out-of-the-box concept” was showcased against Japanese, Chinese, or European manufacturers (Darukhanawala, 2008b). The Nano and the Delhi Auto show where it was unveiled was repeatedly compared to Ford Motors' “terminal decline” and the Detroit Motor Show, held around the same time (Rajghatta, 2008). It was pointed out that “the bulk of Ford's losses came from its home market where it has faced a steady loss of market share to Asian rivals” (AFP, 2008a). Conversely, several stories emphasized national progress by highlighting collaborative links with foreign companies/markets, like the British and Canadian manufacturing partnerships behind the Nano (PTI, 2008b, 2008c). In the case of the British collaboration, the involvement of noted industrialist-turned-member of the House of Lords, Lord Swraj Paul, who is himself of Indian origin, further built on the idea of Indian business leadership in the global arena. Discussing the possible entry of the Nano in Western markets, another article highlights issues of both economic growth and national identity, and identifies the corporate project with national progress (Mamgain & Athale, 2008). Technological (industrial) advancement is posited as the choice path to India's economic development. Several articles highlight the advances by (and recognition due to) Indian designers/engineers, and contrast them to the failures of other countries/companies. Prahalad (2008) writes: “Yes, Indian engineers—given the right challenges and leadership—can out-innovate and out-engineer others. Seldom does a single product introduction challenge the received wisdom in the industry so radically.” There is also the direct acknowledgement that Indians are superb at judicial cost-cutting, “resulting in the car's fuel efficiency” (Darukhanawala, 2008c), traditionally considered a desirable trait in Indian culture (Dissanayake, 1987). The final marker treated the Nano as a harbinger for future advances for Indian firms and the State, adopting an explicit macro/organizational frame, as opposed to the more community-centered “delivering on aspirations” marker seen later. While reporting on a British delegation in Delhi, Lall (2008) contended that the Nano launch was a “significant—and symbolic—indicator of the great tectonic shift eastwards in the new geo-politics of economics.” Another story, about an industry-level meeting of Indian information technology companies, asserted that the Nano“has shown Indian firms have a lot to offer in terms of engineering and design” (Sachdeva, 2008)—even for industries, like IT, which are relatively unrelated to automotives. Table 1 aligns the markers with the specific reification strategies used. Legitimization occurs via emphasizing history-in-the-making, fame on the global stage, national identity, assurances of economic growth, community welfare, rational pronouncements by experts, and technological advances as safeguards. Garbing corporate development as national progress legitimizes the organizational project; although the company's financial, economic, and political clout are alluded to, neutralization is achieved by arguing that this power is harnessed for the “national good.” Technological advancement also legitimizes the organizational view, especially because internally developed technology and heavy industry was emphasized in India right from the country's inception (Guha, 2008). Pronouncements by management gurus, engineers, and journalists on the “greatness” of the Nano are treated as gospel truth. Although technological specifications related to emission norms and so on are mentioned, these are usually relegated to the inside pages (being of longer length) and not as prominently featured as the more general stories celebrating the Nano's launch—thus avoiding widespread engagement with the issue and allowing a certain measure of ambiguity (also, technocrat jargon) to creep in. Constructing a new Indian citizen An important marker of the second theme—scripting of the “new” Indian businessman and citizen in a global age—was the personal valorization of Chairman Ratan Tata as Business Icon. Admittedly, much of this valorization comes from the organization itself, in its framing of press releases and media interviews. For instance, the line “a promise is a promise” (Reuters, 2008b), used liberally in the media coverage, was both in the officially issued release (T.M., 2008c) and uttered by Tata himself at the Nano launch (Tata, 2008). Its unfiltered transmission from official mouthpiece to national daily legitimizes organizational reality via the corporate leader's personal integrity and speaks of the strong organization–media linkages. Tata is portrayed as a committed Indian, one who stood up for his “vision” (TOI, 2008f), delivering salvation to thousands of his fellow citizens. Prahalad (2008) declares, “Ratan Tata, Tata Motors, and all the suppliers and dealers deserve our thanks for rekindling the innovative spirit of India.” Legitimization takes on a national/collective hue, operating via both expert pronouncement and personal integrity. Although the CEO is clearly powerful, his dominant position is neutralized by his motive: betterment of fellow citizens. Although the CEO's rationality acts as a legitimizer in its own right, it is also linked to entrepreneurship, and both are constructed as desirable traits in the new Indian. When Tata is asked in an interview to compare the Nano launch to the 2007 acquisition of Anglo-Dutch steel major Corus by group company Tata Steel, he plays up the entrepreneurial act of creation (Surendar & Bose, 2008). Although the US$12 billion Corus buy was the largest overseas buy by an Indian company, he says, “Corus was a transaction. It got a lot of visibility but we didn't build anything.” On the other hand, with the Nano, “there is a different level of excitement when you are building something.” This needs to be understood in perspective, as an ongoing dominant discourse of emerging economy aspirations (Menon & Nigam, 2008): For instance, another stalwart of Indian industry notes that “India's entrepreneurial growth is the kind that the world's markets have been waiting for” (Nilekani, 2008, p. 135), driving domestic and global growth. At the same time, such a discourse is at odds with the State-dependent, slow-moving growth targets of the 20th century Indian business (Khandwalla, 2002). The valorization marker is related to the idea of team cohesion, evident in articles praising the Tata team for “sticking doggedly to their task and beavering away” to deliver the small car (Darukhanawala, 2008a), a quality in line with traditionally perceived Indian culture praising selfless/dedicated hard work (Dissanayake, 1987). Technological advancement and innovation are held to result directly from a “collective thought process … engulfing everyone from the man at the helm of affairs to the shop floor operator” (Darukhanawala, 2008b), propagating the collectivist notion of Indian culture (Nelson & Gopalan, 2003). Tata replied to an interview question about his (eventual) successor, saying that, while there were a number of talented people in his “team,” he would not announce his successor beforehand, to prevent team dissent (Surendar & Bose, 2008). The final marker emphasized delivering on the aspirations of ordinary (urban) Indian citizens, and was the most common (also, forceful/emotive) throughout the TOI coverage, as seen in the construction of the Nano as the “people's car” (Tata, 2008). The unproblematic scripting of Tata's “image of a lower middle-class man on a scooter” (TOI, 2008f) focuses on Nano-empowered mobility. Another stream focused on the facts/figures of business analysts to report in hard numbers what the moralist/aspiration-based narrative did: “a 65 per cent increase in the number of families that can afford a car” because of the Nano (Agencies, 2008). Car dealer testimonies also attested to mass queries on the Nano, showcasing how the car may potentially bridge the urban–rural divide (Doval, 2008b). Table 2 lists the markers and specific reification strategies of the “constructing a new Indian citizen” core theme. Legitimization occurs through personal integrity of the corporate leader, inverting the situation documented by Clair (1998) where personalization is used to disqualify social actors; in this situation, the strength of personal integrity and expert pronouncement bolsters organizational legitimacy. The organization's rationality and team participative experience also legitimize the project. In addition, legitimization occurs through State partnership and authority, assurances of economic growth, and promised fulfillment of community/national aspirations. Identifying with these aspirations masks the organization's dominant power/value positions, which are explicitly tied to national growth/development. At the same time, tensions abound between personal valorization and team cohesion, and between path-breaking entrepreneurship and selfless, dedicated hard work, sufficiently problematizing what it means to be an “old” or “new” Indian citizen in the 21st century. Table 2 Data Supporting the Theme “Constructing a New Indian Citizen” Markers . Examples . Specific Strategies . Personal valorization 1.1. As Ratan Tata himself said later in the day, it was the image of a lower middle-class man on a scooter—the elder kid standing in front of the driver-father and the wife riding pillion with a baby on her lap—that kept playing on his mind. (TOI, 2008f) 1.1. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 1.2. Iqbal from Mumbai concurs: “Of course I will buy one! Keep it up, Tatas. Your words ‘a promise is a promise’ have won me over!” (TOI, 2008d) 1.2. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth 1.3. Corus was a transaction. It got a lot of visibility but we didn't build anything. There is a different level of excitement when you are building something. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) 1.3. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national aspirations; rationality via entrepreneurship 1.4. But to Tata's credit, no move was made to evict the protesters from the hall. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 1.4. Legitimization via personal integrity and rationality 1.5. What an extraordinary New Year gift to India and the world! To ordinary people! Ratan Tata, Tata Motors, and all the suppliers and dealers deserve our thanks for rekindling the innovative spirit of India. (Prahalad, 2008) 1.5. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national aspirations; rationality via entrepreneurship Team cohesion 2.1. Credit the team led by Ratan Tata for sticking doggedly to their task and beavering away for almost a decade…. (Darukhanawala, 2008a) 2.1. Legitimization via personal integrity, history, and participative experience; neutralizing power by identifying with national aspirations 2.2. The challenge was also the attraction, engulfing everyone from the man at the helm of affairs to the shop floor operator…. This collective thought process was perhaps the biggest money saver and the largest repository of common sense brought to bear on a car everyone wanted to play a role in creating. (Darukhanawala, 2008b) 2.2. Legitimization via participation and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations; rationality via entrepreneurship 2.3. The reason Mr A or Mr B, or Ms or Mrs C, is not named is because to do that too early is also bad. Because that person is then asking the question ‘When are you going to leave?’ Secondly, those who may want to unseat that person will be hard at work trying to make that happen. I think a year or 18 months before, the thing should be announced or the person should be anointed and one starts to give that person a chance to operate. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) 2.3. Legitimacy via personal integrity and participation Deliverance on aspirations 3.1. The much-awaited “people's car” will roll out of the Singur factory on time, the state government said on Tuesday…. (TOI, 2008e) 3.1. Legitimacy via community aspirations and State partnership; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.2. For those wanting to feel India's economic self-confidence as it takes on the world, all they had to do was to experience the blaring music from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the flashes of scores of cameras as the Tata Nano was driven out. (Reuters, 2008b) 3.2. Legitimacy via national identity, history, economic growth, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.3. India's car market is a huge draw because car penetration is just seven per 1,000 people, compared to 550 per 1,000 in such countries as Germany or 476 in France…. (AFP, 2008b) 3.3. Legitimization via economic growth and rationality; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.4. They come to see hope emerge on wheels. For this ‘lakhtakia’ car, as street people have already named it, has enabled millions to dream of a life beyond the motorbike. And, to the discerning observer, has the potential of changing the demography of car ownership in India. (TOI, 2008f) 3.4. Legitimization via community aspirations, economic growth, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.5. Mumbai's Nithin agrees: “Good job, Tatas!…. The common man will always thank you guys for this awesome gift. You have made India proud!” (TOI, 2008d) 3.5. Legitimization via national identity, economic growth, and aspirations; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.6. “Great deal! Mr. Ratan TATA … hats off to you…. I feel proud to be your countryman….” (TOI, 2008d) 3.6. Legitimization via national identity, economic growth, and aspirations; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.7. Binod Aggarwal, who has three Tata car outlets in Kolkata, said they were receiving queries even from villages. “We are getting calls from villages and even our associates who have dealerships there are seeing a good level of interest about Nano,” Aggarwal said. (Doval, 2008b) 3.7. Legitimization via economic growth and community aspirations 3.8. The cheapest car in the world, Nano, unveiled by the Tatas, could translate into a 65 per cent increase in the number of families that can afford a car, as per the estimates by Crisil Research. (Agencies, 2008) 3.8. Legitimization via fame, economic growth, and rationality Markers . Examples . Specific Strategies . Personal valorization 1.1. As Ratan Tata himself said later in the day, it was the image of a lower middle-class man on a scooter—the elder kid standing in front of the driver-father and the wife riding pillion with a baby on her lap—that kept playing on his mind. (TOI, 2008f) 1.1. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 1.2. Iqbal from Mumbai concurs: “Of course I will buy one! Keep it up, Tatas. Your words ‘a promise is a promise’ have won me over!” (TOI, 2008d) 1.2. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth 1.3. Corus was a transaction. It got a lot of visibility but we didn't build anything. There is a different level of excitement when you are building something. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) 1.3. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national aspirations; rationality via entrepreneurship 1.4. But to Tata's credit, no move was made to evict the protesters from the hall. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 1.4. Legitimization via personal integrity and rationality 1.5. What an extraordinary New Year gift to India and the world! To ordinary people! Ratan Tata, Tata Motors, and all the suppliers and dealers deserve our thanks for rekindling the innovative spirit of India. (Prahalad, 2008) 1.5. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national aspirations; rationality via entrepreneurship Team cohesion 2.1. Credit the team led by Ratan Tata for sticking doggedly to their task and beavering away for almost a decade…. (Darukhanawala, 2008a) 2.1. Legitimization via personal integrity, history, and participative experience; neutralizing power by identifying with national aspirations 2.2. The challenge was also the attraction, engulfing everyone from the man at the helm of affairs to the shop floor operator…. This collective thought process was perhaps the biggest money saver and the largest repository of common sense brought to bear on a car everyone wanted to play a role in creating. (Darukhanawala, 2008b) 2.2. Legitimization via participation and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations; rationality via entrepreneurship 2.3. The reason Mr A or Mr B, or Ms or Mrs C, is not named is because to do that too early is also bad. Because that person is then asking the question ‘When are you going to leave?’ Secondly, those who may want to unseat that person will be hard at work trying to make that happen. I think a year or 18 months before, the thing should be announced or the person should be anointed and one starts to give that person a chance to operate. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) 2.3. Legitimacy via personal integrity and participation Deliverance on aspirations 3.1. The much-awaited “people's car” will roll out of the Singur factory on time, the state government said on Tuesday…. (TOI, 2008e) 3.1. Legitimacy via community aspirations and State partnership; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.2. For those wanting to feel India's economic self-confidence as it takes on the world, all they had to do was to experience the blaring music from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the flashes of scores of cameras as the Tata Nano was driven out. (Reuters, 2008b) 3.2. Legitimacy via national identity, history, economic growth, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.3. India's car market is a huge draw because car penetration is just seven per 1,000 people, compared to 550 per 1,000 in such countries as Germany or 476 in France…. (AFP, 2008b) 3.3. Legitimization via economic growth and rationality; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.4. They come to see hope emerge on wheels. For this ‘lakhtakia’ car, as street people have already named it, has enabled millions to dream of a life beyond the motorbike. And, to the discerning observer, has the potential of changing the demography of car ownership in India. (TOI, 2008f) 3.4. Legitimization via community aspirations, economic growth, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.5. Mumbai's Nithin agrees: “Good job, Tatas!…. The common man will always thank you guys for this awesome gift. You have made India proud!” (TOI, 2008d) 3.5. Legitimization via national identity, economic growth, and aspirations; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.6. “Great deal! Mr. Ratan TATA … hats off to you…. I feel proud to be your countryman….” (TOI, 2008d) 3.6. Legitimization via national identity, economic growth, and aspirations; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.7. Binod Aggarwal, who has three Tata car outlets in Kolkata, said they were receiving queries even from villages. “We are getting calls from villages and even our associates who have dealerships there are seeing a good level of interest about Nano,” Aggarwal said. (Doval, 2008b) 3.7. Legitimization via economic growth and community aspirations 3.8. The cheapest car in the world, Nano, unveiled by the Tatas, could translate into a 65 per cent increase in the number of families that can afford a car, as per the estimates by Crisil Research. (Agencies, 2008) 3.8. Legitimization via fame, economic growth, and rationality Open in new tab Table 2 Data Supporting the Theme “Constructing a New Indian Citizen” Markers . Examples . Specific Strategies . Personal valorization 1.1. As Ratan Tata himself said later in the day, it was the image of a lower middle-class man on a scooter—the elder kid standing in front of the driver-father and the wife riding pillion with a baby on her lap—that kept playing on his mind. (TOI, 2008f) 1.1. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 1.2. Iqbal from Mumbai concurs: “Of course I will buy one! Keep it up, Tatas. Your words ‘a promise is a promise’ have won me over!” (TOI, 2008d) 1.2. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth 1.3. Corus was a transaction. It got a lot of visibility but we didn't build anything. There is a different level of excitement when you are building something. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) 1.3. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national aspirations; rationality via entrepreneurship 1.4. But to Tata's credit, no move was made to evict the protesters from the hall. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 1.4. Legitimization via personal integrity and rationality 1.5. What an extraordinary New Year gift to India and the world! To ordinary people! Ratan Tata, Tata Motors, and all the suppliers and dealers deserve our thanks for rekindling the innovative spirit of India. (Prahalad, 2008) 1.5. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national aspirations; rationality via entrepreneurship Team cohesion 2.1. Credit the team led by Ratan Tata for sticking doggedly to their task and beavering away for almost a decade…. (Darukhanawala, 2008a) 2.1. Legitimization via personal integrity, history, and participative experience; neutralizing power by identifying with national aspirations 2.2. The challenge was also the attraction, engulfing everyone from the man at the helm of affairs to the shop floor operator…. This collective thought process was perhaps the biggest money saver and the largest repository of common sense brought to bear on a car everyone wanted to play a role in creating. (Darukhanawala, 2008b) 2.2. Legitimization via participation and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations; rationality via entrepreneurship 2.3. The reason Mr A or Mr B, or Ms or Mrs C, is not named is because to do that too early is also bad. Because that person is then asking the question ‘When are you going to leave?’ Secondly, those who may want to unseat that person will be hard at work trying to make that happen. I think a year or 18 months before, the thing should be announced or the person should be anointed and one starts to give that person a chance to operate. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) 2.3. Legitimacy via personal integrity and participation Deliverance on aspirations 3.1. The much-awaited “people's car” will roll out of the Singur factory on time, the state government said on Tuesday…. (TOI, 2008e) 3.1. Legitimacy via community aspirations and State partnership; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.2. For those wanting to feel India's economic self-confidence as it takes on the world, all they had to do was to experience the blaring music from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the flashes of scores of cameras as the Tata Nano was driven out. (Reuters, 2008b) 3.2. Legitimacy via national identity, history, economic growth, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.3. India's car market is a huge draw because car penetration is just seven per 1,000 people, compared to 550 per 1,000 in such countries as Germany or 476 in France…. (AFP, 2008b) 3.3. Legitimization via economic growth and rationality; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.4. They come to see hope emerge on wheels. For this ‘lakhtakia’ car, as street people have already named it, has enabled millions to dream of a life beyond the motorbike. And, to the discerning observer, has the potential of changing the demography of car ownership in India. (TOI, 2008f) 3.4. Legitimization via community aspirations, economic growth, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.5. Mumbai's Nithin agrees: “Good job, Tatas!…. The common man will always thank you guys for this awesome gift. You have made India proud!” (TOI, 2008d) 3.5. Legitimization via national identity, economic growth, and aspirations; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.6. “Great deal! Mr. Ratan TATA … hats off to you…. I feel proud to be your countryman….” (TOI, 2008d) 3.6. Legitimization via national identity, economic growth, and aspirations; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.7. Binod Aggarwal, who has three Tata car outlets in Kolkata, said they were receiving queries even from villages. “We are getting calls from villages and even our associates who have dealerships there are seeing a good level of interest about Nano,” Aggarwal said. (Doval, 2008b) 3.7. Legitimization via economic growth and community aspirations 3.8. The cheapest car in the world, Nano, unveiled by the Tatas, could translate into a 65 per cent increase in the number of families that can afford a car, as per the estimates by Crisil Research. (Agencies, 2008) 3.8. Legitimization via fame, economic growth, and rationality Markers . Examples . Specific Strategies . Personal valorization 1.1. As Ratan Tata himself said later in the day, it was the image of a lower middle-class man on a scooter—the elder kid standing in front of the driver-father and the wife riding pillion with a baby on her lap—that kept playing on his mind. (TOI, 2008f) 1.1. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 1.2. Iqbal from Mumbai concurs: “Of course I will buy one! Keep it up, Tatas. Your words ‘a promise is a promise’ have won me over!” (TOI, 2008d) 1.2. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth 1.3. Corus was a transaction. It got a lot of visibility but we didn't build anything. There is a different level of excitement when you are building something. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) 1.3. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national aspirations; rationality via entrepreneurship 1.4. But to Tata's credit, no move was made to evict the protesters from the hall. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 1.4. Legitimization via personal integrity and rationality 1.5. What an extraordinary New Year gift to India and the world! To ordinary people! Ratan Tata, Tata Motors, and all the suppliers and dealers deserve our thanks for rekindling the innovative spirit of India. (Prahalad, 2008) 1.5. Legitimization via personal integrity and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with national aspirations; rationality via entrepreneurship Team cohesion 2.1. Credit the team led by Ratan Tata for sticking doggedly to their task and beavering away for almost a decade…. (Darukhanawala, 2008a) 2.1. Legitimization via personal integrity, history, and participative experience; neutralizing power by identifying with national aspirations 2.2. The challenge was also the attraction, engulfing everyone from the man at the helm of affairs to the shop floor operator…. This collective thought process was perhaps the biggest money saver and the largest repository of common sense brought to bear on a car everyone wanted to play a role in creating. (Darukhanawala, 2008b) 2.2. Legitimization via participation and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations; rationality via entrepreneurship 2.3. The reason Mr A or Mr B, or Ms or Mrs C, is not named is because to do that too early is also bad. Because that person is then asking the question ‘When are you going to leave?’ Secondly, those who may want to unseat that person will be hard at work trying to make that happen. I think a year or 18 months before, the thing should be announced or the person should be anointed and one starts to give that person a chance to operate. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) 2.3. Legitimacy via personal integrity and participation Deliverance on aspirations 3.1. The much-awaited “people's car” will roll out of the Singur factory on time, the state government said on Tuesday…. (TOI, 2008e) 3.1. Legitimacy via community aspirations and State partnership; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.2. For those wanting to feel India's economic self-confidence as it takes on the world, all they had to do was to experience the blaring music from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the flashes of scores of cameras as the Tata Nano was driven out. (Reuters, 2008b) 3.2. Legitimacy via national identity, history, economic growth, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.3. India's car market is a huge draw because car penetration is just seven per 1,000 people, compared to 550 per 1,000 in such countries as Germany or 476 in France…. (AFP, 2008b) 3.3. Legitimization via economic growth and rationality; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.4. They come to see hope emerge on wheels. For this ‘lakhtakia’ car, as street people have already named it, has enabled millions to dream of a life beyond the motorbike. And, to the discerning observer, has the potential of changing the demography of car ownership in India. (TOI, 2008f) 3.4. Legitimization via community aspirations, economic growth, and technology; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.5. Mumbai's Nithin agrees: “Good job, Tatas!…. The common man will always thank you guys for this awesome gift. You have made India proud!” (TOI, 2008d) 3.5. Legitimization via national identity, economic growth, and aspirations; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.6. “Great deal! Mr. Ratan TATA … hats off to you…. I feel proud to be your countryman….” (TOI, 2008d) 3.6. Legitimization via national identity, economic growth, and aspirations; neutralizing power by identifying with community aspirations 3.7. Binod Aggarwal, who has three Tata car outlets in Kolkata, said they were receiving queries even from villages. “We are getting calls from villages and even our associates who have dealerships there are seeing a good level of interest about Nano,” Aggarwal said. (Doval, 2008b) 3.7. Legitimization via economic growth and community aspirations 3.8. The cheapest car in the world, Nano, unveiled by the Tatas, could translate into a 65 per cent increase in the number of families that can afford a car, as per the estimates by Crisil Research. (Agencies, 2008) 3.8. Legitimization via fame, economic growth, and rationality Open in new tab Watching the State Table 3 aligns the markers of the “watching the State” core theme with the strategies of reification and disbarment. Several articles published during the period under review highlighted the statements made by State officials on the Nano project, most likely because of the mainstream media's traditional emphasis on matters of prominence and impact (Bender, Davenport, Drager, & Fedler, 2009). This orientation gives more weight to high-ranking State administrators in the capital and other prominent actors (political, corporate, or activist), compared to unknown protesters in the rural hinterland. In prominently featuring the State's basic argument (of eventual economic gains to people of Singur and the entire state) in favor of the Nano project, the TOI coverage showcases the deep linkages between industry/organizations and the State. For instance, in a representation of explicit support and approval, State officials are said to have “expressed happiness” (PTI, 2008d) over the unveiling of the Nano. Other references suggest the State's active assistance to the company border on the level of coauthorship; for example, in the announcement of a new irrigation project at Singur expected to help the new factory, and the state industry minister even announcing when the car would eventually roll out for mass production (Reuters, 2008a; TOI, 2008e). Another story toward the end of January 2008, after the car had been launched, strikes a pat-on-the-back tone for the State, almost congratulating it on the legal validity of its land acquisition at Singur (TOI, 2008c). Other prominent politicians are seen to celebrate with Tata, for instance, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stated that “reservations” should be made for the car, so that the Nano was readily available to India's underprivileged classes (PTI, 2008a). This was ironic, given the BJP's initial acrimony toward the car on account of the land acquisitions (PTI, 2006), and suggests that the fever-pitch media campaign showcasing the Nano made it politically untenable to oppose it. Interestingly, the organization–State linkages marker either ignores the Singur protests completely (as in PTI, 2008a and TOI, 2008c) or downplays them: “There is no problem now, residents are cooperating because they, too, are getting jobs” (TOI, 2008e). Silence thus becomes an active, if implicit, strategy for disbarment. Table 3 Data Supporting the Theme “Watching the State” Markers . Examples . Specific strategies . Organization–State linkages 1.1. Asked when the Singur factory would begin production, the minister said, “Work is going on at a fast pace. Why don't you go and see for yourselves?” (TOI, 2008e) 1.1. Legitimization via State partnership and visibility of prominent players; neutralizing power by identifying with common good 1.2. MP Rupchand Pal, who also attended the meeting on Tuesday, said, “The cars will roll out in the middle of 2008 as scheduled. There is no problem now, residents are cooperating because they, too, are getting jobs.” (TOI, 2008e) 1.2. Legitimization via State partnership, economic growth, and visibility of prominent players; neutralizing power by identifying with common good; objectifying human loss without adequate details and suggesting that protests are immaterial 1.3. “We are happy. West Bengal will benefit from the Tata's Singur project,” he told reporters. (PTI, 2008d) 1.3. Legitimization via State partnership and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with common good 1.4. In a major boost to the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government, Calcutta High Court on Friday put its seal on the state's land acquisition in Singur, paving way for Tata Motors' Nano to roll out from there. (TOI, 2008c) 1.4. Legitimization via State partnership; complete absence of protests, objectifying human loss Watchdog eye on the State 2.1. States would, however, have to ensure that developers acquire only single-crop and barren land. “We will take a view on this and have a fresh look (after the Bill is passed) on a case-by-case basis,” Pillai said. (TOI, 2007) 2.1. Legitimization via State authority; focus on State dynamics and prominent individuals; objectifying human loss by not describing protests/ protesters at all 2.2. Terming the decision to allow the car plant at Singur as a “mistake,” he asked the state government to take corrective steps. At a rally in Bajemelia, Ghosh said the Tata factory couldn't come up on the fertile Singur land. (TOI, 2008b) 2.2. Seemingly a critique of the company, but focus clearly on State and political actors; protesters' loss objectified 2.3. Commerce and industries secretary Sabyasachi Sen told TOI that the decision to directly buy out land was a fallout of the bitter experience in Singur. “We experimented with acquisition. Let's see how a negotiated purchase works out,” he said. (TOI, 2008a) 2.3. Acknowledges human loss but in an administrative objective sense; focus clearly on State and political dynamics Markers . Examples . Specific strategies . Organization–State linkages 1.1. Asked when the Singur factory would begin production, the minister said, “Work is going on at a fast pace. Why don't you go and see for yourselves?” (TOI, 2008e) 1.1. Legitimization via State partnership and visibility of prominent players; neutralizing power by identifying with common good 1.2. MP Rupchand Pal, who also attended the meeting on Tuesday, said, “The cars will roll out in the middle of 2008 as scheduled. There is no problem now, residents are cooperating because they, too, are getting jobs.” (TOI, 2008e) 1.2. Legitimization via State partnership, economic growth, and visibility of prominent players; neutralizing power by identifying with common good; objectifying human loss without adequate details and suggesting that protests are immaterial 1.3. “We are happy. West Bengal will benefit from the Tata's Singur project,” he told reporters. (PTI, 2008d) 1.3. Legitimization via State partnership and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with common good 1.4. In a major boost to the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government, Calcutta High Court on Friday put its seal on the state's land acquisition in Singur, paving way for Tata Motors' Nano to roll out from there. (TOI, 2008c) 1.4. Legitimization via State partnership; complete absence of protests, objectifying human loss Watchdog eye on the State 2.1. States would, however, have to ensure that developers acquire only single-crop and barren land. “We will take a view on this and have a fresh look (after the Bill is passed) on a case-by-case basis,” Pillai said. (TOI, 2007) 2.1. Legitimization via State authority; focus on State dynamics and prominent individuals; objectifying human loss by not describing protests/ protesters at all 2.2. Terming the decision to allow the car plant at Singur as a “mistake,” he asked the state government to take corrective steps. At a rally in Bajemelia, Ghosh said the Tata factory couldn't come up on the fertile Singur land. (TOI, 2008b) 2.2. Seemingly a critique of the company, but focus clearly on State and political actors; protesters' loss objectified 2.3. Commerce and industries secretary Sabyasachi Sen told TOI that the decision to directly buy out land was a fallout of the bitter experience in Singur. “We experimented with acquisition. Let's see how a negotiated purchase works out,” he said. (TOI, 2008a) 2.3. Acknowledges human loss but in an administrative objective sense; focus clearly on State and political dynamics Open in new tab Table 3 Data Supporting the Theme “Watching the State” Markers . Examples . Specific strategies . Organization–State linkages 1.1. Asked when the Singur factory would begin production, the minister said, “Work is going on at a fast pace. Why don't you go and see for yourselves?” (TOI, 2008e) 1.1. Legitimization via State partnership and visibility of prominent players; neutralizing power by identifying with common good 1.2. MP Rupchand Pal, who also attended the meeting on Tuesday, said, “The cars will roll out in the middle of 2008 as scheduled. There is no problem now, residents are cooperating because they, too, are getting jobs.” (TOI, 2008e) 1.2. Legitimization via State partnership, economic growth, and visibility of prominent players; neutralizing power by identifying with common good; objectifying human loss without adequate details and suggesting that protests are immaterial 1.3. “We are happy. West Bengal will benefit from the Tata's Singur project,” he told reporters. (PTI, 2008d) 1.3. Legitimization via State partnership and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with common good 1.4. In a major boost to the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government, Calcutta High Court on Friday put its seal on the state's land acquisition in Singur, paving way for Tata Motors' Nano to roll out from there. (TOI, 2008c) 1.4. Legitimization via State partnership; complete absence of protests, objectifying human loss Watchdog eye on the State 2.1. States would, however, have to ensure that developers acquire only single-crop and barren land. “We will take a view on this and have a fresh look (after the Bill is passed) on a case-by-case basis,” Pillai said. (TOI, 2007) 2.1. Legitimization via State authority; focus on State dynamics and prominent individuals; objectifying human loss by not describing protests/ protesters at all 2.2. Terming the decision to allow the car plant at Singur as a “mistake,” he asked the state government to take corrective steps. At a rally in Bajemelia, Ghosh said the Tata factory couldn't come up on the fertile Singur land. (TOI, 2008b) 2.2. Seemingly a critique of the company, but focus clearly on State and political actors; protesters' loss objectified 2.3. Commerce and industries secretary Sabyasachi Sen told TOI that the decision to directly buy out land was a fallout of the bitter experience in Singur. “We experimented with acquisition. Let's see how a negotiated purchase works out,” he said. (TOI, 2008a) 2.3. Acknowledges human loss but in an administrative objective sense; focus clearly on State and political dynamics Markers . Examples . Specific strategies . Organization–State linkages 1.1. Asked when the Singur factory would begin production, the minister said, “Work is going on at a fast pace. Why don't you go and see for yourselves?” (TOI, 2008e) 1.1. Legitimization via State partnership and visibility of prominent players; neutralizing power by identifying with common good 1.2. MP Rupchand Pal, who also attended the meeting on Tuesday, said, “The cars will roll out in the middle of 2008 as scheduled. There is no problem now, residents are cooperating because they, too, are getting jobs.” (TOI, 2008e) 1.2. Legitimization via State partnership, economic growth, and visibility of prominent players; neutralizing power by identifying with common good; objectifying human loss without adequate details and suggesting that protests are immaterial 1.3. “We are happy. West Bengal will benefit from the Tata's Singur project,” he told reporters. (PTI, 2008d) 1.3. Legitimization via State partnership and economic growth; neutralizing power by identifying with common good 1.4. In a major boost to the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government, Calcutta High Court on Friday put its seal on the state's land acquisition in Singur, paving way for Tata Motors' Nano to roll out from there. (TOI, 2008c) 1.4. Legitimization via State partnership; complete absence of protests, objectifying human loss Watchdog eye on the State 2.1. States would, however, have to ensure that developers acquire only single-crop and barren land. “We will take a view on this and have a fresh look (after the Bill is passed) on a case-by-case basis,” Pillai said. (TOI, 2007) 2.1. Legitimization via State authority; focus on State dynamics and prominent individuals; objectifying human loss by not describing protests/ protesters at all 2.2. Terming the decision to allow the car plant at Singur as a “mistake,” he asked the state government to take corrective steps. At a rally in Bajemelia, Ghosh said the Tata factory couldn't come up on the fertile Singur land. (TOI, 2008b) 2.2. Seemingly a critique of the company, but focus clearly on State and political actors; protesters' loss objectified 2.3. Commerce and industries secretary Sabyasachi Sen told TOI that the decision to directly buy out land was a fallout of the bitter experience in Singur. “We experimented with acquisition. Let's see how a negotiated purchase works out,” he said. (TOI, 2008a) 2.3. Acknowledges human loss but in an administrative objective sense; focus clearly on State and political dynamics Open in new tab The second (explicit) marker of this theme was the media's watchdog eye on the State, in terms of tracking dynamics, tensions, and events within the political establishment, as a fallout of the Singur protests. With the land acquisition protests becoming increasingly agitated, TOI (2008b) reported, “The differences among Left Front partners on industrialization came to the fore yet again on Sunday, with Forward Bloc leader Ashok Ghosh asking the Tatas to wind up their Singur small-car factory within a year.” Although this first strikes one as a critique of the organizational project, a deeper reading of the article shows that the protesters are never themselves in the center stage, rather, the article focuses on a prominent politician. The story's core is thus the political frictions within the State, and it uses the Singur protests as a mere backdrop, treating them in cursory terms and thus objectifying the humanist narrative of loss. Later, while reporting on another industrial project the State is involved with, the media coverage notes “the bitter experience in Singur” (TOI, 2008a). However, although human loss is acknowledged here, an administrative/objective lens is adopted, so that the focus remains on the State and political dynamics. This theme presented an interesting amalgam of the reification and disbarment strategies, while centering silence or a lack of voice as an important (implicit) strategy. The visibility of prominent players (political and corporate) and the organization–State partnership provide legitimacy to the Nano project, as well as neutralize organizational power, because it is said to be harnessed for the common good. The few instances here where the media coverage seems critical of the land acquisition in Singur must be seen together with the overwhelmingly positive portrayal of the company in the two earlier core themes; moreover, the critique here is always uttered by a third party, never the journalist himself (TOI, 2008a, 2008b). The rare mention of the land acquisition protests is never detailed, and the stories do not grapple with humanist narratives of subaltern suffering. Thus, rather than the subjectification of alternative views (Clair, 1998; Deetz, 1992), this theme shows a tendency to objectify it and adopt a calm administrative tone that treats human loss as obstacles to be sorted out in future initiatives by the State and industry. Personal tragedies are disqualified by simple absentia, on the ground that they fade in comparison with statements by the State and prominent capitalists. This theme is thus rife with ambiguity, in its portrayal of the State and the citizenry. Reframing the dissident as the antinational The final core theme operated at two distinct mesolevels: the environmentalist protests (largely urban) and the land acquisition in Singur (mainly rural). In both cases, the constituent markers and strategies of reification/disbarment aligned to frame the dissident to the organizational project as opposed to national progress, as shown in Table 4. Table 4 Data Supporting the Theme “Reframing Dissidents as Antinational” Marker/indicator . Examples . Specific strategies . Environmentalist protesters . Advanced technology negates fears 1.1. Exceeds Indian regulatory requirements and can meet strict Euro IV emission standards. (AFP, 2008b) 1.1 Disqualification via technological advances, rationality; hollow pacification and plausible deniability via technological advances and personal integrity 1.2. The Nano is a properly thought-out design, efficiently packaged… fuel efficient and spews tail pipe emissions lower than some two-wheelers on the market. In fact, this is a car the greens should embrace rather than oppose. (Darukhanawala, 2008c) 1.2. Disqualification, plausible deniability via technological advances; labeling “greens” does not take environmentalist protests seriously (subjectification as alarmist) 1.3. “I assure that people can have a sound sleep now barring the misconception that Nano would lead to extra emissions,” said Mr Tata. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 1.3. Legitimization via personal integrity and technology (also disqualifies and provides plausible liability); hollow pacification via personal assurances Divert to State and environment 2.1. The villains in my nightmares are neither the Nano nor cars overall, but stupid government policies that subsidize and encourage pollution, adulteration and congestion. (Aiyar, 2008) 2.1. Disqualification via technology; diversion to State responsibility as plausible deniability 2.2. What about pollution? Congested roads? Poor infrastructure? I think this is the wrong starting point for debate. We should ask ourself: What if we devoted the same energy and ingenuity to solving the problems of discipline in traffic management? (Prahalad, 2008) 2.2. Legitimization and disqualification via technology advances; diversion to other factors of pollution/congestion as plausible deniability Elitism at play 3.1. Hyderabad's Imran thinks similarly. “I would like to leave India the very day this car comes on road. I cannot imagine commuting for 4–5 hours between my home and office (because of the congestion),” says he. (TOI, 2008d) 3.1. Subjectification as elitist and political (and hence, disqualified) 3.2. Have we got affordable family transport in the two tier and three tier cities? Is it their lot not to have a vehicle? The huge potential lies when India gets connected in the rural areas. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) 3.2. Legitimization via personal integrity, national growth, and community aspirations; subjectification as elitist 3.3. Sanctimonious greens call the Nano disastrous because of its affordability…. This is elitism parading as virtue. Elite greens own cars, but cannot stand the poorer masses becoming mobile…. (Aiyar, 2008) 3.3. Disqualification/subjectification as elitist; legitimization via community/national aspirations Land acquisition protesters Minority 4.1. Amid the huge mass of mediapersons and other people gathered inside Hall No. 11 for a first look at Tata's Nano car, a group of six women dressed in white T-shirts stood out. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 4.1. Disqualification as part of (anonymous) minority Politically motivated 5.1. “Some people said that we should call it a ‘Buddha car,’ while others said that we should call it ‘Mamta’ or ‘Despite Mamta.’ We decided we will call it ‘Nano,’” said Tata, drawing laughter from the crowd. (TOI, 2008f) 5.1. Subjectification of protesters as political; focus on prominent politicians and not unknown protesters; disqualification as object of amusement, alarmist 5.2. These were activists from a forum of left-leaning individuals and organizations that calls itself the Delhi Solidarity Group, holding a protest against the “forcible” land acquisition at Singur, West Bengal, for the Tata plant to produce the Rs 1 lakh car. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 5.2. Subjectification as political; use of apostrophes underscores status as object of amusement not taken seriously Object of amusement 6.1. Standing in a single line, the women were talking animatedly to curious journalists and distributing leaflets. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 6.1. Disqualified as object of amusement and attention grabbers; adjective implies lack of seriousness 6.2. As the women attracted the attention of mediapersons…. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 6.2. Disqualified/subjectified as attention grabbers, media spectacle Irrational or hardliners 7.1. Written in bold red on their T-shirts were provocative blurbs like “The Rs 1 lakh car has Singur people's blood on it” and other such slogans. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 7.1. Subjectified as irrational, hardliners, and political 7.2. At a press conference later in the day, six farmers from Singur claimed they had not taken the compensation being offered for their farmland. The press conference was addressed by Medha Patkar, among others. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 7.2. Repeated use of “claimed” implies lack of truth; focus on prominent activist rather than unknown farmers objectifies human loss Marker/indicator . Examples . Specific strategies . Environmentalist protesters . Advanced technology negates fears 1.1. Exceeds Indian regulatory requirements and can meet strict Euro IV emission standards. (AFP, 2008b) 1.1 Disqualification via technological advances, rationality; hollow pacification and plausible deniability via technological advances and personal integrity 1.2. The Nano is a properly thought-out design, efficiently packaged… fuel efficient and spews tail pipe emissions lower than some two-wheelers on the market. In fact, this is a car the greens should embrace rather than oppose. (Darukhanawala, 2008c) 1.2. Disqualification, plausible deniability via technological advances; labeling “greens” does not take environmentalist protests seriously (subjectification as alarmist) 1.3. “I assure that people can have a sound sleep now barring the misconception that Nano would lead to extra emissions,” said Mr Tata. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 1.3. Legitimization via personal integrity and technology (also disqualifies and provides plausible liability); hollow pacification via personal assurances Divert to State and environment 2.1. The villains in my nightmares are neither the Nano nor cars overall, but stupid government policies that subsidize and encourage pollution, adulteration and congestion. (Aiyar, 2008) 2.1. Disqualification via technology; diversion to State responsibility as plausible deniability 2.2. What about pollution? Congested roads? Poor infrastructure? I think this is the wrong starting point for debate. We should ask ourself: What if we devoted the same energy and ingenuity to solving the problems of discipline in traffic management? (Prahalad, 2008) 2.2. Legitimization and disqualification via technology advances; diversion to other factors of pollution/congestion as plausible deniability Elitism at play 3.1. Hyderabad's Imran thinks similarly. “I would like to leave India the very day this car comes on road. I cannot imagine commuting for 4–5 hours between my home and office (because of the congestion),” says he. (TOI, 2008d) 3.1. Subjectification as elitist and political (and hence, disqualified) 3.2. Have we got affordable family transport in the two tier and three tier cities? Is it their lot not to have a vehicle? The huge potential lies when India gets connected in the rural areas. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) 3.2. Legitimization via personal integrity, national growth, and community aspirations; subjectification as elitist 3.3. Sanctimonious greens call the Nano disastrous because of its affordability…. This is elitism parading as virtue. Elite greens own cars, but cannot stand the poorer masses becoming mobile…. (Aiyar, 2008) 3.3. Disqualification/subjectification as elitist; legitimization via community/national aspirations Land acquisition protesters Minority 4.1. Amid the huge mass of mediapersons and other people gathered inside Hall No. 11 for a first look at Tata's Nano car, a group of six women dressed in white T-shirts stood out. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 4.1. Disqualification as part of (anonymous) minority Politically motivated 5.1. “Some people said that we should call it a ‘Buddha car,’ while others said that we should call it ‘Mamta’ or ‘Despite Mamta.’ We decided we will call it ‘Nano,’” said Tata, drawing laughter from the crowd. (TOI, 2008f) 5.1. Subjectification of protesters as political; focus on prominent politicians and not unknown protesters; disqualification as object of amusement, alarmist 5.2. These were activists from a forum of left-leaning individuals and organizations that calls itself the Delhi Solidarity Group, holding a protest against the “forcible” land acquisition at Singur, West Bengal, for the Tata plant to produce the Rs 1 lakh car. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 5.2. Subjectification as political; use of apostrophes underscores status as object of amusement not taken seriously Object of amusement 6.1. Standing in a single line, the women were talking animatedly to curious journalists and distributing leaflets. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 6.1. Disqualified as object of amusement and attention grabbers; adjective implies lack of seriousness 6.2. As the women attracted the attention of mediapersons…. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 6.2. Disqualified/subjectified as attention grabbers, media spectacle Irrational or hardliners 7.1. Written in bold red on their T-shirts were provocative blurbs like “The Rs 1 lakh car has Singur people's blood on it” and other such slogans. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 7.1. Subjectified as irrational, hardliners, and political 7.2. At a press conference later in the day, six farmers from Singur claimed they had not taken the compensation being offered for their farmland. The press conference was addressed by Medha Patkar, among others. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 7.2. Repeated use of “claimed” implies lack of truth; focus on prominent activist rather than unknown farmers objectifies human loss Open in new tab Table 4 Data Supporting the Theme “Reframing Dissidents as Antinational” Marker/indicator . Examples . Specific strategies . Environmentalist protesters . Advanced technology negates fears 1.1. Exceeds Indian regulatory requirements and can meet strict Euro IV emission standards. (AFP, 2008b) 1.1 Disqualification via technological advances, rationality; hollow pacification and plausible deniability via technological advances and personal integrity 1.2. The Nano is a properly thought-out design, efficiently packaged… fuel efficient and spews tail pipe emissions lower than some two-wheelers on the market. In fact, this is a car the greens should embrace rather than oppose. (Darukhanawala, 2008c) 1.2. Disqualification, plausible deniability via technological advances; labeling “greens” does not take environmentalist protests seriously (subjectification as alarmist) 1.3. “I assure that people can have a sound sleep now barring the misconception that Nano would lead to extra emissions,” said Mr Tata. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 1.3. Legitimization via personal integrity and technology (also disqualifies and provides plausible liability); hollow pacification via personal assurances Divert to State and environment 2.1. The villains in my nightmares are neither the Nano nor cars overall, but stupid government policies that subsidize and encourage pollution, adulteration and congestion. (Aiyar, 2008) 2.1. Disqualification via technology; diversion to State responsibility as plausible deniability 2.2. What about pollution? Congested roads? Poor infrastructure? I think this is the wrong starting point for debate. We should ask ourself: What if we devoted the same energy and ingenuity to solving the problems of discipline in traffic management? (Prahalad, 2008) 2.2. Legitimization and disqualification via technology advances; diversion to other factors of pollution/congestion as plausible deniability Elitism at play 3.1. Hyderabad's Imran thinks similarly. “I would like to leave India the very day this car comes on road. I cannot imagine commuting for 4–5 hours between my home and office (because of the congestion),” says he. (TOI, 2008d) 3.1. Subjectification as elitist and political (and hence, disqualified) 3.2. Have we got affordable family transport in the two tier and three tier cities? Is it their lot not to have a vehicle? The huge potential lies when India gets connected in the rural areas. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) 3.2. Legitimization via personal integrity, national growth, and community aspirations; subjectification as elitist 3.3. Sanctimonious greens call the Nano disastrous because of its affordability…. This is elitism parading as virtue. Elite greens own cars, but cannot stand the poorer masses becoming mobile…. (Aiyar, 2008) 3.3. Disqualification/subjectification as elitist; legitimization via community/national aspirations Land acquisition protesters Minority 4.1. Amid the huge mass of mediapersons and other people gathered inside Hall No. 11 for a first look at Tata's Nano car, a group of six women dressed in white T-shirts stood out. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 4.1. Disqualification as part of (anonymous) minority Politically motivated 5.1. “Some people said that we should call it a ‘Buddha car,’ while others said that we should call it ‘Mamta’ or ‘Despite Mamta.’ We decided we will call it ‘Nano,’” said Tata, drawing laughter from the crowd. (TOI, 2008f) 5.1. Subjectification of protesters as political; focus on prominent politicians and not unknown protesters; disqualification as object of amusement, alarmist 5.2. These were activists from a forum of left-leaning individuals and organizations that calls itself the Delhi Solidarity Group, holding a protest against the “forcible” land acquisition at Singur, West Bengal, for the Tata plant to produce the Rs 1 lakh car. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 5.2. Subjectification as political; use of apostrophes underscores status as object of amusement not taken seriously Object of amusement 6.1. Standing in a single line, the women were talking animatedly to curious journalists and distributing leaflets. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 6.1. Disqualified as object of amusement and attention grabbers; adjective implies lack of seriousness 6.2. As the women attracted the attention of mediapersons…. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 6.2. Disqualified/subjectified as attention grabbers, media spectacle Irrational or hardliners 7.1. Written in bold red on their T-shirts were provocative blurbs like “The Rs 1 lakh car has Singur people's blood on it” and other such slogans. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 7.1. Subjectified as irrational, hardliners, and political 7.2. At a press conference later in the day, six farmers from Singur claimed they had not taken the compensation being offered for their farmland. The press conference was addressed by Medha Patkar, among others. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 7.2. Repeated use of “claimed” implies lack of truth; focus on prominent activist rather than unknown farmers objectifies human loss Marker/indicator . Examples . Specific strategies . Environmentalist protesters . Advanced technology negates fears 1.1. Exceeds Indian regulatory requirements and can meet strict Euro IV emission standards. (AFP, 2008b) 1.1 Disqualification via technological advances, rationality; hollow pacification and plausible deniability via technological advances and personal integrity 1.2. The Nano is a properly thought-out design, efficiently packaged… fuel efficient and spews tail pipe emissions lower than some two-wheelers on the market. In fact, this is a car the greens should embrace rather than oppose. (Darukhanawala, 2008c) 1.2. Disqualification, plausible deniability via technological advances; labeling “greens” does not take environmentalist protests seriously (subjectification as alarmist) 1.3. “I assure that people can have a sound sleep now barring the misconception that Nano would lead to extra emissions,” said Mr Tata. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) 1.3. Legitimization via personal integrity and technology (also disqualifies and provides plausible liability); hollow pacification via personal assurances Divert to State and environment 2.1. The villains in my nightmares are neither the Nano nor cars overall, but stupid government policies that subsidize and encourage pollution, adulteration and congestion. (Aiyar, 2008) 2.1. Disqualification via technology; diversion to State responsibility as plausible deniability 2.2. What about pollution? Congested roads? Poor infrastructure? I think this is the wrong starting point for debate. We should ask ourself: What if we devoted the same energy and ingenuity to solving the problems of discipline in traffic management? (Prahalad, 2008) 2.2. Legitimization and disqualification via technology advances; diversion to other factors of pollution/congestion as plausible deniability Elitism at play 3.1. Hyderabad's Imran thinks similarly. “I would like to leave India the very day this car comes on road. I cannot imagine commuting for 4–5 hours between my home and office (because of the congestion),” says he. (TOI, 2008d) 3.1. Subjectification as elitist and political (and hence, disqualified) 3.2. Have we got affordable family transport in the two tier and three tier cities? Is it their lot not to have a vehicle? The huge potential lies when India gets connected in the rural areas. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) 3.2. Legitimization via personal integrity, national growth, and community aspirations; subjectification as elitist 3.3. Sanctimonious greens call the Nano disastrous because of its affordability…. This is elitism parading as virtue. Elite greens own cars, but cannot stand the poorer masses becoming mobile…. (Aiyar, 2008) 3.3. Disqualification/subjectification as elitist; legitimization via community/national aspirations Land acquisition protesters Minority 4.1. Amid the huge mass of mediapersons and other people gathered inside Hall No. 11 for a first look at Tata's Nano car, a group of six women dressed in white T-shirts stood out. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 4.1. Disqualification as part of (anonymous) minority Politically motivated 5.1. “Some people said that we should call it a ‘Buddha car,’ while others said that we should call it ‘Mamta’ or ‘Despite Mamta.’ We decided we will call it ‘Nano,’” said Tata, drawing laughter from the crowd. (TOI, 2008f) 5.1. Subjectification of protesters as political; focus on prominent politicians and not unknown protesters; disqualification as object of amusement, alarmist 5.2. These were activists from a forum of left-leaning individuals and organizations that calls itself the Delhi Solidarity Group, holding a protest against the “forcible” land acquisition at Singur, West Bengal, for the Tata plant to produce the Rs 1 lakh car. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 5.2. Subjectification as political; use of apostrophes underscores status as object of amusement not taken seriously Object of amusement 6.1. Standing in a single line, the women were talking animatedly to curious journalists and distributing leaflets. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 6.1. Disqualified as object of amusement and attention grabbers; adjective implies lack of seriousness 6.2. As the women attracted the attention of mediapersons…. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 6.2. Disqualified/subjectified as attention grabbers, media spectacle Irrational or hardliners 7.1. Written in bold red on their T-shirts were provocative blurbs like “The Rs 1 lakh car has Singur people's blood on it” and other such slogans. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 7.1. Subjectified as irrational, hardliners, and political 7.2. At a press conference later in the day, six farmers from Singur claimed they had not taken the compensation being offered for their farmland. The press conference was addressed by Medha Patkar, among others. (Bhattacharya, 2008) 7.2. Repeated use of “claimed” implies lack of truth; focus on prominent activist rather than unknown farmers objectifies human loss Open in new tab The news coverage pays more attention to the environmentalists than to the Singur protesters, perhaps because the urban news media deduced that their (largely) urban audience would want to know more about the (mainly) city-based environmentalists' allegations, rather than some far-flung villagers. The criticisms against the “sanctimonious greens” (Aiyar, 2008) are ordered along three markers. First, that their fears are unfounded because the car is technologically faultless (Surendar & Bose, 2008) and so “this is a car the greens should embrace rather than oppose” (Darukhanawala, 2008c), which falls in line with the technological advancement marker of the “global-national progress” core theme and also lends the organization a measure of plausible deniability. Instead, so goes the argument, the environmentalists should treat this as an invitation for future debate (Prahalad, 2008)—an approach that does not take the environmentalists' concerns seriously. Second, that campaigning against the Nano will not solve any of the environmentalists' core concerns, which can only be solved by petitioning the State for better infrastructure, energy efficiency, and so forth (Aiyar, 2008; Prahalad, 2008). Third, that the environmentalists are guilty of “elitism parading as virtue” (Aiyar, 2008) and opposed to the interests of lower middle-class families who will benefit from the Nano (Surender & Bose, 2008). The very few dissenting views present in the media coverage were qualified by pro-Nano voices; for instance, in a story reporting man-on-the-street testimonials on the car, there were only two voices of dissent. One of them is framed quite decidedly opposed to the nationalist project (“I would like to leave India the very day this car comes on the road”), and placed right below (and in direct opposition to) a comment blatantly nationalist in fervor: “Great deal! Mr. Ratan TATA … hats off to you …. I feel proud to be your countryman” (TOI, 2008d). On the mesolevel of the land acquisition protests, four explicit markers were seen to operate: protesters as minority, as politically motivated, as objects of amusement, and as irrational alarmists or hardliners. The implicit marker of silence, or lack of coverage altogether, ensured there were very few mentions of the protesters during the period under review. In one of the few reports, the “group of six women” are contrasted with the “huge mass of mediapersons and other people” (Bhattacharya, 2008), othering them instantly from the larger community. Use of adjectives like “provocative” shows the protesters as hardliners, alarmists, and needlessly antagonistic. Apostrophes over the word “forcible” to describe the Singur land acquisition betray a lack of concern regarding the protesters' stance, and the entire article sports an air of bemused condescension (e.g., “organization that calls itself…”). Also, the description of the protestors as “left-leaning” subjectifies them as partisan and politically motivated (in the vein of the Radical Left, no less!), in contrast to the rational and apolitical organization. Interestingly, the excerpt marks explicitly that it was “to Tatas' credit” that the protesters were not forcibly removed, thus valorizing Ratan Tata as the ideal citizen showing restraint and patience. Another vein of subjectification occurs when Tata jokes that the Nano could well have been named after the politician leading the protests (TOI, 2008f), or when the protesters are described as “talking animatedly to curious journalists” (Bhattacharya, 2008), showcasing them as objects of amusement. Importantly, none of the media reports offer any lifeworld narratives on the protesters, preferring instead to feature violent anticorporate slogans that make tantalizing news copy. As Figure 1 demonstrates, up to seven specific strategies of disbarment and reification were at play through the markers of this core theme. Silence was an implicit strategy used, minimizing actual references to protests, in favor of prominent personalities, and also skewing the coverage in favor of the environmentalists rather than the land acquisition protesters. However, in terms of the explicit strategies, subjectification and disqualification were the most important and forceful. Dissidents were subjectified (and disqualified) as politically motivated, alarmist, irrational, hardliners, or objects of amusement. At the same time, they were objectified, with hardly any mention of their lifeworld narratives or real humanist losses. Disqualification also occurred on the basis of technological advances of the organizational project, personal integrity of corporate leaders, and rhetorical alignment with nationalist goals, all of which legitimized the organizational project and provided only hollow pacification of the protesters. Discussion In this article, I examined a situation of mediated colonization and silencing in the developing world that demonstrates how dominant organizational interests might be served via organization–media–State linkages. Specifically, I provided a conceptual framework to understand how media themes may be connected to specific strategies of silencing, in ways that reify organizational hegemony and disbar dissidents. I will now consider some of the theoretical and real-world implications of the findings. The study reveals some interesting appropriations of colonizing/silencing strategies in the media context. First, Figure 1 shows that strategies of legitimization and naturalization of the organizational/preferred view were the most widespread. Legitimization occurs through the unproblematic building of consensus—often strongly worded in terms of national consensus—and the building of a common cause through the Nano. This moves along multiple fronts, for example, in hyping the “people's car” tagline, as well as focusing on team cohesion at T.M. as the driving force of innovation. Although the media discourse projects participation as the main spirit behind the Nano—participation of the (urban) populace as well as company employees—it also achieves a powerful discursive closure that shuts out alternative/opposing views. Second, the neutralization of organizational subject positions here is interesting, in that rather than a complete denial of corporate power, the megaorganization is constructed as a powerful but benign giant serving the nation. Such an interpretation hinges on the doctrine of free market fundamentalism, unproblematically equating corporate gains with national growth and development (Conrad, 2003; Herman & McChesney, 1998). Third, personalization of discourse, rather than resulting in disqualification (Clair, 1998), is used to reify the organizational view. Although no personal narratives of dissidents are ever presented in the media, the personal story and integrity of prominent corporate leaders such as Ratan Tata legitimize the organizational project. Fourth, the study suggests that dissident views may be both objectified and subjectified. Media priorities of prominence and (urban) impact de-privilege the personal narratives of unknown protesters and water down their human losses, while subjectifying them in terms of vested interests, as elitist, alarmist, irrational, or hardliners. Finally, the study reaffirms that silence becomes an “active performance that is intertwined with discourse” (Clair, 1998; p. 25). Thus, silence or the lack of coverage on various topics (for instance, the protesters' personal narratives, or in-depth engagement with their position, or a critique of the organization) was invaluable in tracing out the specific strategies. An important real-world implication of the study is its reframing of the globalization debate in the developing world, specifically India. Although the mapping of traditional/local and modern/global themes was not my explicit goal, an intriguing dialectic was uncovered between traditionally perceived notions of Indian-ness and “global” imperatives of business. It thus adds to the body of literature problematizing globalization in terms of complex disjunctural processes, rather than unilateral flows (Appadurai, 2000; Fairclough & Thomas, 2004; Gunaratne, 2009; Nelson & Gopalan, 2003; Shome & Hegde, 2002). In Table 5, I select examples from the earlier Tables 1–4 to offer some tentative comments on how consistent (or otherwise) they are in terms of these seemingly opposite poles. In particular, five concepts stand out, suggesting a sometimes harmonious, sometimes tension-ridden, relationship between the traditional/“Indian” and global. For instance, the focus on development of indigenous technology and cost-cutting is in line with India's preliberalization strategy of import substitution (Guha, 2008). Liberalization and globalization, however, have changed the thrust of this technological and managerial progress, allowing for a deviation from the traditional inward-oriented culture (Dissanayake, 1987) to a more exploratory point of view, emphasizing high-tech specialization, innovation, and efficiency (Chittoor & Ray, 2007; Khandwalla, 2002; Nilekani, 2008). Table 5 Comments on the Merging of Traditional and Global Influences in Organizational Construction Concepts . Examples . Traditional/‘Indian’ . Global . Inward/outward looking technological advancesa 1.1. Samco Machinery Ltd, a Canada-based roll forming system manufacturer, will supply auto parts for world's cheapest car Tata Nano…. (PTI, 2008b) Inconsistent with traditional inward-looking, import substitution policies Consistent with economic globalization 1.2. Reinventing the manufacturing process (and minimizing that as well) was one mantra to meeting the rigid six figure price point while innovative product design and packaging brought its own worth to the table. (Darukhanawala, 2008a) Consistent with traditional inward-looking innovation and import substitution and cost-cutting focus Consistent with global mantra for innovation and high-tech specialization Cost-cuttingb 2.1. … have all played small but critical roles in slashing materials costs and weight resulting in the car's fuel efficiency. (Darukhanawala, 2008c) Consistent with traditional focus on cost-cutting Consistent with global mantra for innovation and efficiency 2.2. If that isn't good value engineering, pray tell us what is, for a car that you can buy for the price of top notch TAG Heuer sports watch? (Darukhanawala, 2008b) Consistent with traditional focus on cost-cutting; inconsistent with traditional shunning of luxury products Consistent with global mantra for innovation and efficiency Collectivist/ individualistc 3.1. He praises his colleagues, takes a crack at detractors such as the Suzuki boss who had predicted in 2006 that the car wasn't possible. (TOI, 2008f) Consistent with traditional collectivistic team cohesion; inconsistent with traditional cooperation-not-competition goal Consistent with global competitiveness and team systems 3.2. This is an indication of an Indian CEO taking his leadership seriously and acting on it. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) Inconsistent with traditional collectivistic team cohesion Consistent with personal valorization in global competition 3.3. As Ratan Tata himself said later in the day, it was the image of a lower middle-class man on a scooter—the elder kid standing in front of the driver-father and the wife riding pillion with a baby on her lap—that kept playing on his mind. (TOI, 2008f) Consistent with traditional responsibilities to the larger collective/society and business as nation-builders Nation-building not a key role of profit-oriented business; consistent with new market opportunities exploitation mantra Entrepreneurshipd 4.1. Corus was a transaction. It got a lot of visibility but we didn't build anything. There is a different level of excitement when you are building something. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) Inconsistent with traditional policies that restrain entrepreneurship; consistent with traditional image of work as building something for society Consistent with global mantra for innovation; inconsistent with big ticket financial deals 4.2. Ratan Tata, Tata Motors, and all the suppliers and dealers deserve our thanks for rekindling the innovative spirit of India. (Prahalad, 2008) Inconsistent with traditional collectivism policies that restrained entrepreneurship; consistent with traditional responsibilities to the larger society, business as nation-builders Consistent with economic globalization and competition; nation-building not a key goal of profit-oriented business Organization–State relationse 5.1. Asked when the Singur factory would begin production, the minister said, “Work is going on at a fast pace. Why don't you go and see for yourselves?” (TOI, 2008e) Consistent with traditional close ties between organization-State Partially consistent with Western capitalist State support, but the State is rarely so identifiably linked with a company/project 5.2. “We are happy. West Bengal will benefit from the Tata's Singur project,” he told reporters. (PTI, 2008d) Consistent with traditional responsibilities to the larger collective/society Consistent with ‘business case’ of corporate social responsibility, but inconsistent at the extremity of nation-building Concepts . Examples . Traditional/‘Indian’ . Global . Inward/outward looking technological advancesa 1.1. Samco Machinery Ltd, a Canada-based roll forming system manufacturer, will supply auto parts for world's cheapest car Tata Nano…. (PTI, 2008b) Inconsistent with traditional inward-looking, import substitution policies Consistent with economic globalization 1.2. Reinventing the manufacturing process (and minimizing that as well) was one mantra to meeting the rigid six figure price point while innovative product design and packaging brought its own worth to the table. (Darukhanawala, 2008a) Consistent with traditional inward-looking innovation and import substitution and cost-cutting focus Consistent with global mantra for innovation and high-tech specialization Cost-cuttingb 2.1. … have all played small but critical roles in slashing materials costs and weight resulting in the car's fuel efficiency. (Darukhanawala, 2008c) Consistent with traditional focus on cost-cutting Consistent with global mantra for innovation and efficiency 2.2. If that isn't good value engineering, pray tell us what is, for a car that you can buy for the price of top notch TAG Heuer sports watch? (Darukhanawala, 2008b) Consistent with traditional focus on cost-cutting; inconsistent with traditional shunning of luxury products Consistent with global mantra for innovation and efficiency Collectivist/ individualistc 3.1. He praises his colleagues, takes a crack at detractors such as the Suzuki boss who had predicted in 2006 that the car wasn't possible. (TOI, 2008f) Consistent with traditional collectivistic team cohesion; inconsistent with traditional cooperation-not-competition goal Consistent with global competitiveness and team systems 3.2. This is an indication of an Indian CEO taking his leadership seriously and acting on it. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) Inconsistent with traditional collectivistic team cohesion Consistent with personal valorization in global competition 3.3. As Ratan Tata himself said later in the day, it was the image of a lower middle-class man on a scooter—the elder kid standing in front of the driver-father and the wife riding pillion with a baby on her lap—that kept playing on his mind. (TOI, 2008f) Consistent with traditional responsibilities to the larger collective/society and business as nation-builders Nation-building not a key role of profit-oriented business; consistent with new market opportunities exploitation mantra Entrepreneurshipd 4.1. Corus was a transaction. It got a lot of visibility but we didn't build anything. There is a different level of excitement when you are building something. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) Inconsistent with traditional policies that restrain entrepreneurship; consistent with traditional image of work as building something for society Consistent with global mantra for innovation; inconsistent with big ticket financial deals 4.2. Ratan Tata, Tata Motors, and all the suppliers and dealers deserve our thanks for rekindling the innovative spirit of India. (Prahalad, 2008) Inconsistent with traditional collectivism policies that restrained entrepreneurship; consistent with traditional responsibilities to the larger society, business as nation-builders Consistent with economic globalization and competition; nation-building not a key goal of profit-oriented business Organization–State relationse 5.1. Asked when the Singur factory would begin production, the minister said, “Work is going on at a fast pace. Why don't you go and see for yourselves?” (TOI, 2008e) Consistent with traditional close ties between organization-State Partially consistent with Western capitalist State support, but the State is rarely so identifiably linked with a company/project 5.2. “We are happy. West Bengal will benefit from the Tata's Singur project,” he told reporters. (PTI, 2008d) Consistent with traditional responsibilities to the larger collective/society Consistent with ‘business case’ of corporate social responsibility, but inconsistent at the extremity of nation-building a Concept derived primarily from Table 1 markers of global collaboration and technological advancement; b Concept derived primarily from Table 1 markers of technological advancement; c Concept derived primarily from Table 1 markers of direct rivalry, global collaborations, and technological advancement, and Table 2 markers of personal valorization, team cohesion, and delivering on aspirations; d Concept derived primarily from Table 2 markers of personal valorization, team cohesion and delivering on aspirations; e Concept derived primarily from Table 3 markers of organization–State linkages and watchdog eye on the State. All examples presented in Tables 1–5 have been directly quoted, complete with any grammatical and spelling errors. Open in new tab Table 5 Comments on the Merging of Traditional and Global Influences in Organizational Construction Concepts . Examples . Traditional/‘Indian’ . Global . Inward/outward looking technological advancesa 1.1. Samco Machinery Ltd, a Canada-based roll forming system manufacturer, will supply auto parts for world's cheapest car Tata Nano…. (PTI, 2008b) Inconsistent with traditional inward-looking, import substitution policies Consistent with economic globalization 1.2. Reinventing the manufacturing process (and minimizing that as well) was one mantra to meeting the rigid six figure price point while innovative product design and packaging brought its own worth to the table. (Darukhanawala, 2008a) Consistent with traditional inward-looking innovation and import substitution and cost-cutting focus Consistent with global mantra for innovation and high-tech specialization Cost-cuttingb 2.1. … have all played small but critical roles in slashing materials costs and weight resulting in the car's fuel efficiency. (Darukhanawala, 2008c) Consistent with traditional focus on cost-cutting Consistent with global mantra for innovation and efficiency 2.2. If that isn't good value engineering, pray tell us what is, for a car that you can buy for the price of top notch TAG Heuer sports watch? (Darukhanawala, 2008b) Consistent with traditional focus on cost-cutting; inconsistent with traditional shunning of luxury products Consistent with global mantra for innovation and efficiency Collectivist/ individualistc 3.1. He praises his colleagues, takes a crack at detractors such as the Suzuki boss who had predicted in 2006 that the car wasn't possible. (TOI, 2008f) Consistent with traditional collectivistic team cohesion; inconsistent with traditional cooperation-not-competition goal Consistent with global competitiveness and team systems 3.2. This is an indication of an Indian CEO taking his leadership seriously and acting on it. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) Inconsistent with traditional collectivistic team cohesion Consistent with personal valorization in global competition 3.3. As Ratan Tata himself said later in the day, it was the image of a lower middle-class man on a scooter—the elder kid standing in front of the driver-father and the wife riding pillion with a baby on her lap—that kept playing on his mind. (TOI, 2008f) Consistent with traditional responsibilities to the larger collective/society and business as nation-builders Nation-building not a key role of profit-oriented business; consistent with new market opportunities exploitation mantra Entrepreneurshipd 4.1. Corus was a transaction. It got a lot of visibility but we didn't build anything. There is a different level of excitement when you are building something. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) Inconsistent with traditional policies that restrain entrepreneurship; consistent with traditional image of work as building something for society Consistent with global mantra for innovation; inconsistent with big ticket financial deals 4.2. Ratan Tata, Tata Motors, and all the suppliers and dealers deserve our thanks for rekindling the innovative spirit of India. (Prahalad, 2008) Inconsistent with traditional collectivism policies that restrained entrepreneurship; consistent with traditional responsibilities to the larger society, business as nation-builders Consistent with economic globalization and competition; nation-building not a key goal of profit-oriented business Organization–State relationse 5.1. Asked when the Singur factory would begin production, the minister said, “Work is going on at a fast pace. Why don't you go and see for yourselves?” (TOI, 2008e) Consistent with traditional close ties between organization-State Partially consistent with Western capitalist State support, but the State is rarely so identifiably linked with a company/project 5.2. “We are happy. West Bengal will benefit from the Tata's Singur project,” he told reporters. (PTI, 2008d) Consistent with traditional responsibilities to the larger collective/society Consistent with ‘business case’ of corporate social responsibility, but inconsistent at the extremity of nation-building Concepts . Examples . Traditional/‘Indian’ . Global . Inward/outward looking technological advancesa 1.1. Samco Machinery Ltd, a Canada-based roll forming system manufacturer, will supply auto parts for world's cheapest car Tata Nano…. (PTI, 2008b) Inconsistent with traditional inward-looking, import substitution policies Consistent with economic globalization 1.2. Reinventing the manufacturing process (and minimizing that as well) was one mantra to meeting the rigid six figure price point while innovative product design and packaging brought its own worth to the table. (Darukhanawala, 2008a) Consistent with traditional inward-looking innovation and import substitution and cost-cutting focus Consistent with global mantra for innovation and high-tech specialization Cost-cuttingb 2.1. … have all played small but critical roles in slashing materials costs and weight resulting in the car's fuel efficiency. (Darukhanawala, 2008c) Consistent with traditional focus on cost-cutting Consistent with global mantra for innovation and efficiency 2.2. If that isn't good value engineering, pray tell us what is, for a car that you can buy for the price of top notch TAG Heuer sports watch? (Darukhanawala, 2008b) Consistent with traditional focus on cost-cutting; inconsistent with traditional shunning of luxury products Consistent with global mantra for innovation and efficiency Collectivist/ individualistc 3.1. He praises his colleagues, takes a crack at detractors such as the Suzuki boss who had predicted in 2006 that the car wasn't possible. (TOI, 2008f) Consistent with traditional collectivistic team cohesion; inconsistent with traditional cooperation-not-competition goal Consistent with global competitiveness and team systems 3.2. This is an indication of an Indian CEO taking his leadership seriously and acting on it. (Mamgain & Athale, 2008) Inconsistent with traditional collectivistic team cohesion Consistent with personal valorization in global competition 3.3. As Ratan Tata himself said later in the day, it was the image of a lower middle-class man on a scooter—the elder kid standing in front of the driver-father and the wife riding pillion with a baby on her lap—that kept playing on his mind. (TOI, 2008f) Consistent with traditional responsibilities to the larger collective/society and business as nation-builders Nation-building not a key role of profit-oriented business; consistent with new market opportunities exploitation mantra Entrepreneurshipd 4.1. Corus was a transaction. It got a lot of visibility but we didn't build anything. There is a different level of excitement when you are building something. (Surendar & Bose, 2008) Inconsistent with traditional policies that restrain entrepreneurship; consistent with traditional image of work as building something for society Consistent with global mantra for innovation; inconsistent with big ticket financial deals 4.2. Ratan Tata, Tata Motors, and all the suppliers and dealers deserve our thanks for rekindling the innovative spirit of India. (Prahalad, 2008) Inconsistent with traditional collectivism policies that restrained entrepreneurship; consistent with traditional responsibilities to the larger society, business as nation-builders Consistent with economic globalization and competition; nation-building not a key goal of profit-oriented business Organization–State relationse 5.1. Asked when the Singur factory would begin production, the minister said, “Work is going on at a fast pace. Why don't you go and see for yourselves?” (TOI, 2008e) Consistent with traditional close ties between organization-State Partially consistent with Western capitalist State support, but the State is rarely so identifiably linked with a company/project 5.2. “We are happy. West Bengal will benefit from the Tata's Singur project,” he told reporters. (PTI, 2008d) Consistent with traditional responsibilities to the larger collective/society Consistent with ‘business case’ of corporate social responsibility, but inconsistent at the extremity of nation-building a Concept derived primarily from Table 1 markers of global collaboration and technological advancement; b Concept derived primarily from Table 1 markers of technological advancement; c Concept derived primarily from Table 1 markers of direct rivalry, global collaborations, and technological advancement, and Table 2 markers of personal valorization, team cohesion, and delivering on aspirations; d Concept derived primarily from Table 2 markers of personal valorization, team cohesion and delivering on aspirations; e Concept derived primarily from Table 3 markers of organization–State linkages and watchdog eye on the State. All examples presented in Tables 1–5 have been directly quoted, complete with any grammatical and spelling errors. Open in new tab Similarly, although collectivist notions of team cohesion and business as nation-builder represent the more traditional view, they are increasingly getting integrated with global best practices of teamwork and corporate social responsibility (Mehta et al., 2006; Som, 2002), although some tensions still remain (e.g., just how responsible should businesses really be for national development is a question companies worldwide grapple with). Again, the valorization of Ratan Tata, the celebration of entrepreneurship, and the recognition of global aspirations are related to the capitalist ideal of laissez faire and more in line with postliberalization ideals (Guha, 2008; Nilekani, 2008). Table 5 thus suggests that traditional/modern dichotomies are increasingly being reworked in the developing world, so that it makes sense for researchers, practitioners, and citizens to understand them more as local/global appropriations, operating in terms of hegemonic flows and resistances at micro-/macrolevels. Conclusion In the absence of adequate State safeguards and a conscientious media, the organization–media nexus constitutes “a clear and present danger to citizens' participation in public affairs, understanding of public issues, and thus to the effective working of democracy” (Herman & McChesney, 1998, p. 1). I have used a case study in India to show the specific strategies whereby this nexus may reify dominant interests and marginalize dissidents. Four core themes were presented: legitimizing national progress through globalization, constructing the new Indian citizen, watching the State, and reframing the dissident as antinational, all of which often work together. Finally, I suggest that a dialectical approach to globalization would be more fruitful in deconstructing the interconnectedness of State/business/media in the developing world. Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Editor Karen Ross and the anonymous reviewers for their guidance in shaping this manuscript. Thanks are also due to Drs. Radhika Gajjala and Canchu Lin of Bowling Green State University, Dr. Patrice Buzzanell of Purdue University, and John Fred Cassidy, Jr., for their invaluable comments on prior versions of this article. References AFP . ( 2008a , January 23). No plans to compete with Tata's Nano: Ford Chief. The Times of India . Retrieved April 11, 2008, from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India_Business/No_plans_to_compete_with_Tatas_Nano_Ford_chief/articleshow/2725880.cms AFP . ( 2008b , January 10). Specifications of Tata's Nano. The Times of India . 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doi: 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01088.xpmid: N/A

Karen Ross would like to thank all those colleagues who have reviewed papers for the journal over the past 3 years—mea culpa if I have left anyone out! Aakhus, Mark Abdel Barry, Wail Abrams, Jessica Adriaansen, Maud Aguayo, Angela Ajello, Georgia Albury, Kath Allan, Stuart Alleyne, Mark Alley-Young, Gordon Alozie, Emmanuel Altheide, David Alvares, Claudia Amazeen, Michelle Aririguzoh, Stella Armstrong, Cory Arthurs, Jane Artz, Lee Ashra, Nilam Atay, Ahmet Atkinson, Joshua Atton, Chris Attwood, Feona Augoustinos, Martha Auwal, Mohammad Bachen, Christine Bachmann, Ingrid Baggerman, Thom Bailey Woodward, Jennifer Baker, Brian Balabanova, Katia Balaji, Murali Banwart, Mary Christine Barker-Plummer, Bernadette Barlow, Aaron Barnett, Barbara Bates, Stephen Baumgartner, Jodie Bayrakdar, Deniz Becker, Amy Behr, Katharina-Maria Benjamin, Zachary Benson, Rodney Berdayes, Linda Bernstein, Alina Bhattacharya, Sandhya Biedendorf, Jennifer Bird, Elizabeth Bogdanic, Aleksandar Bonner, Frances Bonnstetter, Beth Boomgaarden, Hajo Booth, Tristan Borden, Diane Bounds Littlefield, Marci Bouwman, Harry Bouzon, Arlette Bouzon, Arlette Bowman, Paul Boyd-Barrett, Oliver Boykoff, Jules Boyle, Raymond Brady, Miranda Brook, Joanna Brooten, Lisa Brown, Duncan Browne, Donald Burkhardt, Stefan Burnside Lawry, Judy Burton, Simon Busby, Rudolph Butchart, Garnet Butterworth, Michael Buzzanell, Patrice Byerly, Carolyn Cabanes, Jason Vincent Caidi, Nadia Cammaerts, Bart Campbell, Heidi Campbell, Scott Canaparo, Claudio Cao, Xiaoxia Carpentier, Nico Carroll, William Carstarphen, Meta Carter, Cynthia Casper, Mary Frances Cavaglion, Gabriel Chanan, Michael Chang, Yanrong Chavez, Karma Chiang, Chih-Yun Chishala, Francis Chitnis, Ketan Christensen, Miyase Christie, Thomas Clarke, Debra Clarke, Juanne Clegg-Smith, Katherine Click, Melissa Clifford, Sadie Cohen, Jonathan Cohen-Almagor, Raphael Coleman, Elizabeth Collins, Sue Comella, Lynn Connolly-Ahearn, Colleen Consalvo, Mia Correa, Teresa Correia, Joao Cottle, Simon Cottle, Simon Covarrubias, Patricia Craig, Brett Craig, Robert Cranny-Francis, Anne Cravatte, Celine Cuklanz, Lisa Dabbish, Laura Dahlberg, Lincoln Dauncey, Sarah Davis, Amanda Davis, Carolyn Davis, Hugh de Beer, Arrie de Bruin, Marjan de Vreese, Claese Dempsey, Sarah D’Enbeau, Suzy Denham, Bryan Denzin, Norman DeShields, Inte'a dHaenens, Leen Dicks, Bella DiPaolo, Marc dos Santos, Suzy Douglas, Susan Downing, John Drummond, Darlene Dryzek, John Dudrah, Rajinder Duffy, Brooke Duffy, Margaret Durham, Meenakshi Dutta, Mohan Eguchi, Shinsuke Elving, Wim Erjavec, Karmen Esser, Frank Farooqi, Naeema Feldman, Lauren Felkheimer, Jesper Fenton, Natalie Ferguson, Sherry Ferreras Rodríguez, José Gabriel Fischer, Ann Forman, Abbe Foss, Katherine Foss, Sonja Foss-Snowden, Michele Franklin, Marianne Frayley, Todd Fridkin, Kim Friedman, Barbara Frith, Katherine Froehlich, Romy Fuchs, Christian Fuchs, Thomas Fuller, Linda Gajjala, Radhika Garman, Anthea Geiger, Richard Georgiou, Myria Geraghty, Christine Gibson, Timothy Gidengil, Elisabeth Gil, Isabel Gill, Rosalind Gillespie, Marie Gillespie, Tarleton Gilmour, Deneen Glynn, 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Kavita Kaur, Kiranjit Keeble, Richard Kenix, Linda Jean Keren, Michael Kerkhof, Peter Kern, Rebecca Kerr, Aphra Khalil, Joe King, Paul Kiousis, Spiro Kitch, Carolyn Kitzenger, Jenny Kjus, Yngvar Kleimann, Matthias Klein, Adam Knieper, Thomas Koeman, Joyce Korn, Alina Kraidy, Marwan Kumar, Keeval Lachover, Einat Lahav, Hagar LaMarre, Heather Langmia, Kehbuma LaPastina, Antonio Law, Ian Lawrence, Karina Lee, Anita Lehman-Wilzig, Sam Leitch, Thomas Leurdijk, Andra Li, Hongmei Limakka, Satu Lipari, Lisbeth Livingstone, Sonia Lockyer, Sharon Louw, Eric Ludden, David Macau, Josina Machin, David Malik, Sarita Manjikian, Mary Mano, Winston Mansell, Robin Marinho, Sandra Markman, Kris Marshall, David Martinez, Katynka Mastin, Teresa Matar, Dina Matusitz, Jonathan Mayer, Vicki Mazierska, Ewa Mazzoleni, Gianpetro McIlwain, Charlton McLaughlin, Eugene McMurria, John McQuail, Denis Medhurst, Andy Merskin, Debra Meyers, Erin Meyers, Marian Mihailidis, Paul Miller, Monica Miller Loggins, Ginger 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