Framed!: labor and the corporate media

Abstract

Framed: Labor and the Corporate Media. Christopher R. Martin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. 262 pp. $45 hbk. $19.95 pbk. The decline of coverage related to labor and unions in the media has been well documented in both academic journals and mainstream publications. During the past forty years, many newspapers and magazines have dropped labor as a full-time beat, instead spending their time covering other business-related or believing that coverage of issues accomplished the same goal for their readers. In Framed: Labor and the Corporate Media, author Christopher R. Martin takes our understanding of how the media have ignored labor and union coverage a step further by persuasively arguing that stories of major labor since the early 1990s have been framed as while ignoring the actual concerns of the union workforce. As labor reporting stands today, it is a minor part of the field of business journalism despite the fact that 12.9% of all working people in the United States belong to a union, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor. That percentage is down from a high in the 1950s, when approximately one-third of all workers belonged to some union. The decline in overall union membership has led to the closure of hundreds of labor publications, including the 2002 demise of the Racine Labor, a newspaper in Wisconsin that existed for sixty years and provided an alternative to the local newspaper. And while the mainstream media have been criticized for ignoring good labor stories, there has not been any movement to add coverage. Martin argues that the framing of labor coverage in the United States occurs through five means: (1) The consumer is king; (2) The process of production is none of the public's business; (3) The economy is driven by great business leaders and entrepreneurs; (4) The workplace is a meritocracy; and (5) Collective economic action is bad. In addition, he notes that corporate ownership of most media has led to a hostile relationship between unions and media outlets. The author, a communication studies professor at the University of Northern Iowa, assesses how the three major television networks, LfSA Today, and the New York Times covered five major labor in the 1990s: the closing of a General Motors plant in Michigan, the American Airlines flight attendant strike, the 1994-95 baseball strike, the United Parcel Service strike, and the World Trade Organization protests. In each case, the media's coverage predominantly focused on the effects on consumers and ignored the working conditions of employees. …

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