The media introduce social movements to the masses, but how do social movements make it into the media? Among environmental groups, “there’s this small number of organizations that really capture the lion’s share of attention,” says Kenneth Andrews, associate professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And they aren’t the flashy, controversial ones you might expect.
Although most researchers study issues and organizations that already have made a big splash, Andrews and his coauthor sampled all the environmental organizations in North Carolina and then read all the coverage that those 187 groups received in 11 major daily newspapers over a two-year period. “Our sample includes everything from grassroots, completely volunteer-run groups, to groups with a dozen or more staff who are working full time for the organization,” Andrews says. By far the most attention went to the more professional and formalized organizations, which used routine advocacy tactics and worked on issues with which reporters were familiar.
The results for environmental groups echo findings in other relatively mature and stable sectors of social movement activism. Among civil rights groups, “the one that dominates media coverage over the course of the 20th century is the NAACP,” Andrews says. “There are more radical groups and more radical tactics that come and go, but the groups that have long-standing relationships to the media have a kind of legitimacy that makes them the obvious one to turn to when [reporters] are trying to understand what’s happening.” A confrontational organization can stage an occupation of a state building and call the paper, but coverage is steadier when the paper’s calling you.
It’s the professional organizations where employees find themselves answering the phone. “Reporters call Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) because of its science and economics and law expertise,” says Georgette Foster, North Carolina media director for EDF, one of the most heavily cited organizations in Andrews’s study. “The EDF strength in creating marketbased solutions is something that reporters respect and trust.”
EDF’s position at the intersection of environment and economy is also important to its media success. “It’s partly what the groups do that makes them effective, but it’s partly what the media care about that allows them to be effective,” says Andrews. Local papers will write about local economic and political issues, and an awareness of this coverage can help small movements gain visibility.
New organizations with fewer resources can promote themselves by “figuring out where the media already are, in a very practical sense, whether that’s at city council meetings or at other kinds of community events,” Andrews says. They should ask themselves: “What are the things that routinely get covered in the news, and what are the ways to make an organization’s events or agendas relevant?”
Kenneth T. Andrews and Neal Caren, “Making the News: Movement Organizations, Media Attention, and the Public Agenda,” American Sociological Review, 75, 2010.
Read more stories by Jessica Ruvinsky.