TY - JOUR
T1 - Making the Tea Party Republican
T2 - Media Bias and Framing in Newspapers and Cable News
AU - Rafail, Patrick
AU - McCarthy, John D.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Southern Sociological Society 2018.
PY - 2018/10/1
Y1 - 2018/10/1
N2 - Research on the Tea Party emphasizes the role of Fox News in magnifying the movement’s early successes. Fox News is credited with legitimizing the Tea Party’s grievances, allowing the movement to make rapid inroads into the Republican Party. We argue that such depictions of the Tea Party’s relationship to the Republican Party are at least partially the product of an oversimplified media narrative emphasizing the seamless integration of the two. We analyze 201,678 media documents from blog posts from Tea Party organizations, Fox News, MSNBC, and 785 newspapers. Our results show marked differences between how the Tea Party frames itself compared with other media sources frame the movement. MSNBC and Fox News discuss the Tea Party strategically, respectively, treating the movement as representing the worst and best aspects of the Republican Party. This is in stark contrast to how the activists frame the movement as conservative, but not strictly Republican, and often in conflict with the goals of the Republican Party.
AB - Research on the Tea Party emphasizes the role of Fox News in magnifying the movement’s early successes. Fox News is credited with legitimizing the Tea Party’s grievances, allowing the movement to make rapid inroads into the Republican Party. We argue that such depictions of the Tea Party’s relationship to the Republican Party are at least partially the product of an oversimplified media narrative emphasizing the seamless integration of the two. We analyze 201,678 media documents from blog posts from Tea Party organizations, Fox News, MSNBC, and 785 newspapers. Our results show marked differences between how the Tea Party frames itself compared with other media sources frame the movement. MSNBC and Fox News discuss the Tea Party strategically, respectively, treating the movement as representing the worst and best aspects of the Republican Party. This is in stark contrast to how the activists frame the movement as conservative, but not strictly Republican, and often in conflict with the goals of the Republican Party.
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U2 - 10.1177/2329496518759129
DO - 10.1177/2329496518759129
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85052744332
SN - 2329-4965
VL - 5
SP - 421
EP - 437
JO - Social Currents
JF - Social Currents
IS - 5
ER -