Chris M. Messer

How Family Members Stay in Touch: A Quantitative Investigation of Core Family Networks

Traditionally, peoples closest family members resided locally where face-to-face interaction was the predominant mode of communication. Today, in addition to face-to-face visits, one can use a landline telephone, cellular telephone, or any number of the computer-mediated communications such as e-mail. This article explores the modes of communication people use most with their three closest family members with a particular emphasis on how mode of communication may vary by three factors: (1) family member locality, (2) physical distance of the family member, and (3) frequency of communication. The results from a 2005 random sample mail survey show that e-mail has become an important tool in maintaining core familial social networks, especially when these family members live outside the local area. The impacts of computer-mediated communications on the maintenance of familial networks and resulting social capital are addressed.

CORPORATE FRAME FAILURE AND THE EROSION OF ELITE LEGITIMACY

Extant research on official frames centers on state campaigns, yet nonstate entities also utilize their own official frames. We extend the existing social movement literature by examining the unsuccessful framing efforts of a uranium mill in Cañon City, Colorado. Despite a history of environmental contamination and resultant health problems, the corporation deployed an official frame to reestablish the companys legitimacy and justify their actions following the controversy. Our data included newspaper coverage, archival documents, in-depth interviews, and direct observation. Findings highlight critical factors that can undermine corporate official frames, and show that failed framing efforts can ultimately erode elite legitimacy.

Power, Quiescence, and Pollution: The Suppression of Environmental Grievances

The number of communities dealing with industrial pollution in the United States has increased dramatically over the past three decades. Environmental campaigns have consequentially emerged and so has research on successful mobilizing efforts. A gap remains, however, on cases where mobilization fails to materialize. In this article, we develop a typology of power’s multidimensional nature in an effort to address mechanisms by which elites prompt quiescence in the face of grievous injustice. We then analyze a case in point, Blackwell, Oklahoma—a community contaminated with lead, zinc, and cadmium from a decommissioned zinc smelter facility—and the proactive and coercive methods used to maintain local quiescence. Despite assurances that the community had been successfully remediated in the mid-1990s, residents learned in 2006 that environmental pollution continued to emanate from the facility. Our data come from in-depth interviews with community residents and city officials, participant observation, and document analysis. Findings highlight forms of control employed to keep citizens quiescent and to thwart the efforts of more vocal residents in the community.

Official Frames and Corporate Environmental Pollution

This paper examines a contentious environmental dispute surrounding a decommissioned zinc smelter facility in Blackwell, Oklahoma. The environmental conflict stems from potential health effects associated with lead, cadmium, and arsenic contamination. The company that owns the former zinc smelter facility argues that they are in compliance with all environmental health and safety standards and city residents praise their ongoing remediation efforts. Based on in-depth interviews, observation, and thematic content analysis, we examine the companys establishment of an official frame to characterize their role in the environmental case. This frame is based on corporate citizenship, the diffusion of responsibility, and the multiplicity of contamination sources. We examine the salience of this frame within the broader community and address challenges to the official frame by local community activists. The results of the study indicate that local community residents are at a tremendous disadvantage when challenging large corporate polluters.

Mass Media and Governmental Framing of Riots The Case of Tulsa, 1921

This research extends the theoretical concept of framing to the phenomenon of race riots using the Tulsa riot of 1921 as a case study. Media accounts of this riot published during 1921 illustrate both prognostic and diagnostic framing strategies and techniques and demonstrate how these processes affected official responses. Results of this research suggest that framing is a critical process associated with media and organizational representation of riots. Analyses indicate that the riot was officially attributed to an armed group of Black citizens whose goal was to protect one of its community members from a potential lynching. However, Black residents framed the riot differently in statements of their account of the events. A recurrent theme for both races and a number of media reports was that of inept and incompetent law enforcement officials. The authors suggest that prognostic solutions to riots (e.g., police strategies and tactics and reconciliatory attempts) are rooted in diagnostic assessments.

Corporate Responses to Claims of Environmental Misconduct: The Case of Phelps Dodge and Blackwell, Oklahoma

Drawing from fieldwork and thematic content analysis, we examine corporate responses to allegations of environmental misconduct surrounding a decommissioned zinc smelter plant in Blackwell, Oklahoma. Environmental grievances center on health effects associated with exposures to lead, cadmium, and arsenic and local activists charge the responsible company, Phelps Dodge, with pandering to local city officials and state regulatory agencies. Local citizens and their lawyers accuse the company of compromising public health and environmental safety by conducting improper soil samples and neglecting proper cleanup of resident homes and public spaces. Findings indicate that Phelps Dodge responded to charges of organizational misconduct by engaging in a strategic campaign of organizational impression management that included the development of a “good neighbor campaign,” the establishment of a community outreach program to promote their voluntary environmental remediation efforts, and the diffusion of responsibility through the identification of alternative exposure scenarios.

Movement–Countermovement Dynamics in a Land Use Controversy

Recent studies have highlighted the ways in which activism can be suppressed in democratizing nations, yet much of this work tends to be state centered. Our research examines the role that private actors play in the repression of environmental activism in post-socialist Czech Republic. Following the 1989 collapse of the communist regime, the environmental movement experienced a brief period of widespread public support, which quickly gave way to anti-environmental trends and the general vilification of environmental activists. Drawing from indepth interview data, newspaper coverage, and direct observation, we analyze a contentious highway bypass controversy around the city of Plzeň. Results indicate that environmentalists have been forced to contend not only with political hostility, but also with organized forms of public opposition from an anti-environmentalist countermovement organization.

The legacy of lead pollution: (dis)trust in science and the debate over Superfund

ABSTRACT Lead contamination is a significant health hazard in communities around the world, but this environmental toxin often remains unknown to residents living near hazardous sites. This research investigates a unique case where residents were informed of lead contamination but rejected official and scientific narratives regarding environmental risks. The case study involves a decommissioned smelter in Colorado. Drawing from data collected over three years, the researchers examine how officials and experts communicated the severity of environmental health hazards. Despite these efforts, residents opposed the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempts to place the site on the National Priorities List for federal cleanup. The government’s framing of science and environmental risk failed to resonate with homeowners, despite the known and significant scientific evidence confirming environmental health hazards, and residents’ perceptions of lead contamination were mitigated by material concerns, including property values and community stigma. Implications for future research on lead contamination, environmental risk, and trust in science are discussed.

The enduring color line in U.S. athletics

Series Forward Preface Acknowledgments 1. The Color Line in Athletics 2. The Native-American Experience: Racism and Mascots in Professional Sports 3. Hispanics, Beisbol, and the American Dream 4. Black Athletics: Golden Opportunity? 5. When the Crowd Stops Cheering: Negotiating the Transition 6. Future Directions in Race and Sport Participation References Glossary / Index

Official Frames and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921: The Struggle for Reparations

Movements that seek reparations against racial injustices must confront historic narratives of events and patterns of repression. These injustices are often legitimated through official narratives that discredit and vilify racial groups. This paper analyzes elite official frames in the case of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, in which an economically thriving African American neighborhood was destroyed. Our research examines the official frames that were promulgated by white elites in defending the violent repression and analyzes the ongoing efforts by reparations proponents to seek redress. We delineate the discursive mechanisms used by proponents to challenge the dominant white narrative of the riot and to campaign for reparations. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research for future research on racial injustices and reparations movements.