Richard A. Pride

How activists and media frame social problems: Critical events versus performance trends for schools

This article focuses on the process by which a social problem is redefined in response to a critical event. Critical events are contextually dramatic happenings, such as economic depressions, environmental disasters, intense physical confrontations, strategic initiatives by a social movement organization, or new public policies. A critical event focuses public attention, which is itself a scarce resource in the claims‐making process. It invites the collective definition or redefinition of a social problem when movement activists, media operatives, and others compete over the meaning assigned to the issues evoked. A redefining critical event occurs when the perception of reality surrounding movement issues shifts markedly among elites and mass publics. In a case in Nashville, TN, for example, a tax‐increase referendum became a redefining event when conservative movement operatives successfully shifted “the problem” of the schools from issues of distributive justice to issues of efficient production. The pu...

Symbol Analysis of Network Coverage of Laos Incursion

Many prominent political leaders and broadcast journalists believe that the network evening news programs occupy an immensely important place in the American political system. The two groups often disagree sharply, however, over questions of objectivity, scope of coverage and editorial procedures. The confrontation between these protagonists in recent years is set against a background of an almost total absence of scholarly literature on the actual con-

Race Relations in Television News: A Content Analysis of the Networks

Study shows three networks did not operate uniformly in racial coverage from 1968 to 1970. NBC put more emphasis on race issue than the other two networks.