Framed!

Christopher R. Martin argues that the mainstream news media (and the large corporations behind them) put the labor movement in a bad light even while avoiding the appearance of bias. Martin has found that the news media construct &quote;common ground&quote; narratives between labor and management positions by reporting on labor relations from a consumer perspective.Martin identifies five central storytelling frames using this consumer orientation that repeatedly emerged in the news media coverage of major labor stories in the 1990s: the 1991-94 shutdown of the General Motors Willow Run Assembly Plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan; the 1993 American Airlines flight attendant strike; the 1994-95 Major League Baseball strike, the 1997 United Parcel Service strike, and the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization's conference in Seattle.In Martin's view, the news media's consumer &quote;take&quote; on the labor movement has the effect of submerging issues of citizenship, political activity, and class relations, and elevating issues of consumption and the myth of a class-free America. Instead of facilitating a public sphere, the democratic ideal in which the public can engage in discovery and rational-critical debate, Martin says, news organizations have fostered a consumer sphere, in which public discourse and action is defined in terms of consumer interests-the impact of strikes, lock-outs, shut-downs, and protests on the general consumer economy and the price, quality, and availability of things such as automobiles, airline flights, and baseball tickets.