University of Florida Thesis Or Dissertation Formatting

FRAMING ABORTION: LOCAL, NATIONAL AND TWITTER COVERAGE OF SB5 IN TEXAS

DARLENA CUNHA

A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN MASS COMMUNICATION

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2015

To my family

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank my husband, my twin daughters, my mother, my advisor and my committee.

Their continued support in my life adventures are the reason I am able to advance my life in so many ways, and one paragraph does not suffice as proper gratitude.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 4

LIST OF TABLES ...... 7

LIST OF FIGURES ...... 8

ABSTRACT ...... 9

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 11

2 LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 20

Abortion in the News ...... 20 Court Cases and Legislation ...... 20 Media Effects ...... 21 Senate Bill 5 ...... 22 The Role of New Media and Blogging ...... 24 The News Shift ...... 24 Micro-Blogging ...... 25 Twitter ...... 26 Statistics ...... 26 How Twitter Works ...... 28 Who Uses Twitter ...... 31 Organizations and Twitter ...... 32 Twitter and the Public ...... 33 Twitter and Journalists ...... 34 Gatekeeping ...... 37 Gatewatching ...... 38 Blending Roles ...... 41 The Difference in Gatekeeping Roles Between Elite Publications and Other Publications ...... 42 Agenda Setting ...... 44 Agenda Setting and Twitter ...... 45 Second-Level Agenda Setting ...... 47 Framing ...... 48 Framing and Abortion ...... 50 Framing in Traditional Media ...... 51 Framing and Twitter ...... 52 Framing, Gatewatching and Agenda Setting ...... 53 Conclusion ...... 54 Research Questions ...... 55

3 METHODS ...... 57

4 RESULTS ...... 63

R1: How Do Traditional Newspapers Differ from Twitter in Terms of Message Amplification and Agenda Setting? ...... 63 R2: What Were the Most Popular and Least Popular Frames in Each of the Three Populations Analyzed (Local Newspapers, National Newspapers and Twitter)?...... 69 R3: Which Medium Covers a Breaking News Event First: Local News, National News or Twitter? ...... 76 R4a: How Much Twitter Coverage Is Produced by 1) Companies or Organizations, 2) Journalists, 3) Activists, 4) Regular Users? ...... 78 R4b: Does the Amount of Coverage from Different Sets of People on Twitter Increase or Decline as the Week Goes on? ...... 79 R5a: What Type of Information Are the Twitter Gatewatchers Disseminating? (Information, Statements of Opinion, Links, Images or Videos, Conversation, Call to Action)? Did This Change throughout the Week? ...... 80 R5b: Which Type of Information Did Each Group Share the Most? ...... 84 R6: Which Frames Were Most Popular when Judged by Retweets? Which Frames Were Most Popular when Judged by Favorites? ...... 86 R7: Did the Frames Used Change in Local News, National News or on Twitter after The Catalyst Event (The Filibuster), in Total or Within Certain Groups?...... 90

5 DISCUSSION ...... 102

R1: The Difference between Newspaper Coverage and Twitter Coverage ...... 102 R2: Popular Frames Used During Coverage of SB 5 ...... 105 R3: The Timing of Coverage across Local Newspapers, National Newspapers and Twitter ...... 106 R4, R5: The Type of Information Disseminated on Twitter throughout the Week by Different Categories of People ...... 107 R6: Messages Amplified by Retweets and Favorites ...... 108 R7: Frame Changes throughout the Research Period ...... 109 Conclusion ...... 111

REFERENCES ...... 112

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 124

LIST OF TABLES

Table page

4-1 Number of times an SB5 story was used in local coverage ...... 65

4-2 Number of followers per Twitter user in sample ...... 67

4-3 Political and medical frames in total newspaper sample ...... 71

4-4 Pro-abortion vs. anti-abortion frames in total newspaper sample ...... 72

4-5 Political and medical frames in local versus national coverage ...... 73

4-6 Pro and anti-abortion frames in local versus national coverage ...... 74

4-7 Frames present in Twitter coverage ...... 75

4-8 Percentage of types of tweets by each user category ...... 85

4-9 Percentage of type of tweet per group category ...... 86

4-10 Number of retweets for each frame presented ...... 89

4-11 Number of favorites for each frame presented ...... 90

4-12 Change in political and medical frames in all newspaper coverage after filibuster ...... 91

4-13 Change in pro-abortion and anti-abortion frames in all newspaper coverage after filibuster ...... 92

4-14 Change in political and medical frames before and after the filibuster locally versus nationally...... 93

4-15 Change in anti and pro-abortion frames before and after the filibuster locally versus nationally...... 94

4-16 Change in tweet frames during sample time ...... 95

4-17 Change in organizations’ tweet frames during sample time ...... 96

4-18 Change in journalists’ tweet frames during sample time ...... 97

4-19 Change in activists’ tweet frames during sample time ...... 98

4-20 Change in normal users’ tweet frames during sample time ...... 99

4-21 Change in tweet frames pre-filibuster vs. post-filibuster ...... 100

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure page

4-1 Percentage of frames on Twitter vs. in traditional newspapers ...... 76

4-2 Percentage of Twitter coverage vs. traditional media coverage over time ...... 77

4-3 Percentage of local vs. national print coverage over time ...... 78

4-4 Percentage of tweets from different types of users ...... 79

4-5 Percentage of tweets per grouping over time ...... 80

4-6 Percentage of tweet types...... 82

4-7 Total percentage of types of tweets per over time ...... 83

4-8 Separate percentages of types of tweets over time ...... 84

Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Mass Communication

FRAMING ABORTION: LOCAL, NATIONAL AND TWITTER COVERAGE OF SB5 IN TEXAS

Darlena Cunha

December 2015

Chair: Debbie Treise Major: Mass Communication

This study compares and contrasts the treatment of news stories across local and national traditional newspapers and Twitter. It explores how coverage of one specific bill in Texas

(Senate Bill 5, which regards abortion restrictions within the state) was framed across media and whether those frames changed over time with the introduction of a catalyst newsworthy event (a filibuster within the Texas Senate). It further explores how different groups (organizations, journalists, activists and regular users) are using Twitter as audience participation in journalism continues to evolve.

By examining the changing roles of gatekeepers within the media, agenda setting and framing, this study looks at how Twitter fits into the morphing media landscape and how these traditional theories are being applied to new media. This is achieved via content analysis of news stories and tweets over a nine-day period during Texas’s first special session in June of 2013.

Findings show that while Twitter covers news on the ground as it breaks, the traditional roles of journalists so far remain intact as Twitter involves more opinion statement and less neutral information than traditional news stories, meaning its coverage is more obviously framed.

Twitter also continues to take its cues from traditional newspapers, changing its purpose from

reporting breaking events to linking traditional news stories as time goes on, keeping the gatekeeping and agenda setting roles secure.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

Abortion is a heated topic shrouded in personal feelings, morals, ethics and religion. The debate stems out of human rights, and whose rights are more important—that of the mother or the fetus. Government regulation of abortion has been hotly contested since long before Roe v.

Wade, but in this new age of online communication, debates surrounding the issue have only gotten more polarized, in part due to the medium, according to Somasundaran and Wiebe (2010).

In the case of the death of Texas Senate Bill 5, Internet coverage was largely the only option available for people seeking news coverage. The legislation and debate surrounding it was largely ignored by mass media until a catalyst event (an 11-hour filibuster) had already ended. In the interim, social media including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook accounts, in addition to online news aggregates such as The Huffington Post and The Daily Kos, provided live coverage of the unfolding events on the senate floor (Dykes, 2013, June 26).

The issue of abortion and its subsequent coverage in the news has caused a lively debate for decades. The subject itself is mired in morality, religion, human rights issues (on both the side of the women and the side of the unborn), and politics. It has a long and rich political history including Supreme Court cases and health care legislation, among others. While abortion itself is far too broad a topic to handle in a single research paper, in the case of this study, we can look at specific cases of abortion legislation coverage to get an idea of how newspapers cover them, and which frames and framing devices are at play in that coverage.

This study is important because frames can affect the way the public views an issue.

While the Texas legislature largely supported SB 5 (along party lines), voting to pass it 19-10 in a subsequent special session, the coverage of the bill and the filibuster was strongly anti- legislation, particularly online, which is where the story received the most and the quickest

coverage. Mass media only really began printing stories about the filibuster and protest the day

after it had occurred. Meanwhile, almost 200,000 people watched the Senate stream live on

YouTube (Tomlinson, 2013, June 29), and a great number of them produced their own media in

the form of tweets, blogs and social media updates, which were then picked up by online

aggregates such as The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast and Jezebel. As more and more people

are getting their news online from such sources, they can no longer be discounted, and can be

studied as cases of deliberate or accidental framing (Metzger, Flanagin, Eyal, Lemus, &

McCann, 2003).

In our politically diverse nation, the media can play a large part in telling people what to think about. According to theories on agenda setting, the media increase accessibility to particular issues and limit accessibility to others (Price & Tewksbury, 1997), and framing theory asserts that the media tell people how to think about those issues by increasing construct applicability to those accessible issues (Price & Tewksbury, 1997). In terms of over-arching political and moral issues such as abortion, these theories are critical in that how people think about an issue has been shown to be influenced by framing techniques (Price, Tewksbury &

Powers, 1997).

Therefore, if media frame abortion, for example, as a political sticking point, the stories will look different than if media framed the issue as an ethical debate, and different still if it has been framed as a medical debate. The context in which people read about facts and figures can affect the audience’s interpretation of those facts and figures (Brewer, 2002), which explains why framing may be used in these instances. Local media may use different frames from national media, as the stories affect their citizens on a different level, and their citizens may be considered a more niche audience with different needs and understandings of ethics, politics and procedures.

Online media frames may be different still, as the information passes through no gatekeeper, and it is up to the message receiver to suss out any slants or biases in information reporting.

Newsroom managers are paid to curate news, filtering the most important stories to their audience at breakneck speed, but with the Internet and social media, instances of 'being scooped' are on the rise.

In the case of SB 5 in Texas, a political piece took new life as a human interest story, broken first primarily by media consumers who cobbled bits and pieces of the story together from various sources using various devices. These users combined the forces of Twitter,

YouTube, alternate online newspapers (The Texas Tribune), Facebook and other social media streams to update each other on what was happening moment-by-moment during democratic

Sen. Wendy Davis’ filibuster of this bill, essentially getting rid of the traditional gatekeepers.

Of course, any media, be it online or professional mass media, will tend to cover issues such as abortion only if there is some event, legislation, political upheaval, or judicial ruling that acts as a catalyst. (Ho, Brossard, & Scheufele, 2008). This study, therefore, looks at the original bill, SB5, which “would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and force many clinics that perform the procedure to upgrade their facilities and be classified as ambulatory surgical centers.

Also, doctors would be required to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles”

(Tomlinson, 2013, June 29).

The legislation was largely contested by Democrats during the state’s first special session, to the point where on June 25, 2013, Senator Wendy Davis (D-TX) filibustered for 11 hours against it, the following protest and upheaval lasted the remaining two hours, forcing

Republicans to declare the bill dead at 3 a.m. on June 26, subsequently creating a media buzz, both locally and throughout the nation.

This study, therefore, looks at that one piece of legislation which eventually passed

through the legislature in Texas in July of 2013. It had several objectives concerning women’s

reproductive health and rights, and included the legislature’s acceptance that a fetus can

experience pain by 20 weeks’ gestation. This indicated to certain legislators a “compelling state

interest in protecting the lives of unborn children” (Hegar, 2013). It also strove to differentiate

between the protection of those lives at the point where they feel pain versus the point where a

life outside the womb is viable, and restricted the right to an elective abortion at and after that

20-week mark (Hegar, 2013).

This study examines the different frames used to cover this issue in newspapers locally and nationally, and compares those frames to those used online. In many cases, frames work by increasing or decreasing salience of certain elements of a story (Entman, 1991). We’re looking to see which elements of this abortion legislation were emphasized in local newspaper coverage, national level coverage, and on Twitter, and which elements were treated diminutively. If there are differences in the coverage, that could indicate a reliance on the larger cultural schema of a given area, and show how media messages that are essentially pegged to one-time events can shape or maintain current thinking.

The news coverage of SB5 was remarkable in that news consumers were not content with the piecemeal story they were able to create themselves. They cried for professional media help, but felt largely ignored until at least the next day. This shows that there has never been a more important time to study the influence social media is having on news outlets, and how the two might better work together in the future. To this end, we study the changing roles of gatekeeping and agenda setting as mass media makes room for new media in its news model.

Unlike the wilds of social media where amateurs can spread information or opinion

without being held accountable, and where the news is not necessarily tied to a bottom line of a

company trying to compete in the ever-shrinking financial market of journalism, professional news outlets have protocol that must be followed, not to mention a firm hierarchy of people through which decisions must be meted. Some scholars point to the “political economy” approach to news, noting that “the basic definition of the situation which underpins the news reporting of political events, very largely coincides with the definition by the legitimated power holders” (Murdock, 1973, pg. 158). Journalists, of course, balk at this approach, as it is in their very job descriptions that they are to be as objective and non-partisan as possible (Schudson,

1989). Still, a news organization has many partners to please, including advertisers, readers and publishers, whereas social media content producers need please no one, provided they are not working for a professional outlet. For a story to be news “fit to print” (New York Times), it must contain not only what has happened, but how it happened and how the reporter came to know it happened (Schudson, 1989).

In terms of the vast differences in emphasis in the SB 5 coverage between online sources and mass media sources, it would seem that Gieber was not too far off in 1964 when he said,

“news is what newspapermen make it” (pg. 173). These differences call to question the changing importance of “credibility” to the general public.

Still, studies have found that journalists take their roles of impartiality seriously, and are not so much liberal or conservative leaning, as apolitical (Robinson & Sheehan, 1983), so that any political frames noted may not be the case of specific or institutional bias, but rather that

“news is not a report on a factual world; news is a depletable human product that must be made fresh on a daily basis” (Tuchman, 1978, pg. 179).

The journalists and their managers can consider themselves gatekeepers, meaning they

decide which news stories run and where they run, giving the audience a pre-produced package

of meaning (Schudson, 1989). According to Gieber, the gatekeepers are not practicing politics

when they perform this role. Instead they are concerned with “goals of production, bureaucratic

routine, and interpersonal relations within the newsroom” (1964, pg. 175). But Schudson says

this oversimplifies the issue, as gatekeepers don’t just select the news, but also construct it

(1989), which perhaps outlines the difference between gatekeeping as traditionally known, and

curating as applied to online news aggregates. In this, gatekeeping versus curating, we may find

the difference between mainstream, professional journalism and online, participant-produced, interactive news spread.

The online world is a world of fascinating news. News that says nothing, but says it in a way that makes multitudes of people click on links, as advertisers struggle to find a viable model of commercialism amid the cat videos and ‘listicles’. It’s a world where credibility has vanished, at least for the time being. And as mass media struggle to keep up, strapping an engine to a horse, as it were (Kramer, 2010), they, too, dabble in mixing entertainment with straight news, changing headlines to sensationalize or aggrandize a topic and boiling important issues down to their barest, most simplistic components (Kramer, 2010). The difference, of course, is that media outlets are held to a different level of accountability than bloggers and online aggregators, and they risk that already shaky credibility by overblowing their news haul.

It is not just news that is suffering a credibility crisis. In a recent poll, people reported they were now more likely to trust a person of their own life experience than a CEO of a company or any other ‘expert’ (Howard, 2012). But it might not be that the old models are failing us, more that the models are changing. How a news director or manager uses the new

credibility and the new media to help his or her news media business could be the difference

between success and failure through this tumultuous time.

In constructing the news, whether the core tenets are production goals or politics, media

organizations can set the agenda for the viewer by “defining problems worthy of public and

government attention” (Entman, 2007, pg. 164). According to McCombs and Ghanem in 2001,

agenda setting brings the causes of problems to light and encourages the public to think about

certain issues above other issues, which can in turn promote certain policies over others.

If this is true, news managers may, in fact, wield great power in not only telling stories

about the past, but changing the future through those stories. As Du asks, “if media set the public

agenda, then who sets the media agenda?” (2013, pg. 19). Since McCombs and Shaw conducted

their original agenda-setting research in 1972, hundreds of subsequent research has studied the

phenomenon. One of the more recent outcroppings of this research is intermedia agenda setting,

which attempts to answer the question posed above. According to McCombs in 2004, news

media do interact with each other (as we can see in the SB 5 case, where Internet media and mass

media collide), and further these interactions can shape the agenda of the media themselves.

This study branches out into new ground by considering the framing in online stories as

compared to those in mass media. As McLuhan says, “the personal and social consequences of

any medium—that is, of any extension of ourselves—results from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology” (2008, pg.

390). If any medium could be defined as an extension of ourselves (as McLuhan describes all media), it would surely be the Internet, given its capabilities for audience-produced messages to breech mainstream culture through digital sharing.

Given abortion’s contentious history in America, and its ties to religious and moral

beliefs, it is easy to argue that any media framing study looking at an abortion issue would have

to consider double frames, or frames on two levels. In Entman’s study of framing of two catalyst

events during the Cold War (1991), he had to account for national ingrained feeling and

knowledge about the ongoing dialogue of the Cold War, in addition to studying the schema-

specific frames of the two news stories (a U.S. shooting of an Iranian Air plane, and the Soviet

shooting of a Korean airline). Beliefs and ideologies about abortion are embedded into the fiber

of our society, so the overarching frames with which people in Texas have been brought up to

believe about abortion may come into play as the papers there cover the issue. Larger cultural

frames concerning abortion across the country very likely differ from those in Texas, a

conservative, southern state. Will the media’s schema-specific frames during their coverage of

the events reflect the larger, cultural frames across the nation?

The study aims to test the statement that the nature of each particular societal action

invites its own frames, based on location and the inherent beliefs of the people in that area,

politics, and the like (Scheufele, 2000) by contrasting local, national and online frames used to

cover this catalyst event—the filibuster.

Therefore, this study aims to find the main frames used by local and national newspapers during SB5 coverage and compare them to those used by online social media. The analysis uses a large sample of local Texas newspapers and four national papers (The New York Times, The

Washington Post, USA Today, and The L.A. Times) to see what frames were used in the reporting of this event. It examines also the amount of coverage and/or lack of coverage of the legislation.

In addition, it looks at coverage before the filibuster and after the filibuster, in an attempt to chart which frames were used in regard to abortion in Texas during that special session, and how those

frames changed over time in reaction to the catalyst event. It then compares and contrasts these findings in terms of local versus national coverage to determine any differences in framing and agenda setting by the media.

Further, it then examines and compares the traditional media framing, and amount and timing of coverage of the legislation, to Twitter coverage of the event. The comparison of the frames used by all three will be used to determine if the medium did, in fact, enhance or change the message during coverage of this bill.

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Abortion in the News

Abortion has always been an important topic in American politics, but in recent years as court cases continue to pile up and critiques of the policies in place come from both sides of the aisle, it remains salient in the minds of the general public.

Court Cases and Legislation

In 1973, states lost the right to restrict women’s access to abortion during the first trimester in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case known commonly as Roe v. Wade. While abortion rates spiked after that, they had already been on the way up when the decision was made, and the rate of abortions has been declining now since the 1980s, with 2011 (the last year for which numbers are available) marking historic lows, according to the Centers for Disease

Control (Pazol, Creanga, Burley & Jamieson, 2014). These decreases have to do with increased

use of birth control methods and sex education, but also with states regaining their rights to

legislate abortion. In 2011 and 2012, states enacted more than 100 restrictions on the federal

right to abortion, and the decrease in use can also be tied to fewer providers and those increased

restrictions (Kliff, 2013).

Texas Senate Bill 5, however, would have passed some of the toughest abortion

restrictions in the country, with caveats that would effectively shut down all but five of the

State’s 42 women’s health centers which provided the service. Those caveats included that the

clinic be an ambulatory surgical center and no farther than 30 miles from a hospital where the

doctor performing the abortion had admitting privileges (Tomlinson, 2013). The bill failed due to

democratic Senator Wendy Davis’ filibuster, but eventually became House Bill 2 in a second

special session, which did pass. After that, only 18 clinics remained open, even though the

Supreme Court decided to put a hold on the provisions while it considered taking up the case. As

of September, 2015, a new call had been made to the Supreme Court to examine the lower

court’s ruling, as the legislation languishes in limbo. If the law does go into effect, health

officials say Texas will be down to 10 clinics which perform abortions statewide (de Vogue,

2015).

In terms of public reaction, back in the 1970s the pro-life movement launched media

events and public uprisings after the Roe v. Wade decisions, including fetus funerals and graphic marches that are continued through today. Occasionally, abortion clinics were bombed and doctors killed, particularly in the 1990s when a rash of violence against providers succeeded in shutting down multiple clinics (Kliff, 2013). Meanwhile pro-choice activists ran their own events

and marches in Washington fighting the degradation of the Roe v. Wade decision in subsequent

court battles which have been giving states more and more power to regulate abortions. With

several abortion activities in the public’s eye including not only court and legislative hearings but

also public protests and events, abortion has remained a salient issue in the United States for

more than 50 years (Perse, McLeod, Signorelli & Dee, 1997).

Media Effects

Despite its salience, public opinion has been mainly ambivalent about abortion

throughout the years. While many support abortion in the cases of life-threatening birth defects,

rape, incest or threat to a woman's health, that support waivers when the woman simply can't

afford children, doesn’t want any more children, or is single (De Boer, 1977; Tedrow &

Mahoney, 1979). This is important to note when talking about media effects because according

to McGuire (1968), if research shows strong media effects, either strong opinions are lacking

(which seems to be the case with abortion) or underlying values (which is also relevant to

abortion in terms of morality and ethics of the public) have been activated.

In the case of abortion, Perse et al. found that greater media attention correlated to more

negative public opinions (1997). They also found the more abortions being actually performed

impacted public opinion negatively, which makes sense as even pro-choice advocates rarely

celebrate abortion, but rather fight for a woman’s right to choose her own health options.

However, their study on media coverage of abortion also unveiled that the greater the number of

stories about abortion in the news, caused a slight amount of increased acceptance about the

procedure, leading the researchers to question whether news coverage is associated with

controversial social practices looking more commonplace to the average viewer.

While only a few researchers have studied the effects media have on public views of abortion, hardly any have studied the theoretical groundwork of media methodology as it relates to abortion in terms of traditional media versus new media. This study bridges a gap in the literature as to how framing, gatekeeping and agenda setting play out in the new media landscape with regard to a specific breaking news event—in this case a legislative bill involving abortion and its subsequent filibuster.

Senate Bill 5

SB 5 proposed to regulate women’s healthcare centers providing abortion services by aligning them with nearby hospitals, requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at a medical facility no more than 30 miles away, and strengthening restrictions as to when a woman could seek an abortion (Tomlinson, 2013).

The bill stated that it would in no way impede a woman from receiving an abortion because “the woman has adequate time to decide whether to have an abortion in the first 20 weeks after fertilization” (Hegar, 2013).

The traditional press virtually ignored this topic beforehand and during the catalyst event, which was when state senator Wendy Davis stood and spoke in a filibuster meant to last 13 hours

until the close of the special session. The filibuster required her to speak nonstop, on issues

relevant to the bill for the entirety. She made it 11 hours before the Senate disqualified her for

first going off topic and then needing to adjust her back brace, and finally her talk of a sonogram

bill (Hoppe, 2013).

While the filibuster was coming to its climax, traditional news coverage did not pick up

the event. CNN covered “the caloric content of blueberry muffins” on Anderson Cooper as the minutes crept toward midnight (CNN, 2013). However, the online world provided its own coverage in which the mainstream media failed to bring them the news. By the time the Senate floor had erupted into a debate over “germaneness” #standwithwendy was trending on Twitter and the senator had gained 50,000 followers. By 11:30 p.m., more than 180,000 people were tuned into the livestream of the Texas Senate Floor on Youtube. It was, in fact, the online forums that alerted the world to the Republican Party changing the timestamps on the vote to pass the bill through. In the ruckus right after midnight, Republicans had declared the bill passed 19-10, however, as it came out later on Twitter, some of those votes came in after the midnight deadline. At 3 a.m. Lt. Gov. Dewhurst was forced to declare the bill dead (Hoppe, 2013).

As the mainstream media struggled to catch up to their Internet counterparts the next day,

I observed in real time that the story carried a markedly different tone from the passionate, not fact-checked dialogue of the coverage of the night before, which piqued my interest in this issue.

It seemed that most news stories I read about it had to do with the political arena, and not the broader, ethical issues. Anecdotal observations, however, tell us nothing, and so I wanted to examine whether a divergent path actually occurred by analyzing the differences in coverage, frames and timing of stories of Twitter reportage and professional reportage, bringing questions

of theory (specifically the role of gatekeepers and agenda setting) to the forefront of the changing

world of mass media.

The Role of New Media and Blogging

The News Shift

The year 2008 was labeled the date when the Internet became a primary news destination

by the Project for Excellence in Journalism in its annual State of the News Media report (2009),

surpassing all other media save television. By 2010, Internet news had surpassed television as a

primary source for people under 30 (Pew Research Center, 2011) and the numbers are only

growing. As more people go online for their news, newspaper and television audiences continue

to shrink (Pew Research Center, 2011).

Nearly all accessible research in the areas of blogging and social media is already out of

date, such is the speed at which the landscape is changing. For instance, in 2008, about a third of

the adults in the United States had at least one social media profile (Pew Research Center, 2008).

Six years later, in 2014, nearly 75 percent of adults had a social media presence (Pew Research

Center, 2014). In 2006, there were 36 million active blogs. In 2011, there were more than 181

million (Nielsen, 2012). Multiple studies have found that this evolution is not going unnoticed by

news outlets and that symbiotic relationships have long since formed between traditional

journalism and bloggers/microbloggers with blogs linking back to news sites and news sites

sourcing credible blogs when applicable (Kelly, 2008; Singer, 2005; Reese, Rutigliano, Hyun &

Jeong, 2007).

In 2005, scholars were already attempting to study “journalism blogs” during U.S.

election cycles to explore the participatory nature of new media and how it challenged traditional

gatekeeping and agenda setting roles of traditional journalism (Singer), even as many in the journalistic profession attempted to deride such advances to protect their traditional roles (Rosen,

2008). The appeal of the blog is that it is believed to be a vehicle for democracy and citizen control of what was once an elite hierarchy of trained professionals with inside information disseminating what they saw fit to the masses (Crumlish, 2004; Suroweicki, 2005; Weinberger,

2003, 2008; Meraz, 2009).

The advent of social media soon after only muddied the definition of professional journalism further (Lasorsa, Lewis & Holton, 2012). The definition of social media to be used in this study is “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system” (Ellison & Boyd, 2007, p. 211). Specifically, this study focuses on Twitter and how it conveys news when compared with traditional print newspapers.

Micro-Blogging

Micro-blogging is a technology that allows people to share short-style information to others in their network or the public, linking to longer detailed ideas from newspapers, primary sources, or other websites when necessary. Images and videos are also often linked in this format

(DeVoe, 2009).

Micro-blogging fulfills a need for a fast mode of communication that “lowers users’ requirement of time and thought investment for content generation” (Java et al., 2007, pg. 57). In their exploration of micro-blogging uses, these researchers saw Twitter being used for four reasons: conversation, statements (general or specific), information sharing and reporting news

(2007). All of these are relevant to journalism (Hermida, 2010) in terms of content production and consumption. Research shows newspapers, magazines and blogs have worked unsuccessfully to belittle Twitter and other micro-blogging technology (Arceneaux, & Weiss,

2010), most likely because it is a system that “enable millions of people to instantly to

communicate, share and discuss events happening around them” in the form of “collective intelligence” (Hermida, 2010, pg. 297), which could further erode journalism’s traditional roles and hence its very existence. Despite this, so far, studies have found that Twitter is not replacing existing journalistic structures, but is allowing for new interactions to build on top of those structures (Hermida, 2010).

Twitter

Statistics

If Internet numbers move fast, Twitter numbers move faster. As of September 2015,

Twitter boasted 316 million active users sending 500 million tweets a day (Twitter, 2015).

During the first quarter of that year, Twitter had 304 million active users up from 218 million active users during the time period the current study explored (Statista, 2015). In 2010, Twitter had only 30 million active users (Statista, 2015).

In March 2006, Twitter was founded in San Francisco (Radwanick, 2009). In late 2013, the company went public, with a value of $18 billion, despite not being profitable at the time

(Gadkari, 2013). It is a free service and makes most of its money—85 percent in 2013—through advertising on the site (usually seen as sponsored Tweets). Twitter also sells public data to companies looking for information about their users. This can be anything from regular businesses trying to better target their audience to football teams analyzing popularity of players to determine how much merchandise to stock each season (Gadkari, 2013).

While profits have been slowly building, Twitter has been critically acclaimed and recognized for its ability to break news from the Sichuan Earthquake in 2008 to the US Airways crash on the Hudson in 2009, to the Arab Spring uprising (BBC News, 2008; Beaumont, 2011;

Grossman, 2009). When these stories hit traditional mass media, Twitter and its users became

part of the coverage, as for the first time, firsthand accounts and minute-by-minute details were available to journalists and the public (Beaumont, 2011; Arceneaux & Weiss, 2010).

It appears that Twitter users are people who are interested and engaged in news with research showing that nearly half of all users are two to three times more likely to visit a leading news website than the average person (Farhi, 2009). The fact that the platform both breaks news, reports live details and has an audience willing to visit news sites for information makes it very appealing for both working journalists and mass media scholars.

Just as important as live news updates and audience reach to journalists is the number of

“influential people and celebrities who are using the network to post information and opinions, market themselves and relate to others” (Broersma & Graham, 2013, pg. 39). Because of this, journalists no longer have to connect to news makers in real time; instead, they can include users’ tweets as quotations in their stories. The inclusion of tweets in news has long become a convention (Broersma & Graham, 2013).

In addition, a news outlet can use Twitter to its brand’s advantage by posting relevant and newsworthy items to the stream and links to the news site for more information. The more followers a user has, the more influential that user is over the general audience (Meraz &

Papacharissi, 2013). That said, as of September, 2015, The New York Time had 19.2 million followers, up from 2.9 million in 2011. Time had 8.1 million, up from 2.4 million in 2011. CNN showed the largest growth, with 19.4 million followers up from 1.7 million (Twitter, 2015;

Lasorsa, Lewis, & Holton, 2012). Clearly the big news makers are interested in remaining influential in the online microblogging world, which makes Twitter news coverage by its various users including journalists important to study.

How Twitter Works

Twitter differentiates itself from other popular social networks in several ways. First, it forces users to make a statement in 140 characters or less, a restriction not used by many other networks. Secondly, it allows users to follow others without those accounts accepting the follow.

Third, unless the account is private, all information put on Twitter becomes part of the public domain. And fourth, if people on Twitter wish to see news on a certain topic rather than what pops up in their general feed, they can utilize hashtags (#topic), which cluster ideas around one theme as people tweet about it in real time (Phelan, McCarthy & Smyth, 2009). The network was made with mobile users in mind, and hence, users can access it on any device with internet access. (Arceneaux, & Weiss, 2010).

Twitter, along with other social media sites, have been described as online communities comparative to old brick-and-mortar neighborhood gatherings and town meetings (Newman

2009). Specifically, Twitter has become a new model for ambiance news, being called an

“awareness system” by Hermida (2010, pg. 302), which helps people discover issues that may be just under traditional media’s radar. Research has shown that Twitter’s ability to help its users find niche topical news stories make it an unparalleled news recommendation system (Phelan,

McCarthy & Smyth, 2009), particularly as many of its savvier users are trolling the site for news interesting to them, most often employing the hashtag system to follow and contribute to large social discussions surrounding a topic (Bruns, Highfield, & Lind, 2012). In this way, Twitter does not overwhelm audiences with its endless stream of tweets, but instead it makes them aware of information as you search for it and need it (Tugui, 2004). This comes quite close to the theories presented in the 1990s of a society dominated by calm technologies advancing to the stage where they become embedded and invisible in people’s lives (Weiser, 1991; Weiser &

Brown, 1996).

Twitter is a combination of social media networking (ie: personal communication) and an

“ambient information stream” (Bruns & Burgess, 2012, pg. 802), and it is this combination that

facilitates the quick spread of information between users on various topics, making it a major

player in the new journalistic world (Bruns & Burgess, 2012).

The fate of journalism in the face of this new news gathering and disseminating system is

unknown. Scholars postulate that either the authoritative hold journalists have on legitimate coverage of events will be decimated (Broersma, 2013) or that journalists will be able to take advantage of new voices, topics, sources and public attention while simultaneously maintaining transparency in their work methods, lending them increased credibility (Broersma & Graham,

2013). Since journalists have less time to write more stories and are cramped by draining print resources, they are frequently utilizing Twitter and other online information stores as second-

hand, public information to help them gather sources, ideas and quotes (Broersma, 2010;

Phillips, 2010).

While journalists have long seen themselves as gatekeepers and agenda setters, this new

tool may be redistributing the power news organizations once held with an iron grip. Breaking

news on Twitter unfolds faster and more readily than in traditional media (Bruns, Highfield, &

Lind, 2012). Indeed, “Twitter has become a major instrument for the rapid dissemination and

subsequent debate of news stories” (Bruns & Burgess, 2012, pg. 801).

It works in this way: users of varying popularity hear about an event they consider

newsworthy. They take it upon themselves to add to the conversation with a variety of

statements, links, and further research to aid in painting a fuller picture of the news at hand, often

well before mainstream media have been able to verify and thus disseminate the information.

The Twitter users make use of the search option to find more on the topic and eventually a

collaborate hashtag is formulated to make finding information even easier. Those engaged in the

conversation will retweet others’ work for their uninvolved followers to broaden interest and

help the topic gain prominence in the Twitterscape. Uninhibited by fact-checking rules or

objectivity requirements, tweets not only provide the news itself but also lend context, emotion

and background to the story as it continues to evolve. Bruns, Highfield & Lind contrast this

system with traditional journalism, saying, “the real-time communication activities taking place on the Twitter platform provide not so much a “first draft of history,” as journalism has been famously described, but in essence a first draft of the present, to be revised and completed as further information comes to hand” (2012, pg. 30).

Of course, weeding out the facts from speculation is imperative as the conversation

continues, and users try to collaborate and crowdsource accuracy and verification to varying

degrees of success, (Bruns, Highfield & Lind, 2012) so that one reading a breaking news story

on Twitter must always be aware of possible wrong information, leaving traditional journalism

that stronghold of accountability in reporting.

In the context of natural disasters, war battles, protests or other life-threatening situations, information sources consist of authorities, emergency officials, mainstream media, organizations with a stake in the outcome, and directly affected local users (Bruns, Burgess, Crawford & Shaw,

2011; 2012). The effectiveness of these communications rely on one overarching hashtag used by all parties (Bruns, Highfield & Lind, 2012).

The combination of attributes listed here have made Twitter ripe for media study, and

several researchers have explored and described the nature of tweets and of Twitter users, and

how to harness and evolve this landscape for the mainstream media model (Bruns & Burgess,

2011; Maireder & Ausserhofer, 2013).

At this point in time, many researchers have focused on the hashtag function of Twitter, on its user base and key participants in any given discussion, on its retweet feature (Bruns, &

Burgess, 2012; Hermida, 2010; Boyd et al., 2009), on its ability to engage other users with the @ feature, and on its community structure in relation to news gathering and dissemination (Chew &

Eysenbach, 2010; Cha et al., 2010; Honeycut & Herring, 2009; Meraz & Papacharissi, 2013), but very few have compared Twitter coverage of one sole event to news coverage of that same event to mark differences, similarities and relationships between mass media and new media. It is this gap in the literature that this study will attempt to address.

Who Uses Twitter

Only 23 percent of adults use Twitter currently, but that’s a significant jump from just two years ago, when the percentage was only 18 percent (Duggan et al., 2015). Even more important to the current study is that 37 percent of 18-29 year olds are using Twitter, meaning its audience is scaling younger (Duggan et al., 2015). In a separate study by The Pew Research Center, it was found that the majority of 18-29 year olds voted for democrats in the presidential elections for which they were eligible, and skewed more liberal than the older population in terms of social issues (DeSilver, 2014). Combining this information, we can glean that the population on Twitter is a more liberal population, particularly in terms of the abortion debate as that is a social issue.

As mentioned previously, a 2007 study found that Twitter is used for four main purposes: conversation, statements on a topic or personal endeavor, information sharing and news reportage (Java et al.). As such, various types of users have emerged. The four this study will focus on for usage comparison are organizations, activists (or locals), everyday users with no particularly evident agenda, and journalists. It is important to mention these as there have been studies examining the role of different types of users that the current study can build upon.

Organizations and Twitter

Many companies, non-profit organizations and government agencies have jumped on

Twitter to increase awareness about their cause or brand. These entities use Twitter for marketing, publicity and customer service for the most part (Jansen et al., 2009), but can also take part in ad hoc discussions surrounding topical news events that are relevant to them

(Arceneaux & Weiss, 2010). The most common goal in organization tweets is to garner retweets, which foists the name and cause into the feed of a more general audience, creating buzz around not only the topic, but the players involved (Bruns & Burgess, 2012). Corporations, along with celebrities and politicians continue to develop ways to take advantage of the fledgling alliance between Twitter and professional journalists. As many reporters use tweets as quotes, when PR tweets are included in professional coverage, they benefit from a larger audience and enhanced credibility (Broersma & Graham, 2013).

While Johnson postulated that Twitter users with a particular political cause may be able to drown out opposing viewpoints (2009), Hermida found that Twitter is currently providing more access to different points of view, not less (2010). Chew and Eysenbach postulated that the rise of participatory media and user-generated content invites the public to play a larger role in information acquisition, filtering and amplification (2010). Therefore, they argued that organizations needed to use Twitter as a feedback loop to monitor online response and target future communications (2010).

Examples of organizations and agencies using Twitter during news events flood the literature: In 2008, the Food and Drug Administration told the public about food recalls due to salmonella (Shute, 2009), in 2007, news organizations like the LA Times distributed up-to-the- minute updates during the California wildfires (Stratton, 2008). Police departments have used the

platform to inform the public about breaking crime and to solicit tips from that same audience

(Canfield, 2009).

Twitter and the Public

Twitter owes much of its popularity to the fact that it is very easy to sign up for an

account and be instantly engaged in the news and commentary of the day (Bruns, Highfield &

Lind, 2012). As such, they immediately become immersed in “ambient journalism processes”

because in order to participate, all they need do is post a very short message or opinion on the

matter and press send. As Bruns, Highfield and Lind stated in their 2012 study of the social

media network, “participation in news dissemination, curation, and commentary processes on

Twitter is open to all comers; through their random acts of journalism, Twitter participants are

neither simply users nor fully producers of news coverage, but placed in a hybrid role as

produser . . .” (pg. 27). The contributions made depend on the reaction of and acceptance from

other users following that same topic, who may pass on the tweet verbatim, or engage in a

conversation about its contents (Bruns, Highfield & Lind, 2012).

This being the case, Twitter has invited the audience to become active in creating news

and disseminating news, rather than just a passive receptacle of it (Hermida, 2010). As messages

are tossed back and forth between users, they evolve and grow, and users have a chance to

interact with information, changing it and tweaking it when necessary (Stassen, 2010). In terms

of credibility, Jansen et al. found that people were turning to Twitter and other microblogs as

“trusted sources of information, insights, and opinions” (2009, p. 2186). Users also provide live

coverage of events and pad messages with hyperlinks that provide more context to the discussion

as they become available (Farhi, 2009; Kawk et al., 2010).

Twitter can be seen as an extension and perhaps improvement upon “citizen journalism” which is used to refer to a plethora of journalistic activities that can be increasingly achieved

through advancing technology (Bruns, Highfield & Lind, 2012). This journalism is dependent on

volunteers contributing ideas and disseminating new information on a topic, using the Internet to

share with a broad audience the fruits of their labors (Bruns, Highfield & Lind, 2012).

Bruns, Highfield and Lind contend that “citizen journalism began as a direct and determined response to the perceived shortcomings of mainstream journalistic coverage” (2012, pg. 19). The researchers postulated that activists in the “Battle of Seattle” (a 1999 meeting of the

World Trade Organization and its subsequent protests) took to the Internet well before Web 2.0 to publish their own text, audio and video of the event, in an attempt to counteract media framing

which would brand them as anarchists and hooligans intent on destruction (2012). Since in the

current study we will be defining activists as part of the public under normal conditions, but

using Twitter with specific intent during the studied event, this reasoning and distinction is

important to note before further exploring Twitter’s role in framing, agenda setting and

gatekeeping as previously (and perhaps currently) held by professional journalists.

Twitter and Journalists

For as much as Twitter has opened the lines of communication and news dissemination

within the public realm, it has also become an important tool for professional journalists

(Ahmad, 2010). News outlets use it to distribute news, emphasize stories and interact with their

audiences, and reporters often use it for sources and background contextual information (Ahmad,

2010; Hermida, 2010; Broersma & Graham, 2013). Even back in 2011, a survey found that 70

percent of a sample of British journalists used Twitter for reporting purposes. Almost 50 percent

of those journalists sourced stories through it (Cision 2011a, 2011b).

In addition to providing journalists with sources and information to verify during

breaking news events, Twitter has become, in itself, a beat for journalists to cover (Broersma &

Graham, 2013). Tweets are more and more commonly used as direct replacements for quotes

from public figures, often triggering news stories as much as fleshing out already existing information (Broersma & Graham, 2013).

Even back in 2009, Posetti found that many news outlets thought of Twitter as essential to a reporter’s job. That year, Sky News appointed a Twitter correspondent in March (Butcher,

2009), and British national newspapers had 121 official Twitter accounts by July, with a total of just over one million followers (Coles, 2009).

Much research delves into changing journalistic norms in the face of Twitter being used for reportage. Journalists may be trying to exert the existing process while making adjustments for Twitter dynamics (Lasorsa, Lewis, & Holton, 2012). In a study exploring the changeover,

Lasorsa, Lewis and Holton found that many reporters were reluctant to changing their roles due to “vested interests in maintaining the existing norms that support their authority” (pg. 29).

Hermida (2012) and Bruno (2011) found that many news outlets are using Twitter mostly for their gain. “They take information from social media streams to fill the information gap that exists from the sudden moment a crisis breaks out until the moment the first reporters arrive at the scene. When journalists are on the ground and gained access to sources, social media are less important” (Broersma, & Graham, 2013, pg. 41).

And so the journalistic tenets may well be changing due to Internet technology. In an analysis done in 2012, researchers found that nearly 43 percent of tweets by journalists contained at least an element of opinion and nearly 16 percent of their tweets were primarily opinions

(Lasorsa, Lewis & Holton, pg. 26). Twitter allows journalists to be more open with opinions, and more transparent in their traditional roles and the news process. “Twitter offers a unique environment in which journalists are free to communicate virtually anything to anyone, beyond many of the natural constraints posed by organizational norms or social networking “friendship”

barriers. Therefore, it is important to understand the content of journalists’ tweets: to what extent do they reflect traditional modes of being a journalist and doing journalism?” (Lasorsa, Lewis, &

Holton, 2012, pg. 25). In the study at hand, we will analyze whether journalists are tweeting the breaking news event neutrally or with embedded opinion to further this work.

The old norms are clear in that journalists are expected to keep their point of view private

(Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2007). Schudson and Anderson found that in the changing media landscape, the pursuit of objectivity is one of the most salient attributes of a journalist’s career and credibility (2008).

To combat the degradation of objectivity, since Twitter does invite commentary and opinion and journalists have been shown to include these in their tweets (Stelter, 2009), many have pointed out that the objectivity ideal has always been just that, more a goal than reality, particularly as in their roles of framing news stories, acting as gatekeepers and setting the public’s agenda, journalists have at times found themselves compromised by political, monetary and corporate pressures (Bruns, Highfield & Lind, 2012). Back in 1980, Gans pushed forward the idea that journalism could never be objective, and instead should focus on being multi- perspectival, representing as many points of view as it could, and Bruns, Highfield and Lind believe journalists using Twitter may be the closest we’ve come to that idea yet (2012).

Broersma and Graham (2013) found that nearly a quarter of all tweets used for journalistic purposes referenced ideas sourced from popular voices on the topic at hand, whether they be from professionals, activists or the general population participating in the discussion. “Whereas traditional journalist-source relations are to a large extent structured and formalized to guarantee a timely and efficient production of news, the world now opens up from behind a reporter’s desk.

Journalists can harvest a rich vineyard filled with utterances of diverse voices” (pg. 48).

As participating journalists talk through social media with their previously passive

audience and use them to help detail their stories, they help turn those stories “from finished

products into the unfinished, evolving artifacts common to produsage processes” (Bruns,

Highfield & Lind, 2012, pg. 37). The new product is a shared effort, belonging as much to the

public as it does to the journalists and news outlets. In this fluid context, we wonder if the old

newsroom roles are changing to fit the new world, or if news institutions are bringing Twitter in

line with already established practices over time.

Gatekeeping

Before the advent of social media, massive scholarship devoted itself to several media

theories dictating roles of content producers and content consumers. Now that the audience has

more or less ceased to be considered a passive receptacle for messages, regardless of the effects

those messages have, research is turning to application of mass media theory to newer

technology. Amid many theories that are evolving is that of gatekeepers.

In this role, journalists strive to be impartial and studies have shown also impolitical

(Robinson & Sheehan, 1983), meaning that frames or bias are more the result of the effort it takes to create stories around events than any particular leaning on the part of the reporters

(Tuchman, 1978). As news outlets, reporters and managers traditionally decide which news stories run and where they run, they have the power to shape the audience’s opinion of the salience of any particular issue at hand. They essentially produce the meaning and veracity of each story based on content and placement, in an otherwise undefined array of words and context

(Schudson, 1989). In traditional mass media gatekeepers are thought to construct the news

(Schudson, 1989), whereas in the newer Twitterscape, journalists are more in charge of funneling

already constructed news, curating and aggregating it, and giving it a level of importance and

credibility with their selections (Bruns, 2005).

When news no longer goes through a traditional gatekeeper to get to the public, it

becomes fragmented and allows for user choice of consumption (Maier, 2010). In this way, some

users may choose their own news, topics and opinions that support and validate their previous

beliefs and avoid news stories that threaten their preconceived notions (Maier, 2010).

Gatewatching

New, adapted gatekeeping methods have sprung up in the wake of the transition to online media. As more of the responsibility for news production falls to the audience, gatewatching is a term coined for those active audience members who take on curating and amplifying functions of news (Bruns, 2005), which culminates in a sort of collaborative filtering of salient topics.

Crowdsourcing has become a term which applies to filtering and commenting on already produced stories to lend them extra prominence within a certain social media sphere of common minds (Meraz, 2009). Through these processes, gatekeeping within social media outlets allows the audience to impact the importance of news as opposed to letting media set their agenda passively (Bakshy et al., 2011; Watts & Dobbs, 2007). The increased responsibility of the audience in new media can also affect the framing of topics for a more general audience as was explored by Lotan et al. (2011) during the Arab Spring, and also by Meraz (2011) who studied the India Tsunami for frames.

Bruns and Burgess (2012) state that Twitter news coverage is triggered by mainstream media reporting and is used to process a broader context of events as they transpire. In this way they highlight the gatewatching system Bruns put forward into the literature in 2005, stating that

Twitter and professional news outlets may work together or in tandem to provide full coverage of a story, each leaning on the other to fill in the information gaps as events unfold. However, as this technology continues to evolve, we wonder if labeling Twitter coverage as triggered by mainstream media is too narrow. As people become more used to Twitter as an ambient news

stream, could not Twitter trigger coverage from mainstream media? As Bruns and Burgess found

in 2012, professional news outlets had already started padding their stories with “what Twitter

thinks.” Technically, those contextual stories had, at the time, come after the breaking news, but

what is stopping Twitter from breaking the news and hence dragging the mainstream media

along until an event receives professional coverage? In the case of SB 5, this appears to be what

may have happened. That is one of the phenomena this study purports to test. If it is found that

Twitter citizen journalists did break this story, what role did gatekeeping play and how did

gatekeeping change? The question is ripe for future longitudinal research that one study cannot

cover alone.

Along with observing that Twitter gatewatching is triggered by mainstream media,

Bruns, Highfield and Lind (2012) explored the reasoning behind this new phenomenon, pushing

forward the idea that this user-led “produsage” may be the result of “perceived shortcoming of

mainstream journalism” (pg. 31). Twitter users are often already on the ground locally when

news breaks and can disseminate information before the mainstream media can verify the facts.

The filibuster over SB 5 which will be studied may show an extension of this role: as mainstream

journalist gatekeepers and agenda setters deem a story not newsworthy, the public, citizen

journalists may have a different view of it, and hence cover it themselves until mainstream news

outlets change their minds.

Let us not forget that Twitter is used for ongoing discussion and evaluation of current

events. While forced into 140-character spurts, Twitter users frequently provide links and images

to give wider meaning to specific incidents (Bruns & Burgess, 2012). Because of this, journalists

using Twitter find themselves becoming “curators of broad, cross-cultural conversations as opposed to impartial information disseminators” (Meraz & Papacharissi, 2013, pg. 5). In an

example used by Meraz and Papacharissi (2013), journalist Mona Eltahawy was located in New

York at the time of the Egypt uprising, yet her professional skill enabled her to share the

movement happening across the globe in a way both Arab people and Westerners could

understand. Using Twitter to help her keep abreast of the events happening each moment, she

became a bridge between action and news, providing a curated stream of information, context

and broader conversation. Through her consistent and persistent updates, as an unknowing

crowdsourced gatewatcher, Eltahawy enhanced the story and spurred online and offline activity

even during the times there was very little immediate news to report (Meraz & Papacharissi,

2013).

One of the largest differences between gatekeeping and gatewatching (aside from the

players involved), is that gatekeeping was assumed not only to structure the news, but to literally

create and craft it out of raw interviews and private sourcing (Bruns, Highfield & Lind, 2012). In contrast, gatewatchers must draw on already crafted materials, aggregating, curating and providing comment on them. At issue is not whether Twitter users can be traditional gatekeepers, but rather whether mainstream news outlets can continue to be traditional gatekeepers. Bruns,

Highfield and Lind (2012) say no: “following the multiplication of channels which resulted especially from the emergence of the World Wide Web as a popular medium, their publications

(online as well as offline) no longer perform a significant gatekeeping role” (pg. 22). Given the

new forms of immediate news available to the public, the researchers argue that these days even

conventional news outlets must draw from already processed and public information to complete

their stories (Bruns, Highfield & Lind, 2012; Maier, 2010). As such, the gates to watch have

multiplied and become already readily available to the general population, so that gatekeeping as

traditionally known is now close to impossible (Bruns, 2005).

So who are the gatewatchers? “Professional and citizen journalists and commentators

(who) watch the gates of newsworthy organizations whose information is relevant to their specific interests; they capture and compile that information as it is released; and they process and curate such information with an aim to publish news stories and comments which build on it” (Burns, Highfield & Lind, 2012, pg. 22).

Blending Roles

There remains an important difference between gatewatching by professional news organizations and gatewatching by the previously passive audience (Burns, Highfield & Lind,

2012). While much of the information on breaking news stories is now publically available before traditional news stories are printed, professional journalists still retain contacts to sources unavailable to the public and can thus run more stories attacking different angles of the events that couldn’t have been shared otherwise. Independent, audience-driven gatewatching, on the other hand, focuses on compiling all the information available and commenting upon that information to give further opinion or context (Burns, Highfield & Lind, 2012). They also compare and connect the various fragments of available information for crowdsourced fact- checking and accuracy further decentralizing the former role of gatekeeping and turning it into a collaborative effort (Burns, Highfield & Lind, 2012).

As news organizations continue to break from their traditional roles in an uneasy compromise with new technology, the public is seeing a hybrid of the journalistic form in action.

During the Iranian protests in 2009, for instance, news outlets used their online platforms to post unverified tweets, videos and blogs from those on the ground in Tehran (Stelter, 2009). Earlier, the BBC published both verified journalistic material and tweets that were not yet vetted, side by side, during the Mumbai bombings, when information was breaking more quickly than they could professionally report (BBC, 2008). During that time, they made the case for information

dissemination, stating that sometimes as a news outlet, it was important for them to simply monitor and pass along information as quickly as possible so that the public knows what they as an organization knows, and what they are finding out, essentially adding transparency to the newsgathering process (Herrmann, 2009). By selecting which tweets and videos are newsworthy, the professionals retain part of their gatekeeping roles, emphasizing what they think is important, and allowing the rest to go unamplified (Farhi, 2009). As Hermida (2010) said, “in the case of ambient journalism, the role may be designing the tools that can analyze, interpret and contextualize a system of collection intelligence, rather than in the established practice of selection and editing of content through the prism of news values (pg. 308).

The Difference in Gatekeeping Roles Between Elite Publications and Other Publications

In the new compromised system between news organizations and their audiences, reporters have found themselves in a unique role. Since most individual journalists are using social networks in their work, they become a connection between large audiences and information, without having to pass their micro-blogging through the news hierarchy of editors and managers. As such, journalists can individually become gatewatchers, including or excluding information as they see fit, filtering news and information through their own personal lens of prioritization (Hermida, 2010; Farhi, 2009). Depending on their audience size (followers), their decisions may have lasting effects on how an issue is covered. Future research could do well to study the passing of the torch from news bureaucracy to news employees.

As it stands now, researchers have observed that journalists working for national publications and networks were less likely to share their roles as traditional gatekeepers with the public Twitterverse. Those working for alternative publications tended to allow and amplify the voices of other news gatherers and curators in their work, which allowed them to be more transparent and accountable, and thus credible to the public. They did this through “providing

information about their jobs, engaging in discussions with other tweeters, writing about their personal lives, or linking to external websites” (Lasorsa, Lewis & Holton, 2012, pg. 19). Those in elite publications already attain credibility through their name recognition.

The difference in tweet content between those at elite, nationally recognized news organizations and journalists in alternative roles at smaller papers or blogs seems fairly stark.

Meraz and Papcharissi found in 2013 that tweets from major mainstream media outlets were informational and straightforward, not inviting public discourse. Those tweets were also the ones receiving the most retweets, meaning the most amplification in the sphere of the general public.

The mainstream accounts continued the old model of one-way communication in that they did not appear to retweet other viewpoints or information coming from other sources. They were there only to spread news updates and information as it came through their hierarchal system

(Meraz & Papcharissi, 2013).

Tweets coming from the former audience in the old news model or from journalists representing smaller or alternative publications, meanwhile, provided references for the information they were tweeting, which allowed others to confirm the material and increased credibility (Chew & Eysenbach, 2010). Nearly 90 percent of those tweets linked to mainstream media back in 2010, but over time the number of links to niche news sites, social networks and other websites increased (Chew & Eysenbach, 2010).

The scholarship available had supported the idea that news was selected by professional

“gatekeepers” which resulted in a particular agenda that was set for and impacted the public

(Noelle-Newman, 1973; White, 1950). This was not considered a negative consequence, however, as past research postulated that alerting a diverse audience to a common news thread and encouraging salience of particular topics could help inform people about common threats

(Maier, 2010). The consonance of several news outlets repeating the same information over time contributed to what is known as agenda setting, a theory which also may be in flux in this new age (Maier, 2010).

Agenda Setting

Agenda setting states that the more media coverage an issue receives, the more the public perceives that issue as important; the media influence salience (McCombs & Shaw, 1972). At issue here is how people rank certain issues, and why they think about some topics over others

(McCombs & Shaw, 1972). There may be three tiers to agenda setting: media, public and policy, with Rogers and Dearing (1988) stating that the media’s own agenda can be influenced by government officials and public opinion. In this vein, Twitter and its apparent dispersal of the gatekeeping role to the active audience may actually be helping set the agenda for traditional media, which may in turn continue to set the agenda for the general public, particularly since media agenda has been shown to reflect real-world indicators (MacKuen & Coombs, 1981).

Long before the advent of Twitter, news producers have been trying to gain audiences by finding issues already of interest to news consumers (Perse, McLeod, Signorielli & Dee, 1997).

In this way, the relationship between agenda setting in the media and the public’s current agenda may be symbiotic (Erbring, Goldenberg & Miller, 1980). However, historically research has been mixed on whether interpersonal communication helps agenda-setting effects (McLeod,

Becker, & Byrnes, 1974; Atwater, Salwen, & Anderson, 1985; Erbring, Goldenberg, & Miller,

1980; Lasorsa & Wanta, 1990).

In 2002, Roberts, Wanta and Dzwo proposed that “if the news media influence the perceived importance of issues held by the public, perhaps Internet users will take agenda-setting one step further. Internet users, thus, may use the news media as guide to the important issues that need to be discussed in EBBs (Electronic Bulletin Boards)” (pg. 453). Arguably the first

draft of Twitter, the electronic message boards of the early 2000s did bring news stories to their

forums for further discussion, but they were far from reporting news themselves or being

considered legitimate sources for professional journalists, unlike the Twitterverse of today. As

previously discussed, in current times, the audience may have the ability to set the agenda for the

general public, rather than simply amplify the agenda already set by mainstream media.

Interestingly in terms of the current study, Roberts, Wanta & Dzwo (2002) found that

Internet discussions did not increase with more media coverage, making it the only social issue

not to follow the agenda-setting hypothesis in that study. The researchers found, in fact, that the

more traditional news covered abortion, the less the Internet discussed it on EBBs. They

postulated that this could be because of the controversial nature of the issue, stating that

“individuals may want to discuss the issue on the Internet even when the issue is receiving little

media attention. Media coverage, then, is not needed to stimulate discussion of abortion”

(Roberts, Wanta, Dzwo, 2002, pg. 459). They also thought that perhaps audiences had other

sources to turn to in the case of abortion; that the sourcing for abortion could already be

interpersonal communication rather than media coverage. Ten years before that Wanta and Wu

found that sometimes interpersonal communication gave salience cues unattached and

conflicting with mass media coverage, in essence, interfering with agenda setting (1992). The

current study would further this discussion, as Twitter combines media coverage with

interpersonal communication, and as such may either add to agenda setting or disrupt it as it is

traditionally known.

Agenda Setting and Twitter

There has been little research thus far wholly devoted to any changes in the agenda

setting role of the media as new audience-participatory media have come into play. While agenda setting effects have been observed from legacy publications like The New York Times to

less elite local papers or alternative publications (Reese & Danielian, 1989), from newspapers to television news (Roberts & McCombs, 1994) and from newspapers to wires (Lim, 2006), only a very few recent studies have focus on agenda setting effects in an audience-controlled venue such as Twitter (Meraz, 2009).

The father of agenda setting theory, McCombs, said that news fragmentation such as we’ve seen with niche news sites and social networks on the Internet, will only hinder the media’s agenda setting if the subsequent agendas individuals are exposed to are markedly different from those that would be found in traditional publications.

In research following, it has so far been consistently found that agendas set via new media are parallel to and congruent with those set by traditional media (Lee, 2007; Maier, 2010), meaning up to this point, agenda setting has remained a solid theory steeped in research. Lee’s

2007 study of the 2004 presidential campaign stories online and in traditional media found that the agenda of online political bloggers and the agenda of traditional media gatekeepers were stable across media.

Maier’s content analysis in 2010 of 3,900 news stories in media categories of print, television, radio and online observed that news consonance and agenda are thus far stable between mass and new media. Sixty percent of the top stories on websites covered the same topics as those on other media. So far, “the strong correlation of storylines covered by news Web sites and other news media indicates that online news outlets not only tended to choose the same top stories as legacy media, but when they did, they often shared strikingly similar news values in how each storyline is played in terms of frequency and depth of coverage” (Maier, 2010, pg.

557). Maier (2010) noted that people seemed to be going online for news to find the main stories of the day as would be reported by mainstream media, but also to flesh those stories out with

new opinion, context, commentary and angles on those topics. But has that changed in the last five years? And to keep its agenda-setting role, is it possible that news outlets will go even further than they have in the past (Perse, McLeod, Signorielli & Dee, 1997) to cater to interests already salient to the public?

Second-Level Agenda Setting

It is also important to take second-level agenda into account in terms of social media network news dissemination. Twitter and its counterparts use many images and short, emotional descriptions to outline trending news stories, and as second-level agenda setting involves attribute perceptions and story tone (McCombs, 2005), it is only natural that it be taken into account here. Coleman and Banning (2006) described the difference between the two agenda settings well when they said, “Whereas first-level agenda setting suggests a role for media in deciding what issues the public is aware of, with researchers focusing on amount of coverage, second-level agenda setting suggests the media also frame attributes of these issues, thus affecting how the issue is defined” (313).

As the news stories around SB 5 revolved around a Democratic and Republican schism with individual politicians in the lime light, second-level agenda setting, if applicable in the online world, would assume that the general public receiving the media messages would perhaps be influenced by the attributes accentuated by that media, and thus would associate the politicians involved with the attributes given them by the Twitter story curators and gatewatchers. Several studies have shown that attributes given to politicians by the media are more likely to affect public perception of those politicians (Maxwell et al., 1997; Golan &

Wanta, 2001). However, second-level agenda setting has primarily been tested during times when traditional media had a firm gatekeeping role and access to information well before the public did; it has not been looked at thoroughly on the terms of new media when old roles are no

longer in place (McCombs, 2005). Future research could do well to examine these effects in detail.

What is interesting to the current research is how second-level agenda setting plays into framing. As the focus in second-level agenda setting isn’t on what the media amplify but how they describe it (Coleman & Banning, 2006), so much so that it has been compared to framing theory by various researchers (Scheufele, 2000; Wanta, Golan & Lee, 2004; D’Angelo, 2002)

The difference is that these descriptions, photographs, images, videos and specific word choices perhaps do not only frame a story in a certain light for an audience in the immediate, but create lasting impressions that become salient in the public’s minds (Scheufele, 2000).

Further connecting second-level agenda setting with framing is Wanta, Golan and Lee’s

2004 study in which they succinctly state, “While first-level agenda setting suggests media coverage influences what we think about, second-level agenda setting suggests media coverage influences how we think” (pg. 367).

Framing

“To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described”

(Entman, 1993, pg. 52).

It has been posited that people must look at life through a variety of “natural” and

“societal” frames in order to be able to make any sense of it. Frames allow us to process and put structure to events in our daily lives (Goffman, 1974). For mass media, this means that “there are various ways of looking at and depicting events in news media that depend on the framework employed by the journalist” (Scheufele, 2000, pg. 301).

Essentially, a frame is “a central organizing idea that tells an audience what is at issue and outlines the boundaries of a debate” (Rohlinger, 2002, pg. 480). They can be used to define problems, cast blame or promote heroism, or call the general public to action in a unified way chosen by the group who is framing (Rohlinger, 2002). In other words, “frames influence opinions by stressing specific values, facts and other considerations, endowing them with greater apparent relevance to the issue than they might appear to have under an alternative frame”

(Nelson et al., 1997, pg. 569).

But a frame is not so much a tangible thing as it is “a cognitive process in which the message affects how individuals weigh existing considerations (i.e., political orientations and relevant attitudes/beliefs) to make a judgment” according to Lee, McLeod & Shah in 2008 (pg.

695) who conducted experiments using two different sets of frames on the same issue, the results of which showed framing did not change opinions directly but were able to increase or decrease certain thoughts and considerations the audience would then use to judge the issues written about.

The mass media can be used by political players and gatekeepers to create opportunity through the validation of ideas. Through coverage, also, activist groups and marginalized voices sometimes get the chance to create change within political debates (Gamson & Meyer, 1996).

Therefore it could be feasible that frames help to keep those in power there, or put new leaders in place, based on what issues people are thinking about and how they are thinking about them. In

Texas, the results of news coverage of SB 5 could be studied in future research, as certain political players have stepped into the spotlight to further their careers, including a failed run for governor by Sen. Wendy Davis, while others have looked to usurp power, citing this event as evidence of mismanagement.

In 2007, Entman suggested that news frames can cause officials in the favorable position to become more powerful and those in the shadowed positions to become weaker, thus affecting not only policy but public opinion of that policy.

Earlier, in 1993, Entman was able to boil his work with framing down, stating that frames are distinct from the news topics themselves because it is only within the context of the frame that the content is united, and through that process framing may shape a viewer’s reality. Rhee

(1997) took this further, postulating that, once processed, frames exist within the audience as prior knowledge, shaping all future media consumption. Perhaps most importantly and expansively, it has been put forward that “framing shapes public dialogues about political issues”

(D’angelo, 2002, pg. 874).

Framing and Abortion

In Rohlinger’s (2002) work dissecting frames at the root of the abortion debate via the organizations either pro-life or pro-choice vying for media attention, she notes that the pro- choice groups frame the issue in terms of “rights” while the pro-life groups frame abortion in terms of “morality.”

Abortion is a long-standing issue that has been packaged and repackaged by dozens of institutions and news gathering groups. Ferre (2003) suggests that frames could be considered interpretations in a changing interaction between the power holders in a newsworthy situation and the challengers. According to Ferree (2003), a feminist’s worldview in terms of abortion would include all the frames grounded in the core principle of women’s self‐determination that are used within their particular historical struggle.

The news coverage and its framing are important in an issue such as women’s reproductive health, including abortion, because according to Edelman “'public affairs' encourages the translation of personal concerns into beliefs about a public world people witness

as spectators rather than participants” (1988). These beliefs become imbued within society itself, so that the frames are no longer even seen. They become common sense. Those in power wish people to believe and behave in ways that support their agenda. As Entman says, “it is through framing that political actors shape the texts that influence or prime the agendas and considerations that people think about” (2007, 165).

As early as 1974, Goffman used the concept of a frame to show the tensions between agency and structure. He rightly noted that while situations may be framed for an audience by primary organizations or news outlets, the audience also frames those situations based on their own experiences and set values. As Texas is a red state, (a Democrat has not won an election for governor since 1994), it can be assumed that at least the voting population comes to the abortion debate with a certain value structure already in place which will further frame any news coverage consumed about the event. This would be an avenue for future research, however, as this study will only go so far as the frames employed by the papers, journalists and Twitter users themselves.

Framing in Traditional Media

Whether journalists ought to be infusing their work with opinion has been widely discussed, but the question goes unanswered. Many opt to stand by a standard of impartiality and objectivity, but as previously discussed, even in the best of situations, that can only ever be a journalistic ideal (Steele & Barnhurst, 1996). Studies have found that (with the exception of long-form investigative coverage), news is episodic rather than thematic, and as such lacks necessary context in terms of economics, politics, history or global trends (Iyengar, 1991).

Meanwhile, research has found that opinions within the news and framing of stories in line with particular value judgments have increased over time. Steele and Barnhurst (1996) found

that in 1968 journalists began and ended their television broadcasts with facts, but that by 1988 most televised news reports started with opinion.

Since frames “draw boundaries, set up categories, define some ideas as out and others in, and generally operate to snag related ideas in their net” (Reese, 2007, p. 150), when journalists use them to forward their own personal beliefs, either purposefully or accidentally, research suggests it can have a marked effect on the typical mass media audience (Weaver, 2007).

Framing and Twitter

With the advent of a participatory audience, new research would do well to consider changing the focus of study from traditional media and hierarchical gatekeepers to ordinary, everyday citizens that easily and regularly produce (online) media, and who ultimately become active contributors, creators, commentators, sorters, and archivers of digital news content

(Nisbet, 2010, p. 75)

In terms of Twitter, Maireder and Ausserhofer (2013) have suggested that the participatory audience (gatewatchers) use not only publically available content in their active dissemination of news messages but also use the pre-packaged frames that come with that content. However, not bound by journalistic values, many news curators on Twitter allow their own belief system to dominate the information they are passing on. In a study of tweets involving political discourse in Austria, the researchers found that “between 22 and 50 percent of the links to news media were framed by a personal interpretation, whereat about two-thirds in a sober tone, and one-third sarcastically or aggressively (pg. 296).

Even journalists who use Twitter feel more free to express their personal preferences and values in their tweets (Lasorsa, Lewis & Holton, 2012). Meraz and Papacharissi (2013) studied the use of Twitter during the 2011 Egyptian riots and found that “tweets were not just news or just opinion, but typically a blend of emotionally charged opinions on news or news updates to

the point where it was difficult to distinguish news from opinion and from emotion, and doing so

missed the point” (pg. 18). That same study along with others (Hamdy and Gomaa, 2012; Lim,

2012) suggested that Twitter allows marginalized voices to sustain alternative narratives of dissention, essentially reframing against the traditional media’s frames.

Framing can also be achieved through retweets and conversations using the @ symbol, particularly when conversing with a person of import or with many followers (Meraz &

Papacharissi, 2013). Retweeting and conversation markers can amplify certain content, in effect highlighting some messages at the expense of others, depending on the adoption of the crowd.

As certain content is passed on and other content passed over, the issue can begin to take on the pallor of the more popular tweets and the general audience begins seeing more and more of the same frames within the discussion, normalizing that perspective, the perspective of the most prominent gatewatchers (Meraz & Papacharissi, 2013).

Framing, Gatewatching and Agenda Setting

Since framing works through patterns of selection, stickiness, emphasis and as a result retention, gatekeepers and gatewatchers in the digital age can produce the dominant frames that shape the form of news narratives produced. Meraz and Papcharissi (2013) found that Twitter users easily framed messages by reproducing them, lending them both a larger audience and the users’ approval. “Unlike typical frame negotiation processes in print or TV media, where frames emerge through the tone and language employed, sourcing, and placement of facts, the practices of repetition on Twitter, embedded into the ambient and affective nature of the medium, were essential to crowdsourcing a frame to prominence” (pg. 19). The researchers are careful to state that what they observed on Twitter was not a new phenomenon, but rather that Twitter was blending traditional framing techniques and placing a higher value on what had once been thought of as weaker techniques in mass media. Meraz and Papacharissi also observed that the

transparency of negotiated meaning and frames in Twitterverse may also have enabled users to

“create, spread, and validate the way that events were framed for both users and consumers of

Twitter (pg. 19).

Twitter is ripe for examination of framing effects, as well as how frames can help set the agenda. An example of this is the study by Tumasjan, Sprenger, Sandner, and Welpe (2011), who looked at whether public sentiment on Twitter could predict the results of the 2009 German

Federal elections. They examined more than 100,000 messages, and found a strong correlation

between the number of references on Twitter to political parties or figures and the election

results. Further examination showed that the attitude toward particular politicians on Twitter was

closely connected to the outcome of the election.

Conclusion

As abortion is a controversial and salient political issue with very few research studies

devoted to it, this research will attempt to discover how mass media differ from new media in

coverage of such a topic, using a catalyst event (the filibuster) to address the episodic nature of

news.

This study bridges a gap in the literature as to how framing, gatekeeping and agenda

setting play out in the new media landscape with regard to a specific breaking news event—in

this case a legislative bill involving abortion and its subsequent filibuster.

The study hopes to explore the various ways different players on Twitter (organizations,

activists, journalists and an active, participatory audience) spread the abortion story, the frames

they used and whether or not as gatewatchers, they helped set the agenda for the public on this

localized abortion issue. It will compare Twitter coverage to local and national newspaper

coverage to uncover any differences in frames and explore whether the online audience has

become an agenda setter for the media themselves.

SB 5 marks the first time a legislative battle over abortion has occurred in the new technological age and thus presents a unique opportunity to investigate the potential role of online news streams like Twitter in breaking news situations that have a political bent.

Research Questions

Using previous research as a backdrop for this study I am looking at the following:

R1: How does traditional media differ from Twitter in terms of message amplification and agenda setting?

R2: What were the most popular and least popular frames in each of the three populations analyzed (local newspapers, national newspapers and Twitter)?

R3: Which medium covers a breaking news event first: local news, national news or

Twitter?

R4a: How much Twitter coverage is produced by 1) companies or organizations, 2) journalists, 3) activists, 4) regular users?

R4b: Does the amount of coverage from different sets of people on Twitter increase or decline as the week goes on?

R5a: What type of information are the Twitter gatewatchers disseminating? (Information, statements of opinion, news articles, images or videos)?

R5b: Which type of information was most popular and amid which population of Twitter users? Did this change throughout the week?

R6: Did the frames used change in local news, national news or on Twitter after the catalyst event (the filibuster)?

R7: Did the frames used change in local news, national news or on Twitter after the catalyst event (the filibuster), in total or within certain groups?

CHAPTER 3 METHODS

This mixed methods framing analysis is based on the attributes Swenson (1990) used when studying how newspapers covered abortions, but branches from it. This study looked both quantitatively and qualitatively at the stories to determine which frames were used by counting phrases medically inclined, politically oriented, pro-abortion and anti-abortion; determining this by looking at framing devices used such as photos used, headlines, leads, length and blame. In sum, this study hopes to identify the main frames used by local and national newspapers and compare them to frames used on Twitter to determine if the medium has an impact on the message, and if the messenger has an impact on how the message is perceived. I identified all frames through a framing analysis because this study seeks to link news messages from production by journalists and audience members to consumption by the general public (McLeod,

Kosicki & Pan, 1991).

“Framing analysis is presented as a constructivist approach to examine news discourse with the primary focus on conceptualizing news texts into empirically operationalizable dimensions—syntactical, script, thematic, and rhetorical structures—so that evidence of the news media's framing of issues in news texts may be gathered” (Pan & Kosicki, 1993, pg. 55), and thus appears to be the most appropriate mode of study for these texts to create meaning.

The study looks at how the media frame the issue of abortion through a set political event to encourage salience, accessibility and discussion (Tuchman, 1978), how organizations and activists on either side of the issue prepare for this discussion and attempt to provide their own framework for media to follow (Hertsgaard, 1988), and how those frame combinations (if they exist) affect audience perception of an issue (Graber, 1988) (which can only be measured in

rudimentary fashion here, by analyzing popularity among Twitter users of certain messages over others). The true media effects of this type of framing could be fodder for future study, however.

The online articles and Tweets have been used as the units of analysis, and to retrieve them a convenience sample of 20 daily newspapers with websites in Texas were analyzed, with a significant portion of them claiming only wire coverage of SB 5. The daily papers were found via a list on the Library of Congress website. A diverse sample from across the state was chosen because the bill’s implications affected the entire state equally, and thus deserved equal analysis.

Daily papers with no stories were eliminated from the study, as were papers with paywalls in place barring access to the research. Weeklies and online papers with no print component were also omitted. Papers were selected based on location in the State (ensuring a wide geographical area), inclusion in the Library of Congress’ website, and accessibility. Those papers behind a paywall were automatically excluded from analyzation possibility.

For national news, four main newspapers in the United States were chosen: The New

York Times, U.S.A. Today, The L.A. Times, and the Washington Post. These were selected due to their geographical locations around the United States and their circulation size (Beaujon, 2014).

The top three circulations belonged to U.S.A. Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York

Times, with The Washington Post, and The L.A. Times at fourth and fifth in the nation. The Wall

Street Journal was not analyzed as it focuses primarily on business news. The Chicago Tribune and The Boston Globe were also considered, but the papers contained no articles on SB 5 and were thus excluded.

Since the filibuster took place on June 25, 2013, and the first consistent coverage of it began in Texas on June 23, stories that related to the issue and were published from June 23,

2013 to July 1, 2013 were studied. Analysis stopped on July 1 because that marks the date of the

second special session. Duplicate stories were marked accordingly during initial story counts and added to the total, however, afterward, all duplicates were removed from analysis so that no original work received more emphasis within the study.

News stories, features, and op-ed pieces were located using a keyword search for “SB 5 abortion” within the newspapers’ archives. “SB 5” alone is an invalid search term. If five or fewer stories came up with “SB 5 abortion” a search for simply “abortion” and the given dates in

June 2013 were used. A secondary search of “Wendy Davis” was performed to be sure no stories were missed. Wendy Davis was the Texas senator who staged the 11-hour filibuster against the bill. In total, 78 local stories were retrieved with 17 duplicates, leaving the number of original stories in the sample at 61, and 33 national stories with no duplicates. Therefore, after keeping track of repeats, the local stories sample size was 61, and the national, 33. If taken together in a sample of newspaper coverage versus Twitter coverage, the sample size would be 94. The headline, lead, quotes, date published, key words such as abortion, pro life or right to life, fetus, baby, unborn, women’s health, abortion rights, and Wendy Davis, date of the article, writer of the article, pictures and captions, and where the article was published within the paper were all coded. From these, the framing devices used in each story were determined and which frame each device suggested (pro-life, pro-abortion, political, or medical).

Tweets were analyzed from the same time period, every 100th “all” tweets after a random start from a search of hashtags #txlege and #sb5 June 23 to July 1. Every 100 tweets was decided on to get representation from the four major times in the stories life: pre-filibuster, the day of the filibuster, the day after the filibuster, and post-filibuster. There are two days analyzed in the pre- filibuster chunk for 55 tweets, 205 tweets on the day of the filibuster, 55 the day after, and the final chunk of time analyzed, post-filibuster, comprises of five days and 31 tweets. Five days

after the filibuster were taken into account to highlight the steep drop-off in news stories after a catalyst event has occurred, which supports Downs’ (1972) issue-attention cycle, which concentrates on a pre-problem stage, public discovery of the problem, understanding the scope and reality of the problem, gradual public interest decline and the post problem stage. I also am interested in comparing this cycle on Twitter to the cycle in traditional news coverage to explore if the new medium encourages even quicker rises and falls in interest, which will be measured by number of tweets and tweet content.

More popular tags #standwithwendy and #standforlife were not included as framing would be obvious in these cases as either pro or anti-abortion. While not all of those tweets would be supportive of their respective movements, a Twitter search of the terms showed that the vast majority were, and this study pertains to news and opinion that was tagged in the interest of the greater conversation (such as the bill itself, and the Texas Legislature) rather than news focusing solely on those who would be following a hash tag meant for one side of a debate or another. In this way, while generalization is still impossible, there is a clearer picture of what audience members as a whole were consuming in terms of Twitter coverage at the time.

All tweets were chosen rather than top tweets because messages that were not amplified are important to study to perhaps pick up why they weren’t amplified where others were. A top tweet is a tweet that received enough attention online for twitter to make it more easily searchable. During that week there nearly 3,500 tweets under those hashtags, and 341 of them were analyzed. Picture tweets, statement tweets, tweets @ a particular party, question tweets, tweets that linked to an online piece (which was then also included in analysis), and tweets that linked to a call for action were coded. The same key terms were looked for, replacing writer of article with originator of tweet, paying particular attention to their user profile, picture and

number of followers. Four distinct user types were coded for (organizations, activists, journalists

and average users), using their profile descriptions and Twitter handles. Official organization

Twitter accounts say so in the description, activists describe themselves as such or list affiliations

with organizations, working journalists link to or name their publications, activists label

themselves as such, and average users have none of these cues. The number of retweets and

replies each tweet received was also tracked to gauge popularity of frame and user, which has

been correlated with amplification of message.

Two co-coders were trained on reading word order in stories including use of the terms:

abortion, unborn, fetus, women’s health, and Wendy Davis, as well as suggested emotions or

latent meanings in terms like: struggle, win, death, victorious, etc. They were trained on reading

tweets to determine frame, using key words and hashtags like right to life and stand with Wendy

and tone, where users conveyed which side of the debate they were on by applying positive or

negative attributes to one side or the other.

An intercoder reliability test was run using a random stratified sample of the national

papers in which one article from each was chosen using a random number generator, a

completely random sample of five stories from the local paper subset, and a completely random

sample of 20 tweets from the Twitter subset.

That was completed with 94 percent agreement, and the co-coders then took on ten percent of the coding each, given to them as a result of another completely random selection. The main researcher coded all stories in the sample, and the intercoder reliability for the 20 percent overlap had a Kriffendorf’s Alpha of .87.

Using these data, the study aims to explore what frames occurred in Twitter versus

traditional media and when those frames occurred, which types of Twitter users put forward

which messages and when, whether frames changed before, during and after the catalyst event, and whether Twitter users were able to influence coverage in the mainstream media of this event.

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS

Out of the total population of 45 Texas papers (from where the 20-paper sample was chosen), 10 papers had no coverage of the filibuster or bill at all. Any paper with no coverage of the bill was automatically excluded from the sample pool, meaning the 20-paper sample was pulled from a population of 35 papers. This is important to note, as exclusion of any paper for any specific reason could skew some data. However, as the study pertains to framing in articles written about SB5, papers without article coverage were deemed of no use to study. For this reason, nationally, The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe were not analyzed. They had no coverage of this event.

The final sample of all coverage analyzed for this research (n=435) consisted of a mix of local and national news stories and Twitter coverage. There were 61 local stories, of which 18 were AP stories and 43 were local, original stories with all duplicates removed taken from a convenience sample of 20 Texas papers, chosen to get a sample of different circulation sizes, and different locations around the state, and based on researcher access to the news sites. Thirty-three national stories were analyzed from four national news outlets (Washington Post, New York

Times, L.A. Times, U.S.A. Today) which represents a census from those four papers, as no story was left unanalyzed within the subgroup. The Twitter sample size consisted of 341 tweets.

R1: How Do Traditional Newspapers Differ from Twitter in Terms of Message Amplification and Agenda Setting?

The average length of the sample stories and articles in local coverage was 852 words, with the shortest article containing 331 words and the longest, 2,168 words. Six opinion pieces were recorded, with two presenting a pro-abortion framework and four presenting an anti- abortion framework.

Nationally, the average length of the sample stories was 677 words, with the shortest

article containing 130 words and the longest having 1,334 words. This sample included 11

stories from USA Today, six stories from The New York Times, seven from The LA Times, and nine in The Washington Post. Within this subset of stories, there were 13 opinion pieces, representing the majority of Washington Post and LA Times coverage. Of these 13, nine presented pro-abortion frames, two represented both sides fairly equally and two presented anti- abortion frames.

In terms of opinion pieces, when local and national coverage was compared, local opinion was framed much more toward anti-abortion policy and national coverage was framed toward pro-abortion policy.

Within local coverage, there were seven stories that had no byline and three stories sent in by people of note (officials or senators). While this study took 61 articles into account, there were 78 articles published by the 20 sample papers. Seventeen of those 78 were duplicates, and therefore removed for the majority of analysis. However, it is important to note how often Texas papers relied on AP coverage of this bill. In this respect, all duplicates were AP stories, meaning that of the 78 total (before duplication elimination), 30 of the stories were from the AP. That means in the local state where SB 5 was of import, 38 percent of the coverage relied on a national wire service as opposed to original reporting. Of these AP repetitions, one particular story showed up in seven of the 20 sample papers, an AP story entitled “Texas abortion bill falls after challenge.” Also important to note that three stories with repeats originated from online newspaper service “The Texas Tribune” and that the Amarillo Globe News and the Lubbock-

Avalanche Journal shared resources, and therefore had repeated, but locally written, stories.

These repetitions and wire stories imply importance of topic to the local papers. If the issue was

more important to them, they would likely run original work. If not, they would more likely run

AP wire stories if anything at all. Table 4-1 records how many times a story was repeated in local coverage.

Table 4-1: Number of times an SB5 story was used in local coverage AP Story Headline # Times Recorded Papers Running Story

Filibuster makes ex-Texas 2 The Midland Reporter teen mom national star Telegram The Monitor After abortion setback, Texas 2 Temple Daily Telegram GOP set to try again The Paris News Texas abortion bill falls after 7 Cleburne Times Review challenge The Monitor The Paris News The Eagle Laredo Morning Times El Paso Times Port Arthur News Texas lawmakers are back, 2 The Paris News and so is abortion fight The Orange Leader Perry, filibuster star clash 1 Laredo Morning Times over Texas abortions Davis a tough voice for 1 Laredo Morning Times Democrats on abortion Filibuster broken against 1 Laredo Morning Times abortion bill Gov. Perry calls 2nd special 2 Laredo Morning Times session on abortion El Paso Times Texas Senate blowup 1 The Orange Leader threatens lt. gov.'s future Texas Capitol now center of 1 El Paso Times larger abortion battle Texas senator filibusters 1 El Paso Times against abortion bill Texas dems, GOP seek to 1 El Paso Times capitalize on abortion debate Texas Senate set for filibuster 1 El Paso Times finale on abortion

In terms of national coverage, 30 stories were original and three stories were from the

Associated Press. No story was duplicated in any of the coverage.

As far as Twitter coverage is concerned, the search mechanism used automatically screened for retweets that simply used the retweet button, meaning how large the population would have been had retweets been included is unknown. However, the number of retweets and favorites each tweet sampled received was marked to get a general idea of which messages were most popular and which users had the broadest social media base.

The number of total tweets each twitter account in the sample had was also counted to determine how active each user was on this platform, and how many followers each account had, to show their possible message reach. The average number of tweets per user account was

22,792 within the sample. This is not a precise figure, as the Twitter platform counts each tweet up to 10,000. After that, Twitter rounds to the nearest 100 tweets. When a user reaches 100,000 tweets, Twitter rounds to the nearest 1,000 tweets, giving a wide berth as to how many tweets users actually had on average.

The highest number of tweets any one user had was 273,000, from an account belonging to @mommadona. Based on her profile and surrounding tweets, she is a small blogger with a limited following who simply uses Twitter to chat with others, comment on what she’s read or update the public about random things in her personal life. No firm agenda is obvious; she appears to be a private citizen who simply uses Twitter a lot. She tweeted a conversational message on the first day of the study’s analysis, asking about a new legislative session. The tweet went unanswered. The lowest number of tweets any one account had was 29. @Ypatsy630 had no profile, and looked to have created this account simply to comment on the filibuster. He or she tweeted support for Sen. Davis and thanked her for what she was doing on the morning of

the filibuster. The individual had no following, and very little influence over others on the network.

Followers are important on Twitter because they represent the potential regular audience of any one user. The more followers an account has, provided those followers are other human users, could influence the volume of the message being disseminated. Of course, those followers would have to be at their computers at the time of the tweet, as Twitter runs a cascading, real- time newsfeed, so that anyone following any account will see the most recent tweets from their network, unless they use the search option. The average number of followers per account tweeting in our sample was 15,848. However, that average was skewed in that two accounts had more than a million followers each, falsely inflating the average. When calculated again, excluding @LenaDunham with two million followers, and @Slate with 1.3 million followers, and also excluding the two lowest followings of 0 and 1 from new accounts, the average may be much more informative for the purpose of this study. The new calculated average followers for users in the sample is thus 4,840 followers. Again, this is not precise because Twitter rounds followers to the nearest 100 and then to the nearest 1,000, and eventually to the nearest 100,000 as followers increase. Table 4-2 shows the range of Twitter followers of accounts in the sample.

Table 4-2: Number of followers per Twitter user in sample 0-100 101- 501- 1,001- 5,001- 10,001- 20,001- 50,001- >100,000 500 1,000 5,000 10,000 20,000 50,000 100,000

21 73 42 101 25 19 12 1 4

Within the Twitter sample there were multiple users who showed up more than once, so that while their exact message wasn’t being duplicated, the influence of their opinion swayed the sample. The repeat users were marked to determine amplification of message via quantity, and thus a unique framing technique to Twitter. Of the sample of 341 tweets, only 298 unique users

were logged. This means 43 tweets were from users already encountered within the sample. The same users showed up twice 27 times in the sample, and thrice eight times. In total, 35 users showed up in the sample more than once. Of these, five were organizations trying to get their story angle out to the public. All five tweeted information and comment for the pro-abortion frame in the political context. Six users in this subset were considered journalists and all but one of these users presented information in a neutral way in the political context. One staff member of a local newspaper presented pro-abortion frames in her tweets. The other 22 users showing up more than once in the sample were activists or normal users (and one Texas politician), representing solely their views. Nineteen of these users presented a pro-abortion message, two presented anti-abortion messages and one was neutral. Two of the users presented the bill in medical frames, six used both medical and political frames and the other 14 users presented political frames in their tweets.

Another framing technique unique to Twitter is the hashtag. As most Twitter coverage could be labeled opinion as opposed to news coverage, hashtags are a succinct way to frame a tweet on one side of the debate or the other. Because of this, researchers analyzed which hashtags were used aside from #sb5 and #txlege to determine pro-abortion, anti-abortion, medical and political frames. Alongside the two hashtags used to determine our sample, 74 other unique hashtags were observed. Of these, 53 hashtags showed up only once. The most commonly used hashtags were as follows: #standwithwendy had 62 mentions; HB60 (the previous name of SB5) showed up 31 times, mostly in the beginning as the bill was transitioning names; #standwithtexaswomen appeared 12 times, mostly before #standwithwendy became a trending tag and before her filibuster. #HB16 showed up nine times, another name for the bill when it was in the house. Other than that, #prochoice showed up seven times, #abortion showed

up eight times, #feministarmy appeared six times, as did #texas. The most commonly used anti- abortion hashtag was #standforlife which appeared five times.

The tags that were used more than a few times had a political or locational group aspect to them. Those tags showing up just once or twice tended to be an extension of the individual user’s opinion, such as #pissedatperry, #abortionismurder, #umadbro?, and

#backpainsavesprebornpain. In this way, different users use hashtags differently: either to express an opinion or to make their tweets more visible to the public. As with other analyzation within the sample, the pro-abortion message more frequently appeared and used tags that were meant to amplify the message consumption.

In essence, local newspapers covered the bill most extensively, but also relied most heavily on repeated stories over original content. Articles locally were on average longer than all other coverage. National coverage included more opinion pieces than local coverage and more original content, but the article lengths were shorter on average. Tweets are limited to 140 characters and only original content was analyzed.

R2: What Were the Most Popular and Least Popular Frames in Each of the Three Populations Analyzed (Local Newspapers, National Newspapers and Twitter)?

There were four frames searched for in the coverage of SB 5: medical, political, anti- abortion (pro-legislation) and pro-abortion (anti-legislation).

Medical frames included mention of women’s health, conflicting data on whether or not a fetus can feel pain after 20 weeks, the extra medical tests such as ultrasounds and sonograms that would be necessary under the new legislation, the role of doctors and clinics under the new legislation (such as doctors needed admitting privileges in a hospital no further than 30 miles

away and clinics being part of a hospital network), and danger of pregnancy to the mother or

fetus.

Political frames focused the story on the political players involved, the filibuster itself,

protests and the Senate proceedings both before and after the bill’s defeat. The frames extended

into speculation of candidacy in upcoming elections and public opinion of the senators involved.

Anti-abortion frames focused on the rights of the fetus (usually called the unborn or

babies in these stories), and the sanctity of human life. They also focused on women’s

healthcare, stating the bill would raise standards for care in the 42 clinics currently operating,

something the other side vehemently denied. Anti-abortion frames also concentrated on the

ruckus in the senate gallery and showed the actions by Democratic senators as against the

political process and disruptive. They painted officials supporting the legislation as calm in the

face of calamity. In terms of filibuster coverage, stories framed in an anti-abortion light outlined the end of Sen. Wendy Davis’s filibuster missteps as legitimate and within the rules of the

Senate.

Pro-abortion frames focused on the rights of the women and families above the rights of the fetus. Like the anti-abortion frames, they focused on women’s healthcare, but in these cases, argued that the standard of care would not be raised, and that the only outcome would be restrictions on a woman’s right to abortion as they claimed 37 of the 42 clinics would be forced to shut down under the new legislation. The pro-abortion framing also looked at the ruckus

during the filibuster and after, but painted the protestors as standing up for their democratic

rights, and the Democratic senators as exercising their due privileges in the chamber. These

stories concentrated on the lack of control by Republican leaders, as well. In terms of filibuster

coverage, these stories tended to show the Republicans ending the Sen. Davis’s stand as cruel,

nitpicky, and lacking in human compassion.

All frames were analyzed based on their sub-parts’ frequencies in the story, including headline and lede wording, quotes from either side, graphics, and mention of the specific ideas above. The newspaper sample (including both local and national) was analyzed by itself first to get a picture of frames used in traditional newspaper coverage of this story.

As can be seen in Table 4-3, the most frequently used frame in the coverage taken as a whole was the political frame with 64 stories, or almost exactly 2/3 of the sample. These stories presented the abortion issue in Texas in terms of the political proceedings around the specific

bill. Only eight of the 94 stories presented with prominent medical frames, which included

descriptions of the health implications of the bill on women and fetuses. The last quarter of the

stories utilized medical and political frames equally, presenting both sides of the issue. Political

frames can be exemplified by sentences like “Lt. Gov. Dewhurst stood with his hands in his

pockets as the senate devolved into madness” which describes a key player in the political

process; and a medical frame example would be “under the bill, doctors would need admitting

privileges at a hospital less than 30 miles away.”

Table 4-3: Political and medical frames in total newspaper sample Total newspaper sample (local and national) Frequency Percent Political Frame 64 68% Medical Frame 8 8.6% Both 22 23.4%

Total 94 100%

Table 4-4 shows that the second strongest frame present in the stories was a pro-abortion

frame. Forty nine stories in the sample presented the issue in terms slanted against the

legislation. That’s more than half, at 52 percent. Examples of phrases used to indicate pro-

abortion frames were: “effectively closing 37 Texas clinics” and “a jubilant crowd cheered for

women’s rights.” Sentences used in this framing were “As she spoke late into the night railing

against proposed abortion restrictions, a former Texas teen mom catapulted from little-known junior state senator to national political superstar in pink running shoes,” framing Sen. Wendy

Davis as a hero, and “The majority of the Democrats opposed SB 5 on grounds it would jeopardize the health of women across the state, particularly in impoverished and rural areas,” which stated a point of view on the pro-side as almost fact.

Table 4-4: Pro-abortion vs. anti-abortion frames in total newspaper sample Total newspaper sample (local and national) Frequency Percent Neutral 25 26.6% Anti-abortion 20 21.2% Pro-abortion 49 52.2%

Total 94 100%

Anti-abortion frames were dominant in 20 of the 92 stories, representing 21 percent of

the sample. Examples of phrases in this frame used were: “this is to raise standards of care for

both women and the unborn,” showing the anti-abortion side as almost fact, and “Hundreds of

jeering protesters helped stop Texas lawmakers from passing one of the toughest abortion

measures in the country, shouting down Senate Republicans and forcing them to miss a midnight

deadline to pass the bill” foisting blame for interrupting the Democratic process on pro-abortion

protesters.

Meanwhile, a little more than a quarter of the stories analyzed were neutral, meaning they

represented the pro-abortion and anti-abortion points equally.

Quotations were used heavily in the articles, framing the issues as either pro or anti-

abortion. Typical quotes used as frames were: “No one’s talked about the rights of the unborn.

They don’t have any, because of Roe vs. Wade,” or “Senator Davis did a superb job.” Headlines ranged from “Sweeping Texas Anti-Abortion Bill Defeated in Dramatic Late Night Filibuster,” indicating a pro-abortion, political framework, to “Crowd disruption doomed abortion bill,” showing an anti-abortion sympathy. These stories covered the same issue—the defeat of SB 5— but the headlines showed differing frames implied by each paper.

The coverage of local newspapers was then compared to that of national newspapers, to determine if there were differences between frames used in those two sets, as seen in Table 4-5.

Table 4-5: Political and medical frames in local versus national coverage Local National

Count 42 22 64 Political % 68.9% 66.7% 68% Count 6 2 8 Medical % 9.8% 6% 8.5% Count 13 9 22 Both % 21.3% 27.3% 23.5% Count 61 33 94 Total 100% 100% 100% %

As shown in Table 4-5, the percentage of stories presenting a political versus a medical frame remained fairly constant between local and national stories with about two-thirds of the stories in each being framed politically. About 10 percent of the local stories had a dominant medical frame, with only six percent of national stories having one. Meanwhile, 27 percent of national stories included equally political and medical frames, and only 21 percent of local stories had equal coverage in that aspect. This makes sense since locally the health implications of the bill would be of more importance than nationally where it would not affect the audience.

Table 4-6: Pro and anti-abortion frames in local versus national coverage Local National Count 18 7 25 Neutral % 29.5% 21.2% 26.6% Count 17 3 20 Anti-abortion % 27.9% 9% 21.2% Count 26 23 49 Pro-abortion % 42.6% 69.7% 52.1% Count 61 33 94 Total % 100% 100% 100%

Table 4-6 shows that locally about 30 percent of the stories were neutral, meaning they

presented both anti and pro-abortion frames equally. Just over 20 percent of the national stories

were neutral. In contrast, almost another 30 percent of the local stories were firmly anti-abortion in tone, whereas not even 10 percent of the national stories were anti-abortion. Contrasting just as greatly, 43 percent of the local stories presented a pro-abortion frame, and a whopping 70 percent of the national stories presented the pro-abortion viewpoints. These numbers show how much more pro-life Texas is than the country in general, which is backed up by the conservative nature of the state’s voting record and its elected officials (Madison Voting Index, 2014).

As shown, despite the journalistic ideal of objectivity, national outlets did not have an even spread of pro- and anti-abortion framed stories. Instead, the local coverage had the most even spread, while national coverage skewed markedly toward pro-abortion frames, in part due to the opinion content analyzed. However, it was found that even straight news stories in the national publications carried more pro-abortion frames. Since the national interest lay in the event, the filibuster, of which the main character was pro-abortion, the stories were written to reflect both that and the more lenient stance much of the nation has toward abortion in comparison to Texas (Guttmacher Institute, 2015). Following that vein, local coverage did include more anti-abortion framing than national outlets.

In terms of Twitter coverage, as shown in Table 4-7, it skewed markedly political, with nearly 84 percent of all tweets sampled being framed in that way. Only six percent of Twitter users framed their messages medically, and only 10 percent used both frames in their message to provide a more comprehensive picture. Twitter coverage also presented a vast majority of pro- abortion views, with 76 percent of all tweets framing their coverage on that side. Only eight percent of Tweets samples had an anti-abortion frame, and just 16 percent included both sides.

Table 4-7: Frames present in Twitter coverage

Pro Neutral Anti Total Political Medical Both Total Number of Tweets 258 56 27 341 286 20 35 341

Percentage of 75.7% 16.4% 7.9% 100% 83.9% 5.9% 10.2% Tweets 100%

When compared to traditional newspapers, Figure 4-1 shows both had a majority of pro- abortion and political frames, Twitter was more extreme. Traditional newspapers had a more even spread of story frames, throughout, with the exception being medical frames which were rarely used in either medium. This was most likely because the topic, while being rooted in medical issues, was being covered due to a political event, which served as the primary reason it was in the news.

0 Pro-Abortion Neutral Anti-Abortion Political Medical Both

Traditional Media Twitter

Figure 4-1: Percentage of frames on Twitter vs. in traditional newspapers

To conclude, pro-abortion and political frames were the most popular both in traditional newspapers (both local and national) and on Twitter. Anti-abortion and medical frames were the least popular. However, the difference was more extreme on Twitter than in traditional newspapers, and more extreme in national media than in local media.

R3: Which Medium Covers a Breaking News Event First: Local News, National News or Twitter?

The numbers show clearly that Twitter was the first medium to cover this event broadly, and that the news cycle on Twitter not only started sooner, but ended sooner as well. The nine- day analysis period was split into four sections: Before the filibuster, the day of the filibuster, the day after the filibuster and post filibuster. Through this, and as marked on Figure 4-2, it was shown that the majority of Twitter coverage (60 percent) happened during the event, while only

10 percent of newspaper coverage occurred on that day. By the end of the analysis period (post filibuster), Twitter coverage dropped off steeply, with the five days of coverage representing

only nine percent of the sample. Meanwhile, traditional newspaper coverage increased

dramatically, with 46 percent of the coverage going on in the post period.

0 Pre-filibuster Day of filibuster Day after filibuster Post-filibuster

Twitter Traditional Media

Figure 4-2: Percentage of Twitter coverage vs. traditional media coverage over time

When taken separately for comparison, as shown in Figure 4-3, both local and national coverage had more stories in the days after the filibuster, but the national news printed the most stories on the day directly after the filibuster, whereas the local coverage continued to cover the topic heavily during the post period. Taken by day, both local and national newspapers had the most coverage on the day after the event, with local coverage printing 21 stories of the 78-story sample on that day (repeats included for amount of coverage, as content is not being analyzed), or 26.9 percent of its entire coverage, and national print media posting 19 of their 33 stories on that day, providing for 57.7 percent of national coverage.

0 Pre-filibuster Day of filibuster Day after filibuster Post-filibuster

Local Coverage National Coverage

Figure 4-3: Percentage of local vs. national print coverage over time

The numbers show that Twitter started coverage earlier and increased coverage sooner than traditional newspapers, but afterward tagged off, whereas traditional newspapers continued to cover the issue in greater scope (in terms of quantity of stories published). It was also found that national coverage was most concentrated the day after the event, whereas local coverage increased and continued strongly throughout the post-filibuster period.

R4a: How Much Twitter Coverage Is Produced by 1) Companies or Organizations, 2) Journalists, 3) Activists, 4) Regular Users?

In terms of who was using Twitter to disseminate information about this story, it was found that out of the 341 tweets in the sample, 39 were from organizations, 65 were from journalists, 96 were from activists, and 141 came from regular Twitter users. The category determinations came from the analysis of user profiles as previously outlined in the methods sections. As shown in Figure 4-4, these numbers mean that just about 11 percent of the tweets

came from organizations, 19 percent from journalists, 28 percent came from activists and the

remaining 41 percent were written by regular Twitter users.

12%

41% 19%

28%

Organizations Journalists Activists Regular Users

Figure 4-4: Percentage of tweets from different types of users

Nearly half of all tweets were created by Twitter users who did not affiliate with any organization, cause or publication in their profile or their tweets. Activists who indicated in their profiles or tweets that they were aligned with a particular cause made up the second greatest amount of tweets. Meanwhile, organizations and journalists, typically the ones associated with the mass media models in the past, made up the smallest percentage of tweets.

R4b: Does the Amount of Coverage from Different Sets of People on Twitter Increase or Decline as the Week Goes on?

According to the analysis, and as seen in Figure 4-5, every group of users had a spike of tweets on the day of the filibuster, which makes sense as it marks the event, which people on

Twitter were able to cover in real time. The organizations were more active before the event than

any other group, followed by the activists. In terms of percentage of tweets per group, journalists

and normal users nearly mirrored each other, with journalists being just slightly less active pre-

filibuster and post-filibuster and slightly more active the day after the filibuster. In all, the

organizations were most evenly spread throughout the days even though they were responsible

for the fewest number of tweets total.

0 Pre-filibuster Day of Filibuster Day after filibuster Post-filibuster

Organizations Journalists Activists Normal Users

Figure 4-5: Percentage of tweets per grouping over time

Regardless of group category, Twitter users were most active on the day of the filibuster, when the news was breaking.

R5a: What Type of Information Are the Twitter Gatewatchers Disseminating? (Information, Statements of Opinion, Links, Images or Videos, Conversation, Call to Action)? Did This Change throughout the Week?

The tweets were categorized into six groups: information, statements of opinion, links, images (and videos), conversations, and calls to action. A tweet was categorized as information if it gave some indication as to what was going on within the Capitol, what the bill was about, or what was happening with regard to the bill, without a blatant opinion in the text. An example

would be: “They're gonna let people into the gallery! #txlege #SB5 #StandWithTXWomen,” which tells the Twitter audience what is going on within the capitol at that time, without stating in the text an agenda of any sort. A tweet was categorized as opinion if there was an obvious slant toward pro- or anti-abortion in the tweet’s text. For instance, “Now to have these

Republican “leaders” brought up on charges for fraud, tampering, etc. #sb5 @davidhdewhurst

#txlege @wendydavistexas.” Link tweets were labelled as such if they had any hyperlink leading to another website. The images category was used any time there was an embedded picture, screenshot or video within the tweet. A conversation tweet was categorized if a dialogue between two or more people was invited, either by a user posing a question, or a user directly addressing another user or group, such as: “Isn't it a new day, hence, a new session? #txlege #sb5 ~ #PP.” A call to action was noted when users called others to take any action regarding the story they were reading about. For instance, “All over Texas, women are ready to stand for #SB5. Join us!

#Txlege #tweetyourfeet.” As some tweets could fall into more than one category, there ended up being 389 total for this section as opposed to 341. An example of a tweet which belongs to more than one category would be: “Ugh. Scumbag GOP. #StandWithWendy RT @scottbraddock:

That'll be a second warning for @WendyDavisTexas #txlege #sb5.” This was categorized as both a statement of opinion and information as the tweet showed clearly which side the user was on by calling the Republicans scumbags, yet also told viewers something completely factual about the proceedings, which was that Wendy Davis just received her second warning during her filibuster.

After analyzing the data, it was found that statements of opinion were the most likely on

Twitter during coverage of this story. At 155 opinions, they accounted for nearly 40 percent of all tweets throughout the week. Information came next, with 74 tweets, or 19 percent of the

sample. There were 65 links, accounting for nearly 17 percent of the tweets. Calls to action and

conversations were the least used, making up 6.7 percent and 5.7 percent of the tweets,

respectively, as shown in Figure 4-6.

7% 6% 19%

12%

16% 40%

Information Opinion Links Images Conversation Call to action

Figure 4-6: Percentage of tweet types

Figure 4-7, below, is illuminating in that it shows a basic pattern of which types of tweets were most popular over time, with the exception of conversation which does not spike on the day of the filibuster.

120

100

0 Pre-filibuster Day of filibuster Day after filibuster Post-filibuster

Information Opinion Links Images Conversation Call to action

Figure 4-7: Total percentage of types of tweets per over time

To get a better grasp of these numbers, the percentage of tweets in each category was calculated as they accord with the percentage of tweets made in that category on the whole. In

Figure 4-8, the tweet percentages were based on how many tweets of a certain type happened in a certain time period, given the total percentage of tweets in that category making up the whole.

0 Pre-filibuster Day of filibuster Day after filibuster Post-filibuster

Information Opinion Links Images Conversation Call to action

Figure 4-8: Separate percentages of types of tweets over time

In Figure 4-8, it is clear that opinions reigned on Twitter for the majority of the time period analyzed. During the last days of analysis, however, opinions decreased to their lowest point, while other types of messages, links and images, hit their highest peaks. Conversation dipped down during the event and was most prevalent before the day of the filibuster. Calls to action were also most popular before the filibuster and lost steam throughout the sample period.

Interestingly, information remained higher and consistent in the earlier two time periods, dropping off the day after the filibuster and the time period after that.

R5b: Which Type of Information Did Each Group Share the Most?

To attempt to observe any agenda setting within the four populations discussed earlier

(organizations, journalists, activists and normal Twitter users), the type of information each group shared separately and as part of the whole was taken into account.

Table 4-8 shows the percentage of tweets each group made in each category in terms of the entire sample.

Table 4-8: Percentage of types of tweets by each user category Call to Info Opinion Links Image Convos Total action Organizations # 9 18 11 4 4 5 51 Organizations % 12.2% 11.6% 16.9% 8.5% 18.2% 19.2%

Journalists # 21 21 15 7 0 3 67 Journalists % 28.4% 13.5% 23.1% 14.9% 0% 11.5%

Activists # 18 44 15 19 6 8 110 Activists % 24.4% 28.4% 23.1% 40.4% 27.3% 30.8%

Normal user # 26 72 24 17 12 10 161 Normal user % 35% 46.5% 36.9% 36.2% 54.5% 38.5%

Total # 74 155 65 47 22 26 389 Total % 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table 4-8 shows that overall, normal users made up the most of all categories of tweets,

except for images, where activists posted slightly more. As with 5a, Table 4-8 is useful only to

show that the tweets mostly followed a similar pattern over category. To see a more detailed,

better picture, Table 4-9 takes into account what percentage of tweets each grouping

(organizations, journalists, activists and normal users) makes up within that whole, and

calculates the percentage of tweets each group makes in each category as a separate entity. Table

4-8 should be read vertically to indicate 100 percent of each tweet category. Table 4-9 should be read horizontally to represent each tweet group and its category makeup in its entirety.

Through Table 4-9, it becomes clearer which groups used which categories for their tweets. Organizations posted 35 percent opinion statements, 22 percent links and 18 percent informational tweets, for instance, with conversations and calls to action representing less than

10 percent of their tweets, each. Journalists posted information and opinion equally in the sample, together making up 62 percent of their tweets. They posted links third most often at 22.5

percent, and rarely called users to action. No journalist engaged in a conversation on Twitter.

Activists posted opinion tweets 40 percent of the time, with pictures and information coming in second most popular at 17 and 16 percent, respectively. They called users to action seven percent of the time and only engaged in conversation with 5.5 percent of their tweets. Normal users also spent the majority of their tweets on opinion statements at nearly 45 percent. Sixteen percent of their tweets were informational, 15 percent of their tweets were links, nearly 11 percent were pictures, and they engaged in conversation seven percent of the time. The least popular tweet category for the casual user was a call to action, which represented six percent of their tweets.

Table 4-9: Percentage of type of tweet per group category Call to Info Opinion Links Image Convos Total action Organizations # 9 18 11 4 4 5 51 Organizations % 17.6% 35.3% 21.6% 7.8% 7.8% 9.8% 100%

Journalists # 21 21 15 7 0 3 67 Journalists % 31.3% 31.3% 22.5% 10.4% 0% 4.5% 100%

Activists # 18 44 15 19 6 8 110 Activists % 16.3% 40% 13.6% 17.3% 5.5% 7.3% 100%

Normal user # 26 72 24 17 12 10 161 Normal user % 16.1% 44.7% 14.9% 10.6% 7.5% 6.2% 100%

Total # 74 155 65 47 22 26 389 Total %

Opinions were the most likely to be shared regardless of group category. Journalists shared the most information and links. Activists favored images over other group categories.

Conversations and calls to action were rare across all groups.

R6: Which Frames Were Most Popular when Judged by Retweets? Which Frames Were Most Popular when Judged by Favorites?

Of interest is how many tweets of each frame—pro-abortion, anti-abortion, political, and medical—were retweeted and how many times. Each tweet in the population was coded for two

types of frames: pro-abortion, anti-abortion and neutral; and political, medical, or both.

Therefore, the whole population adds up to the 341 tweets analyzed, and they are first split up

within the following three rows to show pro-abortion, anti-abortion and neutral tweets. The

following three rows account for tweets framed politically, medically or using both frames

simultaneously. In all categories, no retweets was the highest result, showing that much of what

is typed on Twitter is a one-time message, and only a select few repeat again and again. In the

first frame categories, pro-abortion tweets far outnumbered anti-abortion tweets and neutral tweets, so to make sense of the numbers, percentages were calculated.

In Table 4-10, the percentage of the retweets within the whole population is represented by each category, but to give a larger context, it should be noted that out of the entire sample, 76 percent of the tweets were framed as pro-abortion. Neutral tweets made up 17 percent of the sample. The remaining seven percent of all tweets were framed as anti-abortion. Clearly, in the

Twitterverse in terms of message amplification, the pro-abortion framing was dominant, which is consistent with news coverage findings, but to a much larger degree.

The average number of retweets within the Twitter sample was 8.6, with the highest

number of retweets at 213 and the lowest at zero, which is representative of the sample as shown

in Table 4-10. One hundred and forty of the 341 tweets, or 41 percent, had no retweets at all. The

tweet that garnered 213 retweets was typed on 6/27, two days after the filibuster, authored by

@forrest4trees, an associate editor at the Texas Observer (the publication which provided the

livestream of the senate during Sen. Wendy Davis’ filibuster). It was a straight quotation from

Sen. Davis herself, and tweeted at her as well. It read: “Sen. @WendyDavisTexas: ‘Rick Perry’s

statement is without dignity and tarnishes the high office he holds.’ #txlege #sb5”. The tweet

refers to the story about Rick Perry’s description of Wendy Davis after her filibuster, when he

spoke at the Right to Life convention, stating that it was unfortunate Sen. Davis hadn’t learned from her own example of having grown up with a single mother and having been a single mother herself, that every life matters. For this study, it is interesting to note that of all the tweets analyzed, the one with by far the most retweets is essentially a pull-quote for a newspaper article, shared by an editor of a newspaper.

In terms of tweets being framed in a political or medical way, or including both frames in their 140 characters, the following was found: a full 85 percent of all tweets in the sample were framed politically, which makes sense since Twitter is used most effectively to describe catalyst events, and the event in the case of SB5 was a political filibuster. Almost six percent of the tweets were framed in a purely medical way, and the remaining nine percent included both medical and political messages.

Favorites were calculated in this same manner, as shown in Table 4-11, and it was found that the average number of favorites per tweet was 1.7, with the lowest at 0 and the highest at 60 favorites. It was also found that 194 of the 341 tweets, or 56 percent, received no favorites. The tweet with 60 favorites was penned by Lena Dunham, a celebrity with more than two million followers. It was a general statement about the filibuster and how to find information on it in

Twitterverse, typed on 6/25, the day of the event. It read: “The golden @MarthaPlimpton &

@AlsForOrg are tweeting about the #SB5 filibuster all day. Go along for this important ride!”

Here there may be another important use of Twitter on display. It is an informative command, telling viewers what is going on, and instructing them on what to do about it or where to go to find more. This is perhaps where agenda setting in the Twitterverse takes place.

To reiterate, pro-abortion tweets make up more than three quarters of the sample, so given their large numbers, they represent also most of the favorited tweets. Table 4-10 and Table

4-11 show retweet and favorite frequency, respectively, below.

Table 4-10: Number of retweets for each frame presented RT# 0 1 2 3-5 6-10 11-20 21-50 51-99 >100

Whole 140 51 35 41 39 20 9 4 2 Population 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Pro 111 40 25 28 28 15 7 4 1 Abortion 79% 78% 72% 69% 72% 75% 78% 100% 50%

Neutral 23 6 5 10 7 5 1 0 1 16% 12% 14% 24% 18% 25% 11% 0 50%

Anti 6 5 5 3 4 0 1 0 0 Abortion 4% 10% 14% 7% 10% 0 11% 0 0

Political 120 44 28 35 33 19 7 2 2 86% 86% 80% 86% 85% %95 78% 50% 100%

Medical 5 3 4 3 0 1 2 2 0 4% 6% 11% 7% 0 5% 22% 50% 0

Both 15 4 3 3 6 0 0 0 0 10% 8% 9% 7% 15% 0 0 0 0

Table 4-11: Number of favorites for each frame presented Fave # 0 1 2 3-5 6-10 11-20 >20

Whole 194 66 23 33 15 7 3 Population 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Pro 144 51 19 27 12 5 3 Abortion 74% 77% 83% 82% 80% 71% 100%

Neutral 36 10 1 5 2 2 0 19% 15% 4% 15% 13% 29% 0

Anti 14 5 3 1 1 0 0 Abortion 7% 8% 13% 3% 7% 0 0

Political 162 59 17 29 12 7 2 84% 89% 74% 88% 80% 100% 67%

Medical 12 4 2 3 1 0 1 6% 6% 9% 9% 7% 0 33%

Both 20 3 4 1 2 0 0 10% 5% 17% 3% 13% 0 0

Pro-abortion and political frames were the most popular in both retweets and favorites.

R7: Did the Frames Used Change in Local News, National News or on Twitter after The Catalyst Event (The Filibuster), in Total or Within Certain Groups?

After calculating the popularity of various frames throughout the nine-day sample span on three different media platforms, it was of interest to observe whether these frames experienced any shift after the catalyst event occurred.

Looking at political and medical frames in terms of total newspaper coverage, which includes both the local news and the national news samples, Table 4-12 shows that the political framing increased from 39 percent of the stories to 76 percent of the stories after Wendy Davis’

filibuster took place. This makes sense as a filibuster is a political event, and would skew the

abortion coverage toward politics. The medical frames also predictably dropped from 17 percent

to just seven percent after the filibuster, meaning the implications of the passage of SB5 got lost

in news coverage after the filibuster. Most starkly, before the filibuster, 44 percent of the

coverage provided both political and medical frames, giving the story a fuller scope. After the

filibuster, only 17 percent of the stories presented both frames.

Table 4-12: Change in political and medical frames in all newspaper coverage after filibuster Before After Count 7 57 64 Political % 38.9% 76% 68.1% Count 3 5 8 Medical % 16.7% 6.7% 8.5% Count 8 13 22 Both % 44.4% 17.3% 23.4% Count 18 75 94 Total % 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

As Table 4-13 shows, when looking at the coverage as a whole, the number of stories presenting a neutral frame—meaning both pro and anti-abortion points were discussed equally— stayed fairly steady, dropping from 28 percent before the filibuster to 26 percent after the filibuster. The number of stories presenting a mainly anti-abortion frame jumped from just six percent before the filibuster to 25 percent after the filibuster. To match, the pro-abortion frames dropped from nearly 67 percent of all stories to just under 50 percent of the stories.

Taken together, the numbers show a vast difference in framing in newspaper coverage before the filibuster versus after the filibuster, but what are the differences between local and national coverage in terms of frame changes?

Table 4-13: Change in pro-abortion and anti-abortion frames in all newspaper coverage after filibuster Before After Count 5 20 25 Neutral % 27.8% 26.3% 26.6% Count 1 19 20 Anti-abortion % 5.6% 25% 21.2% Count 12 37 49 Pro-abortion % 66.7% 48.7% 52.1% Count 18 76 94 Total % 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

Table 4-14 shows the local and national newspaper coverage when taken as separate

samples to highlight the changes in each and to contrast those changes to each other.

When separating the sample into sub-samples local and national, it was found that the frames of the stories changed in very different ways. Fifty percent of the local coverage was focused politically before the filibuster, while 14 percent focused medically. The remaining 36 percent presented stories with both political and medical frames included. After the filibuster, 75 percent of the stories were framed politically, and less than nine percent presented purely medical framing. Locally, 36 percent of the stories focused on both politics and medical implications before the filibuster. After the event, that number dropped to just 17 percent.

Nationally, not one story about SB5 was presented with a political framework before the filibuster. Twenty-five percent of the stories had a medical frame and 75 percent of them presented both political and medical issues. It’s important to note here that only four national stories were published about SB5 before the filibuster catalyst event. After Wendy Davis stood on June 26, 2013, 75 percent of the national stories became political, up from zero percent.

Medically framed stories dropped from 25 percent to three percent, and stories presenting both

medical and political frames dropped from 75 percent to 20 percent.

Table 4-14: Change in political and medical frames before and after the filibuster locally versus nationally Before After Total filibuster filibuster Count 7 35 42 Political % 50.0% 74.5% 68.9% Count 2 4 6 Medical % 14.3% 8.5% 9.8% Local Count 5 8 13 Both % 35.7% 17.0% 21.3% Count 14 47 61 Total % 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% Count 0 22 22 Political % 0.0% 75.8% 66.7% Count 1 1 2 Medical % 25.0% 3.4% 6% National Count 3 6 9 Both % 75.0% 20.7% 27.3% Count 4 29 33 Total % 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

In Table 4-15, it is clear that local coverage before the event was skewed toward a pro-

abortion frame with 71 percent of the stories supporting abortion rights through their frames.

Only seven percent of the coverage presented an anti-abortion frame, and 21 percent of news

stories locally before the filibuster showed both frames equally in their coverage.

After the Democratic filibuster, as the local stories took on a more political hue, the

spread of frames in the coverage evened out with both pro and anti-abortion framed stories representing 34 percent of the sample each and the remaining 31 percent of the coverage being neutral.

Nationally, as shown in Table 4-15, there were no stories that represented the anti-

abortion frame before the filibuster, and only two stories showing pro-abortion frames and two

stories considered neutral, splitting the sample 50-50. After the SB5 filibuster, the coverage

nationally swung pro-abortion, with 72 percent of the stories presenting that frame. Only 17

percent of the stories after the event were neutral, and only 10 percent presented an anti-abortion frame.

Table 4-15: Change in anti and pro-abortion frames before and after the filibuster locally versus nationally Before After filibuster filibuster Count 3 15 18 Neutral % 21.4% 31.9% 29.5% Count 1 16 17 Anti-abortion % 7.1% 34.0% 27.9% Local Count 10 16 26 Pro-abortion % 71.4% 34.0% 42.6% Count 14 47 61 Total % 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% Count 2 5 6 Neutral % 50.0% 17.2% 18.2% Count 0 3 3 Anti-abortion % 0.0% 10.3% 9% National Count 2 21 23 Pro-abortion % 50.0% 72.4% 69.7% Count 4 29 33 Total % 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

In terms of Twitter, as shown in Table 4-16, the numbers were split into four sections instead of merely two because so much activity took place on the day of the filibuster and the day after that they required their own analysis. Thus, the total population and each subgroup

(organization, journalist, activist, normal user), in terms of the four sections will be analyzed first, then in a before and after table for each to better compare Twitter with local and national

news coverage.

Table 4-16: Change in tweet frames during sample time Number of Pro Neutral Anti Total Political Medical Both Total Tweets Pre-filibuster 48 2 2 52 44 4 4 52 Percentage 92.3% 3.8% 3.8% 100% 84.6% 7.7% 7.7% 100%

Day of 155 35 15 205 170 13 22 205 filibuster Percentage 75.6% 17.1% 7.3% 100% 82.9% 6.3% 10.8% 100%

Day after 37 14 4 55 50 0 5 55 filibuster Percentage 67.3% 25.5% 7.3% 100% 91% 0 9% 100%

Post-filibuster 18 5 6 29 22 3 4 29 Percentage 62.1% 17.2% 20.7% 100% 75.9% 10.3% 13.8% 100%

Pro-abortion framed tweets showed a significant and steady drop during the sample period over the entire Twitter population from 92 percent before the filibuster to 62 percent in the days after the filibuster. While there were hardly any neutral tweets before the filibuster, throughout the rest of the sample period they accounted for 17 to 25 percent of the tweets. Anti- abortion framed tweets showed an increase from just four percent before the filibuster to more than 20 percent in the days after the filibuster.

In Table 4-17, it is seen that politically framed tweets remained in the vast majority throughout the sample period, accounting for more than 75 percent of the tweets at all times, and reaching a peak the day after the filibuster at 91 percent. Medical frames were sparse: nearly 8 percent before the event, six percent during the event, dropping to 0 the day after the filibuster.

In the post-filibuster section, medical frames reached their highest at 10 percent. Tweets containing both political and medical frames hovered around 10 percent throughout the sample period, starting at eight percent pre-filibuster, and ending at 13 percent post-filibuster. Table 4-17 shows that in terms of tweets made by organizations over the sample period, before the filibuster and on the day after the filibuster, all tweets recorded were framed in a pro-abortion way. On the

day of the filibuster, 79 percent of the tweets were pro-abortion, and in the days after, the number of pro-abortion tweets dropped down to 60 percent. Five percent of the tweets on the day of the filibuster were neutral, and 20 percent of the tweets recorded post filibuster were neutral.

Additionally, 16 percent of the tweets on the day of the filibuster presented anti-abortion frames, and 20 percent of them were anti-abortion post-filibuster.

Table 4-17: Change in organizations’ tweet frames during sample time Number of Pro Neutral Anti Total Political Medical Both Total Tweets Pre-filibuster 11 0 0 11 9 1 1 11 Percentage 100% 0 0 100% 81.8% 9.1% 9.1% 100%

Day of 15 1 3 19 13 4 2 19 filibuster Percentage 78.9% 5.3% 15.8% 100% 68.4% 21.1% 10.5% 100%

Day after 4 0 0 4 4 0 0 4 filibuster Percentage 100% 0 0 100% 100% 0 0 100%

Post-filibuster 3 1 1 5 5 0 0 5 Percentage 60% 20% 20% 100% 100% 0 0 100%

In terms of political and medical frames, 82 percent of the organizations’ tweets were politically framed pre-filibuster, and 68 percent were political on the day of the filibuster. On the day after and in the post-filibuster section, all tweets were politically framed. Medical frames accounted for just under 10 percent of the tweets pre-filibuster and just over 20 percent of the tweets on the day of the filibuster. After that they made up none of the sample. Tweets containing both political and medical frames accounted for around 10 percent of the sample during the pre-filibuster period and on the day of the filibuster, before dropping to zero.

While pro-abortion tweets made up the majority of the journalist sample pre-filibuster at

78 percent, as shown in Table 14-8, that number dropped to 43 percent on the day of the filibuster and hovered around 50 percent in the days after that, making journalists the least likely

to frame tweets pro-abortion. Neutral tweets made up 22 percent of the sample pre-filibuster before rising to just under 50 percent on the day of and the day after, and hitting 50 percent of the tweets in the post-filibuster period. No tweets were framed in the anti-abortion light other than on the day of the filibuster when those tweets made up eight percent of the sample.

Table 4-18: Change in journalists’ tweet frames during sample time Number of Pro Neutral Anti Total Political Medical Both Total Tweets Pre-filibuster 7 2 0 9 8 1 0 9 Percentage 77.8% 22.2% 0 100% 88.9% 11.1% 0 100%

Day of 17 19 3 39 35 3 1 39 filibuster Percentage 43.5% 48.8% 7.7% 100% 89.7% 7.7% 2.6% 100%

Day after 6 5 0 11 10 0 1 11 filibuster Percentage 54.5% 45.5% 0 100% 91% 0 9% 100%

Post- 3 3 0 6 5 0 1 6 filibuster Percentage 50% 50% 0 100% 83.3% 0 16.7% 100%

Politically framed tweets made up the majority of the sample throughout the test period,

hovering around 90 percent until the days after the filibuster when they dropped to 83 percent.

Medically framed tweets were only present in the pre-filibuster section at 11 percent and on the

day of the filibuster at eight percent. There were no tweets that presented both frames pre-

filibuster, but that number increased throughout the sample period, up to two percent the day of the filibuster, then nine percent the day after, and capping at nearly 17 percent post-filibuster.

In Table 4-19, activists’ tweets presented a pro-abortion frame 87 percent of the time pre- filibuster, dropping to 80 percent on the day of the filibuster. The day after the filibuster, their tweets shot up to 92 percent pro-abortion, and then dropped significantly in the post-filibuster section, down to 67 percent. There were no neutral tweets by activists other than on the day of

the filibuster when they accounted for 11 percent of the sample. Anti-abortion frames were

present in 13 percent of the pre-filibuster tweets, down to eight percent of the tweets on the day

of and day after the filibuster. In the post-filibuster days that number spiked up to 33 percent.

Table 4-19: Change in activists’ tweet frames during sample time Number of Pro Neutral Anti Total Political Medical Both Total Tweets Pre-filibuster 13 0 2 15 12 1 2 15 Percentage 86.7% 0 13.3% 100% 80% 6.7% 13.3% 100%

Day of 51 7 5 63 49 2 12 63 filibuster Percentage 80.1% 11.1% 7.9% 100% 77.8% 3.2% 19% 100%

Day after 11 0 1 12 12 0 0 12 filibuster Percentage 91.7% 0 8.3% 100% 100% 0 0 100%

Post-filibuster 4 0 2 6 5 0 1 6 Percentage 66.7% 0 33.3% 100% 83.3% 0 16.7% 100%

Politically framed tweets accounted for about 80 percent of the sample in all periods

excepting the day after the filibuster when all tweets by activists were politically framed. There

were seven percent of tweets framed medically in the pre-filibuster section, and three percent of

tweets framed medically on the day of the filibuster. After that, the number drops to zero.

Activists were the most likely to include both political and medical frames in their tweets, with

13 percent of all tweets using both frames pre-filibuster, nearly 20 percent containing both frames on the day of the filibuster, and 17 percent of all tweets containing both frames post-

filibuster. The day after the filibuster had zero tweets that contained both frames.

In terms of normal Twitter users, as shown in Table 4-20, 100 percent of their tweets

were pro-abortion in days before the filibuster. That number dropped to 86 percent on the day of

the filibuster and hit a low the day after the filibuster at just 57 percent. Post-filibuster, two thirds

of the sample was framed in a pro-abortion way. No tweets were neutral, pre-filibuster, and only

10 percent were neutral the day of the filibuster. They day after, however, 32 percent of normal

users’ tweets were neutral in tone and content. That number dropped to just eight percent in the

post-filibuster section. No tweets were anti-abortion pre-filibuster, five percent were anti-

abortion on the day of the filibuster, and 11 percent were anti-abortion on the day after the filibuster. In the post-filibuster section, 25 percent of all normal users’ tweets were framed in an anti-abortion way.

Table 4-20: Change in normal users’ tweet frames during sample time Number of Pro Neutral Anti Total Political Medical Both Total Tweets Pre-filibuster 17 0 0 17 15 1 1 17 Percentage 100% 0 0 100% 88.2% 5.9% 5.9% 100%

Day of 72 8 4 84 73 4 7 84 filibuster Percentage 85.7% 9.5% 4.8% 100% 86.9% 4.8% 8.3% 100%

Day after 16 9 3 28 24 0 4 28 filibuster Percentage 57.1% 32.1% 10.7% 100% 85.7% 0 16.7% 100%

Post-filibuster 8 1 3 12 7 3 2 12 Percentage 66.7% 8.3% 25% 100% 58.3% 25% 16.7% 100%

Meanwhile, throughout the sample period, normal users’ tweets were politically framed

about 85 percent of the time until the post-filibuster section when that number dropped to 58

percent. Medically framed tweets accounted for five to six percent of the tweets pre-filibuster and day of, dropping to none on the day after, then increasing to 25 percent of the sample in the post-filibuster section. Tweets containing both frames made up six percent of the sample pre- filibuster, eight percent of the sample on the day of, and jumped to 17 percent of the sample the day after and post-filibuster.

Table 4-21 shows that pro-abortion frames were most dominant throughout Twitter coverage, but decreased after the filibuster. Pre-filibuster, the tweets were 92 percent pro-

abortion. After, they were 72 percent. Neutral tweets increased from four percent to 19 percent,

and anti-abortion tweets from four percent to nine percent. Frequency of political framing

remained the same both before and after the filibuster, at around 84 percent. Medical frames

dropped from almost eight percent to just over five percent, and tweets with both frames

increased slightly from eight percent to 11 percent.

Table 4-21: Change in tweet frames pre-filibuster vs. post-filibuster Number of Pro Neutral Anti Total Political Medical Both Total Tweets Pre-filibuster 48 2 2 52 44 4 4 52 Percentage 92.3% 3.8% 3.8% 100% 84.6% 7.7% 7.7% 100%

Post-filibuster 210 54 25 289 242 16 31 289 Percentage 72.7% 18.7% 8.6% 100% 83.7% 5.5% 10.8% 100%

To compare this to news coverage, on Twitter, 92 percent of the coverage was pro-

abortion before the filibuster. In local news, 71 percent of the sample was framed pro-abortion

pre-filibuster. Fifty percent of the national coverage was pro-abortion. Only four percent of

tweets were framed neutrally, 21 percent of local news coverage was neutral, and 50 percent of

national coverage was neutral, pre-filibuster. In terms of anti-abortion frames, Twitter had four

percent of coverage presenting those frames, local coverage had seven percent and national had

no anti-abortion frames in their pre-filibuster coverage.

After the filibuster, Twitter represented 73 percent pro-abortion frames, compared to just

34 percent of the local coverage. National coverage nearly mirrored Twitter, with 72 percent of the frames being pro-abortion. Neutral frames were present in 19 percent of the Twitter coverage after the filibuster. Thirty one percent of local coverage was neutral, and again, national coverage mirrored Twitter with only 17 percent of the coverage being framed in a neutral way.

Meanwhile, nine percent of the Twitter coverage presented anti-abortion frames after the

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filibuster, versus 34 percent of local coverage and national coverage again stayed close to

Twitter’s numbers at 10 percent of coverage being anti-abortion.

In terms of political and medical frames, Twitter framed just about 85 percent of its coverage politically, both before and after the filibuster. Local coverage went from 50 percent political frames before the filibuster to 75 percent after the filibuster. Nationally no stories were presented in a pure political frame before the filibuster and that shot up to 75 percent of them after the filibuster. Twitter had eight percent of its coverage framed medically before the filibuster, dropping to five percent after the filibuster. Locally, 14 percent of the stories were presented medically before the filibuster, dropping to less than nine percent afterward.

Nationally, 25 percent of the stories were framed in a medical way before the filibuster, and that dropped to three percent after the filibuster. Twitter coverage showed examples of both frames per tweet eight percent of the time pre-filibuster, up to 10 percent of the time after the filibuster.

Local coverage showed both frames 36 percent of the time before the filibuster and that dropped to 17 percent post-filibuster. Nationally, stories presenting both frames were at 75 percent pre-

filibuster and dropped to just 20 percent post-filibuster.

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CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION

The study examined how statewide and national newspapers covered SB 5 in terms of framing their news stories, and compared that to Twitter-based coverage via content analysis.

Through comparing, contrasting and describing framing devices used in local coverage, national coverage and on Twitter the research looked to assess the changes in traditional media theory, particularly the gatekeeping and agenda setting roles historically prescribed to professional journalists. As the industry moves from a mass media model to an audience participatory one, exploring the differences in coverage may help professionals and academics better assess how to use the new model as an advantage within the industry.

R1: The Difference between Newspaper Coverage and Twitter Coverage

The research explored six different frames for both newspapers and new media covering

Senate Bill 5—pro-abortion, anti-abortion, neutral, political, medical and both—and found all coverage fit within those frames. The primary frame used in all three was political, with local coverage focusing more on the specific political players (Sen. Wendy Davis, Sen. Leticia Van

De Putte, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, Gov. Rick Perry, and local senators), national coverage focusing more on the nuts and bolts of the filibuster, the resulting bill failure and how the political players handled the specific situation at hand, such as this lede from The Washington Post: “Texas conservatives lost more than the passage of an anti-abortion bill overnight Tuesday. They also lost the spotlight.” Twitter focused on the events within the Capitol as they unfolded without so much insight toward the future or detail about the past. An example of this came from a journalist with the Twitter handle @jenkcunningham. “They're gonna let people into the gallery!

#txlege #SB5 #StandWithTXWomen.”

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While all coverage of the event skewed political and pro-abortion, as discussed in the next section, the most extreme difference between the frames occurred on Twitter, perhaps because organizations, activists and normal users are not tied to a gatekeeping role professionally, and those feeling strongly enough about an issue to tweet about it usually have an agenda to which they are adhering (Farhi, 2009). Pro-abortion framed tweets also got the most retweets within the sample, meaning that those messages were not only produced at a higher rate, but amplified at a higher rate as well. National newspapers were the second most skewed, as they ran many more opinion pieces than local newspapers did, and those opinion pieces swayed in favor of abortion and concentrated on the political event unfolding rather than the longitudinal implications of such a bill. Local newspapers had the most balanced coverage, which could point to the more conservative mindset of Texas versus the nation as a whole. This could also indicate that the issue was of great salience to the local audience and they were interested in not only the filibuster itself and its excitement and drama, but also what the outcome would mean for them as residents of the state.

Since many of the framing devices in traditional newspapers included quotations from officials, paraphrased or direct, it is safe to say in the instance of this bill’s coverage, the political players in Texas could have placed their words in such a way as to shift public opinion after reading the news stories. While the reporters’ choice to run quotes by one party or the other ultimately determined the frames of the story, the quotes given by officials were most likely meant to alter how the issue was being understood by the voters (Schnell & Callaghan, 2001).

Twitter only allows for 140 characters, so any tweet using a quote would be stand-alone, meaning what the politician said would count in all ways toward how that tweet would be received. The only way to counteract the spread of direct information from the politicians’

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mouths would be a quick derogatory or disdainful comment by the Twitter user in addition to the quote. In this way, quotations by politicians on Twitter perhaps carried even more importance in framing the debate in either pro- or anti-abortion ways. Future research could study the effects of quotes as used on Twitter in terms of framing and user effect.

In terms of the bill itself, Menashe said in 1998 that, “It is not necessarily the relative merits of various arguments for and against a proposal that most influences its legislative fate.

Rather, it is the relative success of proponents and opponents in framing the overall terms of the debate” (pg. 309). This being the case, the political framework used by the media perhaps played a part in Sen. Wendy Davis’s announcement to run for governor, as the media did label her

“Texas’s rising star.” Or maybe this paved the way for Dewhurst’s opponents to stage a run for speaker, as many articles hit upon how he “lost control of the Senate” with relatively few papers remarking on how he was faced with “an unruly mob.” This current research could not possibly test these effects; however, future research could poll voters to see if their reading of the coverage of SB 5 either changed or solidified their political viewpoints, and pushed them to action at the polls. Historically speaking, while Sen. Wendy Davis did make a run for governor, she was soundly beaten by the Republican opponent, Greg Abbott. It is important to note that soon after the special sessions, former Governor Rick Perry decided not to run again, which surprised many and may have had to do with the intensity of the framing of this particular news story. This is beyond the scope of the current study, but other research would do well to explore it.

In addition, journalists tend to gravitate toward characters and drama to heighten sales through sensationalism (Sparrow, 1999). This could be the reason that well-spoken and passionate senators like Sen. Davis or those who had overcome a personal hardship to be at the

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vote like Leticia Van De Putte (both Democrats) received positive coverage. It could also speak to how those who appeared to lose their cool like Sen. Cruz (R), or who were prone to political gaffes like Gov. Rick Perry (R), or who were supposed to be in charge at the time of the protest within the Capital like Lt. Gov. Dewhurst (R), received more negative coverage, particularly nationally. In the end, “the media shape how issues are framed, either directly or through the choice of which players’ messages they highlight” (Schnell & Callaghan, 2001, pg. 187). This appears to hold true for Twitter, as well.

R2: Popular Frames Used During Coverage of SB 5

Most coverage presented at least two prominent frames, meaning that whether a story was framed politically or medically, it was also found to be framed in an either pro-abortion or anti-abortion light. Pro-abortion frames were more frequently found in national publications rather than local newspapers, particularly after the filibuster occurred, with local stories focusing on the work of Republican legislators and their points of view and national stories focusing more on Wendy Davis as a rising Democratic Texan star. The difference between these two lede examples show this disparity. In the L.A. Times readers saw this: “In a chaotic late-night scene that played out beneath the Capitol dome in Austin, a Texas lawmaker with pink sneakers and the steely resolve of a branding iron single-handedly stopped an effort to drastically curtail abortion in the Lone Star State.” In the Dallas Morning News, however, readers saw this: “Gov.

Rick Perry gave a spirited defense Thursday of Republican proposals to curtail abortions, telling a national anti-abortion group that he would not “make things easy for abortionists.” Twitter coverage was overwhelmingly pro-abortion, which could speak to the type of person most likely to be active on Twitter, who is younger, more liberal and more interested in news coverage than the average American (Farhi, 2009; Duggan et al., 2015; DeSilver, 2014).

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As most stories took on a political hue, and anti-abortion sentiment in Texas is aligned

with Republicans while pro-abortion sentiment is aligned with Democrats, the issue becomes

whose definition of political phenomena will prevail (Gamson & Modigliani, 1987). Using a

political anti-abortion frame or a political pro-abortion frame can “promote a particular problem

definition, causal interpretation, or moral evaluation and thus define policy debates and structure

political outcomes” (Schnell & Callaghan, 2001, pg. 185). Indeed, there is much research that

suggests political perceptions, and even further, policy support by the public is dominated by

framing, much of which is done by the media (Kinder & Nelson, 1990; Kinder & Sanders, 1990,

1996; Kinder & Nelson, 1996).

While ideally journalists are expected to be objective and act as political watchdogs

(Janowitz, 1975), their need to quote official sources “result in news outputs that are a function

of official views on a given issue” (Schnell & Callaghan, 2001, pg. 186). The excess of political

frames and lack of medical frames in the abortion bill coverage speaks to this phenomenon.

Twitter’s political framing could be a direct result of the use of the medium to document events

as they occur in real time (Stratton, 2008; Meraz & Papacharissi, 2013), given that the catalyst

event in this case was a filibuster that happened inside a Capitol building involving a host of

political players (Tomlinson, 2013; Hoppe, 2013).

R3: The Timing of Coverage across Local Newspapers, National Newspapers and Twitter

One major finding showed that Twitter coverage came first, backing up results from

previous studies which show Twitter’s use for breaking news as it happens (Broersma, &

Graham, 2013; Phelan, McCarthy & Smyth, 2009). Newspaper coverage picked up greatly after

the filibuster had occurred, and 50 percent of that coverage happened in the final days of the study. In contrast, Twitter coverage peaked the day of the filibuster and less than 10 percent of its coverage happened during the final days studied. This points to a possible difference between

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gatekeeping and gatewatching (Bruns, 2005), as professional news organizations vet and fact-

check their stories before disseminating the information to the public, whereas most Twitter

users are not tied to that professional responsibility. The majority of tweets came from everyday

users with no ties to journalism or the pro- / anti-abortion cause, illustrating the possible shift to

audience participation in news in the new media world (Hermida, 2010). As the majority of

tweets came from the public, it is not surprising that the majority of tweets were also opinion

statements rather than neutral information. It would be worth studying the effect of the

combination of Twitter coverage happening before newspaper coverage and that Twitter

coverage consisting largely of users’ opinions. Future research could explore whether the

opinions disseminated had any effect on the news stories published afterward, and if the opinions

read first by the public had any effect on their attitude toward the issue.

R4, R5: The Type of Information Disseminated on Twitter throughout the Week by Different Categories of People

This study also explored different groups using Twitter, and whether their coverage

varied throughout the nine-day sample period, to look at the possibility of Twitter being used by

certain groups—organizations, journalists, activists and regular users—to forward their messages

in ways the traditional newspapers could or would not. It was found that organizations in favor

of abortion rights dominated the Twitterverse both before and after the filibuster, tweeting their

opinions, links and calling other users to action. This was a typical tweet from an organization,

@NARAL: “92% of TX counties don't have an abortion provider & TX earned an F from us 4

existing #antichoice laws: http://nar.al/tx #SB5 #txlege.”

Journalists appeared to be using Twitter for personal reasons before the filibuster, and more than three quarters of the coverage was framed pro-abortion. During and after the filibuster, as the traditional newspaper coverage began, journalist tweets shifted to a less opinionated and

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more neutral tone, such as this tweet from the Associate News Director at The Austin Chronicle:

“Van de Putte moves to adjourn (and did before roll call) should take precedent #SB5 #txlege.”

Pro-abortion activists created the majority of tweets about the matter throughout the

sample time; however, anti-abortion activists became markedly more active in the days after the

filibuster, representing a third of the tweets during those days, such as this one: “Re: last tweet:

How Many American Children Have Died Since...Davis Began Filbustering..?

http://ow.ly/moao7 #txlege #sb.”

In looking at how the general audience perceives messages given them, it is interesting to

note that normal Twitter users framing tweets in a pro-abortion way dropped from 100 percent pre-filibuster to just about two-thirds in the days after the filibuster. While it cannot be said this was a result of more neutral coverage being advocated by traditional newspapers and hence linked by others on Twitter, it can be noted that those two occurrences happened at the same time and could perhaps be looked at in more depth.

R6: Messages Amplified by Retweets and Favorites

As Twitter is an audience participatory social media outlet, the messages amplified are

those chosen by the viewers themselves. In this way, organizations, journalists, activists and

regular users can voice their opinion simply by forwarding another’s message, either in

agreement or disagreement, creating a flowing dialogue of information that changes context as it

changes hands. This can allow for all sides of an issue to be explored, or alternately, it can drown

certain angles of a story out in favor of more popular narratives as determined by audience

members, perhaps in their roles as “gatewatchers” (Bruns, 2005).

Pro-abortion tweets received the most number of retweets, regardless if they were

retweeted merely once or hundreds of times. The same is true for politically framed tweets.

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Neutral, anti-abortion, medically framed and tweets using both a medical and political frame were had fewer retweets with regard to sheer number of different tweets being amplified, with the research at hand not showing any particular pattern in terms of number of retweets any particular tweet received making a difference in amplification. As mentioned in the results, the tweet with the most retweets was typed on 6/27, two days after the filibuster, authored by

@forrest4trees, an associate editor at the Texas Observer. It read: “Sen. @WendyDavisTexas:

‘Rick Perry’s statement is without dignity and tarnishes the high office he holds.’ #txlege #sb5”.

The same is true on all counts for favorited tweets. As mentioned in the results section,

Lena Dunham typed the most favorited tweet. It read: “The golden @MarthaPlimpton &

@AlsForOrg are tweeting about the #SB5 filibuster all day. Go along for this important ride!”

Studying favorites and retweets would be an important branch of research to explore more critically and in-depth in the future, as this study pertains to framing rather than amplification itself and uses a comparison of content between new media and traditional newspapers. A sample size of only 341 tweets across a smattering of days is insufficient to extract much meaning other than a description of what was represented within this sample. A more detailed future study looking only at the amplification techniques of Twitter could be useful in determining the uses and gratifications of this model and its effects.

R7: Frame Changes throughout the Research Period

While the opinionated tweets occurred in greatest number on the day of the filibuster, when there were fewer news stories to read about the event, it is interesting to note that as those opinions slacked off during the final days, links to news articles increased markedly. The article dissemination on Twitter during the final days may show the gatewatching that Bruns (2005) was describing by active audience participants. As professional coverage increased, Twitter users switched from stating their opinions to sharing articles from those who may carry more

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credibility with the general public. As more articles became available, the Twitter community leaned on those articles to continue to flesh out the issue. Perhaps this indicates that Twitter users do not wish to replace traditional newspapers, but to supplement them and to help them reach a wider audience (Boyd & Ellison, 2008; Hermida, 2010)

There was a large jump in terms of medical and political framing in traditional newspapers, as political frames increased and medical frames decreased after the filibuster.

Again, this makes sense as the catalyst event that was picked up by the press was a political filibuster. Twitter, on the other hand, showed little change, again making sense due to Twitter’s on-the-ground coverage style (Phelan, McCarthy & Smyth, 2009) which in this case always centered on the filibuster rather than the long-lasting implications of the bill on women’s health care.

While, as previously mentioned, Twitter covered SB 5 first, the shift in its pro- versus anti-abortion framing was the most marked. Traditional newspaper frames remained fairly steady before and after the filibuster, with between 26 and 28 percent of their coverage presenting both pro- and anti-abortion frames. The most distinct jump occurred in anti-abortion coverage after the filibuster which went from six to 25 percent, showing a more well-rounded coverage after the event occurred and journalists were able to clearly show all angles of the issue within their newspapers. Taking this into consideration, the drop in Twitter pro-abortion frames—from more than 90 percent to just over 70 percent—appears to follow the lead of more neutral coverage by newspapers. When added to the discovery that opinions dropped and link-sharing markedly increased after the filibuster, it seems to point to Twitter users continuing to respect and disseminate information gathered by traditional newspapers rather than attempting to take the place of those outlets (Hermida, 2010).

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Conclusion

Despite the differences in type of coverage, comparing Twitter coverage, local coverage and national coverage on the basis of frames used may help determine which outlets are framing the event in which ways, and whether or not Twitter could be considered an agenda setting tool.

In terms of this study, it appears as if Twitter so far is taking its cues from the traditional newspapers, at least in terms of frames presented.

The limitations of this study rest in the fact that studying frames can be a subjective task, and what one researcher deems medical or political may not be the same for another. Another limitation is generalizability as the sample consisted of only 94 stories and 341 tweets about one specific bill so that it would be impossible to generalize framing for this particular bill to other legislation or trends. In addition, as this was an exploratory, descriptive study, no conclusions can be drawn about effects, causations or correlations amid the findings given the current scope.

The findings of this research go beyond agenda setting and also point to framing as second-level agenda setting, a term coined by McCombs who states that the common ground between the two theories is issue salience. “Whereas agenda-setting researchers correlate the salience of different issues in the media with that perceived by audiences, framing researchers correlate the salience of different media frames of an issue with that of different frames employed by audiences in interpreting that issue” (Zhou & Moy, 2007, pg. 81). Future research would do well to tie the two salience points together to test how framing affects the political perception of the public and whether or not the issue is marked as important enough to merit behavior change at the polls. Future research could also further describe the frames used in this story, comparing traditional coverage to online coverage (ie. Twitter, and other social media sites) which is where this story first broke.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Darlena Cunha is currently a freelance writer for such publications as Time Magazine,

The Washington Post, The Atlantic and others. Previously she worked as a television news producer after obtaining her Bachelor of Arts in journalism and her Bachelor of Science in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut in 2004. This thesis will complete her Master of Arts in Mass Communications, fall 2015.

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