A Mixed-Methods Content Analysis Case Study of Frames and

Ideologies in Mainstream Environmental News

A dissertation submitted to the College of Communication and Information of Kent State

University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

by

William F. Kelvin

December, 2019

Dissertation written by

William F. Kelvin

B.A., Humboldt State University, 2002

M.A., California State University, Chico, 2009

Ph.D., Kent State University, 2019

Approved by

______Danielle Sarver Coombs, Ph.D., Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee

______Paul Haridakis, Ph.D., Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee

______Yesim Kaptan, Ph.D., Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee

______Steven Hook, Ph.D., Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee

Accepted by

______Miriam Matteson, Ph.D., Interim Associate Dean, Doctoral Studies Committee

______Amy Reynolds, Ph.D., Dean, College of Communication and Information

ii

Table of Contents Page

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... ii

LIST OF FIGURES ...... iv

LIST OF TABLES ...... v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... vi

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Rationale for Study ...... 1

II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ...... 10

Political and Ideological Roots of Modern Ecological Crises ...... 10

The Public Sphere, Mass Media, and Framing Contests ...... 25

Mass Media News Models ...... 39

Research Questions and Hypotheses ...... 60

III. METHODOLOGY ...... 65

Comparative Case Study ...... 65

Key Theoretical Difference Between Cases ...... 72

Sample and Sampling Strategy ...... 74

Data Coding and Analysis ...... 86

IV. QUALITATIVE DISCOURSE ANALYSIS RESULTS ...... 100

Status Quo-Support Frames ...... 106

Status Quo-Critique Frames ...... 141

iii

Linking Environmental News Frames to Environmental Ideologies ...... 174

V. QUANTITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS RESULTS ...... 190

Rationales, Hypotheses, and Research Question ...... 191

Procedures ...... 194

Results ...... 197

VI. DISCUSSION ...... 211

Summary of Findings ...... 211

Indications Anthropocentrism Dominates Mass Media ...... 213

Mass Media Models Extended ...... 224

Struggle to Define Center ...... 240

Limitations ...... 246

Recommendations for Future Scholarship and Activism ...... 249

APPENDICES ...... 257

A. Codebook 1 ...... 258

B. Codebook 2 Revision ...... 262

C. Corpus References...... 264

REFERENCES ...... 272 iv

List of Figures

Figure Page

1. A Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies...... 17

2. Functions and Objects of News Frames ...... 88

3. Frames Placed on Corbett’s Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies ...... 196

v

List of Tables

Table Page

1. Keystone XL Corpus and Sampling ...... 84

2. Deepwater Horizon Corpus and Sampling ...... 85

3. Interrater Reliability Kappa (κ) Scores ...... 99

4. Frames Identified in Qualitative Content Analysis ...... 105

5. Corpus Article Counts by Periodical Title and Case ...... 195

6. Frame Frequencies Across Keystone XL and Deepwater Horizon Stories ...... 198

7. Hypothesis 1: Anthropocentrism and Ecocentrism Across Cases ...... 200

8. Hypothesis 2: Unrestrained Instrumentalism and Environmentalism Across Cases. ..201

9. Hypothesis 3: Ecocentric Ideology Frequencies by Case ...... 203

10. Hypothesis 4: Environmentalist Ideology Frequencies by Case ...... 203

11. Extraction Impacts on Humans Frame Frequencies by Case ...... 204

12. Consumption Impacts on Humans Frame Frequencies by Case ...... 206

13. National Security Frame Frequencies by Periodical Type ...... 207

14. Ecocentric Frame Frequencies by Periodical Type ...... 207

15. Environmentalist Frame Frequencies by Periodical Type ...... 208

16. Environmentalist Ideology Frequencies by Periodical Title ...... 209

17. Consumption Impacts on Humans Frame Frequencies by Periodical Title ...... 209

vi

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to extend profound thanks to Dr. Danielle Sarver

Coombs, who advised me through comprehensive exams and chaired my dissertation. Her wisdom was invaluable in taming my menagerie of ideas into a manageable dissertation. Her guidance was precise, her patience boundless, and because of her leadership I am able to accomplish a long-standing dream. Thank you, Dr. Coombs!

Of course, a complex research project benefits from many voices, and I was lucky to attract the involvement of an excellent team of intellectual, attentive researchers to guide my plans. Dr. Paul Haridakis is a wealth of knowledge on mass media research, whose comprehensive exam questions shaped my knowledge, and whose understanding of research design options shaped my project. Dr. Yesim Kaptan was a friendly voice who was incredibly well versed in critical and qualitative research. Her conversations helped me understand how critical media studies fit into academia, and how to better position myself as a scholar. Finally,

Dr. Steven Hook reminded me (continually) that the best kind of dissertation is a completed dissertation. He challenged me to catch up on a bachelor’s degree’s worth of political science in a semester, some of which made it into this project, and reined in my enthusiasm when my project’s boundaries were too expansive. Thank you committee members! Also, I would like to acknowledge Dr. Joelle Cruz for critical comps questions and Dr. Federico Subervi and Prof. Bill

Sledzik for radical journalism courses.

Many others were instrumental in both seeing my project through and helping me maintain my wits throughout a Ph.D. education. University Libraries’ Kristin Yeager helped me manage my data, both qualitative and quantitative; she is an invaluable resource to Kent State.

Thanks to Zach Humphries I had reliable data to code; good looking out! School of vii

Communication Studies Director Dr. Beth Graham was a reassuring voice when I was stressed out and helped me learn to balance teaching and studying workloads. Conversations with Dr. Bill

Gorden were similarly edifying. The Division of Graduate Studies’ Dissertation Boot Camps propelled me forward so many times! Kyle, thanks for conceiving and promoting them; Odeh and Evan thanks for making them more fun. Speaking of fun, my fellow doc students Java and

Omer kept my Midwest life flavorful, and fellow part-timer Molly helped me add some hearty laughs. At times my neighbors Gary and Shirley helped me keep it together—thanks so much!

I would not have been here at all were it not for Dr. George Cheney, who suggested I apply to Kent State and led me to re-envision my academic identity and what an academic could be. And I would not have connected with George were it not for Dr. William Todd-Mancillas, who compelled me to transform my master’s thesis into a conference paper. Thanks Prof. Todd; it’s been a long journey and you have been there throughout.

There are two more people without whom I would not be here. Dear Mom and Dad, you have been very patient with my maturation process. I appreciate that. I know I don’t always make the best decisions, but I hope you are as proud to call me your son as I am to call you my parents. Thanks for doing a fantastic job raising a happy, well-adjusted adult. I miss you both and look forward to seeing you more often in the future! 1

Chapter I

Introduction

At the dawn of the 21st century human activity is disrupting the Earth’s natural systems, yielding potentially disastrous results. One way to alter our destructive path is to transform the ideologies governing the cultural values influencing collective behavior (Corbett, 2006;

Diamond, 2005; Speth, 2008). Such “culture work” requires examining discursive sources of ideology (Rochon, 2000). A more thorough definition of ideology will come later; for now, it can be understood as a worldview, with resulting political, economic, and moral guidelines. In this project, I focus on mass media news because it provides society significant knowledge and value statements regarding environmental-risk issues (Anderson, A., 2013; Beck, 1992). I analyze U.S. news because it has global implications. U.S. media products are exported worldwide, and so can influence behaviors and cultures worldwide. Further, as the world’s current superpower and top consumer of natural resources, U.S. positions on environmental issues have great significance, for both intergovernmental cooperation and material outcomes. This document presents the findings of my study of U.S.-based coverage of two major U.S. environmental news stories in the early 21st century: the proposed expansion of the Keystone XL pipeline system and the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil-drilling rig, with its long-running oil spill in the

Gulf of Mexico. I performed a mixed-methods content analysis using two mass media models: the propaganda model and the cascading activation model.

Rationale for Study

For decades, some of the world’s keenest minds have pondered how industrialized human activity can be sustainable within the planet’s physical parameters. They argue that modern environmental crises are caused by the patterned institutional decision-making of individuals 2 influenced by macro-level social structures (Bennett, J., 2016; Corbett, 2006; Diamond, 2005;

Korten, 2001). Many scholars agree that changing individuals’ mindsets and macro-level social- structural dynamics could create a “more just and sustainable” social world (Bennett, J., 2016, p.

56), but meaningful advances in sustainability depend on altering the cultural values influencing public policy (Bennett, J., 2016; Corbett, 2006; Diamond, 2005; Korten, 2001; Speth, 2008).

Key steps in such culture work are scrutinizing discursive sources of cultural values to understand status quo-discourse and probing for openings for cultural change (Rochon, 2000).

Many social institutions contribute to the continual recreation of culture (Berger & Luckmann,

1967). Mass media generally, and news in particular, are central components of cultural-creation processes (Carey, 1992; Croteau & Hoynes, 2014) explored in this project. News companies are first and foremost businesses existing for profit, as “news is a commodity…shaped by the forces of supply and demand” (Hamilton, 2004, p.7). In Schudson’s (2011) words, “journalism is the business or practice of regularly producing and disseminating information about contemporary affairs” (p. 3, emphasis added). However, while it seems inarguable that profitability is the primary concern in content production for most mainstream mass media companies, news outlets are also important parts of culture industries that contribute more than mere entertainment or information: they shape societies’ norms and mores (Adorno & Horkheimer, 2002; Fitzgerald,

2015). By attending to the arguments promoted in mass mediacontent, and the underlying ideologies those arguments construct and contest, we can better understand how society socially constructs symbolic perspectives on the appropriate relationships between humans and other elements of the natural environment, ideological positions that influence patterns of decision- making (Corbett, 2006). 3

I focus specifically on news because news is a powerful institution in constructing social understandings of reality (Gans, 1979; Gitlin, 1980; Tuchman, 1978), especially for complex topics such as the environment, science, economics, and risk (Anderson, A., 2013; Beck, 1992).

While ideologies are rich, varied, complex, and all-encompassing, I focus on a subset: environmental ideologies. Though environmental ideologies can be and are subsumed under over-arching ideologies, they can also be studied in isolation (Corbett, 2006). While many types of environmental ideologies exist, each one shares the characteristic of describing and supporting coherent, consistent value hierarchies between humans and the non-human world (Corbett,

2006). By articulating the environmental ideologies constructed in U.S. mass media news texts, I hope to contribute to a better understanding of U.S. culture and powerful culture-shaping forces operating therein. However, such an analysis also has implications for societies worldwide. U.S. mass media products are increasingly distributed to global information markets, just as the U.S.- inspired philosophies of governance and economics are increasingly exported to other nations and supranational institutions. Thus, attending to U.S. media yields some insight into cultural directions worldwide, as U.S.-based corporations increasingly spread homogenized culture through globalized commodities (Ritzer, 1993). Such globally distributed culture has expanded from fast food (Ritzer & Ritzer, 2017) to cultural areas as diverse as religion (Drane, 2012), tourism (Beames & Brown, 2017; Yolal, 2016), and higher education (Hayes & Wynyard, 2002).

While some scholars have crafted studies of the environmental ideologies found in mass media news, more research is needed on the topic (Lester, 2010). Further, scientific, social, and technological changes in the last two decades have all influenced journalists’ practices, meaning that previous research may not accurately capture the modern media milieu. As the worldwide scientific consensus on global warming became undeniable, journalistic norms regarding 4 balanced reporting shifted from an “objective” or balanced approach to a weight-of-evidence style reflecting the increasingly unanimous scientific consensus (Boykoff, 2007). Journalists’ environmental reporting may also be affected by increased publication of research on the nexus of corporate-government-media collusion (e.g., Oreskes & Conway, 2010; Rampton & Stauber,

2001) and scientific findings’ increasing severity regarding climate change (e.g.,

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2013). Exploring the ways today’s journalists handle environmental debates in light of such growing bodies of knowledge allows media scholars to study journalistic norms’ evolution. In environmental matters, as with other political debates, opponents on both sides argue that mainstream news media are biased against their positions (Bennett, W. L., 2016). By operationalizing bias in environmental news as ideological emphases, then measuring such textual leanings, I supplement media-bias knowledge by expanding findings to the environmental policy sphere, which has received meager scholarly attention thus far (Lester, 2010).

Another modern trend altering journalists’ traditional norms is the evolution of information communication technologies. With the proliferation of independent and social media, everyday citizens gained the ability to cheaply and instantaneously produce and consume globally available texts (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). This significant change had major effects:

The definition of journalism came into question, news industries’ economic model became endangered, and pressures on journalistic conventions increased (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009).

Thus, past research cannot explain modern media ecologies; we must have analyses of 21st century mediated content to make declarative statements about the mediasphere today

(Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). Appropriately, this study captures a moment in U.S. history when 5 social media use had just risen meteorically, from its infancy in 2007 before the start of the

Obama presidency to its ascendance to ubiquity by 2011 (Van Dijck, 2013).

While this study is a media analysis from an environmental communication perspective, its conceptual links between policy positions and cultural values imply a political communication orientation. More analyses of recent U.S. political positions are needed, as elected leaders’ outlooks have fluctuated rapidly on important issues. Such swift changes include stances on debates such as the existence of a global warming trend, the anthropogenic nature of climate change, and the need for collaboration with other nations and supranational institutions to address global issues. The first president of the new century, George W. Bush, denied global warming trends and anthropogenic influences on climate change, as does the current office holder, Donald Trump. The Democratic president serving two terms between those two

Republicans, Barack Obama, acknowledged the global scientific consensus on global warming and its anthropogenic causes and advocated a national and intergovernmental response to mitigate climate change. Because U.S. journalists’ behavior is influenced by presidential positions (Entman, 2004) and the degree of debate on Capitol Hill (Bennett, W. L., 1990), attending to mass media content during different political eras is important—scholars cannot easily generalize about journalistic behavior over time, as the content they produce fluctuates with social contexts (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). Similarly, the evolving nature of information technologies in the modern era calls for historical snapshots. This study captures one historical moment. Though such a snapshot does not present generalizable trends, it should provide some insight into underlying theoretical dynamics.

This study was a mixed-methods analysis of mass media content produced by top-tier

U.S. print news companies. The first phase of the project was a qualitative discourse analysis 6 seeking out frames representing environmental value hierarchies. Thematic analysis of the frames allowed me to determine the environmental ideologies they represented. This act of relating common news frames to environmental ideologies is useful for future environmental communication scholarship.

The qualitative discourse analysis informed the second phase of the project, a series of quantitative content analyses. The discourse analysis’s output was used to code the corpus’s texts for environmental ideologies, then the frequency of ideologies’ appearances was calculated. This research provides empirical insight into a modern rhetorical conflict, as it supports findings that mainstream news promulgates human-centered environmental ideologies (e.g., Corbett, 2006) but also finds some evidence that U.S. culture is moving toward an ecocentric environmental paradigm (e.g., Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978; Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig & Jones, 2000; Thapa,

1999).

This dissertation begins with a brief outline of the synergistic environmental crises facing the Earth’s biosphere. The case is made that these eco-crises are caused by everyday decisions made by both average citizens and leaders of commerce and government. In other words, the problems humanity faces result from human action. The behaviors that are problematic are seen to be encouraged by institutionalized decision-making logic promoted by a very small, but politically and economically powerful, social group. If the problems we face are self-created through cultural processes, then we have the ability to examine the structural dynamics driving those processes and attempt to repair our cultures for long-term survival and enhancing quality of life worldwide (Diamond, 2005; Rochon, 2000; Speth, 2008). Toward this solution, I will present scholarly arguments that the social behaviors causing problematic conditions can be alleviated by intentional cultural change efforts. 7

A variety of interdisciplinary sources are cited to demonstrate that such cultural change work requires knowledge of values advanced by media texts and insight into the social structures influencing those texts’ content. This argument is supported by detailing the central position of mass media news to the social construction of understanding, with an emphasis on environmentally related issues such as science and risk. Having established the merit of scrutinizing news content, I turn to the social formations and communicative institutions that shape the news, using an ideological approach to institutional analysis. This study is built on the premise that identifying content patterns yields insight into patterns of influence on the content creators who act as gatekeepers of traditional news: organizational executives, editors, and journalists (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). Thus, the results of the discourse and content analyses are contextualized in the literature of the ideology of news culture. An acknowledged limitation of this approach is that focusing on media content, rather than the institutional dynamics producing it, is an indirect and imprecise method of exploring institutional forces, a shortcoming found in most mass communication research (Golding & Murdock, 1979; Philo, 2007). However, this work does not preclude future investigations into media organization dynamics. I argue that understanding content is nevertheless an important, if overused, technique. Further, such methods have not been applied with sufficient rigor to texts communicating environmental values (Anderson, A., 2013; Lester, 2010).

The content was analyzed through a framing perspective, with news frames (Entman,

2004; Goffman, 1974) the key units of analysis. Two mass media news models shaped the parameters of the study. Specifically, I used Herman and Chomsky’s (1988, 2002) propaganda model (PM) and Entman’s (2004) cascading activation model (CAM) to guide my search for patterns in news content that may yield insight into structural forces affecting content decisions. 8

Both models have been well supported in studies of international diplomacy coverage, but been used only sparingly on domestic topics, especially environmental policy, despite clear potential applications. A noteworthy exception is Mattis’ (2014) use of the PM to examine coverage of the

Deepwater Horizon explosion, though this study uses different methods and empirical foci than

Mattis’ study. Extending the models to wider news content areas enhances their robustness, building knowledge in the field of media studies. Likewise, applying the media models to environmental policy stories supplements existing environmental communication literature.

The cases in this project were environmental news stories that became major media events. I examined coverage of protests and debate surrounding the proposed expansion of

TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline system, one of the most hotly contested environmental issues of the early 21st century. The debate was considered emblematic of various groups’ values and beliefs, both those fearing and those denying anthropocentric roots of climate change. I also explored coverage of the explosion of the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of

Mexico and its well’s subsequent spillage, the worst domestic oil spill in U.S. history. The continuously spewing well was a long-running story due to visual intensity and experts’ inability to swiftly cap it. These media events exemplify the socially constructed nature of risk perceptions, as pundits and political actors discursively sparred over what degrees of caution and concern should have been considered appropriate. The large volumes of media coverage produced mean these story arcs were discursive events. Cases used in comparative case studies require as many similarities as possible, as well as a significant theoretical difference (Yin,

2013). These cases’ theoretical difference is that one was a policy proposal and one was an environmental disaster. This key difference may have implications for the expression of environmental ideologies, a question this study aimed to explore. 9

Chapter II

Review of Related Literature

The material challenges currently facing humanity can be seen through rapidly increasing global pollution and annually intensifying weather. However, discovering the roots of our environmental challenges, and potential solutions, requires sociological investigation into the cultural values that led to the ubiquitousness of society-wide, non-sustainable behaviors. This section outlines the human-caused environmental crises we now face, the sources of the values that led to these crises, and the political challenges obstructing their resolution. This background context justifies data and theoretical models selected for analysis in the project.

Political and Ideological Roots of Modern Ecological Crises

Humans now face ecological crises that have “come to occupy a permanent place on the public agenda” and whose “importance goes without saying” (Hajer, 1995, p. 1). Sadly, the crises are results of our own behavior. The UN Environment Program found that, on average,

150–200 species of plants, insects, birds, and mammals go extinct every 24 hours, a rate 1,000 times higher than the normal background rate and one unseen since dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago (Vidal, 2010). Human activity not only contributes to extinctions, it damages the Earth’s ability to support our own species. Each of the world’s major ocean gyres is heavily polluted with non-biodegradable plastic, reducing seafood harvests (Bergmann, Tekman, &

Gutow, 2017). Deforestation is taking place rapidly worldwide (Diamond, 2005; Norris, 2016), exacerbating global warming (IPCC, 2013). Climate change is intensifying desertification—the erosion of soils—which reduces harvest quantities (Khateli et al., 2016). Greenhouse gas emissions are warming the globe, which is melting the polar ice caps, transferring portions of the 10 planet’s greatest reserves of fresh water to its salty seas (IPCC, 2013). Despite projected declines in the volume of drinkable water available (IPCC, 2013), increasingly widespread industrial practices remove water from the water cycle, polluting it with non-biodegradable by-products

(Kinner, 1996; Schwarzenbach et al., 2010).

These are just some of the numerous human-caused eco-crises intensifying each other’s effects. Though we are reducing the planet’s capacity to provide for us, our population is growing rapidly. From less than 1 billion people in the year 1798 CE (Bennett, J., 2016), the human population has grown to more than 7 billion (UN, 2015), and is expected to reach 9.6 billion by 2150 CE (UN, 2013). Population growth will increasingly tax habitable ecosystems.

As environmental shortcomings lead to social unrest, the likelihood of armed conflict at intra- and international levels increases (Diamond, 2005; Kinner, 1996). Because harmful outcomes are increasingly imminent, we must examine the sociological variables influencing our self- destructive behavior.

Ideological underpinnings of modern eco-crises. Any phenomena as complex as human contributions to the ecological crises discussed so far have many contributing factors.

However, scholars from a variety of fields indicate that social values strategically advanced by powerful political actors are largely responsible for the difficult position humanity now finds itself in. These essentially anti-social values have become woven into the macro-level structural forces of modern society.

The material root causes of the environmental crises humans now face are the worldwide exponential increases in commercial activity (Speth, 2008). Such activity depends on the transformation of natural resources into manufactured and distributed commodities. It has also come to include the production of non-biodegradable products; chiefly hydrocarbon products 11 such as gasoline and plastic. The exponential growth of the human population was sure to be accompanied by increases in commercial transactions and resource transformation. However, developed nations’ political elites exported two logically related economic perspectives to peoples worldwide that have exacerbated negative outcomes associated with population growth.

First, the dominant economic philosophy among collective decision-makers has featured an unrelenting focus on short-term capital gains. Next, to facilitate such outcomes, citizens have been guided to embrace commodity fetishism, the belief that acquiring ever-more material goods of increasing quality brings satisfaction. These deleterious trends have resulted in non- sustainable economic and consumptive practices (Corbett, 2006; Korten, 2001; Speth, 2008).

The neoliberal position that economic growth is infinitely sustainable and results in optimum, socially just outcomes is not only fallacious, it is wreaking havoc on world societies (Chomsky,

1999; Korten, 2001; Speth, 2008).

Diamond (2005) linked today’s environmental crises to these elite-distributed ideologies, making the argument that political elites are driving human civilization toward collapse. In an exhaustive comparative historical account, Diamond (2005) explained several reasons that past civilizations were unable to arrest their own decline. One was that the decision makers were making decisions that were in their own short-term best interests, partially because said decision makers were insulated from the immediately negative effects of their decisions. Diamond (2005) asserted that humans today are in this same situation. This argument aligns with J. Bennett’s

(2016) description of macro-level forces shaping individuals’ decisions for society’s detriment.

Another factor common to past collapses and the present is that societies rely on time-tested practices that align with their dominant social values; these practices have served them well for as long as they can remember, so the idea of altering such practices seems heretical (Diamond, 12

2005). In this vein, Korten (2001) describes modern Americans as cowboys in a spaceship, indicating the mismatch between the mindset of settlers in a seemingly limitless frontier and residents of a system in which all material interactions must be carefully accounted for to avoid calamity.

Linking ideology to cultural values and public policy. A fundamental assumption of this project is that individuals’ values are not developed solely through internal reflection and communicative interaction. Rather, cultural discourses play a powerful role in conditioning cultural members to hold certain values. I contend that a core of politically dominant elites wields significant influence on the discourse that guides this social-indoctrination process. This argument is based on Marx and Engels’ (1970) statement that in every society the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas of the society. They referred to the worldviews that elites develop and distribute as ideologies.

To formulate a conception of ideology, a word with a long, convoluted history

(Thompson, 1990), I turn to Althusser (2014), who described it as an all-encompassing worldview, embedded in every aspect of the human experience. Ideology is embodied in the messages regarding the proper conduct of affairs sewn throughout society, from symbolic processes related to social hierarchy to material processes such as harvesting and transformation of natural resources. Ideology affects and is interwoven in interpersonal and mass communication, socialization processes embedded in cultural institutions such as workplaces and schools, and even the design of objects and structuring of space. The reason that cultural, values- based norms are continuously, purposefully recirculated is to maintain and reify certain behavioral patterns as unquestionable and natural aspects of social life (Berger & Luckmann,

1967). This values-laden discursive reproduction is necessary to reproduce the present system of 13 human relationships and behavioral patterns that define the culture (Althusser, 2014; Gramsci,

1971).

Like Althusser, Thompson (1990) takes a critical approach to ideology, defining it as meaning in service to power. For Thompson (1990), the presence of ideology can be identified when the use of symbols, which create meaning, perpetuates systematically imbalanced power relationships between people. Antonio Gramsci’s work (1971) enhances this thesis with his concept of common sense, which indicates that values disseminated ubiquitously come to be taken for granted, then justify policies whose premises align with their values.

Political and economic elites develop values justifying the present arrangement of social relations to perpetuate this order because it benefits them and their descendants (Althusser,

2014). According to Althusser (2014), the dominant economic class needs the labor potential of workers to be reproduced on a daily basis, so that workers return to work day after day.

Althusser (2014) argues that a vital component in reproducing capitalist enterprises is not only maintaining and replacing machines and raw material, but also working to maintain these

“relations of production” (p. 44). Thus, elites must continuously perform ideological work to ensure that society as a whole accepts the present order and internalizes the values justifying its perpetuation (Althusser, 2014).

Such ideological work is done through many cultural foci, such as churches, trade groups, schools, voluntary association groups, and government communiqués (Althusser, 2014;

Thompson, 1990). The ubiquitous and pervasive nature of ideology and ideological work make it near-invisible. Most people have not been trained to perceive the production and dissemination of ideology, because educating citizens to be aware of ideological education is counter- 14 productive to the state’s mission of indoctrinating them with the beliefs and values necessary to perpetuate the current social order.

While many core values distributed as part of elites’ ideological work should be considered for analysis and transformation due to deleterious and unjust outcomes they promote, in my research I focus on environmental values. I adhere to Corbett’s (2006) argument that people’s perspectives on the proper relationship of humans to the rest of nature (e.g., the non- human, material world) have profound impacts on both the daily decisions and public policies that together produce large-scale impacts on the environment. By this logic, the promotion of environmental ideologies becomes a political-justice issue. Industrialized societies’ environmental impacts often adversely affect the lives of humans and other lifeforms (Speth,

2008), and the negative outcomes often disproportionately affect people who had no role in the decision-making processes leading up to them (Banzhaf, 2012; Diamond, 2005).

Numerous scholars have come to the conclusion that human societies must cultivate new environmental values in order to facilitate improved material outcomes (e.g., Corbett, 2006;

Diamond, 2005; Dunlap & Van Liere, 1984; Speth, 2008). Preliminary steps in this cultural change process are understanding the range of values available, determining which are currently most widely promoted, and gauging the presence of those that might allow us to evolve. These are the major goals of this project.

Most people may think about environmental ideologies dichotomously, as either eco- friendly or apathetic, yet there are actually many different belief systems about the proper position of humans in nature. The following section outlines these positions along an ideological spectrum produced by Corbett (2006) in order to determine which ideologies are present in news stories requires. 15

A Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies. “Ideology” can refer to a diverse array of hierarchical value statements and relationship beliefs that become taken for granted, achieving the status of Gramsci’s (1971) common sense. Corbett (2006) called attention to environmental ideologies as a unique ideological subset concerning the relationships people find appropriate between humans and the environment. Due to similarities among belief systems, environmental ideologies can be generally categorized (Corbett, 2006). However, because ideologies are idiosyncratic, drawing definite boundaries between them is imprecise due to individuals’ differences (Corbett, 2006). Despite acknowledging the shortcomings of creating ideological typologies, Corbett (2006) developed the Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies based on the work of Rodman (1983), Fox (1996), and Hay (2002). Corbett (2006) further acknowledges that the placement of ideologies on this spectrum is subjective, and thus not meant to be authoritative.

This section is based on Corbett’s (2006) explanation of her typology model, shown in Figure 1, which has poles ranging from anthropocentric, or human-centered, to ecocentric, which views all elements of nature as equally important.

Figure 1. “A Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies” (Corbett, 2006).

16

Anthropocentricity. On the anthropocentric end of the ideological spectrum, people believe that humans are separate from nature and meant to dominate it; they may also be afraid of it. Corbett (2006) uses the pyramid shape to signify this range of positions, because humans see themselves as the most important element of nature, with all other aspects subordinate.

Corbett (2006) asserts that most messages in the United States are “from the anthropocentric side of the spectrum” (p. 55).

Unrestrained instrumentalism. The most radical form of anthropocentrism, this position holds that all of nature exists for human use and has no intrinsic value; natural resources’ only value is their “use-potential as resources for humans” (Corbett, 2006, p. 32). Corbett (2006) emphasizes the immediacy of adherents’ worldviews in this perspective, in that unrestrained instrumentalists are most concerned with their own use of resources and are not concerned with future generations of humans, not even their own descendants. Corbett (2006) argues that

“American beliefs and practices regarding oil and gas” (p. 30) could be considered to fall under this position, as we continue using these resources despite their damaging impacts on the climate and dwindling availability.

Conservationism. This philosophy is human-centered, but rationally recognizes that if resources are used wantonly they will no longer be available for human use. Corbett (2006) offers examples: If too many trees are logged, there will not be enough trees to sustain industrial practices; if too many fish are caught, there will no longer be fish to catch. This philosophy does recognize intrinsic value of trees or fish but calls for “wise use” of resources so that their exploitation may continue. This initial form of U.S. environmentalism of the early 1900s was relevant to national park development and remains the dominant ideology behind the U.S. environmentalist movement today (Corbett, 2006). 17

Preservationism. Though similar to conservationism, preservationism holds that natural resources should be preserved for more reasons than simply utilitarian or economic. There are scientific reasons for preserving untouched wilderness because it may contain valuable information or chemical compounds for humans, produces useful species populations, and regulates the climate (Corbett, 2006). Aesthetic reasons for preserving nature were developed by many early environmentalists in awe of American wilderness. Because places like Yosemite are grandiose and their beauty was said to inspire and heal urbanites, writers felt they should be preserved (Corbett, 2006). Religious reasons for preserving nature also came about, as some believe wilderness is a divine creation humans are charged with sacred stewardship of. Note that conservationism and preservationism are what Americans usually consider environmentalism, but are in fact not radical philosophies, as they still center on human concerns (Corbett, 2006).

Ecocentricity. From ecocentric perspectives, all elements of the natural world, including humans, other animals, plants, and even non-living features such as oceans and rocks, are

“intrinsically valuable and important” (Corbett, 2006, p. 27). Corbett (2006) uses the circle to signify these types of positions, because each component of nature is viewed as interdependent and equal (Corbett, 2006). Transformative ecocentric ideologies aim to transform the linguistic and cultural practices that treat natural elements as resources for exploitation. Corbett (2006) described ideologies that represent the ecocentric side of the spectrum; some are listed here.

Ethics and values-driven ideologies. Environmentalists such as Aldo Leopold proposed radical ideologies that recognized the intrinsic value of non-human creatures, and even inanimate objects within nature (Corbett, 2006). These perspectives assert that humans have some requirements to safeguard other species, and that other species have an intrinsic right to exist; their value does not stem from their potential to serve human needs. The recognition of non- 18 humans as subjects with their own perspectives on reality is an important step in transitioning away from anthropocentrism.

A central concept to values-driven ideologies such as a land-based ethic (Leopold, 1949) is telos—when natural things have the “capacity for internal self-direction and self-regulation”

(Rodman, 1983, p. 249). Because a natural system such as coastline or prairie will tend to reproduce itself if left to its own devices, it has the same kind of value as any animal, such as a muskrat. However, these philosophies are accused of merely extending a hierarchical, anthropocentric ideology onto the rest of the natural world. For instance, some species (e.g., sentient) are accorded greater value, while others’ rights (fungi, bacteria) are ignored.

Ecological sensibility. This perspective values “relationships, systems, and individuals” with an “ethic…of noninterference and …restrained use of nature” (Corbett, 2006, p. 41). It uses

Rodman’s (1983) “theory of value” that recognizes telos and a “cluster” of values that act as guidelines in determining appropriate interaction with natural systems, including “diversity, complexity, integrity, harmony, stability, scarcity, etc.” (p. 253, as found in Corbett, 2006, p. 41).

Under this philosophy, such criteria should be used to determine best courses of action. Note that these criteria are very different from today’s dominant economic guidelines, and less dominant but still popular aesthetic guidelines (Corbett, 2006).

Social blocs cohere around environmental ideologies. One theoretical approach to understanding the political divide discussed in this research is to recognize that the idea of a national culture is, to a great extent, a myth. Fine (2010) points out that while we can discuss the general character of national cultures, at the micro- or meso-levels of analysis, culture can be thought of as a tool, actively used by discursively and materially interacting group members, groups that are splintered and thus smaller than a nation. Culture “is situated in particular 19 communities of action” and “tied to the existence of shared pasts and prospective futures” (Fine,

2010, p. 213). Subcultures and countercultures can also form into groups larger than simple interactants, based on shared resistance to hegemonic cultures (Fine, 2010). All of these cultural concepts are present in this paper’s depiction of a social dichotomy featuring activists and extractivists.

When it comes to the environment, vocal political groups tend to support adversarial positions—maintaining and increasing natural resource extraction (“extractivists”) and reducing natural resource extraction (environmental “activists”). In this section I elucidate the intertwined roles that political power and socioeconomic position, specifically material wealth holdings, play in producing these discursively opposed groups. These dynamics can be seen worldwide in many different extractivist industries (Chomsky, 1999; Korten, 2001; Speth, 2008).

Extractivist economic model and supporters. In the modern economy, wealthy capital holders in central economic locations, such as London and New York, invest their funds in peripheral locations, seeking out bargains on labor markets and natural-resource extraction

(Korten, 2001). This globalized corporate capital model allows the wealthy to continue increasing their wealth, while the majority of citizens in peripheral economies witness their lands depleted of resources and their labor comparatively undervalued (Korten, 2001). These workers and farmers can do little about the system they are enmeshed in because their local governing elites profit handsomely from awarding favorable contracts to foreign investors and use violence to repress political resistance (Chomsky, 1999; Korten, 2001). These are the general parameters of the extractivist economic model, in which transnational corporations privatize the export of natural resources and appropriate the profits, while state governments maintain the legal and physical infrastructure for the process (Burchardt & Dietz, 2014). 20

A coalition of social groups support extractivism from different strata of society. There are extractivist project owners and investors, who stand to profit economically from a continuation and intensification of the status quo (Young, 2013), and so discursively promote values supporting extractive policies (Chomsky, 1999; Korten, 2001). There are also bureaucrats supported by wealthy extractivists, whose career trajectories depend on crafting policies friendly to investor classes (Korten, 2001). However, not all extractivists are members of the so-called

“1%,” society’s wealthiest individuals. There are also blue-collar workers whose livelihood depends on continuing industrial activity. Laborers in extractivism make more working in resource extraction than they would in other manual-labor positions, especially in developed nations (e.g., the United States) where the manufacturing sector featuring skilled laborers migrated to undeveloped nations. Finally, many civilians enjoy the low price of fuel to heat homes and provide affordable transportation, both local and long-distance, and so support extractive industries. Some citizens also see natural-resource extraction as central to protecting themselves and their loved ones from foreign threats; thus, there is a national security concern backing some extractivists’ political perspectives. Of note, most citizens supporting such industrial projects typically do not directly encounter any directly associated negative outcomes

(Banzhaf, 2012). Because of their support of resource extraction and consumption, members of this ideological camp are sometimes called extractivists (Burchardt & Dietz, 2014). This portmanteau is a play on the fact that people who advocate for industrial development and economic growth are not usually considered “activists”—the term “activist” is typically reserved for those fighting for progressive social values. However, pro-resource development actors can be also considered political activists, despite their work being less visible and typically supportive of the status quo. 21

Impacts of extractivist projects and positionality. While extractivist projects create large sums of capital for their investors, as well as wage labor and related commercial activity for select strata of societies in which the activity takes place, they also have negative environmental impacts, which result in harmful social outcomes. Though extractivist projects create environmental damage, both in their immediate vicinity and, eventually, globally, the investor class sponsoring the projects’ execution typically need not cope with such challenges (Korten,

2001). However, the challenges facing people who live near extractive projects are physical and emotional (Cline et al., 2010), and worsening. Sagebien and Lindsay (2011) wrote that the late

1990s and early 2000s saw “the poorest and most marginalized populations of the developing world” (p. 28) suffering from extreme capitalism as extractivist projects intensified while neoliberal approaches to government rolled back or deterred state protections for the poor. “For those not experiencing tangible positive benefits, such as employment or direct community development, perceived negative impacts [of extractive industrial projects] are highly visible”

(Sagebien et al., 2008, p. 103).

Those impacted directly by extractivist projects have forcefully learned the relationships between their surrounding environment’s health and the health of their communities, inspiring increasingly ecocentric ideologies.

Because natural-resource extraction directly affects both nature itself and those forms of

community and social life that seek harmony with the earth, it has served as a catalyst for

the emergence of radical indigenous politics grounded in the defense of nature and life.

(Poole & Rénique, 2010, pp. 32-33)

Environmentalist resistance as response to extractivism. Just as the pursuit of profits creates an ideologically aligned and politically active subculture of capitalists and their 22 employees, such activity also creates an impetus for organized resistance. One example of such capitalist extractivist work is the mining industry, which creates social struggles (Sagebien et al.,

2008). Hoping to “counter the negative environmental and social impact of mining and the virtual absence of state regulation,” leaders from more than 1,200 Peruvian communities coalesced in 1999 to create the National Confederation of Communities Affected by Mining

(CONACAMI) (Poole, 2010, p. 30). The CONACAMI’s members asserted that the majority of

Peruvian citizens are “effectively excluded from social, political, and economic participation because the state is dominated by…a minority” (Poole, 2010, p. 32). These activists believe that, in their nation, “representational democracy…has effectively collapsed” due to corruption in the

Congressional and executive branches (Poole, 2010, p. 32). This lack of faith in government stems from the fact that the governed believe public policy is not crafted with their interests in mind. Expressing sentiment similar to other activists, the CONACAMI hold that the “Peruvian government’s attitude [is] that environmental disasters are acceptable collateral damage for the millions of dollars that mining generates for Peru’s elite” (Poole, 2010, p. 32). While this example is not from North America, its underlying principles are surely held by some citizens here, such as those affected by extractive projects without their consent (Banzhaf, 2012).

While risks confronted by residents proximate to extractive projects are manifold, people affected directly are not the only ones distraught about extractivism’s effects. The vast majority of the world’s citizens, even in the economic centers, can identify with such challenges. Even if they do not face extractivist project effects in their daily lives, most individuals are not a part of the upper echelon of capitalists. For example, most Americans do not live off of their financial investments; they are laborers (Korten, 2001). While First World urbanites may not feel the direct impacts of extractivist projects, many feel they share more in common economically 23 speaking with the populations, both rural and urban, coping with externalized costs of such projects than with the industrialists financing and profiting from them. Both transmission of stories of political resistance to extractivism and scientific research addressing industrialism’s far-reaching effects have spread to urban citizens who share their sympathies, contributing to the development of a worldwide anti-globalization, living democracy movement (Chomsky, 1999;

Korten, 2001). These geographically dispersed but ideologically and to an extent socioeconomically aligned social groups form imagined sub-communities (Anderson, 1983) or sub-cultures (Fine, 2010) who mutually co-construct similar identities based on concern for the preservation of the natural environment and disdain for degradations extractivist projects impose

(Corbett, 2006; Haq & Paul, 2013). Thus, through socioeconomic divisions, “communities of action” and discourse form (Fine, 2010, p. 213). As social strata occupy different physical spaces, and their differences in material wealth naturally lead to divergent ideological views, this socioeconomic divide leads to differentiated stances on political issues.

Activists and extractivists are political opponents. The oppositional worldviews presented here result in policy debates. Extractivists and environmental activists seek different outcomes for public policy; elected and appointed officials are caught in between this political tug-of-war. Political decision-makers face a wide variety of influential forces, including the communication of voters, campaign donors, and powerful organizations. While each actor’s discourse, and material expenditures, contribute to the overall political environment, the representation of these political struggles as discourse impacts decisions as well. For politicians are not making decisions simply based on an accurate, objective measure of public opinion, which is basically impossible to gather, but rather on representations of public opinion, often as it is portrayed in mainstream news media (Zaller, 1992). Because mainstream news both 24 represents public opinion and articulates social values, all of the political actors described so far are interested in influencing news content to influence public opinion directly, and political decision makers indirectly (Entman, 2004; Zaller, 1992).

The Public Sphere, Mass Media, and Framing Contests

Thus far this paper has examined the cultural roots of the material crises facing humanity, the argument that different social groups have different political agendas, and the subsequent premise that each group attempts to shape cultural values to facilitate the material outcomes they prefer. Ultimately, sub-cultures within larger social collectives are struggling to define the dominant social paradigm: the values and beliefs that dominate society (Dunlap & Van Liere,

1984). These struggles take place in several venues of communication. In this project, I focus on the realm of mass media news texts, a discursive arena serving as a contested site of cultural value production. The following section outlines this perspective, highlighting major theoretical perspectives for understanding how social groups contest cultural principles by attempting to influence media production.

The public sphere and news media. Democratic theorist Habermas’ (1989) notion of the public sphere refers to the totality of spaces where citizens can discuss matters relative to governance. A free and diversely populated public sphere is essential for a robust, participatory democracy (Habermas, 1989). Constitutionalist and former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson is a famous advocate of the importance of a free press, indicating that there must be a sector of society not ruled by the government that reports on the doings of government; otherwise citizens will be incapable of casting informed votes and leaders will tend toward tyranny. As Gamson,

Croteau, Hoynes, & Sasson (1992) put it, “Ideally, a media system suitable for a democracy 25 ought to provide its readers with some coherent sense of the broader social forces that affect the conditions of their everyday lives” (p. 373).

Mass media news outlets are the primary sites of political deliberation in the United

States; they form the bulk of this country’s public sphere (Gans, 2011). While other conversational spaces are surely available, such as town halls, coffee shops, living rooms, and, more recently, cyberspace, a society as complex and far-flung as the United States, or any modern industrialized nation, really, can only be understood as it is represented in texts

(Anderson, B., 1983; Carey, 1992). The processes involved in government and business are simply too complicated, and involve too many people, to be understood by one person researching on her or his own or conversing with others. Just as specialization of labor created engineers and teachers, it also created a professional class of information workers—journalists— whose efforts keep other citizens abreast of social developments (Schudson, 2011; Tuchman,

1978).

Even before mass media existed, guiding public discourse to suit one’s policy goals has always been a political objective. Individuals and groups seeking to enhance their own power or alter social norms in a way they see fit perform communicative work to attempt to alter the values of others, or at least the ideas communicated through public discourse (which influence and circumscribe the formulation of values at the social level). These efforts to alter discourse are ultimately designed to have material ramifications. As Entman (2007) posited, “media influence the distribution of power: who gets what, when, and how” (p. 163). Because political decisions have material ramifications, political actors strategically compete to shape the information environment, in order to shape public opinion to support their preferred policy outcomes (Druckman, 2011). Entman (2004) stated that the reason individuals and entities 26 struggle so mightily to define social discourse is that the will of the people is very useful, if not necessary, in achieving large-scale aims. Because dominant discourses inform citizens of the values ostensibly deemed appropriate in their cultures, discourse influences individuals’ values at a widespread scale. Value distributions affect orientations toward policy options, which in turn influence collective decision-makers’ actions (Downs, 1957). So, when opportunities to influence widespread discourse occur, strategic actors are quick to act. The proliferation of mass media created easily identifiable targets for political pressure: journalists and the news organizations that employ them.

News as contested terrain. Mediated news texts perform many roles in society. There are the obvious roles of informing and entertaining, but they also play more subtle roles as discursive agents of ideological work. Mass media, and news texts in particular, are seen as politically neutral, objective, and representative of the center of the political value spectrum (Schudson,

2011). Because they are seen to articulate the taken-for-granted beliefs and values of a society, political actors see substantial benefits in influencing news texts’ content (Gramsci, 1971;

Schudson, 2011). In addition to defining the social norms of a society and recirculating those definitions, mainstream mass media news provides the primary discursive arena for the construction of risk and understandings of science and technology (Anderson, A., 2013). News texts are seen as apolitical representations of reality, and this status makes them influential, as both voting citizens and government leaders look to them to understand public opinion and make decisions regarding which policy directions to support (Schudson, 2011). Thus, news plays an integral role in a democracy, so influencing its content is seen as a valuable strategic goal by political actors. The policy debate described so far between environmentalists and growth- minded industrialists is no exception; both sides of this debate work diligently to influence news 27 content, in an attempt to normalize their own perspective. Modern oppositional social movements create such dramas, their perspectives are played out as discursive contests. Mass media’s position as central institutions of culture-building place them in the center of such political struggles.

Political features of news text creation. At this point I have established that news texts are important sites of cultural meaning-making, and because of this their content is contested.

While journalistic norms call for objectivity and balance in the creation of news texts, it is impossible to truly be value-neutral or apolitical (Bennett, W. L., 1990; Herman & Chomsky,

1988; Schudson, 2011; Tuchman, 1978). Thus, while people often think of “the news” as an objective, fact-distributing institution, news media as a whole are reality-constructing institutions, each outlet operating from a certain political perspective (Tuchman, 1978). The mass media function collectively like a lens delivering images of social events and governance matters to the general public; yet the lens “is not neutral but evinces the power and point of view of the political and economic elites who operate and focus it” (Gamson et al., 1992, p. 374).

Further, the politically powerful substantially influence the work of journalists, editors, and news organization executives (Herman & Chomsky, 1988; Schudson, 2011; Shoemaker & Vos, 2009;

Tuchman, 1978). In this section I outline ways values can be promulgated in news texts, as well as non-journalistic influences on news-text creation.

Frames in the news. One approach to understanding themes in news content is the idea of framing. The concepts of frames and framing were first developed by psychologist Erving

Goffman. Goffman (1974) posited that people use internal mental structures—categorization schemes and rules about reality created through language—to make sense of perceived information. Goffman’s (1974) argument was that people cannot fully understand the world, so 28 to reduce their struggle in making sense of reality they develop and apply interpretive schemas to help them categorize incoming information, make sense of it, and respond in meaningful ways.

By Goffman’s original conception, a frame is an internal schema used to make sense of incoming information and sensibly encode outgoing communication. While the personal creation and utilization of frames makes sense from a psychological perspective, scholars have advanced theory on frames to include the idea of framing as a verb—creating and transmitting such symbolic schema that others can then utilize to filter and make sense of reality. Chong and

Druckman’s (2007) psychological model of framing built on Goffman’s (1974) work; they see framing theory as a way to think about both how people process information and how information is shaped for others’ consumption. Reese et al. (2001) define framing as the reproduction of “organizing principles that are socially shared and persistent over time, that work symbolically to meaningfully structure the social world” (p. 11). By this definition, framing plays a role in the maintenance of ideology.

This conception of framing as an active, externally oriented process is often applied to research on journalists and news texts. As a writing tool, framing is indispensable for journalists.

Just as individuals struggle to make sense of the bewildering array of information they are presented with, so too would journalists struggle to create concise, meaningful contributions to news discourse, without filtering, sense-making schema of their own (Gans, 1979; Gitlin, 1980).

When journalists have packaged information into story form for distribution, the story itself is framed in a certain way, that is, it emphasizes certain elements of the story to make them more salient (Entman, 1993; Gitlin, 1980). The idea that framing is an activity ingrained into the professional work of journalists is clear in Entman’s (2004) attempt to create “a standard definition of framing: selecting and highlighting some facets of events or issues, and making 29 connections among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution” (p. 5, emphasis in original). Similarly, Chong and Druckman (2011) define a media frame as an interpretation or evaluation of an issue, event, or person emphasizing certain of its features or consequences. Entman (1993) stated that substantive media frames encourage certain interpretations, evaluations, and solutions over others. Thus, a news frame is more than a logical summary causing readers to say “this is a story about X,” where X might be the NIMBY (“not in my backyard”) syndrome. Frames come with a built-in, though often implicit, perspective. So, a

“NIMBY” story might carry the subtle message that people complaining about the placement of disagreeable industrial sites near their homes are being unreasonable.

This condensation of information into neatly categorized, familiar narratives is useful not only for the routinization of journalists’ work (Tuchman, 1978), but also for readers’ consumption of news. All people prefer to minimize the amount of time they spend trying to understand information (Downs, 1957). Optimally they would swiftly digest information; packaging information according to recognizable tropes assists audiences’ progress toward this ideal. At this point it is useful to examine how frames work at greater depth.

Functions and foci of frames. In addition to providing a widely used definition of framing, Entman (2004) breaks down the focus and functions of frames. The following discussion is based on Entman’s (2004) explanation of “Objects of Framing” (pp. 23-26). Each news frame has an object, or focus. The object of a news frame is typically an event, issue, or political actor, which can be an individual leader or a social collective such as an organization or nation. Frames also perform four different functions. A frame can identify a problem, identify the cause of a problem, suggest a moral evaluation of the frame’s focus, or suggest a remedy for a problem. 30

Entman (2004) says a fully formed narrative frame will play all four frame functions

(defining problematic conditions, identifying their cause, suggesting a remedy, and casting moral judgment) for three interconnected foci (issues, events, and actors). He gives the example of the post-September 11, 2001 media narrative regarding the need to go to war in Afghanistan as an example of a “fully developed frame” (Entman, 2004, p. 25). The problem was an event

(September 11th) with an identifiable cause—terrorists, who are focused upon in a frame of their own as negatively evaluated actors. Those actors are a problem, whose remedy is war, an issue in which the event of September 11th serves as cause.

The idea that a news story can be understood as representing one or more identifiable tropes, or frames, underlies a significant portion of mass media research, especially the search for evidence of bias in news. While delving into the entirety of framing research is beyond the scope of this work, I will later present framing research relevant to environmental communication. For now, I will detail how frames can transmit bias in news stories, and why being the party benefitted by that bias is so important to frame sponsors.

News bias and framing contests. Entman (2007) stated that a continued emphasis on frames preferred by one side of a political disagreement is one way of providing biased news content. Even if both sides of a political disagreement are cited, their treatment may not necessarily be equal. Certain linguistic choices by journalists can indicate explicit or implicit agreement with a side, and the unique assemblage of quotations in a given story can be chosen to promote one interpretation over another. Any such bias in news texts is a victory for its proponents, the political groups constantly seeking to influence frames utilized by journalists.

Actors’ attempts to influence the patterns of frames used in news texts are one manifestation of political battles, such as the extractivist / activist debate described previously. Entman (2004) 31 labels these discursive battles framing contests. In these contests, political actors, or frame sponsors (Handley, 2010), attempt to guide the dominant narrative in the public sphere, specifically in mainstream news media coverage. “The central goal of all the political maneuvering over news frames is simply to generate support or opposition to a political actor or policy” (Entman, 2004, p. 47). Thus, frame sponsors use both social discourse and political influence to attempt to steer their preferred frames toward positions of rhetorical dominance, while competing with others sponsoring alternative viewpoints, in order to promote their preferred policy outcomes.

The winner of a framing contest has successfully instilled bias in the news. However, framing contests are not so simple. Entman (2004) proposed a framing contest continuum, ranging from complete frame dominance, to frame contestation, to frame parity, the final category a situation in which two fully developed frames co-exist. Entman (2004) wrote that the highly touted theories of a free press prefer multiple interpretations of news stories receiving comparable attention, yet “frame parity is the exception, not the rule” (Entman, 2004, p. 48).

Sometimes, especially for foreign policy issues, frames promoted by the White House are thoroughly and without challenge embedded in mainstream news, as journalists accept the

President’s “problem definition, cause, remedy and moral assessment;” (Entman, 2004, p. 47).

Available evidence shows that dominant news frames lead audiences to process information in the fashion intended by the frame authors. Frame dominance can lead to the point where understanding news narratives in other ways becomes challenging for nearly all domestic audiences (Entman, 2004), justifying the political wrangling over frame contests. Furthering the importance of success in framing contests is the effects that they have on elected officials. As dominant narratives guide the public to hold overwhelmingly one-sided opinions, as reported in 32 survey data, other politicians are discouraged from voicing dissent, which Entman (2004) said can result in an “elite ‘spiral of silence’” (p. 73, emphasis in original), relating framing research to Noelle-Neuman’s (1974) spiral of silence mid-level theory of media-audience interaction.

Because of the political benefits of dominating framing contests, relatively few mediated political issues go unchallenged; the mainstream news features incessant framing contests

(Entman, 2004). An important dynamic to understand in these competitions of influence is that each side of a given debate typically has certain advantages in framing contests, due to media companies and journalists’ norms.

Sourcing bias. While Entman (2004) wrote that bias can be shown in the sense-making frames embedded in stories, he also described prominence as a type of framing bias. When ideas are cited more often than others, they come to seem more important, or salient (Entman, 2004).

The same goes for sources in stories. With the development of the quotation process in journalism, the selection of sources and their quotations became a fundamental aspect of journalists’ work (Schudson, 2011). Tuchman (1978) wrote that the process of finding news stories and gathering quotations was routinized by placing journalists on beats where they frequented bureaucratic centers. Only a bureaucracy dedicated to producing information could supply the voracious needs of daily newspapers (Tuchman, 1978). This historically evolved process has resulted in journalists’ professional norms valuing the words of society’s power holders: elected and appointed officials, high-ranking corporate employees, and, to a lesser extent, formally recognized leaders of citizens’ groups (Gitlin, 1980; Schudson, 2011; Tuchman,

1978). These people are recognized as authentic suppliers of facts, contributing to the “web of facticity” (Tuchman, 1978). Everyday citizens’ opinions are sometimes sought, but at a much 33 less frequent rate than the formal holders of social power in large institutions (Gitlin, 1980;

Schudson, 2011; Tuchman, 1978).

Because mainstream mass media news tends to overwhelmingly cite those presently in positions of power, mainstream news tends to ideologically support the status quo (Gitlin, 1980;

Tuchman, 1978). Those privileged by the current order of social relations are unlikely to substantively criticize it—as mentioned earlier, they work to advance it (Althusser, 2014). So, if the professional norms of journalists are to cite power holders, and those people tend to support the status quo, then the frames found in news texts are necessarily going to be tilted toward dominant ideologies rather than the ideas of social change agents. Gans (1979), like Herman and

Chomsky (1988), indicates that these professional norms, endorsed by the large businesses employing journalists, cause journalists to unconsciously adopt institutionally preferred constraints on their work that privilege corporate power.

Unequal influence on gatekeepers. Because the politically and economically powerful are cited more frequently in news texts, they are seen as having increased access to the public sphere. In fact, the advantages that political elites have in introducing their discourse into mediated texts go beyond their constant appearances as quoted and referenced sources. Other advantages stem from elites’ tightly knit relationship with the gatekeepers of news texts— journalists, editors, and news organization executives—as well as the political and economic influences they can bring to bear on news organizations.

As Tuchman (1978) noted, political elites are routinely consulted for information and opinion to include in news texts. However, Tuchman (1978) also noted that this relationship, between sources who supply information and journalists who need information, is tilted in favor of the sources. Political elites are validated as authentic providers of facts by the news media 34

(Tuchman, 1978), yet once they have this social status, their factual provisions become crucial products in the news-making process. Imagine that a high-ranking official, the Senate majority leader, for example, has chosen to ostracize one news outlet due to unfavorable coverage. That outlet’s inability to gather the Senator’s words places the company at a disadvantage relative to its competitors (Tuchman, 1978). If a journalist or news organization alienates too many officials by reporting ideas or arguments countering the positions of the current holders of power, their company risks insolvency, as the information they depend upon to create news dries up. This dynamic threatens the careers of individual journalists, who can see their career progress stall as others, even within the same news organization, have access to privileged information that they do not (Tuchman, 1978), just as it threatens entire organizations. So, there is clearly an incentive for news outlets to produce conservative coverage that is uncritical of dominant elites.

Not only are political elites cited more frequently, but they also have the ability to affect news products in other ways. Economic elites and companies can threaten to pull advertising from news products (Herman & Chomsky, 1988). Similarly, political elites can call for boycotts by their followers (Herman & Chomsky, 1988). High-ranking members of the highly interconnected world of corporate boards can call on their connections in companies owning news outlets to distribute top-down directives for content change (Herman & Chomsky, 1988).

All of these discursive actions are effective techniques for muzzling overly ambitious reporters, allowing the hierarchical nature of news organizations to be flexed in the service of elite interests

(Herman & Chomsky, 1988). Further, they are not readily available to average citizens. Even well-organized citizens groups do not typically have the economic capital or political might to bully news organizations in these fashions (Herman & Chomsky, 1988). Thus, the framing contest that is a natural result of the divergent political views between environmental activists 35 and development-minded extractivists is fought on uneven terms—news organizations are more receptive to the requests of the growth elite than social movement activists.

Media owners’ influence. The citizens and groups most effective at influencing news texts’ features may be the owners of news organizations themselves. Those who own mass media outlets have a better chance of influencing what those outlets say than non-owners, due to their abilities to punish and reward, and hire and fire, employees. Shoemaker and Vos’ (2009) gatekeeping model explicitly recognizes how owners’ organizational power allows them to influence content. D. Chomsky (1999) offers a colorful example as The New York Times’ publishers, ostensibly removed from editorial decisions, tightly controlled editorial page content and guided news coverage for 50 years. Media owners tend to be members of the ruling class and so are typically supportive of status quo perspectives (Herman & Chomsky, 1988; D. Chomsky,

1999). While for many years owners of media outlets were rich individuals or families, ownership is increasingly represented by large corporations (Bagdikian, 2014; Schudson, 2011).

These corporations are often involved in non-journalistic endeavors, and these external relationships may create a conflict of interest (Herman & Chomsky, 1988). Such connections increase the likelihood that news outlets are biased not only toward ruling class interests generally, due to their owners being economic and political elites, but also that they take into account the influence of their content on other commercial sectors their corporations are involved in (Herman & Chomsky, 1988). By this logic, the argument against a concentration of media into the possession of a small group of corporations is that those corporations will limit the field of discourse in the public sphere (Habermas, 1989), thus limiting the policy options considered by the populace at large to policies benefitting an elite minority (Lukes, 2005). 36

Activists harness journalistic norms. While journalists’ professional norms decidedly favor the status quo’s elites, there are also norms which allow social change activists entrée into mainstream mediated discourse (Deluca, 1999). For one thing, journalists favor stories with conflict orientations (Entman, 2004; Schudson, 2011; Tuchman, 1978). So, even if news frames are biased toward status quo representatives, voices of the opposition are typically included in order to present “both sides” of an issue. Journalistic norms also privilege events that are outside of the ordinary, that affect many people, and, since the advent of image-based journalism, present interesting visual spectacles (Deluca, 1999). Environmental activists use these norms to create events that journalists cannot resist covering, and the techniques have gone beyond protests that force their way into the news stream simply by disrupting everyday routines.

Earthfirst! members were early adopters of visually innovative techniques; stunts such as harassing a whaling ship earned them significant coverage (Deluca, 1999; Haq & Paul, 2013). A recent example was two young adults who climbed up the infrastructure of a football stadium in

Minnesota to hang a huge anti-pipeline banner and remained upside down hanging by their rappelling rope until news media arrived to document their arrest (McLaughlin, 2017). These unusual stunts are violations of social norms, and as such are typically not available to upholders of the status quo. Long-term, unusual protests such as Julia Butterfly Hill’s tree-sitting in

California or the many large-scale, camp-out protests of the Occupy Wall Street movement have given progressives the ability to insert their own news frames into mainstream media, despite their disadvantaged political status.

While many scholars have documented hegemonic discourse promoted by elites

(Althusser, 2014; Chomsky, 1999; Entman, 2003; Korten, 2001; Ogan, Çiçek, & Kaptan, 2007), further study is needed of how dominant mediated discourses frame environmental values 37

(Shanahan & McComas, 1999). Worth noting is that the diverse set of discursive texts known collectively as “news” are not expected to offer a monolithic value set (Tuchman, 1978; Gans,

1979). Further, as some argue that Americans are adopting a new environmental paradigm (e.g.,

Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978; Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig & Jones, 2000; Thapa, 1999), the emergence of environmentalist values in mainstream discourse seems inevitable, despite potential pushback from cultural and business elites (Korten, 2001). Finally, as increasingly radical protests begin to typify the most recent wave of environmentalism specifically, and the social justice movement more generally, more attention should be paid to activists’ techniques and the ways mainstream texts incorporate protest discourse (Ganesh, Zoller, & Cheney, 2005).

For all of these reasons, representations of political issues in mainstream news should remain an object of study, with environmental debates a particularly important and under-researched subset. A proven heuristically rich technique for analyzing mass media texts is the use of theoretical models; next I will discuss models potentially appropriate for this investigation.

Mass Media News Models

Virtually all media and democratic scholars today agree that the news media in a democracy should contribute to a robust public sphere and actively seek out any attempts by powerful political leaders to mislead the public. However, debate exists as to how well the mass media are carrying out this function. Media scholars’ attention to news media has resulted in the critique that journalists are not fulfilling the “watchdog function” they ascribe to themselves.

Rather than serving as the so-called “fourth estate” that is called for by democratic theorizing

(e.g., Habermas, 1989; Siebert, Peterson, & Schramm, 1956), some scholars say that the mass media play a “guard dog” function (Donahue, Tichenor, & Olien, 1995), discursively protecting and masking the interests of political elites. Studying the routines of journalists, the constraints 38 of news organizations, and the final news products delivered to the public has allowed scholars to create conceptual models explaining how these social processes function. The final goal of such analyses could be bettering the degree to which our mass media news products support a healthy democracy.

Mass media models are appropriate tools for measuring potential bias in news media and conjecturing on logical links between content and the social processes that produce it. Models are theoretical constructs, bundles of logically linked propositions. Each proposition itself can be tested. As scholars propose models, the propositions should be tested to see how well they explain mass media content. While models are not expected to hold up perfectly in all cases, the more testing they undergo, the more accurate their propositions can be said to be. Understanding the situations in which their tenets do not hold is also an important scholarly endeavor.

As mass communication was the foundation of the academic field of communication, scholars have developed many mass-communication models over roughly a century of research.

Today several branches of mass media news models are widely acknowledged as having staying power. While they have similarities and differences, in terms of traits and foci, their authors share a normative belief in the importance of a free press serving the informational needs of citizens in a democracy. The models are designed to portray the interplay of typical citizens, political (and sometimes economic) elites, social movements, and journalists—the strategic actors whose interaction result in modern governance and social norms. Entman (2004), proposing his own mass media news model, stated that the most widely accepted models explaining modern news media behavior can be grouped as indexing or hegemony models.

Indexing, as shall be elaborated upon, means that journalists capture the breadth of political 39 elites’ debate at any given moment. Hegemony models posit that political elites control news institutions and attempt to use this discursive power to shape society-wide values.

In the next section I will describe ground-breaking models of both indexing and hegemony perspectives. I briefly touch on the first indexing model, then describe Herman and

Chomsky’s (1988) standout hegemony model, the propaganda model (PM). Revised in 2002 and

2008, I refer to the 1988 edition unless otherwise specified. Next, I list Entman’s (2004) arguments that his own cascading activation model (CAM) captures the best of and improves upon both indexing and hegemony models, before finally offering my own opinion on why the

PM and CAM should be used together for this study. Note that these particular models were designed to explain U.S. coverage of foreign policy, but all three have been expanded from their original contexts and applied to diverse news coverage and sociocultural contexts.

Indexing hypothesis. A forerunner of the models focused on in this project, the indexing hypothesis (IH) states that mainstream U.S. journalists tend to “index” elite, national-level bureaucrats’ debate (W. L. Bennett, 1990). By index, W. L. Bennett (1990) meant that mainstream news presents an array of policy positions roughly proportional to how those opinions are held by top officials. Thus, a minority position would only appear rarely, while dominant positions appear frequently, and overall, news represents the proportions of opinions’ popularity among established political leaders, or a natural “index.” Thus, debate in the Capitol inspires comparable debate in mainstream news, but if Congress is not publicly disagreeing with the President, only Oval Office-approved perspectives will be in the news. Using this proscriptive behavior, journalists can defend their work as accurate and objective, as they are faithfully transmitting “what happens” in government to the public (Bennett, W. L., 1990).

However, this approach is flawed, as indexed reporting only captures perspectives of people in 40 power, failing to generate perspectives critical of those in power as called for by normative theories of democracy (Bennett, W. L., 1990).

Though the IH has been supported by many studies since (Bennett, W. L., 2011), Entman

(2004) stated its major weaknesses are that it does not allow for the origination of frames by non- elites, which clearly happens occasionally. Further, Entman (2004) pointed out that the IH grants journalists no autonomy, a deficiency that many scholars, journalists, and pundits likewise dispute. Herman and Chomsky (1988) mostly supported the existence of the indexing phenomenon but argued that the model does not theorize the reasons behind it. While the IH is a highly valuable component of media studies, these shortcomings mean that it is not optimal for this project, as its precepts are expanded upon by the PM and CAM.

Propaganda model. Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) propaganda model (PM) is frequently described as a prominent hegemony model (Ali, 2011; Entman, 2004; Kennis, 2016).

Building on the work of Gramsci (1971), hegemony models describe a propaganda role for news media. In propaganda systems, the information distributed supports an ideology favorable to the ruling class so that the masses consent to being governed, acquiescing to policies that may not be in their favor (Herman & Chomsky, 1988). Herman and Chomsky (1988) use political economy analysis to describe the structural forces that they argue induce journalists to perform a propaganda function.

Introduced and explained by Herman and Chomsky in their 1988 book, the PM attempts to explain forces affecting the final product of media texts. It focuses on differentiated patterns of news frames and quantities of coverage as evidence of those forces. Its hypotheses have been well supported, even by scholars who ignore the model (see Herring & Robinson, 2003).

However, it does not grant much power to non-elite levels of society—Congress, journalists, the 41 public, etc.—to influence news texts. Rather, it describes a “guided market system” that keeps mediated debate within the “bounds of acceptable premises” (Herman & Chomsky, 1988, p.

298), an expression later smoothed into the “[b]ounds of the [e]xpressible” (Chomsky, 1989, p.

45). The PM’s creators do not perceive this system as the result of a massive conspiracy of political elites, but rather it is considered to be a logical outcome of macro-level processes affecting the workers who create news texts. Herman and Chomsky (1988) conceptualize five filters that guide news content; the filters represent macro-level processes of the guided market system. The descriptions of the filters in this section are from their seminal 1988 book, unless otherwise noted.

Ownership. News organizations are typically owned by corporations, often conglomerates with interests outside of media, or very wealthy individuals, who also typically have investments beyond the given news organization. Herman and Chomsky (1988) argue that such entities are typically interlocked with other wealthy and powerful individuals and groups so that they generally share similar interests, which include enhancing the social and economic power of status quo elites.

Advertising. The truly important customers of news media outlets are not news consumers, but advertisers. Audience attention is packaged and sold to advertisers, typically for- profit businesses. Advertisers’ demands can influence news organization decisions; their threats to withhold news outlets’ income are taken seriously by news executives who oversee editorial and business decisions. Also, owners and advertisers typically have intertwined interests.

Advertisers are often wealthy conglomerate corporations similar to the media companies themselves, whose executives are often present on the same corporate boards in non-media 42 sectors as news companies’ executives. Thus, advertisers may not even have to make threats for their counterparts in news organizations to heed or share their concerns.

Sourcing. Because professional norms of journalism demand seeking information from the most highly placed members of bureaucracies, government and industry leaders have a built- in advantage at being treated as important sources and having their views passed along uncritically (Tuchman, 1978). Because news outlets’ and journalists’ competitiveness depend on maintaining strong relationships with highly placed sources, organizations and journalists are hesitant to publish information that will upset these sources and damage relationships, allowing sources strong influence over final products.

Flak. Citizens groups that warn journalists to cover or avoid certain topics produce what

Herman and Chomsky (1988) call flak. These organizations or loosely connected movements threaten mass media to conform to certain standards or else meet with financially and discursively negative circumstances. They are typically organized by powerful social lobbies or business interests, and so often represent the same viewpoints as advertisers, owners, and elite sources.

Ideology. The well-ingrained social values of the culture(s) within which the organization’s members are embedded shape those members’ decisions. Such underlying cultures include national, professional, and organizational influences. All of these social groups’ complex systems of values and beliefs come together to affect any human organized collective, as their individual positionalities share many principles. This conception of ideology as a background set of values that suffuses a culture’s communication is similar to that described by

Althusser (2014) and discussed previously in this paper. Herman and Chomsky (1988) envision ideology as more than just a natural, value-laden background upon which social action takes 43 place. They conjecture on elites’ roles in intentionally using mediated communication to inculcate in audiences ideologies useful to their policy goals. Thus, ideology is not only an influence on news texts; news texts are an influence on ideology. Herman and Chomsky (1988) initially named this filter anti-communism. They revised the name to reflect how the collapse of the Soviet Union changed the rhetoric dominating U.S. politics, there seemingly no longer existed a viable alternative to a globalized free-market economy (Herman & Chomsky, 2002).

However, despite the necessary change in rhetorical style, Herman and Chomsky (2002) assert that little has changed regarding the gist of the filter’s logic and its effects on news texts. The authors state that the elite-driven ideology now focuses on “the miracle of the market,” simply amplifying the pro-capitalism mindset that was used in the anti-communist ideology while dropping the now unnecessary anti-communist rhetoric (Herman & Chomsky, 2002, p. xvii).

PM’s predictions. The PM makes predictions about both news content, which its authors term first-order predictions, as well as the how the model will be received and treated by academia, their second-order predictions. This particular study is only concerned with the model’s application to content, but the PM’s creators’ argument that academics would ignore or ridicule the model is supported by subsequent scholarship (e.g., Herring & Robinson, 2003;

Jensen, 2010; Klaehn, 2003; Mullen, 2010; Pedro, 2011; Robertson, 2010). Thus, this work can be seen as a response to calls for continued testing of the model and expansion of areas of its application, despite its off-hand dismissal by many journalism scholars.

Worthy / unworthy stories and victims. The PM indicates that stories supporting U.S. elites’ interests are worthy of prominent coverage, while those weakening their interests are unworthy, and so unlikely to enter mediated discourse. Using comparative case studies, Herman and Chomsky (1988) show that the same types of stories receive differing treatment depending 44 on their usefulness to U.S. elites’ policy goals. If the stories advance U.S. interests, such as criticizing states we are on poor terms with, they will receive copious amounts of coverage with appropriately strong language. If the stories hinder U.S. elites’ interests, enhancing the images of our enemies or detracting from the images of our allies, they will be mentioned only in passing, if at all, with clinically sterile language. The idea of the story being “worthy,” is also conceptually advanced to the way victims in stories are described. If the details of people suffering or dying are perceived as aiding U.S. elites’ political goals, those “worthy victims” will be foregrounded and discussed in a highly descriptive, evocative manner. If publicizing hardship runs counter to U.S. political interests, “unworthy victims” will be ignored, or described without emotional language.

Divergent framing strategies. PM research also demonstrates diametrically opposite framing choices based on the orientation of the U.S. government to foreign nations. Herman and

Chomsky (1988) show that Third World elections will be found either legitimate or meaningless principally by the utility with which such labels advance U.S. foreign policy. Nations we are on friendly terms with will be described in flattering terms, such as peaceful and democratic, even if the reality is grim and unflattering. On the other hand, those we perceive as enemies, typically due to their failure to join the neoliberal globalized capitalist framework, will be described in unflattering terms, such as violent and undemocratic, even if they feature a comparatively positive reality as depicted by independent information providers.

Like other hegemony models, the PM argues that mainstream news much more commonly features procedural framing (critiques of strategy and personnel) than substantive framing (critiques of the underlying policy goals and values driving government action) (Herman

& Chomsky, 1988). The emphasis on procedural framing allows vigorous debate regarding 45 strategy, portraying the façade of a deliberative public sphere, but stifles debate about values and goals, thus circumscribing mediated discourse to matters elites find appropriate for debate

(Chomsky, 1989; Herman & Chomsky, 1988). Other framing examples Herman and Chomsky

(1988) offer include the observation that U.S. military action in Vietnam was never described as aggression, and that U.S./Israeli military action is never called terrorism, while Arab violence is.

Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) arguments state that, cumulatively the treatment of worthy/unworthy stories and victims and divergent framing patterns show that the most prestigious U.S. mass media organizations provide a propaganda function. Instead of reporting on reality, such outlets offer inaccurate portrayals useful to dominant elites’ policy goals. The

PM has stayed relevant since its appearance nearly 30 years ago and has been empirically supported by many studies (see Mullen, 2010; Pedro, 2001; Robertson, 2010). Despite changing political and technological landscapes, the first four filters (ownership, advertising, sourcing, and flak) remain relevant (Herman & Chomsky in Mullen, 2010; Yusha’u, 2012). In fact, Herman and Chomsky (2008) assert that “[t]he structural conditions on which the model is built would seem to have strengthened the elite grip on the mainstream media” (p. 360). The fifth filter, ideology, needs revision, but still has tremendous applicability, both in its former form and newer reconceptualizations.

Cascading activation model. As an attempt to advance mass media theories beyond indexing and hegemony models, Entman (2003) introduced the cascading activation model, elaborated upon at length in his 2004 book. Entman (2004) dismisses the hegemony models, including the PM, as being grounded in Cold War logic, and thus no longer relevant. He generally accepts the IH’s premises but argues that they do not hold in all circumstances. The

CAM attempts to explain the forces affecting the adoption of news frames in different sectors, or 46 levels, of society. It is designed to explain and predict framing action regarding foreign policy but has since been applied to other areas (e.g., Antilla, 2005; Coombs, 2013, Eide, & Ytterstad,

2011; Shehata & Hopmann, 2012). Unless listed otherwise, the details in this section are from

Entman (2004).

Frame-setting hierarchy. The CAM places White House officials at the top of the news frame-setting hierarchy, followed by other elites, journalists, the news frames themselves, and the public. The model describes framing contests, as described previously in this review of literature, in which frame sponsors use communication tactics to propel their own perspectives to dominant positions in mainstream news. Such discourse-influencing strategies are meant to create support, or acquiescence, among members of the public for preferred policy actions, such as war, austerity measures, protectionism, et cetera (Entman, 2004).

The hierarchy Entman (2004) proposes is based on several sociological logics. Journalists long ago came to center their work around routinized reporting “beats,” in which they regularly contact bureaucrats who can produce the steady supply of information journalists require in order to fulfill their obligations to produce new “news” on a regular basis (Tuchman, 1978). For example, the White House is the most carefully followed “beat” for national news (Entman,

2004; Herman & Chomsky, 1988). When the President is perceived as legitimate, everything she or he does is considered newsworthy—not just by journalists, but by the citizens who make up audiences (Entman, 2004). After all, Presidents’ positions in the law-making hierarchy mean their perspectives are highly important. By these same logics, Congress and appointed officials’ perspectives also carry weight, though not nearly as much. Similarly, industrial executives’ opinions are important, and the corporations they helm can also help fulfill news organizations’ insatiable need for information, and so become part of beats (Entman, 2004; Tuchman, 1978). 47

Citizens who are not bureaucrats and do not hold official positions in social movements are lowest on the list for journalists’ quote-seeking routines (Entman, 2004; Gitlin, 1980; Tuchman,

1978), and are thus at the bottom of the CAM’s frame-setting hierarchy.

Cultural congruence. The CAM foregrounds political power and strategy, but also introduces a sociological/psychological component to frame transmission, the cultural congruence of frames. With the CAM, Entman (2004) argues that the White House tends to dominate framing contests simply from its position of legitimate political authority. However, its dominance is especially strong when its frames there is little elite or public opposition, due to the frames being culturally congruent. By culturally congruent, Entman (2004) means the values and facts presented are consonant with people’s pre-existing values and beliefs. He uses the example of President George W. Bush saying that the hijackers of the planes on September 11, 2001, were radical Islamic terrorists. This frame was easily understood and adopted by a majority of news viewers, from Congress members to civilians at home. Conversely, comedian and talk show host Bill Maher introduced a culturally incongruent frame, stating that the hijackers were brave to die for their cause, and was swiftly fired, demonstrating the lack of tolerance people have for values and sentiments that do not fit their worldviews (Entman, 2004).

So, when the President proclaims arguments that are rational to the majority of citizens, politicians and voters alike, there is little dissent, and thus little cause for journalists to highlight alternative perspectives. However, when matters are culturally ambiguous and/or political elites oppose the White House line, Entman (2004) posits that intense framing battles are likely. This line of reasoning relates to W. L. Bennett’s (1990) indexing hypothesis, which argues that mass media tend to mirror elite discussion, yet it goes further theoretically regarding the conditions affecting the manifestation of dissent. 48

Entman (2004) does not whole-heartedly accept the IH position that elite debate always creates, or is always required for, robust counter-frames. Rowling et al. (2011) found that journalists may ignore Congressional dissent and fail to create robust counter-frames.

Conversely, Entman (2004) points out that journalists will sometimes create counter-frames without elite dissent. Entman (2004) posits that an issue must first be culturally ambiguous among the general population for elites to articulate, or journalists to transmit, perspectives opposing the White House line. Thus, the CAM more deeply explores the manifestation of dissent among news products than does the IH.

Influence of ideology. Most CAM analyses ask whether the top government officials’ frames dominate mainstream media frames—and if not, attempt to determine why the hegemonic model of frame transmission did not hold. However, Entman (2004) points out that there are even stronger forces acting upon the creators of news texts than the words of politicians. Similar to Shoemaker and Vos’ (2009) placement of ideology as the ultimate influence on journalistic discourse, the CAM posits that journalists’ work is enveloped within “overarching” paradigms, or ideological “meta-schema” (Entman, 2004, p. 24). These higher-level schemata are comparable to Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) take on ideology. Thus, while professional norms dictate work routines, what is reported is filtered, sub-consciously, according to what can be said, or even what can be thought, based on a society’s dominant worldview. These paradigms dominating journalists’ work are constructed by higher-level social processes. So, a key element of the cultural congruence dynamic is that journalists’ reporting is governed by roughly the same cultural principles shaping what audiences at all levels of the CAM’s framing hierarchy are capable of processing and willing to transmit. It is these recursive social processes (in the manner of Giddens’ (1979) structuration theory) that present challenges to social movements. Because 49 social movements are, by definition, challenging the status quo, they articulate values outside the mainstream—thus outside of both what journalists typically report and what general audiences are capable of easily processing and re-transmitting (Entman, 2004; Rochon, 2000).

The models that have been described so far were brought into the discussion in order to create a theoretical framework for examining the presence of competing ideologies in news texts.

Determining the ideologies guiding mainstream news is important for several reasons. Such identification would help progressive social movements to effectively target the discursive boundaries limiting their messages’ transmission. It would have both theoretical and applied benefits, as it would assist scholars and social critics in identifying potential relationships between journalists’ reporting decisions and news organizations’ ties to political actors. Those who believe in the validity of a hegemonic model of mass media (i.e., Herman & Chomsky,

1988) posit that news is dominated by corporate and wealthy elites, while others (e.g., Schudson,

2011) see this argument as deterministic. Exploring the degree to which elite-sponsored ideologies dominate news would continue to add substance to this abstract theoretical debate.

Rationale for using both PM and CAM

For this study, I chose to use both Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) PM and Entman’s

(2004) CAM to analyze environmental communication texts. The following points outline my rationale for this mixed-model approach.

Multiple models fruitful for mass media analyses. Many forces act upon news texts, and the situations they portray are complicated. Thus, for several reasons, some media scholars prefer to use multiple models simultaneously to analyze news texts. One reason is that applying multiple media models to analyze findings from different perspectives produces a more robust analysis (Kennis, 2015). This dynamic exists because while many models of media functioning 50 have similar predictions, their divergent foci allow for different aspects of the systems to be examined more intensely. Another useful rationale is that, as Robinson et al. (2009) argue, testing multiple theories of media-state relations simultaneously can help scholars explore the models’ relative validity. Scholars consistently attempt to refine models to enhance their applicability. For example, authors such as Boyd-Barrett (2004) and Sparks (2007) offer sympathetic critique of the PM in order to extend and improve it. Juxtaposing models allows for each model’s relative strengths and weaknesses to be thrown into sharp relief.

Using multiple models can also lead to the creation of new, synthesized models. For example, Kennis (2015) combined the IH with the PM to produce the media dependence model.

This model theorizes further nuances of the PM’s worthiness concept, showing that worthiness can exist on a spectrum, rather than a binary dichotomy, and that the status of worthiness can shift over the course of a story arc. As another relevant and prominent example of multiple model use, the CAM has been paired with the indexing hypothesis by several scholars. These authors agree with Entman that the main concepts behind the indexing hypothesis are sound, yet

“its explanatory power is limited to a particular range of circumstances” (Aday & Livingston,

2008, p. 104). Aday and Livingston (2008) use the indexing hypothesis to set the foundational parameters of media behavior, then use the CAM to explore the anomalous situations in which various actors’ behaviors force journalists to break from their normal routines. Groshek (2008) contrasts the IH’s focus on professional norms’ powerful influence on journalists’ behavior against the agency the CAM affords journalists. This approach allows the exploration of tensions governing the transfer of elites’ preferred interpretations of reality to news products. Rowling et al. (2011) use the CAM to analyze a case where the IH fails to hold, speculating as to why journalists failed to balance their reporting of executive positions and non-executive dissent. 51

While this project is not an attempt to fuse the two models used together, the work may someday be a piece of evidence used in the creation of an evolved, amalgam mass media model.

PM and CAM have been used together. In addition to the pairings listed previously, the

PM has been used alongside the CAM. A strong example of how the PM and CAM can work together is produced by Klein, Byerly, and McEachern (2009). They use the CAM to analyze the frames in news content, then use political economy analysis consciously informed by the PM to conjecture about potential structural influences on their findings. Like Entman (2004), Klein et al. (2009) indicate that one shortcoming of the PM is that it fails to grant the public agency to serve as “counter-sources” producing “counter-flak” (p. 334).

Robinson et al. (2009) categorize various media models according to the degree to which their precepts describe journalists as subservient to state power. They include the IH and PM under a banner of “elite-driven” models and place the CAM under “independent” models

(Robinson et al., 2009, pp. 538-9). Robinson et al. (2009) found evidence that both types of models, independent and elite-driven, accurately predict outcomes in today’s news environment, and even evidence for other, types oppositional models not discussed in this literature review. In a similar competitive vein, Major (2006) pits the PM against the CAM in an attempt to see which model more effectively explains U.S. news media coverage of foreign relations stories. Major

(2006) found that the Cold War ideology is still apparently operative, despite Entman’s (2004) claims of the opposite. While Major (2006) found that the PM better fit the news texts he examined, I believe he misrepresented the claims of the CAM. Future studies of this nature are certainly warranted to test the relative applicability, and compatibility, of these two respected models. 52

PM’s strengths complement CAM. The PM provides a comprehensive account of structural forces affecting news workers. It is effective at “explaining mass media production and content in advanced capitalist democracies” (Pedro, 2011, p. 1865) and is a “concise and efficient mechanism for identifying the everyday deficiencies and systematic biases of the corporate media” (Freedman, 2009, p. 71). Sparks (2007) called the PM “one of the best available attempts to provide a robust analytic framework for understanding the performance of the news media” (p. 69).

What makes the PM unique and valuable is its attention to structural influences on the news. Its ownership and advertising filters are important and under-examined in mass media research (Chomsky, D., 1999). Calling attention to such macro-level influences allows the PM to rationalize why news products would be ideologically aligned with the corporate sphere that produces them. Thus, the PM supplies clearly the logic underlying news organizations’ institutional biases toward the status quo (Kennis, 2015). These influences also explain why journalists’ autonomy is curtailed: “Although a relative influence [for journalists] is granted, the role they perform is, to a great extent, conditioned by the broader political-economic context:

They are more dependent than dominant” (Pedro, 2011, p. 1873). This structural approach grounded in organizational logic links the PM as a mass media model to organizational communication studies. Adding to the PM’s theoretical underpinnings, D. Chomsky (1999) references Tompkins and Cheney’s (1985) theory of concertive control to explain how news organizations’ unwritten rules can influence journalist behavior.

While Entman (2004) acknowledges influences on journalists from organizational superiors and external economic actors, these are not foregrounded in the CAM, and are thus mostly marginalized in the model. My primary critique of the CAM is that it backgrounds, and 53 often ignores, structural influences of economic and political capital holders, including news outlet owners, advertisers, and flak groups, all of which are foregrounded as three different filters in Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) PM. By explaining the mechanisms by which elites control the mediated public sphere, the PM portrays elites’ powerful potential to indoctrinate the masses.

The PM theorizes elites’ ability to control what is deliberated in public discourse. This is Lukes’

(2005) second dimension of power, a much less obvious one than the first dimension, public policy victories.

A primary component of elites’ control of news is journalists’ professional norms of citing “legitimate” sources (e.g., government officials), implicitly legitimizing their views, while avoiding citing potential critics who do not occupy positions of power (Tuchman, 1978). This dynamic is the sourcing filter of the PM, and it is a well-substantiated norm (Gans, 1979;

Schudson, 2011) acknowledged by all major media models, including the CAM. The PM adds additional motivations for such behavior, rather than treating it as natural. Further, the PM clearly identifies the elite-driven ideology underpinning news processes and products. By making connections between structural influences and journalistic outcomes, the PM helps media scholars attend to values present in news texts and guiding journalists’ decisions and attempt to determine likely causes of those values’ expression. Entman (2004) acknowledges the over- arching effects of ideology on each level of actors in the information cascade, with his concept of cultural congruency as a potential barrier or facilitator to the transmission of frames. However, the CAM pays little attention to how ideology shapes what concepts will be considered in the first place, instead foregrounding actors’ autonomy and strategy. The PM calls for intense focus on ideology as an ordering force, an implicit background of unwritten, unquestioned and unvoiced premises that structures communication within the public sphere. As the PM describes 54 mass media as socializing agents that “shape the perspective of those entering the political elite”

(Herring & Robinson, 2003, p. 555), it becomes clearer why elites’ and mass media products’ ideologies are aligned, as they influence each other recursively.

While I have thus far been treating ideology as monolithic and elite-driven, it is worth noting that ideologies are actually fractured and diverse within societies. Further, the dominant ideologies conditioning societies worldwide are inherently unique, due to their historically derived nature. For example, Ali (2011) found that different worldviews operate in Pakistani news texts than in U.S. news. Gul (2013) found anti-Arab sentiment in popular U.S. movies that would likely be absent in Arab-produced mass media. As mediaspheres and cultures become more globalized due to information technology evolution, focusing on divergent ideologies, and their moments of conflict, overlap, and supremacy becomes imperative for media scholars

(Appadurai, 1990). The PM has potential to be applied in globally divergent contexts, yet in such research, ideologies cannot be assumed to be consistent with Western ideals or U.S.-based researchers’ findings. In such situations, Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) technique of structural analysis paired with content analysis can unveil how political ideologies condition journalists’ work regardless of which system is being investigated. Because the PM calls for a foregrounding of ideological analysis, it is clear that mass media systemic analyses would be incomplete if media scholars only used other models such as the CAM.

CAM’s strengths complement PM. Though the previous section extolled the virtues of the PM that are lacking in the CAM, it is also important to note that the CAM has educational advantages not found in the PM. Primarily, the CAM can be used to explore reasons why mass media do not always uncritically transmit White House propaganda, despite the blanket predictions of hegemony models like the PM. The PM is more simplistic in this regard, 55 presuming strategic alignment of powerful interests in government, business, the public, and media. In Sparks’ (2007) words, the model should “be able to account for the existence of a real, if limited, variety of opinions, instead of the uniformity that the model posits” (Pedro, 2011, p.

1868). The CAM is more nuanced at exploring and explaining how and why ideas propagate through society the way they do.

Freedman (2009), who endorses the PM, also argues that it inadequately theorizes why news organizations sometimes break from the lockstep the model predicts. He proposes that moments of elite disagreements connecting with mass mobilizations are likely to create opportunities for counter-hegemonic discourse in the news. Freedman (2009) described U.S. mass media as “a media system in which there is a simultaneous desire for (a narrow bourgeois) consensus and yet a structural need for difference” (Freedman, 2009, p. 71). This economic rationale for incorporating conflict (see also DeLuca, 1999) creates openings for frames originating outside the governing administration. Unlike the hegemonic models, the CAM captures this contested terrain in which the frames of multiple actors, beyond simply White

House and Congress, vie for supremacy. Strategic actors hope their arguments will dominate public discourse, pushing out all competing frames and reaching hegemonic, “common sense” status. However, such a lofty goal is rarely realized due to journalists’ professional norms and scripts they use based on conflict and representing multiple views. This is a weakness of the

PM—it only predicts hegemony; it never hypothesizes counter-frames. Herman and Chomsky

(1988) are dismissive of ideological divergence in news products, arguing that to maintain legitimacy, mass media must pay at least nominal recognition to dissident perspectives, yet the emergence of counter-frames is only a token of appeasement for non-elites. They fail to 56 acknowledge that social movements, at times, successfully disrupt the cultural hegemony typically dominating corporate news.

Unlike the indexing norm endorsed by the PM, the CAM allows for frames not created or propagated by elites to enter the framing fray and sometimes become successfully established.

All three models discussed thus far (IH, PM, and CAM) are consonant that the most-powerful elites tend to dominate news coverage, both as news sources and frame authors. However, the

CAM allows non-elites and journalists some influence on news processes, which is more indicative of reality—counter-hegemony happens. The CAM also acknowledges the agency of all parties in society to decide whether or not they will propagate frames they encounter. This non-deterministic perspective is more respectful of people’s intellect and autonomy. While the

PM’s authors state that it is not meant to be a media effects model, in several instances they clearly imply that the uncritical coverage they predict is likely to be uncritically received and internalized by a majority of audience members (Klaehn, 2009). While the PM treats audiences as receptacles for elite-produced news frames, the CAM actually includes them in the news frame-creation process.

The CAM also posits that journalists have some autonomy. This argument is of course attractive to journalists themselves, many of whom enter the field with a strong social justice orientation and would prefer not to see themselves as unwittingly enforcing corporate hegemony

(Schudson, 2011). Importantly, the CAM provides tools to analyze how journalists’ autonomy varies situationally. Oriented toward human agency, the CAM calls attention to the cognitive and communicative choices information workers make, rather than deterministically rendering them subject to structural forces like the PM. Of the three major media models reviewed here, the

CAM is the only one providing for journalist autonomy. The IH indexing sees journalists as 57 passively recording elite sentiment; the PM sees them as bullied and controlled by economic, political, and supervisorial interests. This assertion of powerlessness is considered a very serious argument by journalists and media critics from all sides of the political spectrum. Many would like to believe that journalists have the degree of professional autonomy that they and others represent themselves as having. As an example of journalists’ autonomy (and refutation of this weakness in the PM), Ali (2011) shows that relying on sources does not necessarily lead to echoing their perspective, as Pakistani journalists can heavily cite U.S. government officials while critiquing their position.

The CAM also explains why journalists might be motivated to quote non-administration sources, thus deviating from the PM’s sourcing filter. For example, a modern political trend is international officials having some ability to affect U.S. policies, and thus becoming included in

U.S. news stories about U.S. foreign policy (Kennis, 2015, 2016). This modern news norm is potentially applicable in environmental stories, as global governance regimes related to environmental regulation become increasingly realized. Thus, there is a rationale for journalists to cite sources who are not U.S. government elites, which could potentially import non-U.S. elite-sanctioned frames into U.S. news texts.

The CAM actually uses the same structural element as the PM to explain journalists’ actions—their concern with career success—but demonstrates an alternative perspective on its functioning. Rather than arguing that journalists fear their careers will be stalled by failing to conform to dominant views, Entman (2004) uses the widely agreed upon (though debatable) concept that journalists promoting successful counter-frames can enjoy increased career success.

Thus, the CAM posits a structural incentive for opposing dominant political elites and going beyond merely indexing elite dissent. It also provides a theoretical explanation for journalists’ 58 increased autonomy—the dissolution of the Cold War paradigm as a dominant meta-schema.

Entman (2004) stated that for decades journalists would not dare depart from undisputed Cold

War frames, but since the dissolution of the Soviet Union they now have increased rhetorical freedom due to less-certain cultural values.

The CAM also proposes theoretical mechanisms to explain why some frames catch on and some do not (cultural congruence). Again, where both the PM blindly assumes that media workers’ behavior, in this case frame propagation, is subject to nearly inescapable structural forces based on the actors promoting the frames, the CAM provides more in-depth analysis of the potential concepts at play. This feature of the CAM is important for my study, as I attempt to determine not only the ideologies behind environmental news stories, but the reasons for the constellations of values and narrative devices that are present.

Another important feature of the CAM is that it conceptualizes the manner in which citizens’ opinions can travel “up” the communication channels to elites. This focus counters another weakness of the PM, which imagines news as one-way information flow and marginalizes’ the public’s role in creating and contributing to news frames. Attending to upward, or citizen-generated, frames is especially important in the modern media environment where the public can make their opinion known in many ways and can contribute as citizen journalists

(Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). This dynamic was important in the case studies attended to in this project in particular, as the environmental controversies generated much public outrage, and in point of fact the outrage became a major part of the stories. The expression of public opinion swelled from private communication to mass mediated texts, including through the newly ubiquitous channel of social media, where it could reach elites and possibly affect their framing strategies. The PM does not account for such processes. 59

Ultimately, the CAM’s focus on communicative decisions makes it a more intricate content analysis tool than the other models, which are blunter regarding their predictions.

Discussing the IH and PM, Entman (2003) writes, “Neither describes the precise mechanisms by which government’s preferred interpretations of new foreign events and issues get translated into specific choices of politically consequential words and images in the news” (p. 416).

Research Questions and Hypotheses

The primary thrust of this project is an inquiry into the environmental ideologies found in mainstream news texts. More research on this topic is called for by environmental communication scholars because such findings may have useful applications in advancing cultural change toward environmentally sustainable behaviors. Because ideologies are complex, deeply embedded phenomena, they cannot be observed directly. A logical way to approach the task of unpacking ideologies embedded in texts is using the researcher-as-instrument, meaning employing qualitative methods. Thus, the multi-step approach selected for the first phase of this investigation involved locating the frames (Entman, 2004; Goffman, 1974) related to the natural environment that could be found in the selected news stories. Then I sought the values that the frames promoted, both explicitly and implicitly, regarding the appropriate relationship of humans to other elements of the natural environment. Finally, I searched for patterns in those values, extrapolating the internal logic tying value clusters together, in order to identify the ideologies underlying the texts. The first phase of the research project was guided by two open-ended research questions grounded in environmental communication literature.

RQ1. Which frames found in the news texts demonstrate values regarding humans’

relationships to the natural environment?

RQ2. Which environmental ideologies do the news texts’ frames express? 60

After the qualitative portion of the project was accomplished, the results informed the second phase of the research, a series of quantitative analyses. Linking each environmental news frame discovered to a corresponding environmental ideology provided a categorization scheme that could be applied to all stories in the corpus. Analyzing the relative prominence of environmental ideologies discovered in the texts has implications for competing arguments.

Corbett’s (2006) assertion that U.S. mainstream media are dominated by anthropocentric environmental ideologies contrasts with Dunlap and Van Liere’s (1978) argument that the nation is entering a new era of environmentalism, an idea still supported (Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig &

Jones, 2000; Thapa, 1999).

The tenets of both the propaganda model (PM) and the cascading activation model

(CAM) effectively explain the primary, consistent finding of seminal U.S. news studies that mainstream news texts support the status quo (e.g., Gans, 1979; Gitlin, 1980; Tuchman, 1978).

Those in power, both politically and economically, have significant influence over the discourse found in news products; therefore, it is logical to assume this trend of mainstream news supporting current configurations of power should continue indefinitely. By this logic, the predictions of the PM align well with previous environmental communication research regarding the primacy of business interests in cultural instruments controlled by economic elites.

Therefore, it is predicted that anthropocentric environmental ideologies will dominate news texts when contrasted with the presence of ecocentric environmental ideologies.

H1: There will be more anthropocentric frames than ecocentric frames present in the

coverage.

While it is expected that anthropocentric ideologies dominate modern discourse, it must be noted that Corbett (2006) categorizes conservationism and preservationism as anthropocentric 61 ideologies despite stating that they are what most of us consider environmentalist positions.

Because of this discrepancy, the investigation became increasingly granular, examining the relative presence of several anthropocentric ideologies. The ultimate expression of anthropocentricity, unrestrained instrumentalism, was contrasted with those two more environmentally friendly, but still anthropocentric, ideologies, conservationism and preservationism. The propaganda model would predict that pro-development positions will dominate discourse, thus the next hypothesis predicted that unrestrained instrumentalism would appear more frequently than the environmentalist anthropocentric positions of conservationism and preservationism combined.

H2: There will be more unrestrained instrumentalist frames than environmentalist frames

present in the coverage.

The first two hypotheses were related to the entire corpus of stories reviewed and were based on the PM. Next, the principles of the CAM are utilized and applied to differences between cases examined. The CAM posits that in situations featuring increasing cultural ambiguity (when it is less clear which side is “right” in the court of public opinion), actors opposing dominant interpretations, who are typically marginalized, have greater opportunity to advance alternative narratives. The key theoretical variable that differs between the two cases selected in this project is that one is a policy proposal and the other an industrial disaster. The cases selected both feature cultural ambiguity, but it is my argument that the policy proposal

(Keystone XL) features less cultural ambiguity. While the ramifications, both positive (jobs, profits) and negative (environmental damage) are unknown and intangible, the project’s critics could not produce much evidence beyond forecast models, rendering their critiques less persuasive to the undecided. In a society that celebrates consumption, advocating for increased 62 production of fossil fuels has been historically unproblematic. Though today an undercurrent of resistance exists, most Americans still rely on fossil fuels daily, and so have rendered carbon extraction politically palatable. Without clear evidence that the Keystone XL project would significantly affect environmental outcomes, environmentalists faced an uphill battle to tilt politicians, journalists, and the public toward critique of U.S. energy policy’s emphasis on continual expansion.

The industrial disaster (Deepwater Horizon), conversely, featured no positive ramifications. The economic and environmental effects were decidedly negative (though also uncertain, if less so), and fairly tangible for those dealing with them (workers, residents, wildlife). Because the industrial disaster was clearly more negative, with less room for optimistic forecasts, I argue that it created more cultural ambiguity. By this logic, the CAM would predict that in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill, political opponents would be less willing to challenge environmentalists’ narrative, journalists would be less willing to transmit traditional pro- development frames, and the framing contest would thus be less tilted toward extractivists’ positions than usual. Further, the clear danger posed by the historically large oil spill, along with the frightening, omnipresent visuals it presented, should have increased discursive opportunities for non-elites, i.e., citizens and representatives of environmental activist movements (DeLuca,

1999). Thus, in the culturally ambiguous case of Deepwater Horizon it was predicted that ecocentric ideologies would appear more frequently than in the Keystone XL debates.

H3: Deepwater Horizon coverage will have more ecocentric frames than Keystone XL

coverage.

And, following the distinctions employed in H2, the appearances of anthropocentric ideologies that most of us consider environmentalist, conservationism and preservationism, can 63 also be compared between cases. Using the previously explained CAM logic, environmentalist positions should show up more frequently in the Deepwater Horizon articles.

H4: Deepwater Horizon coverage will have more environmentalist frames than Keystone

XL coverage.

Finally, the study’s design allows for unplanned quantitative comparisons of cases and publications studied. The counted variables (ideologies present) were compared by publication type to see if different publication, or types of news outlets (magazines versus newspapers), varied regarding the measured dependent variable in statistically significant ways.

RQ3. What differences exist in ideological framing among different publications and

publication types?

64

Chapter III

Methodology

In this section I describe research techniques to investigate this project’s research questions and hypotheses that are appropriate for the mass media models used as lenses in the study: the comparative case study, qualitative textual analysis, and quantitative content analysis.

Additionally, I describe the cases included for examination, the sample and sampling strategy, and the methods used to code and analyze the data collected.

Comparative Case Study

Herman and Chomsky (1988) and Entman (2004) all used comparative case study to great effect when introducing their models; the technique was also used by later scholars using the same media models (e.g., Good, 2008; Groshek, 2008; Kennis, 2015, 2016; Major, 2006;

Rowling et al., 2015; Valenzano, 2009). For example, Herman and Chomsky (1988) state that the comparative case study technique can be used to demonstrate that news organizations pay

“dichotomous attention” (p. 34) to stories based on the stories’ “utility to elite interests” (p. 33).

The rationale behind this method is that if cases are selected to be very similar, varying in only key, theoretically informed ways, then researchers can “control” (Kennis, 2015, p. 108) for other variables. This control allows researchers to attempt to test the impact of variance in the key variable(s). By this logic, very similar cases are like a natural experiment (Yin, 2013), where society naturally proffers situations that are otherwise similar but differ in key ways.

Results of comparative case studies can show differences between cases’ texts. Ali (2011) examined British and Pakistani coverage of the September 11th U.S. terrorist attacks from the same time frame and found that even though the journalists used similar sourcing patterns, the values espoused in the texts were highly divergent. Ali (2011) attributed the value difference to 65 the independent variable of journalists’ and their organizations’ nationalities, rationalizing that

Pakistanis’ perspective on Western conflict with Muslims differs from that of the British.

Such studies can also show similarities among content. For example, Kennis (2015) found that one corporation’s news delivered in Spanish to Latin American audiences was nearly identical to its news delivered in English to U.S. audiences, despite expectations of content differences based on journalistic norms. Kennis (2015) reasoned that sharing the same corporate owner was more influential on the news texts than the journalistic norms commonly cited as explaining journalistic routines. If journalists’ norms were more influential than ownership, their work should have varied according to the highly divergent national political climates, in the fashion Ali (2011) found. These works show how variance in one key independent variable can produce changes in outcomes of interest. In this project, the dependent variables of interest are the environmental ideologies espoused.

Criteria for case selection. In this section I outline the criteria taken into account when selecting cases for this research project, based on the logic of Entman (2004) and Herman and

Chomsky (1988). I also detail the key theoretical difference between the cases selected and explain my argument about why this difference may create content differences between cases.

Cultural ambiguity and framing contests. In order for a framing contest to exist within a story arc, Entman (2004) stated that the narratives must feature cultural ambiguity. Discussions can be considered culturally ambiguous when the contesting values represented therein find somewhat comparable degrees of purchase in society. This dynamic exists because when contradictory values popularly supported by various social factions are applicable to the same news event, it is possible for journalists to credibly develop counter-frames (Entman, 2004).

Counter-frames are defining features of true framing contests, lacking in ideologically dominant 66 moments in mediated history (Entman, 2004). Thus, for news narrative cases to be considered framing contests, their stories must promote oppositional frames featuring similar levels of cultural congruence, though the frames need not be promoted equally nor must the oppositional values be equally widespread. There simply must be some degree of recognizable clash for the

“contest” to be considered to occur. Underground resistant discourse that does not surface in mainstream media is not considered to be part of a framing contest, by Entman’s (2004) definition, which is utilized in this study.

Both the PM and the CAM contend that various political actors have material stakes in the promotion of certain discourses and their attendant values over others. In order to test these assumptions and learn more about how they are played out in the news, the cases selected focus on issues that inspire ideological debate so that the articles should feature such rhetorical clash.

The CAM attends especially to responses to White House discourse by non-White House political actors, including several levels of social hierarchy, each with different motivations for propagating, opposing, or remaining silent about framing discourse. The PM argues that the extremely wealthy and corporate elite are interlocked with factions of politicians in a network of interests often oppositional to those of the general public. Because these models emphasize discursive political battles with policy implications, cases chosen highlight instances in which the White House faced opposition from other political elites and the interests of economic elites were opposed by activist citizens’ movements.

Post-Cold War. Entman (2004) argues that the PM no longer applies after the Cold War ended in 1991. Others, including the PM’s creators, disagree. For instance, Herman (1996) and

Chomsky (1999) both state that the Cold War paradigm remains discursively valuable for today’s U.S. political actors. Further, they argue that whatever discursive or political power the 67 threat of communism has lost has been replaced by the near-total ideological dominance of neoliberal globalized corporate capitalism and the strength of “the miracle of the market” trope

(Herman & Chomsky, 2002, p. xvii). Herman and Chomsky (2002) also finger terrorism as having earned the “Face of Evil” mantle previously bestowed on communism. This argument is echoed by others who state that radical Islam is the new ideological enemy that has taken the place of communism as a focal point for rhetoric justifying U.S. policies (Ali, 2011; Gul, 2013;

Yusha’u, 2012). Regarding the evolution of the PM’s ideology filter, some scholars step back from the specific target of the ideology, stating that the ruling class uses an Us/Them dichotomy differentiating U.S. citizens from others to cajole citizens into accepting policies that are not in their interests (Goss, 2013; Garland, 2015). While the nature of the ideology guiding journalists’ work is debated, the fact that such an ideology exists is not, not even by Entman (2004), as ideology is mentioned as a factor in the CAM. Thus, investigating ideologies advanced in recent news texts is useful for understanding worldviews being advanced by these instruments of cultural creation. Even if anti-communism is no longer the prevailing U.S. journalistic trope, the ideological component of the PM is certainly still valid and relevant. To further evaluate the arguments of the creators of the PM and CAM, both cases chosen were stories that unfolded well after the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Modern media environment. Most models of mass media functioning were developed before the ubiquity of social media and “citizen journalism” (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). The

CAM and PM are no exceptions. Testing these models in the most recent decade (2010-present) is important to see how the public’s enhanced media-production capabilities might affect framing contests. Many scholars of information flows state that gatekeeping models need revision and renewed testing in light of the changing media environment (Friedrich, Keyling, & Brosius, 68

2016; Graeff, Stempeck, & Zuckerman, 2014; Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). For these reasons, the stories reviewed were written after the meteoric rise of social media use in the United States, a sudden upwelling in popularity that had been mostly accomplished by 2011 (Van Dijck, 2013).

Limiting extraneous variables. In their comparative case studies, both Entman (2004) and Herman and Chomsky (1988) attempt to select cases that are as similar as possible, varying only in key, theoretically informed ways. The cases selected here are temporally proximate

(occurring near each other in time), involve the same government administration and media system (i.e., United States, President Obama), and are similar in subject matter. Both Entman

(2004) and Herman and Chomsky (1988) typically use coverage of military action and foreign diplomacy, but I instead turned to domestic affairs regarding the environment and corporate extractivist projects, news content areas that both models have been applied to, but only sparingly.

Case 1: Keystone XL pipeline expansion. The Keystone Pipeline system was created in

2010. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) delayed construction of Phase 4, known as

Keystone XL. At this point, many environmentalists protested the Phase 4 expansion. President

Obama rejected the plan, then vetoed a proposed revision in 2015. The government’s handling of the Keystone XL pipeline expansion and the resulting political battle became a highly covered news story between 2011 and 2014 during Obama’s first term.

Cultural ambiguity and framing contests. This business expansion move was controversial because social groups’ opinions diverged due to value differences. The different perspectives made the Keystone XL expansion culturally ambiguous. It was framed positively by supporters as increasing profits and making jobs (strengthening the economy) and increasing energy independence (strengthening defense). Foreign corporation TransCanada (Canada) had 69 heavily lobbied U.S. lawmakers on this issue before it became a highly publicized debate, as had other corporations, notably ExxonMobil, which spent the most of any single corporation on lobbying the issue in 2012 (Israel, 2013). Once the issue was in the public eye, TransCanada spent heavily on public relations to guide public opinion in its favor. However, the issue generated large domestic protests against U.S. energy policy. Detractors framed the move negatively as increasing pollution (harming for the environment) and damaging the U.S. government’s reputation as a leader on environmental issues (damaging U.S. global governance soft power and environmental governance trends globally). Many environmentalists voiced concerns that the expansion would contribute to global warming, and that the project was considered to be very risky because of the high likelihood of a spill. The companies involved denied that the expansion would contribute to climate change or that industrial accidents were likely to take place.

These oppositional frames were advanced by different social groups. Non-White House elites (i.e., Republicans in Congress) and business representatives competed with the White

House to define the frames surrounding Keystone XL. Environmental activists were also heavily involved. NASA climate scientist James Hansen attracted publicity when he said the pipeline could have tremendous negative effects on the climate. The pipeline’s corporate owner,

TransCanada, defended its track record of safety and commitment to the environment.

Post-Cold War and modern media environment. The Keystone XL protests began in

2011, 20 years after the Cold War ended. By the time the Keystone XL protests began, high- speed Internet, smart phones, and social media were ubiquitous in the United States.

Case 2: Deepwater Horizon. When the Macondo Prospect oil well blew out in April

2010, the offshore drilling rig stationed above it, Deepwater Horizon, suffered an explosion that 70 killed 11 men. The rig then sank to the seafloor. Subduing the leaking well was very challenging; it took four months and the concerted efforts of both business and government. The freely flowing oil in the Gulf of Mexico was covered around the clock by U.S. media until the well was capped in September 20111. Both the blowout and capping events took place during President

Obama’s first term.

Cultural ambiguity and framing contests. Similar to the Keystone XL debate, supporters of offshore drilling argued that extracting oil from U.S. territories yields profits for stockholders, jobs for workers, and strengthens energy independence. Foreign corporation BP (United

Kingdom) had spent heavily lobbying politicians to craft business-friendly regulatory policies before the spill. While environmentalists generally criticize offshore drilling as pollutive, the well’s explosion quickly became the largest oil pollution event in U.S. history by far. The spill sparked tremendous public outcry against U.S. energy policy, including protests and boycotts of the oil company involved. Once the spill occurred, BP was joined by rig operator TransOcean

(Sweden) in spending heavily on public relations efforts to shape public opinion in their favor, while critics cited the spill as proof that their concerns were well founded.

So, similar to Keystone XL, Macondo Prospect offshore drilling pitted environmentalists versus business representatives, and so could be supported or rejected under value systems that were both accepted in U.S. culture. However, the leaking well itself was agreed-upon as a problem that needed alleviation. Thus, resolving the crisis was not a culturally ambiguous policy point. Yet, similar to the Keystone XL case, articulations about how the event should affect

1 The 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill can be named in several ways. It could be considered the Macondo Prospect blowout, which was the geological event generating the news. It is often called the “Gulf oil spill,” but I usually refer to it as the Deepwater Horizon incident because audiences were first drawn to the visually arresting imagery of the drilling rig’s destruction, as well as the immediate loss of human lives on the ship, as opposed to the difficult-to- discern effects of the oil spill on human lives and the loss of (presumably) less-valued animal lives. I also think this name is the most well-known in the public sphere. 71 future offshore oil exploration varied widely, according to the activist/extractivist dichotomy described herein. Again, different value systems and political positions motivated different ways to describe the issues taking place. The White House attempted to convey auras of control and safety, but activists and social media users rejected this frame and spread a counter-frame of impotence. Environmentalists portrayed this event as unsurprising, a likely occurrence with offshore drilling, while industry representatives depicted the event as a fluke, unlikely to reoccur.

BP and Transocean also defended their organizations’ histories, attitudes, and practices against critics.

Post-Cold War and modern media environment. The well blowout in 2010 was 19 years after the Cold War ended. Again, by 2010 the abilities of average citizens to affect information flows had increased dramatically from the decades when most mass media research was conducted.

Key Theoretical Difference Between Cases

The Keystone XL debate concerned a policy proposal; opponents squared off over its potential economic benefits and environmental impacts. Deepwater Horizon was an actual environmental disaster, without uncertainty as to the potential of its mechanical failure. Some debate, and much uncertainty, existed regarding the extent of the damage the blown well would inflict, however, there was no way oil industry supporters could argue that the spill would not be environmentally problematic. As an analogy, had Keystone XL been built and polluted the

Oglala Aquifer (one of its opponents’ main arguments), resulting stories would likely have been similar, conceptually, to coverage of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Likewise, there were probably news stories about public debate over offshore drilling and its expansion when BP proposed using the Deepwater Horizon to drill at depths previously only rarely attempted, but for 72 some reason these stories did not attract the unusually prominent levels of protest that Keystone

XL did.

The reason that this difference between the stories (proposal versus disaster) is important is that resulting content patterns may yield insight into the way that journalists’ incorporation of environmental values can vary in relation to risk calculations. A. Anderson (2013) argues that because risk is socially constructed, accounts of risk are highly subject to political influence.

Supporters of anthropocentric environmental ideologies tend to downplay the risk associated with extractivist endeavors. While mass media may be complicit with such tactics generally, downplaying risk in the face of dangerous outcomes that are certain would be a precarious task for journalists. Both journalists and their audiences should be aware of the high likeliness of negative outcomes in an actual disaster; downplaying seemingly certain outcomes would erode news outlets’ credibility. The physical technology owned by mass media organizations is relatively inexpensive, compared to the goodwill that companies build with the public; thus, credibility is the most valued currency of any news organization and they are wary of the economic impacts of losing it (Compaine & Gomery, 2000; Delorme & Fedler, 2005).

Another useful feature of the differences between these two cases is that the reduced uncertainty related to outcomes ironically increases the cultural ambiguity surrounding the disaster. Because opponents on both sides of the policy proposal can only argue with projections of potential harms and benefits, it would be difficult to alter journalists’ and politicians’ typical practices—there is no added ambiguity (rather, there is a typical distribution of opinions) compared to any other story. However, in the policy disaster, any pro-development bias that may be present in journalists’ and politicians’ discourse may be subdued, as the clear and significant harms could suppress inclinations to publicly champion development while creating discursive 73 space for voices oppositional to the status quo. Thus, the decrease in ambiguity related to material outcomes actually increases the cultural ambiguity surrounding the story, as the hundreds of millions of Americans who rely on oil were temporarily reminded of some potential costs of its harvesting.

Sample and Sampling Strategy

In an ideal world, social scientists would review all relevant examples of social phenomena they attempt to understand, but realistically “social researchers face trade-offs between the ideal and practical limitations of time and money” (Riffe, Lacy, & Fico, 2014, p.

71). Based on this logic, I cannot review every piece of mass media content depicting environmental ideologies, not even all the texts related to the selected cases. Instead, in this section I outline my rationale for examining certain periodicals during certain time periods and for using stratified sampling of the population of articles located.

Sample. The nature of some research projects is such that using purposive samples is a logical decision (Riffe, Lacy, & Fico, 2014). When particular publications played key roles during particular times, it makes sense to home in on them, rather than sampling from the universe of available mass media content (Riffe, Lacy, & Fico, 2014). Though the mass media ecology is robust and diverse, I decided to examine stories from the most prestigious U.S. national print publications, due to their influence and precedent as objects of study.

Prestige print publications were central to the seminal studies of the models used in this work, the CAM created by Entman (2004) and the PM by Herman and Chomsky (1988). In both books, the argument is made that TV news takes its cues from print journalism, which dictates the overall agenda of national news. These arguments have been echoed in more recent content analyses (Groshek, 2008; Kennis, 2015, 2016) and are summarized by Billeaudeaux et al. (2003), 74 who state that “the prestige press, particularly [T]he New York Times, likely builds the agenda for many of the nation’s other mass media outlets” (p. 17). Kennis (2016) points out that The

New York Times print version is not only a leader in public attention, it is also read by foreign heads of state, and its online version is one of the leading U.S. news sites. Both the PM and

CAM were designed to explain the operating logic of top-tier media institutions. Both works argued that ascertaining U.S. news content trends most efficiently calls for study of its most stalwart creators. Building on these seminal findings seems best facilitated by examining texts similar to the original studies’. While both works examined television news content, they both examined more print content—nationally oriented newspapers and magazines—than TV news.

National news magazines, while they do not lead news media ecologies the same way that daily newspapers do, create slightly different products. Due to increased space allotments on a per-story basis, news magazines can provide in-depth coverage of major stories, with more space for the appearance of diverse perspectives. Also, with greater periods of time between deadlines, news magazines have the luxury of canvassing other news forms to cover all prominent journalistic perspectives on the historical moment’s major stories (Entman, 2004).

Thus, their inclusion helps ensure the entirety of mainstream frames are accounted for.

While I used print sources, I accessed them online. Whether my database searches produced digitally archived versions of print stories, digital revisions of print stories, or digital- only stories, the difference should be largely academic, as “digital output is largely a recycled version of print news content” (Doyle, 2015, p. 118). According to the preceding rationale, the following publications were chosen for analysis.

The New York Times. The New York Times is generally regarded as the leader of U.S. media (Billeaudeaux, 2003; Boyd-Barrett, 2004; Groshek, 2008); others take their cues from this 75 prestigious newspaper (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). Also of interest, those on the left call the paper conservative, while those on the right label it liberal (see Chomsky, 1983, 1989, 1999), making a case that the paper could be an exemplar of middle-of-the-road political stances, or at least one of the least politically biased publications.

The Wall Street Journal. One of the nation’s foremost business periodicals, The Wall

Street Journal is the largest newspaper in the United States by circulation and is considered influential among American conservative businesspeople. The daily newspaper is rumored to be more conservative since its purchase by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and is considered a home for reporting the work of climate skeptic scientists. These trends mean the paper is likely to represent the extractivist, anthropocentric perspective, which makes it a good baseline to compare against other, ostensibly neutral/objective outlets.

Time and Newsweek. Compared to daily newspapers, weekly news magazines have relatively leisurely deadlines (Entman, 2004). This increased time allotment allows news magazines’ articles to be “more intensively researched” (Nambiar, 2014, p. 99) than most print and TV outlets tied to the 24-hour news cycle. And, unlike online-focused news outlets, magazines are free from the “tyranny of immediacy” (Le Cam & Domingo, 2015), when

(re)gaining audience attention through updates and breaking news becomes a constant chore, depleting resources from long-form investigative journalism. Time and Newsweek are two of the oldest, most well-known, and trusted U.S. news magazines.

Sampling strategy. In order to review the full breadth of ideas expressed in articles about these cases, I not only sought out articles during the time when these stories were at their most prevalent in the U.S. news cycle, but also examined content when the stories were no longer considered “hot topics.” Stories selected for review were published between April 1, 2010 76 and December 31, 2015, a period of almost five years. This time frame covers a significant period of political action during the Keystone XL events and allows for lengthy post-disaster coverage regarding the Deepwater Horizon storyline.

Keystone XL events time frame. While the plans to expand the Keystone XL pipeline were developed and published years before any major protests developed, in 2010 the construction plans became widely controversial. On July 21, 2010 the EPA created the first roadblock to the project’s approval. This event helped spur a strong grassroots oppositional movement which generated significant media coverage. On November 6, 2015, the Obama government rejected the pipeline, which also created many news stories. I captured coverage from the EPA’s first intervention in 2010 through the end of 2015 to gather reaction to Obama’s regulatory rejection. Though the story remains relevant today, as the newest president attempted to green light the project through executive order, the temporal limits used here were designed to keep the independent variables consistent (especially presidential office holder) and the quantity of content manageable.

Deepwater Horizon events time frame. The Deepwater Horizon’s drilling was not a daily front-page story until April 20, 2010, when BP attempted to temporarily cease drilling operations but their attempt to close the well was unsuccessful. When the blowout preventer failed and the well exploded, it began ceaselessly flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. The story was widely reported until the well was capped July 15, 2010; it was sealed permanently on September 19,

2010 (Bryant, 2011). I examined stories from the start of the mediated narrative regarding the well’s blowout and attended to the story through the end of 2015, both to see how journalists dealt with the long-term aftermath of the events, and to share the same time frame as the

Keystone XL articles examined. 77

Stratified sampling by year. In this study, the population consisted of stories in certain periodicals about certain subjects during a certain time period. I did my best to capture all stories in this universe of content, but surely missed some. Thus, the sampling frame (the corpus of stories I created) cannot be said to perfectly represent the population, but it was my goal for the universe (articles about these cases in these periodicals during these time periods) and the sampling frame to be as similar as possible.

Samples procured for content analyses are typically least biased when each unit is selected randomly from the sampling frame a technique known as probability sampling, meaning each member of a population has an equal chance of being selected into the sample (Riffe, Lacy,

& Fico, 2014). However, when it is likely that content changed over time, it is more logical to use stratified sampling, which is using probability sampling within smaller sub-samples (Riffe,

Lacy, & Fico, 2014). When designing the study, I believed that the concepts covered and the ways stories were handled were likely to have shifted over the years examined, due to changes in public perceptions, the material environment, the political environment, etc. So, for the stratified sampling used in this study, I defined sub-samples by their year of publication. Stratifying published articles into time periods created smaller, homogeneous groups of articles from within which probability sampling could take place (Riffe, Lacy, & Fico, 2014). By using proportionate sampling—holding the proportions of articles sampled per time period steady relative to the proportion of total articles each time period’s sub-group represents—the final sample could be considered more representative of the total population than an entirely probability-based sample would have been (Riffe, Lacy, & Fico, 2014). For example, The Gulf of Mexico oil spill and its immediate aftermath created compelling visuals and drama that drew continuous coverage from both of the daily newspapers studied in this project. However, with time and the capping of the 78 well, the frequency of stories published on this topic changed, and the tone likely did also.

Selecting articles proportionally by year ensured so that more stories originating during periods of intense coverage were reviewed than were stories from periods featuring only periodical publication.

Database search and corpus creation. The periodicals were accessed through online databases featuring comprehensive full-text collections of all four publications, covering the dates of interest. Different databases were required because my university did not have access to one database that contained entries for all four periodicals. Time and New York Times entries were located in Academic Search Complete, while Newsweek was found in Lexis Nexis

Academic and Wall Street Journal was accessed via ProQuest.

Keywords were used to search the databases for relevant articles. The original prospectus for this dissertation described a search strategy for locating the appropriate news articles for the analyses. This strategy was executed, and the resulting corpus was reviewed qualitatively.

However, a handful of articles were later discovered that were relevant but not located by the search, so the author revised the search to perform a second time, considering the first search a pilot search.

Keywords. In the pilot search attempt, the keywords selected were Keystone XL, pipeline, and TransCanada for the first case, and Deepwater Horizon, Macondo, and Gulf oil spill for the second case. Upon reviewing the content and headlines of articles located with these keywords, the author decided to add some search terms while removing or revising some from the original set. The logic of keyword selection was also refined.

The first search term selected for each case was the proper noun labeling the industrial project the case centered on, Keystone XL and Deepwater Horizon, respectively, which were 79 labels the author referred to the cases by. While the well being drilled in the second case was the

Macondo Prospect, very few of the headlines found in the pilot search referred to the proper name of the well, while any stories referring to the well by name also referred to other keywords within their texts, rendering Macondo superfluous; thus, the term from the pilot search was removed. At first, it seemed there was no clearly analogous term to the well’s name in the first case, or at least one that was used consistently by journalists (“boreal forest” might be comparable but is not a proper noun and was not used ubiquitously). However, the material being mined for the pipeline was referenced somewhat often, perhaps due to its unusual nature.

These names were “tar sands” and “oil sands”, interchangeable terms for the mines in Alberta,

Canada, producing bitumen for processing into oil. These two phrases were incorporated into the keywords for the final search.

The second type of keyword isolated was the material event which the stories centered on, pipeline and Gulf oil spill, respectively. While the phrase “Gulf oil spill” was used fairly frequently, the elements in this phrase were often used in various combinations (Gulf spill, oil spill, oil in the Gulf). Thus, I decided to create three pairs of keywords from these three words, connected by the Boolean operator “AND” (Gulf AND oil, Gulf AND spill, oil AND spill).

In the pilot search, only one corporation, TransCanada, was used as a keyword. This was because I considered this company to be primarily identified with the pipeline project by outsiders, while the oil company overseeing the Deepwater Horizon’s activity, BP, was involved with many other ventures. However, in the pilot corpus, BP often appearing in the second case’s headlines without clear references to the oil spill it was coping with, as the spill was common knowledge at the time. The other corporations publicly involved, TransOcean and Halliburton, were also added to the keywords for reasons of consistency. Thus, in the final search, all 80 materially and publicly involved corporations were used as keywords (TransCanada, BP,

TransOcean, and Halliburton). It turned out that using BP as a keyword did in fact return many superfluous results, however these stories were easily removed from the corpus by cursory examination of their headlines. Likewise, many irrelevant stories about Halliburton and, to a lesser extent, TransOcean, appeared in the results and were removed from the corpus before analysis of the stories’ texts.

Thus, the final list of keywords for the first case were Keystone XL, pipeline, tar sands, oil sands, and TransCanada. For the second case, the keywords were Deepwater Horizon, BP,

TransOcean, Halliburton, and the three possible pair combinations of the words Gulf, oil, and spill.

Search limiters. When researching news articles, scholars can restrict their results to articles with the keywords in their titles, or “headlines,” or allow results with keywords present in either articles’ headlines or bodies. When searching for news articles, researchers must decide whether to search by keywords within both the headline (title) and body of each story, or just in the headlines. After reviewing the results of the pilot search, it was determined that the daily newspaper articles typically featured the keywords in their titles, perhaps as a way of quickly creating context for hurried readers. Meanwhile, the weekly newsmagazines often eschewed the keywords in titles, preferring to reference the cases with more cryptic language or tangentially related terms. Also, many more relevant stories were published in the daily periodicals than were published in the weeklies. Based on these two findings, for the follow-up, final search, the daily newspaper searches were limited to stories featuring the keywords in their article titles, or headlines, while the weekly articles located simply had the keywords somewhere within their texts. 81

Corpus refinement. Each database returned search results with for articles with bibliographic data such as titles and abstracts that could be downloaded into a spreadsheet. These entries were reviewed for relevance. Duplicate results were removed. I retained only all full- length journalistic content, including editorials, but omitted corrections, letters from readers, and news briefs. The operating logic was that editorials are an obvious location for the discursive construction of social values, but readers do not represent journalists, while corrections and briefs are typically too concise to portray values meaningfully. Articles featuring the keywords but not directly relevant to the cases were removed from the corpus. Some stories could easily be eliminated by their headlines. For example, many stories about “pipelines” for athletes, immigrants, etc., had to be removed, as did stories focusing on other oil spills or pipelines. Other stories required investigating their abstracts, or sometimes perusing their texts, in order to determine case relevance. Also, some stories from each case made it into the other case’s search results; those articles were moved so they were only in the corpus for the case they more clearly applied to. The number of articles initially located was 2296. Keystone XL search terms produced 697 results; Deepwater Horizon search terms produced 1599 results. Initial search results are included in Tables 1 and 2.

The newspaper articles produced a voluminous amount of content, and with the new keywords from the final search, many of the articles were not relevant to the task at hand. I developed further qualitative filters to apply to the results. Typically, these were applied by examining the headlines of the stories, but sometimes they involved reading the abstract or the story text. Each story was examined to be determined fit for inclusion. Most of the Keystone XL stories were relevant to the political debate the case centered on. However, the Deepwater

Horizon case spawned many story arcs bearing little relevance to the material events of the oil 82 spill and rig explosion. For instance, I realized that many stories after the well was plugged were about the legal wrangling of the corporations involved and features of the settlement lawsuits, such as different parties’ demands, the efficacy with which payouts were dispersed, and the filing of fraudulent claims. In a similar vein, many stories were analyses of companies’ financial outlooks, particularly in the Wall Street Journal. After browsing examples of each story arc, I decided that such stories of court-room events and financial markets were unlikely to feature environmental ideologies, as they were no longer about nature or describing the industrial accident. The coverage of the court cases did not have much to do with the degree to which nature was harmed; it was logical for these stories to be completely anthropocentric, as they were covering lawsuits, and only humans (or organizations) can sue each other. Exceptions were made for cases discussing actual or potential criminal charges, as these could reveal value hierarchies and “worthy victims.” The Wall Street Journal also covered corporate personnel changes. When such changes did not explicitly reference the spill, they were removed. After weeding out irrelevant material, I retained 798 articles. The trimmed corpus contained 230 Keystone XL articles and Deepwater Horizon 568 articles. The vast majority of the articles (742) selected for inclusion in the study were in the daily newspapers. The news magazines produced 56 appropriate articles. The numbers of articles selected for inclusion are listed in Tables 1 and 2.

Sub-sampling. Maintaining academic rigor required that I review a sufficient percentage of all articles published to feel confident I was capturing the main themes present in the coverage. However, reviewing all articles would have been overly time-consuming, and unnecessary given the reliability of random stratified sampling (Riffe, Lacy, & Fico, 2014). It was feasible to review 100% of the articles produced by Time and Newsweek. These weeklies produced only 30 and 26 articles, respectively, collapsing across cases. Conversely, The New 83

York Times (NYT) and The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) produced hundreds of stories. For NYT there were 117 stories on Keystone XL and 229 on Deepwater Horizon. WSJ’s numbers were similar, with 95 stories on Keystone XL (117) and 301 on Deepwater Horizon.

Riffe, Lacy, and Fico (2014) provide general guidelines for sampling from legacy media based on previously published mass media content analyses. For one year’s worth of stories in a certain area, they recommend about 12% of stories published; the number drops to 5% for five years’ worth of stories (Riffe, Lacy, & Fico, 2014). Therefore, a sample of 20% of articles from each case in the daily newspapers should be considered more than robust and representative, while also serving as manageable within the time constraints of the project. This rule resulted in in 23 and 46 NYT articles per case and 19 and 60 WSJ articles per case, for totals of 43 and 106 newspaper articles per case and 72 and 132 articles per case total. These sub-sampling calculations can be seen in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1

Keystone XL Corpus and Sampling

Articles Articles % of Sample Articles Periodical Located Included Reviewed Reviewed The New York Times 212 117 20 23

The Wall Street Journal 329 95 20 19

Time 30 14 100 14

Newsweek 126 4 100 4

Totals 697 230 26 60

84

Table 2

Deepwater Horizon Corpus and Sampling

Articles Articles % of Sample Articles Periodical Located Included Reviewed Reviewed The New York Times 485 229 20 46

The Wall Street Journal 737 301 20 60

Time 146 16 100 16

Newsweek 231 22 100 22

Totals 1599 568 25 144

For the WSJ and NYT stories when the 20% sampling rule was applied, it was applied on a year-by-year basis, so that years featuring many stories produced more stories for review than did leaner years. Random sampling was used for the time-stratified sampling. I used the web- based random number generator by Randomness and Integrity Services Ltd.

(https://www.random.org/) to select the stories based on their number in my corpus spreadsheet.

First, I tallied the total number of stories in a given year to be sampled from, then multiplied that by 0.2 in order to get the number of stories that should be selected from within each subset

(20%). These two numbers (size of population and size of sample) were input into the random number generator, which produced a series of numbers from within the population matching the number of numbers desired. These numbers were mapped onto the spreadsheet rows for each year’s sub-sample to find stories for analysis.

When the final set of articles was selected for review, they were downloaded in their entirety and placed into digital folders. All articles selected were reviewed again for face validity; they were more thoroughly vetted during the analysis phase than they initially were 85 during preliminary corpus construction. If any appeared insufficiently relevant, they were removed from the corpus, their files replaced by new, randomly sampled articles (and appropriate notations made to overall corpus figures). The total sample was robust, with 60 articles for the first case study and 144 articles for the second. Thus, 204 articles were sampled from the 797 located upon initial corpus construction, representing a sample of 25% of the total number of articles selected.

Data Coding and Analysis

The different types of research questions in this project called for different data analysis techniques to be applied to the same texts. The analyses were conceived of as a two-phrase process. In the first phase, qualitative methods were applied to address the first set of research questions. Identifying the frames in the texts regarding environmental issues (RQ1) and determining the environmental ideologies those frames’ values represent (RQ2) was determined to be best accomplished with qualitative textual analysis, using the researcher-as-instrument.

However, developing an understanding of environmental ideologies’ relative prominence in the periodicals (H1- H4, RQ3) called for descriptive statistics, undertaken in the second phase of the project, which used quantitative methods to answer a set of hypotheses and an additional research question.

While there were less research questions in the first phase of the project than hypotheses in the second, it is important to note that the first phase was actually more labor intense, and also made the more innovative contribution to scholarship. There are very few studies intensely examining the frames in environmental news stories and explaining how those frames’ themes coalesce into environmental ideologies. The second phase represented an important contribution as well, but one that was mostly attempting to probe for support of previous findings. 86

Qualitative textual analysis. In order to isolate and reconstruct the frames used by journalists, I employed a qualitative textual analysis, consisting of close reading and rereading of the texts. In mass media scholarship, frames are identified by thematically clustered linguistic choices that Gamson and Modigliani (1989) term “interpretive packages” consisting of

“metaphors, catchphrases, visual images, moral appeals, and other symbolic devices” that work together to create meaning (p. 2, emphasis in original). The linguistic options available to many writers in four different publications over a period of five years are virtually innumerable, yet a sophisticated reader can find denotative and connotative connections between these idiosyncratic writing decisions. While the actual words used may vary significantly, a wide span of news texts covering similar content should offer consistently identifiable themes, due to the similarities in forces operating on the texts’ creation. Thus, frames can be effectively found using “[a]n investigator-centred [sic] approach to the construction of meaning” (Nambiar, 2014, p. 98), as was employed here.

Entman (2004) created a useful instrument to determine the object, or focus, of news frames, as well as the frames’ functions, using text boxes to identify discrete frame elements (see

Figure 2). The “Functions and Objects of News Frames” (Entman, 2004, p. 24) chart requires a researcher to fill in its qualitative data sections. 87

Figure 2. “Functions and Objects of News Frames” (Entman, 2004).

A fully “developed narrative frame,” indicated by completion of all 12 cells of Entman’s

(2004) chart, can tell an entire story (p. 24). Yet Entman (2004) also points out that there are often times when gaps in this chart exist for news frames. Entman (2004) describes the presidentially championed perspective on the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks as a fully developed frame because all three types of frame foci and all four frame functions are fully described. The September 11th attacks (event) were perpetrated by terrorists (actors), which lead to war (issue), and those three foci fulfill various functions of the frame, as they were rhetorically interrelated. Such a well-developed and powerfully endorsed frame can catch on with journalists supportive of high-ranking office holders, but it is less likely for opposition-supported counter- frames to catch on (Entman, 2004). A truly competitive counter-frame will detail “a complete alternative narrative, a tale of problem, cause, remedy, and moral judgment possessing as much magnitude and resonance as the administration’s” (Entman, 2004, p. 48). Entman (2004) stated that without the right social support, counter-frames will wither or fail to become fully developed, meaning that democratic citizenry will not be provided with alternative policy 88 choices. By this logic, it was important to identify not only full-fledged narrative frames, but also the incomplete frames based on scattered ideas that failed to cohere within the texts (Entman,

2004).

Thematic analysis. As individual frames related to the natural environment were identified, themes running through them were identified via the constant comparison method.

This inductive thematic analysis method has been used in many framing studies (e.g., Garland,

2015; Nambiar, 2014; Ogan, Çiçek, & Kaptan, 2007; Reese & Lewis, 2009; Valenzano, 2009).

These emergent themes can be considered meta-frames; as frequently occurring narrative elements, they embody cultural values (Entman, 2004). Such meta-frames are widely shared cognitive devices that underlie social interaction (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Shanahan &

McComas, 1999), and so provide a window into the logic underlying collective decision-making.

I attended specifically to meta-frames related to environmental ideology. While individual news stories feature frames related to environmental decision-making (frames positing collective values), the sum symbolism of the frames demonstrate fairly discrete environmental ideologies being disseminated (RQ2). I used the ideological spectrum and characteristics identified by Corbett’s (2006) summary of environmental communication scholarship to determine which ideologies were represented. As frames were identified, they were categorized by the environmental ideologies they support. This categorization was used in the quantitative analyses described in the next section.

Quantitative content analyses. The second phase of the project, using quantitative methods, was informed by the initial qualitative analysis from the first phase. In the qualitative textual analysis, I linked news frames discovered in the texts to their logical ideological meta- frames to determine which environmental ideologies the news frames represented. Such 89 ideologies included the anthropocentric ideologies unrestrained instrumentalism, conservationism, and preservationism, as well as ecocentric ideologies (e.g., land-based ethic, eco-feminism, etc.). This typology of frames classified into environmental ideologies allowed for the relative frequency of appearance of ideologies to be measured and compared in this second phase of the project. I constructed a codebook explaining the different types of frames and the ideologies they should be coded as. After initial codebook design, research into similar scholarship (e.g., environmental frames and ideologies represented in mediated discourse) was conducted to fine-tune the instrument. A volunteer secondary coder (a PhD candidate at the same institution) was recruited and trained in the codebook. Both the volunteer coder and I coded a robust sample of the corpus’s articles (10-20%). High interrater reliability scores validated my own coding work of the entire corpus; these results are explained in detail below.

Operationalizing measurement of ideologies’ presence. The presence or absence of a given ideology or category of ideologies in each article was measured in a binary fashion. If a frame representing an associated ideology was coded as being in a story, that ideology was considered to be present in the story, as was the category of ideologies it represents. For example, if a frame representing preservationism, an anthropocentric ideology, was coded as present, then both preservationism specifically, and anthropocentric ideologies generally, were considered present in that story. Each article was coded for the presence of all environmental ideologies identifiable from Corbett’s (2006) typology.

While future analyses of the same data set can be increasingly granular, this particular project used a rather rough measurement of the degree to which ideologies are present, because it did not measure frequency of ideologies’ appearances per news article, or comparative advantage in tone. So, a story could contain both anthropocentric and ecocentric ideologies, and be coded as 90 such, without a determination of the degree to which either type of ideology is dominating that text. From the simplest analytical perspective, each story had four outcomes: anthropocentric

(presence of only anthropocentric ideologies), ecocentric (presence of only ecocentric ideologies), neutral (presence of both anthropocentric and ecocentric ideologies), and ambivalent

(presence of neither type of ideology). However, delving into these outcomes is a distinction for future research.

Coding procedures (detailed). In the qualitative portion of this project, six news frames were identified. Those frames and their sub-frames are outlined in Chapter 5. I created a

Codebook (Appendix A) for the quantitative portion of the project, featuring those frames, sub- frames, and hypothetical example sentences expressing their sentiments.

Initially, I applied the Codebook on my own to articles similar to the corpus. Specifically,

I located news articles using “Keystone XL” and “Deepwater Horizon” as keywords through the

Academic Search Complete database between the years of 2011—2016, outside the date range of the original materials. I downloaded a handful of each type of article and tested the coding scheme. The frames applied well, and new frames did not present. However, I noticed that it was sometimes difficult to decide if certain frames were presenting.

For example, sources clearly in favor of the Keystone XL project would bring up greenhouse gases, implying that reducing their emissions is a preferable action. However, they would not specifically mention climate change, or indicate that climate change (or greenhouse gases) could or would have negative effects. In other words, the authors were bringing up a problem that is firmly lodged in the popular consciousness without identifying it or discussing its ramifications. I believe that climate change has reached the status of commonly understood threat, and that even tangential references to it easily bring up the concern widely developed in 91 the public sphere. Thus, I made the decision that when phenomena clearly linked to climate change, such as “greenhouse gases,” are brought up, we would code the articles for the presence of the climate change frame, consumption impacts on humans.

Another issue was that concern for the environment frequently came up, without a clear rationale. Based on Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) worthy victims concept, I determined that when the victim (humans or nature) is unclear, environmental concerns would go uncoded. For example, a statement such as “the oil spill polluted the ocean” represents a negative judgment about an environmental impact, because pollution is widely considered problematic. However, it does not present a rationale for that judgment, as there is no clear victim to be concerned about— the sentence could indicate concern for humans who utilize the ocean, animals who live in it, or the ocean itself. Such statements were commonplace. Therefore, I decided environmental impacts would only be coded when their victims are at least implicitly indicated. For example, a statement about how an oil spill could affect “water resources” is more clearly linked to humanity, as the concept of “resources” generally refers to human-use value. Such a statement would be considered extraction impacts on humans. Conversely, a statement about pollution affecting “habitats” would be coded as extraction impacts on nature, because we do not usually use the word “habitats” to refer to human dwellings.

Co-coder interrater reliability check. Content analysis methodological expert

Krippendorf (2004) explains that supporting the reliability of a coder’s content analysis requires that a co-coder code a portion of the coded content, and the coding work of the primary and secondary coder be compared for statistical reliability. I recruited a volunteer co-coder to perform a reliability check on my coding of the corpus texts. The co-coder was a fellow Ph.D. student of communication at the dissertation stage. To begin coder training, we reviewed the 92

Codebook, going over the frames to understand them as abstract concepts, then the concrete sub- frames I saw the frames manifesting in.

As far as coding method, I explained that we were only going to code the first appearance of each frame, rather than the total number of their appearances. That was because I only planned to compare the presence or absence of each frame in each article, rather than the relative strength of their appearance. This decision also streamlined the coding process, enabling me to produce robust and rigorous data within a manageable time frame. However, for our initial practice sessions we coded all appearances of each frame, to be sure we were identifying the frames similarly. I printed a Keystone XL article from outside of the corpus and we both coded it on our own. Then we compared notes, to see where we had overlap and where we had disagreement.

This initial training session took about 30 minutes. I took the co-coder’s advice into account and rephrased some of the sentences in the Codebook. I also added a section at the end of the

Codebook detailing some technical coding advice I supplied in this initial session.

Before beginning the actual coding, we met again for a second practice coding session, this time using text documents on computers. Again we reviewed the frames and sub-frames, then we coded more pairs of sample articles from outside the corpus without communicating during coding. For this second training phase, we only coded the first appearance of frames— once a frame had presented, we stopped checking for it or coding it. Afterward, we compared our coded articles. As with the first training meeting, we identified areas of agreement and disagreement, and together refined our understanding of the frames and their sub-categories. This second session took about 45 minutes. For the third and final practice coding session, we used the NVIVO 12.0 qualitative software package. I gave the co-coder a tutorial on using the program. We repeated the practice coding process again, with another 5 articles, until we felt 93 confident that we were coding the articles similarly. The final training session also took about 45 minutes. At this point, I felt confident that we could code the actual corpus articles similarly.

In order to be sure that our understandings of the codes was evolving at the same pace, we made the decision to code the articles at the same time and location. However, we did not communicate during the coding process. We used two different computers with the same version of NVIVO, and we operated from files that were originally identical. After 5 articles, we stopped to compare our coding results and mutually refine understandings of the categories.

Content analysts from a variety of fields suggest that a co-coder code 10% of a project’s corpus to ensure a sufficient interrater reliability check (e.g., Bie & Tang, 2015; Golan &

Zaidner, 2008; Kehn & Kroll, 2011; Lee et al., 2013). In order to be confident the interrater reliability check was rigorous, I chose a higher standard of 20%. This meant that the co-coder initially coded 41 articles (20% of the total N, which was 204).

Our co-coding sessions lasted only one hour at a time, to avoid coder fatigue. We took

30-minute breaks, then coded for a second hour. We had two such sessions, resulting in 4 hours total for the co-coder’s initial coding participation, plus the two hours in training, with a final total of 6 hours volunteer assistance for the first 41 articles.

In order to randomize selection for coding and the interrater reliability check, the articles were assigned random numbers and re-ordered from low to high, then re-assigned the numbers

1-204 based on their position in the new list. The titles of the articles in NVIVO were revised to begin with these numbers (1-204), putting the stories into the correct order for editing.

The articles were de-identified so that neither coder would be obviously aware of which periodical the story came from. Headers, bylines, summaries, and footers were removed. I may have been able to identify the periodical sources of the texts, due to familiarity with the texts and 94 writing styles, but it was easy for me ignore the presumed source of the text when coding each article; I do not think that the periodical sources influenced my coding. Had the co-coder been curious, he could have clicked into the attribute values and identified the periodical, in the metadata included by Zotero in the reference entry, but he did not; he focused on coding efficiently. The co-coder was not familiar with the texts, so I do not believe the periodical sources influenced his coding, either. The articles were not clearly marked by case, though often times the case was obvious due to story content. This limitation was unavoidable.

After I trained the co-coder, we both coded 41 articles, independently. In the 1960s, social scientists used percent agreement to demonstrate interrater reliability, but Jacob Cohen developed the Cohen’s Kappa statistic to control for chance agreement; it is represented by the lower-case Greek letter, κ (McHugh, 2012). Not only is Cohen’s Kappa more precise than percent agreement, it is also appropriate for categorical data (Haley & Osberg, 1989), such as the frames applied in this study. For these reasons, I used Cohen’s Kappa to measure interrater reliability. Cohen suggested Kappa scores of 0.61–0.80 be considered substantial, and scores of

0.81–1.00 as near-perfect agreement (McHugh, 2012). Landis and Koch (1977), in work treated as foundational by later scholars (e.g., Barty, Caynes, & Johnston, 2016; Gramling et al., 2015;

Haley, & Osberg, 1989; Paternotte et al., 2016), echoed these divisions, though acknowledging that the “‘benchmarks’” were “arbitrary” (p. 165).

Operating from a more stringent biomedical perspective, McHugh (2012) suggests Kappa scores of .60–.79 be considered moderate and scores of .80–.90 be considered strong. McHugh

(2012) was concerned about conclusions reached in the biological sciences, due to potential human-health ramifications. Because this social science research is more exploratory and has less severe real-life ramifications than biological research, I settled on a threshold of .70 for 95 acceptable interrater reliability Kappa scores for each frame. This score is in the middle of the

“moderate” (McHugh, 2012) or “substantial” (Landis & Koch, 1977) divisions.

In the first round of coding, covering 41 stories, we only reached acceptable levels of reliability for two of the six frames. After consulting with each other regarding the data that produced different results, we refined the codebook to more precisely differentiate between the frames (see Codebook 2 in Appendix B). On the second round of coding, using 20 new articles, we achieved acceptable Kappa scores for four of the six frames (see Table 3). At this point, we resolved all discrepancies in the 61 coded articles and created an NVIVO file of consensus coded data. However, in the first two rounds we were not coding the energy security and political security frames similarly. In order to address this methodological concern, I made two decisions.

First, I articulated a more stringent set of criteria for determining the presence or absence of these challenging frames, so that neither of us would infer their presence, instead coding them only when certain. These guidelines are presented in Codebook 2. Second, I decided to collapse these two frames into one for coding and statistical analysis purposes. I justified this decision due to the frames’ conceptual overlap and the minimal appearances of the political security frame.

Creation of national security frame. The first reason I collapsed the two frames was that the conceptual line separating the frames was often blurry. I defend their conceptual distinctness, as one is about the contributions that energy products make to Americans’ lives, while the other is about protecting U.S. political power and border security. However, I acknowledge that the frames sometimes overlap. For example, there were some portions of text in the corpus that we had logical reasons for disagreeing on which of the two frames made more sense for coding. An exemplar was about the importance of shifting “the U.S. away from its politically problematic dependence on Middle Eastern oil.” The co-coder thought the dependence was “problematic” 96 because of the region’s instability, as relying on an unstable energy source leaves us vulnerable in terms of energy security. I thought the implication in this statement was that funding the

Middle East could potentially fund terrorism, thus reducing political security. Perhaps the journalist was subtly hinting at both rationales. Removing the distinction between the two frames makes coding such statements simple.

Not only do the two frames address similar issues, they are based on similar over-arching values. Both frames relate to the idea of maintaining Americans’ high quality of life. Geographic mobility is an important part of the freedoms Americans value; for example, Americans move more than citizens of other countries (Cohen, 2014). As citizens of the modern, developed world, they enjoy the opportunity to travel, both domestically and internationally. Affordable fuel is the key to mobility and travel; thus, energy security is integral to Americans’ expectations for satisfying lives.

Another prerequisite for enjoying freedom is safety. Limiting access to American soil for potentially violent actors, such as terrorists or would-be conquerors, is necessary for Americans to enjoy freedoms such as travel. These features of the political security framework hand-in-hand with energy security as necessary conditions for citizens to enjoy the privileges they find natural to their positions as members of the world’s dominant power. The political security frame also operates more subtly to ensure Americans a high quality of life, as influencing other nations to adopt preferred policy positions enhances domestic life. For example, U.S. corporations seek favorable trade agreements, which result in inexpensive goods for U.S. consumers to purchase.

Thus, the sub-points of the political security frame relate to Americans’ quality of life just as those of the thus energy security frame do. 97

Another reason I combined the frames was that the political security frame was comparatively rare; energy security was much more frequently mentioned. Both of these frames showed up mostly in Keystone XL stories, but political security in particular almost never appeared in Deepwater Horizon stories, which made up more than two thirds of the corpus.

Because the political security frame was rare, and because the co-coder struggled with its conceptual similarity to energy security, awareness of its existence seemed to confuse the co- coder, who spent energy attempting to find the troublesome frame, rather than letting coding it when warranted.

For these reasons, I collapsed energy security and political security into a new frame, which I labeled national security. This frame encompasses the deeper ideological thrusts behind both of the original frames. By combining the two frames originally identified in the qualitative content analysis, I simplified coding and, more importantly, was able to record acceptable levels of interrater reliability. For the third round of coding, the co-coder and I coded 20 more articles

(reaching 80 total articles coded at this point). For this round we only coded the national security frame, as we had established acceptable degrees of interrater reliability on the other frames.

The University Library’s Statistical Consultant helped me transform the data from

NVIVO to Comma Separated Values (CSV) data for Microsoft Excel, then into data appropriate for IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, where Kappa scores were determined. By the third round of coding, the co-coder and I surpassed the threshold for acceptability I set, with Kappa scores surpassing .700 for each frame. The Kappa scores for each frame in each round of coding are shown in Table 3. 98

Table 3

Interrater Reliability Kappa (κ) Scores (Percentages of Total Corpus in Parentheses) Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Frame (20%) (10%) (10%) National security a – – .773 b

Energy security a .381 .056 –

Political security a -.064 .351 –

Economic concerns .474 .769 b –

Extraction impacts on humans .600 .905 d –

Consumption impacts on humans .734 b .829 c –

Extraction impacts on nature .714 b .788 b –

National security – – .773 b a Energy security and political security frames coded for Rounds 1 and 2, then collapsed into national security frame for Round 3. b Moderate agreement. c Substantial agreement. d Almost perfect agreement.

Once Kappa scores representing acceptable interrater reliability were achieved, I coded the rest of the stories on my own. I also returned to the third round, 20 articles, to code them completely for all frames (after national security was initially coded). The results of the quantitative analyses of the coded nominal data are presented in Chapter 6. Before proceeding to that section, I will detail the qualitative results which set the stage for the quantitative portion of the project. 99

Chapter IV

Qualitative Discourse Analysis Results

This study was a mixed-methods content analysis of mainstream mass media texts covering two of the United States’ major environmental news story arcs of the early 21st century.

The first phase of the project was a qualitative analysis of news texts oriented by two research questions. These questions regarded frames found in the news stories representing environmental values and the environmental ideologies those frames represented. The findings of this phase of the project are reported here in Chapter 4. The second phase of the project was a quantitative analysis of the texts oriented by four hypotheses and one research question. Those findings are reported in Chapter 5.

To build on previous findings of the mass media models chosen, I used a comparative case study method in this project. The news story arcs about the Keystone XL pipeline debates and Deepwater Horizon oil spill were logical case choices for this method. Comparative case studies require two data sets that are similar in most major ways, differing primarily in one theoretically important way. These arcs’ coverage occurred during overlapping time periods and social situations (President Obama’s tenure in office, mostly during his first term). The stories quoted similar types of social actors (mostly scientists, oil company employees, environmental activists, non-profit workers, and government officials). The stories also produced similar types of discourse (concern over the nation’s oil supplies, environmental degradation, and political and economic issues; both domestic and international). While these story arcs were similar in many ways, their primary difference was that one arc was about an industrial project with potential environmental impacts (Keystone XL), while the other was an industrial project with actual environmental impacts (Deepwater Horizon). In this chapter I will explain the findings by 100 moving move back and forth between the two arcs, typically covering first the proposed project

(Keystone XL), then the project that ended in an industrial disaster (Deepwater Horizon).

The first arc discussed, Keystone XL, covered the contentious discourse surrounding the proposed expansion of the Keystone oil pipeline system, designed to carry crude bitumen from the oil sands2 of Alberta, Canada through the United States to oil refineries on the Gulf of

Mexico. The policy issue culminated in President Obama’s decision to reject the Keystone XL expansion application, and the coverage period (2010–2015) captures initial post-rejection reaction. The natural resources under discussion in this arc were oil sands in Alberta, and these resources were often central to coverage. However, the U.S. policy debate centered on the creation of the pipeline to move the refined bitumen (as U.S. authority did not extend to the oil sands themselves). Thus, throughout this project I refer to these stories as “Keystone XL” stories, using the proposed pipeline system’s name.

The second arc centered on the long-running, ocean-floor oil spill from the Deepwater

Horizon’s oil well. The Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig became central to a prominent news story after its workers lost control of the well they were drilling, resulting in the ship’s tragic explosion and sinking. Coverage continued to the resulting pollution from the ongoing spill, legal battles about culpability for its damages, and subsequent discussions of other offshore drilling and proposed industry regulations. Though the environmental trouble stemmed from the

Macondo Prospect well, the popular consciousness and media narrative often used the name of the offshore drilling rig as shorthand to refer to the entirety of the relevant outcomes. Thus, in this project I will refer to the Gulf oil spill events as relating to the “Deepwater Horizon” stories.

2Opponents of oil sands development typically refer to the materials as “tar sands”; both labels refer to the same substance. 101

The literature reviewed in this study predicted that the texts would exhibit collections of news frames clustered at different points on Corbett’s (2006) environmental ideology spectrum.

In order to explore the presence and development of themes within this framework, I performed a qualitative analysis of the texts oriented by two research questions:

RQ1. Which frames found in the news texts demonstrate values regarding humans’

relationships to the natural environment?

RQ2. Which environmental ideologies do the news texts’ frames express?

In this section of the study, I present my interpretation of the answers to those two research questions based on an original data analysis. For the analysis, I relied on Entman’s (2004) definition of news frames: discourse that describes problems, causes, remedies and moral judgments. I confined my analysis to frames related to environmental values. The frames identified were developed by deep, repeated readings of the texts. I demonstrate support for frames’ existence by including textual quotations that are exemplars drawn from the corpus.

For the qualitative data analysis, I reviewed full-text articles from Newsweek, Time, The

New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. All quotations in the data analysis section come from those downloaded digital articles. Periodical titles are listed with quotations, abbreviated as such: Newsweek (NW), Time (TIME), The New York Times (NYT) and The Wall Street Journal

(WSJ). At times, the quotations were altered for tense to improve reading flow. In these instances, any added words or suffixes are in brackets; words removed for ease of reading were replaced by ellipses.

Before elucidating my findings, an important statement to make is that my understanding of the social groups quoted in these texts shifted between when I wrote the Review of Related

Literature and described the study’s results. My original conceptualization of the oppositional 102 political groups covered in this project was that they were either extractivists or activists. By extractivists, I meant people who enjoyed the benefits of extractive projects, such as investors and workers involved, but also general citizens who appreciate the luxuries of resource-powered lives and are unconcerned with critics’ arguments concerning the negative ramifications of extractive projects, from oil spills to climate change. By activists, I referred to environmentalists upset with many of modernity’s social structures that are damaging the environment and human health. However, upon reading and rereading the texts reviewed in this project, my conceptualization of the groups whose arguments face off in the public sphere became more nuanced.

Not everyone who appreciates the value of affordable fossil fuels is universally supportive of extractive projects, or uncaring about environmental impacts. What became clear as themes emerged in the texts was that a large swath of society is simply complacent. They enjoy the world as it is. Perceiving no problems with the present political economy, they seemed largely resistant to meaningful change to existing social structures, so I labeled this group status quo supporters.

Similarly, not everyone who problematizes extractive projects or fossil fuel consumption is a bona fide environmentalist. Some groups may support the “NIMBY” philosophy (“not in my backyard”) but otherwise accept extractive projects. For example, the Republican governor of

Nebraska did not want the Keystone XL pipeline endangering his state’s aquifers, but in general approved of extractive projects. Some people who complained about fossil fuel industry practices merely wanted safeguards improved, as the industry has a history of cost-cutting resulting in human deaths and illnesses. Thus, those who opposed status quo supporters were 103 essentially status quo critics. They may not have been environmental activists (though many were), so it is not appropriate to label them all as such.

Thus, in describing the frames I maintain dichotomous groupings as originally planned, as the frames did indeed cohere around ideologically oppositional perspectives. However, in the findings sections they are grouped into frames advanced by status quo supporters and status quo critics, rather than extractivists and activists.

Six frames were identified in the texts. Three of the frames supported the status quo, converging on the idea that the American way of life is based on consistent fossil fuel consumption and that this lifestyle is threatened by shrinking domestic oil supplies as well as foreign and domestic actors’ actions. The sources promoting these status quo-support frames argued that, due to lack of viable alternatives, the status quo fossil fuel economy must be maintained, if not intensified. These frames were labeled energy security, political security, and economic concerns. For the quantitative analysis, energy security and political security were collapsed into a frame called national security, an issue explained in the Methodology chapter.

The other three frames voiced people’s worries about negative side effects of the extraction, transportation, and consumption of fossil fuels on lives and landscapes. These concerns drove critiques oriented toward, at minimum, reforming fossil fuel industries to avoid the negative externalities produced by their activity. At their most extreme, these critiques centered on replacing fossil fuels’ central positions in human economies and activity, due to the problematic relationship between fossil fuel consumption and climate change. For these reasons, these frames were categorized as status quo-critique frames. The frames were labeled extraction impacts on humans, consumption impacts on humans, and extraction impacts on nature. I introduce each group of frames by discussing their underlying logic, then explain the frames and 104 their sub-frames. Claims are supported by evidence from the texts with specific links to each case, listing first evidence from Keystone XL stories, then from Deepwater Horizon stories.

Table 4

Frames Identified in Qualitative Content Analysis Status Quo-Support Frames Sub-Frames Exemplars energy security Oil availability, oil “Americans have demanded cheap supply lines’ stability, fossil fuels” energy independence, energy prices “There is no substitute for oil”

“U.S. oil prices [went] up sharply this year, thanks in part to unrest in the Mideast and Africa”

“the crippling 1973 Arab oil embargo”

“relatively new sources of fossil fuels offer America its first real chance in decades to become, if not energy self-sufficient, at least energy secure” political security Safety from attack “since 9/11, the imperative to reduce (terrorism), power our reliance on Middle Eastern oil politics appears to be trumping environmental concerns”

“friendly, nearby, democratic, non- terrorist-promoting Canada”

“help shift the U.S. away from its politically problematic dependence on Middle Eastern oil” economic concerns Workers’ employment, “The U.S. construction industry has investors’ profits, the been mired in a depression for over economy generally four years now” (including tax bases) “oil … in the Gulf of Mexico will affect the economies that depend on 105

the ocean and its edible inhabitants”

“Canadian shippers need more pipeline capacity to move that new production to the U.S.”

“reflecting investors’ concerns at the potential impact the oil spill would have on the company’s reputation, and, potentially, its bottom line”

Status Quo-Critique Frames extraction impacts on humans Negative effects of “an explosion at a BP refinery in fossil fuels on human Texas City, Texas, killed 15 workers health, inherent risk in and injured more than 170” production and transportation “Like hundreds, possibly thousands, of workers on the cleanup, Griffin soon fell ill with a cluster of excruciating, bizarre, grotesque ailments” consumption impacts on Fossil fuel use drives “climate change is the most serious humans climate change, which environmental crisis facing this has negative effects on planet” humans “Ultimately, if we’re going to prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we’re going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground” extraction impacts on nature Natural resource “tapping the oil sands comes with an extraction harms environmental cost” nature’s non-human elements “Scientists worry such plumes could reduce the levels of underwater oxygen necessary to sustain an array of sea life”

106

Status Quo-Support Frames

Modern societies are powered largely by fossil fuels. Frames supporting status quo positions expressed both an intention to continue using fossil fuel energy products and to harvest such natural resources as swiftly and profitably as possible. These arguments were presented without clearly articulated concerns for how such actions will affect future generations of humanity, or the biosphere and its other inhabitants. The first status quo-support frame, energy security, addressed the needs of the U.S. people and government to maintain adequate supplies of energy, specifically fossil fuels. The second status quo-support frame, political security, dealt with the idea that trading capital for oil can enrich trading partners, therefore the United States must consider issues of geopolitical orientations when forming trade partnerships. The third status quo-support frame, economic concerns, covered the desires of both U.S. workers and investors to maintain strong finances, through jobs and investments, respectively. In this section,

I articulate these status quo-supporting news frames. The Keystone XL controversy and

Deepwater Horizon tragedy differ in their particulars, yet the same frames were often utilized in similar discursive fashions in both story arcs.

Energy security frame. These stories portrayed the United States as a nation whose citizens and their representatives have a strong interest in maintaining easily available fuel sources. This appetite for oil was presented as one that was not easily satiated. Along these lines, the high rates of domestic consumer, industry, and government use necessitate securing steady access to oil and increasing oil reserves. Further, “Americans have demanded cheap fossil fuels”

(TIME, Walsh, Padgett, & Crowley, 2010) to fuel their lifestyles. Therefore, steady procurement of affordable oil is a high priority for politicians seeking elected office, a fact often noted here by journalists. When acknowledging these realities, sources in the texts often used the in vivo term energy security. For example, in the Keystone XL pipeline stories journalists wrote, 107

“Republicans in Washington have pushed the line as a way to boost energy security” (WSJ,

Cummins, 2011) and that the pipeline “would enhance America’s energy security” (NYT, Pear,

2011).

Advocates of the energy security argument made clear that oil is irreplaceable, as no other substance can be substituted for it. Ideally, U.S. representatives would harvest energy supplies domestically, resulting in the politically desirable goal of energy independence, a clear corollary of energy security. However, domestic supplies have dwindled in recent years, requiring an intensification in imported oil purchasing. This dynamic is presented as problematic because foreign supplies have been volatile. Sometimes suppliers’ stances have even been hostile toward U.S. political goals, intensifying the need for secure supply lines and maximizing domestic production.

Necessity of oil. While sources articulating the energy security frame did not oppose a clean-energy economy, they maintained that currently such a goal remains out of reach, as the developed world will be dependent on oil for the foreseeable future. Leaders in both major U.S. political parties acknowledged the modern social necessity of oil. Discussing “oil’s irreplaceability [as] the fuel that makes us go,” Time (Walsh, 2012c) wrote, “There is no substitute for oil … While we can generate electricity through coal or natural gas, nuclear or renewables…oil remains by the far the predominant fuel for transportation.” Even President

Obama, popular with environmentalists, acknowledged that oil remains crucial to meeting U.S. energy needs, though his support of the industry was tinged with resignation: “We’re still years off and some technological breakthroughs away from being able to operate on purely a clean- energy grid. During that time, we’re going to be using oil” (NYT, Krauss, Broder, Brown,

Robertson & Collins, 2010). 108

Energy security remained a top priority for the Obama administration even in the immediate aftermath of the highly visible Deepwater Horizon disaster. The administration insisted “for days” that it remained intent on its “proposal to allow more oil exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and to consider opening areas along the Atlantic Seaboard” (WSJ, Power

& Chazan, 2010). Maintaining its charted course on increasing energy production in the face of the Deepwater Horizon public relations crisis demonstrated the political and strategic importance the administration placed on acquiring fossil fuels.

Besides oil’s strategic significance, journalists presented another motivation for U.S. politicians’ focus on procuring oil supplies: the resource is highly important to voters.

Consumers are wary of gas prices increasing at the pump. Time used this consumer logic in an article about how global oil supplies affect gas prices. Speaking directly to readers and anticipating their preference for lower-priced gas, Time asked, “So does that mean the return of

$2-a-gal. gasoline?” (Walsh, 2012b). Because voters care about the price of fuel, politicians take the issue very seriously, as their election chances fluctuate with voter satisfaction. The New York

Times editorialist Joe Nocera wrote that Republicans were “framing Keystone [XL] as an urgent

...energy project at a time of...creeping gasoline prices” (Nocera, 2012). Discussing why offshore drilling was permitted rapid expansion prior to the Deepwater Horizon accident, Newsweek stated that “Democrats were not insensitive to the need for cheap energy and the ‘drill, baby, drill’ sentiments of a large portion of the public” (Thomas, 2010). That statement appears to be correct, judging by reporting on the nation’s top Democrat: “President Obama … has also reiterated his support for offshore drilling amid voter worries about rising gasoline prices” (NYT,

Krauss, 2011). 109

Priming the electorate to worry about potential gas price increases in their voting decisions could have been a persuasive political strategy, as gasoline was becoming more expensive during this coverage period. The Wall Street Journal wrote that “U.S. oil prices [went] up sharply this year, thanks in part to unrest in the Mideast and Africa” (WSJ, Welsch, 2011).

One “former oil-industry executive” was quoted as saying that “most people believe” the world’s oil supplies are shrinking, which will lead to increased prices (TIME, Walsh, 2012b). Though that same executive noted that new technologies in fact spurred an increase in supply, this development did not translate to consumers’ hoped-for price drop. Even with an increase in supply from so-called “extreme energy” sources, prices could still increase, as “The new supplies are for the most part more expensive than traditional oil from places like the Middle East, sometimes significantly so” (TIME, Walsh, 2012b). One must also account for increasing

“demand in China, India and other developing nations[.]…Result: plentiful but expensive oil that translates into painfully high gas prices” (TIME, Walsh, 2012b). During the years covered in this project, U.S. gas prices hit historic highs:

Last year the average cost for a gallon of unleaded was $3.51, the highest on record, up

from $2.90 a year before. On March 26 the national average was $3.90. That takes a

chunk out of household budgets…. (TIME, Walsh, 2012b)

Time expected such price increases to strongly influence the U.S. electorate:

The 2012 election was supposed to be decided by sky-high gas prices. A gallon of regular

gas cost more on average during 2011 than it ever had before, and in the first few months

of the year, amid growing tensions in the Middle East, there seemed to be no limit to how

expensive oil could get. (TIME, Walsh, 2012b) 110

The texts connected politicians’ fortunes to gas prices, implying that keeping prices low helps officials get re-elected, while overseeing rising prices can hamper their chances of gaining future terms in office. For example, writing “Lower oil prices are good news for President

Obama” (TIME, Walsh, 2012b). This connection in voters’ minds between gas prices and candidate preference was not necessarily automatically made by voters themselves; the texts portrayed this as a conscious political strategy. Politicians reminded the public that their access to affordable energy was tenuous by referencing the high price of gas, or the potential for its price to increase. Regarding Keystone XL, one commentary piece stated, “Republicans are already making it a standard in campaign speeches and are likely to try to force Obama’s hand on the measure as gasoline prices rise” (TIME, Walsh, 2012a). After Deepwater Horizon, when

Democrats called for increased regulation of offshore drilling, Republicans disagreed using the same grounds: “‘Americans are reeling from staggering prices at the pump,’ said Representative

Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee” (NYT,

Krauss, 2011).

This rhetorical tactic would seem to prime voters to consider past oil shortages’ impacts.

The argument that oil is scarce was not a mere political argument “during the 1970s, when

Middle East unrest helped lead to high oil prices and long gas lines” (TIME, Walsh, 2012b). The

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) intentional reduction in oil supply was an experience that still affects policy-making and political discourse today, four decades later. Politicians in these texts created a discourse of insecurity by connecting citizens’ desires for affordable fuel to the challenge of securing sufficient supplies to keep the commodity affordable. However, this argument was not simply a rhetorical invention. The United States really was struggling to secure adequate oil supplies to satisfy its rate of consumption. 111

Insufficient domestic production. Though politicians acknowledged oil’s necessity, they also expressed concern about the ability “to meet the nation’s energy needs” (NYT, Krauss et al.,

2010). Though domestic demand for oil remains robust, over roughly 200 years U.S. residents extracted most of the easily reached oil from domestic lands. This growing disparity between domestic supply and demand means that today the country faces difficulty meeting its needs through domestic production. At the start of the 20th century, U.S. oil reserves were easily tapped: “In Texas in 1901…The oil was essentially at the surface, all but seeping out of the earth’s crust” (NW, Gross, 2010). However, the early abundance dissipated due to heavy demands, and the country’s production of easily accessed oil leveled off; now “land-based reserves…aren’t producing the way they once did” (NW, Philips & Margolis, 2010). For example, “Alaska once accounted for a third of the nation’s oil production, but its fields are now in steep decline” (NYT, Krauss, 2011).

As Americans’ supplies dwindled, “Easy oil—’the low hanging fruit’—[became] the preserve of the traditional producer countries like Russia and Venezuela” (WSJ, Bower, 2010).

The dwindling domestic land-based supplies set the stage for both cases studied here. U.S. markets needed more oil, so collaborating with the neighboring nation of Canada to increase access to new supplies was a logical move. In a similar vein, “when the land-based oil was exhausted, American prospectors went to sea” (NW, Gross, 2010). The seas have become fertile grounds for the U.S. oil industry: “Western corporations have been compelled to switch their search under the Atlantic seabed and breaking technical frontiers” (WSJ, Bower, 2010). This change is because prospectors follow the oil:

The U.S. government estimates that the Gulf of Mexico holds somewhere around 70

billion barrels of oil, 40 billion of which remain undiscovered in the deep water. 112

Combined with the entire Outer Continental Shelf, there’s thought to be more than 85

billion barrels of undiscovered crude off the coast of the U.S., more than a decade’s

worth of oil at our current pace. (NW, Philips & Margolis, 2010)

However, the abundance of offshore oil deposits will not easily be utilized. For example, BP’s loss of control of the Deepwater Horizon’s well challenged optimistic views about offshore drilling. Further, even deep-sea drilling is finite: “In 2001, the [Gulf] waters produced about a quarter of all American oil and gas. Since then, production has fallen by half as wells petered out” (WSJ, Gilbert, Harder, & Scheck, 2014). Thus, several journalists and sources called the modern era one of “extreme energy,” as prospectors seek “tight oil” in “soaring output from wells drilled in onshore shale formations” (WSJ, Gilbert, Harder, & Scheck, 2014), oil sands, and deep-sea wells. This transition toward extreme energy sources is also taking place in other countries, a dynamic which further influences U.S. supply lines. Supporters of Keystone XL stated that “construction of the pipeline is necessary to replace the declining imports of heavy crude from Venezuela and Mexico” (NYT, Doer, 2011), referring to the fact that those nations too are running out of easily located oil.

The deficit in domestic supplies has caused the United States to become dependent on other nations for oil. Thus, U.S. politicians are tasked with locating vast supplies of oil to suppress price increases (and subsequent voter dissatisfaction) and must contend with the fact that oil prices can be influenced by external political actors.

Dependence on hostile, unstable nations. Attempting to sustain its own energy needs, the United States extracts oil as efficiently as it can from its own land. However, the demand of its domestic consumers has long required additional imports, a situation U.S. leaders dislike.

When a nation has to rely on other nations to meet its energy needs, the inability to maintain 113 energy security is perceived as a vulnerability. This state of affairs has been more than a potential vulnerability for the United States, it has manifested as an actual shortcoming in supplies because relying on other nations is problematic. Supplying nations do not always have consistent supplies themselves; their resource volatility is a weakness in the U.S. supply chain.

Further, suppliers are sometimes antagonistic toward the United States, or support oppositional political goals.

Stories examined indicated that the region of the planet with the most proven oil supplies is the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia (TIME, Walsh, 2012c; TIME, Walsh, 2012a). The texts made clear that U.S. consumers have long depended on this region for a large percentage of their oil. However, in the energy security frame this dependency is presented as problematic.

Depending on foreign nations for required material resources is risky because they could decide to stop sending oil, which would swiftly and severely weaken the U.S. economy. Depending on the Middle East was presented as particularly risky due to past experiences.

The texts describe how the nation suffered a psychic scar when OPEC significantly impacted the U.S. economy with “the crippling 1973 Arab oil embargo” (NYT, Davenport,

2015). In an editorial in The New York Times supporting Keystone XL, Joe Nocera (2012) wrote about the fortuitousness of newfound access to Canadian oil sands and abilities to acquire natural gas domestically through hydraulic fracturing. Nocera wrote that such developments:

…ought to be viewed as a great gift that has been handed to North America. These two

relatively new sources of fossil fuels offer America its first real chance in decades to

become, if not energy self-sufficient, at least energy secure, no longer beholden to OPEC.

(NYT, Nocera, 2012). 114

In addition to the Middle East nations’ ability, and past willingness, to intentionally constrict U.S. oil supplies, concerns were expressed about the political stability of oil-supplying nations. This aspect of the energy security frame idealized the ability to “substantially reduce

American dependency on oil from volatile regions, including the Middle East” (NYT, Doer,

2011). Other nations’ political instability was presented as a potential logistical challenge, as consistent sources were sought “in the wake of Arab Spring—related disruptions in oil-supplying countries like Libya” (TIME, Walsh, 2012c). The Keystone XL project’s value was even considered to increase due to the Deepwater Horizon incident:

With the uncertain geopolitics of the Middle East and Venezuela, and the risks of

offshore drilling highlighted by the BP spill, Canadian oil sands have been billed as a

dependable energy source for the future. (NYT, Lydersen, 2010)

Similarly, in an editorial directed against Keystone XL, one writer characterized the pro-

Keystone XL position: “To the supporters, this is a straightforward equation: the pipeline would provide a reliable supply of ‘friendly’ oil from a neighboring ally at a time of turmoil in much of the oil-producing world” (NYT, New York Times Staff, 2011).

Besides the issue of politically unstable nations presenting volatile supply lines, many oil-producing nations were characterized as politically hostile actors. Because of their divergent geopolitical goals, U.S. representatives suggested their country should not support antagonistic nations economically. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas implied that handing capital to unfriendly regimes is a mistake, stating that it is preferable if U.S. allies “are no longer energy-dependent on petro-tyrants such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin” (NYT, Davenport, 2015). In a similar vein, an editorialist wrote for the New York Times that Canada should be promoted as a fuel source over

“countries that don’t like us, like Venezuela” (NYT, Nocera, 2012). Championing domestic oil 115 development, including offshore drilling rigs like the Deepwater Horizon, Time opined, “You may not like Exxon because of the pump price or its oversize profits, but how much love do you have for autocratic petrostates like Iran or Russia?” (TIME, Walsh, 2012c).

Goal of energy independence. Using the necessity of oil, declining domestic supplies, and the instability and hostility of foreign oil suppliers, actors constructed a U.S. energy deficit as vulnerability within the texts. As Time put it, “In the U.S....we need more oil to achieve energy independence” (Walsh, 2012c). There was bipartisan agreement on this goal. Both major party opponents in the 2008 presidential election were on the record in this regard; “Barack

Obama and Mitt Romney... both agreed on the goal of making America more energy independent” (TIME, Zakaria, 2012). Further, this perspective was presented as a historical one,

“part of presidential rhetoric since Richard Nixon declared energy independence his

Administration’s [sic] aim” (TIME, Zakaria, 2012). Though an understandable long-standing goal, attaining energy independence was also presented as a challenge, as “wean[ing] America off foreign oil...will require replacing more than half the oil we consume” (NW, Philips &

Margolis, 2010).

Attaining energy independence means developing self-sufficiency in domestic supplies.

As land wells were nearing the end of their production, deep-sea efforts such as the Deepwater

Horizon were described as a primary strategy on this front. Newsweek wrote, “Oil producers like

Chevron say offshore drilling represents our best shot at energy independence” (NW, Philips &

Margolis, 2010). Specifically, experts such as oil historian Daniel Yergin cited The Gulf of

Mexico’s promise: “The Gulf of Mexico remains a great frontier and is a critical element in

America’s improving energy position” (NYT, Krauss & Reed, 2014). The Gulf region had recently undergone a production renaissance: “After a string of hurricanes led to seven straight 116 years of declining oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, a handful of new deepwater projects reversed the trend in 2009” (NW, Philips & Margolis, 2010).

In addition to offshore drilling, growth in abilities to harvest oil in shale rock formations was lauded as helping transform “the United States from a declining oil and gas producer … to a fast-growing one that will be able to cut imports and even export oil and gas for years to come”

(NYT, Krauss & Reed, 2014). Time saw these domestic developments as a fantastic boon: “If domestic oil production continues to rise, the U.S. could actually approach a goal that has long seemed a political fantasy: energy independence” (Walsh, 2012c).

Even after the Deepwater Horizon spill shocked the nation, the government remained committed to offshore drilling. In a 2013 article published well after the spill was capped,

Newsweek wrote that the Gulf drilling situation was returning to its previous equilibrium:

“Not much has actually changed,” says Mark Davis of Tulane. “It reflects just how

wedded our country is to keeping the Gulf of Mexico producing oil and bringing it to our

shores as cheaply as possible.” (Hertsgaard, 2013)

Though Gulf drilling returned to previous levels, in the immediate aftermath of the spill, concerned politicians mulled potential restrictions on offshore drilling. Opponents of increased regulation argued that such rules could increase reliance on foreign sources of oil, thus weakening the U.S. push for energy independence. This logic may have propelled the government to remain committed to domestic extraction. However, domestic energy supplies were described as insufficient to achieve energy independence. With the necessity of importing fossil fuel supplies acknowledged, politicians attempted to craft a geopolitically savvy energy- purchasing strategy. They had to consider the idea that when liquid capital is traded for fuel, the action strengthens the fuel-selling nations, whether they be allies or opponents. 117

Political security. The first status quo-support frame, energy security, addressed U.S. needs to maintain energy supplies to keep its economy and military moving. Another social argument status quo supporters addressed was protecting U.S. residents and the country’s political goals abroad. The political security frame refers to these two interdependent threads of discourse, one dealing with terrorism, the other with geopolitical power dynamics.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. voters have demanded that their protection from terrorists be a high priority for policy makers; they have been afraid of falling victim to further attacks. Whether the link is real or not, these texts implied that many in the populace believe that terrorists are housed—and perhaps supported—by Middle East nations with oil wealth. Thus, U.S. politicians responded to these concerns, arguing that the nation must be careful how it distributes capital around the world. The stories implied that U.S. leaders do not want to accidentally fund terrorist agents. Such action would erode the ability of the government to keep out potential enemies, decreasing American citizens’ safety. I conceptualized the nation’s strength as a facet of its political security because the government’s ability to maintain borders relates to its legitimacy. If the government cannot keep the people safe, its representatives would lose the people’s mandate to rule, weakening the present configuration of the federal government.

Progressing from concerns about terrorist organizations to international politics, U.S. leaders want to be careful not to aid countries with antithetical aims. Such action could weaken the United States’ relative might and obstruct its international political goals (e.g., power politics concerns). By this logic, it is shrewder to trade U.S. capital for natural resources to nations the country has friendly relations with than to deliver capital to nations with whom U.S. relationships are hostile, indifferent, or indeterminate. This facet of global trade was related to 118 the overall political strength of the nation. Leaders were represented as making decisions in light of how they would affect international outcomes. I conceptualize these related themes of border safety and intergovernmental influence as political security. This frame’s discourse was not repeated as frequently as energy security concerns, but its concepts were often intertwined, mentioned in a subordinate fashion.

Fears of supporting enemies. Many voices in these texts decried U.S. purchases of oil supplies from the Middle East. The logic behind this concern included potential supply disruptions due to hostility and instability as covered previously in the energy security frame.

However, it also included a subtext of avoiding the funding of terrorism, related to the physical safety of U.S. citizens. This sub-frame fits here under the broader frame of political security due to frame supporters’ emphasis on issues of relative strength to deter attacks. Most times journalists and sources only vaguely linked terrorism to Middle East nations, indirectly relating to concerns Americans have about previous terrorist acts, most notably those of Sept. 11, 2001.

However, sometimes the references were clear-cut.

Implicitly linking Middle Eastern nations to concerns about terrorism, Newsweek wrote that “since 9/11, the imperative to reduce our reliance on Middle Eastern oil appears to be trumping environmental concerns” (NW, Philips & Margolis, 2010) and that “analysts have enthused about the rapid development of the Alberta tar sands in Canada—friendly, nearby, democratic, non-terrorist-promoting Canada” (NW, Gross, 2010). In both these exemplars the writers are articulating a link between terrorism and Middle Eastern nations. Because of the Sept.

11 attacks, U.S. leaders find it “imperative to reduce our reliance on Middle Eastern oil.” The obvious corollary is that some believe funding Middle East nations could lead to more attacks.

Similarly, pundits’ enthusiasm for trade with “non-terrorist-promoting Canada” must clearly be 119 driven by desire to avoid purchasing oil from “terrorist-promoting” countries. Since most U.S. oil imports come from the Middle East, the implicit connection is obvious.

The previous examples represent rare, explicit linkages between the purchase of Middle

Eastern oil and terrorism funding. On most occasions, the rationale behind minimizing trade with these countries was oblique. For example, Time wrote, “last year the U.S. imported just 45% of the liquid fuels it used … and just 1.8 million barrels a day came from the Persian Gulf (TIME,

Walsh, 2012c). “Just” indicates a positive evaluation of this state of affairs, without an explanation of this judgment’s logic. Keystone XL supporters said the project “could further reduce imports from the Middle East” (TIME, Walsh, 2012c); the pipeline was described as a way to “help shift the U.S. away from its politically problematic dependence on Middle Eastern oil” (TIME, Walsh, 2010a). In these examples, the logic behind reducing “imports from the

Middle East” was not explained. The writers took for granted, likely feeling readers would understand without explanation, that “dependence on Middle Eastern oil” was “politically problematic.” If sources promoting political security were against supporting countries harboring enemies, it follows they would prefer to support friendly countries.

Due to supplying nations’ past and potential hostility toward the United States, politicians and pundits emphasized trading with friendly nations. This argument included a previously addressed energy security component—as U.S. officials want steady energy supplies—but also had a subtler message regarding the global redistribution of economic wealth. Keystone XL supporters made Canada’s long-standing benevolence toward the United States central to their pro-construction arguments, saying the pipeline “increases supplies from a friendly source of oil”

(NYT, Davenport, 2014a). This North American relationship was contrasted with uneasy linkages elsewhere. “Alberta’s vast oil sands … offer the U.S. a friendlier crude dealer” (TIME, Walsh, 120

2012c). In the wake of Middle Eastern political uprisings, Brazil also was labeled “a friendlier…dealer” (TIME, Walsh, 2012c). In this fashion, sources argued that energy purchases should be made from “friendly” nations, meaning those aligned with U.S. geopolitical goals.

Though the ideas of avoiding funding terrorists while supporting friendly nations’ economies were more frequently discussed, another political issue the oil trade plays centered on oil’s role in military matters, both as a necessity of war and as an alliance sustainer through trade.

Oil, trade, and military efforts. When discussing the role of oil in social life, the stories focused mostly on consumer issues, but at times they discussed the role of oil in state-sponsored conflict abroad. Oil was presented as a necessary resource for waging war. After the Deepwater

Horizon spill, the history of BP became a subject of coverage. Reviewing that history, Time cited

BP’s website’s statement that, in the modern era, “war without oil would be unimaginable”

(TIME, Tharoor, 2010). Indeed, military interests were what prompted the United Kingdom to become highly involved with BP (then the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company):

The British government became the company’s major stakeholder on the eve of World

War I thanks to the vociferous prodding of Winston Churchill—then the chief of the

British navy—who saw in Persia’s wells a bottomless source of fuel for Britain’s

modernizing fleet. (TIME, Tharoor, 2010)

This arrangement was beneficial to the West, as “During World War II, the refinery continued to feed the Allied war machine” (TIME, Tharoor, 2010). Six decades after World War II, U.S. military needs remained relevant. During the coverage period, U.S. forces were involved in two long-running conflicts, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and faced potential conflict with Iran over its nuclear programs. 121

Oil’s importance as a military resource surfaced in the Deepwater Horizon stories after the spill was capped. BP supplied gas to more than just everyday motorists; “BP also supplie[d] fuel to the U.S. military” (WSJ, Tracy, 2013). However, after the Deepwater Horizon sinking,

BP was punished by the government, losing government contracts, the ability to bid on new deepwater leases in the Gulf, and access to deepwater drilling. Workers from the Environmental

Protection Agency wanted BP to lose all government contracts, but knew that if they agitated too much on this issue “the Pentagon would simply invoke a national-security exception that would allow BP to continue to sell it oil” (NW, Isikoff & Hirsh, 2010). BP’s restrictions were eventually revoked, its obstacles perhaps expedited by the U.S. government’s energy demands: “Along with bidding on new exploration tracts, BP will also be able to resume supplying the United States military and other government agencies with fuel” (NYT, Krauss & Reed, 2014). Apparently, this business function was important to the U.S. government:

Although this is not widely known, BP has been one of the biggest suppliers of fuel to the

Pentagon in recent years, with much of its oil going to U.S. military operations in the

Mideast. (It sold $2.2 billion in oil to the Pentagon last year, making it No. 1 among all

the oil companies in sales to the military, according to the latest figures from the Defense

Energy Support Center.) (NW, Isikoff & Hirsh, 2010)

An interesting facet of the relationship between BP and the U.S. military was that although the military purchased large volumes of oil, the business was not particularly profitable for BP; such trade “may bring in $2 billion or more a year in revenue but has low profit margins, according to the company” (NYT, Krauss & Reed, 2014). This footnote, that BP gives the

Pentagon bargain prices on fuel, sheds insight into why the government resumed culling supplies from BP, despite potentially negative press. 122

Besides oil’s usefulness as a resource, the role its trade plays in maintaining military alliances came up at times in these stories as well. In the Keystone XL stories, the role of the oil trade in maintaining a military alliance with Canada was a concern of the project’s supporters.

Some worried that alienating Canadians would damage U.S. geopolitical strategies, especially the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan mentioned previously. The New York Times wrote that failing to satisfy the States’ northern neighbors’ desire to build Keystone XL could cause “a deep and perhaps lasting rift with Canada” (NYT, Broder, Krauss, Austen, & Wald, 2013) because

“The Canadian government is likely to be angry if President Obama blocks the pipeline” (NYT,

Greenhouse, 2013). These concerns about alienating a neighbor were not always left vague, at times they were clearly linked to U.S. war efforts:

Canada, the United States’ most important trading partner and a close ally on Iran and

Afghanistan, is counting on the pipeline to propel more growth in its oil patch, a vital

engine for its economy. Its leaders have made it clear that an American rejection would

be viewed as an unneighborly act and could bring retaliation. (NYT, Broder et al., 2013)

The retaliation hinted at seemed to be Canada removing its forces from U.S.-led military coalitions abroad. Another important selling point for the pipeline may have been its contributions to the U.S. military, as “the Department of Defense [was] the biggest U.S. purchaser of Canadian crude” (WSJ, Dvorak, Welsch, & Power, 2010).

The theme of oil trade maintaining military alliances was only rarely present in the

Deepwater Horizon stories. However, writers sometimes mentioned that the military alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom was considered a relevant influence on U.S. negotiations with the U.K.-based BP to address reparations for spill damages. In an article on the

United Kingdom’s new Prime Minister David Cameron, Time referred to the UK as the “junior 123 partner” in the political arrangement between U.S. and U.K. interests (TIME, Mayer & Assinder,

2010). The article described “British and American interests” as “inextricably intertwined,” referencing “Afghanistan and security and intelligence cooperation” (TIME, Mayer & Assinder,

2010). Time claimed that “successive U.S. administrations have come to depend on Britain to uncomplainingly support America’s global objectives” (TIME, Mayer & Assinder, 2010). The periodical provided these military details as background for the discussions President Obama and

Prime Minister Cameron would have about the Deepwater Horizon events. Thus, the governments’ approach to resolving the environmental catastrophe had to consider their military alliance.

Through these arguments regarding military alliances, status quo supporters asserted that fossil fuel production must be maintained and intensified. Arguments found in the energy security and political security frames were ideologically compatible and often advanced simultaneously. In fact, distinguishing between the two during the quantitative portion of this project was difficult for both myself and the co-coder. Thus, for quantitative analysis, these two frames were combined into a new frame, national security. This process is explained more fully in the Methodology chapter. Though these two frames concerning the welfare of the nation as a whole were important to status quo-supporters’ arguments, they advanced a third argument about how the general public, as well as certain groups, stood to profit from success of the fossil fuel industry. Specifically, these arguments economic benefits the industry generates for its laborers and investors, and, to a less frequent extent, taxpayers and governments generally.

Economic concerns frame. So far, status quo supporters’ arguments centered on U.S. citizens’ quality of life and the nation’s strength and safety, via the energy security and political security frames. Another pillar of modern life interwoven with these concepts is the economy. 124

Sometimes the concept of economic strength was treated abstractly, as writers extolled the virtues of a strong economy unreflexively. Sometimes they discussed a strong economy’s benefits for the society at different levels of governance, from local to national. However, the relationship between energy production and economic growth was most prominently related to the sectors of society benefitting most directly from fossil fuel production. The economic concerns frame captures both the desires of the fossil fuel industry’s blue-collar laborers for sustained, high-paying work, as well as the industry’s investors’ goals of profit maximization, which I termed worker security and investor security, respectively. While the sufferings of the under-employed working class and the desires of the investor class are of course very different, I group these arguments together under economic concerns for several reasons.

It was often difficult to categorize a sentiment as strictly relating to the concerns of business owners or workers. When an entire industry is impacted, the workers themselves are out of work, suffering economically and psychologically. However, business owners and stockholders are also affected. For small business owners, the effects may be more akin to those felt by workers than those felt by investors. So, while a distinction is made here between the financial issues that workers and investors face, note that their economic concerns are entangled.

A robust economy benefits both workers and investors, while downturns in the economy damage both groups’ bottom lines. The concerns of these symbiotic groups were often voiced near each other in the discourse, and by sources with similar positions in the network of fossil fuel industry workers and political supporters. Though the issues represent groups on distant poles of the socioeconomic spectrum, they are tied to a pro-development mindset oriented toward a permanently growing economy. The outcomes sought by oil industry workers and oil industry investors rely on the same precursor: continuance and intensification of fossil fuel production. 125

Thus, these economically separate groups were politically allied on issues of extractive project development in these stories. However, at times their sentiments were delivered separately.

Further, these interests represent very different types of rhetoric, as many readers are likely to feel more sympathy toward the underemployed than they would for investors with thinning profits. For such reasons, the two strands of discourse receive separate conceptual treatment, despite their theoretical entanglement.

Though the worker and investor discourses were different, they relied on a pro- development ideology often presented uncritically. The North American governments of the countries most involved in the stories, the United States and Canada, were shown to be supportive of economic development, benefitting both workers and investors. Further, the words of the journalists themselves typically supported economic development without problematizing natural resource extraction projects. The periodicals articulated both workers’ desire for jobs and investors’ desire for profits. As examples of pro-labor commentary, Time noted “the oil-and-gas industry created 9% of all new jobs last year” (TIME, Walsh, 2012c), and Newsweek discussed the need to “mobilize an army of the unemployed” (NW, Alter, 2010). As for investor discourse,

Wall Street Journal pundits debated “the best way to maximize profits and shareholder returns”

(WSJ, Dummett, 2014). The same paper featured two guest editorialists who wrote “that we can build pipelines in ways that protect the environment while yielding large economic benefits”

(WSJ, Moore & Griffith, 2014).

Worker security. When explaining their support for the Keystone XL pipeline, political leaders typically linked the project to the national goal of attaining energy security, often bringing up the companion concept of political security (the frames discussed so far). However, there was also a domestic development angle to this international energy project. Supporters said 126 this type of infrastructure project creates good jobs, sorely needed among America’s working class. The Wall Street Journal claimed that this worker security argument debuted later in supporters’ rhetoric than the energy security argument (WSJ, Cummins, 2011). However, once established, U.S. workers’ economic insecurity became the “jobs” refrain of pipeline proponents.

Whereas Keystone XL stories discussed the potential for job creation, worker security angles in the Deepwater Horizon stories mostly focused on how the oil spill had weakened the local economy. This was especially true while the spill was ongoing and actively making landfall. While job loss was the primary theme in this context, there were also mentions of the job-creation benefits of offshore drilling.

Worker security: Keystone XL and job creation. In the Keystone XL stories, blue-collar workers were frequently depicted as desperate for work, their underemployment causing economic insecurity. One editorialist wrote, “Republicans are framing Keystone as an urgent jobs and energy project at a time of high unemployment and creeping gasoline prices” (NYT,

Nocera, 2012). Continuing this discourse about Keystone XL, reporters wrote that Republicans

“championed it as a jobs creator” (WSJ, Cummins, 2011) that would “create jobs for tens of thousands of people” (NYT, Pear, 2011). Employees of the non-profit Heritage Institute wrote in an editorial for the Wall Street Journal that the project would “create more than 15,000 jobs”

(WSJ, Moore & Griffith, 2014).

The job-creation argument seemed persuasive to those who stood to occupy such positions, as the Keystone XL project was strongly supported by “the nation’s building trades unions—eager for the thousands of jobs the pipeline would create” (NYT, Greenhouse, 2013).

The New York Times wrote that “companies and unions around the country have been clamoring for the extension” (NYT, Steinhauer, 2012). The unions were motivated by a stagnant economy, 127 sentiment captured by one labor union’s president: “The U.S. construction industry has been mired in a depression for over four years now, and shovel-ready projects like Keystone XL and other energy infrastructure projects are badly needed” (NYT, Greenhouse, 2013). These laborers were not blind to environmentalists’ concerns about the pipeline, but expressed fatalism regarding protestors’ goals:

Cecil E. Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers, also backed it, saying, “I believe

the oil transferred from Canada is going to make it to some final destination no matter

what we do in the United States. I think the brothers and sisters in the building trades in

the U.S. should have the jobs.” (NYT, Greenhouse, 2013)

Keystone XL opponents did not reject supporters’ claims of rampant under-employment but argued the project’s figures: “the number of jobs that could be created by the Keystone expansion—supporters say 20,000—is disputed” (NYT, Steinhauer, 2012). Journalists wrote,

“Many Democrats oppose the project, saying it wouldn’t create many permanent jobs” (WSJ,

Harder & McCain Nelson, 2015). Supporters were counting both temporary construction jobs and those created indirectly to service the increased presence of construction workers, for example in hotels and restaurants. Opponents emphasized that the project “would create several thousand temporary construction jobs” (NW, Schlanger, 2014), but reinforced findings from the

State Department, which “estimated that the total number of permanent new jobs created by the pipeline would be 35” (NYT, Egan, 2015).

Regardless of which camp more accurately portrayed the project’s economic possibilities, the support from organized labor created a somewhat unusual political bond between labor, traditionally aligned with Democrats, and industry owners, typically aligned with Republicans.

The labor backing brought Republicans “support from dozens of Democrats in Congress” (NYT, 128

Pear, 2011) which created an intra-party struggle representing “the challenging politics of fighting climate change in an age of economic anxiety” (TIME, Walsh, 2014). The Wall Street

Journal described the issue as “a tricky one for Democrats: It pits liberal donors and environmental activists who oppose the pipeline against other Democrats, many in conservative, energy-producing states, who support it” (WSJ, Nicholas, 2014). The divide was bad timing politically, as Democrats’ Congressional power was in jeopardy, with upcoming “highly contested” midterm elections “whose fortunes in November will decide whether the Democrats retain control of the Senate” (TIME, Walsh, 2014).

Worker security: Gulf spill and drilling moratorium. Just as Keystone XL was championed as an economy booster, before the Deepwater Horizon spill, politicians across the spectrum were supportive of offshore drilling for its immense financial benefits, according to an editorialist (NYT, Abraham, 2010). For example, The New York Times wrote, “BP has been important to the [Gulf] regional economy,” employing “about 20,000 people in the United States, including 7,600 in Texas and many in the Houston area” (NYT, Krauss & Reed, 2014). Such gains fueled politicians’ pro-development mindset, according to this New York Times editorial:

Before the spill, Congress had not debated regulatory safety on wells in the gulf since the

1990s, and when it did, lawmakers focused on how to drill for more oil—which, after all,

meant more jobs and more federal revenue for pet projects. (NYT, Abraham, 2010)

As with Keystone XL, support for offshore drilling was not confined to traditionally pro- development Republicans. Journalists wrote about “Democrats like Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb … lobbying Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to make offshore drilling a priority”

(NW, Philips & Margolis, 2010) and “Senator Mark Begich, Democrat of Alaska and a staunch supporter of drilling in the Arctic” (NYT, Krauss et al., 2010). Though the visually arresting 129

Deepwater Horizon spill dominated initial news coverage, the role of the oil industry as an economic engine was also an important theme during the spill, which gained prominence after the spill was capped.

After the Deepwater Horizon sank, the Gulf region lost jobs rapidly. Whereas Keystone

XL stories discussed worker security by focusing on potential job creation, Deepwater Horizon stories focused first on jobs lost. During the spill, deepwater drilling was banned, putting many oil rig workers out of work. The spill also affected support and tourism businesses as the

“disaster that fouled huge swaths of the Gulf Coast” sullied beaches and fishing waters (WSJ,

Chazan, 2010b). The spill reduced work in “service-producing industries” including “retail trade, and accommodation and food service” (WSJ, Varghese, Nolan, & Rosenberg, 2010). Thus, the

Gulf of Mexico oil spill was a major blow to many workers in the Gulf area, not just oil industry workers. Such concerns focused on how the “oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico will affect the economies that depend on the ocean and its edible inhabitants” (NYT, Robertson, 2010).

Indeed, many in the seafood industry lost work because were not enough healthy stocks to make their work profitable. Providing a retrospective on the spill’s damage a year later,

Newsweek wrote that “nearly 85 percent of oyster reefs were lost. Catches of grouper and red snapper remain small” (NW, Newsweek Staff, 2011). These aquatic deaths meant fishers were

“panicking at the loss of income” (WSJ, Campoy, 2010). Stories noted that previous years’ hurricanes had battered the region, as “the Gulf oil spill threatens what is left of the shrimp industry here” (WSJ, Campoy, 2010). Besides the immediate damage to the region’s environment, there were concerns about long-term impacts, as oceanographers worried the spill

“harmed marine life’s ability to reproduce, endangering the livelihood of generations of fishermen on the Gulf Coast” (NW, Newsweek Staff, 2011). Note that these concerns for the 130 non-human denizens of the Gulf seem oriented toward nature on face, however, the quotes in this section treat animals only as objects with human-use value. The sources consistently link sea life to economic outputs (“catches of grouper,” “the shrimp industry,” “marine life…livelihood of fishermen,” etc.). So, while status quo-supporters lamented the spill’s negative environmental impacts in this frame, they focused solely on economic impacts.

Environmental concern compelled federal officials to pause offshore drilling in the Gulf, but when commenting upon the issue, many focused instead on economic suffering the drilling ban caused. As the Obama administration took time to study the Deepwater Horizon’s out-of- control well, its staff wanted to avoid the occurrence of another deepwater spill, and so banned deepwater drilling indefinitely to determine if increased safeguards were necessary. Oil rig workers sat idle, facing “the double blow dealt by the spill and the moratorium” (WSJ,

Williamson, 2010); the economic fallout was severe. The government-mandated moratorium

“drew quick condemnation from oil-industry representatives and their allies” (WSJ, Hughes &

Power, 2010). Economic risks for workers and the nation were highlighted to critique the drilling ban just as they were to build support for Keystone XL. Such arguments were summarized by the

American Petroleum Institute’s president: “The new moratorium threatens enormous harm to the nation and to the Gulf region…It places the jobs of tens of thousands of workers in serious and immediate jeopardy” (WSJ, Hughes & Power, 2010). Industry spokespeople were not alone in condemning the ban: “public officials and many residents of Gulf states directly affected by the spill say the ban threatens thousands of jobs in the offshore oil industry” (WSJ, Hughes & Power,

2010). Business owners and state officials wanted “the moratorium ended, or at least shortened”

(WSJ, Williamson, 2010). After the already disastrous fallout from the spill, the moratorium was blamed for causing further “economic distress,” costing “rig workers as much as $330 million a 131 month in direct wages, not counting businesses servicing those rigs like machine-shop workers”

(WSJ, Weisman, 2010). “People from the region” worked as “boat builders, tug boat operators, shippers and supply stores,” all of whom felt the pinch from the drilling ban (WSJ, Williamson,

2010). Even the government-mandated settlement from BP would be labeled insufficient, as BP

“promised an additional $100 million for Gulf workers idled by the drilling moratorium” but that amount “won’t come close to covering collateral damage from the White House’s moratorium”

(WSJ, Weisman, 2010).

After the ban was lifted, journalists opined that workers’ “return has been too little and too late” as “the local oil business has shed 13,000 jobs” (NW, Newsweek Staff, 2011). These were not just run-of-the-mill jobs; a local hardware store owner called oil-field jobs “the best option for local kids without college money, paying up to $100,000 a year with overtime” (WSJ,

Williamson, 2010). Despite the aforementioned uproar regarding the months-long moratorium, many officials also sought to increase offshore drilling regulations due to the the Deepwater

Horizon spill’s far-reaching pollution. Arguments against increased regulation were based on the same arguments used to push back against the moratorium, as Republicans “said the rules would force employers to eliminate jobs” (NYT, Davenport, 2015).

The material presented in the worker security frame makes clear that politicians, of both parties, often support development projects because they generate tax revenues and jobs, which in turn generate goodwill amongst voters. Officials are also cautious about new industrial regulations, which can reduce tax revenues and job availability. However, these compatible stances, pro-development and anti-regulation, have further economic impacts besides increasing government and worker revenues. Such stances also create profits for investors financing development. New regulations, designed to protect the safety of workers, the environment, and 132 surrounding communities can cut into investors’ profits. Thus, the pro-development politicians in these stories earned widespread worker support by arguing for job creation and protection, while simultaneously supporting policies assisting investors, a group discussed in the next aspect of the economic concerns frame.

Investor security. The primary focus of the economic concerns frame was creating and protecting working-class jobs. However, at times a secondary concept was present: investors want maximum returns on their investments. I labeled concern for profits investor security. Just as stories expressed laborers’ concerns about underemployment, the investor class’s desire for profit maximization was also articulated, though not as frequently or forcefully.

In the Keystone XL stories, the primary concern of investors seemed to be that their investments could grow more rapidly if not for the U.S. government obstructing the pipeline’s creation. These investments included the oil sands in Alberta, Canada, being mined faster than their oil could be transported to processing destinations; particularly U.S. refineries, and those

U.S. refineries themselves; likewise featuring surpluses of oil ready for transport as well as deficits in utilization of processing capacity.

When Deepwater Horizon made news, investors were anxious about potential losses. BP was at the time (and remains at time of publication) a very large company, so its potentially precipitous decline was of keen interest to investor audiences, as were effects on large companies involved with the spill. Economic coverage showed U.S. regulation impeding oil company profits, with an immediate post-spill ban and the threat of potentially intensified regulation.

Profits stifled by limited pipeline capacity. Keystone XL stories described a blossoming energy economy, as new technologies allowed development of previously untapped sources of fossil fuels. However, the abundance was not easily handled: “Amid a surge of oil production in 133

North America, producers, refiners and shippers have scrambled to reconfigure the continent’s aging pipeline infrastructure to accommodate all the new crude coming out of the ground” (WSJ,

Cummins & McKinnon, 2013). Canadian investors wanted the Keystone XL pipeline expanded to move their sudden surplus of oil sands output:

Production is now 1.58 million barrels a day, up from 1.12 million barrels a day five

years ago. Canadian shippers need more pipeline capacity to move that new production to

the U.S., where almost all of Canada’s oil exports now wind up. (WSJ, Cummins, 2011)

While a resource surplus might seem beneficial to outsiders, investors’ profits decreased due to the windfall. As Canadian oil sands output increased, U.S. petroleum harvests from shale rock formations rapidly increased due to hydraulic fracturing advances. The parallel growth decreased profits on both sides of the border:

A growing bottleneck of oil in western Canada…And a surge in U.S. production has led

to competition with Canadian crude for pipeline space, exacerbating the bottleneck.

Earlier this year, the price for Canadian crude fell sharply compared with U.S. and

international benchmarks because of the difficulty producers have had in getting their

product to market. (WSJ, Cummins & McKinnon, 2013)

Not only were prices depressed, but they were less predictable, which investors typically disdain; analysts expected “price volatility as long as capacity on pipelines out of Alberta remain[ed] tight” (WSJ, Cummins & McKinnon, 2013). Expanding capacity would have smoothed over price fluctuations, pleasing investors. However, the Alberta oil sands mines were not the only operations operating below capacity. As mentioned, U.S. suppliers were also encountering a supply increase their infrastructure was unprepared for. They too desired the creation of more 134 pipeline capacity: “The industry also saw the Keystone line as a way of unlocking a bottleneck of crude that has built up in Cushing[, Oklahoma]” (WSJ, Cummins, 2011).

Though the Keystone XL expansion became a U.S. political debate, the texts made clear that the North American governments of Canada and the United States were typically supportive of private profits. As mentioned in the energy security frame, U.S. leaders, especially

Republicans, lobbied heavily for the Keystone XL pipeline. Similarly, “Canada’s federal government in Ottawa and the provincial government of Alberta have lobbied hard for the pipeline” (WSJ, Cummins, 2011) as “the nearly 200 billion bbl. of oil available in the Albertan sands could make Canada richer” (TIME, Walsh, 2010a).

Not only did Keystone XL supporters perceive the U.S. government obstructing an infrastructure solution that would facilitate oil company profits, they also saw opponents’ protests as ultimately futile. The pipeline’s supporters asserted that blocking its expansion would not stop Canadian oil interests from selling their oil sands bitumen. Invested Canadians’ desire to transform the product into profits was strong, and the federal government and industry agreed on the matter. Just as U.S. labor unions assumed the bitumen would be mined and transported one way or another, Canada’s economic and political leaders reportedly saw the Keystone XL debates as temporary obstacles, not permanent ones. A Time editorialist made clear that the

States’ northern neighbors had a backup plan to pivot their sale pitch: “I can attest that Canadian businesspeople and officials are planning seriously for Asian markets—especially since they have come to regard U.S. energy policy as politicized, hostile and mercurial” (TIME, Zakaria,

2013). A New York Times editorialist agreed: “Instead of blithely assuming the United States would purchase its oil, Canada is now determined to find diverse buyers so it won’t be held hostage by American politics” (NYT, Nocera, 2012). Thus, observers believed that Keystone XL 135 protests could be meaningless, “if that crude is simply exported and burned in, say, China—as

Canadian officials have pledged” (TIME, Walsh, 2012a). The pipeline’s supporters agreed that no matter what the U.S. government decided, the oil sands would be mined, due to Canadian investors’ desire for profits. Whereas Keystone XL proponents consistently pointed out that there were profits to be made from building the pipeline, Deepwater Horizon stories were not focused on profits to be made in the future, but rather profits disappearing in the present.

BP, other companies’ economic outlooks affected by spill. Because BP was a very large, multinational, publicly held company, the effects of the Gulf spill on its financial health were a prime aspect of Deepwater Horizon coverage, even after the spill was capped. “BP was the biggest oil producer in America and the most successful operator in the Gulf of Mexico” (WSJ,

Bower, 2010); it held “more leases in the region than any other company.” (WSJ, Tracy, 2013)

So, all eyes were on the company when disaster struck; initial foreboding was soon confirmed.

Shortly after news of the spill’s severity broke, the company’s shares “fell nearly 7% on the

London Stock Exchange … reflecting investors’ concerns at the potential impact the oil spill would have on the company’s reputation, and, potentially, its bottom line” (WSJ, Power &

Chazan, 2010). Observers speculated, “repairing the environmental disaster will cost a fortune,” with costs of “at least $6 million every day for the clean-up operation” (WSJ, Bower, 2010).

Further darkening the company’s outlook, the U.S. government, displaying frustration with BP and perhaps seeking public approval, blocked BP from government contracts and Gulf leasing.

Coverage of the company’s fluctuating value continued as BP faced multiple trials to determine the total damages the company would have to assume. BP investors were likely very concerned with the final outcome, thus driving intense economic news coverage “of what the

Financial Times calls ‘the trial of the century’—the trial now under way in New Orleans, where 136

BP faces tens of billions of dollars in potential penalties for the disaster” (NW, Hertsgaard,

2013). Early penalty estimates were high; if convicted of gross negligence BP “would be fined

$4,300 per barrel … for a total of $17.5 billion” (NW, Hertsgaard, 2013). Such large fines, added to the amounts afflicted states were pursuing, could have had “a powerful effect on BP’s economic health” (NW, Hertsgaard, 2013).

When the company reached a final agreement with the U.S. government, the settlement was significant, at $18.7 billion, but not as intimidating as early extreme estimates (WSJ, Gilbert et al., 2015). BP stockholders greeted the news enthusiastically, lauding the BP’s negotiations, as the company expected much of its payouts to be tax-deductible (WSJ, Gilbert et al., 2015). Thus, post-Deepwater Horizon coverage was optimistic for the company: “BP’s reputation appears to have survived: its market value as this article went to press was a tidy $132 billion, and few, if any, BP officials appear likely to face any legal repercussions” (NW, Hertsgaard, 2013).

While most investment news in the Deepwater Horizon stories focused on BP, two companies contracting in the failed operation were also covered. Halliburton drilled the well for

BP; Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon and operated the rig under lessee BP’s direction.

Though President Obama pointedly called the Deepwater Horizon blowout “BP’s oil spill” (NW,

Thomas, 2010), after the well blew, the corporations involved attempted to toss the political hot potato: “BP, Halliburton, Transocean and other partners in the well have traded accusations of blame as civil and criminal investigations have proceeded” (NYT, Broder, 2010). Halliburton defended itself, “assigning the blame for the accident to BP” (NYT, Broder, 2010). Similarly,

Transocean called BP’s suit against it “specious and unconscionable” (WSJ, Tracy, Ordonez, &

Lefebvre, 2011). 137

The government stuck to its plan to pin the majority of cleanup costs on BP, but also pursued the contracting corporations. Financial observers noted, “the government’s decision to pursue the contractors Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton Co. for infractions jolted the contracting industry, which traditionally avoids liability in such accidents” (WSJ, Tracy, Ordonez, &

Lefebvre, 2011). Such charges boiled down to future lawsuits, but not financial insolvency. “The fines won’t make a significant dent in the bottom lines of any of the companies. But now that the government has officially branded the contractors as violators, it could weaken their legal position against spill victims and BP” (WSJ, Bower, 2010).

Though Halliburton and Transocean investors had concerns regarding penalties for the spill, the vast majority of fines were applied to BP. Central to BP’s trial was the charge that the company rarely, if ever, had the public’s interests in mind when making decisions. BP’s questionable ethics were a major theme in Deepwater Horizon coverage. However, while the

BP’s profit-driven logic deals with economic issues, it does not fit into the economic concerns frame articulated by status-quo supporters. These actors focused on income gains and losses, rather than non-economic effects of business decisions. Though BP’s trials showed that unethical decision-making can have negative economic consequences for companies, this argument was barely covered. When focusing on ethics, the journalists, editorialists, and sources quoted generally focused on how selfish business decisions negatively impacted innocents not profiting from the decisions. Thus, the sub-frame of corporations putting profits before people are dealt with later in this paper, under status quo-critique frames. For now, I maintain focus on status quo-supporters’ economic concerns. In addition to worries about how the spill and resulting lawsuits would damage companies’ long-term prospects, investors also voiced concern about losing profits from immediate and future regulatory actions. As the Obama administration 138 scrambled to control the Deepwater Horizon disaster, both in terms of oil spilled and public perceptions, its deepwater drilling ban added to the Gulf region’s economic frustrations.

Government regulation pauses, threatens offshore drilling industry. The Gulf oil spill ruined seafood catches and deterred tourists. However, the spill did not stop rigs from drilling in the area, that was the federal government. Like the spilled oil, the administration’s ban on deepwater drilling significantly diminished the region’s economy. The worker security section of this paper described comments related to workers’ lost wages. Owners of companies in the affected industries (oil, tourism, and seafood) lodged similar concerns. The concerns from the perspective of owners and investors in the oil industry are presented here to illustrate how investor concerns were described, relative to worker concerns. However, the differences between coverage of worker and investor issues was similar for the tourism and seafood industries, so those industries’ ownership perspectives are not repeated here, for sake of brevity.

As soon as the deepwater ban was imposed, rigs began leaving the Gulf for waters they could legally work. The moratorium was “a blow to BP, the largest oil producer in the Gulf, with output of more than 400,000 barrels a day” (WSJ, Power & Chazan, 2010). Eventually, the moratorium “forced 33 deepwater rigs to pull anchor” (WSJ, Weisman, 2010). Though the ban only applied to deepwater rigs like the Deepwater Horizon, “a group representing shallow-water drillers” claimed that uncertainty about the ban’s rules paused “their industry, affecting hundreds of rigs” (WSJ, Hughes & Power, 2010). After one drilling company moved two of its “deepwater rigs to foreign waters,” its president “warned that ‘there won’t be much of a U.S. industry left’ if the moratorium lasts six months” (WSJ, Hughes & Power, 2010).

Besides concerns about the moratorium permanently eroding the Gulf economy, industry watchers were wary of potential legislation. Uncertainty surrounding the government’s long-term 139 regulatory response to Deepwater Horizon was another prominent theme in coverage of the spill’s aftermath. Oil companies foresaw “a political and regulatory backlash brewing” for deepwater drilling (WSJ, Power & Chazan, 2010). Widespread concern existed as to how potential new regulations might affect profitability; the industry started “bracing for change as

U.S. government oversight increases” (WSJ, Chazan, 2010b). Pundits wrote that “Congressional battles over oil-company liability, safety oversight and—perhaps most important to the industry—expanded drilling” would follow the rig’s explosion (WSJ, Williamson, 2010). Some worried the “blow-out could terminate oil companies’ hopes for drilling the easy oil off Florida”

(WSJ, Bower, 2010).

The moratorium did last six months, as one drilling company president worried it might, and lawmakers indeed instituted new regulations to avoid future deepwater spills. However, the local industry still came back:

The oil industry rebounded quickly from the accident in spite of a six-month deepwater

drilling moratorium and a spate of new regulations. Thirty months after the spill, offshore

oil and gas operations in the Gulf have all but returned to their pre-accident levels. (WSJ,

Fowler et al., 2012)

Recovering from the initial spill and ban took time, but toward the end of the coverage period, the texts showed the region returning to business as usual: “Four years after the Deepwater

Horizon disaster, giant new oil projects are returning to the Gulf” (WSJ, Gilbert, Harder, &

Scheck, 2014). However, some believed the spill changed Gulf economics, tilting the playing field toward major companies, away from smaller operations “that have often been at the forefront of deepwater exploration” (WSJ, Chazan, 2010). 140

With drilling in the Gulf of Mexico returning to its previous routines, the investor concerns concepts in the Deepwater Horizon stories all followed the same arc: initial worries that the huge spill would blight profits in several industries followed eventually by a cautious belief that profits had resumed flowing as usual. Obviously, the Keystone XL stories could not have the same closure, as the pipeline status remained in limbo (in fact, its creation is still a contested issue at the time of publication).

The economic concerns frame is the final frame advanced by status-quo supporters, following energy security and political security. The next elements to discuss from the corpus reviewed are frames used by sources criticizing the status quo. These critics agitated for increasing safety precautions in the fossil fuel industries, and ultimately called for societies to move away from fossil fuel dependence. These frames included extraction impacts on humans, consumption impacts on humans, and extraction impacts on nature.

Status Quo-Critique Frames

The three frames oriented toward critiquing and altering the status quo were largely social activism. Their proponents were united by the desire to safeguard fossil fuel extraction and slow its consumption due to these processes’ negative side effects. Opponents of the Keystone

XL project structured their arguments around impulses to protect their own health as well as the health of other people, animals, and landscapes. They argued that such entities were vulnerable and could be irreparably harmed by the fossil fuel industry. Similar patterns were at play in the

Deepwater Horizon stories, where many worried about impacts of the rig’s uncontrolled well on human and environmental health. In the aftermath, many suggested the need for caution in future drilling endeavors and the most ardent environmentalists wanted to stop offshore drilling altogether. 141

Those critiquing the status quo spoke against the harmful effects of fossil fuel extraction and consumption. By extraction, I refer to the production processes involved in removing fossil fuels from the ground, transporting them to processing facilities, processing them, and transporting them to points of distribution to end users. By consumption, I mean the act of burning fossil fuels in order to produce energy. Everyday consumers are most familiar with consuming gasoline through ground and air vehicles for transportation purposes. Other forms of fossil fuel consumption include burning coal to make electricity or natural gas to warm people’s homes.

When critiquing fossil fuel use, actors articulating these frames discussed two groups that could be considered “worthy victims,” in the language of Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) propaganda model. These two groups were humans and non-humans, or, more generally,

“nature.” By nature, I mean elements of the Earth’s biosphere that are not human, such as animals and landscapes.

Status quo critics’ fears lay with the harmful externalities produced by fossil fuel use.

Primarily they were concerned with how fossil fuels negatively impact human health and lives.

The first critique frame, extraction impacts on humans, examines the side effects of fossil fuel industry processes. Critics asserted that the extraction, transportation and processing of fossil fuels often harms people. The second critique frame, consumption impacts on humans, focuses on how the burning of fossil fuels drives climate change, which in turn will have negative impacts on humans. The third and final critique frame, extraction impacts on nature, also concerns negative impacts of the fossil fuel industry, but instead of examining impacts on human lives, considers animals and other non-human elements of the biosphere. Though these 142 arguments are ideologically similar and were often voiced in tandem by the same actors, they are also distinct, in that they focus on different victims of industrial activity.

The frames are discussed in this order to demonstrate the progression of environmental ideologies found in the frames of these stories, along Corbett’s (2006) scale from the most anthropocentric to the most ecocentric. The first two status quo-critique frames, extraction impacts on humans and consumption impacts on humans, are human-centered, and thus are conceptually similar to the status quo-support frames. Though critiquing the status quo, they support the dominance of anthropocentrism, putting humans first. The third status quo-critique frame, extraction impacts on nature, features a different “victim,” and thus operates under a different environmental ideology, the closest worldviews to ecocentrism found in these stories. I will first explain the critical frames regarding negative effects on humankind caused by extraction and consumption of natural resources before detailing similar arguments regarding impacts on nature.

Extraction impacts on humans. The first frame critiquing the status quo’s fossil fuel economy shared central characteristics with the first three frames discussed so far: concern for humans’ self-preservation and quality of life. As with the first group of frames, those speaking against extraction impacts on humans argued that the human species should look out for its own welfare. However, rather than focusing on the benefits of energy-powered or energy-protected lifestyles, these frames focused on the negative side effects that the industrial procurement and widespread consumption of fossil fuels have on humankind. In this frame, sources described the fossil fuel industry as messy, directly impacting physical health. Further, danger from the industry’s pollution was characterized as long-lasting, capable of causing health effects over time, and its industrial disasters’ psychological tolls were detailed. These arguments were 143 conceptually distinct from similar complaints, voiced by similar actors, regarding the negative impacts of fossil fuel consumption on humans, specifically its links to climate change. Those arguments will be addressed in discussion of the next frame, consumption impacts on humans.

Direct impacts of extraction on human health. Agitators’ most strident argument against the status quo was that extracting natural resources is messy and dangerous. They argued that such processes are fraught with harmful side effects for people in the vicinity of extractive work.

Sources articulating this frame argued that minerals are difficult to mine and contain, typically focusing on crude oil. They pressed that such dynamics mean every extraction project creates externalities—expenses that are not directly paid for by the companies producing the resources, or their consumers. These arguments were framed foremost as problems for humans, but also as problems for nature (animals, plants, landscapes, eco-systems, etc.), content that is dealt with in the next section, extraction impacts on nature.

Sources operating in this frame argued that extractive work is dangerous because it releases many chemical byproducts that can harm humans. Journalists discussed how some people in industrialized parts of the world acknowledge the risk that comes along with the fossil fuel-powered lifestyle, and debate whether the benefits of energy consumption outweigh the harms of inevitable industrial accidents: “Felicia Marcus, Western director of the Natural

Resources Defense Council [said,] ‘Marine life and coastal communities will be impacted, [so] we have to start asking ourselves if it’s worth it.’” (NW, Philips & Margolis, 2010).

Though the risks to people generally were presented as manifold, the most at-risk group discussed may be oil industry workers. Oil industry work is often dangerous, despite mandatory safety precautions. Examples of workers dying in these texts were plentiful, especially in the

Deepwater Horizon story arc, “the disaster that killed 11 people” (NYT, Krauss & Reed, 2014). 144

There were also historical examples: “In March 2005 an explosion at a BP refinery in Texas

City, Texas, killed 15 workers and injured more than 170” (NW, Thomas, 2010) and “The blasts and subsequent fires [in Bhopal, India that] killed 15 workers, injured 180 others, and sent

43,000 people fleeing to indoor shelters” (NW, Isikoff & Hirsh, 2010).

During the clean-up efforts in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, BP ordered its cleanup crews to use a chemical dispersant known as Corexit. The mixture of crude oil and Corexit is much more toxic than either ingredient on its own (NW, Hertsgaard, 2013). BP failed to inform people coming into contact with the mixture that they should have proper safety gear, contributing to health impacts for workers (NW, Hertsgaard, 2013). “According to BP’s own data, 20 percent of offshore workers in the gulf had levels of 2-Butoxyethanol two times higher than the level certified as safe by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration”

(NW, Hertsgaard, 2013).

While risking lives on the job seems necessary for many oil industry workers, such as those involved in the Deepwater Horizon cleanup, status quo critics also argued that oil’s industrial processes can cause illness and even death for neighbors not involved with the trade.

The aforementioned cleanup chemical Corexit is an example of this problem. A Newsweek article profiled the many maladies this situation inflicted on the Gulf community, beyond the cleanup workers: “The 32-year-old single mother was coughing up blood and suffering constant headaches. She lost her voice…Like hundreds, possibly thousands, of workers on the cleanup,

Griffin soon fell ill with a cluster of excruciating, bizarre, grotesque ailments” (NW, Hertsgaard,

2013).

Another example of industrial processes harming neighbors is that during the rapid increase in harvest of North Dakota’s shale gas, owners regularly “flared” their wells, igniting 145 gases they were not planning on capturing for transport, an example of several dynamics endangering locals’ health:

Accidents, fires, blowouts, leaks, spills, ruptures and other problems occur regularly in

North Dakota, with nearly 1,800 such incidents reported in the past 12 months…Flaring

also produces a slew of other pollutants linked to serious public health effects, including

asthma, cancer and early death from respiratory and cardiovascular causes. (NW, Juhasz,

2015b)

In addition to directly affecting the health of people who encounter oil and other industrial chemicals, fossil fuel pollution was presented as potentially infiltrating natural resource supplies humans depend on, slowly causing long-term health impacts.

Pollution creates long-term dangers. The previous sub-frame developed the idea that extractive work is messy, and its by-products can immediately harm people, both workers and bystanders. However, a subtly different sub-frame depicted extractive pollution as enduring, affecting human communities long after the initial pollutive act. Sources using this sub-frame claimed that extractive activity creates environmental degradation, which in turn harms humans over time. For example, it was the task of President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to determine if the Keystone XL pipeline was in the United States’ “national interest” which included “safety, health, and environmental requirements” (WSJ, Knappenberger, 2013). They argued that the government had to research the extent to which the project might harm

Americans in the long run.

Further examples of discourse linking environmental health to human health were descriptions of how oil spilled from the Deepwater Horizon polluted Gulf ecosystems, which in turn left humans vulnerable. The widespread damage meant that BP would have to pay “the U.S. 146 and Gulf Coast states to cover long-term environmental damages” (WSJ, Gilbert et al., 2015).

Attempting to cap the out-of-control well in the Gulf of Mexico, the Coast Guard’s retired admiral Thad Allen, who led the spill response, linked “the interest of the American people” to

“safety of the environment” (NYT, Fountain & Robbins, 2010). The oil spill in the Gulf of

Mexico was dangerous in many ways, one of which was its potential to expose coastal regions to intensified storm action:

The real disaster for the gulf would come if the polluted mangrove swamps and grassy

coastal marshlands die from oil coating their roots...the swamps and marshes anchor

barrier islands, losing them would put the islands at risk of being inundated by storm

surges. In that case, the coasts they protect would be exposed to the full fury of

tomorrow’s Katrinas. (NW, Begley, 2010)

Besides land erosion, another prime concern in this sub-frame was humans’ drinking water sources. Status quo critics pointed out that when crude oil spills, it can enter drinking water and be difficult to remove. Other kinds of oil mining, such as oil sands and shale natural gas, require chemical abrasives and liquids, that if not disposed of properly can similarly enter waterways. Water was a particular concern in the Keystone XL pipeline debates, as the original path proposed by TransCanada would cross the Ogallala aquifer in Nebraska, “a vital source of drinking water for the Great Plains” (NYT, Frosch, 2011). Opponents “worried an oil spill could damage the aquifer, which provides water for the state’s people and agricultural economy” (WSJ,

Welsch, 2011). Due to fears related to water contamination, Nebraska’s Republican Gov. Dave

Heineman expressed disapproval for the route initially proposed: “We’ve tried to make it very clear that we support the pipeline but oppose the route over the Ogallala Aquifer” (NYT, Broder,

Frosch, Broder, & Austen, 2011). 147

Similarly, there were concerns voiced about hydraulic fracturing, namely that “Fracking fluids contain small amounts of toxic chemicals, and there have been allegations…that it contaminates groundwater” (TIME, Walsh, 2012c). Many sources worried that fossil fuel extraction activities could harm U.S. crops:

Wastewater, an unwanted by-product of the oil drilling process, contains fracking

chemicals, oil, radioactive material and water that’s been dredged up from deep

underground—and which, in North Dakota, is 17 times saltier than ocean water. It can

destroy farmland, sterilizing the soil for decades. (NW, Juhasz, 2015b)

While people need clean water to drink and irrigate with, other food supplies are also vulnerable to fossil fuel pollution. As noted in the economic concerns frame section, the issue of pollution harming edible sea life surfaced in the Deepwater Horizon stories. However, even without major spills, offshore drilling was presented as a threat to human safety through seafood contamination:

Environmentalists argue...that the thousands of gallons of mud deepwater drilling

unearths contain toxic metals—mercury, lead, and cadmium—that may end up in the

seafood supply. The water that comes up from wells contains a toxic mix of benzene,

arsenic, lead, and various radioactive pollutants, according to studies by the Natural

Resources Defense Council. (NW, Philips & Margolis, 2010)

These arguments that the oil industry pollutes water and food supplies were particularly pronounced among indigenous populations. For example, “Winona LaDuke, a prominent Native

American activist from the White Earth Ojibwe tribe of northwestern Minnesota” (NW,

Schlanger, 2014) fought against construction of a pipeline similar to Keystone XL that would pass through her homeland: 148

The tribes surrounding the Great Lakes have been harvesting wild rice for thousands of

years, a livelihood LaDuke says is threatened by the risk of spills from Enbridge’s

pipelines. “We’re going to fight them. We have no choice. Wild rice is our life. It feeds

our people. With them threatening to damage our rice, we have no choice. You’ve seen

the Native opposition to the Keystone XL. Ours will be just as big.” (NW, Schlanger,

2014)

Native Canadians living near the oil sands in Alberta claimed to suffer in myriad ways from water pollution produced by oil sands mining:

…the local First Nations indigenous community … fears what the mining and waste are

doing to its land…For the indigenous people of Alberta, the catastrophe is hitting now. In

the tiny, isolated village of Fort Chipewyan, downstream from the massive oil-sands

mines, community members … told stories of water pollution from the mines’ tailings

ponds, higher cancer rates and early deaths. (TIME, Walsh, 2010a)

Native Americans living along the proposed Keystone XL pipeline path worried that similar fates, including deforestation and water pollution, awaited them if the pipeline was built: “Some

Indian communities and environmental groups have called the 750-mile pipeline a threat to local species and native cultures” (NYT, Krauss, 2010a).

As the Deepwater Horizon story evolved, there was tangential coverage of other offshore drilling. In a story about offshore drilling in Alaska, Native Alaskans presented concerns about access to safe food supplies needed to continue their way of life: “Other hunters pressed [Shell’s]

Mr. Slaiby on concerns that the migrating walruses they depend on for food would suffer from the noise if drilling operations began north of here” (NYT, Krauss, 2011). Besides the obvious threats to their physiological health, people who live close to the land were nervous about 149 potential impacts of extractive work on their mental health as well, because the health and economic effects of industrial pollution and disasters can damage communities.

Psychological toll of industrial disasters. While sources building the extraction impacts on humans frame typically focused on adverse physiological impacts of the oil industry’s work, they also articulated impacts on people’s mental health. The twin stresses of health effects and economic downturns that accompany environmental disasters were presented as having long- standing impacts on communities. When attempting to gauge the likely impact of the Gulf spill on the region’s people, comparisons were made to the previous most famous U.S. oil spill. Time wrote, “The 1989 Exxon Valdez spill inflicted a psychic wound on the residents of Alaska’s

Prince William Sound that still aches more than 20 years after the tanker ran aground” (Walsh,

2010b). Comparisons were made between “the Alaskan coastal communities that have yet to recover economically or psychologically” (NW, Begley, 2010) and the Gulf communities hit with successive hardships of lost work, health impacts, and drawn-out settlement procedures:

“The kids look all right,” says Parker Sternbergh, a social worker at Tulane University, as

she scans the children at play. “But sit down with them and you can feel the stress they’re

all under.”

You can read the stress in the tired, worried faces of their mothers too. They fear

for their husbands in the fishing industry, who face a bitter choice between

unemployment and taking a cleanup job with BP, the company they hate….And just as

the worst environmental impact of the spill could be occurring out of sight, in the depths

of the Gulf, the most lasting potential social damage is invisible too: anxiety and anger

that erode community ties and the very psyches of the residents. 150

Already there’s a spike in demand for counseling, as well as increased reports of

stress, excessive drinking and domestic violence. (TIME, Walsh, 2010b)

Hearkening back to that 1989 accident in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, Time reported academic research foreshadowing that many Gulf residents would be dealing with stress for years, as involvement in a lawsuit was a significant predictor of enduring post-spill stress

(Walsh, 2010b).

The psychological stress victims of industrial disasters endure has many layers. One of them is anger at companies for not ensuring the safety of members of the communities in which they operate. In fact, corporations’ prioritization of economic gain over other concerns, including human safety, was a major theme in critique of the status quo.

BP put profits before people. Under certain circumstances, critiquing the business decisions of a for-profit company could be categorized as economic concerns, a frame in the status quo-support frames. However, ethical critiques are presented here with status quo-critique frames because they represent criticism of extractive industries, rather concern for economic gain. The critique of corporations found in the corpus will be presented in two separate places in this document. First, the critique of BP, representing the Deepwater Horizon stories, is presented here under extraction impacts on humans, because criticism of BP was largely criticism of extraction processes. Critique of oil industries generally, for pursuing a profit model that critics represented as harmful to the human species and the biosphere, will be discussed in the next frame section about consumption impacts on humans, as this argument was related to climate change rather than extraction externalities.

The coverage of the oil spill resulting from the Deepwater Horizon’s failed attempt to control a well in the Gulf of Mexico soon became a condemnation of BP’s business practices. As 151 investigations into the decisional errors behind the spill advanced, journalists constructed a narrative depicting BP as valuing profits for its stockholders enough to increase negative effects of its practices on its workers and the general populace. Thus, status quo critics’ charges that fossil fuel industries’ extractive activities produce harmful outcomes for others gained an element of intentionality. The executives in charge of BP’s decision making were described as willfully increasing the probabilities of such harmful outcomes to improve the company’s profit margins. This was not only a publicly presented discursive charge, it became a criminal charge levied by the U.S. government.

BP’s practices of minimizing expenditures to maximize profits, with the side effect of increasing potential dangers, were documented prior to the Deepwater Horizon spill. In post-spill coverage, Newsweek recounted the company’s 2005 Texas City refinery that “killed 15 workers,

[and] injured 180 others” (Isikoff & Hirsh, 2010). A government investigation determined that the explosion was “caused by company deficiencies ‘at all levels of the BP Corporation’— including repeated cost cutting that affected maintenance and safety” (NW, Isikoff & Hirsh,

2010). In one employee’s words, “There was a corporate philosophy that it was cheaper to operate to failure and then deal with the problem later rather than do preventive maintenance”

(NW, Isikoff & Hirsh, 2010). In post-Deepwater Horizon trial coverage, placing workers in danger was presented as standard operating procedure for the company, as the Justice

Department asserted that “Reckless actions were tolerated by BP, sometimes encouraged by BP”

(Krauss & Meier, 2013). Besides reducing safety before inevitable breakdowns, the company used other tactics to minimize losses after the spill.

BP’s approach to payments of Gulf residents were also described as unethical techniques to maximize profits by minimizing losses. One such maneuver was “making boat owners, many 152 of whom have been temporarily put out of work by the spill, sign agreements to work in the cleanup effort that included waivers of certain kinds of liability” (NYT, Robertson, 2010).

Another questionable move was rushing potential plaintiffs; “the Alabama attorney general condemned reports that a BP employee had offered quick $5,000 settlements for economic damages in exchange for waivers of future liability” (NYT, Robertson, 2010). Besides attempting to reduce payments to Gulf residents, BP also worked to minimize government fines.

Critics charged that BP attempted to obscure the amount of oil it spilled. A White House staffer said, “BP has a ‘vested financial interest’ in minimizing the size of the leak because the fines the company will eventually pay will in part be based on the amount of oil that has escaped” (NYT, Mouawad et al., 2010). The New York Times charged that the “company has consistently refused to use widely used scientific techniques to measure the spill,” adding that despite promising transparency, the company “wavered between providing information to the public and strictly limiting it” (NYT, Mouawad et al., 2010). Journalists also charged that BP tried to reduce others’ abilities to measure the spill. One of BP’s primary strategies in dealing with the spill was applying chemical dispersants, causing the oil to sink to the sea’s floor, rather than floating and accumulating into oil slicks. Dispersant application made estimating the amount of oil spilled more difficult, as oil spills are typically gauged by the size of resulting slicks (NW, Hertsgaard, 2013). Newsweek (2013) argued that BP’s use of dispersants and information control represented the company’s focus on profits, as “The disaster appeared much less extensive and destructive than it actually was” (Hertsgaard, 2013).

By putting the corporation on trial, the U.S. government publicly chastised BP for putting profits before people. The administration made clear that it is illegal for a corporation to knowingly increase the risk of exposure to harm for workers and the populace in order to 153 increase profits. The Obama administration acknowledged that the agency in charge of regulating offshore drilling, the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), was not doing fulfilling its mission. Newsweek quoted Obama condemning the “cozy relationship between oil companies and the federal agency that permits them to drill,” as “he vowed to close loopholes and break up the MMS” (NW, Thomas, 2010). With a revolving door between industry and government, the previously regulated becoming the regulators, the MMS represented the proverbial fox guarding the hen house (NW, Thomas, 2010). The BP trials and sanctions were intended to be correctives to deviation from socially acceptable business and regulatory practices.

In addition to charges of a lack of concern regarding their business’s external effects leveled at BP and other oil companies, status quo critics charged that the industries’ executives were blind to, or dishonest about, the more significant, but less easily detected, impacts of their work: the contribution of fossil fuel consumption to climate change. So far in this section I have detailed frames covering concerns about how extractive operations impact human lives.

However, even if extracting oil from the earth and transporting it were perfectly controllable processes, concerned actors in these texts also frequently pointed out that consuming fossil fuels, i.e., burning them for electricity or transportation needs, transforms the environment in deleterious ways. Specifically, the release of that previously stored carbon into the atmosphere warms the planet and changes weather patterns, processes known cumulatively as climate change.

Consumption impacts on humans. In addition to highlighting accidental impacts of fossil fuel extraction, sources opposing the status quo also asserted that consumption of fossil fuels is problematic. Specifically, they asserted this behavior causes and exacerbates climate 154 change, which will have disastrous results for humans. Status quo critics articulated several sub- frames under this empirical umbrella, including the existence of climate change, the grave threat it poses, specific outcomes it could result in, and in a few cases, its likely human victims. Status quo critics asserted that climate change’s seriousness demands opposition. Sources in this frame described fossil fuel consumption as a primary cause of climate change, and so sometimes articulated a “keep it in the ground” policy of ceasing fossil fuel development. The Keystone XL debates were indicative of environmentalists’ concerns regarding unintended impacts of fossil fuel consumption; I finish this frame’s section showing why this policy issue became the focus for many of those concerned about climate change.

It should be noted that arguments about the impacts of fossil fuel consumption mostly manifested in the Keystone XL stories, as opponents felt mining the oil sands would not be prudent. In the Deepwater Horizon stories, many expressed outrage at the spill, and along with politicians suggested increasing regulations for offshore drilling, if not cessation altogether.

However, because Deepwater Horizon stories were not as much about considering a potential industrial action as they were dealing with the ramifications of an action gone awry, arguments about stopping climate change did not come up nearly as often. Environmentalist concerns were mostly oriented toward the effects of the spill on the local biosphere and the irresponsible behavior of BP, the primary corporation involved in the spill, as detailed in the previous extraction impacts on humans frame section. There were, however, concerns about how damage to local biological communities could affect climate change:

The deep-sea communities are also linchpins of the global carbon cycle—the ocean’s

garbage men and recycling centers. … “The biggest biological component of the global

carbon cycle is in the deep sea,” says marine biologist Jeffrey Baguley of the University 155

of Nevada; without deep-sea organisms, dead marine creatures would accumulate like

bottles and cans in places without deposit laws. That would deprive the rest of the living

seas of the nutrients they need to keep life going. If a large enough area in the depths of

the gulf becomes a kill zone, organic matter would accumulate in the sediment and be cut

off from the rest of the ecosystem, says marine scientist Mahlon Kennicutt of Texas

A&M. (NW, Begley, Yarett, & Stone, 2010)

The implication in the preceding passage is that damaging sea lifeforms could eventually exacerbate climate change, as the oceans’ abilities to absorb carbon are diminished. However, such passages were rare, and so Deepwater Horizon stories’ quotations do not appear frequently in this frame’s descriptions. In the Keystone XL stories, on the other hand, there are frequent references to status quo critics’ certainty that climate change processes are currently taking place.

Climate change is happening and is a serious threat. Actors speaking against the status quo continually reiterated that climate change is not a far-off potential outcome, but is rather the reality of the present era, something we are currently coping with. Status-quo critics often reminded readers that the planet is warming with statements like, “Scientists are already predicting that this winter could be the warmest in recorded history in the Northeastern U.S.”

(TIME, Walsh, 2012a), “2012 is on track to be the hottest year on record” (TIME, Walsh, 2012b), and “in all the years of record keeping, only one summer has had warmer water—last year” (NW,

McKibben, 2011).

Actors in the consumption impacts on humans frame maintained that climate change is not only happening, but that it may treat humans to significantly negative outcomes. Though typically vague, these threats were nearly always powerfully worded. As mentioned previously,

Congress member Bernie Sanders was a highly vocal opponent of the Keystone XL pipeline. He 156 introduced a resolution about climate change, asserting that “climate change is the most serious environmental crisis facing this planet” (NYT, Davenport, 2015). A prominent activist called climate change “humanity’s gravest threat” (TIME, Walsh, 2012a). When discussing the multilateral efforts of the United Nations to get countries to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions to slow global warming, the potential agreement was presented as “an accord that could save the planet” (NW, Gidda, 2015).

Though the case was often made that climate change is a serious threat to humanity, this argument’s proponents were rarely quoted spelling out precisely what the likely negative outcomes would be, but at times the scientific forecasts and their sociopolitical ramifications were detailed. Some sources reported that warming weather means warmer water, which has resulted in a dramatic increase in dangerous storms. For example, a Newsweek editorialist wrote,

“Extreme weather is getting worse…. Even before [Hurricane] Irene, the U.S. had already set a record in 2011 for the most billion-dollar weather disasters” (NW, McKibben, 2011). Newsweek encapsulated the trends, if they continue, into a bleak future:

…the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica will start to melt at an unstoppable pace,

prompting a catastrophic rise in global sea levels. Parts of the world will be hit by

devastating floods while others will experience severe droughts that will lead to famine

as crops fail and potable water supplies dry up. (NW, Gidda, 2015)

While this frame’s proponents often reinforced the generally destructive nature of climate change, they rarely indicated who exactly would be suffering. There were not many references to one country or group that was more likely to be affected than others. One rare reference was to

Bangladesh: “The low-lying South Asian country is uniquely vulnerable to climate change”

(TIME, Walsh, 2012a). Another article touched on domestic communities: “Like so many other 157 coastal Alaskan villages, Wainwright and Kaktovik are slipping into the ocean” (Juhasz, 2015a).

Though the exact effects and victims of climate change were not always outlined, the sense of urgency, based on the arguments that it is happening right now and its effects will be severe, amounted to a moral call to action for sources critiquing the status quo.

Climate change must be actively opposed. Due to climate change’s anticipated destructive effects, environmental activists in these texts were united in advocating policy pushing back against the threat. A prominent Democrat activist insisted to then-President Obama at a fundraiser, “Every generation gets one issue not to muff, and this is the one we can’t muff”

(TIME, Walsh, 2014). Sources in this frame decried inaction, calling for meaningful policies to be instituted as soon as possible. An editorialist called climate change a “genuine emergency,” adding, “The scientific evidence has become too stark to indulge denial or dithering” (TIME,

Grunwald, 2013a). Then-President Obama frequently characterized the matter as urgent as well.

Though accused of “climate silence” during his first term (TIME, Grunwald, 2013a), in his second term Obama returned to his first campaign’s environmentalist rhetoric, mentioning

“climate change once every 4.5 days” (NW, Gidda, 2015).

Some status quo critics scoffed at the accusation that scientists were being alarmist by pushing climate change to the front of political agendas. This dynamic, in which status quo- supporters downplayed the risks of industrial activity while status quo-critics described such activities’ externalities as very threatening, was common in both sets of stories. In the Deepwater

Horizon stories, political adversaries debated the likely impact of the spill on the environment, but the climate change debate did not feature strongly. However, in the Keystone XL stories, critics often focused specifically on the project’s potential contributions to climate change. 158

Fossil fuel consumption drives climate change. In their battle against climate change, status quo critics’ policy fronts included reinforcing the links between fossil fuel consumption and climate change’s acceleration. Speaking on how the recent glut of oil production might affect the planet, Time wrote that “burning all this leftover oil could lock the world into dangerous climate change” (Walsh, 2012c). In another article, Time wrote that “the burning of oil is responsible for about 40% of the greenhouse gases that come from fossil fuels—second only to coal—this has serious implications for climate change” (TIME, Walsh, 2012b).

Because status quo-critics believed that burning fossil fuels exacerbates climate change, they argued against developing such resources. Keystone XL opponents believed that enhancing infrastructure for exporting Canadian oil sands crude oil would intensify its production.

Editorialists from The New York Times writing against the project said it would “dramatically increase greenhouse gas emissions” at a time “when we must dramatically decrease them to avoid extreme, increasingly variable and unstable changes to the world’s climate, and catastrophic consequences for human health” (New York Times Staff, 2012). Supporting a large contingent of organizations delivering “a ‘Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground’ declaration,” a “top

U.N. climate official” explained that to avoid “the most dangerous effects of climate change” we would need to leave “three-quarters of the fossil fuel reserves” in the ground (NW, Juhasz,

2015b). President Obama also used this language: “Ultimately, if we’re going to prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we’re going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground” (NW, Juhasz, 2015b). Keystone XL opponents saw rejecting the pipeline as a way to move toward the goal of “leaving some carbon in the ground” (TIME, Grunwald, 2013a). Thus, blocking Keystone XL became a symbol of the critics’ “keep it in the ground” approach to fossil fuels. More broadly, the fight against Keystone 159

XL was a very public complaint about the status quo relationship between government and extractive industries.

Keystone XL as symbol: Protestors call for people before profits. The “keep it in the ground” approach some status quo critics advocated calls for public policy that is oppositional to extractive business models. This policy position is motivated by ethical concerns. Proponents of the consumption impacts on humans frame argued that oil industry investors were being selfish by further developing fossil fuels. Further, the Keystone XL protests were an indictment of not only oil companies’ profits-first approach, but also the federal government’s complicity in such goals. Thus, this sub-frame presents public policy as facilitating climate change, benefiting the wealthy few at the expense of the many. Also, in this section I explain why environmentalists chose Keystone XL to make this discursive stand.

In these texts, corporations were constructed as unwilling to take responsibility for their role in exacerbating climate change, choosing instead to focus on profits. Critics’ logic was that without “the regulatory regimes in place,” corporations will not create environmental safeguards, because those expenses decrease their profit margins (NYT, Krauss, 2013). Because corporations are profit-focused, executives and shareholders did not want their funds tied up in “an unproducible asset” (NYT, Krauss, 2013). Keystone XL was shown to be necessary to unlocking the oil sands’ profitability: “Extracting Canada’s huge deposits of oil sands in the next few years might not be economically viable without building the hotly contested Keystone XL pipeline into the U.S.” (WSJ, Johnson & Dawson, 2013). Because the pipeline expansion was necessary for their investments to see a positive return, investors supported the project, dismissing concerns about its potential climate change ramifications. 160

Oil executives were aware of public discontent surrounding their industries. As one

Canadian executive put it, “We read the newspapers every day and we know what everyone is thinking … The status quo is unacceptable” (NYT, Krauss, 2013). Yet executives often presented public opinion as a barrier to be overcome. As one put it, “Oil sands are important and we need to make them wanted … Perception is reality” (NYT, Krauss, 2013). Though status quo critics labeled investors’ profits-only focus as selfish, they did not articulate expectations of corporate change. Instead, activists aimed their discourse toward altering the behavior of government officials; they were truly protesting government’s supervision of industry.

The Keystone XL protests were “about more than one pipeline” (NYT, Grijalva, 2014).

The political contest over the pipeline “escalated into a broad debate on the economy, energy production and climate change” (WSJ, Harder & Sider, 2015) as the pipeline became “a potent political symbol” (NYT, Davenport, 2014a). Perhaps most centrally, the protests were a critique of the status quo relationship between government and extractive industries. In fact, at times environmentalists made concessions about the overall climatological impact of the Keystone XL expansion: “Opponents of Keystone say that the specifics are less important in this case and that it is the symbolism that matters” (TIME, Zakaria, 2013). Journalists wrote that the debate was not merely about the oil sands in Alberta, but more so about turning the tide in cultural and political systems firmly oriented toward continuing a fossil-fuel based economy. Editorialists explained how Keystone XL was a political tipping point: “Environmentalists have decided that enough is enough” (NYT, Grijalva, 2014); “It’s true that Keystone isn’t the ideal battleground for the fight against global warming. … But the Montgomery, Ala., bus system wasn’t the ideal battleground, either; it was just where Rosa Parks decided to fight” (TIME, Grunwald, 2013b). 161

Activists working against Keystone XL saw the government as historically rubber- stamping development projects, approving them without adequately considering their long-term impacts on the public. Democratic Congress member Grijalva (2014) wrote a New York Times editorial describing his take on the previous administration, when “George W. Bush was president and big business wrote environmental policy.” This political context influenced discourse: “Keystone has rallied the entire environmental community because it is a visible and sometimes painful reminder of the way things were done under Mr. Bush” (Grijalva, 2014).

Keystone XL opponents presented government as forging lenient environmental regulations supporting the economic interests of a wealthy minority while ignoring the quality of life interests of the electorate majority. A nonprofit leader asserted that “More than 78,000

Americas [sic] stand ready to risk arrest to stop the White House and the State Department from putting the oil industry’s interest before our national interest” (NYT, Davenport, 2014b). Indeed, opponents “organized two large protests outside the White House, including one … in which several thousand protesters encircled the mansion (Broder et al., 2011). Protestors foregrounded

“the motto, ‘separate oil and state’” (Broder et al., 2013). The rationale behind such passionate, risky behaviors on protestors’ part was their argument that if the government continues prioritizing investors’ capital gains over citizens’ long-term health, the eventual outcome will be disastrous for the majority. Scientists warned that if climate change proceeds unchecked, it will prompt “a catastrophic rise in global sea levels” (NW, Gidda, 2015). A prominent protestor said that while the Civil Rights movement fought “for equality, we are fighting for existence” (NYT,

Broder et al., 2013). A Time editorialist called the debate “a choice between Big Oil and a more sustainable planet” (Grunwald, 2013a). Native American activist Winona LaDuke said the 162 pattern of government supporting corporate action “is not a public interest, it’s a private interest”

(NW, Schlanger, 2014).

The environmentalists quoted in these stories represented government’s appropriate role as looking out for welfare of the collective, in the present and future. However, they saw this role being corrupted by the political system. Critics argued that the U.S. campaign-finance system results in elected officials beholden to the wealthy special interests that financed their campaigns.

Activists claimed that Americans have gotten “used to the idea that the rich will use their wealth to warp public policy toward their own interests” (TIME, Walsh, 2014). A New York Times editorial implied that the motivations for U.S. approval of the project were “pressure from the

Canadian government, big oil and the industry’s friends in Congress” (New York Times Staff,

2011). Mere consideration of the pipeline expansion aroused “assertions that the United States cannot be serious about controlling global warming if it gives Canada an export outlet for the oil” (NYT, Krauss, 2013). Grijalva (2014) wrote in the New York Times that if the pipeline was approved, the American public “will lose faith in the government’s ability to fund, carry out, understand and implement scientifically based environmental policy.” Canadians also expressed concern that oil sands politics were subverting their own democracy (NYT, Homer-Dixon, 2013).

In summary, these stories’ activists argued that the U.S. government is not fulfilling its duty of protecting its citizens. Thus, Keystone XL protests were largely protests of a political system functioning improperly, promoting leaders who do not prioritize the majority of voters’ interests. These activist arguments, that corporations’ profit-first focus is harmful for society and that the government is overly sympathetic to industry goals, were not unique in their application to the Keystone XL expansion. Though development projects are always being considered, 163 environmentalists chose to put their energies into this particular policy battle for two logistical reasons.

One reason activists focused on the proposed Keystone XL expansion was that it presented an unusual political opportunity. Sierra Club’s Executive Director Michael Brune said,

“It’s rare that a president has such a singular voice on such a major policy decision” (NYT,

Broder et al., 2013). An editorialist similarly emphasized the president’s power on this situation, writing, “There are many climate problems a President can’t solve, but Keystone isn’t one of them” (TIME, Grunwald, 2013a). Because President Obama had the power to single-handedly veto the multinational development project, activists saw the opportunity to leverage their discursive influence into a major policy victory (TIME, Walsh, 2012a).

A second reason for focusing on this policy issue was that Keystone XL was regarded as a major accelerator for climate change. The Sierra Club called Keystone XL a “climate disaster in the making” (WSJ, Moore & Griffith, 2014). Several sources referenced the well-known climate scientist James Hansen’s highly publicized claim in an editorial for The New York Times that developing the oil sands in their entirety would mean global warming would proceed irrevocably: “If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate”

(Hansen, 2012). As mentioned previously in this paper, the oil sands discovered in Canada were vast, estimated to be “‘the second largest source of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia,’… 13 percent of the global total” (NW, Gross, 2010). A nonprofit president asserted, “This is a large source of carbon that’s going to be unleashed. We’re headed in a terribly wrong direction with this project, and I don’t see how that large increase in carbon is going to be offset” (NYT,

Davenport, 2014a). Further, “Producing fuel from bitumen is expensive and uses a lot of energy,” so “production of synthetic fuels made from oil sands creates substantially more 164 greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline made from conventional oil” (NYT, Krauss, 2013).

Because the Canadian oil sands deposits are so vast, and because tapping them would release more carbon than other forms of oil, the policy debate became highly publicized. However, in order to understand this case’s context in its entirety, one must consider the political rhetoric of the time.

The Keystone XL debates occurred during a political transition, from an industry-friendly

Republican president, George W. Bush, to an environmentalist friendly Democrat, Barack

Obama. A prominent Democratic editorialist wrote “President Obama won the White House by running as an agent of change: change from Mr. Bush’s way of doing business with business, and change from Washington’s habitual corporate favoritism” (Grijalva, 2014). Specifically,

Obama pledged to fight climate change, saying “that his term would see ‘the rise of the oceans begin to slow and the planet begin to heal’” (NW, McKibben, 2011). Pundits said environmental activists would view Obama’s permitting of the pipeline “as a betrayal, and as a contradiction of the president’s promises in his second inaugural and State of the Union addresses to make controlling climate change a top priority for his second term” (NYT, Broder et al., 2013). Thus, environmentalists saw Keystone XL as “an opportunity to confront Obama, who dropped an early climate-change agenda in the face of stiff resistance” (TIME, Walsh, 2012a). and “turned

Keystone into a with-us-or-against-us test of his climate commitment” (TIME, Grunwald,

2013b). Sierra Club’s Michael Brune explained Obama’s situation: “Whatever damage approving the pipeline would do to the environmental movement pales in comparison to the damage it could do to his own legacy” (NYT, Broder et al., 2013). Further, Obama was in his first term during most of the Keystone XL debate and faced uncertain reelection; he had to consider 165

“the loud agitation of environmental advocates who threatened to withhold electoral support” if he approved the pipeline (NYT, Broder et al., 2011).

Ultimately, Obama “made climate change a second-term priority” (TIME, Worland,

2015), validating his campaign rhetoric by vetoing the pipeline. For this action, Obama was constructed by supporters as putting people before profits. Similar to the BP case after

Deepwater Horizon, the Obama administration attempted to confirm government’s role as protector of the people, censuring industrial activity that caused egregious harms. Where the previous administration was thought to put profits before people, the Obama administration was constructed as pushing back against the status quo.

Keystone XL’s opponents crusaded against climate change, and the fossil fuel development they believed drives it. This fight meshed ideologically with status quo critics’ charge that extractive activities harm people. Whether discussing the dangers caused by extraction or consumption, the arguments of those agitating against the status quo most frequently focused on human victims. However, sometimes they linked their arguments to non- human victims, demonstrating concern for nature for its own sake.

Extraction impacts on nature. Those criticizing the status quo primarily based their arguments on protecting humans. When they discussed protecting features of nature, such as watersheds, it was usually just to protect humans’ health and interests. However, at times they discussed protecting nature from human action without bringing up human interests. For example, there were discussions about safeguarding aspects of nature that have little direct use- value, such as birds’ migratory corridors. The implication was that such work would be morally correct, rather than self-serving. When discussing protecting nature, these stories typically focused on the harmful by-products of the fossil fuel industry. Thus, just as the stories discussed 166 extraction impacts on humans, they also discussed extraction impacts on nature. However, when it came to the dangers of climate change, the risks to nature were very rarely described. Thus, in this research project there is no consumption impacts on nature frame.

Sources agitating against the status quo pointed out that extractive projects such as

Keystone XL and Deepwater Horizon not only have the potential to harm humans who live nearby, they can also create negative impacts for ecosystems and their non-human inhabitants.

Concerns with nature were sometimes presented quite generally. Basically, sources articulated the idea that extractive activities damage nature and that is an undesirable outcome. When being more specific, they indicated that such activity tarnishes landscapes and harms life forms and their habitats. Further, it was maintained that extraction’s effects on natural systems are long- lasting and difficult to undo. References to the effects of fossil fuel extraction on nature sometimes had specific worthy victims, in Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) terminology.

However, usually the “victim” was “the environment,” in its totality, rather than a certain sub- group or category from amongst its inhabitants and features.

References to the general negative effects of extractive activity on nature in the Keystone

XL stories were plentiful. They included lines like “oil-sands development can be devastating to the environment” (TIME, Walsh, 2010a), “tapping the oil sands comes with an environmental cost” (TIME, Walsh, 2012a), “there’s one major loser from inexpensive oil…and that’s the environment” (TIME, Walsh, 2012b), and “tar sands production is one of the world’s most environmentally damaging activities” (NYT, Homer-Dixon, 2013).

There were similar comments in the Deepwater Horizon stories in which the ocean-floor spill was labeled “one of the worst environmental disasters in history” (WSJ, Weisman, 2010). 167

The disaster had a uniquely modern feature as “The Webcams [sic] broadcasting images from the spill provide[d] a real-time measure of the environmental cost” (NW, Gross, 2010).

While many references to environmental damage lacked specific victims, some specifically mentioned landscapes, with connotations regarding both aesthetic and biological values. In the Keystone XL stories such comments often referenced forest land, writing that harvesting “oil sands entails strip-mining vast swaths of boreal forest” (NYT, Lydersen, 2010).

This “disruptive” process was described as “more like surface mining than conventional drilling”

(WSJ, Cummins, 2011). At times the damage was described emotionally, for example Time wrote “there’s no avoiding just how extensively industry has altered the land....scarring the land for decades[;]...there are still vast chunks carved out of what was once forest” (Time, Walsh,

2010a). Regarding natural gas projects, Newsweek implied that the planet’s surface was marred, as “the scenic buttes of the reservation’s famed North Dakota Badlands, where wild mustangs still roam, are now alight with the flames of flares so numerous and bright that they’re visible from space” (NW, Juhasz, 2015b).

Whereas the pipeline’s opponents decried deforestation, the underwater oil spill that sunk the Deepwater Horizon polluted coastal regions as it “coated hundreds of miles of sensitive beaches, marshes and mangroves with oil” (WSJ, Gilbert et al., 2015). Journalists used powerful language to describe the environmental alterations. The Wall Street Journal wrote, “Nearly 590 miles of Gulf shoreline are oiled, the biggest chunk of it Louisiana marsh” (WSJ, Ball, 2010) as

“the spill smothered Louisiana shorelines” (WSJ, Williamson, 2010); “in Port Fourchon, winds have pushed the tide so high that a gooey layer of oil now coats the entire beach” (WSJ,

Zimmerman, 2010). 168

Blemished landscapes were not just implied to be aesthetically unattractive, environmental proponents noted that such damage impacts the survival of those environments’ inhabitants. This argument meant that individual animals would die, and when such death was widespread, whole ecosystems could be disrupted.

There were not as many references in the Keystone XL stories to life forms as in the

Deepwater Horizon stories. Still, there were concerns about potential impacts on habitats. The

New York Times editorial board charged that Keystone XL would threaten “wildlife, including billions of migrating birds” (NYT, New York Times Staff, 2012) and so “the State Department … needed to give more consideration to how constructing and operating the pipeline would affect wetlands” (NYT, New York Times Staff, 2011). There was special concern that the pipeline’s path “avoid the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region” of Nebraska (NYT, Frosch, 2011)

“where a spill of diluted bitumen would be especially damaging” (NYT, New York Times Staff,

2011).

The Deepwater Horizon stories also featured concern about potential impacts of pollution on habitats:

Scientists worry such plumes could reduce the levels of underwater oxygen necessary to

sustain an array of sea life because natural bacteria that consume submerged oil and

methane use up oxygen in that process. (WSJ, Ball, 2010)

Indeed, scientists worried about the region’s ecosystems collapsing due to an enormous

release of crude oil not only onto vulnerable shorelines and fragile marshes but also into

the largely unexplored depths of the sea. The consequences for the delicate balance of

existence in the vulnerable ecosystems of the gulf, and for the vast cycles of nature that 169

sustain life there and beyond, are as incalculable as they are potentially devastating. (NW,

Begley, Yarett, & Stone, 2010)

Late spring is the reproductive season for scores of species in and around the wetlands,

and young animals are especially vulnerable to the toxic effects of oil. (TIME, Walsh,

Padgett, & Crowley, 2010)

A controversial sand berm plan to protect sensitive “wetlands, which serve as vital nurseries for fish and birds” (NW, Begley, 2010) from the Deepwater Horizon pollution was under attack because it “could kill the wetlands without the oil ever reaching them” (NW,

Begley, 2010).

Whereas the Keystone XL stories about a proposed project had negligible actual animal casualties to describe, in the aftermath of Deepwater Horizon, the Gulf of Mexico was rife with such death. As the disaster unfolded, TV crews were present: “Viewers tuned in to see once beautiful birds, soaked in oil, lying dead” (NW, Thomas, 2010). The spill was found to be

“contaminating brown pelicans, terns, and other seabirds” (NW, Begley, 2010). While “dead birds tug at the public’s heartstrings” (NW, Begley, 2010), not all deaths reported were easily communicated to the public. For example, “the combination of Corexit and crude oil also caused terrible damage to gulf wildlife and ecosystems...and massive die-offs of the microscopic life- forms at the base of the marine food chain” (NW, Hertsgaard, 2013). At times, a holistic approach to the spill’s effects was taken: “All the zones of life interact, and now they’re probably all being hammered” (NW, Begley, Yarett, & Stone, 2010). Time described how the spill could affect an entire ecosystem:

That underwater mix of oil and dispersants could poison fish larvae, with cascading

effects up the food chain, and damage the corals found in some parts of the Gulf. “The 170

whole water column from the top to the bottom is getting it on the chin,” says the EDF’s

Rader. (Walsh, Padgett, & Crowley, 2010)

Though these die-offs were often described with scientists’ precision, at times the emotional reactions of local residents were presented, for example a local political leader’s: “‘I get tears in my eyes, because when you’d pull into that marsh previously, fish would jump and scurry,” he said afterward. Now, “ain’t a bird, ain’t a bug, nothing…Everything was dead’” (NW,

Thomas, 2010). Scientists helping ascertain the damage were also emotional:

“Many of our worst fears are coming true,” says Ken Rosenberg, director of conservation

science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “No bird that depends on oil-impacted

wetlands or water is going to be completely safe.” (TIME, Walsh, Padgett, & Crowley,

2010)

Pollution’s impacts difficult to remedy. In addition to pointing out potential habitat impacts and actual loss of wildlife, critics of the fossil fuel industry pointed out that it is difficult to remedy the environmental destruction caused by extractive activity. Once a fragile ecosystem is altered, these sources said it takes many years for it to return to equilibrium. Writers asserted that this rule would hold true regarding the oil sands mining that prompted the Keystone XL debate, as “Producing oil from the sands in northern Alberta can be destructive to the local environment, requiring massive open-pit mines that strip forests and take years to recover from”

(TIME, Walsh, 2012c). The project’s opponents also publicly disagreed with TransCanada’s claims, such as one editorialist who pointed out the challenge of cleaning other spills: “They say it is safe, but the disastrous spills from tar sands oil pipelines in Mayflower, Ark., and into the

Kalamazoo River in Michigan took years to clean up” (NYT, New York Times Staff, 2015). 171

Similarly, after the 87-day spill following the Deepwater Horizon’s sinking finally ended, concerned voices noted that the capping of the well did not end the story. “BP’s oil will assault the gulf, and possibly the Atlantic, for years” (NW, Begley, 2010); “BP and the Gulf Coast face a lengthy process of cleaning up the huge slick that has fouled beaches and wetlands from Texas to

Florida” (WSJ, Hughes & Power, 2010). The Wall Street Journal summarized the situation thusly: “Although the well is now plugged for good, the repercussions of the disaster will be felt for years, possibly decades. The work of restoring the tarnished ecosystems of the Gulf Coast is just beginning” (WSJ, Chazan, 2010b). Besides the previously noted argument that oil is challenging to contain these stories also took place in environments that are more difficult than others to clean. For example, journalists noted, “If the oil reaches mangrove swamps and marshlands on the Louisiana coast, it cannot be vacuumed up” (NW, Begley, 2010). This technicality was problematic: “The Louisiana marshes have borne the brunt of the oil’s coastal assault, and cleaning them up is far tougher than scraping oil off the sandy beaches along the

Florida, Alabama and Mississippi coasts” (WSJ, Ball, 2010). One writer put the situation in perspective simply: “If you think it’s tough to clean oil from a bird or beach, try cleaning it from the roots and stems of a wetland’s grass and reeds” (NW, Begley, 2010).

In addition to detailing the direct impacts of extractive processes on nature, at times journalists pointed out that fossil fuel consumption will impact nature, too. However, unlike the effects of climate change on humans, the potential effects on nature were very rarely discussed.

Similar to the discussion of humans, specific victims were generally not named. There were few instances of writers or sources expressing concern with how climate change would affect other species in these texts. The primary way that sources labeled nature a victim due to climate 172 change was to assert that the climate itself would be altered and make clear this was a negative outcome.

Industry critics asserted that fossil fuel consumption will negatively alter the global climate and condemned that state of affairs. The climate change tropes mostly came up in

Keystone XL stories. For instance, as mentioned earlier, climate scientist James Hansen argued against processing Canadian oil sands, saying “There’s enough carbon there to create a totally different planet” (TIME, Walsh, 2012c). Other concerns about the climate itself sounded similar, decribing “the larger risk to the climate” of “unconventional oil” (TIME, Walsh, 2012c) or

“effects development of the Canadian oil sands would have on the global climate” (NYT, Broder et al., 2013). Because other species were hardly mentioned in these quotations, the concerns may be anthropocentric in nature, as the humans quoted worried out loud about a changing climate, with the implication that the human species would not enjoy the experience.

The issue of consumption’s effects on nature did not arise much in the Deepwater

Horizon stories during the spill. In stories about debates over future offshore drilling published long after the explosion, the need to shift away from a fossil fuel economy due to intensifying global warming and climate change did come up. However, this discussion was in light of climate change’s effects on humans. Basically, the effects that climate change may have on nature, for nature’s sake, was not a theme in this story arc.

Now that I have detailed the frames discovered in the texts that were relevant to environmental values, I shall present a response to the second research question, which asks which environmental ideologies those frames represent. 173

Linking Environmental News Frames to Environmental Ideologies

This study’s first research question was designed to discover frames demonstrating environmental values in the corpus’s news texts. The second research question sought to link the frames discovered to corresponding environmental ideologies. In order to link the frames described in the previous section to the environmental ideologies mapped out in Corbett’s (2006) environmental ideology spectrum, I will first review the spectrum’s ideologies. This step will refresh readers on the ideologies’ salient distinctions and indicate how I believe those differences are relevant to categorizing the news frames found in this study. In this section I will also explain how I will incorporate the ideologies into the quantitative portion of the study. After reviewing applicable ideologies, a brief summary of each frame will be given as the frames are placed on

Corbett’s (2006) spectrum.

The Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies: Anthropocentrism to ecocentrism.

Corbett (2006) reviewed the work of Rodman (1983), Fox (1996), and Hay (2002) to array known environmental ideologies along a spectrum with poles of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. Anthropocentric ideologies place humans at the top of a hierarchy, with other elements of the natural world ranked beneath them (Corbett, 2006). From an anthropocentric worldview, “natural resources exist only to serve human welfare” (Corbett, 2006, p. 27).

Conversely, ecocentric ideologies replace hierarchy with “heterarchy” (Corbett, 2006, p. 27), meaning that all elements of the natural world are equally valuable to the continuation of life on

Earth. From an ecocentric worldview, the desires of humans are not considered more important than allowing other species, ecological communities, and environmental features continued existences, unaffected by our own actions. Corbett (2006) writes that U.S. discourse features all environmental ideologies but is dominated by anthropocentrism. She adds that ideologies are idiosyncratic—each person forms their own worldview. Further, adherents of these ideologies 174 disagree with each other on certain premises. Therefore, generalizations about ideologies are necessarily problematic, and must be couched in a certain amount of uncertainty. That said, there are shared characteristics among worldviews that allow them to be delineated and categorized.

The relevant categories that Corbett (2006) identified from previous environmental literature are outlined here.

Anthropocentric ideologies, including environmentalism. Anthropocentric ideologies place humans’ needs above all other concerns. The most anthropocentric ideology according to

Corbett (2006) is unrestrained instrumentalism. Under this philosophy, “Natural resources of all kinds are ‘instruments’ whose essential purpose is to serve human ends” (Corbett, 2006, p. 30).

Also, this ideology shows little concern for the future. Adherents of unrestrained instrumentalism are not worried that future generations of humans will not enjoy the same degree of access to natural resources as they did (Corbett, 2006).

Moving along the spectrum from the anthropocentric pole toward the ecocentric pole, the next anthropocentric ideologies that Corbett (2006) describes are conservationism and preservationism. Conservationists also see natural resources’ value entirely in their human-use value, but unlike unrestrained instrumentalists, conservationists consider the future when developing resource-use plans. Conservationism is the philosophy in line with the wise use movement (Corbett, 2006). Under this belief system, humans should use natural resources wisely, so that they can maintain access to those resources in the future. There is a social justice component to conservationism, as humans not only desire to use natural resources themselves, they also want future generations of humans to be able to access those resources.

Corbett (2006) places preservationism only slightly further toward ecocentrism along the spectrum of ideologies, and states that conservationism and preservationism are very similar. 175

Both conservationism and preservationism are governed by utilitarianism, the value system calling for decisions that utilize resources for “the greatest good of the greatest number” of people (Corbett, 2006, p. 32). Whereas conservationism is concerned only with “utilitarian and economic value” (Corbett, 2006, p. 35), preservationism includes other reasons for valuing natural resources, such as aesthetic, religious, and survival motivations.

I believe that this distinction between conservationism and preservationism may be a bit overblown, as most of the preservationist concerns Corbett (2006) offers have “utilitarian and economic value” (Corbett, 2006, p. 35), which she attributes to conservationism. Common definitions of instrumental reference something that is a tool or means to an end (Merriam-

Webster, n.d.), while economic value is presumably produced when people earn material wealth, typically financial profits from transactions. Corbett (2006) discusses preserving wilderness for its genetic storehouses and “undiscovered medicines, as well as its value as ecosystems that produce water and watersheds, produce game and nongame animals, and regulate climate” (p.

35). I would posit that all of these motivations have utilitarian and economic value. Just to touch on a few, medicines help people; they are a tool to make us feel better. They are also harnessed to earn enormous profits. Therefore, medicines have utilitarian and economic value. Similarly, water is a natural resource that is used as a tool for utilitarian purposes, such as watering crops, facilitating transport of goods, and creating recreational opportunities. These outcomes produce not only utilitarian benefits, but also economic value.

Finally, Corbett (2006) differentiates aesthetic and religious motivations from concerns with utilitarian and economic value. This is a logical claim, but it’s important to note that aesthetic and religious motivations produce utilitarian and economic outcomes. Corbett (2006) cites early preservationists’ beliefs that wilderness could rehabilitate urbanites’ troubled spirits. 176

City dwellers using natural spaces to decompress are using them as a means to an end, a utilitarian outcome. Further, maintaining an emotionally healthy workforce creates profits for business owners and increases tax bases for governments (as well as reducing expenditures on healthcare for mental health episodes). Therefore, aesthetic motivations also yield utilitarian and economic value. Similar dynamics can be said for religious motivations for preserving natural spaces. If religious adherents see maintaining nature as important to their faith, then government’s maintenance of natural places may compel them to willingly pay full taxes, continue donating to their organizations of faith, and volunteering in their community. These actions all produce utilitarian and economic value, despite being motivated by religious reasoning. Further, any spaces that are valued for aesthetic and religious reasons are bound to serve as pilgrimage sites. Travelers’ terrestrial movements create economic value for businesses

(stopping for fuel, food, lodging, etc.) and government agencies (sales tax, tolls, permits, etc.).

These arguments reveal that Corbett’s (2006) distinction between the values underlying conservationism and preservationism makes sense as a philosophical distinction, but outcomes related to the divergent value sets may be largely similar. This weakening of the distinction between the two ideologies is an important component of my next argument, that the two philosophies may be considered as one for the purposes of this study.

For the purposes of this research project, the distinctions between conservationism and preservationism are immaterial. First, while sources quoted in these news texts frequently advocate certain policies, the rationales underlying their policy goals are rarely stated in the texts. Thus, it would be impractical, if not impossible, to distinguish whether people making environmentalist arguments in these texts are representing conservationism and not preservationism, or preservationism and not conservationism. Also, Corbett (2006) states that the 177 two philosophies together represent the bulk of the “environmental social movement and the current dominant ideology of the movement” (p. 33). For people who do not identify with environmentalism, especially unrestrained instrumentalists, the reasons for moderating natural resource use are likely irrelevant. Such adherents are unlikely to parse out the differences between conserving resources for future generations and preserving wild spaces for aesthetic reasons. To outsiders, conservationism and preservationism would both be labeled environmentalism. Thus, because it is impossible to tell in most cases if people quoted in news stories expressing pro-environmental sentiment are representing conservationism or preservationism, because these two movements together represent the environmental movement, and because the majority of outsiders would likely discern no difference between the two, they will be collectively described as environmentalist philosophies, or environmentalism, for the purposes of this research.

It should be noted that the hot-button political debates regarding natural resource use between status quo supporters and environmentalists feature perspectives decidedly on the anthropocentric side of Corbett’s (2006) environmental ideology spectrum. While unrestrained instrumentalists and environmentalists may seem worlds apart in terms of their discourse and policy goals, they operate under the same over-arching ideological premises: humans are the most important components of the natural world and all decisions should be made with their interests in mind. However, due to conservationism and preservationism’s focus on preserving environmental systems, regardless of their proponents’ motivations, Corbett (2006) places these ideologies closer to ecocentrism, the opposite pole on her environmental ideology spectrum, than unrestrained instrumentalism. 178

The intense public discourse against environmentalism could be considered surprising, considering that Corbett (2006) states that conservationism is not radical, it is “very conservative” (p. 33). For example, conservationism “hasn’t meant changing individual or institutional lifestyles centered around automobiles or highway use,” it simply calls for policies that “ensure resources for future generations of humans” (p. 33). Truly transformative, ecocentric discourse would do more than call for preserving natural resources for future humans’ usage and enjoyment. After examining the anthropocentric philosophies that comprise modern environmentalism, we can examine more radical environmental ideologies, ones that attempt to flatten the perceived status hierarchy separating humans from the nonhuman natural world.

Ethics and values-driven ideologies: Preliminary ecocentrism. As Corbett (2006) proceeds from anthropocentric to ecocentric ideologies, the first ideologies she offers on the ecocentric side of her spectrum are ethics and values-driven ideologies. These types of ideologies are different from the three anthropocentric ideologies discussed so far, because they grant elements of the nonhuman world intrinsic value, or telos, “an end of their own” (Corbett, 2006, p. 39). This value statement is a dramatic departure from even the environmentalist discourse of conservationism and preservationism, both of which grant value “to the nonhuman world with strings attached” (Corbett, 2006, p. 37).

The primary philosophies Corbett (2006) offers to represent ethics and values-driven ideologies are animal rights and land-based ethics. These ideologies grant inherent rights to animals and ecosystems, respectively. Animal rights adherents believe that humans do not have the right to extinguish other species from the biosphere; we must respect other species’ rights to exist. Corbett (2006) states that this philosophy falls short of true ecocentricity, due to faults in its logic of moral extensionism, as well as its typical hierarchy granting greater rights to certain 179 species, sentient ones for example. Land-based ethics calls for respect of natural systems, including ecosystems and their nonliving elements, such as beaches and deserts. Corbett (2006) states that this philosophy too falls short of true ecocentrism, as it suggests behaviors and rules that people should enact, rather than locating the social capital necessary for an overhaul of human institutions.

Though Corbett (2006) states that values-driven ideologies fall short of true ecocentricity, these two philosophies (animal rights and land-based ethics) exemplify the most ecocentric comments represented in the news texts examined for this study. Therefore, values-driven ideologies, which grant nonhuman elements of nature intrinsic value unrelated to their human- use value, will be considered ecocentric ideologies for the purpose of this study. Corbett (2006) goes on to describe ideologies getting closer to ecocentricity, ideologies that are truly transformative. However, in my opinion such transformative discourse did not appear in these mainstream mass media texts. Therefore, there would be no reason to measure the frequency of appearance of truly ecocentric discourse in the texts. But since values-driven ideologies do appear, and Corbett (2006) grants these ecocentric status, albeit just barely, they will suffice to represent the cutting-edge of ecocentric discourse represented in mainstream news.

Status quo supporters’ anthropocentric frames. The news frames journalists produced using status quo supporters’ arguments all aligned with the most anthropocentric ideology on

Corbett’s (2006) spectrum, unrestrained instrumentalism. The primary features of unrestrained instrumentalism are a focus on humans; disregarding or discounting needs and desires of nonhuman elements of the natural world, and a focus on immediate human needs; ignoring the potential needs of future human generations. All three status quo support frames represented these two positions. 180

Energy security. In the energy security frame, status quo supporters pointed out that natural resources that produce energy, especially fossil fuels, are necessary to modern lifestyles, yet an abundant supply of them is not available in the United States. Because U.S. consumers, businesses, and government agencies all require large volumes of oil, preferably at the lowest possible prices, acquiring oil is an important political priority. However, domestic supplies have dwindled to the point that the country must seek supplies from outside nations. Those nations have not always been friendly toward U.S. political and economic goals and have at times even been antagonistic; these political histories result in heightened tension regarding the acquisition of energy resources.

The energy security frame displays both main characteristics of unrestrained instrumentalism. One feature of the unrestrained instrumentalism ideology that contrasts with environmentalist ideologies such as conservationism and preservationism is that there is no focus on “wise use,” sustainable use of resources maintaining future availability (Corbett, 2006).

Unrestrained instrumentalism focuses only on the present needs of humans. In the energy security frame, advocates for increased energy access did not articulate the needs of future humans, or even future Americans. They were focused on the immediate future, on the needs of people living in the United States today.

The energy security frame also fits the other primary feature of unrestrained instrumentalism: a lack of concern for nonhuman entities. When pushing for policies that secure steady energy resources for U.S. interests, proponents demonstrated no concern for nonhuman animals that might be affected by such actions, nor for damaging impacts to landscapes and ecosystems. In fact, energy security proponents actively argued against these considerations, downplaying their likelihood of occurrence and their significance. Thus, focusing on energy 181 security meant focusing on humans’ immediate needs. The effects of the actions required to meet those needs on future humans, nonhumans, and environmental systems were disregarded.

Political security. When status quo supporters called for political security, they wanted the U.S. government to maintain strong influence in international political arenas. One method of maintaining strength advocated was to avoid strengthening international competitors or enemies.

The news texts described status quo supporters calling for wise expenditures of capital, especially to avoid financing potential terrorist attacks. Whereas environmentalists call for “wise use” of natural resources, political security proponents called for wise use of capital when trading for natural resources.

The political security frame is categorized here as unrestrained instrumentalism; it conforms to the two principles of this ideology. Similar to the energy security frame, the political security frame focused only on the concerns of human beings. Though the intention behind maintaining international influence was not always made clear, it was never defined in terms of environmental protectionism. In other words, political security advocates never stated that U.S. political interests include maintaining a healthy environment, the continued existence of other species, etc. When expressing apprehension regarding potential terrorist attacks, the potential victims were explicitly human, or unstated, with no reason to believe the frame’s proponents were worried about attacks’ effects on nonhumans within U.S. borders.

The political security frame was less centered in the immediate than the energy security frame. Status quo supporters expressed conviction that the U.S. government must maintain political strength and protect its people indefinitely. However, I would say that the proponents did not offer a truly long-term focus. They rarely forecast future events, discussing cause-and- effect scenarios. Rather, it was a general forward-looking approach. Even though this frame was 182 not as centered in the present as the previous, considering political security as an environmental ideology, it still makes the most sense to label it as unrestrained instrumentalism, because it displays no concern for non-humans or for the preservation of natural resources for future human generations.

Economic concerns. The economic interests of two different slices of the socioeconomic spectrum were considered together as the economic concerns frame, representing worker security and investor security. The interests of workers were described as a healthy economy with plentiful, high-paying jobs. Investors’ concerns were similar, though related to high profit margins on investments. The two groups’ interests were presented as intertangled, as a strong economy produces not only profits for investors, but also jobs for workers.

The economic concerns frame clearly represents unrestrained instrumentalism on face, as it focuses exclusively on human interests. The effects of economic growth on the natural environment were not considered in this frame. Further, descriptions of shortcomings in the current economic environment or desired economic outcomes seemed focused on the near future.

Proponents of the economic concerns frame did not typically reference future generations’ economic outlooks. Finally, similar to the political security frame, the economic concerns frame did not address the future of natural resources. Thus, as an environmental ideology the economic concerns frame focused exclusively on human concerns, and so, like the other two status quo support frames, energy security and political security, this frame represents the most anthropocentric ideology possible, unrestrained instrumentalism.

Though status quo supporters’ frames were all anthropocentric, this anthropocentricity alone does not distinguish their frames from most of status quo critics’ frames. However, status quo critics focused on eras beyond the present, and were not always focused on simply humans’ 183 needs. As detailed in the next section, perhaps the most significant difference between the environmental ideologies of status quo supporters and status quo critics is that critics apply a utilitarian value system that calls into question the groups that benefit from environmental policies based on unrestrained instrumentalism.

Status quo critics’ anthropocentric frames. Critics of the status quo argued that the present model of natural resource production is an unfair system because it creates negative impacts on groups who do not equally benefit from the system’s positive gains. These arguments represented conservationism and preservationism, because they were based on utilitarian arguments regarding the greatest good for the most people and because they valued the future condition of environmental resources. Status quo critics argued that natural resources should be kept in sustainable condition for future generations of humans’ instrumental usage

(conservationism), as well as scientific and aesthetic reasons (preservationism). As mentioned previously, these philosophies together represent the modern environmentalist movement, and so will be referred to here as environmentalist ideologies for simplicity’s sake.

Though critics of the status quo did not utilize the unrestrained instrumentalism ideology, their environmentalist arguments, reproduced by journalists, were still mostly anthropocentric.

As discussed in this paper’s previous section on conservationism and preservationism, the modern environmental movement still foregrounds human concerns. Though their arguments are often concerned with maintaining healthy ecosystems and environments, environmentalists’ interests are still typically explicitly tied to prioritizing humans’ quality of life. However, unlike unrestrained instrumentalists, environmentalist status quo critics embrace utilitarian values, seeking resource use for “the greatest good of the greatest number” of people (Corbett, 2006, p.

32). In the next sub-section, we will explore how status quo critics’ utilitarian values appear in 184 the anthropocentric arguments of two of their three frames. Though most status quo critique arguments centered on human concerns, a third frame, regarding nature’s nonhuman elements, is detailed in the next major section.

Extraction impacts on humans. In the news stories, a primary status quo critique of natural resource development was that current techniques used to extract, transport, and process energy products such as fossil fuels harm human beings. Fossil fuel industries were presented as the dominant mode of modern energy production. Status quo critics charged that these industries processes are messy, their shortcomings resulting in physical and emotional harm for both workers and innocent bystanders.

Status quo supporters’ arguments represented the most extreme form of anthropocentrism on Corbett’s (2006) environmental ideology spectrum, considering outcomes relevant only if they affected the current generation of U.S. adults. Further, they failed to see any disparities or social justice issues with the way that natural resources, wealth, and pollution from extractive industries are distributed. Conversely, status quo critics, applying the value system of utilitarianism, argued that the present system of natural resource use disproportionately benefits, and harms, some social groups more than others. Critics asserted that fossil fuel work creates profits for investors but often causes negative health impacts for the workers who facilitate those investors’ profits, as well as people who live near the projects creating the profits. This argument, that the current model of fossil fuel energy production produces highly negative outcomes for some people, and therefore needs reform, indicates a more egalitarian philosophical approach than found in the status quo supporters’ frames. Rather than focusing on the greater good for some, including American citizens, fossil fuel industry workers, and investors in the 185 industrial economy, this approach considers the greater good for a larger number of people. Later in this project, we will see that their concerns sometimes included nonhumans as well.

Critics of the present approach to natural resource management charged that it produces harmful impacts on humans’ physical and emotional health, applying utilitarian values equating a greater good with systems that harm less people. Further, pointing out the negative impacts of the fossil fuel industry problematizes the unrestrained instrumentalist emphasis on the needs of the present. Such arguments beg the question of whose needs in the present are being addressed by natural resource policy? A similar concern was raised in the extraction impacts on humans sub-frame about corporations putting profits before people. For environmentalist status quo critics, the observation of people being harmed while others benefit represents an injustice, due to their utilitarian value set. The critique exposes an in-group bias among unrestrained instrumentalists that will be further explored in this paper’s Discussion section. Now let us turn to the second status quo critic frame related to anthropocentric concerns.

Consumption impacts on humans. The next frame status quo critics advanced moves on from detailing how industrial processes of fossil fuel production harm people to how the final action in the fossil fuel consumer cycle affects the planet’s atmosphere, and thus all people.

Status quo critics’ consumption impacts on humans frame argued that climate change is happening in the current era, it is a grave threat for human beings, and its processes are being accelerated by the consumption of fossil fuels. Essentially, this environmentalist argument is that the widespread practice of burning fossil fuels to create energy for transportation, heating, electricity, etc., releases carbon into the atmosphere, which warms it, but also changes weather patterns in other deleterious ways. Because these transformational processes are likely to have 186 strongly negative outcomes on humans, via the environment we live within and utilize to survive, status quo critics called for social change to resist and ameliorate such processes.

As with the previously discussed critique frame, extraction impacts on humans, this frame conforms to environmentalist ideologies of conservationism and preservationism. It embraces utilitarian values by pointing out that the people who gain the most from the processes of fossil fuel consumption may be the investors who sponsor it. However, there is also a social justice component that the countries releasing the most carbon, and thus gaining the most in terms of quality of life and economic gain, may actually suffer much less due to climate change than people in countries where very little carbon is being used. Thus, from a utilitarian standpoint, as advocated in these texts, the widespread consumption of carbon is not creating the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Further, unlike unrestrained instrumentalism’s focus on the present, environmentalist ideologies consider the long-term impacts of natural resource use patterns. If the modern fossil fuel-powered lifestyle condemns future generations of humans to more challenging lives, reducing access to high-quality natural resource necessities, then from conservationist and preservationist perspectives, the modern lifestyle presents ethical dilemmas. These dilemmas were explicitly articulated in the consumption impacts on humans frame.

As readers proceed along Corbett’s (2006) Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies, we see increasing concern for others beyond one’s immediate in-group of in the present era. Status quo critics’ first two frames, extraction impacts on humans and consumption impacts on humans, were marked by anthropocentrism, just as status quo supporters’ three frames were. However, it seems logical that concerns with humans outside of one’s immediate in-group is a forerunner of 187 concern for nonhumans. In the next status quo critique frame, extraction impacts on nature, ecocentrism emerges in mainstream discourse.

Status quo critics’ ecocentric frame. Though status quo critics’ primary concern was extractive industries harming humans, through extractive processes and the eventual outcomes of fossil fuel consumption, at times such actors voiced concern for Earth’s nonhuman elements.

Extraction impacts on nature. In these stories, environmental activists quite frequently asserted that development projects would harm humans in their paths. Sometimes this harm was direct, such as death by industrial disaster, at other times it was indirect, as development projects pollute the environment, which then harms humans living nearby. So, concerns mentioned about environmental pollution were typically linked to human welfare, explicitly or implicitly.

However, at times such concerns seemed related to nonhuman elements of nature, including animals and other features of ecosystems. When people mentioned possible negative effects on nature, with no obvious links to human use-value, I categorized these sentiments into the extraction impacts on nature frame.

Of the six frames identified in the corpus related to environmental ideologies, extraction impacts on nature was the only one that was not anthropocentric. Corbett (2006) writes that ecocentric ideologies grant telos to nonhumans, recognition of their intrinsic value. For example, preliminary ecocentric ideologies such as animal rights and land-based ethics call for the allowance of nonhumans to continue their existences unaffected by human actions, simply because those things should be allowed to continue their existences unimpeded. Though arguments steeped in anthropocentric ideologies often express concern for animals and landscape features, such arguments are related to those natural features’ human-use value. Truly ecocentric comments do not reference nature’s human-use value, even implicitly. Consider when The New 188

York Times editorial staff expressed concerns about how the Keystone XL pipeline expansion would harm “migratory birds” (New York Times Staff, 2011). They were displaying ecocentrism, as such creatures have little use-value for humans. Perhaps they have some value for spectators, but that is marginal compared to most material concerns mentioned in these stories, such as concerns with drinking water sources and game animal populations.

Note that such sentiments go ethically beyond the utilitarian values of conservationism and preservationism. Even though the discourse that has long dominated environmentalism is based on arguments about maintaining the greatest good for the greatest number of people

(Corbett, 2006), such seemingly enlightened discourse fails to take into account the interests of nonhumans. Yet there were times in these texts where environmentalists were demonstrating concern for nonhumans without referencing their human-use value. Thus, ecocentric discourse seems to be woven into the 21st century environmental movement, even if it is not as central as conservationist and preservationist discourse. Yet qualitative thematic analysis cannot reveal to what extent these various ideologies are dominating discourse; such an endeavor requires quantitative analysis, which is the subject of the next section. 189

Chapter V

Quantitative Content Analysis Results

This research project centered on mainstream U.S. news coverage of two major U.S. environmental news stories, the Keystone XL pipeline expansion debates and the sinking of the

Deepwater Horizon oil rig and subsequent underwater oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. An over- arching goal of the project was to determine the relative degrees of representation of traditional anthropocentric discourse and transformative ecocentric discourse within the stories. This investigation was designed to explore Corbett’s (2006) claim that anthropocentric discourse dominates mainstream U.S. mass media, to see if such dominance is abating due to recent changes in public discourse, and to examine if certain theoretical conditions allow ecocentric and environmentalist discourse greater opportunities to flourish. Further, a subsidiary goal of this project was testing two major mass media models for their effectiveness in application to domestic, environmental news stories.

The bulk of this research project was carried out in its first phase of the project, a qualitative content analysis, results of which were reported in the previous chapter, but are briefly summarized here. I closely read 204 news stories from prominent U.S. daily newspapers and weekly news magazines. These close readings informed a thematic analysis answering the first research question, which sought out frames representing environmental ideologies in the stories. The themes discovered in the qualitative analysis were classified into six separate but overlapping news frames. Status quo supporters’ frames included energy security, political security, and economic concerns. For purposes of the follow-up quantitative analysis, energy security and political security were collapsed into national security, a decision which will be 190 explained shortly. Status quo critics’ frames included extraction impacts on humans, consumption impacts on humans, and extraction impacts on nature.

This exploration of how environmental news stories are framed in mainstream media provided data used to answer the second research question, which sought the locations of those newly identified frames on Corbett’s (2006) Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies. The status quo supporters’ frames all aligned well with the spectrum’s most anthropocentric ideology, unrestrained instrumentalism. Two of the status quo critics’ frames, extraction impacts on humans and consumption impacts on humans, were also anthropocentric, but represented the environmentalist ideologies of conservationism and preservationism. Finally, status quo critics’ extraction impacts on nature frame represented ethics and values-driven ideologies, which are considered to represent ecocentric ideologies for the purpose of this second phase of the project.

Once the news frames were placed on Corbett’s (2006) spectrum, they could then be measured for degree of representation in the corpus of stories. Thus, the qualitative phase established nominal data categories for measurement in the second, quantitative phase of the study, designed to determine relative ideological representation. In this section I describe the frequencies with which the ideologies appear, operationalized as the appearance of their representative frames in stories. These frequencies were compared across the entire corpus, then across cases, publications, and publication types. Though the theoretical rationale for the hypotheses was explained in the Methodology chapter, the arguments are briefly re-presented here for purposes of clarity.

Rationales, Hypotheses, and Research Question

This project is grounded in environmental communication literature as well as two theoretical models of mass media functioning. The predictions of Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) 191 propaganda model (PM) and Entman’s (2004) cascading activation model (CAM) align with

Corbett’s (2006) assessment of previous environmental communication research: anthropocentric messages are likely to be more prominent in mainstream mass media discourse than messages representing other environmental ideologies. The general explanation of these empirical findings is that the people who have the most power in society are benefitting financially from the status quo’s economy of natural resource transformation and consumption, which is ideologically supported by anthropocentric discourse. These powerful actors are either the same people who control mass media industries, or are strategically aligned with such actors, according to these authors’ reasoning. Because the most powerful actors have economic incentives to promote consumption and disincentives to promote conservation, not only should we expect mainstream mediated discourse to be anthropocentric, but more specifically it should promote extreme anthropocentrism, supporting the most anthropocentric environmental ideology, unrestrained instrumentalism. These arguments inform the first two hypotheses:

H1: There will be more anthropocentric frames than ecocentric frames present in the

coverage.

H2: There will be more unrestrained instrumentalist frames than environmentalist frames

present in the coverage.

Entman (2004) agreed with Herman and Chomsky (1988) that powerful figures have enormous influence over mainstream mediated content, and that such content tends to support the status quo. However, Entman (2004) criticized the PM for failing to account for mediated critique of the status quo, which he says manifests regularly. Outlining the conditions in which such critique was likely to manifest, Entman (2004) explained the concept cultural 192 congruence—when most people hold one opinion, cultural congruence on that issue is high, but when oppositional perspectives on an issue are widely held, cultural congruence on that issue low. When cultural congruence on an issue is low, journalists are more likely to relay diverse frames in their work, to reflect the dissenting perspectives in society. This argument make sense, given that journalists’ norms include dedication to accurately relaying reality.

Though the Keystone XL stories were based primarily on social dissent regarding the proposed industrial activity, it is my argument that the Deepwater Horizon stories would produce a greater degree of cultural dissonance. In both story arcs the unquestioned common sense is that

Americans need plentiful oil, an opinion with high cultural congruence. However, catastrophic results from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill should have reduced cultural congruence on the primacy of attaining oil, as the costs of such attainment were foregrounded.

The Deepwater Horizon story arc initially covered the loss of life of the rig’s crew. That tragedy was soon followed by the topic of widespread pollution, as captivating visuals showed a nonstop underwater oil plume and soiled seabirds. Finally, the disaster brought economic and emotional turmoil to nearby shores. These actual events with negative repercussions, as opposed to imagined future outcomes in the Keystone XL stories, combined to produce significant expressions of frustration among the populace. My analysis of the CAM’s principles is that this grief and public outrage was sparked by the extractive project, and so the public should have held extractive endeavors in lower esteem after the industrial accident than they did before. If the accident indeed reduced cultural congruence on issues of oil extraction, then this dynamic should have granted journalists more license, or compulsion, to produce frames contradicting the status quo’s unproblematic emphasis on natural resource extraction and consumption. This argument informs the third and fourth hypotheses: 193

H3: Deepwater Horizon coverage will have more ecocentric frames than Keystone XL

coverage.

H4: Deepwater Horizon coverage will have more environmentalist frames than Keystone

XL coverage.

Finally, this research aims to produce insight into potential differences among mainstream media publications and publication types regarding environmental ideologies presented. A broad research question seeks to explore differences between publications such as the general audience newspaper The New York Times and the investor-oriented Wall Street

Journal, as well as between daily newspapers and weekly newsmagazines. Thus, an exploratory research question is offered:

RQ3. What differences exist in ideological framing among different publications and

publication types?

Procedures

After the stories’ news frames manifesting environmental ideologies were identified, each frame was categorized as representative of an environmental ideology. Each story in the corpus was then re-read to be coded for the presence or absence of the five frames settled upon for analysis. Thus, each story had five binary scores (0 or 1) representing the presence or absence of each of the five frames. Those scores were automatically summed into their larger ideological categories. The quantitative data produced from this coding process was then reviewed and analyzed.

Operationalizations. The primary independent variable in this project was case

(Keystone XL or Deepwater Horizon). Articles were initially located for each case with appropriate keyword searches. The articles were then reviewed, with many stories dismissed for 194 lack of relevance. Ultimately, there were 60 Keystone XL stories and 144 Deepwater Horizon stories, as shown in Table 5. Other independent variables that were compared included periodical title (Time, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal and New York Times) and publication type

(newspaper or newsmagazine).

Table 5

Corpus Article Counts by Periodical Title and Case

Deepwater Periodical Title Keystone XL Horizon Totals Newsweek 4 22 26 The New York Times 23 46 69 The Wall Street Journal 19 60 79 Time 14 16 30 Totals 60 144 204

The dependent variables were frequencies of distribution of the various frames and the environmental ideologies the frames represent. Thus, determining the presence or absence of the five frames (national security, economic concerns, extraction impacts on humans, consumption impacts on humans, and extraction impacts on nature) in each case’s stories was the first step of the quantitative portion of the project.

For the quantitative analysis, each frame was considered to belong to either of the two poles of Corbett’s (2006) Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies: anthropocentric (national security, economic concerns, extraction impacts on humans, and consumption impacts on humans) or ecocentric (extraction impacts on nature). Further, the anthropocentric frames were also categorized as the most anthropocentric ideology, unrestrained instrumentalism (national security, and economic concerns) and the more ecocentric, though still anthropocentric, environmentalist ideologies of conservationism and preservationism (extraction impacts on 195 humans and consumption impacts on humans). The categorization of frames onto Corbett’s

(2006) spectrum is shown in Figure 3.

Ideological poles Anthropocentric…………………………………………Ecocentric

Ideologies’ positions Unrestrained Conservationism and Ecocentrism instrumentalism Preservationism

Frames aligned with National Extraction impacts on Extraction impacts on ideologies security, humans, nature Economic Consumption impacts concerns on humans

Figure 3. Frames Placed on Corbett’s (2006) Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies.

Coding procedures (summary). Stories were coded for the presence or absence of each frame. Those nominal, quantitative data were then automatically re-coded to indicate ideologies present. For example, if the economic concerns frame was coded as present in a story, IBM’s

SPSS Version 25 automatically coded the presence of anthropocentric ideologies and the unrestrained instrumentalism ideology in that story. The frequency of appearance of a frame within an article was not counted. A more detailed description of the coding procedures can be found in the Methodology chapter.

Interrater reliability. As the study’s author, I coded all 204 stories. However, before this step, I trained an associate, a Ph.D. candidate from the same field, on the project’s Codebook

(found in Appendix A). I randomly re-sorted the stories for coding, so that no order-based coder bias would occur. After two training sessions, we coded the first 20% of the randomly sorted stories and compared outcomes. The initial round of coding did not reach a level of agreement considered acceptable. We reviewed our disparities, creating consensus coding for the stories. 196

Then, reviewing the Codebook, we coded the next 10% of the randomly sorted stories. We compared findings, created consensus coding, and further revised the Codebook. Two frames were still presenting difficulty in coding; these frames were collapsed, resulting in the final iteration of the Codebook (see Appendix B). A final round of coding 10% of the stories for the new frame resulted in acceptable levels of agreement for the new frame. Thus, the co-coder reviewed 40% of the corpus. This process is explained fully in the Methodology chapter. At this point, I proceeded to code the rest of the corpus, coding the final 60% of stories for all frames.

Statistical analyses. After the coding was concluded, the results were frequencies of distribution of the frames. Statistics calculated included the number of articles that the ideologies appeared in throughout the corpus (Hypotheses 1 and 2), the number of articles each ideology appeared in across case (Hypotheses 3 and 4), and the number of articles each frame and ideology appeared in across periodical types and titles (Research Question 3). These frequencies were subjected to statistical analysis to test for statistically significant differences. Hypotheses 1 and 2 required testing the frequency of distribution of paired nominal data, for which

McNemar’s test was the appropriate test to use. Hypotheses 3 and 4 and Research Question 3 all required comparing unpaired nominal data, representing mutually exclusive categories, for which the Pearson Chi-Square test was appropriate. The null hypotheses were that the independent variables of case, publication, and periodical type would have no effect on the distribution of frames and ideologies.

Results

In this section, I relay results of the quantitative analyses performed in the second phase of the project. I tested four hypotheses and one research question for the appearances of ideologies across and between cases. Before exploring the ideologies’ appearances, Table 6 lists 197 the frequency distributions of the frames across and between cases and notes which frames’ appearances differed significantly across cases using Pearson Chi-Square test. Those frames were national security (χ2 = 12.285, df = 1, p = .000), extraction impacts on humans (χ2 = 7.869, df = 1, p = .005), and consumption impacts on humans (χ2 = 52.881, df = 1, p = .000).

Table 6

Frame Frequencies Across Keystone XL and Deepwater Horizon Stories

Frame Across Cases Keystone XL Deepwater Horizon National security** 57 (27.9) 27 (45) 30 (20.8)

Economic concerns 159 (77.9) 45 (75) 114 (79.2)

Extraction impacts on humans* 85 (41.7) 16 (26.7) 69 (47.9)

Consumption impacts on humans** 57 (27.9) 38 (63.3) 19 (13.2)

Extraction impacts on nature 71 (34.8) 17 (28.3) 54 (37.5)

Note: Total N = 204, Keystone XL n = 60, Deepwater Horizon n = 144. Percentages in parentheses. *p < .05 ** p < .01

Anthropocentric dominance of news frames. Corbett’s (2006) review of environmental communication research posited that anthropocentric concerns dominate U.S. mass media content. The tenets of Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) propaganda model provided a rationale for this supposition: the owners of media companies are ideologically and materially aligned with investors in other powerful industries, including extractive industries, and so seek to perpetuate the status quo while marginalizing dissenting discourse.

The quantitative results of this project mostly support the claim that U.S. news is dominated by anthropocentrism, though they show a strong role for environmentalist discourse.

Yet one must recall that the U.S. environmental movement is largely anthropocentric (Corbett, 198

2006). In the qualitative phase of this project, I identified six frames in these news stories relevant to environmental ideologies. However, two were collapsed into one frame to facilitate the quantitative analysis. As mentioned, four of the five are anthropocentric, with two representing status quo supporters’ unrestrained instrumentalism ideology (national security, economic concerns) and two representing environmentalists’ ideologies of conservationism and preservationism (extraction impacts on humans, consumption impacts on humans). The final frame, extraction impacts on nature, was categorized as ecocentric. Thus, to test Hypothesis 1, which posited that anthropocentric frames would show up more frequently than ecocentric frames, I compared the presence or absence of each type of ideology across all stories.

A crosstabulation calculating co-occurrences of anthropocentric and ecocentric frames shows that anthropocentric frames dominated the coverage, lending support to Hypothesis 1 (see

Table 7). An anthropocentric frame was present in 90.2% of the stories overall (n = 184), while the ecocentric frame appeared in only 34.8% of stories (n = 71). Of the four possible combinations of frames (both anthropocentric and ecocentric present, anthropocentric present and ecocentric absent, ecocentric present and anthropocentric absent, and neither type of ideology present), the most populous category was anthropocentric ideologies present, ecocentric ideologies absent (n = 119, 58.3%). Stories containing just the ecocentric frame without anthropocentric frames represented the smallest category in the corpus (n = 6, 2.9%), trailing even stories without any environmental ideologies (n = 14, 6.9%). Using the McNemar test, which tests for association among paired categorical data, the rate of occurrence of the frames was significantly different (p = .000). 199

Table 7

Hypothesis 1: Anthropocentrism and Ecocentrism Across Cases Ecocentrism Absent Present Total Anthropocentrism Absent 14 (6.9) 6 (2.9) 20 (9.8) Present 119 (58.3) 65 (31.9) 184 (90.2) Total 133 (65.2) 71 (34.8) 204 (100) Note: Results significant using McNemar test, p = .000. Percentages in parentheses.

While the ecocentric frame made a strong showing, appearing in just more than one-third of the stories, its presence was nearly always paired with anthropocentric frames. Conversely, stories containing solely anthropocentric frames appeared more frequently even than stories containing both types of frames, 58.3% to 31.9%, respectively. However, the second most populous category featured both types of ideologies (n = 65, 31.9%). This finding seemed to indicate that ecocentric frames present some cultural congruence, and also support journalists’ conflict orientation (e.g., Gitlin, 1980; Tuchman, 1978).

In addition to comparing anthropocentric and ecocentric ideologies overall, I wanted to know if the environmental movement’s discourse fares well compared with the most anthropocentric ideologies. Thus, Hypothesis 2 compared the frames representing unrestrained instrumentalism (national security, economic concerns) with those representing environmentalist ideologies (extraction impacts on humans, consumption impacts on humans) throughout the corpus.

Hypothesis 2 was also answered with a crosstabulation and McNemar test, and was also supported (see Table 8), though the differences were not as pronounced as the results of

Hypothesis 1. Overall, frames representing unrestrained instrumentalism showed up in most of the stories (n = 167, 81.9%). There were also 62 stories (30.4%) featuring unrestrained 200 instrumentalism without environmentalist frames, representing the second most populous category.

Table 8

Hypothesis 2: Unrestrained Instrumentalism and Environmentalism Across Cases Environmentalism Absent Present Total Unrestrained Absent 20 (9.8) 17 (8.3) 37 (18.1) Instrumentalism Present 62 (30.4) 105 (51.5) 167 (81.9) Total 82 (40.2) 122 (59.8) 204 (100) Note: Results significant using McNemar test, p = .000. Percentages in parentheses.

However, the most common category of story featured both environmentalist and unrestrained instrumentalist frames (n = 105, 51.5%), suggesting that journalists most often include both of these politically oppositional, anthropocentric ideologies. Similar to the results found for ecocentric frames, stories featuring environmentalist frames without unrestrained instrumentalist frames were the smallest category (n = 17, 8.3%), with even fewer stories than those without any environmental ideologies (n = 20, 9.8%). Again using the McNemar test, the rate of occurrence of the frames was significantly different (p = .000). Of note, the gap between environmentalist frames (n = 122, 59.8%) and unrestrained instrumentalist frames (n = 167,

81.9%) was not as pronounced as that between anthropocentric and ecocentric frames. These statistics indicate that environmentalist frames were strongly represented in these U.S. news stories, despite being less represented than the most anthropocentric frames.

Testing the mass media models for case effects. Based on my interpretation of the mass media models in this project’s literature review, I hypothesized that the Deepwater Horizon stories would allow for a greater degree of status quo critique, due to the environmental destruction caused by the underwater oil spill. This situation was different from the other case, as 201 arguments presented by status quo critics in the Keystone XL stories were mostly conjecture, because people could only surmise potential damages caused by the proposed pipeline. Entman’s

(2004) cascading activation model posits that journalists’ expression of dissent increases as that dissent becomes less associated with minority viewpoints and more pervasive. Entman (2004) terms this process, whereby an issue that was once dominated by singular perspectives fracturing into multiple, contrary views, as increasing cultural ambiguity, or reductions in cultural congruence. One of the CAM’s central principles is that as dissent becomes more commonplaces, openings in the mediated public sphere for journalists to express dissenting critiques of status quo actions and values become more frequent.

Thus, Hypotheses 3 and 4 suggested that the destruction covered in Deepwater Horizon stories would compel the appearance of more ecocentric and environmentalist frames, respectively, than found in Keystone XL stories, as lamentable material consequences should have provided fuel for existing critics and swayed some who were previously uncritical of the status quo. Neither hypothesis was supported, in fact an unpredicted significant association in the opposite direction was found in Hypothesis 4.

Hypothesis 3 focused on ecocentric ideologies by case. There was only one ecocentric frame, so its presence indicated the presence of ecocentric ideologies. Though a higher percentage of Deepwater Horizon stories featured the ecocentric frame (n = 54, 37.5%) than the

Keystone XL stories (n = 17, 28.3%), as predicted, the difference was not statistically significant according to a Pearson Chi-Square test of independence (χ2 = 1.568, df = 1, p = .210). Thus,

Hypothesis 3 was not supported (see Table 9). The percentage of stories featuring ecocentric frames overall (34.8%) reported in Hypothesis 1 differed little from the percentages found in each case (28.3% in Keystone XL, 37.5% in Deepwater Horizon). These results suggest that 202 ecocentrism’s role in U.S. journalism may not vary situationally, or not for the reasons I hypothesized, as it did not vary between these two story arcs.

Table 9

Hypothesis 3: Ecocentric Ideology Frequencies by Case Case Absent Present Total Keystone XL 43 (71.7) 17 (28.3) 60 (100) Deepwater Horizon 90 (62.5) 54 (37.5) 144 (100) Total 133 (65.2 71 (34.8) 204 (100) Note: Results not significant. Percentages in parentheses.

By the same logic reported in Hypothesis 3, I hypothesized that Deepwater Horizon stories would feature a greater proportion of environmentalist sentiment than Keystone XL stories. Environmental discourse was operationalized as the appearance of at least one of the frames extraction impacts on humans or consumption impacts on humans. This hypothesis was not supported. Rather, a significant effect was found in the opposite direction. The Keystone XL stories featured a higher proportion of environmentalist frames (n = 44, 73.3%) than did the

Deepwater Horizon stories (n = 78, 54.2%). These rates of occurrence differed significantly, using the Pearson Chi-Square test of independence (χ2 = 6.472, df = 1, p = .011; see Table 10).

Table 10

Hypothesis 4: Environmentalist Ideology Frequencies by Case Case Absent Present Total Keystone XL 16 (26.7) 44 (73.3) 60 (100) Deepwater Horizon 66 (45.8) 78 (54.2) 144 (100) Total 82 (40.2) 122 (59.8) 204 (100) Note: Results significant, in non-predicted direction, using Pearson Chi-Square test at p < .05 level. Percentages in parentheses.

203

In order to further explore the differences between the cases regarding environmentalist frames, and reasons that Hypothesis 4 was not supported, I returned to the data to examine distributions of individual frames between cases. Not surprisingly, the Deepwater Horizon stories featured significantly more appearances of the extraction impacts on humans frame. The oil rig’s explosion caused 11 deaths and many injuries. This catastrophic element of the story was nearly always mentioned. The proposed Keystone XL project, meanwhile, had caused no deaths or injuries, so journalists could only report others’ speculation on the likelihood of such outcomes. As reported earlier in Table 6, the extraction impacts on humans frame occurred more frequently in the Deepwater Horizon (47.9%) stories than in the KXL stories (26.7%). These rates of occurrence were significantly different, using the Pearson Chi-Square test (χ2 = 7.869, df

= 1, p = .005; see Table 11).

Table 11

Extraction Impacts on Humans Frame Frequencies by Case Case Absent Present Total Keystone XL 44 (73.3) 16 (26.7) 60 (100) Deepwater Horizon 75 (52.1) 69 (47.9) 144 (100) Total 119 (58.3) 85 (41.7) 204 (100) Note: Results significant using Pearson Chi-Square test at p < .01 level. Percentages in parentheses.

This statistic suggests that the deaths of 11 workers in the rig’s explosion affected the coverage; they were treated as somewhat worthy victims, according to Kennis’ (2015) take on applying gradations to Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) parlance. However, despite their frequent mention, the 11 victims rarely received detailed coverage (e.g., listing their names, describing their deaths in detail, focusing on their loved ones’ bereavement, etc.). In fact, references to them were mostly fleeting. I noticed this trend while coding the stories. After calculating the results of

H4, I decided to go back and reread the Deepwater Horizon stories featuring the extraction 204 impacts on humans frame. Of the 69 stories containing the frame, in 41 the only references to the frame were thin mentions of the 11 deaths, sometimes accompanied by mention that others were injured. Typically, the acknowledgement of the workers’ passing was done in a cursory fashion.

This insight makes the results of Hypothesis 4 even more striking.

The fact that Deepwater Horizon resulted in actual deaths and actual pollution, yet featured fewer overall references to relevant environmentalist sentiment opposes my theory- based hypothesizing and is deserving of further consideration. Another way to consider the paucity of environmental sentiment in the Deepwater Horizon stories is that nearly half of them

(n = 66, 45.8%) made no mention of the negative effects of extractive activities on the health of humans or the biosphere. This despite the fact that the accident claimed 11 lives and was the largest oil spill in U.S. history. If one disregards the 41 articles that only briefly mentioned extraction impacts on humans, vis-à-vis the 11 rig workers who lost their lives, then the difference between Keystone XL and Deepwater Horizon on this frame (Table 10) actually reverses direction (Keystone XL n = 16, 26.7%; Deepwater Horizon n = 28, 19%), and Keystone

XL’s advantage in terms of overall environmentalist expression intensifies.

Continuing my exploration of individual frame differences between cases, I reviewed H4 results by examining the climate change frame, consumption impacts on humans. The statistics across cases demonstrate that climate change was a central topic in the Keystone XL arc, while treated as tangential in the Deepwater Horizon stories (χ2 = 52.881, df = 1, p = .000; see Table

12). This fact helps explain the relative dominance of environmentalism in Keystone XL stories but does not explain its meager showing in the Deepwater Horizon stories, an issue that will be returned to in the next chapter. 205

Table 12

Consumption Impacts on Humans Frame Frequencies by Case Case Absent Present Total Keystone XL 22 (36.7) 38 (63.3) 60 (100) Deepwater Horizon 125 (86.8) 19 (13.2) 144 (100) Total 147 (72.1) 57 (27.9) 204 (100) Note: Results significant using Pearson Chi-Square test at p < .01 level. Percentages in parentheses.

So far, the first four hypotheses were based on extant environmental communication literature and two prominent mass media models. The next data analyzed explore differences between individual periodicals and publication types. These investigations were in response to the exploratory RQ3 and are not based on hypotheses or theory.

Differences between periodicals and periodical types. The third and final research question was designed to explore any potential differences in framing between types of periodicals (newspapers and magazines) and specific periodicals (The New York Times and The

Wall Street Journal and weekly periodicals Time and Newsweek) used in the analysis. Research

Question 3 revealed some statistically significant differences.

Comparing publication types, newspapers and magazines did not differ significantly in terms of the frequency of appearance of anthropocentric frames (89.2% and 92.9%, respectively,

χ2 = .618, df = 1, p = .432), or the most anthropocentric frames, unrestrained instrumentalism

(85.7% and 80.4%, χ2 = .771, df = 1, p = .380). However, there was a significant difference regarding the presence of the national security frame, which appeared in 39.3% of magazine articles and 23.6% of newspaper articles (see Table 13). The Pearson Chi-Square test showed periodical types to differ significantly in this regard (χ2 = 4.934, df = 1, p = .026). 206

Table 13

National Security Frame Frequencies by Periodical Type Periodical Type Absent Present Total Magazine articles 34 (60.7) 22 (39.3) 56 (100) Newspaper articles 113 (76.4) 35 (23.6) 148 (100) Total 147 (72.1) 57 (27.9) 204 (100) Note: Results significant using Pearson Chi-Square test at p < .05 level. Percentages in parentheses.

Publication types only approached significant differences in terms of ecocentric frames’ presence. Magazines featured ecocentric frames in 44.6% or articles while newspapers featured them in 31.1% of stories, but the Pearson Chi-Square test did not demonstrate statistical significance (χ2 = 3.293, df = 1, p = .07). This pattern held for environmentalist frames.

Magazines featured environmentalism in 69.6% of stories, compared to newspapers’ 56.1%, with results again falling short of significant differences (χ2 = 3.108, df = 1, p = .078). However, when isolated, the climate change frame (consumption impacts on humans) appeared more frequently in magazines (41.1%) than in newspapers (23.0%). The Pearson Chi-Square test showed periodical types differed significantly in this regard (χ2 = 6.610, df = 1, p = .010).

Table 14

Ecocentric Frame Frequencies by Periodical Type Periodical type Absent Present Total Magazine articles 31 (55.4) 25 (44.6) 56 (100) Newspaper articles 102 (68.9) 46 (31.1) 148 (100) Total 133 (65.2) 71 (34.8) 204 (100) Note: Results not significant. Percentages in parentheses. 207

Table 15

Environmentalist Frame Frequencies by Periodical Type Periodical type Absent Present Total Magazine articles 17 (30.4) 39 (69.6) 56 (100) Newspaper articles 65 (43.9) 83 (56.1) 148 (100) Total 82 (40.2) 122 (59.8) 204 (100) Note: Results not significant. Percentages in parentheses.

In order to be sure that the results of hypotheses 3 and 4 were not biased by any associations of periodicals or periodical types, I performed a crosstabulation between case and periodical type. The proportions of each story arc were roughly equally represented by magazines and newspapers. Keystone XL featured 30% magazine articles compared to

Deepwater Horizon’s 26.4%. Conversely, Keystone XL stories were 70% newspaper articles, while Deepwater Horizon coverage was 73.6% newspaper articles. The Pearson Chi-Square test demonstrated that these statistics did not differ meaningfully (χ2 = .277, df = 1, p = .598). Thus, these divisions should not have affected the hypotheses analyzed.

Between publications, statistically significant differences were found in expressions of environmentalism, which consisted of two frames, as well as one of those frames in particular, the one which focused on climate change. Time featured environmentalism frames significantly more frequently than the other periodicals, differing at the p < .01 level using Pearson Chi-

Square test. Time contained at least one of the environmentalist frames extraction impacts on humans and consumption impacts on humans in 80% of its stories (χ2 = 12.017, df = 1, p = .007; see Table 16), with the climate change frame consumption impacts on humans in 53.3% of stories (χ2 = 12.772, df = 3, p = .005; see Table 17). On the other end of this statistic, The Wall

Street Journal featured the least expression of environmentalist (46.8%) and climate change frames (19%). 208

Table 16

Environmentalist Ideology Frequencies by Periodical Title Periodical title Absent Present Total The Wall Street Journal 42 (53.2) 37 (46.8) 79 (100) Newsweek 11 (42.3) 15 (57.7) 26 (100) The New York Times 23 (33.3) 46 (66.7) 69 (100) Time 6 (20.0) 24 (80.0) 30 (100) Total 82 (40.2) 122 (59.8) 204 (100) Note: Results significant using Pearson Chi-Square test at p < .01 level. Percentages in parentheses.

Table 17

Consumption Impacts on Humans Frame Frequencies by Periodical Title Periodical title Absent Present Total The Wall Street Journal 64 (81) 15 (19) 79 (100) Newsweek 19 (73.1) 7 (26.9) 26 (100) The New York Times 50 (72.5) 19 (27.5) 69 (100) Time 14 (46.7) 16 (53.3) 30 (100) Total 147 (72.1) 57 (27.9) 204 (100) Note: Results significant using Pearson Chi-Square test at p < .01 level. Percentages in parentheses.

The results of Research Question 3 appear to suggest that magazines take advantage of their longer formats to deliver more in-depth coverage, though differences between periodical types only approached significance. The reason for differences between certain periodicals can only be speculated upon from this particular content analysis, but both findings will be explored further in the following Discussion chapter.

To summarize the findings of the quantitative phase of the project, Hypotheses 1 and 2, based on the propaganda model and extant environmental communication literature, predicted that anthropocentric ideologies would appear more frequently than ecocentric ideologies and that unrestrained instrumentalism would appear more frequently than environmentalist ideologies. 209

Both of these hypotheses were supported. Hypotheses 3 and 4, based on the cascading activation model, predicted that the Deepwater Horizon stories would feature greater frequencies of ecocentric and environmentalist frames than Keystone XL stories, respectively. Neither of these hypotheses were supported; in fact, Hypothesis 4 produced significant findings in the direction opposite of the one expected, as Keystone XL stories featured significantly more environmentalist frames than Deepwater Horizon stories. The results of Research Question 3 showed that magazines featured a higher proportion of ecocentric and environmentalist frames than newspapers, yet these relationships only approached statistical significance. However, statistically significant differences were found between publications, as the magazine Time most frequently featured environmentalist frames, including the climate change frame, while the newspaper The Wall Street Journal least featured both types of frames. 210

Chapter VI

Discussion

This chapter begins with a summary of the project’s primary findings. Those findings are then contextualized within the academic literature upon which the project was based and my own interpretations and insights. To conclude, I present limitations of the study and recommendations for future scholarship and activism.

Summary of Findings

The qualitative phase of this project identified frames in mainstream U.S. environmental news and connected them to environmental ideologies. Supporters of the status quo economy, based on natural resource extraction, framed their policy positions around energy security, political security, and economic concerns. I determined that these frames represented unrestrained instrumentalism, the most anthropocentric ideology on Corbett’s (2006) Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies. The stories also featured political opponents of the status quo supporters. The status quo’s critics derided the current system due to extraction impacts on humans, consumption impacts on humans, and extraction impacts on nature. Their first two frames fit the environmentalist ideologies conservationism and preservationism, while the third demonstrated ecocentricity.

After the in-depth analysis of the stories was complete, the second phase of the project was a quantitative analysis of the stories counting the frames discovered in the qualitative phase.

Despite many scholars’ calls for humans to shift their environmental ideologies toward ecocentrism, this project supported Corbett’s (2006) assertion that anthropocentric ideologies dominate mainstream U.S. media, supported also Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) propaganda model logic. Hypothesis 1 was supported, as anthropocentric ideologies far outpaced ecocentric 211 ideologies. Hypothesis 2 was also supported, as unrestrained instrumentalism appeared more frequently than environmentalist ideologies. However, this statistical advantage was not as pronounced as results of the previous hypothesis, suggesting that environmentalist sentiment is relatively widespread in today’s news.

The quantitative phase also included a test of Entman’s (2004) cascading activation model. Hypotheses based on the model were not supported. Both were based on the logic that the environmental destruction caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill would compel journalists to provide greater space for dissenting discourse. Hypothesis 3 suggested that there would be more ecocentric frames in Deepwater Horizon coverage than Keystone XL coverage, but the presence of ecocentric frames was comparable in each storyline. Hypothesis 4 was similar, predicting that there would be more environmentalist frames in Deepwater Horizon than in Keystone XL, but in fact a significant effect was found in the opposite direction: Keystone XL stories featured more environmentalist frames than Deepwater Horizon. Also, there were a few statistically significant differences between periodical formats and periodicals. Magazines more prominently featured two frames, national security and consumption impacts on humans, than did newspapers. Time featured environmentalist and climate change frames most frequently, while The Wall Street

Journal used these frames least frequently.

In the next section of this chapter, I connect the project’s empirical findings with literature the endeavor was based on. Generally, the findings supported claims that anthropocentric ideologies dominate mainstream mass media. However, to expand this theoretical area I advance the concept extreme anthropocentrism. The project extended the mass media models it was based on by applying them in novel fields. The findings add weight to those models’ assertions that mainstream mass media support the status quo and elaborate the worthy 212 victims concept. Finally, the stories demonstrated a cultural struggle, as oppositional groups presented contested depictions of both physical and social reality. Though environmentalist ideologies were labeled radical, their frequent appearance suggested they are becoming mainstream, and the consistent presence of ecocentrism suggests that the environmentalist movement may be evolving.

Indications Anthropocentrism Dominates Mass Media

A goal of this project was to test Corbett’s (2006) assertion that anthropocentric sentiment dominates U.S. mass media content, a claim presented without overwhelming accompanying empirical support. Though generalizations cannot be made from this project, as it is only a case study of two story arcs during a concise window of time, the stories reviewed strongly support this claim. The first piece of evidence accrued in this aspect of the investigation was the fact that far more discrete frames in the stories supported anthropocentric ideologies

(five) than ecocentric ideologies (one). Identifying the frames used in the articles contributed to future framing studies of mediated environmental communication.

Frames produced in qualitative analysis. In the first project’s phase, a qualitative content analysis, I identified frames expressing environmental sentiment. The frames were ideologically dissimilar and were divided into two categories according to the social groups advancing them. The political battle lines were drawn between those favoring continuing the status quo of a natural resource extraction economy heavily focused on fossil fuel consumption and those critiquing that economy for various shortcomings. Here I will briefly outline each frame’s primary discursive components and the logical connections between frame sets before explaining frames’ ideological positioning and frequencies of ideology distribution in the texts.

213

Deep readings of the texts produced three status quo supporting frames: energy security, political security, and economic concerns. These frames were about protecting and increasing material wealth and political power for Americans. The energy security frame referred to the constellation of ideas surrounding Americans’ steady access to affordable fossil fuels.

Proponents made clear an idea even critics acknowledged—at the moment, civilization runs on oil. The frame asserted that increases in the price of oil would be problematic for individuals, and disruptions in oil supply would jeopardize the nation’s strength. A primary thread in this frame was the universally supported goal of energy independence, as foreign energy sources were labeled unreliable, if not antagonistic, while domestic energy sources were described as challenging to access, but worthwhile due to advantages they would confer. This realist argument, that the status quo’s configurations demand fossil fuels, is of course not new (e.g.,

Corbett, 2006; Korten, 2001; Speth, 2008). However, by refusing to address the problems inherent in staying the course, status quo supporters did not engage with their opponents’ arguments and face future trends forecasters predict (IPCC, 2013; Kinner, 1996).

The political security frame also referenced national strength, including border capacity and international influence. Border worries concerned international terrorism. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, “American citizens could no longer consider themselves secure in their homeland” (Hook & Spanier, 2019). International power politics referenced the continued growth of China, which could become a “peer competitor” within decades (National Intelligence

Council, 2008, p. 29) as well as America’s involvement in two ongoing overseas conflicts (Iraq and Afghanistan), with potential for further involvement abroad linked to the country’s geopolitical goals. At the time of this dissertation’s publication, the United States has threatened

Iran with war, and in recent years been involved in skirmishes with Yemen and Syria. The logic 214 of the argument that U.S. adventurism requires fossil fuels remains unassailable. However, neither status quo supporters nor the journalists reporting their arguments questioned the value or morality of continually engaging in overseas conflicts.

Finally, the nearly ubiquitous economic concerns frame linked a trio of groups: workers, investors, and governments. Politicians represented workers by pointing out their need for more work, especially high-paying jobs, a perspective reinforced by workers themselves. Elite sources also indicated that investors wanted healthy returns on their capital, and that the same economic activity that benefits workers and investors buoys government tax bases at all levels. Thus, extractive activity was argued to economically benefit many social classes acutely, and the entire society generally.

Positioning themselves as politically and ideologically oppositional, status quo critics demonstrated entirely different value foci. Frames critical of the status quo included extraction impacts on humans, consumption impacts on humans, and extraction impacts on nature. These frames centered on social justice and reducing physical suffering and are thus linked to the global democracy movement Korten (2001) described. The extraction impacts on humans frame detailed the accidental, but frequent, negative side effects of extractive industries on human health, especially focusing on oil spills resulting from corporate errors working with pipelines, ships, and drilling sites. Many people were shown to die or get sick due to shortcomings in the processes of extracting and transporting fossil fuel materials.

The next critical frame, consumption impacts on humans, was not about processing and transporting fossil fuels, but on the negative side effects of burning them for energy. While multiple threats have been identified from humans’ industrial consumption of fossil fuels such as oil and coal, climate change has come to dominate environmentalists’ agenda. In these stories 215 climate change was linked to commercial activity, and activists linked governments’ reluctance to address climate change to leaders’ problematic obligations to corporations and wealthy donors, as have scholars reviewed in this project (e.g., Korten, 2001; Speth, 2008)

The final status quo critique frame extraction impacts on nature was similar to the first critical frame, in that it focused on risk inherent in fossil fuel industrial activity. However, instead of representing concern with negative effects on human health, here status quo critics lamented the impacts of extractive activity on non-humans, such as animals and landscapes. This was the only frame identified that was not solely concerned with human outcomes.

Identifying the themes underlying arguments on all sides of these environmental story arcs contributed to future analyses of mediated environmental communication. This was also the necessary first step in determining which environmental ideologies were present in the stories.

Analyzing representations of environmental ideologies. The six frames identified in the first step of the qualitative phase of the project were then logically correlated with the environmental ideologies they represented, using Corbett’s (2006) Spectrum of Environmental

Ideologies. The three frames supporting the status quo (energy security, political security, and economic concerns) were anthropocentric, representing the most anthropocentric position, unrestrained instrumentalism. That means these frames represented the position that only human concerns are worth considering, and that we should solely consider matters of the present when making decisions with environmental ramifications, such as land-use decisions. These positions were not uniformly endorsed, in fact there was robust opposition in the form of status quo critics’ three frames. However, despite being politically opposed, with highly divergent approaches to environmental decision-making, two of these frames (extraction impacts on humans and consumption impacts on humans) were also anthropocentric, meaning they put human 216 considerations first and lacked concern for the positions of any non-human entities. Only the final status-quo critique frame, extraction impacts on nature, represented concern for non-human entities for their own sake.

Thus, the qualitative phase produced the most elementary quantitative analysis: there were five well-defined frames focusing on outcomes affecting humans, and one frame addressing outcomes affecting non-humans. Even before the quantitative content analysis was performed, it was clear from reading the stories repeatedly that human concerns dominated the texts. This claim obviously does not seem surprising—human texts relay human concerns. Yet in an era when many are connecting the lack of concern with non-human systems to environmental degradation that will harm humans, the intense self-focus of our species may come back to haunt us. Of particular concern was that in a political face-off often seen as an evenly matched split of the nation’s polarized voters, those supporting the status quo offered no concern for the ways that environmental usage can damage human lives, little concern for the distant future, and no concern for humans outside the boundaries of the United States. In a globalized society facing intense environmental turmoil, this inward, short-term focus seems highly problematic.

Identifying the frames utilized in the stories allowed me to investigate to what extent the positions of status quo supporters and critics are being relayed in these popular instruments of mass communication.

For the second phase of the project, a quantitative content analysis, I measured the frequencies of appearances of the frames and the ideologies they represented. For purposes of statistical reliability, energy security and political security were combined into national security.

Thus, status quo support frames were reduced to two (national security and economic concerns).

This means five frames total were compared, including the status quo critics’ environmentalist 217 frames (extraction impacts on humans and consumption impacts on humans) and the lone ecocentric frame (extraction impacts on nature).

Hypothesis 1 posed, there will be more anthropocentric frames than ecocentric frames present in the coverage. This hypothesis was supported. Anthropocentric frames were present in

90.2% of the stories, while ecocentric frames were present in only 34.8% of the stories.

Anthropocentric frames were presented without ecocentric frames in 58.3% of the stories, while ecocentric frames were presented without anthropocentric frames in only 2.9% of the stories. It was clear that anthropocentrism dominated the coverage when compared with ecocentrism.

However, this finding must be considered in light of the fact that the qualitative analysis ultimately produced four anthropocentric frames (national security, economic concerns, extraction impacts on humans, consumption impacts on humans) but only one ecocentric frame

(extraction impacts on nature). Clearly, when I compared the occurrences of anthropocentric frames to ecocentric frames the anthropocentric frames had an innate advantage. The likelihood of any one of the four anthropocentric frames being present (the criterion for determining the presence of anthropocentrism) would logically exceed the likelihood of just one ecocentric frame being present in any given story.

Not only did anthropocentrism dominate the texts statistically, which was logical due to its preponderance of frames, but the most anthropocentric ideology was more strongly represented than the modern form of environmentalism. Looking more closely at anthropocentrism’s primary representations, Hypothesis 2 posed, there will be more unrestrained instrumentalist frames than environmentalist frames present in the coverage. This hypothesis was also supported, but unrestrained instrumentalist frames did not completely dominate environmentalist frames. There was a preponderance of unrestrained instrumentalist frames, 218 which appeared in 81.9% of the stories, compared with environmentalist frames, which appeared in 59.8%.

On face, the dominance of anthropocentric in the results from H1 and H2 could be deflating for optimists such as Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig and Jones (2000), who suggested that

U.S. citizens have been moving toward a new environmental paradigm since the 1970s, endorsing “suggestions that a more ecologically sound worldview is emerging” (p. 426).

However, there are more nuanced ways to interpret the results. It is true that the results of H1 showed that anthropocentric frames were more likely to appear, and to appear alone, than ecocentric frames. However, stories featuring both anthropocentric and ecocentric frames were the second-most frequent type of story (n = 65, 31.9%) in H1 results. Thus, when journalists were not articulating anthropocentric frames to the exclusion of ecocentric frames, they were likely including ecocentric frames. This pattern was more pronounced in H2, where the most common category of story featured both unrestrained instrumentalist and environmentalist ideologies.

This perspective on the data shows that journalists are relaying a layered social conflict, rather than a one-sided “common sense” view of environmental issues. In this fashion, it is clear that there is a largescale social conflict worth reporting on, with environmental matters having achieved significant cultural incongruence—there are enough adherents to divergent ideologies to attract social recognition, and thus journalists’ attention. While anthropocentrism is dominant, there is a policy debate taking place, and dissenting values are being disseminated in mainstream discourse vehicles. This finding will be taken up in the final section of the findings discussion.

Though today’s environmental scholars critique the anthropocentric bent of mainstream discourse, my interpretation of the status quo supporters’ arguments was that they are more 219 problematic than simply being human-centered. Many of the status quo supporters seemed to support only their own kind of people, rather than the species as a whole.

Extreme anthropocentrism. Human-centered perspectives dominated these texts, demonstrating speciesism (human feelings of superiority toward, and subjugation of, non- humans). However, overlooking that dilemma and operating from a purely anthropocentric standpoint, a pressing ethical and conceptual concern was that status quo supporters demonstrated very narrow conceptions of which humans they cared about. In other words, their in-group’s membership seemed exclusive.

As expected, status quo supporters’ frames expressed little concern for the non-human world. Yet more pointedly, every problem they posed concerned U.S. citizens living in the present; they were not worried about humans living outside of the United States or those yet to be born. Thus, status quo supporters’ concerns were not directed toward the human race in general, but rather a very narrowly conceived collection of in-groups. This finding indicates a shortcoming in Corbett’s (2006) Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies, perhaps resulting from its parsimony.

Corbett’s (2006) spectrum conceptualizes anthropocentric ideologies as focused only on human outcomes, but treats humans as an indistinct group. Conceiving of status quo supporter elites as anthropocentric, meaning focused on experiences of the entire human species, is a conceptual error. Status quo supporters, representing social roles such as Republican politicians, oil executives, industrial advocates, and even blue-collar union representatives, were typically straightforward in relating concerns to “Americans,” and sometimes to highly circumscribed subsets of U.S. society. For example, they prioritized jobs for the middle class, affordable fuel for U.S. drivers, profits for corporate investors, and safety for U.S. citizens. 220

These stories featured a clear lack of concern for humans outside of U.S. middle- and upper-class society, especially when representing the status quo-supporters’ perspectives. For instance, geographic outsiders were typically omitted (though at times Canadians and their indigenous peoples were covered from status quo critique perspectives). Citizens of Mexico were nonexistent in coverage of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This was surprising in light of the fact that the spill caused economic damages in Mexico as well, and BP’s response to those damages was delayed and underwhelming (Janowitz, 2018). Though U.S. journalists piled on

BP, they failed to add this oversight to their lengthy list of concerns. Similarly, in these U.S. news stories status quo supporters expressed no concern for effects of the Keystone XL pipeline on Canadian citizens (though to be fair they rarely acknowledged potential damages to U.S. citizens, either, with Nebraska’s water supply the notable exception). Further, an argument prevalent in academic writing that only infinitesimally rears its head in these mainstream news texts is that climate change is predicted to most affect countries whose people used the least carbon (Korten, 2001; Speth, 2008). These environmental justice issues facing non-Americans were largely excluded from this discourse, with perhaps the lone exception of a reference to

Bangladesh in one magazine article.

Besides excluding the presence of non-U.S. nationalities, indigenous groups were also marginalized in the stories. U.S. journalists brought them into both storylines at times, as indigenous peoples seemed disproportionately affected by extractivism impacts, yet their identities were rarely mentioned by U.S. policy makers and their positionalities were mostly ignored by status quo supporters’ arguments.

There were clear class-based divisions in both story arcs as well, relating to power structures in corporate hierarchies. In the aftermath of Deepwater Horizon, corporate executives 221 consistently pushed for lax drilling regulations that would increase risk exposure for workers and civilians. BP executives’ discourse foregrounded corporate profits, prioritizing shareholders. In fact, during the story arc the corporation was convicted of demonstrating a criminal lack of concern for humans outside of the investors’ in-group, including working-class employees of its own company. Even after the spill journalists documented extreme in-group bias, noting BP executives’ lack of concern, if not intentional endangerment, of Gulf residents hired to clean up the mess resulting from the executives’ dangerous policies.

An ideology foregrounding in-group concerns while downplaying others’ lives was also present in the Keystone XL stories. When confronted with concerns about global warming,

TransCanada executives and their allies insisted that extractive projects would not significantly exacerbate climate change and asserted that evidence regarding climate change’s severity and impending nature were overblown. To these status quo sources, actual oil spills were deemed insignificant flukes, while future oil spills were considered unlikely. The consistent minimization or dismissal of risk predictions based on little evidence represented a lack of concern for potential negative impacts—perhaps based on the fact that corporate and political decision- makers felt they would be insulated from such effects. Diamond (2005) and Korten (2001) posited and problematized such decisional guidelines among socioeconomic elites.

Regardless of where actors in these stories drew boundaries between humans they were concerned with and the species generally, their remarks represented a modern form of tribalism, based on memberships such as nation and class. Thus, a more refined Spectrum of

Environmental Ideologies could recognize that for any given human, the majority of the species become part of the physical backdrop against which material actions take place, while consequences for in-group members are prioritized in decision making. When political actors 222 jockey over public policy, they discuss material actions and entities who will be affected such as workers, neighbors, and animals. Thus, humans are part of the environment. Decision makers categorize humans, determining whose lives and health can be risked (usually not their own or those of their families, as literature cited in this paper suggest and the texts reviewed support).

The morals of risk distribution when crafting policy raise issues of environmental justice that are not recognizable within Corbett’s (2006) current conceptualization of environmental ideology. When a nation’s collective decision making focuses solely on its citizens, or certain citizens’ favored ranks, its decision making is not simple anthropocentrism, not even the hyper- anthropocentrism of unrestrained instrumentalism. Thus, further theorizing is necessary to more finely recognize and divide the degrees of self-centeredness represented in the “anthropocentric” side of the environmental ideology spectrum. In Corbett’s (2006) current conceptualization, unrestrained instrumentalism is the most anthropocentric position available. However, this position ostensibly represents a global concern for the human species. While the wording will surely evolve, I propose an extreme in-groupism ideological position, recognizing that some groups think Earth’s physical environment exists not for human use, but for their use. The pattern of highly self-centered elite decision-making found in both story arcs represents not just a troubling trend that deserves social correction, but also an opportunity for communication theorists to present a more thorough, and accurate, depiction of the range of available environmental ideologies. In addition to applying and suggesting potential revisions to Corbett’s

(2006) impactful Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies, this paper advanced the study of two prominent mass media models. 223

Mass Media Models Extended

Further contributions I aimed to make with this research project were to expand the utility of two prominent mass media models, Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) propaganda model (PM) and Entman’s (2004) cascading activation model (CAM), and demonstrate that they could be utilized in tandem. By using a comparative case study format, this project was designed to investigate some of the models’ tenets and see how they apply to expanded research areas. Both models were designed to apply to foreign policy discourse yet have potential to be applied in domestic and environmental news contexts.

Application to domestic, environmental news. The PM’s tenets predict that U.S. news will support the political objectives of the country’s socioeconomic elites (Herman & Chomsky,

1988), which tend to be heavily invested in industry (Corbett, 2006). One of the PM’s founders even stated that the model would apply to environmental news (Herman, 1996). Thus, in this dissertation I argued the PM predicts strong expression of extractivist discourse and minimization of ecocentrism. The logic of Hypotheses 1 and 2 was based on the PM’s principles, and both hypotheses were supported. While this is just one test, and the statistical comparisons have concerns listed in the Limitations section, it is encouraging sign of the PM’s potential to apply to both domestic news and environmental news. The PM has been tested many times in its natural discourse area, foreign policy (Mullen & Klaehn, 2010), so expanding its utility in subject area is important. Mass media scholars can always use more conceptual tools to analyze the robust and diverse public sphere. As mass media are primary cultural industries for educating citizenry on environmental issues, including risk assessment (Anderson, 2013) and values formation (Corbett, 2006), such studies are especially important for environmental communication scholars. This research provides some evidence that the PM can be used in such investigations. 224

Though the hypotheses based on the PM were supported, Hypotheses 3 and 4, based on the CAM, were not. However, a significant effect was found. Both hypotheses were based on my interpretation of how the CAM concept of cultural congruence was likely to function in these social environments. Entman (2004) explained that when cultural congruence is high, meaning most people agree on a perspective, dissenting perspectives are unlikely to be publicized.

However, when there is widespread disagreement, resulting in ambiguous levels of cultural congruence, then media are likely to capture multiple perspectives, relaying varying, contested views to the public. This aspect of the CAM is similar to W. Bennett’s (1990) indexing hypothesis, which posits that journalists attend to the positions espoused among elected officials and other political elites, but the CAM goes further, positing that journalists present the positions widely held throughout mainstream society. This theoretical perspective allows audiences (i.e., news-consuming non-elites) more influence on journalists’ framing habits. This conceptual step is important given how changes in information communication technologies have increased everyday citizens’ abilities to participate in news discourse (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009).

Proceeding with this line of logic, the cultural congruence concept is also instrumental to how

Entman (2004) theorized the expression of dissent in mass media, a dynamic which he argued that hegemonic media models like the PM do not account for, and others have agreed.

Focusing on the cultural congruence concept, my argument for the final hypotheses was that the environmental destruction wrought by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill would decrease cultural congruence surrounding extractivist issues, compelling journalists to provide greater space to critiques of status quo extractivism. Hypothesis 3 stated, Deepwater Horizon coverage will have more ecocentric frames than Keystone XL coverage. It was not supported; no significant differences were found in terms of ecocentric frame expression between cases. My 225 initial interpretation of this finding is that perhaps ecocentrism is a minority perspective, so its expression is consistently infrequent, regardless of circumstances. I remain surprised that the

Deepwater Horizon events, which caused the death of countless animals, did not feature the extraction impacts on nature frame more than the Keystone XL stories, centering on a proposed project, which killed no animals.

Another explanation may be that people seek to avoid the cognitive dissonance of knowing their lifestyles harm wildlife. Even if the destruction caused by Deepwater Horizon decreased cultural congruence regarding extractive issues, journalists might receive little support from editors or audiences for reinforcing this frame (e.g., dwelling on animal deaths caused by extractivism). Thus, the truly culturally congruent value appears to be ignoring the negative impacts of the modern consumer lifestyle on the biosphere. Journalists’ professional norms often call for adapting to audience tastes, as news companies are for-profit businesses (Schudson,

2011). Whether one supports or criticizes the status quo economy, dwelling on its negative impacts would be disheartening.

A more political explanation hearkening back to the PM’s tenets is that perhaps news companies perform the status quo maintenance functions that Althusser (2014) describes and prefer not to focus intently on shortcomings of the current socioeconomic system, which could weaken support for its current formations. Herman and Chomsky (1988) wrote that some dissent will always be allowed in mainstream discourse, so that the public sphere maintains the appearance of a place where all mainstream views are aired. Concern with extractivism’s harmful effects on non-humans may be a minority position of sufficient strength to maintain a foothold in news coverage, yet will not see more coverage when effects intensify, perhaps because the outcomes are too unsavory for both elites and the general public. 226

Continuing with the CAM-based explorations, Hypothesis 4 stated, Deepwater Horizon coverage will have more environmentalist frames than Keystone XL coverage. This hypothesis also was not supported, though a significant effect was found in the direction opposite than predicted (Keystone XL had more environmentalist frames). Before I attempt to interpret this finding, I want to posit that the significant effect found may support my theoretical argument that the CAM applies to domestic, environmental news coverage. Though my hypotheses were not confirmed, based on the CAM’s logic I believed that conceptual differences between the cases would correlate to different news framing patterns, and it appears they did, if not in the direction

I expected. Therefore, I believe this suggests expanded utility of the CAM.

Now, making sense of the unanticipated results of Hypothesis 4, that Keystone XL featured more environmentalist frames than Deepwater Horizon, requires exploring how I defined environmentalism. In my research design, environmentalist frames consisted of extraction impacts on humans and consumption impacts on humans, as these frames exemplified conservationism and preservationism, the ideologies dominating the modern environmental movement (Corbett, 2006). I did not include the critical frame extraction impacts on nature, because concern for nature is ecocentric, and so goes beyond typical environmentalism. I believe this research design decision factored into the quantitative outcomes.

A recurring element of the Deepwater Horizon coverage was the loss of 11 lives from the rig’s crew, which is why the oil spill stories featured the extraction impacts on humans frame more prominently. However, Keystone XL opponents brought up the potential negative impacts of a spill, such as polluted aquifers, to argue against the pipeline. So, the argument that extractive projects harm humans showed up relatively frequently (26.7%) in Keystone XL, though not as frequently as in Deepwater Horizon stories (47.9%). The other environmentalist frame, 227 consumption impacts on humans, was basically about climate change. Climate change was a primary issue regarding Keystone XL. Conversely, Deepwater Horizon stories were mostly about the spill’s effects and how to stanch it and clean it up, with a root cause of consumers’ desires for oil a little-seen theme.

My explanation for these differences, using Tuchman’s (1978) language, is that Keystone

XL was to an extent covered thematically, as journalists contended with the complex issue of climate change, while Deepwater Horizon was covered episodically, as an event largely unrelated to other processes. The dramatic nature of the Deepwater Horizon stories likely contributed to journalists’ discursive approach, whereas Keystone XL often lacked the fireworks to be treated as an episodic story. Because Deepwater Horizon was treated as an event, it was not explicitly linked to largescale issues like climate change as much as Keystone XL was. Keystone

XL did have event-like coverage, as protests, pronouncements, and policy debates all provided news hooks (though most of the protests occurred before this project’s case boundaries), but ultimately the debate was about something that was non-episodic, as climate change is global and enduring. Based on my repeated reading of the articles, climate activists succeeded in keeping Keystone XL in the news cycle with episodic hooks while managing to keep their policy concerns foregrounded, with news content focusing on a thematic issue.

Thinking about these story arcs and the framing decisions journalists made holistically, it seems my hypotheses did not consider what the news story arcs were really about. Keystone XL featured strong cultural incongruence, as citizens nationwide worried about climate change impacts. Meanwhile Deepwater Horizon impacts were localized, and oil spills are less enduring than climate change. The disparity in cultural congruence may not exist as I hypothesized it; I may have in fact gotten the situation backwards. Keystone XL seemed to be the storyline 228 foregrounding a clash of opinions, while even staunch extractivists wanted the Deepwater

Horizon spill, and resulting stories, capped as soon as possible.

Again, I would like to move away from the actual quantitative results to examine the research design. Both models called for different results. The PM suggested the dominance of capitalist media owners bent on transmitting only preferred ideologies to the masses. As mentioned in the discussion of the first two hypotheses, to some extent, the PM’s logic was confirmed. As for the CAM, which suggests the diversity of widely held attitudes affects journalists’ framing strategies, were not confirmed, one significant effect was found. Further, dissent as I conceptualized it generally had a stronger appearance than the pessimistic PM might have allowed for. Therefore, I think this project demonstrated the usefulness of utilizing both a hegemonic mass media model like the PM and one that allows for nuanced expression of dissent, such as the CAM, in tandem. The models utilize different logics and suggest different outcomes, and thus can be applied to the same data sets. This study joins a burgeoning scholarly movement

(e.g., Handley, 2010; Kennis, 2015; Klein et al., 2009; Shoemaker & Vos, 2009) calling for the combination of theoretical models of mass media functioning. A successful example is Kennis

(2015), who combined the PM and the indexing hypothesis into the media dependence model. In that work Kennis elaborated on a concept central to the PM, that of worthy victims, which is the next concept this study sheds light on.

Richness of worthy victims concept. A recurring theme of the Deepwater Horizon coverage was the 11 fallen rig workers. Journalists’ framing of those men’s deaths brings to mind the PM’s worthy victims concept. Kennis (2015) elaborated on Herman and Chomsky’s

(1988) concept, describing a continuum of worthiness, rather than the binary measure the authors originally proposed. Applying Kennis’ (2015) logic, the 11 casualties received frequent mention, 229 but were not treated as very worthy. Their names were very rarely mentioned, and the manners in which they died were not described in sensationalized terms. In many ways, those 11 casualties were treated as journalists treat casualties of war: statistics evidentiary of an important trend, but intrinsically unimportant. Though they received some mention, journalists did not wax poetic about these men; neither did the families of the fallen receive significant attention. A limitation of content analyses is an inability to determine causality. Yet Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) model would suggest that mass media companies, politically aligned with oil companies, would not want to cast undue negative publicity on a fellow globalized U.S. industry. Treating the 11 casualties as worthy victims, with accompanying quantities of coverage and visceral details, would have primed readers to think about the negative impacts of extractive projects on human lives. Thus, there may have been structural elements behind this pattern of keeping references to those 11 deaths brief and sanitized.

Though the 11 men who died received little details in coverage of their passing, those who suffered economically from the Deepwater Horizon disaster received ample coverage.

When the Deepwater Horizon sank, journalists focused on fishers out of work, hotels with low levels of occupancy, and how the government’s deepwater drilling moratorium stifled profits and damaged U.S. industry. Based on the ubiquitousness of the economic concerns frame, and this imbalance in terms of human victims’ coverage, it seems that illnesses and death received less coverage overall than financial issues. However, this is a perception, not a quantitative analysis.

In the future I may re-explore the data set with new research questions in this regard.

Determining a hierarchy of worthiness for victims was not a research aim of this study. And, though I just finished stating that human casualties associated with the spill were marginalized in coverage, an important finding was that humans received much more attention than animals in 230 the spill’s aftermath, despite the fact that animals suffered much more physical harm. Were I to develop a victims’ hierarchy of worthiness, it seems quite obvious that non-human victims would be at the bottom of such a scale.

Though the 11 men who died in the Deepwater Horizon tragedy seemed to receive less attention than those impacted economically, a clearer disparity was that The Deepwater Horizon stories typically introduced the underwater spill by calling attention to its size and human casualties, for example, “spewing nearly five million barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico and killing 11 rig workers” (NYT, Krauss, 2010b) or “killing 11 men and triggering the world’s worst accidental oil spill at sea” (WSJ, Chazan, 2010a). Such descriptive introductions clearly implied that the spill was bad for nature. However, because such introductions did not explicitly link the spill to impacts on nature, such comments were not coded as extraction impacts on nature. Put another way, there are no animal victims or non-humans mentioned at all in such formulations. Thus, Deepwater Horizon leads often ignored the effects of the spill on the sea’s lifeforms while highlighting, if only perfunctorily, human lives lost.

This stark dichotomy—likely unnoticed by most audiences—hints at the unquestioned anthropocentric nature of journalism and buttresses status quo supporters’ arguments that environmentalist discourse is radical. The coverage was reminiscent of the examples Herman and Chomsky (1988) used in their definitive work demonstrating the propaganda model, where journalists ignored or downplayed the murders of humans whose deaths did not support U.S. foreign policy goals. While the divisions in Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) work were political, between human in-groups and out-groups, the divisions in the Deepwater Horizon stories were often between humans and non-humans. In the terminology of Entman’s (2004) cascading activation model, the cultural congruence of ignoring animal deaths seems relatively strong—as 231 strong as (briefly) foregrounding the tragic accidental deaths of humans. This is a thought- provoking conclusion because I would say that the widespread deaths of charismatic megafauna, such as sea turtles and dolphins, would be a culturally congruent tragedy. Perhaps journalists took it for granted that readers would know that huge oil spills kill animals, thus explaining that a large amount of oil was spilled would imply that many animals died. However, they also could have taken it for granted that people knew a huge explosion on a sinking rig caused casualties, yet they mentioned the 11 lives lost in about half of the Deepwater Horizon articles. Thus, the wide swaths of wildlife that died in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion were rarely seen as worthy of mention, and like the 11 men who died, lacked evocative imagery to sensationalize their passing.

These details clearly lend support to Kennis’ (2015) argument that the worthy victims concept is rich and can be further elaborated upon. Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) original formulation focused on U.S. foreign policy goals. The instrumentality of a person’s death to

White House political goals was strongly linked to the amount and intensity of its coverage. In the Deepwater Horizon stories, foreign policy issues were hardly raised; it was mostly a domestic news story. However, the logic at play seemed similar to the original PM work, with the intertwined interests of political and economic elites being promoted. If people and organizations losing money were the worthiest victims, as my qualitative and quantitative analyses imply, then presumably news outlets are promoting, if unconsciously, the interests of powerful economic actors. Economic concerns topped the Keystone XL stories’ frames as well.

Thus, both story arcs called audiences’ attention to their own economic insecurity, whether they be workers or investors, and the role that extractive projects play in allaying such concerns, by providing jobs and fueling investments. These dynamics represent the type of status quo 232 maintenance Althusser (2014) and Gramsci (1971) attribute to powerful capitalists and the cultural industries they dominate. Of course, powerful economic actors are tied to the politicians crafting White House foreign policy goals as well. This intertangled nature of economic and political interests is one of the PM’s primary arguments. By expanding the worthy victims concept beyond human casualties from political conflicts to include human and non-human casualties from industrial activity, this dissertation adds to the breadth of journalism subjects that the PM can be applied to, and the theoretical depth of the model’s arguments.

There were several groups treated as victims with varying degrees of worthiness in these stories, chiefly the 11 men and countless animals who died, and the economic victims of the spill. One causal factor that could have arisen in these stories, but did not, was the idea that the social structures of a capitalist economy guarantee such injurious outcomes. Both media models used in this study predict that such structural critique is unlikely in mainstream media products, and these predictions were upheld in this study.

Capitalism unchallenged. Both the PM (Herman & Chomsky, 1988) and the CAM

(Entman, 2004) assert that mainstream news much more commonly features procedural framing

(critiques of strategy and personnel) than substantive framing (critiques of the underlying policy goals and values driving government action). Thus, both mass media models utilized in this project assert that mainstream news publications, functioning as status quo maintenance information vehicles, fail to challenge the deep structural elements underpinning their societies.

This logic seems obvious—why would a sub-system consistently challenge the validity and existence of the over-arching systems that enable its own continued existence? Such action would not only be counter-productive but could be potentially terminal. Thus, one would not 233 expect corporate news outlets to systematically challenge the capitalist nature of the society they are enmeshed in.

The models’ claims in this regard were supported by my analysis of these news stories, as the basis of the U.S. social system in capitalism was not debated. Althusser (2014) asserted that socioeconomic elites use discourse to naturalize their advantageous positions; Gramsci (1971) asserted that ubiquitous ruling class logic becomes unquestioned common sense. These critical assertions seem to remain quite relevant, as the mass media texts reviewed in this project did not question the current economic system. The status quo supporters described a system of private ownership of the means of production (land, drilling rigs, etc.) and wage laborers desperate for sufficient work to survive. This system was not critiqued, though the workers’ desperation was problematized. However, much of the academic literature I read for this project suggested that the current system of capitalism is the root problem of the environmental crises humans face today.

Both the Keystone XL and Deepwater Horizon storylines were about extractivist projects designed to create profits for investors, wages for select workers, and tax revenues for governments. In the debate about plans for the pipeline, opponents claimed that pipeline would create new problems and intensify ongoing ones, challenging lives both locally and globally. In the aftermath of the offshore oil rig’s explosion, human lives were lost at sea, and countless animals were killed or affected negatively. Essentially, these storylines were largely about capitalist projects’ negative effects, on humans, animals, and the ecosystems we inhabit together.

A primary impetus for these projects is the profits they create for investors. Thus, investors’ desires for material wealth are pitted against others’ desires for physical health. This situation 234 seems to be endemic to capitalism, yet the periodicals typically failed to investigate this dynamic, despite its obviousness.

Certain components of U.S. political and economic structures that were not discussed in the texts are important to mention. The periodicals rarely discussed the idea of executive profits.

They did discuss stockholders’ profits at times, and how stockholders’ desires for profits affect corporate intentions. The stories mentioned that corporations are profit-driven, but the idea that the nation’s systems—both political and economic—are moved from the motivation of channeling profits to investors, was downplayed. There was a strong focus on jobs, and how environmental disasters economically harm workers, local business owners, and industries.

Politicians focused on the workers’ needs for more work, while downplaying corporate executives’ and large-scale stockholders’ desires for more profits. It seemed the journalists were often complicit in this rhetorical move, allowing the true concerns of actors to remain partially obfuscated. The debates presented concerned the best ways to get workers jobs, and to a lesser extent, generate profits for investors. Fundamentally altering the current systems of economic relations was not a policy option discussed.

Another impetus for extractive projects is the benefits that end-users derive from natural resource production. This angle was covered, as the periodicals explained that people’s desire for inexpensive mobility is a primary motivator for such complex, laborious, long-running investment projects in the first place. After all, investors only place their capital where they expect handsome returns. If people did not want the fossil fuels, they would not be mined. I believe that this frame is safer for journalists to explore, as readers may feel guilty, but so far have proven unwilling to relinquish the material wealth and emotional satisfaction that natural resources provide (i.e., through easy travel). Blaming consumers for the current state of 235 environmental destruction essentially implies that the problem is unsolvable, as consumers will not change. Pinning the blame for environmental problems on a system that encourages conspicuous consumption dredges up challenging structural issues.

Just as consumers are unwilling to give up their cars, investors are unwilling to abandon a system resulting in their material enrichment. As Herman and Chomsky (1988) point out, these same investors are the owners or are aligned with the owners of the news outlets examined in this study steering U.S. cultural discourse. Thus, it is not surprising that the publications did not question the capitalist system that allow them to exist and enrich their owners. More surprising is that a robust discursive critique is supported by any press, academic or public. A future investigation for my own edification might be into the political economy of the critical press, which promotes structural critique, challenging the systems that produced it in the first place.

The texts were so uncritical of capitalism that not even status quo critics were quoted questioning the current economic system. While they critiqued the fossil fuel economy, they merely suggested replacing fossil fuels with sources of renewable energy. Thus, an economy based on the transformation of the Earth’s natural resources into privately owned capital goods through the labor of non-capitalists was not questioned by any sources quoted in these publicized debates. That said, status quo critics’ structural arguments did enter the discourse, presumably because journalists’ conflict orientation demanded it. The stories showed critics indicating that

Republican politicians were beholden to their wealthy campaign donors, thus tied to extractive investments. They showed environmentalists’ arguments that corporations were focused on short-term profits, without concern for the impacts their extractive activities would have over long periods of time and on widespread populations. It is fair to say that journalists captured

Rochon’s (2000) ideas of a cultural tug-of-war, but the capitalist system was not up for debate. 236

Of course, the lack of appearance of arguments critical of a capitalist system does not mean that the arguments were not being advanced to journalists, just that journalists were not transmitting them to mass audiences. Such an omission is a limitation of the content analysis research form: it could be that certain groups were advocating new styles of economic organizing, but their voices were excluded by journalists’ professional gatekeeping norms.

Future research could explore these issues by utilizing the methods Tuchman’s (1978) seminal study of journalists’ work habits. It may be that groups expressing radical dissent are excluded by journalists’ personal algorithms for deciding who to interview and which content to reproduce. A news text data set cannot allow one to determine if such opinions never reached these journalists, if they were simply excluded by professional norms, or if journalists attempted to bring such discourse into the fray, but the content was excluded by editors. Without insight into the decisional mechanisms at play, all I can say with certainty is that these corporate-owned discourse vehicles, while presenting policy debate regarding the best ways to implement a capitalist system, do not critique the fundamental assumptions of such a system or suggest alternatives. Thus, while these stories present rich debate, their rhetoric is ultimately non- confrontational regarding the deepest structural issues at play. The range of discourse presented by capitalist vehicles thus aligned well with the expectations derived from the mass media models undergirding this study.

Generally, the texts reviewed in this project conformed to the broad expectations of the mass media models applied. Both the PM and the CAM assert that mainstream mass media tend to support the status quo, while minimizing the expression of dissent. Yet if we view the expression of environmentalist or ecocentric ideologies as a form of dissent (intrinsically critical of the unrestrained instrumentalist views most prominently promoted in the U.S. public sphere), 237 then it should be noted that dissenting discourse received an appreciable amount of attention in these texts. This degree of expression, consistent if subordinate, supports Entman’s (2004) CAM reasoning that dissent is consistently disseminated by mass media. There appears to be rich possibilities to apply the CAM to environmental discourse, as determining the conditions that moderate the appearance and form of dissent remains relevant to both journalism studies and environmental communication. This project attempted to add a small piece to this puzzle by applying media models to environmental discourse. Another mass media aspect examined was differences between different media formats and news outlets.

Differences between periodicals and periodical types. The final exploratory component of this project was Research Question 3, what differences exist in ideological framing among different publications and publication types? Perhaps not surprisingly, the weekly newsmagazines were shown to have more depth in terms of ideological diversity. Magazines more prominently featured two frames, national security and consumption impacts on humans, than did newspapers. Though the relationship was non-significant, it deserves consideration here for future investigations. These two frames were advanced by oppositional political groups, status quo supporters and critics, respectively, so the disproportionate appearance of both does not signal ideological bias in magazines. If future studies produced significant findings in the same theoretical direction, it would be worthwhile to conjecture on potential reasons behind the findings, which I do here, based around the idea that magazines have more space to cover diverse story angles.

For readers, these two frames’ arguments were non-essential—readers can both understand the debate about a pipeline extension and read about an oil spill cleanup without deep dives into background context and complex underlying problems. With newspapers’ necessarily 238 tighter word counts, they do not have the physical space to provide background context as frequently as magazines, which are comparatively long-form publications. Weekly readers likely look for more context, and newspaper readers are conditioned to expect only the latest information, rather than complex analysis.

The primary foci of both story arcs may have been economic concerns for several reasons. The sources cited may have most frequently articulated concerns with economic matters. Due to journalists’ professional norms, news sources are generally similar, as Tuchman

(1978) found, contributing to her webs of facticity concept, in which manifold, but similar, sources lead to consistent discourse. Or, perhaps audiences are more concerned with economic concerns, or journalists’ professional norms dictate that the economy be a central focus.

Regardless of the logic responsible, economic concerns was the most dominant frame, and of the status quo supporters’ frames, the most essential to the stories. The Keystone XL pipeline was conceived of to create economic wealth, as was the Deepwater Horizon drilling work. When both projects ceased, profits were lost.

A less easily explained finding was that Time significantly led the pack in terms of environmentalist frames generally, and the climate change consumption impacts on humans frame specifically. More publication-specific research would be necessary to put this finding in context, though it may be that Time “leans left,” in the parlance of those concerned with media bias. Future research could explore if this is the case, and potential reasons. Less surprising was the fact that The Wall Street Journal anchored the other end of these two statistics, representing the least usage of environmentalist and climate change frames. Presumably the investor-oriented publication has several reasons for “leaning right,” including meeting the expectations of its 239 advertisers (e.g., Herman & Chomsky, 1988) and minimizing its readers’ cognitive dissonance, as their investments may contribute to the deleterious trends status quo critics rail against.

I believe the findings in this paper support PM conclusions that capitalist information vehicles support capitalist goals, yet this most recent finding shows that the publications varied in terms of their fidelity to the ideologies presumably preferred by economic elites. Perhaps

Herman and Chomsky (1988) are correct in asserting that allowing a certain amount of dissent is a necessary component of socioeconomic elites’ media strategy to provide the illusion of a marketplace of ideas. Excluding all social critique would imply an oppressive society in need of change, while providing content critiquing dominant social structures alleviates concerns that collective decision-making is run by a powerful, deceptive cabal. This focus on the role of mass media as arbiters of the articulation of opposing groups’ visions speaks to the idea referenced throughout this document that U.S. culture is in upheaval, and the “sides” are reaching for the allegiance of the undecided. These news texts clearly embodied one arena where this social contest is played out discursively, among other areas of the public sphere.

Struggle to Define Center

The stories reviewed revealed discursive clash between two politically united groups with divergent policy visions. Attitudes expressed in news stories are said to capture the “center” of

U.S. political opinion (Schudson, 2011). For this reason, groups strive to have their discourse included in news, or better yet, push out others’ views and achieve symbolic dominance. These stories showed such a framing contest at play, as groups espousing oppositional perspectives sought to build their followings, and ultimately establish their views as “common sense,” in the style of Gramsci (1971). A primary thread in these arguments was establishing whether or not 240 the Earth has systemic limits that humans are capable of breaching, and whether or not such breaches are currently, or imminently, taking place.

Human impacts on biosphere debated. According to Korten (2001), the human species has expanded to the point where its collective behaviors irrevocably impact its habitats, yet those capturing the most economic profits from current arrangements maintain and spread faith that humans cannot alter environmental systems. This claim was supported in the stories reviewed.

Generally, status quo supporters represented the belief that Earth’s physical systems are too strong for humans to disrupt, or that if humans are capable of permanently altering those systems, such an event is unlikely to take place soon. Status quo supporters advocated maximizing the transformation of natural resources into commodities, extoling such processes’ economic benefits to individuals and geopolitical benefits to the nation (whether status quo supporters were American or Canadian, this pattern held). Status quo supporters demonstrated little belief that the biosphere has limits to such exploitation. Their frames were based on feelings of insecurity, but not about fears that our own consumptive practices will overwhelm the systems we require for survival, which is what many authors predict is a highly likely possibility (e.g.,

Diamond, 2005; Korten, 2001; Speth, 2008). Rather, status quo supporters expressed concern that benefits of their modern lifestyle are at risk if policies are not enacted to sustain them.

The status quo support frames, energy security, political security, and economic concerns, represented problems of the present or near future, but they were isolated to U.S. concerns about freedom and safety. The frames depicted the federal government as capable of advancing and maintaining these interests, but also of retarding them. Adherents to these frames valued mobility; based on availability of fossil fuels, security; based on military might, and spending power; constructed from participation in an extractivist economy. None of these frames 241 were related to climate change, a complex series of phenomena that the world’s eminent scientists agree is occurring and will pose great threats to humans’ quality of life (IPCC, 2013).

This oversight is ironic, because climate change is forecast to impact the frames status quo supporters are concerned with, particularly political security and economic concerns (Kinner,

1996). In these stories, the parties whose economic strength was tied to fossil fuel production, including oil industry workers, investors, and politicians allied with these groups, typically ignored climate change or dismissed its potential effects. As none of the status quo support frames considered the ramifications of a biosphere with limits and finite resources, they fit well with the limitless frontier mindset Korten (2001) asserted dominates U.S. discourse.

The status quo supporters behaved like cowboys in a spaceship (Korten, 2001), focused on their own short-term goals and feeling insulated from the negative outcomes of the policies they oversee (Diamond, 2005). Diamond (2005) stated that, regarding his work on societal collapses, he is frequently asked why societies did not see their downfall coming and take steps to avoid it; he acknowledged this as a challenging question but also expressed a measure of optimism that humans can overcome their current precarious position. Diamond (2005) pointed out that information industries and communication technologies have evolved to the point that dissenters’ information can easily be disseminated, allowing informed citizens to question leaders’ decisions, and ideally compel leaders’ decisions to take into account the concerns of all citizens, not just elite minorities. In these texts we encounter the manifestation of this trend— though anthropocentric discourse dominated these U.S. mass media texts, as Corbett (2006) asserted is typically the case, a robust resistance movement was also evident, as oppositional forces called attention to pitfalls of such courses of collective decision making. 242

Status quo critics argued that status quo supporters were either blissfully ignorant or intentionally misleading regarding evidence that fossil fuel consumption is exacerbating climate change. Their frame consumption impacts on humans, especially prevalent in the Keystone XL stories, argued that fossil fuel use is permanently altering the climate. They also consistently advocated caution when it came to assessing industrial disasters’ impacts. Keystone XL opponents warned that pipeline spills can be highly problematic, and occur frequently, while status quo supporters generally debated both points. Critics asserted that the effects of industrial disasters, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, are difficult to judge, especially over short amounts of time. Their opponents maintained throughout the saga of the spill that concerns about its ramifications were overblown.

This robust debate appearing in mainstream media texts demonstrates that a significant portion of society likely holds dissenting views, as cultural congruence is necessary for alternative perspectives to appear in the news (Entman, 2004). That such perspectives have caught on and are being promoted by a determined bunch exemplifies the culture work Rochon

(2000) indicates is necessary for shifts in collective behavior.

As status quo supporters refused to cede the rhetorical ground that humans are capable of permanently and intensely altering Earth’s physical systems, their classification of environmentalists as out of touch was a logical maneuver. This discourse was an example of representatives of U.S. environmental ideologies competing for the affiliation of citizens not yet committed to either side of the debate.

Environmentalism labeled extremist but becoming mainstream. Status quo supporters focused on the relationship of the economy to quality of life, expressing concern for blue-collar workers’ economic prospects and outrage at investors’ profits stymied by 243 governmental regulations. Thus, status quo supporters favored an extractivist economy. In fact, environmentalists were frequently labeled radicals by actors in these stories. In a typical quotation, a Republican seeking presidential nomination, Jeb Bush, stated that a politician who opposes the Keystone XL pipeline “favors environmental extremists over U.S. jobs” (NYT,

Gabriel, 2015).

The vehemence and frequency of these sentiments demonstrated sound rhetorical strategy, and perhaps accurate observations. When status quo supporters label environmentalist arguments as fringe, they attempt to draw the uncommitted toward their own positions. If the majority of citizens found concern with extractive impacts to be nonsensical, then many political barriers to extractive projects would dissipate. While labeling pro-environmental views rare seems a sound tactical maneuver, whether or not it is factually accurate is debatable.

The environmental movement is still relatively young, so for U.S. leaders who came of age as the environmental movement caught on, the concepts may seem newfangled or foreign.

Yet the significant presence of environmental discourse in the texts would seem to disprove the labeling of environmentalists as fringe radicals. The environmentalist movement’s arguments are typically anthropocentric (Corbett, 2006), and were found to be so in these stories. Concerns with risks to human health do not seem radical. However, at times in these stories status quo critics expressed concern for nature beyond its human-use value, for example worrying that a seemingly insignificant species could go extinct. Emphasizing the intrinsic values of nature’s non-human elements indeed seems to be a minority position. Corbett (2006) states that ecocentrism is a radical departure from status quo U.S. discourse, and in these stories it was the least frequently appearing type of frame. Ecocentrism is also extreme in terms of its distance along Corbett’s (2006) Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies from the most prominent ideology 244 in U.S. discourse, unrestrained instrumentalism. Thus, there seems some merit to status quo supporters’ claims that concerns with non-human issues are radical positions.

Though environmentalists were maligned as illogical radicals, my interpretation of the data in this research project is that environmentalist values have attained significant cultural congruence. Many scholars quoted in this project’s review of literature asserted that a shift in humans’ dominant environmental ideology is needed in order to avoid catastrophic outcomes we are presently driving toward (e.g., Corbett, 2006; Diamond, 2005; Dunlap & Van Liere, 1984;

Korten, 2001; Speth, 2008). The primary avenue to significant policy change is a shift in cultural values (Rochon, 2000). In this vein, one goal of this empirical investigation was to determine if any headway had been made toward redefining the “normal” or anchor environmental ideology.

Though anthropocentrism dominated the discourse, particularly in the most-extreme form, unrestrained instrumentalism, there was a robust counter-point discourse built mostly on the traditional environmentalist positions of conservationism and preservationism. The texts reviewed were published about 40 years after the first Earth Day, a U.S. celebration marking the coming-out moment of the modern environmental movement (Haq & Paul, 2013). The quantitative results of this project lead me to believe that in the intervening decades the ideas that humans should use natural resources wisely and consider their future access caught on and became mainstream, if contested, ideologies.

Now, just because the traditional environmental movement’s ideologies have gained purchase in the popular consciousness does not mean that the transformative ideologies such scholars called for are inevitably rooting as well. For one thing, moving from the dominant, most-extreme anthropocentric position of unrestrained instrumentalism to the slightly less- anthropocentric positions of conservationism and preservationism has clearly been, and remains, 245 an intense discursive struggle. However, there were traces of ecocentrism in this discourse.

Corbett (2006) describes animal rights and land-based ethics as the preliminary philosophical steps toward transformative ecocentrism. In several places throughout these texts, concerns were expressed for non-human animals unrelated to their human use-value. Journalists described the animal victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in sympathetic terms and expressed concern for the fate of animals potentially impacted by the Keystone XL pipeline expansion. There were also passages where landscapes were described as scarred or polluted by extractive actions. Such statements represent a budding movement recognizing the inherent value of animals and landscapes, even when they do not directly serve human purposes. Whether or not this movement is growing is of course an important direction for future social science research. At this point in time though, the bulk of the environmental movement, at least as expressed by journalist gatekeepers, still focuses on human outcomes. Based on the results of this project’s quantitative analyses, it seems that ecocentrism has not yet “arrived.” This most radical shift from the norm was the least-present type of environmental ideology. Time will tell if valuing nature intrinsically becomes mainstream, or even central to the environmental movement.

Regardless of the swiftness of progress, this project’s results indicate that there is an ongoing values-based discussion in the United States regarding environmental issues.

Limitations

Though useful conclusions were derived from the qualitative and quantitative research procedures enacted in this project, there were limitations to the project’s methods that constrain the applicability of its findings.

News articles offer limited access to ideology. The quotations and brief statements found in these news stories do not delve deeply into the underlying arguments. It is a limitation 246 of the periodical textual form of journalism that we encounter arguments repeatedly, but shallowly. There are several possible explanations for the obfuscation of ideology in journalism.

It seems likely that journalists assume underlying cultural values are well-understood background knowledge, and thus do not need explicit articulation. Perhaps media outlets believe that audiences are not interested in explorations of values, preferring “just the facts.” Or it may be that the limitations of the medium, constrictions developed by various economic rationales, disallow long-form philosophical investigations. Alternatively, it may be that political actors want to minimize their exposure to rhetorical clash, and so take policy stances while hiding the particulars of their value systems. Whatever the reason, in these stories it is easy to see the parties’ policy goals, but their rationales are often opaque. This discrepancy makes recognizing actors’ values more challenging, akin to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, as content analysts metaphorically read shadows on walls rather than encountering people’s true beliefs.

Homogenous content constrains ideological breadth. Further limitations stemmed from the choice of materials for the content analyses. The media products were all oriented toward

U.S. audiences and produced by U.S.-based corporations. Therefore, they were steeped in the

U.S. culture’s values and unquestioned assumptions. While this decidedly national character is useful for exploring U.S. ideologies, it means that the texts cannot be generalized to other nations’ discursive environments. Further explorations of a similar vein are needed to discover if the project’s conclusions hold in other cultural arenas. The results cannot even be generalized to

U.S. mass media, because the periodicals chosen represent the national prestige press, and all belong to corporate entities. Other outlets, including other technological mediums, less prestigious organizations, and non-corporate products, may all have different approaches to reporting. Future scholars should check to see if corporate news consistently supports extractive 247 value systems, and if other types of information disseminators reproduce other types of ideologies. For instance, studies of alternative media such as Mother Jones, which lacks traditional advertisers, would presumably see highly divergent value systems expressed. This project represents only one slice of the U.S. media market, albeit what many label the most influential slice.

Limits to content analyses’ conclusions. This project was a content analysis; a common critique of content analyses is that they are indirect methods of accessing the decision-making patterns of their authors. Many scholars (e.g., Golding & Murdock, 1979; Philo, 2007) call for direct research into the praxis of journalists and news organizations in the style of Tuchman

(1978), investigating gatekeeping decisions directly rather than analyzing journalistic output.

Not only are the priorities of the news organization employees judged indirectly through final content forms, but this project’s insights into politically united collectives are also indirect.

Observations about various groups and their priorities are made based on the quotations and paraphrased content in these stories, but to truly understand a social movement calls for engaging with its members. For example, a content analyst has no way of knowing if a journalist’s representation of an organization’s message represents the organization’s central thrust, or simply its tangential concerns. Investigating the agenda-building activities of political groups would not only allow greater understanding of their messages, but insight into how journalists react to such activity.

Case studies’ temporal boundaries. As a case study, this project necessarily examined a group of texts bound in time. That was an advantage in making declarative conclusions about that time period, but historical snapshots cannot be used to make firm generalizations about the 248 present. Further, in the rapidly changing technological and political landscape that is U.S. mass mediated discourse, recurrent examinations will remain necessary for conclusions to be relevant.

Need for multidisciplinary research reviews. A weakness of this paper’s academic literature foundation became clear as the qualitative findings emerged. While most academic work is necessarily couched in certain fields, for example, economics, political science, communication, etc., many scholars call for interdisciplinary research agendas. In this paper, the combination of environmental, mass media, and political communication research proved useful for forming research questions and hypotheses, but the conclusions of the thematic analysis demonstrated that a grounding in anthropological research would also benefit this line of inquiry.

Corbett’s (2006) Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies treated humans as one cohesive group, but the findings revealed that humans can also be considered part of the environment, as they are part of the backdrop for other humans’ social action. Thus, approaches to environmental ideology must consider the in-group / out-group dynamics of human tribalism, yet cultural anthropology is not a field that seemed relevant when I was reading background literature for this project. This disconnect demonstrated to me the value of pursuing sociological research in as many canons of literature as possible, and the weaknesses of remaining in academic silos.

Recommendations for Future Scholarship and Activism

The conclusions formed from the observations in this project will ideally contribute to further investigations of the topics addressed. Here I offer my opinion on the directions that future scholars can take in these areas. Also, though the collection and analysis of data for this dissertation were performed as close to objectively as possible, the primary impetus for the project was concern that, as a species, humans are not making the wisest decisions in the modern era. I hope that my conclusions regarding the data can assist environmental activists in 249 promoting transformative ideologies and a just, healthy, and safe future. Thus, I offer whatever insights I gleaned regarding best practices for this social movement.

Mass media models. As I have mentioned, news studies may benefit from a concerted, comprehensive attempt to figure out how the tenets of the most well-known mass media models work together. To me, there is potential for a return to the grand theorizing of the 19th century regarding media ecologies. There are many theories, focused on many aspects of mass media, that have had their tenets supported, yet they have not been combined into macro-level theories.

In this project I found continued support for Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) claims that the media tend to support ideologies beneficial to the most powerful social actors. However,

Entman’s (2004) claim that dissent maintains a foothold in public discourse was also clearly true.

His efforts to determine the circumstances surrounding dissenting perspectives’ manifestations should surely be continued. Though W. Bennett’s (1990) argument that the expression of dissent is tied to the existence of dissent among political elites is well taken, the rise of social media and decentralization of information distribution mean that the patterns of discourse flows and opinion formation must be continually confronted (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). For instance, Entman’s

(2004) CAM allows media audiences some abilities to drive news cycles, but those abilities are likely increasing due to a weakening in the traditional media gatekeeping model (Shoemaker &

Vos, 2009). This study did not examine social media or other audience-generated content.

Scholars diving deeper into similar case studies are now including such content in efforts to see how news makers respond to news audiences, and should continue to do so (e.g., Graeff,

Stempeck, & Zuckerman, 2014). It may be that the arrow flowing “upstream” in the CAM should be thickened to represent audiences’ increased influence on the modern news cycle. 250

Worthy victims. As mentioned previously in this chapter, it seemed that the Deepwater

Horizon’s economic victims received greater coverage, in terms of quantity and richness of description, than its actual victims, i.e., those who lost their lives to the rig’s explosion. This trend begs the question, to what extent do U.S. media focus on monetary losses versus human losses? Though investigating such disparities was not a direct goal of this paper, their seeming existence calls for future applications of the propaganda model to domestic and environmental news coverage. The worthy victim concept is clearly still rich and applicable. Kennis’ (2015) move to work toward a spectrum of worthiness is an important step in this direction. Just as

Corbett (2006) reviewed writing about various environmental ideologies and placed them on a spectrum, media scholars could work to identify degrees of worthiness, and how such degrees could be operationalized. From an environmental communication perspective, more research should be done to see how “worthy” non-humans are when they die, and how their worthiness fluctuates with circumstances. One Newsweek editorial in the corpus suggested that, over time, people are becoming more comfortable with the accidental destruction caused by extractivist endeavors (NW, Begley, 2010). Perhaps the attention devoted to industrial disasters’ mass kills, of both humans and wildlife, has decreased over time. Such trends are important to chart, to gauge how environmental sentiment and focus is changing.

Also worth noting, when animals’ lives were mentioned, they were often the subjects of entire articles. So, it may be that animals’ deaths do not receive the same tangential currency as parallel human casualties (i.e., being consistently linked to disasters when context is introduced), yet they receive more intense description when focused upon. None of the articles in the corpus focused on the 11 men who died aboard the rig (though this elision may be an artifact of random sampling). Thus, when animals take center stage, they may be more worthy than humans, who 251 become anonymous statistics. Verifying this trend and investigating the underlying reasons are both rich topics for future investigations.

The findings regarding periodicals and publication types were interesting, if perfunctory.

It seems that newspapers present less context than weekly newsmagazines. It would be of interest to scholars concerned with democratic participation if newspaper readers are less often exposed to the complexity of value positions underlying policy debates. Also, future scholarship could determine if the ideological imbalances noted in this project persist in other content analyses. Is Time liberal, relatively speaking? And if so, why? Presumably The Wall Street

Journal is conservative, as it caters to audiences who profit from the status quo political and economic system. Yet future studies could ferret out just how such differences in expectations of audiences, editors, and owners affect the appearance of ideologies in today’s struggle to determine a collective path forward.

Investigating rhetorical strategies. Previously in this chapter I noted that status quo supporters labeled environmentalists extremists. What surprised me was that environmentalists were not quoted as turning this label of “extremism” around on status quo supporters. If status quo critics’ arguments about the highly negative effects of fossil fuel consumption are accurate, then holding on to this economic and material system could be labeled the extreme position.

Valuing economic growth and personal mobility over long-term biosphere health seems like a radical orientation, especially in light of Diamond’s (2005) conclusions that such behaviors have caused previous societies to disappear. Yet status quo critics did not apply the labels of extremism or radicalism to their political opponents. This discrepancy begs the question, what logic motivates these groups’ discursive strategies? 252

As with an election, the primary target of both groups is likely pulling the anchor position of the undecided toward their own ideological pole. How do status quo supporters and critics decide which discursive positions are more likely to sway the positions of mainstream audiences? To what extent are the widely distributed activist networks able to share intellectual resources and coordinate messaging strategies? How accurate are they in their understandings of audience reception of their arguments? Surely both camps are investigating these questions; academics would be helpful in analyzing both groups’ strategies and their relative effectiveness with the general public. In particular, I am curious how people generally respond to the highly negative associations that status quo supporters place on environmentalist and ecocentric discourse. Do most people think that valuing the continued existence of a species or ecosystem over economic growth is a ludicrous position? And if so, where did they learn these values?

Perhaps from mediated discourse produced and disseminated by corporate entities in league with those critiquing such positions? To make sense of this discourse’s reception, scholars must engage not only with audiences but with the sources of their values. While news is one source of information about the environment and humans’ proper relationships to it, there are so many other relevant cultural industries, including the entertainment industry (Anderson, 2013; Corbett,

2006).

Continuing on this topic of mainstream audience reception of arguments found in this discourse, the previously mentioned concept of environmental justice deserves more attention.

Though the theme was backgrounded, at times status quo critics mentioned the guilt they feel as members of a developed nation whose carbon-intense lifestyles will disproportionately affect undeveloped nations. Status quo critics asked audiences to weigh the benefits of their energy- fueled lifestyles against negative externalities befalling the people in the path of extractive 253 projects who are also most likely to suffer from climate change. This tactic begs the question, to what extent is guilt used as a rhetorical tool by environmental activists? To what extent is it effective? The argument that modern lifestyles come with costs—often not to the beneficiaries themselves—presents an ethical dilemma. How frequently are we confronted with it? Americans see mobility as a right. As a society or species, we should acknowledge the current impacts of fossil fuel-based mobility; do we?

Common ground? Environmental activists may see themselves as more philosophically enlightened than their counterparts resisting social change. However, they may be as focused on the physical and psychological health of their in-group members as status quo supporters. Thus, there may be overlap in the considerations of these politically opposed groups.

Status quo critics may simply be convinced of a different array of likely outcomes related to various risk scenarios presented by eminent scientists than status quo supporters. If both status quo critics and supporters are focused on what is best for themselves and their descendants, then the groups have common ideological ground, and simply need to come together and find a consensus on what scientific prognostications are most accurate. The groups also disagree about the extent to which outside economic and political actors influence various scientific reports. A lack of faith in the same sources is a barrier to collective action consensus. IT would be worthwhile to continue exploring how individuals determine which sources are authoritative, especially regarding environmental issues.

There would also be the question of in-group to settle. These groups may not see themselves as the same “people,” despite sharing nationality and, to an extent, class. Status quo critics may see their in-groups as more expansive then their closest relatives and neighbors, or even their fellow countrymen. Conversely, convincing those with a material advantage that they 254 should be concerned with the fates of those outside of their current sphere of concern may be a difficult task. These problems are challenging, if not intractable, but evidence seems to indicate that progress can be made. I believe the crux of the issue is convincing those against change that the issues are pressing. As Diamond (2005) notes,

[T]he world’s environmental problems will get resolved, in one way or another, within

the lifetimes of the children and young adults alive today. The only question is whether

they will become resolved in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not

of our choice, such as warfare, genocide, starvation, disease epidemics, and collapses of

societies (p. 498).

Indigenous peoples’ roles in environmental movements. Another interesting theme found in these news texts was the highly involved role of indigenous groups in the protest against

Keystone XL and other pipelines. Though this theme was not a frame mentioned in the qualitative findings, as it was not clearly related to environmental ideology, it has implications for environmental communication scholarship.

Native groups in both Canada and the United States featured largely in these stories due to their geographic proximity to many development ventures. In Canada, First Nations peoples reside close enough to the oil sands that the mines’ tailings poison their drinking water. In the

States, many Native American tribes rejected the notion of an oil pipeline passing through their territory, risking the safety of their drinking water and food supplies. In both countries these groups struggle to have their legal sovereignty recognized, as de facto patterns of government decision making subsume de jure agreements. From my reading of history, the present pattern of

North American governments ignoring or paying only lip service to native groups’ avowed sovereignty continues a long history of European descendants forging, then violating, 255 agreements with the descendants of North America’s original populations. Thus, these patterns are of historical interest, as well as matters of social justice.

Additionally, the role of indigenous peoples in resisting environmental destruction due to corporate-driven development projects is a field deserving of significantly more scholarly inquiry. Endres (2019) stated that native groups’ activity is often a linchpin of resistance movements. Subjects ripe for study include similarities and differences in the rhetorical strategies of indigenous and non-indigenous environmental activists, as well as journalists’ and audiences’ responses to both. It is worth asking, if relatively comfortable U.S. citizens critique the status quo, how different are Native American critiques? Are these peoples, who have suffered the most at the hands of U.S. government action the ultimate status quo critics?

Endres (2019) also stated state that native peoples are often seen as more in touch with nature. Scholars should explore how that perceived closeness affects the reception of their discourse. Another interesting facet of the rhetorical interplay in these stories is the lack of a response from status quo supporters to indigenous groups’ calls for respect of their sovereignty.

Whereas status quo supporters offer frequent, scathing responses to environmentalists’ calls for change, these same voices tend to ignore native groups’ discourse altogether. Could it be that status quo supporters do not believe U.S. voters care about native voices? If so, are they correct in that assumption? Again, more research should be done on how native voices are perceived.

256

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A 257

CODEBOOK 1

News frames (for each news article, code 1 if the following frame presents, and 0 if not.)

1) Energy security: This frame focuses on availability of oil and how it affects oil prices. News message presents the idea that the United States might lack sufficient energy-producing materials OR foreign oil supply lines are unreliable OR the price of energy may increase to an undesirable extent. This frame includes the idea that U.S. officials want to keep oil supplies strong to suppress prices. These messages often support increasing U.S. supplies to the point of “energy independence,” meaning the country will not have to look to other countries for oil. Note that simply referencing the price of oil or how it affects investor profits does not fulfill this frame, it must be related to U.S. citizen or government interests.

Examples: Due to foreign oil suppliers’ lack of stability, the U.S. government should increase domestic development to maintain supplies. As oil becomes increasingly difficult to locate, prices increase for consumers. The United States cannot fulfill its energy needs through renewable energy.

2) Political security: This frame focuses on U.S. power, in terms of its ability to control its borders and influence other nations’ decision-making. News message presents the idea that U.S. interests could be damaged through terrorism OR reductions in its political power. These safety and power concerns are related back to fossil fuels. For example, the U.S. government should be cautious about who it buys oil from, supporting allies while avoiding enemies. Note that politicians’ job security is not to be confused with political security, which refers to the security of the nation and government as a whole.

Examples: Some worry that capital traded to the Middle East will fund anti-American terrorists. Supporting our political opponents is foolish; supporting our allies is logical.

3) Economic concerns: This frame covers economic matters. News message presents need or possibility to improve U.S. workers’ employment, OR investors’ profits, OR the economy generally, including government tax bases.

Example statements: Construction workers face high unemployment. Investors worry the project will be blocked. Officials suggest the project’s tax revenues will improve public services. Supporters say the project will improve the economy. 4) Extraction impacts on humans: This frame focuses on how mistakes in the handling of fossil fuels produce negative effects on human beings’ health. Message presents that fossil fuel extraction procedures, including harvesting, transporting, and processing, can result in sickness and death. Frame 4 is similar to Frame 5, except 258 focus is on unused fossil fuels, rather than the effects of fossil fuels that have been burned (consumed) to create energy. Frame 4 is also similar to Frame 6, except it features humans as victims instead of nature.

Examples: Pit mining tailings can cause birth defects in nearby communities. It is risky for a pipeline to cross a large supply of fresh water. Working on oil rigs is dangerous work.

5) Consumption impacts on humans: This frame focuses on climate change, depicting it as harmful for humans. News message presents climate change’s current or potential negative effects on human beings. Message may link consumption of fossil fuels to climate change. Frame 5 is similar to Frame 4, except it focuses on the effects of burning fossil fuels for energy, rather than accidents in its extraction processes.

Examples: Fossil fuel use has been linked to climate change, which erodes farmland soils. Climate change raises sea levels, which may lead to refugee crises.

6) Extraction impacts on nature: This frame focuses on how natural resource extraction harms nature’s non-human elements: animals, plants, landscapes, ecosystems, etc. News message presents the negative effects of fossil fuel extraction processes, including harvesting, transporting, and processing, on non-human entities. Frame 6 is similar to Frame 4, except it features nature as victim instead of humans.

Examples: Construction often disturbs or destroys nearby wildlife habitats. Industrial disasters create pollution that can kill off local plants and animals.

Coding Guidelines: Note that Frames 1-3 are ideologically similar; they represent status quo-supporters’ positions. Frames 4-6 are also ideologically similar; their positions belong to status quo critics.

For a message to be coded, its rationale does not have to be explicit, it can be strongly implicit. Often these frames rely on associations known to the audience, who are steeped in the culture of the mediated text.

For instance, “It’s a great day for jobs,” spoken in support of a development project, clearly implies that job creation is good, even though it does not explicitly articulate this argument. Therefore, this phrase would be coded as Frame 1, economic concerns. However, the administration “will approve many energy projects” is vague. It could relate to economic concerns, energy security, or some other argument. Without a clear rationale, it cannot be categorized as a frame, so this phrase would not be coded.

Note that concerns with the price of oil, as it relates to fluctuations in supply, are 259 considered energy security arguments, despite their economic nature. However, statements regarding people’s abilities to make ends meet, even when connected to the price of gas, are considered economic concerns.

Note that the effects of pollution on environmental elements may be discussed without nature being a victim, implicitly or explicitly. Stating that environmentalists worry about a pipeline being near a “source of fresh water” does not explicitly link pollution to drinking water safety, but the implication is clear—fresh water is valued because we need it and it is rare. Thus, such a comment would be coded as Frame 4, extraction impacts on humans. Only consider the victim to be nature when an environmental element without human-use value is listed, or the element is clearly indicated as the victim of concern. For instance, “The project may endanger the piped plover” discusses a specific species at risk, one that has little to no human-use value, so this phrase would be coded as Frame 6, extraction impacts on nature. So would “critics say the development will damage habitats,” as habitats are a source of sustenance for non-human species, and their use-value is not clearly implied in this phrase. However, the accident “spilled large volumes of oil into the ocean” would not be coded, as it is unclear if the concern lies with nature or human-use value.

Similarly, saying that certain kinds of oil extraction “produce more greenhouse gases” is not directly referencing climate change or its negative effects, but such is the implication for cultural members. Thus, such a comment would be coded as Frame 5, consumption impacts on humans.

Only code the texts themselves, disregard references to images or charts.

260

APPENDIX B 261

CODEBOOK 2 REVISION

The author and co-coder were unable to reliably co-code the initial frames of energy security and political security, due to conceptual overlap and infrequency of appearance. The two were collapsed into a new frame, national security. 1) National security: This frame focuses on two facets of U.S. strength: energy independence and power politics. Energy independence refers to the nation’s ability to maintain a high quality of life for its citizens based on abundant, inexpensive fuel. Power politics references the country’s ability to protect its citizens from outside aggressors, such as terrorists, but also its ability to project its power outward, influencing international behavior. This perspective valued military alliances and worried about opponents’ strength, criticizing support of antagonistic or competitive nations (enhancing their ability to resist U.S. objectives). The sub-frame facets are explained more fully below.

Energy independence focuses on availability of oil and how reductions in supply increase oil prices. News message presents the idea that the United States might lack sufficient energy- producing materials OR foreign oil supply lines are unreliable OR the price of energy may increase to an undesirable extent OR remain comfortably affordable. This frame includes the idea that U.S. officials want to keep oil supplies strong to suppress prices, increasing U.S. supplies to the point of “energy independence,” meaning the country would not have to look to other countries for oil. Note that simply referencing the price of oil or how it affects investor profits does not fulfill this sub-frame; the comment must relate to general U.S. interests.

Examples: Due to foreign oil suppliers’ lack of stability, the U.S. government should increase domestic development to maintain oil supplies. As oil becomes increasingly difficult to locate, prices increase for consumers. The United States cannot fulfill its energy needs through renewable energy.

Power politics includes both a strong border and projecting power abroad. Outside aggressors are non-Americans who can harm U.S. citizens. News message presents the idea that U.S. interests could be damaged through terrorism. Military alliances references nations who assist the U.S. military in its efforts abroad. News message presents the idea that relationships with military allies must be valued and maintained. Opponents’ strength refers to the consideration of other nations as competitors in the international arena. News message presents the idea that supporting nations whose interests are not aligned with U.S. interests is a strategic error.

Examples: Some worry that capital traded to the Middle East will fund anti-American terrorists. Supporting our opponents and dictators is foolish; supporting our allies is logical.

A word on coding this frame: Coders are advised to be certain that this frame is presenting, based on key words and concepts. If the coder is not sure, he or she should not code this frame as present. For example, “President Obama has called for expanded offshore drilling” is related to energy independence, but the rationale is not stated; only code content with fairly explicit rationales. 262

APPENDIX C

263

Corpus References

Newsweek

Begley, S. (2010, June 21). Don’t just ‘do something’; We must put science first in the gulf.

Newsweek.

Begley, S. (2010, May 17). How quickly we forget. Newsweek.

Begley, S., Yarett, I., & Stone, D. (2010, June 14). What the spill will kill. Newsweek, 155(24),

24.

Gidda, M. (2015, Nov. 27). COP21: How the Paris climate talks could succeed. Newsweek.

Gross, D. (2010, June 14). Going to extremes. Newsweek, 155(24), 29.

Hertsgaard, M. (2013, April 19). Drowning in oil. Newsweek.

Isikoff, M., & Hirsh, M. (2010, May 17). Slick operator. Newsweek, 155(20), 36.

Juhasz, A. (2015b, Dec. 4). From North Dakota to Paris with love. Newsweek.

Juhasz, A. (2015a, October 13). Shell is reeling after pulling out of the Arctic. Newsweek, (15).

McKibben, B. (2011, September 5). Hurricane politics. Newsweek, 158(10), 5.

Newsweek Staff. (April 25, 2011). The oil spill’s surprise endings. Newsweek.

Philips, M., & Margolis, M. (2010, Mar. 22). Journey to the center of the earth. Newsweek,

155(12), 52-56.

Schlanger, Z. (2014). With all eyes on Keystone, another tar sands pipeline just crossed the

border. Newsweek, (22).

Thomas, E. (2010, June 7). Black water rising. Newsweek.

Underhill, W. (June 21, 2010). Britain’s BP problem. Newsweek. 155(25), 10-10. 264

The New York Times

Abraham, D. S. (2010, July 14). A disaster congress voted for. The New York Times, 27.

Broder, J. M. (2010, October 30). Halliburton rejects blame for BP cement job. The New York

Times, 16.

Broder, J. M., Frosch, D., Broder, J. M., & Austen, I. (2011, November 11). U.S. review

expected to delay oil pipeline past the election. The New York Times, 161(55586), 1.

Broder, J. M., Krauss, C., Austen, I., Wald, M. L. (2013, February 18). Obama faces risks in

pipeline decision. The New York Times, 162(56051), B1.

Davenport, C. (2014, February 1). Federal report removes hurdle for oil pipeline. The New York

Times, A1–A11.

Davenport, C. (2014, February 27). No conflict of interest found in pipeline review. The New

York Times, A18.

Davenport, C. (2015, January 13). Senate opens debate on oil pipeline, setting stage for more

energy battles. The New York Times, 164(56745), A16.

Doer, G. (2011, October 7). The Keystone XL Pipeline. The New York Times, 26.

Egan, T. (2015). A pipeline and a pie-in-the-sky. The New York Times.

Fountain, H., & Robbins, L. (2010, July 15). After 24-hour delay for a panel’s review, BP begins

pressure test of well. The New York Times, 159(55102), 20.

Frosch, D. (2011, November 15). Company will reroute oil pipeline. The New York Times,

161(55590), 22.

Frosch, D. (2013, August 11). Amid pipeline debate, two costly cleanups forever change

towns. The New York Times, 18. 265

Gabriel, T. (2015, September 23). Declaring Her Opposition, Clinton Enters the Fray Over the

Keystone Pipeline. The New York Times, 13.

Gillis, J., Robertson, C., & Rudolf, J. C. (2010, July 28). On the surface, oil spill in Gulf is

vanishing fast. The New York Times, 1.

Greenhouse, S. (2013, February 28). A.F.L.-C.I.O. backs Keystone oil pipeline, if indirectly. The

New York Times, 162(56061), B2.

Grijalva, R. M. (2014, February 27). Obama’s pipeline. The New York Times, p. A27.

Homer-Dixon, T. (2013, April 1). The tar sands disaster. The New York Times, 162(56093), A17.

Johnson, K., & Frosch, D. (2011, September 29). A pipeline divides along old lines: Jobs versus

the environment. The New York Times, 12.

Krauss, C. (2010a, January 1). Canadian pipeline hurdles a barrier. The New York Times,

159(54907), 4.

Krauss, C. (2010b, August 4). ‘Static kill’ of the wells is working, officials say. The New York

Times, p. A17.

Krauss, C. (2011). Gulf spill casts shadow over Shell plans in Alaska. The New York Times, 1.

Krauss, C. (2013). Visions of a greener pipeline. The New York Times, 1.

Krauss, C., & Meier, B. (2013, February 26). As oil spill trial opens, deal effort continues. The

New York Times, B1–B4.

Krauss, C., & Reed, S. (2014). End of gulf ban allows BP to expand in familiar, lucrative

territory. The New York Times, 4.

Krauss, C., Broder, J. M., Brown, R., Robertson, C., & Collins, J. (2010, May 28). After delay,

BP resumes effort to plug oil leak. The New York Times, 159(55054), 1. 266

Lydersen, K. (2010, September 17). Nearby oil spill highlights hazards in area’s pipelines. The

New York Times, 21A.

Mouawad, J., Krauss, C., Lichtblau, E., & Elliott, S. (2010, June 4). Another torrent BP works to

stem: Its C.E.O. The New York Times, 159(55061), 1.

The New York Times Staff. (2011, July 21). Wrong pipeline, wrong assessment: The State

Department fails, again, to consider the risks of tar sands oil. The New York Times,

160(55473), 26.

The New York Times Staff. (2012, February 8). Tar sands and the pipeline. The New York Times,

161(55675), 26.

Nocera, J. (2012, February 7). Poisoned politics of Keystone XL. The New York Times,

161(55674), 31.

Pear, R. (2011). House Republicans’ bill sets up pipeline battle. The New York Times, 18.

Robertson, C. (2010, May 10). Along gulf, many wary of promises after spill. The New York

Times, 159(55036), 12.

St. Fleur, N. (2015, May 21). Study links dolphin deaths to BP oil spill. The New York Times, p.

18.

Steinhauer, J. (2012, April 20). Democrats joining G.O.P. on pipeline. The New York Times,

161(55747), 14.

Time

Grunwald, M. (2013, March 11). I’m with the tree huggers. Time, 181(9), 13.

Grunwald, M. (2013). Beyond the Keystone Pipeline. Time, 182(4).

Mayer, C., & Assinder, N. (2010, July 26). Here comes the junior partner. Time, 176(4), 3437. 267

Tharoor, I. (2010). A brief history of BP. Time, (23).

Walsh, B. (2010, August 9). The spill’s psychic toll. Time, 176(6), 32-34.

Walsh, B. (2010, November 22). Postcard: Fort McMurray. Time, 176(21), 10.

Walsh, B. (2012, April 9). The future of oil. Time, 179(14), 28-35.

Walsh, B. (2012, March 12). Cold warrior. Time, 179(10), 44-47.

Walsh, B. (2012). Over a barrel. Time, 180(3), 24.

Walsh, B. (2014, June 2). Green giant. Time, 183(21), 32-34.

Walsh, B., Padgett, T., & Crowley, M. (2010, June 14). On the edge. Time, 175(23), 30-37.

Worland, J. (2015). Why the winds are changing on Keystone. Time, (20).

Zakaria, F. (2012). The new oil and gas boom. Time, 180(18), 20.

Zakaria, F. (2013, March 18). Build that pipeline! Time, 181(10), 20.

The Wall Street Journal

Ball, J. (2010, July 19). The gulf oil spill: Early look at ecological toll is alarming, scientists say.

The Wall Street Journal, A.4.

Ball, J., & Dade, C. (2010, May 19). The gulf oil spill: Officials fear slick will flow up coast. The

Wall Street Journal, A.4.

Bower, T. (2010, May 1). Drilling down: A troubled legacy in oil. The Wall Street Journal, W.3.

Campoy, A. (2010, May 4). The gulf oil spill: Disaster hits oystermen near and far. The Wall

Street Journal, A.5.

Chazan, G. (2010a, August 5). BP nears final steps on well. The Wall Street Journal, A.4.

Chazan, G. (2010b, Sept. 20). The gulf oil spill: Well is declared sealed, closing one chapter. The

Wall Street Journal, A.4. 268

Cummins, C. (2011, Dec. 17). U.S. news: Pipeline’s long path through the oil sands of politics.

The Wall Street Journal, 40894, A.4

Cummins, C., & McKinnon, J. (2013, Apr. 3). Corporate news: TransCanada pushes eastern

pipeline project. The Wall Street Journal, 41367, B.4.

Dawson, C. (2015, June 24). Study faults oil sands on greenhouse gases. The Wall Street

Journal, B.7.

Dummett, B. (2014, November 18). Sandell suggests a spinoff by TransCanada. The Wall Street

Journal, B.6.

Dvorak, P., Welsch, E., & Power, S. (2010, July 8). Oil-sands push tests U.S.-Canada Ties. The

Wall Street Journal, A.6.

Esterl, M. (2010, May 15). The gulf oil spill: Florida’s panhandle resorts suffer. The Wall Street

Journal, A.4.

Fowler, T., Gonzalez, A., Johnson, K., Gold, R., & Gilbert, D. (2012, November 16). BP slapped

with record fine. The Wall Street Journal, A.1–A.6.

Gilbert, D., Harder, A., & Scheck, J. (2014, Nov. 22). Oil boom returns to gulf after spill. The

Wall Street Journal, B.1.

Gilbert, D., Kent, S., Scheck, J., & Barrett, D. (2015, July 3). BP to pay out $18.7 billion to settle

spill. The Wall Street Journal, A.1.

Harder, A., & McCain Nelson, C. (2015, Feb. 25). U.S. news: Obama vetoes pipeline bill. The

Wall Street Journal, 42060, A.3.

Harder, A., & Sider, A. (2015, February 13). TransCanada to seek nod for a new pipeline. The

Wall Street Journal, B.5. 269

Hughes, S., & Power, S. (2010). New ban hits oil drillers; administration’s call for halt comes as

BP installs new cap on damaged well. The Wall Street Journal, 1.

Hughes, S., & Tracy, T. (2010, July 1). The gulf oil spill: Senate panel ends liability limits for

offshore spills. The Wall Street Journal, A.8.

Johnson, K., & Dawson, C. (2013). Pipeline called key to Canada oil sands. The Wall Street

Journal, 5.

Knappenberger, P. C. (2013, Jan. 25). The Keystone XL objections wither away. The Wall Street

Journal, 41299, A.11.

Moore, S., & Griffith, J. (2014, September 24). Alaska’s lessons for the Keystone XL Pipeline.

The Wall Street Journal, A.13.

Nicholas, P. (2014, May 22). Liberals press Hillary Clinton for specifics. The Wall Street

Journal, 41781, A.10.

Phillips, M. M. (2010, May 8). Tourism boosters walk a fine line. The Wall Street Journal, A.5.

Power, S., & Chazan, G. (2010, April 30). Navy joins oil spill fight. The Wall Street Journal,

A.1.

Tracy, T. (2013, Mar. 21). Corporate news: BP skips bidding on new gulf leases. The Wall Street

Journal, B.3.

Tracy, T., Ordonez, I., & Lefebvre, B. (2011, October 13). BP, contractors cited. The Wall Street

Journal, B.3.

Varghese, R., Nolan, K., & Rosenberg, S. (2010, May 1). The gulf oil spill: Ailing Region Faces

New Strains. The Wall Street Journal, A.4.

Weisman, J. (2010, Jun 21). BP blunted U.S. demand. The Wall Street Journal, A.1. 270

Welsch, E. (2011, Apr. 12). Oil-sands pipeline fuels concern. The Wall Street Journal, 40645,

B.8.

Welsch, E. (2011, Oct. 19). Corporate news: TransCanada tries to placate state. The Wall Street

Journal, 40835, B.2.

Welsch, E. (2012, June 21). Corporate news: Canadian spills fuel worries. The Wall Street

Journal, 41081, B.6.

Williamson, E. (2010, Jun 22). The gulf oil spill: Drill ban clashes with local economy. The Wall

Street Journal, A.6.

Zimmerman, A. (2010, July 1). The gulf oil spill: Storm threatens gulf’s wetlands. The Wall

Street Journal, A.8.

271

References

Aday, S., & Livingston, S. (2008). Taking the state out of state—media relations theory: How

transnational advocacy networks are changing the press—state dynamic. Media, War &

Conflict, 1(1), 99-107.

Adorno, T., & Horkheimer, M. (2002). Dialectic of enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford University

Press.

Ali, M. (2011). 9/11 in British and Pakistani press: A comparative study with regards to myths

and realities of hegemony and propaganda. Global Media Journal: Pakistan

Edition, 4(2), 55-79.

Althusser, L. (2014). On the reproduction of capitalism: Ideology and ideological state

apparatuses. Verso Books.

Anderson, A. (2013). Media, culture and the environment. New Brunswick, NJ: Routledge.

Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of

nationalism. Verso Books.

Antilla, L. (2005). Climate of scepticism: US newspaper coverage of the science of climate

change. Global Environmental Change, 15(4), 338-352.

Appadurai, A. (1990). Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. Theory,

Culture & Society, 7(2-3), 295-310.

Babe, R. (2005). Newspaper discourses on environment. In J. Klaehn (Ed.), Filtering the news:

Essays on Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model (pp. 187-222). Montreal: Black Rose

Books.

Bagdikian, B. H. (2014). The new media monopoly: A completely revised and updated edition

with seven new chapters. Beacon Press. 272

Baker, P. (2017, Oct. 19). Without saying ‘Trump,’ Bush and Obama deliver implicit rebukes.

The New York Times, p. 1A. Retrieved from

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/us/politics/george-bush-trump.html

Banzhaf, S. (Ed.). (2012). The political economy of environmental justice. Stanford University

Press.

Barty, E., Caynes, K., & Johnston, L. M. (2016). Development and reliability of the Functional

Communication Classification System for children with cerebral palsy. Developmental

Medicine & Child Neurology, 58(10), 1036-1041.

Beames, S., & Brown, M. (2017). Disneyization and the provision of leisure experiences. In K.

Spracklen, B. Lashua, E. Sharpe, & S. Swain (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of leisure

theory (pp. 855-871). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Bechtel, M. M., & Scheve, K. F. (2013). Mass support for global climate agreements depends on

institutional design. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(34), 13763-

13768.

Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. Sage.

Bennett, J. (2016). Global ecological crisis: Structural violence and the tyranny of small

decisions. In H. G. Brauch, Ú. O. Spring, J. Bennett & S. E. S. Oswald (Eds.), Addressing

global environmental challenges from a peace ecology perspective (55-75). Switzerland:

Springer International Publishing.

Bennett, W. L. (1990). Toward a theory of press‐state relations in the United States. Journal of

Communication, 40(2), 103-127.

Bennett, W. L. (2011). News: The politics of illusion, 9th ed. New York: Longman.

Bennett, W. L. (2016). News: The politics of illusion. University of Chicago Press. 273

Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the

sociology of knowledge. London: Penguin.

Bergmann, M., Tekman, M. B., & Gutow, L. (2017). LITTERBASE: An online portal for marine

litter and microplastics and their implications for marine life. In J. Baztan, B. Jorgensen, S.

Pahl, R. Thompson & J. Vanderlinden (Eds.), Fate and impact of microplastics in marine

ecosystems, MICRO 2016. Amsterdam: Elsevier. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-812271-6.00104-6

Bie, B., & Tang, L. (2015). Representation of autism in leading newspapers in China: A content

analysis. Health Communication, 30(9), 884–893.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2014.889063

Billeaudeaux, A., Domke, D., Hutcheson, J. S., Garland, P. A. (2003). News norms, indexing

and a unified government: Reporting during the early stages of a global war on terror.

Global Media Journal. Retrieved from http://www.globalmediajournal.com/open-

access/news-norms-indexing-and-a-unified-governmentreporting-during-the-early-stages-

of-a-global-war-on-terror.php?aid=35117

Boyd-Barrett, O. (2004). Judith Miller, The New York Times, and the propaganda model.

Journalism Studies, 5(4), 435—449.

Boykoff, M. T. (2007). Flogging a dead norm? Newspaper coverage of anthropogenic climate

change in the United States and United Kingdom from 2003 to 2006. Area, 39(4), 470-

481. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4762.2007.00769.x.

Bryant, B. (2011, April 20). Deepwater Horizon and the Gulf oil spill - the key questions

answered. The Guardian. Retrieved from

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/20/deepwater-horizon-key-

questions-answered 274

Burchardt, H. J., & Dietz, K. (2014). (Neo-)extractivism—a new challenge for development

theory from Latin America. Third World Quarterly, 35(3), 468-486.

Campbell, N. A., Williamson, B., & Heyden, R. J. (2006). Biology: Exploring life. Boston,

Massachusetts: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Carey, J.W. (1992). Communication as culture: Essays on media and society. New York:

Routledge.

Carson, R. (1962). Silent spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Chomsky, D. (1999). The mechanisms of management control at the New York Times. Media,

Culture & Society, 21(5), 579-599.

Chomsky, N. (1983). Fateful triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians. South End

Press.

Chomsky, N. (1989). Necessary illusions: Thought control in democratic societies. House of

Anansi.

Chomsky, N. (1999). Profit over people: Neoliberalism and global order. Seven Stories Press.

Chong, D., & Druckman, J. N. (2007). Framing public opinion in competitive

democracies. American Political Science Review, 101(04), 637-655.

Cline, R. J., Orom, H., Berry-Bobovski, L., Hernandez, T., Black, C. B., Schwartz, A. G., &

Ruckdeschel, J. C. (2010). Community‐level social support responses in a slow‐motion

technological disaster: The case of Libby, Montana. American Journal of Community

Psychology, 46(1-2), 1-18.

Cohen, S. (2014). Understanding environmental policy. New York, NY: Columbia University

Press. 275

Compaine, B. M., & Gomery, D. (2000). Who owns the media?: Competition and concentration

in the mass media industry. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.

Coombs, D. S. (2013). Last man standing: Media, framing, and the 2012 Republican primaries.

Rowman & Littlefield.

Corbett, J. B. (2006). Communicating nature: How we create and understand environmental

messages. Island Press.

Croteau, D., & Hoynes, W. (2014). Media/society: Industries, images and audiences. Sage Publications. DeLorme, D. E., & Fedler, F. (2005). An historical analysis of journalists’ attitudes toward advertisers and advertising’s influence. American Journalism, 22(20) 7-40. DeLuca, K. M. (1999). Image politics: The new rhetoric of environmental activism. New York:

The Guilford Press.

Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed. Penguin.

Donahue, G. A., Tichenor, P. J., & Olien, C. N. (1995). A guard dog perspective on the role of

the media. Journal of Communication, 45(2), 115—132.

Downs, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy. New York: Harper.

Doyle, G. (2015). Mulit-platform media: How newspapers are adapting to the digital era. In K.

Oakley & J. O’Connor (Eds.), The Routledge companion to the cultural industries, (pp.

109-119). Routledge.

Drane, J. (2012). The McDonaldization of the church: Consumer culture and the church’s future.

Westport, CT: Bergin and Harvey.

Druckman, J. N. (2011). What’s it all about? Framing in political science. In G. Keren (Ed.),

Perspectives on framing (pp. 279-301) New York, NY: Psychology Press. 276

Dunlap, R. E., & Van Liere, K. D. (1978). The “new environmental paradigm”. The Journal of

Environmental Education, 9(4), 10-19.

Dunlap, R. E., & Van Liere, K. D. (1984). Commitment to the dominant social paradigm and

concern for environmental quality. Social Science Quarterly, 65(4), 1013.

Dunlap, R. E., Van Liere, K. D., Mertig, A. G., & Jones, R. E. (2000). New trends in measuring

environmental attitudes: Measuring endorsement of the new ecological paradigm: A

revised NEP scale. Journal of Social Issues, 56(3), 425-442.

Eide, E., & Ytterstad, A. (2011). The tainted hero: Frames of domestication in Norwegian press

representation of the Bali climate summit. The International Journal of Press/Politics,

16(1), 50-74.

Endres, D. (2019, March) Engaging the nexus of environmental rhetoric and indigenous rights.

Spectra, 55(1), 20-25.

Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of

Communication, 43(4), 51-58.

Entman, R. M. (2003). Cascading activation: Contesting the White House’s frame after

9/11. Political Communication, 20(4), 415-432.

Entman, R. M. (2004). Projections of power: Framing news, public opinion, and US foreign

policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Entman, R. M. (2007). Framing bias: Media in the distribution of power. Journal of

Communication, 57(1), 163-173.

Fine, G. A. (2010). Group cultures and subcultures. In J. R. Hall, L. Grindstaff, & M-C. Lo

(Eds.), Handbook of cultural sociology, (pp. 155-163). London: Routledge. 277

Fitzgerald, S. (2015). The structure of the culture industries: Global corporations to SMEs. In K.

Oakley & J. O’Connor (Eds.), The Routledge companion to the cultural industries, (pp.

70-85). Routledge.

Fox, W. (1996). A critical overview of environmental ethics. World Futures: Journal of General

Evolution, 46(1), 1-21.

Freedman, D. (2009). ‘Smooth operator?’ The propaganda model and moments of

crisis. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 6(2).

Friedrich, K., Keyling, T., Brosius, H. (2016). Gatekeeping revisited. In G. Vowe & P. Henn

(Eds.), Political communication in an online world: Theoretical approaches & research

designs (59-72). Routledge.

Gamson, W. A., Croteau, D., Hoynes, W., & Sasson, T. (1992). Media images and the social

construction of reality. Annual Review of Sociology, 18(1), 373-393.

Gamson, W. A., & Modigliani, A. (1989). Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power:

A constructionist approach. American Journal of Sociology, 95(1), 1-37.

Ganesh, S., Zoller, H., & Cheney, G. (2005). Transforming resistance, broadening our

boundaries: Critical organizational communication meets globalization from

below. Communication Monographs, 72(2), 169-191.

Gans, H. J. (1979). Deciding what’s news: A study of CBS evening news, NBC nightly news,

Newsweek, and Time. Northwestern University Press.

Gans, H. J. (2011). Multiperspectival news revisited: Journalism and representative

democracy. Journalism, 12(1), 3-13. 278

Garland, C. (2015). Framing the poor: Media illiteracy, stereotyping, and contextual fallacy to

spin the crisis. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for

a Global Sustainable Information Society, 13(1), 5-10.

Geer, J. G. (1996). From tea leaves to opinion polls: A theory of democratic leadership.

Columbia University Press.

Giddens, A. (1979). Central problems in social theory: Action, structure, and contradiction in

social analysis. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Gitlin, T. (1980). The whole world is watching. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harvard

University Press.

Golan, G. J., & Zaidner, L. (2008). Creative strategies in viral advertising: An application of

Taylor’s six-segment message strategy wheel. Journal of Computer-Mediated

Communication, 13(4), 959-972.

Golding, P., & Murdock, G. (1979). Ideology and the mass media: The question of

determination. In M. Barrett, P. Corrigan, A. Kuhn, & J. Wolff (Eds.), Ideology and

cultural production, 198-224.

Good, J. E. (2008). The framing of climate change in Canadian, American, and international

newspapers: A media propaganda model analysis. Canadian Journal of Communication,

33(2), 233-255.

Goss, B. M. (2013). Rebooting the Herman & Chomsky propaganda model in the twenty-first

century. New York: Peter Lang.

Graeff, E., Stempeck, M., & Zuckerman, E. (2014). The battle for ‘Trayvon Martin’: Mapping a

media controversy online and off-line. First Monday, 19(2). 279

Gramling, R., Sanders, M., Ladwig, S., Norton, S. A., Epstein, R., & Alexander, S. C. (2015).

Goal communication in palliative care decision-making consultations. Journal of Pain

and Symptom Management, 50(5), 701-706.

Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. International Publishers.

Groshek, J. (2008). Coverage of the pre-Iraq War debate as a case study of frame

indexing. Media, War & Conflict, 1(3), 315-338.

Gul, S. (2013). Representation of American Policy on war against terror in Hollywood

movies. Global Media Journal: Pakistan Edition, 6(2).

Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Hajer, M. A. (1995). The politics of environmental discourse: Ecological modernization and the

policy process. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Haley, S. M., & Osberg, J. S. (1989). Kappa coefficient calculation using multiple ratings per

subject: A special communication. Physical Therapy, 69(11), 970-974.

Hamilton, J. (2004). All the news that’s fit to sell: How the market transforms information into

news. Princeton University Press.

Handley, R. L. (2010). Cascading activation: Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’ and the Israeli—

Palestinian conflict. Journalism, 11(4), 445-461.

Haq, G., & Paul, A. (2013). Environmentalism since 1945. New York: Routledge.

Hay, P. R. (2002). Main currents in western environmental thought. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press.

Hayes, D., & Wynyard, R. (2002). The McDonaldization of higher education. Westport, CT:

Bergin and Harvey.

Herman, E. S. (1996). The propaganda model revisited. Monthly Review, 48(3), 115. 280

Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N. (1988, 2002, 2008). Manufacturing consent: The political

economy of the mass media. Random House.

Herring, E., & Robinson, P. (2003). Too polemical or too critical? Chomsky on the study of the

news media and US foreign policy. Review of International Studies, 29, 553—568.

Retrieved from http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/200310--.pdf

Hook, S. W., & Spanier, J. (2019). American foreign policy since World War II, 21st ed. Sage:

Los Angeles, CA.

Ikenberry, G. J. (2012). Liberal leviathan: The origins, crisis, and transformation of the

American world order. Princeton University Press.

Instrumental. (n.d.) In Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary. Retrieved from

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/instrumental.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2013). Climate change 2013: The physical science

basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M.

Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex & P.M. Midgley (Eds.)].

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY.

Israel, J. (2013, Feb. 20). Supporters of Keystone XL outspend opponents 35 To 1.

ThinkProgress.org. Retrieved from https://thinkprogress.org/supporters-of-keystone-xl-

outspend-opponents-35-to-1-cf5746a592a0#.tm75umiyz

Jacques, P. (2006). The rearguard of modernity: Environmental skepticism as a struggle of

citizenship. Global Environmental Politics, 6(1), 76-101.

Janowitz, N. (2018, Sept. 28). Revealed: Documents show BP quietly paid just $25 million to

Mexico after the worst oil spill of the century. BuzzFeed. Retrieved from 281

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nathanieljanowitz/bp-mexico-deepwater-horizon-

oil

Jensen, R. (2010). The faculty filter: Why the propaganda model is marginalized in U.S.

journalism schools. In J. Klaehn (Ed.), The political economy of media and power (pp.

235—242). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Jowitt, J. (2010, May 21). Economic report into biodiversity crisis reveals price of consuming the

planet. The Guardian. Retrieved from

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/may/21/biodiversity-un-report

Kehn, M., & Kroll, T. (2011). Reporting trends of spinal cord injury research representation: a

media content analysis. Disability and Health Journal, 4(2), 121-128.

Kemp, A. (2016). The frontier idiom on borders and territorial politics in post-1967 Israel.

Geography Research Forum 19, 78-97.

Kennis, A. (2015). Indexing state—corporate propaganda? Evaluating the indexing, propaganda

and media dependence models on CNN and CNN en Español’s coverage of Fallujah,

Iraq. Global Media & Communication, 11(2), 103-130. doi:10.1177/1742766515589054

Kennis, A. (2016). An unworthy social movement? An evaluation of the media dependence

model and the news media performance of the New York Times on

Vieques. Communication, Culture & Critique.

Kerr, J. T., & Currie, D. J. (1995). Effects of human activity on global extinction

risk. Conservation Biology, 9(6), 1528-1538.

Khatteli, H., Ali, R. R., Bergametti, G., Bouet, C., Hachicha, M., Hamdi-Aissa, B., ... &

Zaghloul, A. M. (2016). Soils and desertification in the Mediterranean region. In AllEnvi

(Ed.), The Mediterranean Region Under Climate Change, 617-625. 282

Kinner, J. (1996). When the water runs out. In K. P. Magyar (Ed.), Global security concerns:

Anticipating the twenty-first century. Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University

Press.

Klaehn, J. (2003). Behind the invisible curtain of scholarly criticism: Revisiting the propaganda

model. Journalism Studies, 4(3), 359-369.

Klaehn, J. (2009). The propaganda model: Theoretical and methodological considerations.

Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 6(2), 43—58. Retrieved from

http://www.westminster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/35122/WPCC-Vol6-No2-

Jeffery_Klaehn.pdf

Klein, A. G., Byerly, C. M., & McEachern, T. M. (2009). Counterframing public dissent: An

analysis of antiwar coverage in the US media. Critical Studies in Media

Communication, 26(4), 331-350.

Korten, D. C. (2001). When corporations rule the world. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.

Krippendorff, K. (2004). Reliability in content analysis. Human Communication

Research, 30(3), 411-433.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Landis, J. R., & Koch, G. G. (1977). The measurement of observer agreement for categorical

data. Biometrics, 159-174.

Le Cam, F. & Domingo, D. (2015). The tyranny of immediacy: Gatekeeping practices in French

and Spanish online newsrooms. In T. Vos & F. Heinderyckx (Eds.), Gatekeeping in

transition, 123-140. Routledge. 283

Lee, H., Lee, Y., Park, S.-A., Willis, E., & Cameron, G. (2013). What are Americans seeing?

Examining the message frames of local television health news stories. Health

Communication, 28(8), 846–852. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2012.743842

Leopold, A. (1949). A Sand County almanac: And sketches here and there. Oxford University

Press.

Lester, L. (2010). Media and environment: Conflict, politics and the news. Polity Press.

Lukes, S. (2005). Power: A radical view, 2nd ed. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.

Major, M. (2006). Contesting media models: Propaganda vs. cascading activation. Conference

paper delivered at the Midwest Political Science Association 64th Annual National

Conference April 20-23, 2006 Chicago, IL.

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1970). The German ideology (Vol. 1). New York: International

Publishers Co.

Mattis, K. (2014). Mixing oil and water: An examination of the media propaganda model in

news coverage of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster (Doctoral dissertation, The University of

Wisconsin-Madison).

McHugh, M. L. (2012). Interrater reliability: The kappa statistic. Biochemia Medica, 22(3), 276-

282.

McLaughlin, E. C. (2017, Jan 2). 2 arrested after dangling alongside #NoDAPL banner at

Vikings game. CNN.com. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/01/us/dapl-

protester-minnesota-vikings-chicago-bears-us-bank-stadium/

Mearsheimer, J. J. (2001). The tragedy of great power politics. WW Norton & Company. Morningstar. (2017). Morningstar.com. Retrieved July 3, 2017 from http://quote.morningstar.ca/Quicktakes/Valuation/stockvaluation.aspx?t=TRP®ion=C 284

AN&culture=en-CA&ops=clear and http://www.morningstar.com/stocks/XNYS/BP/quote.html Mullen, A., & Klaehn, J. (2010). The Herman–Chomsky propaganda model: A critical approach

to analysing mass media behaviour. Sociology Compass, 4(4), 215-229.

Mullen, A. (2010). Twenty years on: The second-order prediction of the Herman--Chomsky

Propaganda Model. Media, Culture & Society, 32(4), 673-690.

doi:10.1177/0163443710367714

Nambiar, P. (2014). Framing sustainability: A case study analysis of the environment and

sustainability discourse in the Indian English language press. Global Media and

Communication, 10(1), 93-110.

National Intelligence Council. (2008). Global trends 2025: A transformed world. Washington,

D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Noelle‐Neumann, E. (1974). The spiral of silence: A theory of public opinion. Journal of

Communication, 24(2), 43-51.

Norris, K. (2016). Ecology: The tropical deforestation debt. Current Biology, 26(16), R770-

R772.

Ogan, C. L., Çiçek, F., & Kaptan, Y. (2007). Reverse glocalization? Marketing a Turkish cola in

the shadow of a giant. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 1(1), 47-62.

Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. M. (2010). Merchants of doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured

the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

Paternotte, E., Scheele, F., Seeleman, C. M., Bank, L., Scherpbier, A. J., & van Dulmen, S.

(2016). Intercultural doctor-patient communication in daily outpatient care: Relevant

communication skills. Perspectives on Medical Education, 5(5), 268-275. 285

Pedro, J. (2011). The propaganda model in the early 21st century part I. International Journal of

Communication, 5, 1865-1905.

Philo, G. (2007). Can discourse analysis successfully explain the content of media and

journalistic practice?. Journalism Studies, 8(2), 175-196.

Rampton, S. & Stauber, J. (2001). Trust us we’re experts: How industry manipulates science and

gambles with your future. New York: Penguin Putnam.

Reese, S. D., Gandy Jr., O. H., & Grant, A. E. (Eds.). (2001). Framing public life: Perspectives

on media and our understanding of the social world. Routledge.

Reese, S. D., & Lewis, S. C. (2009). Framing the war on terror: The internalization of policy in

the US press. Journalism, 10(6), 777-797.

Reuters (2014, April 17). Putin admits Russian forces were deployed to Crimea. Reuters.

Retrieved from

https://wayback.archive.org/web/20140419015007/http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/

17/russia-putin-crimea-idUKL6N0N921H20140417

Riffe, D., Lacy, S., & Fico, F. (2014). Analyzing media messages: Using quantitative content

analysis in research. New York: Routledge.

Ritzer, G. (1993). The McDonaldization of society. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.

Ritzer, G., & Ritzer, G. (2017). Developing insights into contemporary con (pro) sumer culture

based on classical ideas in social theory. Journal of Historical Research in

Marketing, 9(1), 34-40.

Robertson, J. W. (2010). The propaganda model in 2011: Stronger yet still neglected in UK

higher education?. Synaesthesia: Communication Across Cultures, 1(1), 24-33. 286

Robinson, P., Goddard, P., Parry, K., & Murray, C. (2009). Testing models of media

performance in wartime: UK TV news and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Journal of

Communication, 59(3), 534-563.

Rochon, T. R. (2000). Culture moves: Ideas, activism, and changing values. Princeton

University Press.

Rodman, J. (1983). Four forms of ecological consciousness reconsidered. In D. Scherer and T.

Attig (Eds.), Ethics and the environment (82-92). Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Rowling, C. M., Jones, T. M., & Sheets, P. (2011). Some dared call it torture: Cultural

resonance, Abu Ghraib, and a selectively echoing press. Journal of Communication,

61(6), 1043-1061. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01600.x

Rowling, C. M., Sheets, P., & Jones, T. M. (2015). American atrocity revisited: National

identity, cascading frames, and the My Lai massacre. Political Communication, 32(2),

310-330. doi:10.1080/10584609.2014.944323

Sagebien, J., Lindsay, N., Campbell, P., Cameron, R., & Smith, N. (2008). The corporate social

responsibility of Canadian mining companies in Latin America: A systems

perspective. Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, 14(3), 103-128.

Sagebien, J., & Lindsay, N. M. (2009). Corporate social responsibility in the Latin American

mining sector: Adding social and environmental value through a systemic approach.

Paper written for the International Studies Association Conference in New York, NY.

Schiller, H. I. (1976). Communication and cultural domination. White Plains, N.Y.: International

Arts and Sciences Press.

Schudson, M. (2011). The sociology of news (2nd ed.) W. W. Norton & Company. 287

Schwarzenbach, R. P., Egli, T., Hofstetter, T. B., Von Gunten, U., & Wehrli, B. (2010). Global

water pollution and human health. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 35,

109-136.

Shanahan, J., & McComas, K. (1999). Nature stories: Depictions of the environment and their

effects. Hampton Press.

Shehata, A., & Hopmann, D. N. (2012). Framing climate change: A study of US and Swedish

press coverage of global warming. Journalism Studies, 13(2), 175-192.

Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (1996). Mediating the message: Theories of influences on mass

media content (2nd ed.). White Plains, N.Y.: Longman.

Shoemaker, P. J., & Vos, T. (2009). Gatekeeping theory. Routledge.

Siebert, F. S., Peterson, T., & Schramm, W. (1956). Four theories of the press: The

authoritarian, libertarian, social responsibility, and Soviet communist concepts of what

the press should be and do. University of Illinois Press.

Slaughter, A. M. (2009). A new world order. Princeton University Press.

Sokolove, M. (2009, August 6). What’s a big city without a newspaper?. The New York Times.

Sparks, C. (2007). Extending and refining the propaganda model. Westminster Papers in

Communication and Culture, 4(2), 68—84.

Speth, J. G. (2008). The bridge at the edge of the world: Capitalism, the environment, and

crossing from crisis to sustainability. Yale University Press.

Thapa, B. (1999). Environmentalism: The relation of environmental attitudes and

environmentally responsible behaviors among undergraduate students. Bulletin of

Science, Technology & Society, 19(5), 426-438. 288

Thomas, C. D., Cameron, A., Green, R. E., Bakkenes, M., Beaumont, L. J., Collingham, Y. C., ...

& Hughes, L. (2004). Extinction risk from climate change. Nature, 427(6970), 145-148.

Thompson, J. B. (1990). Ideology and modern culture: Critical theory in the era of mass

communication. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Tompkins, P., & Cheney, G. (1985). Communication and unobtrusive control. In R. McPhee &

P. Tomkins (Eds.), Organizational communication: Traditional themes and new

directions (179—210). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Tuchman, G. (1978). Making news: A study in the construction of reality. Free Press.

United Nations. (2013). World population prospects: The 2012 revision. New York: United

Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division.

United Nations. (2015). Population, consumption and the environment, wall chart. New York:

United Nations.

Valenzano, J. M. (2009). Framing the war on terror in Canadian newspapers: Cascading

activation, Canadian leaders, and newspapers. Southern Communication Journal, 74(2),

174-190. doi:10.1080/10417940802441785

Van Dijck, J. (2013). The culture of connectivity: A critical history of social media. Oxford

University Press.

Vidal, J. (2010, Aug. 16). Protect nature for world economic security, warns UN biodiversity

chief. The Guardian. Retrieved from

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/aug/16/nature-economic-security

Ward, K., & England, K. (2007). Introduction: Reading neoliberalization. In K. England & K.

Ward (Eds.), Neoliberalization: States, networks, peoples (pp. 1-22). Malden, MA:

Blackwell. 289

Yin, R. K. (2013). Case study research: Design and methods. Sage publications.

Yolal, M. (2016). Authenticity, commodification, and McDonaldization of tourism experiences

in the context of cultural tourism. In M. Sotiriadis & D. Gurso (Eds.), The handbook of

managing and marketing tourism experiences (pp. 217-233). Bingley, UK: Emerald.

Young, O. R. (2013). On environmental governance: Sustainability, efficiency, and equity.

Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

Yusha’u, M. J. (2012). Representation of Boko Haram discourses in the British

broadsheets. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 5(1), 91-108.

Zaller, J. (1992). The nature and origins of mass opinion. Cambridge University Press.