Syracuse University SURFACE Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Political Science - Dissertations Affairs 2011 Taxes, Welfare and Democratic Discourse: Mainstream Media Coverage and the Rise of the American New Right Matt Guardino Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/psc_etd Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Guardino, Matt, "Taxes, Welfare and Democratic Discourse: Mainstream Media Coverage and the Rise of the American New Right" (2011). Political Science - Dissertations. 100. https://surface.syr.edu/psc_etd/100 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Political Science - Dissertations by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract Research demonstrates that news media can shape mass opinion on specific public policy issues in politically consequential ways. However, systematic and critical empirical analysis of the ideological diversity of such news coverage is rare. Scholars have also illuminated how and why U.S. economic and social welfare policy has shifted rightward in recent decades, but they have failed to consider media’s role in shaping public opinion to democratically legitimate this major reorientation of political economy to favor business and upper-income constituencies. I combine neo-Gramscian theorizations of hegemony, popular common sense and articulation with social scientific research on framing, priming and psychological ambivalence to examine mainstream news coverage of two key policy debates during the neoliberal era: 1) the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, and 2) the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Quantitative content analyses of network television and mass-market print news indicates that: 1) coverage focused on a procedural, strategic and tactical narrative that relied overwhelmingly on official sources and included little policy substance. This discourse normalized an elite-centered politics that resonates with and confirms strands of American common sense that support popular civic disengagement, and 2) neoliberal-New Right themes valorizing market imperatives and demonizing social provision dominated alternative frames. Qualitative textual analyses of key artifacts of political discourse shows how such hegemonic messages deployed a conservative-populist rhetoric to effectively obscure corporate and upper-income prerogatives by depicting these policy moves as commonsensical projects that advanced ordinary people’s material interests and cultural values. Potentially counter-hegemonic interpretations that drew on culturally resonant fragments of common sense to offer strong challenges to the center-right elite consensus were propagated, but mainstream news virtually ignored these messages. As a result, citizens lacked effective access to a diverse range of messages and to critical information that might have generated more opposition to the right turn in opinion polls. In an experiment, I show that exposure to strongly hegemonic news treatments can cause even low- and middle- income people and those with egalitarian tendencies to express support for neoliberal-New Right economic policies, and that less strongly hegemonic coverage can prompt significantly more opposition. Thus, a more substantive and ideologically diverse mainstream media landscape probably would have resulted in a much less supportive climate of mass opinion at key historical moments during the rise of the neoliberal New Right. I argue that hegemonic news coverage helped to shape a political environment that legitimated major concrete policy changes that have exacerbated socioeconomic inequality and strengthened corporate power, and helped to move institutional agendas and the parameters of political discourse significantly to the right. My findings illuminate mass media’s role in the neoliberal push against the U.S. welfare and regulatory state, the links between political communication and power relations generally, the need for a more thoughtful and vibrant dialogue between social scientific and critical-cultural approaches to media studies, and the potential for critically oriented and systematic empirical study to challenge the system-supportive presuppositions that often constrain orthodox academic research. TAXES, WELFARE AND DEMOCRATIC DISCOURSE: MAINSTREAM MEDIA COVERAGE AND THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN NEW RIGHT By Matt Guardino B.A. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1997 M.A. Syracuse University, 2005 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science in the Graduate School of Syracuse University May 2011 Copyright 2011 Matthew P. Guardino All Rights Reserved CONTENTS Abstract i Acknowledgements ix Chapter 1 -- Setting the Stage: Toward a Critical Understanding of Mass Media Coverage and U.S. Domestic Policy 1 Chapter 2 -- Critical Media Theory and U.S. Public Policy: Conceptual Linkages and Historical Conditions 11 Chapter 3 -- Methodology and Research Design: Sketches for a Critical Science of Communication 76 Chapter 4 -- “Gipper Sweeps Congress:” Mass Media and the Launch of the Reagan Revolution 104 Chapter 5 -- Right-Populism as Political Performance: Economic Policy Discourse at the Dawn of Reaganism 152 Chapter 6 -- “No One Wants to Change the System as Much as Those Who Are Trapped by It:” Mass Media Hegemony and the Welfare Retreat 222 Chapter 7 -- Stopping “America’s Descent Into the Welfare Abyss:” Hegemonic Policy Discourse and the End of AFDC 277 Chapter 8 -- Hegemonic News Coverage at the Ground Level: A Critical Experiment 353 Chapter 9 -- Looking Forward: Mass Media, Public Policy and Democratic Praxis 414 Appendix 461 Charts and Graphs 500 Bibliography 517 Biographical Data 531 vi LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 4-1: Primary News Topics 500 Figure 4-2: News Sources 500 Figure 4-3: Source-Frames 501 Figure 4-4: News Favorability 501 Figure 4-5: Primary TV Topics By Phase 502 Figure 4-6: Primary Print Topics By Phase 502 Figure 4-7: TV News Favorability By Phase 503 Figure 4-8: Print News Favorability By Phase 503 Figure 4-9: Primary Story Topics By Format 504 Figure 4-10: News Source Distribution by Format 504 Figure 4-11: Source-Frames By Format 504 Figure 4-12: News Favorability By Format 505 Table 5-1: Key Strands of Discourse During 1981 Economic Plan Debate 505 Table 5-2: Key Signifiers in the Right-Wing Populist Discourse of Reagan Budget Address 506 Table 5-3: Key Signifiers in the Procedural-Populist Discourse Voiced by Vice President Bush and Reported by the Associated Press 506 Table 5-4: Alternative Significations in the 1979 Policy Debate Between Kemp and Harrington 507 Figure 6-1: Primary News Topics 507 Figure 6-2: News Sources 508 Figure 6-3: Source-Frames 508 Figure 6-4: Clinton Administration Frames 509 Figure 6-5: News Favorability 509 Table 6-1: Public Opinion Results on Welfare, 1994-1996 509 vii Table 7-1: Organization of Hegemonic Welfare Discourse 510 Table 8-1: Experimental Conditions 510 Figure 8-1: Aggregate Policy Opinion: Strong Hegemonic Condition 511 Figure 8-2: Aggregate Policy Opinion: Weak Hegemonic Condition 511 Figure 8-3: Strong Hegemonic Condition: Policy Opinion by Income Level 512 Figure 8-4: Weak Hegemonic Condition: Policy Opinion by Income Level 512 Figure 8-5: Strong Hegemonic Condition: Policy Opinion by Level of Egalitarianism 513 Figure 8-6: Weak Hegemonic Condition: Policy Opinion by Level of Egalitarianism 513 Figure 8-7: Policy Opinion in Strong Hegemonic Condition: Low- & Middle-Income Participants 514 Figure 8-8: Policy Opinion in Weak Hegemonic Condition: Low- & Middle-Income Participants 514 Figure 8-9: Policy Opinion in Strong Hegemonic Condition: Highly Egalitarian Participants 515 Figure 8-10: Policy Opinion in Weak Hegemonic Condition: Highly Egalitarian Participants 515 Figure 8-11: Internal Policy Efficacy After News Reception: Low- & Middle-Income Participants 516 Figure 8-12: External Political Efficacy After News Reception: Proportion Reporting Very Low Levels 516 viii Acknowledgements There are far too many people who have helped me complete this dissertation than I have the space to thank here. But at the risk of leaving some important names out, I will take this opportunity to recognize some of those who have offered insight, advice, constructive criticism, encouragement and support during this part of my intellectual journey and this stage of my life’s work. First, I will thank my dissertation committee. Danny Hayes provided a steady hand in helping ground my work in empirical political communication and public opinion analysis, a keen methodological eye, tremendous patience, and an irrepressible sense of optimism and good humor when it seemed like the task I had set for myself was spinning out of control. His continued commitment to helping me through this project amidst new responsibilities many hundreds of miles away will be forever appreciated. I have benefited immensely from Suzanne Mettler’s encouragement and mentorship. Her seminar during my first semester in graduate school was when I really began to understand how much public policy matters for democracy and for economic justice. I am fortunate to count both of these fine scholars as co-authors on other projects. Grant Reeher provided many bits of intellectual and practical assistance for my project