University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2016 Viewing Power, Politics, and Loss: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Mass Media’s Representations of Teacher Unions in the United States and the Consequences Concerning Policy Melissa Ann Harness University of Tennessee, Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Other Education Commons Recommended Citation Harness, Melissa Ann, "Viewing Power, Politics, and Loss: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Mass Media’s Representations of Teacher Unions in the United States and the Consequences Concerning Policy. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2016. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4139 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Melissa Ann Harness entitled "Viewing Power, Politics, and Loss: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Mass Media’s Representations of Teacher Unions in the United States and the Consequences Concerning Policy." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Barbara Thayer-Bacon, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: David Houston, Michael Fitzgerald, Ralph Brockett Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Viewing Power, Politics, and Loss: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Mass Media’s Representations of Teacher Unions in the United States and the Consequences Concerning Policy A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Melissa Ann Harness December 2016 Copyright © 2016 by Melissa Ann Harness All rights reserved. ii This dissertation is dedicated to all those who asked me ‘Why?’ Expressly, my loving and often frustrated husband, Adam. ‘Why are you doing this?’ ‘Why are you not doing that?’ ‘Why would you even think about having done those? The one ‘Why’ for you— ‘Why do you still love me so much?’ iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first personally like to thank Dr. Barbara Thayer-Bacon for her tireless efforts in helping push me to the finish line. I have known Dr. Thayer-Bacon for many years and she has offered me support, encouragement, understanding, and more knowledge than I will ever know what to do with. Her often brutal honesty has helped me more than she will ever know. So, thank you Dr. Barb. I would also like to thank others in my department, including, Dr. Lisa Yamagata-Lynch, who has lent me both an ear and advice when I most needed it. Also, I would like to thank Beverley Cate, Christine Tidwell and April Phillips of which without your help and support I would not have been able to survive many times over. I have made many life-long friends while working on this degree and I would like to say thank you to each and every one of them. Sultana, Amanda, Anne, Brittney, Sherrie, Sheryse, Brian, Jaewoo, Brenda, and Su, you all have kept me sane, made me laugh, and been a wonderful support system that has helped keep me together through my degree: So, thank you all. Finally, I would like to thank my family for supporting and helping me through this long and stressful process of endless writing, and worrying if I am indeed good enough to be earning this degree. Thank you, Dennis and Carol Sieberg, for helping with familial obligations both financially and emotionally. You two have been a part of this since the beginning and without your support, none of it would have been possible. Thank you, Bailey Castille, for putting up with my endless prattle about neoliberalism and social capital, and being the most responsible big brother anyone could ever hope for. Thank you, Samuel Harness, for giving me lots of hugs and love, and no matter how frustrated I became with what I was doing, always caring enough to get me through it. And thank you Adam Harness for always loving me no matter how crazy I got. Your support and help means more to me than the words I am writing here can ever express. Thank you and I will forever be grateful. And I thank God most of all, for all that He has given me and continues to. Without Him, I would have never met any of these people or written this dissertation. iv ABSTRACT From 2011 to 2012, in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker and legislative republicans passed ACT- 10, a law severely limiting public sector/teachers union’s collective bargaining rights. This legislative effort shocked the nation with the bold move toward stricter regulations concerning the public sector, as Wisconsin is historically one of the most progressive states concerning labor within the United States. Teachers unions within the state took ACT-10 as an assault on their very profession. Shortly before the passing of the act, sit-ins and protests abounded within the capital of Madison that caught attention from both the local and national media. To answer questions pertaining to the media, policy, government, and public sector unions, this dissertation analyzes articles from three major newspaper sources (The New York Times, The Wisconsin State Journal, and The Capital Times) from 2011-2015, utilizing both critical discourse analysis and philosophy, to examine the media’s framing of the issues pertaining to public sector/teacher unions within Wisconsin. By analyzing these media sources, three data strands emerged: The Language of Battle, Neoliberalistic Discourses, and Teacher as a Defunct Agent. The three strands reveal a picture that illuminates the unions and the teacher members as the ‘enemy’ that is destroying the education system within the United States. All the while, the government is portrayed as the savior of the education system by passing policies that restrict the unions, eliminating their “corruption,” and giving control of the education system seemingly back to the teachers and administrators. However, at the same time, the teachers’ accountability and professionalism were found to also be called into question within this media framework. By portraying such a politically motivated agenda, fueled by ideas surrounding neoliberalism, the media creates social justice issues, such as hegemony, whereby they call into question the need and abilities of such organizations as unions within a highly globalized society. Per the findings of this research: what is at stake is the future of what working in America will look like with portrayals such as what can be found within the discourse presented to the public through the media. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1 Arbitrating Media and Policy Dynamics .................................................................................... 7 Equality, Equity, and Social Justice: Examining Issues of Power ............................................ 13 In the End. ............................................................................................................................. 18 CHAPTER TWO: A HISTORY OF PUBLIC SECTOR AND TEACHER UNIONS ................ 20 Give Us Something Worthy to Stand Upon .............................................................................. 21 The Stage is Set: Teacher Unions in Context ........................................................................... 31 History Culmination.................................................................................................................. 37 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................... 40 Critical Discourse Analysis: A Brief History ........................................................................... 41 The Undergirding of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) ........................................................ 43 The Importance of the Mass Media .......................................................................................... 53 So How Does It Work? … A Workable Methodological Framework...................................... 61 The Research Situation and the Procedures of Investigation.................................................... 65 About the Newspapers and Their Articles ................................................................................ 66 Data Collection Methods .......................................................................................................... 71 Research Questions ................................................................................................................... 77 CHAPTER FOUR: ANALYSIS ................................................................................................... 78 Critical Discourse Analysis....................................................................................................... 80 Strand One: The Language of Battle ...................................................................................