Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality.

Abstract

PrefaceIn 1954 the Army-McCarthy hearings flickered across the nationrsntelevision sets, displacing soap operas, game shows, and daytimenmovies. I was one of the many children who came home from schoolnto watch that new form of daytime serial. Later I heard the adultsndiscuss the issues at family gatherings. In 1966, partially recallingnthose experiences and prompted by concern about the Vietnam war,nI began to study news. I reasoned that the news media set the framenin which citizens discuss public events and that the quality of civicndebate necessarily depends on the information available. Accordingly,n1 wanted to find out how newsworkers decide what news is, whynthey cover some items but not others, and how they decide what Inand others want to know. In short, I sought to uncover what sociologistsnnow call the latent structure of news.This book is the product of my attempt, over the past elevennyears, to learn about news as the social construction of reality. It is anstudy of the constraints of newswork and of the resources availablento newsworkers. It is a study of newsworkers as professionals and ofnnewspapers and television newsrooms as complex organizations.nAnd it is a study of methods of inquirymhow newsworkers determinenfacts and frame events and debates pertinent to our shared civicnlife.I cannot prove my early supposition that the news media set thencontext in which citizens discuss public issues, but I continue to believenthat they do so. Nor can I prove an early hunch, prompted bynmy participant observation, that news has an even greater impactnupon policy makers and politicians, although I continue to suspectnthat news is an interchange among politicians and policy makers,nnewsworkers, and their organizational superiors, and that the rest ofnus are eavesdroppers on that ongoing conversation. Other researchers,nmore skilled in the study of the mediars effects than I am, maynchoose to present those aspects of news in other volumes. I hope thatnI have offered enough material to facilitate their task.As well as presenting concrete descriptions, examples, andnanalyses of newswork, this book addresses a theoretical debate aboutnthe role of consciousness in the construction of social meanings andnthe organization of experience. With one exception, a brief review ofninterpretative theories appearing on pages 185-92, the debate is readilynaccessible to nonsociologists. Readers who are not concerned withnthe technical issues may skip those few pages and still follow thenthrust of my argument.I was a graduate student at Brandeis University when I begannthis study. I am grateful for the National Institute of Mental HealthnField Training Fellowship that enabled me to conduct the initial participantnobservation on which this book partially draws. As administratornof that program, Samuel Wallace read my field notes regularly.nEverett C. Hughes, Maurice Stein, and Kurt H. Wolff served onnmy dissertation committee. Robert Weiss and student-fellowsnNatalie Allon, Barbara Carter, Robert Emerson, Robert Laufer,nNancy Stoller Shaw, Jerold Starr, and Barrie Thorne providednencouragement and criticism that I still recall. Since the completion of that early work, I have been fortunatenin having other friends and colleagues who offered prompt criticalncomments when I needed them.n n n