| The social movement model for the role of media in mass social action posits relatively fixed structural, cultural and ideological realities that predetermine media access and coverage for groups, a reversal of the pluralistic (public relations) view of the nature of media coverage of interest groups, wherein group communication strategies are thought to cause or heavily influence coverage in ways favorable to the group.;This is a study of the mobilizing role of negative mass media coverage in social action. It examines how the National Rifle Association, an archetypal pluralistic special interest group, has successfully mobilized in accord with social movement principles in response to negative media coverage.;The method of this study is to examine from 1990--98, systematically and comparatively, evidence on both sides of the social movement causal equation. Media coverage is measured by content analysis of 1,474 elite newspaper articles on five different mass-membership interest groups---NRA, ACLU, AARP, NAACP and HCI---with supporting evidence from journalists and document sources. Mobilization strategy is measured by content analysis of official NRA communications, supplemented by interviews with NRA functionaries and document sources.;The findings are that elite press coverage of NRA is negative compared to the other groups along 16 important content dimensions, including paragraphs of quotes per article, use of appropriate titles of organizational actors, coverage of pseudo-events, joke-headlines, personalization, satire and the use of photographs of organizational actors. These differences are statistically significant and large in magnitude. NRA communication/mobilization strategies measurably reflect the conflict, solidarity and identity themes characteristic of social movement mobilization, including 8.3 percent of paragraphs in official communications specifically mentioning media bias. Further, over 1990--98, NRA membership is strongly correlated (r = .63) with negative media coverage, which appears to be a conditional variable affecting NRA mobilization.;Negative coverage combines with an apparent threat-sensitive base of supporters, social cleavages on gun issues, and selective communication effects among media audiences, to help mobilize an expanding-contracting membership contingency of more than I million persons in 1990--98. In view of its social movement mobilization style and pluralistic interest group infrastructure, NRA may represent a hybrid type of mass social action: social movement pluralism. |
