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Abstract
This study examines US newspaper coverage of sweatshops, focusing on the case study of Nike (1995–2000) and asking how the coverage was structured, how sweatshops were problematized, and how they were explained. We find that while activists established a measure of definitional control over the coverage, it tended to concentrate on solutions rather than causes, and the source of the problem tended to be rooted in the agency of consumers rather than producers. This has implications for explaining how social, political, and cultural issues are transformed into essentially economic problems.
Notes
Josh Greenberg is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University. Graham Knight is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at McMaster University. Correspondence to: Josh Greenberg, School of Public Policy & Administration, 10th Floor, Dunton Tower, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6, Canada. Email: [email protected]. The authors wish to thank Don Wells, Pam Sugiman and the anonymous reviewers appointed by the journal for their feedback. Josh Greenberg thanks the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and Institute on Globalization at McMaster University, for funding. Graham Knight wishes to thank the Department of Management Communication at the University of Waikato, New Zealand.