Legitimation Strategies in Journalism

Abstract

In Madison, Wisconsin, a member of a typically marginalized community challenged the status quo with the proposal for a charter school dedicated to Black youth. A year of debate ensued in mainstream news organizations and social media. Calling on critical race theory, this research compares the legitimation strategies of journalists to school officials, activists, and others writing online. Using textual analysis and in-depth interviews, the evidence demonstrated that even as journalists and others worked to reinforce the status quo by drawing from dominant institutions and principal storylines, the digital work of authentication and grassroots organizing of African-Americans and other supporters of the charter school forced an alternative discourse to develop—one centered on experiences of inequities. The article also shows how organizational constraints stymie well-meaning reporters when trying to story-tell about issues of race, and how all of these strategies from both Blacks and Whites come from a place of identity construction and maintenance.

KEYWORDS:

• journalism
• legitimation
• race
• social media
• storytelling
• values

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author thanks the anonymous reviewers and editor for their efforts on this article.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A charter school is an independently run, publically funded alternative education facility to educate a niche population of students who choose to go there and are selected.

2. By “typically marginalized,” I mean people of races, economic status, sexual orientation, and other characteristics that differ from those in charge of the media, politics, and institutions in a given community. In Madison, Wisconsin, those “typically marginalized” include people other than liberal Whites who are not heard from at all or whose comments rarely carry any weight to change policy.

3. The Urban League of Greater Madison is a chapter of a national non-profit dedicated to teaching and training (primarily) African-Americans to “live well, advance professionally and contribute to the common good.”

4. Of course school administrators, teachers, parents, and others experiencing disparities knew well what was going on.

5. And actually still does, though its influence is waning since its collective-bargaining power has been stripped by Governor Walker.

6. We could, however, find only one instance of an African-American who spoke publically opposing the school: http://host.madison.com/news/local/grassroots/grass-roots-race-talk-fuels-tension-in-madison-prep-debate/article_3b5e43fc-3ccf-11e1-b398-0019bb2963f4.html.

7. Furthermore, it should be noted that I am using the terms “Blacks” and “African-Americans” interchangeably even as I understand that not all Black and Brown people hail from Africa and as I honor all races. I reject the term “minority” as being dismissive, somewhat pejorative, and inaccurate—at least in terms of the school population.

8. No national sites were incorporated unless they mentioned Madison specifically, such as one PBS special.

9. See also Dan Berkowitz's two seminal edited collections Cultural Meanings of News (2010) and Social Meanings of News (1997) with readings from Michael Schudson, Barbie Zelizer, and others who study news as a ritualized process and journalists as an interpretive community.

10. We also conducted frequency analyses.

11. Wisconsin—and Madison in particular—proudly notes that it is one of the birthplaces of the Progressive movement, which seeks to empower individual citizens to participate in big government concepts such as environmentalism and social justice as kind of an activist liberalism. Madison remains an active hub for the Party, hosting an annual Fighting Bob Fest (after one of the original Progressives, Senator Robert La Follette in the early 1900s). A very engaged political party called Progressive Dane thrives in town: http://www.prodane.org/.

12. The reporter asked the candidate to respond to the Facebook conversation and posted her note to him several days later.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.