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In this article, the authors make the case for using frame analysis, an analytical tool commonly used in empirical work on social movements and social policy debates, as a strategy for organizational research. Using two sample texts—representing opposite stands on how the socially responsible investing movement should view investing decisions based on corporate handling of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered workplace issues—they illustrate several important methodological and epistemological concerns for organizational scholars considering this technique. They examine four key issues in particular that arise in thinking about how and why to use frame analysis: (a) using frame analysis to sort out underlying logics; (b) situating frames in context; (c) surfacing politics, subjugated voices, and implicit ideologies; and (d) making mindful choices as organizational researchers. They give special attention to the problem of how our reflexive positions and claims about knowledge have implications for conducting and reading frame analyses.

On June 2, 2003, the Federal Communications Commission voted for a series of changes to existing media regulation. The most prominent of these changes allowed for companies to increase, from 35% to 45%, the proportion of national viewing audiences reached by television stations they own. Also included in the changes were regulations that relaxed the number of different types of media outlets a company can own in any given local market. Advocates of these changes argued that they are in line with free market principles, and will thus be good for the media consuming public. Critics argued that the concentration of ownership that could come from these changes would be result in fewer voices being heard, degrading public debate.This conflict between market values and the public interest lies at the heart of media scholar-activists David Croteau and William Hoynes' The Business of Media. The authors highlight the discrepancies between a market rationale and public interest perspective toward the media. From a market perspective, the media can be viewed just like any other industry. According to market principals, consumers "will ultimately force companies to behave in a way that best serves the public interest" (p. 15). In responding to consumer demands, these companies will act in efficient ways to provide flexible and innovative products that meet public needs. Those products not meeting such needs will fail. Thus, media products, like any other commodity, are best provided via market processes.In contrast to this market perspective, Croteau and Hoynes offer up a public sphere perspective. From this point of view, the media are less important as an industry than they are as a site of public discourse and education. The media serve to monitor state institutions, to provide information for use in democratic decision-making, and to aid with social integration by educating about social groups different from one's own. At their core, these two perspectives differ on their model of individual actors: in the market view we are consumers; in the public sphere view we are citizens.The conflict between these two models serves as the basis for Croteau and Hoynes' analysis of the contemporary media landscape. The authors situate the conflict historically beginning with an analysis of the press barons of the late nineteenth century. Innovations, like the development of radio and television, bring new distribution technologies that change existing media and spread it into more social spaces. This constant expansion and the fiscal opportunities presented by it have led to an explosive growth in the size of media companies.

DakotaW. W. Norton has released a new edition of Steven Seidman's Social Construction of Sexuality. This highly readable introductory-level text provides a socio-historical approach to the development of sexuality as a primary form of social organization in contemporary society. Seidman's stated goal in doing so is to understand sexuality as a social phenomenon and to provide student-citizens with a new set of analytical tools for use in a sexually diverse society.The book is divided into four sections. The first provides a history of modern social thought about sexuality. In chapter one, Seidman introduces us to nineteenth century sexologists and their attempts to create a science of sexuality through the formulation of theories about the centrality of innate sexual drives in human psychological development. In doing so, they also gave birth to the modern idea of a sexual self. Seidman concludes this chapter with a discussion of Freud's contribution to theories of the sexual self. While maintaining the centrality of sexual drives, he located their development in the world of childhood and family relationships. More importantly, his worked helped to move the idea of the sexual self from the biological to the social realm.Chapter two moves from the Freudian focus on the microdynamics of family life to Marxist and Feminist approaches that locate sexuality in the broader organization of society. Drawing on Marxist approaches, Seidman discusses how changes in capitalist modes of production shaped the organization of erotic life. During the era of industrialization and market capitalism, the need for "disciplined, work oriented productive workers" led to a social world in which "sexuality is valued only if it is confined to marriage and its aim is to create a family" (15). This is contrasted with corporate capitalism and a consumer society in which sexuality is used as a marketing technique and erotic pleasure becomes a more central feature of social life. Also in this chapter, Seidman also discusses how Feminist theorists utilized gender in the analysis of sexuality. Systems of male domination produce the family relations that shaped Freudian