The Postmodern Politics of Context Definition: Competing Reality Frames in the Hill-Thomas Spectacle

Abstract

Building on Murray Edelman's (1988) analysis of the socially constructed nature of postmodern mass‐mediated “political spectacles,” this research utilizes a Gamsonian framing analysis approach to examine the rhetorical themes and symbolic images employed by political proponents and opponents of the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas during the 1991 televised “sexual harassment” hearings. Because this dramatic national spectacle centered around the relative credibility of two opposed personalities in the public mind, the research focuses on the content of media images of the “real” Clarence Thomas and the “real” Anita Hill that were constructed for public consumption by the two opposed political camps in their attempts to sway mass opinion. Rhetorical motifs used by the “Hill” and “Thomas” political camps to frame the public debate are identified and classified based on newspaper and network television coverage of the events and on congressional transcripts. The impact of these symbolic messages in framing the context within which Americans ultimately gauged the “reality” status of Hill's and Thomas's respective truth claims is discussed, with particular emphasis on the intense symbolic contest that occurred between gender‐based and race‐based frames and on the implications for emerging styles of political discourse in postmodern society.

Spectacular Politics, Dramatic Interpretations: Multiple Meanings in the Thomas/Hill Hearings

“…Certainly, textual analysis represents a systematic approach in its own rightan approach that has important advantages for identifying the narratives and symbols that define complex media events (Jacobs, 1996;Robinson & Powell, 1996). Moreover, the interpretive processes that citizens use to make sense of political experience may be explored in greater detail using in-depth interviews (Chong, 1993), focus groups (Conover, Leonard, & Searing, 1993), or experiments (Marcus, Sullivan, Theiss-Morse, & Wood, 1995).…”

“…Conversely, White Americans were more likely to prefer Anita Hill and tended to hold this preference with greater intensity than their Black counterparts. These patterns, combined with the prominence of racialized and gendered themes in this drama (Robinson & Powell, 1996), suggest that the considerations used to interpret this event and its significance may have varied according to race and gender.…”

“I Didn't Recognize It as a Bad Experience until I was Much Older”: Age, Experience, and Workers’ Perceptions of Sexual Harassment

“…Our study participants came of age in the 1990s, as landmark sexual harassment events such as the Tailhook scandal and the Clarence Thomas hearings garnered great national attention. Those who entered the workforce at that time regularly saw and heard news coverage and cultural debate surrounding sexual harassment and sexuality in the workplace (Robinson and Powell 1996). These events and the media coverage surrounding them are likely to have shaped individuals' perceptions of their own harassment experiences (Wiener, Voss, Winter, and Arnot 2005).…”

Research and reporting on the development of sex in fetuses: gendered from the start

“…A common practice of good reporting is to use representations that resonate with larger cultural themes because that makes information seem natural and familiar, sensible (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989). The resulting texts often reinforce gender stereotypes (hooks, 1992;Husting, 1999;Robinson and Powell, 1996;Vavrus, 2002).…”