International Journal of Public Opinion Research Vol. 2 No. 3

0954-2891/90 $3.00

VALUE-FRAMING ABORTION IN THE UNITED STATES: AN APPLICATION OF MEDIA SYSTEM DEPENDENCY THEORY*

ABSTRACT This paper is in the tradition of social analysis aimed at creating frameworks to join mass media and public opinion processes (e.g. Clarke and Evans, 1983; Gamson, 1975; Gitlin, 1980; Hall, 1977; Iyengar and Kinder, 1987; Lang and Lang, 1968, 1983; Lippman, 1922; Mollotch and Lester, 1974; Noelle-Neuman, 1974; Paletz and Entman, 1981; Shaw and McCombs, 1977; Turner and Paz, 1986). After a brief review of media system dependency (MSD) theory, we illustrate how it may apply to public opinion processes that entail contested issue 'value-frames' (Ball-Rokeach and Rokeach, 1987). In such cases, the media system is directly implicated in the negotiation of legitimacy of opposing positions on an issue. Our illustrative case is the abortion issue as it has been played out in the United States over recent decades (Luker, 1984). We focus upon the respective capacities of proand anti-abortion movements to control the value-frame of media coverage of the issue (Guthrie, 1989). A value-frame may be conceived as ' . . . the main substantive theme of a morality play' (Ball-Rokeach and Tallman, 1979) wherein the distinction between 'good' and 'bad' hangs in the balance; in this case, between positions on abortion. We suggest that change in the value-frame of media coverage and public discourse may be understood, at least in part, as an outcome of change in contestants' MSD relations.

C O M P O N E N T S OF MEDIA SYSTEM DEPENDENCY THEORY MSD theory is a theory in progress. It has macro, middle range, and micro levels of discourse and analysis.1 The central organizing concept is the MSD relation, a * This paper is based, in part, upon a paper ('Media system dependency theory in public opinion research') presented to the Annual Meeting of The American Association for Public Opinion Research by G. J. Power, K. K. Guthrie, H. R. Waring, and S. J. Ball-Rokeach, St. Petersberg, Florida (1989). The authors would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for his/her constructive criticisms and suggestions. 1 That MSD theory is most well developed at the micro level is a point that has been missed, for example, by Rubin and Windahl (1986). © World Association for Public Opinion Research iggo

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S.jf. Ball-Rokeach, Gerard J. Power, K. Kendall Guthrie, H. Ross Waring

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T H E MACRO FRAMEWORK

Theoretical aims are both descriptive and explanatory. An ideal descriptive analysis would entail a progressive filling in of all of the cells in Figure 1 to answer: What are the MSD relations in a society at all levels of analysis; What are their relationships to each other; and How did they develop? The way that the MSD relation concept is elaborated into the assumptions and concepts of MSD theory is rooted in the ecological tradition; particularly as it was applied to questions about the media system's influence upon social structure, change, and control (e.g. Lynd and Lynd, 1929; Ogburn and Gilfillan, 1933; Park, 1922; Riley and Riley, 1962; Wiley and Rice, 1933). One basic ecological assumption is that macro and micro MSD relations are interrelated. 1 Their fundament*] assumption is that power is the flip side of resource dependency, whether it be in interpersonal relations—the initial theoretical focus—or in macro structural relations. Adapted to the problem of understanding the conditions under which the media have 'powerful' or 'weak' effects, the M S D framework focuses upon the determinants and consequences of goal-resource relations between the media system and individuals, groups, organizations, or other social systems (Ball-Rokeach and DeFieur, 1976).

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concept that has its origins in the power-dependency exchange theory work of Emerson (1962, 1972) and Cook (1987).2 A MSD relation is denned as: The extent to which attainment of an individual's, group's, organization's or system's goals is contingent upon access to the information resources of the media system, relative to the extent to which attainment of media system goals is contingent upon the resources controlled by individuals, groups, organizations, or other systems, respectively. To date, theoretical and empirical work has emphasized one side of this reciprocal relation, that is, the determinants and consequences for others of their relationships with the media system. This paper represents one of the first attempts to explore the equally-important other side of the question, the determinants and consequences of MSD relations for the beliefs and behavior of the media system and its organizations and personnel. The latter line of inquiry joins MSD concerns to the production of culture literature (e.g. Cantor, 1971, 1980; Gans, 1979; Gouldner, 1976; Hall, 1977; Tuchman, 1978). The media system is conceived to be an information system (Ball-Rokeach, 1974). Its germane resources are the gathering or creating, processing, and dissemination of information. Information refers to all information that is, in some way, produced by the media system (e.g. entertainment, news, fiction and non-fiction). More than the material apparatus required for mass communication, a media system has goals, values, roles, and technologies that differentiate it from political, religious, and other systems. Depending upon the problem under investigation, MSD relations may be conceived to involve the whole media system or one of its empirical parts (e.g. television, radio, etc.).

VALUE-FRAMING ABORTION IN THE UNITED STATES FIGURE I Media System Dependency Relations: Dimensions Scope Structure (broad-narrow) (asymmetricResource Media Substantive Level of Analysis symmetric) Macro

251

Intensity (high-low)

System Organization Group

'Micro

Individual

For example, as illustrated in Figure 1, the effects of macro (e.g. system level) MSD relations upon micro (e.g. individual) relations (=>) are conceived to occur more directly and quickly, than do effects of micro upon macro MSD relations (-+). More generally, explanatory analyses address such basic questions as: Why do MSD relations develop and, once developed, when or under what conditions will they undergo change} The approach to such questions is ecological. The media system is conceived to emerge, develop, and change in context of a societal organism that becomes more complex or differentiated over time. As such, the media system becomes embedded in dependency relations with other systems and cannot be fully understood in isolation from these relations. T H E MIDDLE RANGE FRAMEWORK

Explanatory analyses designed to answer middle range questions concern the consequences of change in MSD relations upon socio-political, cultural, and other aspects of social behavior. In this paper, for example, we seek to explore the ecological, environmental, organizational, and belief factors that may have effected change in the MSD relations of pro- and anti-abortion organizations and how such change may have effected change in media value-frames. As indicated in Figure 1, MSD relations may undergo change of structure, intensity, and scope. The structure and intensity dimensions are discussed elsewhere (Ball-Rokeach et al., 1984; Ball-Rokeach, 1985; DeFleur and BallRokeach, 1988).3 Specification of the three scope dimensions is original with this paper. They are: (1) resource scope defined as the extent to which an MSD relation is engendered by one or more of the media system's information 1 When media resources ire more broadly requisite to the tnainment of X's (in individual, group, organization, or system) goals, than X's resources are implicated in the attainment of media system goals, the structure is asymmetric. Intensity concerns the degree to which X or the media system control unique resources for goal attainment.

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resources (gathering, creating, processing, and dissemination); (2) substantive scope defined as the extent to which the MSD relation is engendered by one or more goals—for example, at the micro level, one or more of the six dimensions that constitute the conceptual typology of individual MSD relations (Understanding, social and self, Orientation, action and interaction, and Play, social and solitary);4 and (3) media scope defined as the extent to which an MSD relation is engendered by one or more of the mediums extant in a media system.5

The substantive and media scope dimensions of individuals' MSD relations represent the major points of convergence between the MSD and the Uses and Gratifications approaches (e.g. Blumler and Gurevitch, 1979; Blunder and Katz, 1974; Palmgreen et al., 1985).6 Intensity of micro MSD relations has been the dominant dimension explored in theory and research. Specific theories of exposure and the effects process have been tested (Ball-Rokeach et al., 1984; Colman, 1990; Grant et al., 1989).7 They specify structural, environmental, interpersonal, personal, and situational determinants of individual MSD relations, as well as cognitive, affective, behavioral and interpersonal consequences of media exposure under different intensity conditions. The logics of these works include specification of individuals' MSD relations as highly asymmetric in structure and narrow in resource scope (only the media's dissemination resource being implicated). Thus, variation in micro MSD relations occurs with respect to intensity, substantive scope and, though not yet demonstrated empirically, media scope.8

* For 1 discussion of this typology and its development from earlier work by KaQ et at. (1973), see BallRokeach et al. (1984). ' For more detailed discussion of these dimensions, see Ball-Rokeach and Grant (forthcoming). 1 A reviewer of this paper, perhaps, put it best by saying: 'The difference between gratifications and dependency . . . is between the question 'where do I go for gratification of my need' (to which medium) and 'why do I go there?' This reviewer correctly points out that at the micro level of uses and gratifications discourse, the two approaches share concerns for the goals/needs that engender individuals' media use and the particular medium that is implicated in a dependency relation/gratification. This is accurate notwithstanding the conceptual differences between goals and needs and betwen M S D relations and gratifications. 1 For a discussion of the determinants of the intensity of individual M S D relations, see Ball-Rokeach (1985), Loges (forthcoming) and Waring (forthcoming). For discussion of the consequences upon exposure decisions, exposure conditions, and effects upon beliefs and behavior, see Ball-Rokeach et al. (1984), BallRokeach (1989), DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach (1088), Power and Ball-Rokeach (1989), Grant et al. (1989), Aydin et al. (1990), and Colman (1990). These works include specific theories of, or hypotheses about, the twin processes of selective exposure and individual media effects. 1 For the first empirical examination of media scope, see Ball-Rokeach and Grant (forthcoming).

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T H E M I C R O FRAMEWORK

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A P P L I C A T I O N OF T H E MEDIA SYSTEM DEPENDENCY THEORY T O T H E ABORTION ISSUE ACCOUNTING FOR CHANGE IN MEDIA VALUE-FRAMES

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Our illustrative analysis of how MSD theory might be applied to the study of one aspect of public opinion formation and change, value-framing of public discourse about issues of contested legitimacy, is premised on the assumption that there was a change in the dominant media value-frame of the abortion issue. This claim could be, but has not been, empirically examined. To simplify our illustration, we assume a monolithic media value-frame that underwent change throughout the media system at the same time. In actuality, we would expect at least some variation in media value-frames. We would also expect variation in the timing of value-frame change that reflects the structure of inter-media dependency relations. Such expectations are implicit in Paletz and Entman's (1981) observations about the differentiation of flow in the engineering of consensus through elite, prestige, and popular media, and in Strodhoff^ a/.'s (1985) examination of the diffusion of the ideology of environmentalism. Neither a media value-frame, nor a change in such, suggests that journalists or media organizations have adopted an issue position or made a change in their position. The change is in their communication behavior, not necessarily in their organizational or personal beliefs. Moreover, media adoption of an organization's issue value-frame is not assured, no matter how strategic the organization is in developing MSD relations (Gitlin, 1981). Among other reasons, this is because organizational MSD relations develop in a larger ecology of MSD relations, relations that may constrain the range of value-frames that the media may adopt without eliciting resistance or opposition from other social systems. Gitlin's (1980) analysis of new left media strategies provides a case in point. To adopt the new left value-frame would have endangered the media system's relations with the political and economic systems, relations far more central to media system survival and welfare than its relations with the new left. One reason for our selecting the abortion issue is that contestants are not directly attacking systems with which the media system has symmetrical, broad scope, and intense dependency relations (i.e. the political and economic systems). Media-religious system dependency relations are implicated in the abortion conflict. These relations are conceived to be more asymmetric, less broad in scope, and of lower intensity than those between the media and political and economic system (Ball-Rokeach, 1985). Moreover, conflict within the religious system probably modulates threat to media-religious system relations that may result from media adoption of one or another abortion value-frame. In the abortion case, then, we can properly focus our analysis on the organizational level; namely, the MSD relations or pro- and anti-abortion organizations as a

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FIGURE 2 Pro- and Anti-Abortion Organizations: Working Through the Ecology of MSD Relations To Reach The Political System and The Public • Political System MSD Relation structure: symmetric scope dimensions: broad intensity: high

Pro-Abortion Organizations

MSD Relation structure: assymmetric resource scope: narrow media scope: varies substantive scope: varies intensity: varies

^ \\ \\\

\W \\\ \\\ \W

\ \ Anti-Abortion Organizations

Public Opinion Polls

Members of the Public

major source of change in media value-frames. We can focus on these relations, but we cannot ignore salient features of their ecological environment. The reason why pro- and anti-abortion, or similar organizations, develop MSD relations, is not because they independently choose media system information resources as their primary communication vehicle, but, rather, because the ecology of MSD relations leaves them little choice. Of particular relevance to this case, is the macro media-political system dependency relation and its shaping of the micro MSD relation of members of the public. As illustrated in Figure 2, the media system is the primary link between the public and the political system. Organizations seeking to attain goals that entail the garnering of public and political system (policy maker) support must take these MSD relations into account. CONCEPTUALIZING THE ABORTION ISSUE

We see the issue of abortion as one of a genre of issues that may be defined as: a symbolic communication conflict waged to establish the legitimacy of one definition of morality and/or competence over another in the struggle to win or control scarce resources. The abortion issue thus represents a category of what might be called issues of contested legitimacy. Contestants compete to have their definition of the meaning of an issue dominate discourse and decision-making

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^ Media System

MSD Relation 1 degree asymmetry: varies scope dimensions: vary intensity: varies MSD Relation 2

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(Collins, 1975; Gitlin, 1980; Hall, 1981; Hallin and Mancini, 1984; Mollotch and Lester, 1974). To the victor goes legitimacy, and more important, the legitimacy of their position on the rules of resource allocation (e.g. in this case, the laws that determine rights on matters of abortion). T H E VALUE-FRAME CONCEPT AND ITS MEASUREMENT

frame is defined as the criterion by which people, events, and issues are evaluated

(Ball-Rokeach and Rokeach, 1987; Guthrie, 1989). The criterion may be unidimensional or multi-dimensional. As presently conceived, it is composed of one or more terminal or instrumental values. Values, thus constitute the issue frame. Terminal values are defined (Rokeach, 1973) as 'desired end states of existence' (e.g. Wisdom, Freedom, Family Security, Equality) and instrumental values are defined as 'preferred modes of conduct' (e.g. being Responsible, Loving, Broadminded, or Capable). The value-frame concept highlights the central evaluative function of values in peoples' and societies' belief systems. Values are conceived to incorporate two general evaluative dimensions, morality and competence (Rokeach, 1973). Issue value-frames are thus conceived as the primary symbolic tools or encoding and decoding mechanisms (Hall, 1981) that groups employ to wage the struggle for legitimacy. In other words, the legitimacy contest is waged in the language of values. Contestants seek to cloak themselves and their positions in value-frames that establish their legitimacy (morality and/or competence) at the expense of their opponent. Once established, the dominant value-frame contributes to a condition of 'restrictive power' (Bachrach and Baratz, 1962) whereby public discourse occurs within the rubric of that frame. It is the setting and changing of the dominant value-frame employed by the media in its coverage of the abortion issue that we seek to address from a MSD perspective. Related 'frame' concepts have been well articulated in the research literature (e.g. Gitlin, 1980; Goffman, 19744 Hall, 1977; Hallin and Mancini, 1984). Difficulty in applying many of these concepts arises in research where it is necessary to specify a substantive frame unit that may be employed to make comparisons over time, issues or groups. By definition, we have selected values as our comparative frame unit. Perhaps closest to our value-frame conception is an analysis of the need for social movements to get people they seek to recruit to employ the movement's issue frame (Snow et al., 1986). These researchers discuss those frames in similar value terms. Values, coming from a shared universe of discourse, are frame units that may afford comparative analysis. As conceived in Rokeach's belief system theory (Ball-Rokeach et al., 1984), values

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A value-frame is one type of frame (Goffman, 1974; Hall, 1981) that is particularly useful in understanding matters of contested legitimacy. A value-

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MEDIA VALUE-FRAMES

The media are not passive agents in the struggle to control public discourse, particularly with regard to issues, such as abortion, that entail social conflict and public debate. It may not be too much of an over-statement to say that the media system has become the nervous system of social conflict. Their role may be conceived as both proactive and reactive. Proactive when the media seek out 'newsworthy' events to cover in order to attain their organizational and corporate goals. Reactive when interest groups actively seek to attain media coverage by, for example, mounting protests (Gamson, 1975; Leahy and Mazur, 1980; Wolfsfeld, 1984) or providing an 'information subsidy' (Gandy, 1984) of prepackaged 'stories' (press releases, background sheets, media-wise staged events, etc.). Value-frames appear in media coverage of issues because they are powerful and efficient tools for the organization and symbolic construction of the meaning of issues and events (stories). As shown in Figure 3, we hypothesize that there have been changes of media value-frame with regard to the abortion issue. We further hypothesize that this change was, at least in part, a consequence of changes in the activities of pro- and anti-abortion organizations that altered the structure, scope, and intensity of their respective MSD relations. We do not subscribe to the alternative hypothesis that changes in media value-frame were due to change in public opinion about the abortion issue.

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are universal symbols representing fundamental trans-situational beliefs. People, groups, and cultures are seen to vary, not in the presence or absence of these beliefs, but in their relative importance in hierarchically arranged terminal and instrumental value systems. Participants in public opinion formation and change (interest groups, the media, the public, and policy-makers) may be expected to employ the same universe of values to encode and to decode their symbolic communications. Analytical and observational research tasks are facilitated by the availability of an established research tool for measurement of value-frames (The Rokeach Value Survey, 1967). This tool has been employed in many experimental, survey, diagnostic, field, and content analysis studies (see: Ball-Rokeach et al., 1984, Chapter 3; Rokeach, 1973, 1979). The Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) is particularly well-suited to analyses of the sort suggested by this paper, analyses that require concepts and measures that apply across macro (e.g. the media system, pro- and anti-abortion organizations) and micro (individuals engaged in public opinion) levels of analysis. In addition, the RVS can serve as a kind of projective test that may be contextually as well as statistically interpreted.

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FIGURE 3 Organizational MSD Relations as Determinants of Change in Media ValueFrame: The Abortion Issue HYPOTHESIZED PROCESS

ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS

Change in Activities of Anti-Abortion Organizations

Change In Public Opinion

H#l Change in Structure, Scope, and • Intensity of MSD Relation

Change of Media •
H#2 Change in Structure, Scope, and Intensity of MSD Relations

H#3b

FIGURE 4 Hypothesized Changes In Media Value-Frames: The Abortion Issue TIME PERIOD

DOMINANT MEDIA VALUE-FRAME

1 Mid 60s to Early 80s

Equality/Freedom

Anti 2 Mid 80s Transition

3 Mid 80s to 1989

• Women's Rights

• Pro

Salvation Obedience Family Security

Freedom/Equality

Pro-Life

Pro-Women's Rights

Salvation Obedience Family Security

Freedom/Equality

Pro-Life

Pro-Choice

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Change in Activities of Pro-Abortion Organizations

H#3a

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In Figure 4 we present hypotheses about the substance of media value-frames of the abortion issue and how they changed over time. We suggest that the abortion issue was subsumed under the larger women's rights issue during the mid-1960s to early eighties period. To be pro- or anti-abortion was generally aligned with being pro- or anti-women's rights. To be pro-women's rights, we hypothesize, was translated into a pro-Equality/pro-Freedom value-frame that was adopted by the media system. We suggest that the Equality/Freedom valueframe dominated public discourse; that is, pro-abortion organizations tended to legitimate abortion, and the media, the public, and policy-makers tended to discuss abortion as a matter of women's Equality and Freedom. Opponents of abortion were thus open to the charge of being anti-Equality and anti-Freedom for women. Opponents' discourse thus was devoted as much to fending off such a challenge to their legitimacy as it was to trying to get the media system (and others) to employ different values to characterize their anti-abortion position. Each of these hypotheses or claims is open to empirical test by, for example, systematic content analyses of the values employed by contestants, the media, policy-makers, and the public. A challenge in the media value-frame was underway, we hypothesize, by the mid-1980s. The abortion issue was partially separated from women's rights and, in the process, the abortion value-frame became more complex. Specifically, we think that it went from being uni-dimensional (women's rights or pro- or antiEquality and Freedom for women) to a transitional Pro-Life/Women's Rights frame and, finally, to a bi-dimensional (Pro-Life and Pro-Choice) value-frame. We hypothesize in Figure 4 that the media system in its transition to the bidimensional value-frame, first adopted abortion opponents' transformation of their position to a Pro-Life value-frame. It seems reasonable to suppose that anti-abortion organizations would have sought to get out from under the Equality/Freedom media value-frame. We think they did so by creating and effectively promoting a new value-frame. That frame consisted of certain religious and traditional family value priorities—Salvation, Obedience, and Family Security—a value-frame that carries the implicit legitimacy of being 'pro', rather, than 'and', and 'pro' values associated with family and religion (Ball-Rokeach, 1976). In our hypothetical transition period, we think that women's rights organizations held on to their Equality/Freedom value-frame, but made a subtle shift in the relative importance of these two values. We hypothesize that content analyses of their public statements would show the emergence of a Freedom/ Equality value-frame (an increase in the use of Freedom and a decrease in the use of Equality). Such a shift, if it occurred, would be substantively significant, because the relative importance of Equality and Freedom in the terminal value system has been shown to capture much of the difference between capitalist,

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9

T H E SPECIFIC QUESTIONS ADDRESSED FROM A MSD

PERSPECTIVE

Two of the questions raised by the foregoing discussion are: (1) Why did the 'women's rights' value-frame lose exclusivity or why did anti-abortion organizations succeed in getting the media system to adopt its new Pro-Life value-frame? and (2) Why did the media value-frame of the abortion issue became more complex, from the uni-dimensional women's rights frame to the bi-dimensional Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice value-frame? The first question concerns the change hypothesized in Figure 4 from the dominant media value-frame of the midsixties to early eighties period to the transition (mid-eighties) media value-frame, and the second question concerns the change in media value-frame from the transition period to the late eighties period. In our discussion, we emphasize the first of these two questions because the elements hypothesized to account for the first change are conceived to carry forward in time to contribute heavily to the second change. The factors that we consider for present purposes are summarized in Table i.

CHANGE IN THE ECOLOGY OF M S D

RELATIONS

The ecology of MSD relations (Table I.I) is hypothesized to have created 'structurally conducive' (Smelser, 1962) conditions for organizational level MSD relations to have any effect at all upon the media value-frame. Macro ' This is the basic premise of the 'two-value model of politics' (Rokeach, 1973) that has received crossnatioiu] empirical support (e.g. Block, 1984; Searing, 1978; Tetloct, 1986).

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socialist, communist, and fascist ideologies (Rokeach, 1973). For present purposes, our hypothesized shift in the relative importance of these values translates to a move away from the socialist emphasis upon Equality and a move toward the capitalist emphasis upon Freedom. In the bi-dimensional form, the anti-abortion position became Pro-Life and the pro-abortion position became Pro-Choice. These labels signify completion of a process of separating abortion from the women's rights value-frame. The Pro-Choice label, itself, connotes the increased emphasis upon Freedom relative to Equality. The emergence of two 'pro' positions seems understandable as it permits organizations to positively espouse their view of morality, albeit along different dimensions. While our estimates of the timing and the nature of hypothesized shifts in media value-frames (Figure 4) are informed by the literature (e.g. Luker, 1984), their accuracy can only be established by future research.

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TABLE I Accounting for Change in Media Value Frames: The Abortion Issue Frame in Transition, Early to Mid-8os Ecology of MSD Relations 1. Symmetric MSD relations with Political and Economic Systems (Not Threatened by Pro- or Anti-Abortion Value-Frames) 2. Asymmetric Media-Religious System MSD Relation (and, in this case, an absence of a Unified Religious System Position)

II.

Characteristics of the Social Environs 1. Social Change: Rate and Themes 2. Social Conflict: Rate and Themes 3. Media System Activity: Content Themes

III. Change in Organizational Goals and Resources 1. Goals Resources: Pro-Abortion Organizations a) increased complexity a) demobilization re: abortion b) lowered priority re: abortion b) depletion 1.2 Goals a) solidification b) expansion

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I.

Resources: Anti-Abortion Organizations a) creation b) mobilization

IV. Change in Characteristics of Organizational MSD Relations Abortion Position

Structure

1. Pro: 2. And:

More asymmetry Decrease Less asymmetry Increase

Intensity

Resource Scope

Substantive Media Scope Scope

— Increase

Narrowed Broadened

— —

system MSD relations did not seem to constrain the media system in either a pro- or anti-abortion direction. Abortion, differs in this way from the 'new left' issues analyzed by Gitlin (1980). 'New left' organizations were not only up against opposition from other organizations, but also up against the two social systems with which the media system is conceived to have symmetrical relations; the political and economic systems whose resources are as necessary to the attainment of media goals as media resources are to the attainment of political and economic system goals. The ecology of MSD relations was not conducive to 'new left' organizations in the United States. Specifically, their organizational efforts to change media and public value-frames of political discourse activated media system relations with the political and economic systems in such a way as to place the goal attainment activities of the media system at risk. We conjecture that the abortion issue per se did not activate these symmetric MSD relations because neither the resources nor the goals of political and economic systems were directly challenged. To the extent there was an indirect challenge, it would

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CHANGE IN THE SOCIAL ENVIRONS Of the characteristics of the social environs that are generally conceived to affect the nature of MSD relations (Ball-Rokeach, 1985), three are particularly relevant here. As identified in (Table 1.11), they are the theme and rate of (1) change and (2) conflict, and (3) change in content themes that dominate media discourse. Organizations promoting value-frames that flow with the tide, or reflect the tenor of their time, are probably in a better position to affect mediavalue-framing. Comparing the 1980s with the sixties and seventies, we hypothesize that the rate, and more important, the themes of change and conflict were more conducive to the strengthening of MSD relations with and- than with proabortion organizations. There was, for example, a decline in the relative importance of Equality in the terminal value system of Americans. Out of 18 terminal values, Equality was ranked twelfth most important in 1981 compared to fourth in importance a decade earlier (Rokeach and Ball-Rokeach, 1989). This considerable drop in importance may have been related to a larger decline of Equality-oriented social movement activity, and in Equality-based media valueframes. For example, the term, liberal, to describe people and their politics became known as the 'L' word, a stigma for politicians of the eighties. We interpret this development as a coded move away from, among other things, the pursuit of Equality as a relevant end state in public discourse. The tenor of this time, when the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the US constitution was defeated (early eighties) may have afforded a more conducive environment for the emergence of an anti-abortion Pro-Life value-frame; that is, more conducive than in the sixties and seventies when civil rights movements and conflicts generated more media attention to issues framed in Equality/Freedom terms. The rate of change and conflict is also important. The rate of conflict would seem particularly important to this case. Open conflicts about issues of contested

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seem to have come from the Women's Rights value-frame. We suggest, below, that even this indirect challenge was defused by changes in the social environs. The one system-level MSD relation that would seem most directly implicated by the abortion issue is with the religious system. The media-religious system relation is conceived to be asymmetric, with media resources more implicated in religious system goal attainment than the other way around. Such asymmetry, plus the schisms within the religious system about the morality of abortion, lessened the capacity of the religious system to constrain media value-framing of abortion. It is in this sense that we hypothesize that the political, economic, and religious system relations with the media were conducive to development of MSD relations with pro- or anti-abortion organizations that could effect changes in media value-frames.

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CHANGE IN ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS AND RESOURCES

Changes in the goals and resources of both pro- and anti-abortion organizations are hypothesized (Table i.m). The goals and resources of the women's rights organizations that constituted the pro-abortion forces became less and less focused upon abortion due to its legalization in 1973 and to the rise of many other economic and legal issues pressing for their place on the women's rights agenda (Staggenborg, 1988). The fact that abortion became only one of many women's rights issues, combined with the depletion of organizational resources required to pursue increasingly complex goals, seems to have provided an opening for abortion opponents. The 1973 Supreme Court decision, moreover, provided a specific focus around which largely single-issue anti-abortion organizations could solidify, namely, to overturn the Court's decision. We suggest that resource creation as well as resource mobilization occurred. The construction of a symbolically powerful value-frame is a particularly important example of resource creation. The Pro-Life value-frame seems especially robust because it not only removed abortion opponents from being anti-women's rights, but also implicitly placed pro-abortion organizations on the symbolic defensive as anti-Life. The Pro-Life frame is also important for its dramatic appeal, particularly to the media system. Snow et al. (1986), in their discussion of mobilization of participation, make a convincing argument for the importance of 'frame alignment' or convergence of the ways in which movements and their potential participants define the issue. These researchers also speak of 'frame-transformation', a compatible way to describe the transition from an ineffectual anti-women's rights or anti-abortion label to the Pro-Life value-frame. Powerful value-frames also seem to guide movement leaders in their efforts to create dramatic collective actions that maximize the chance of media coverage. The values of Salvation, Obedience, and Family Security coded

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legitimacy tend to be 'morality plays' that are particularly attractive resource material for the media system (Ball-Rokeach and Tallman, 1979; Gamson et al., 1982; Snow et al., 1986). When there are many morality plays going on at once, organizations have a more difficult job of winning media coverage than when there are few competing attractions. We believe this was the situation in the 1980s (Ball-Rokeach and Short, 1985) when anti-abortion organizations were engaged in open and dramatic conflict (e.g. abortion clinic protests). In contrast, pro-abortion activities of women's rights organizations tended to decline after1 the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in 1973. While there may have been a sustained effort to work within less dramatic legal and political spheres, pro-abortion expressions and organizations seemed quiescent in the early to mid-eighties.

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CHANGE IN THE CHARACTERISTICS OF MSD RELATIONS: CONSEQUENCES FOR THE MEDIA VALUE-FRAME

For present purposes, we assume that media system goals and resources did not change during this period, and, therefore could not be the source of change in MSD relations. Change in these relations is, thus, hypothesized to be a function of change in the goals and resources of abortion organizations, as discussed above. The anti-abortion organization's MSD relation (Table I.IV) became less asymmetric, more intense, and broader in both resource and substantive scope. It became less asymmetric in the sense that anti-abortion organization resources (e.g. active protest and powerful symbols) became more implicated in the media system's goal attainment (e.g. getting an attentive audience) than they had been prior to the eighties and prior to the creation of the Pro-Life value-frame. One anti-abortion organization, for example, bombed abortion clinics while others thrust a bottled human fetus in the face of women entering an abortion clinic. The relation became more intense in that the media system became a more important, if not the most important, communication vehicle of anti-abortion organizations. The hypothesized increase in resource scope occurred when and-

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in the Pro-Life label, for example, may have guided anti-abortion organizations. They employed many religious symbols and the participation of families in protest activities was highly visible. The subtle 'transformation' from a women's rights frame that emphasized Equality to a frame emphasizing Freedom, the Freedom/Equality transition value-frame of the mid-eighties, may have reflected what we have described as the tenor of the times. It was not, however, a symbolically powerful counter to the Pro-Life frame. In its emphasis upon the Freedom of women, the primary participants in pro-abortion protests, it does not effectively counter the implicit anti-Life charge, nor the charge that proponents put their own interests above those of the unborn. Thus, while many observers have noted the importance of mobilizing organizational resources to capture media attention (e.g. BallRokeach and Tallman, 1979; Gamson, 1975; McCarthy and Zald, 1977; Wolfsfeld, 1984, 1988), we focus particularly upon the creation of effective value-frames as a resource that has far-reaching consequences. Maximum utilization of media resources comes when organizations can go beyond media attention to affect the media value-framing of the issue and its proponents and opponents. We suggest that the respective changes in the goals and resources of pro- and anti-abortion organizations produced changes in the nature of their MSD relations, changes that culminated in media adoption of the anti-abortion value-frame during the transition period.

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EMERGENCE OF THE P R O - L I F E / P R O - C H O I C E MEDIA VALUE-FRAME

The hypothesized processes that we have suggested as culminating in the dominance of a Pro-Life media value-frame in the mid-eighties gave impetus to re-activation of public protest by pro-abortion organizations. Part of such reactivation, we think, was the creation of the Pro-Choice counter to Pro-Life. We believe that this process was underway before the Supreme Court became dominated by Reagan appointees who were selected in significant part for their anti-abortion views. It remains for the future and future research to assess the impacts of the 1989 Webster and other Supreme Court decisions that portend a substantial weakening, if not reversal, of the Roe v. Wade decision to legalize abortion. Our aim is limited to a brief accounting of changes in the MSD relations of pro-abortion organizations that may be hypothesized in relation to

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abortion organizations expanded their access to media information resources to go beyond sheer coverage (gathering) and transmission of stories (dissemination) to having an effect upon processing (i.e. affecting the media value-frame). Substantive scope increased to the extent that these organizations came to view media resources as necessary to an increasing number of their organizational goals. For example, the goal of publicizing organizational positions may have expanded to include the more complex goal of legitimizing those positions. Such legitimacy construction would begin with the media system adopting the organization's value-frame as its dominant issue value-frame. At the same time as the hypothesized changes in the MSD relations of antiabortion organizations, pro-abortion organizations' MSD relations became more asymmetric, less intense, and narrowed in substantive scope. They became more asymmetric because these organizations left the center stage of dramatic public protest, thus becoming less newsworthy and less implicated in media system goal attainment. They became less intense because these organizations were evidently devoting more of their energies to non-media strategies of influence, such as lobbying congress and going to court. They became narrower in substantive scope because their attention turned to goals that could be attained without access to media system resources (e.g. enforcement of equal employment laws). They had, by virtue of their success in winning the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, become more administrative (Staggenborg, 1988) or institutionalized (Turner and Killian, 1972) in their goals and activities (e.g. seeking passage of the ERA largely through 'regular' channels). During the mid-eighties transition period, then, we hypothesize that the MSD relations of both pro- and antiabortion organizations changed. They changed in a direction that made it more likely that anti-abortion, and less likely that pro-abortion, organizations could effect changes in the media value-frame.

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the media system's adoption of the Pro-Choice label. This is not a fundamental change, as we have argued that the Freedom/Equality value-frame was developed in the transition period. The change is thus in the label employed to signify this value-frame, a change from Women's Rights to Pro-Choice. We account for this change largely in terms of a return to the high priority given to the abortion issue before its legalization in 1973. More specifically, we suggest that the contest for legitimacy was not going well for pro-abortion organizations. Whereas they had once had the moral high ground, their weakened MSD relations combined with the stronger MSD relations that had developed with anti-abortion organizations, placed them in the uncomfortable position of having to defensively respond within the confines of the Pro-Life media value-frame. We suggest that the Pro-Choice label was constructed as a logical counterpart to Pro-Life. As such, it indicates the dominance of the ProLife value-frame, dominance even over the symbolic activities of the newly awakened pro-abortion organizations. Nonetheless, a counter to the Pro-Life value-frame was needed. The Pro-Choice label came to be incorporated, creating the bi-dimensional Pro-Life/Pro-Choice media value-frame, through the same basic process that was hypothesized to account for the prior media value-frame change (from dominance of women's rights to dominance of ProLife). We think that the MSD relations of pro-abortion organizations subsequently became less asymmetric, more intense, and broader in substantive scope due largely to the successful re-entry of these organizations into the public protest arena. This change in MSD relations could not re-establish the same degree of control that pro-abortion organizations had over the media value-frame in the mid-sixties to early eighties period. The most important reason why such dominance could not be re-established bears upon one important difference between the MSD approach and what are commonly called resource mobilization approaches (e.g. Gamson, 1975, Gamson et al., 1982; McCarthy and Zald, 1977; Wolfsfeld, 1984, 1988). As we have attempted to illustrate, the media system-abortion organization relation is embedded within a social environs and an ecology of MSD relations that may constrain and/or be conducive to organizations having effects upon media behavior. Earlier in this paper, we discussed conduciveness with respect to organizations in general, and, more specifically, with respect to anti-abortion organizations. We now suggest that there are constraining effects limiting the capacity of pro-abortion organizations of the late-eighties to alter the media value-frame and, thus, to improve their chances of winning the contest for legitimacy. We now supplement our previous discussion of conducive or constraining ecological and environmental factors to include media content themes as another source of environmental constraint upon the effectiveness of Pro-Choice

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DISCUSSION Our analysis has focused upon organizational MSD relations, the ecological and environmental factors that affect them, and their consequences for media valueframing behavior. We suggested (Figure 3) that public opinion, per se, does not determine the media issue value-frame or its change. We did not, however, elaborate our reasons for ruling out this alternative hypothesis. These reasons can be summarized by saying that the public, as conventionally treated in survey research, is not an actor comparable to an organization. It is an aggregate of individuals who share a common issue focus. As such, the public reduces to the individual level of analysis. As discussed early in this paper, individuals are conceived to have MSD relations that are most unlikely to affect media system activity in general, and media system value-frames ih particular (i.e. highly asymmetric MSD relations of variable intensity, low resource scope, and variable substantive and media scope). While aggregation via data analysis of poll results may elevate the potential for 'consumer' publics to affect media programming decisions, it is, we think, less clear that public opinion or trends in public opinion will similarly enhance 'public' impact on media news construction. Social and political issue publics, as communicated by survey researchers or media organizations, are not entities that can establish MSD relations. Lacking MSD relations, it could be argued that publics have effects because media decision-makers pay special attention to their own polls. When the media

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organizations in the late eighties. If we are correct in our claim that Pro-Life became the dominant media value-frame during what we have called the transition period, then this historical event could, itself, have lasting consequences. Once a value-frame adopted by the media has been integrated into a larger content theme (e.g. the ethics and dilemmas posed by medical technology), it will probably be very resistant to change. This is because the valueframe has become more than a way for the media to efficiently communicate one issue; it has become structurally connected to the communication of a larger set of issues. We suspect this has happened with respect to the Pro-Life value-frame and bio-medical issues. Add to this the continued active presence of antiabortion organizations with MSD relations that are at least as strong as those of the newly awakened pro-abortion organizations, and it seems reasonable to conclude that pro-abortion organizations can do little more than elaborate the media value-frame in the way that they have; that is, adding the reactive ProChoice to the proactive Pro-Life value-frame. It may be that efforts to dislodge this bi-dimensional media value-frame will not be successful unless and until there is change in the rate and themes of social conflict in the larger social environs.

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FIGURE 5

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system creates and processes its own polls, however, it is employing its gathering, creating, processing, and dissemination information resources to create publics and to control, in some sense, public opinion. When, for example, actors within the media system decide what questions will be asked, how they will be 'value-framed', and how they may be responded to, then the media system is participating quite literally in the creation of public opinion. Probably the most analyzed form of such construction activity by the media system is the election poll (e.g. Paletz and Entman, 1981). From the present point of view, we see such media construction activity as an important part of the media system participation in the value-framing of public discourse. A question for future research might be: Is public opinion technology employed by the media system in such a way as to create the value-frames of public discourse and social conflict, thereby creating its own 'news' (Cohen and Young, 1973; Gans, 1979; Graber, 1980; Lang and Lang, 1983; Roscho, 1975; Tuchman, 1978). In any case, publics, however created, have relatively little independent capacity to affect media value-framing behavior. In the particular case of abortion, we can identify another reason why public opinion is not likely to play a role in media value-framing of the abortion issue. Figure 5 shows percentage agreement with two attitude-statements: 'It should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion if she is married and does not want any more

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REFERENCES Aydin, C. E., Ball-Rokeach, S. J. and Reardon, K. K. (1990): Mass media resources for

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children' and 'It should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion if the woman wants it for any reason'; data gathered in the NORC General Social Survey between 1972 and 1989 at 15 and 10 points in time for each item, respectively. For present purposes, the slight variations in agreement that occurred are not very interesting, but the relatively flat nature of the time series is interesting for at least two reasons. First, the absence of wide variations in response suggests that public opinion about the abortion issue did not vary to a sufficient extent to be able to account for our hypothesized changes in media value-frames. Second, the data suggest the tenability of our characterization of the abortion issue as an issue of contested legitimacy. This is because neither pro-abortion nor anti-abortion positions are consensually endorsed. Dissensus is one of the more notable features of these data as, at no time period, do we observe a clear majority on either side of the issue. From the point of view of abortion organizations chronically so close and yet so far from garnering a convincing majority in their 'battle for public opinion' (Lang and Lang, 1983), the slight variations shown in Figure 5 may be very important considerations. Similarly, slight variations in percentage agreement are potentially important consequences of changes in media value-framing behavior. The logic of MSD theory would suggest that the micro-level activities and opinions of members of the public should not be expected to be determinants, but should be expected to be consequences of media value-framing behavior. Probably the most sensitive dependent variable to test in future research in this regard would be the issue-value-frames employed by members of the public, a variable that should be highly correlated with their expressions of agreement or disagreement with issue positions. The Figure 5 data are not clearly consistent or inconsistent with what we might have hypothesized had we focused our analysis on the question of the consequences, rather than the determinants, of organizational MSD relations. Without going into questions about the lag time of such consequences, we would logically expect fluctuations in attitude to occur after a change in media valueframe. In the present case, we do not pretend to have the kind of evidence that one would need to specify in more than crude terms the timing of our hypothesized media value-frame changes. Nonetheless, we hope that we have presented an argument and a way of formulating hypotheses that may contribute to future research on the media system and its pivotal role in the construction and communication of contested legitimacy issues and the consequences of such for the organizations involved and for public opinion.

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Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach is a professor of communications and sociology at the University of Southern California and a principal investigator with the Injury Prevention Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles. Gerard J. Power is a doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School For Communication at the University of Southern California. He is currently working on his dissertation, entitled, 'Mass Communication of Otherness and Identification: Representations of Homeless People in the US Mass Media'. K. Kendall Guthrie is a doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School For Communication at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include telecommunication policy, political communication and mass media research. Ross Waring is a doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School For Communication at the University of Southern California. His interests include socialpsychological implications of contemporary mass media. His most recent research examines individuals' use of several mass media to define and support their sense of group identity.

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BIOGRAPHICAL N O T E S