The National Rifle Association and the Media: The Motivating Force of Negative Coverage

Former President Clinton blamed the National Rifle Association (NRA) for Al Gore's loss in the 2000 presidential election. Attempting to explain the success of the NRA in mobilizing its membership, Patrick (communication, U. of Toledo) argues that it is because of negative media coverage of the NRA itself that the organization has been able to grow and be politically effective. Using social movement theory, a Marxist-derived conceptualization that posits class or cultural conflict as the site of social action and mobilization, to explain matters, Patrick posits that the media has a bias towards an administrative control hermeneutic that tends to give negative coverage to leftist and rightist groups that stray from the acceptance of an ideology of administrative democracy. The mobilization success of the NRA, in short, is opposition to the administrative control hermeneutic. Annotation c. Book News, Inc.,Portland, OR