Making News Necessary

Journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9916
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Making News Necessary: How Journalism
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Resists Alternative Media’s Challenge∗
Jill A. Edy & Shawn M. Snidow
Department of Communication, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA
News coverage following Al Gore and George W. Bush’s appearances on the Oprah Winfrey
Show during the 2000 presidential campaign shows journalism asserting its authority
to manage political discourse despite competition from alternative media. Analysis using
Foucault’s concepts of knowledge, power, and discipline reveals journalism affirming its con-
tinuing relevance and integrates insights from the framing and paradigm repair traditions.
Journalists rejected Oprah as political discourse but reframed its elements to meet news crite-
ria established by institutional journalism. Using negative stereotypes of women as political
actors, journalists also disciplined Winfrey’s ‘‘mostly female’’ audience for failing to ade-
quately enact citizenship. Journalists thus both reasserted authority to manage political dis-
course and set standards for citizenship that positioned journalism as necessary to democracy.
doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01584.x
A growing body of literature addresses the social consequences of what might be

called infotainment politics. Research has documented voters’ use of nontraditional
sources of political information (Pew Center for People and the Press, 2000) and the
different styles of information presentation that distinguish alternative and traditional
media (e.g., Baym, 2005; Jones, 2001) as well as debating the effects of soft news and
infotainment on users (e.g., Baum, 2003; Brewer & Cao, 2006; Prior, 2003). This study,
in contrast, considers how journalism asserts its social relevance and responds to
entertainment media’s threat to its institutional authority as the legitimate arbiter of
political discourse. To do so, it examines a relatively early challenge from the current
‘‘new media’’ era: two key candidate talk show appearances during the 2000 campaign.
Shortly after their respective party conventions, both George W. Bush and
Al Gore made hour-long appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show where they
were interviewed by Winfrey in front of a live studio audience. Political figures
have appeared on entertainment television programs since the 1960s, but these
*An earlier version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political
Science Association, September 2–4, 2004, Chicago, IL, USA.
Corresponding author: Jill A. Edy; e-mail: jedy@ou.edu
816 Journal of Communication 61 (2011) 816–834 © 2011 International Communication Association

J. A. Edy & S. M. Snidow Making News Necessary
high-profile appearances represented a potent challenge to journalism’s authority to

moderate candidates’ appearances before the public. By 2000, there was a growing
trend of candidates ‘‘doing’’ talk shows, which undermined journalists’ power to

manage political discourse. Moreover, the length of the interviews, the ability of
voters to contrast the candidates’ appearances on the show, the size of Winfrey’s
audience, and Winfrey’s reputation for socially engaged ‘‘talk’’ made the candidate
interviews a near-miss to journalism (especially Sunday morning talk). Thus, this case
is prominent enough to generate adequate data for analysis while at the same time
offering opportunities for comparison with later joint or contrasting appearances in
nonnews forums, such as Pastor Rick Warren’s candidate symposium in 2008.
This analysis of news media reaction applies Michel Foucault’s (1980) social
theory in the context of social institutions. Foucault equates the production of
knowledge with the exercise of power and assumes an inevitable relationship between
power and resistance. While some of the discursive practices analyzed could be
described as examples of media framing, much framing research is notoriously
descriptive of frames rather than analytical of the social processes that generate
them. Studies that do consider institutional struggles over frames typically paint the
news media as villains (e.g., Patterson, 1993) or victims (e.g., Bennett, Lawrence, &
Livingston, 2007) in political processes. Foucault’s theory, in contrast, emphasizes the
continuous nature of social power and thus encourages examining how institutional
power (including the news media’s) is maintained over time. Similarly, while some
of the news media’s reactions to political leaders’ appearances in popular media fit
existing descriptions of paradigm repair (e.g., Bennett, Gressett, & Haltom, 1985;
Berkowitz, 2000; Hindman, 2005; McCoy, 2001), Foucault’s theory generates novel
insights. It suggests where challenges to journalistic authority come from and enables
scholars to move beyond considering how journalism revalidates its practices to
explore how journalism disciplines audiences to reaffirm the necessity of journalistic
institutions. In Discipline and Punish (1977), Foucault argues that power is more than
corporal punishment, for knowledge of oneself as an object of economic production
and as a subject in relation to other social institutions is also a source of social control.
Thus, although journalism does not have direct, physical control of its audience, it
can apply disciplinary mechanisms, setting the parameters of normal and deviant
behavior, which serve to reinforce the institution as a source of social authority
(Foucault, 1980; Peer, 1992).
News coverage of Bush’s and Gore’s appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show
argued that journalism was uniquely qualified to inform the public about politics,
and any political discussion that did not include it was fatally flawed. In Foucauldian
terms, the news media asserted their authority to define real political discourse
as that produced by journalism and distinguish it from lesser forms of candidate
self-presentation. But the news did more than defend its own practices and denigrate
those of the entertainment media. It also disciplined the candidates and, more
surprisingly, Oprah’s audience, suggesting that those who used nonnews forums for
political information were not ‘‘real’’ citizens. That is, in justifying its continuing
Journal of Communication 61 (2011) 816–834 © 2011 International Communication Association 817

Making News Necessary J. A. Edy & S. M. Snidow
relevance, journalism not only refigured political discourse into its own terms but
also defined an audience who needed that discourse.

Journalism’s disciplinary resources
Political communication scholarship has identified journalism as a social institution
(Cook, 1998; Patterson, 1993; Sparrow, 1999) playing a vital role in the political
process. Its legitimate status is denoted among both scholars and professionals by the
fact that journalistic political discourse is the standard against which ‘‘alternative’’
forms of political discourse are compared. This is why although the Oprah Winfrey
Show is a mainstream television program with an audience about the size of that for
a network nightly news program, in this context, it can be considered alternative.
From a Foucauldian perspective, the institution of journalism is a set of social
practices that produce and define knowledge and that legitimate ways of knowing
about political and public life. It exercises disciplinary power in two ways. By
defining ‘‘normal’’ political discourse, it reinforces its own authority to define and
categorize ‘‘normal’’ and to discipline behavior that does not fit. Thus, in exercising its
disciplinary power, journalism generates both dominant and subjugated knowledges.
These subjugated knowledges are not institutionally maintained but emerge at the
point where the dominant knowledge is resisted (Foucault, 1980). Second, journalism
has some of the characteristics of Foucault’s panopticon, in which those in authority
remain invisible while those subjected to authority experience ‘‘a state of conscious
and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.’’ The
observed are ‘‘the object of information, never a subject in communication’’ (1977,
201, 200). Journalists’ professional norms require that they observe the social world
without appearing in their own stories. In responding to the challenge represented
by the Oprah Winfrey Show, they not only observed and publicized the behavior
of candidates; they observed and publicized the behavior of citizens, Winfrey’s
audience. Foucault argues that the panopticon is socialization mechanism that
impels its subjects to internalize expected behavior.
Disciplining the candidates

While paradigm repair approaches typically see challenges to journalistic authority
as emerging from accidents or errors (e.g., Bennett et al., 1985; Berkowitz, 2000;
Hindman, 2005), Foucault (1980) assumes that resistance is a natural by-product of
the exercise of power. A social system’s dominant knowledges are always shadowed
by what he calls ‘‘subjugated knowledges,’’ ways of knowing that are not affirmed by
existing social institutions or norms. Thus, rather than treating challenges to news
media authority as transient or accidental moments of paradigm repair, Foucault’s
perspective suggests that such challenges can be seen as purposeful rejections of
journalism’s way of knowing. Journalistic ways of knowing are similar to scientific
ways of knowing (Carey, 1987). Reporting embraces scientific norms such as
objectivity, empirical observation (see Zelizer, 1992), and valuing quantification as

a means of knowing (see Herbst, 1993). Knowledge generation paradigms such as

horse-race coverage and game framing of politics (Patterson, 1993) adopt not only
the social scientific practice of polling but the ‘‘objectified’’ language of science, a

language of ‘‘is’’ (empirical observation) and ‘‘will’’ (hypothetical prediction). The
objective and rational knowledges produced by journalism are a poor fit for moral
and persuasive discourses of ‘‘should’’ and ‘‘ought’’ (Glasser & Ettema, 1989; Jones,
2001) and for the production of image.
As campaigns are chiefly engaged in persuasive discourse and image building,
campaigning generates a form of subjugated knowledge that challenges journalism’s
way of knowing. Transfigured through the news, the language of campaigns is
rendered scientific by considering how the candidates’ discourse serves their larger
campaign strategy and evaluating its effectiveness. This disciplinary power produces
journalistic forms of political knowledge, transforming campaign discourse into news
discourse, and rendering the campaign’s way of knowing deviant. Such discipline
has taken on a near-ritual form that reaffirms journalism as an authoritative source
of political discourse (Tuchman, 1972). As journalism distorts efforts at creating the
type of knowledge campaigns generate, candidates may resist journalism by seeking
alternative forms of media better able to produce subjugated knowledge.
Candidates’ increasing tendencies to make appearances in nonnews media forums
in 2000 and beyond can usefully be conceptualized as a form of resistance to the
political knowledge produced by journalism. Here again, although the Oprah Winfrey
Show is part of mainstream popular culture, the political knowledge it generates can
be thought of as subjugated because it does not adhere to existing standards of
political discourse. Foucault encourages us to think of this struggle over framing
not in terms of electoral outcomes or democratic processes but rather in terms of
the struggle for institutional legitimacy and power. Journalism asserts institutional
authority to both define and generate political knowledge and in doing so disciplines
candidates.
Disciplining the audience

Work in paradigm repair has shown how journalists discipline their own, by firing
a reporter (Hindman, 2005) or forcing an editor to apologize for his work (McCoy,
2001), for example, as part of the process of validating existing news norms. However,
conceptualizing moments of crisis in journalistic practice as acts of resistance to
journalistic ways of knowing suggests that the institution must do more than validate
its own practices in order to maintain its social authority. The continuing relevance
of journalism as a social institution relies on its authority to generate political
knowledge. This requires not just the validation of norms within the profession but
the discipline of political actors who resist those norms, including the public. As
Carey (1987) observes, without a public, there is no need for journalism. A public is
not merely an audience; it is an audience that ‘‘requires’’ the knowledge journalism
produces. To generate one, journalism defines good (or normal) citizenship as
consumption of journalistic output and disciplines those citizens who turn to

alternative venues for information by defining them as deviant.1 Thus, journalism

disciplines not only candidates but audiences who use subjugated knowledges rather
than the legitimated political knowledge news produces.

To define citizenship, journalism draws not only on its own institutional resources
but on the disciplinary power of a hegemonic status quo. The culturally powerful
Progressive era model of citizenship, which requires high levels of information and
rational decision-making on the part of voters, is one definition of a ‘‘good citizen’’
(Schudson, 1998) and a key disciplinary resource. However, other disciplinary
knowledge exists in the form of negative stereotypes that have been used to deny
political equality to various demographic groups. In the case of the Oprah Winfrey
Show, the full extent of the news media’s discipline of the audience cannot be
appreciated without considering how they represented women’s citizenship.2
Studies have examined the news media’s representation of women as candidates
and leaders (e.g., Devitt, 2002; Heldman, Carroll, & Olson 2005; Kahn & Goldenberg,
1991), but virtually no research has considered how contemporary news discourse
constructs women’s role and performance as citizens. Historically, however, women
have been defined as unworthy of political citizenship. Kent (2004) summarizes early
thought on the political role of women in liberal democracies: ‘‘Women inhabited a
separate, private, domestic sphere, one suitable for the so-called inherent qualities of
femininity: emotion, passivity, submission, dependence, and selflessness’’ (p. 102).
Living in the private sphere, women were primarily responsible for the education
and moral development of their children and were considered ill-suited for public
action. Bernard (1979) offers the obverse side of this claim: ‘‘Participation in the
polity would coarsen and degrade women and unfit them for the gentler roles of
wife and mother’’ (p. 280). This argument that women were the guardians of moral
values and that their chief occupation was raising children would ultimately be used
by women agitating for the right to vote. They argued that their presence would
help to ‘‘clean up’’ politics and public life (Bernard) and that if they were capable of
raising good citizens, they were surely capable of being good citizens (Ramsey, 2000).
However, echoes of this way of thinking reverberate to this day in what are defined
as ‘‘women’s issues.’’
The even older prejudice that women are emotional and incapable of the rational
thought required to make political decisions dates back to Aristotle’s writings on
politics. He believed that women were enslaved by their bodies, making them similar
to animals and therefore the opposite of men, who, as heads of their households,
were capable of putting aside personal concerns in order to achieve public goods
(Kent, 2004). At least since the French revolution, women’s chastity was chief among
the moral virtues that fitted them for life in the private sphere, and their sexual
behavior—unlike that of their husbands—subject to state control (Kent).
Faced with political discourse that had drifted into a nonnews forum, the
news media drew on these disciplinary resources. Disciplining the candidates for
producing subjugated knowledge, they rejected conversations with Oprah Winfrey
as not authentically political, reasserting their authority to define news while at the

same time recasting the interviews through news perspectives in order to render
them political. Disciplining the audience that used an alternative source of political
knowledge, they reinforced a rational, scientific model of citizenship and denigrated

those who consumed the knowledge generated by the Oprah Winfrey Show as
irrational, emotional, and sexually motivated.
Methods: Identifying news coverage of the Oprah Winfrey Show

appearances
To capture the way the candidates’ appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show were
covered by the traditional news media, the ‘‘All News’’ portion of the Lexis-Nexis
database for the first 3 days following each candidate’s appearance was searched. For
Gore’s appearance, search terms were ‘‘Al Gore’’ and ‘‘Oprah Winfrey’’ appearing
in the same article or transcript between September 12 and 14, 2000. Search terms
for news coverage of Bush’s appearance were ‘‘George Bush’’ and ‘‘Oprah Winfrey’’
appearing in the same article between September 20 and 22, 2000. Most of the
coverage of their appearances appears in these three day windows, and expanding the
time frame did not add substantively to the data set.
Non-American newspapers, Associated Press services other than their main
wire, and specialty publications such as business publications or those devoted to
a single profession were excluded from the search results in order to focus on how
the news media presented the talk show appearances to a general, mainstream,
American audience. Duplicate articles (as when more than one newspaper carried the
Associated Press wire copy, or when the same article was included in several editions
of the same paper) were also excluded. Articles that mentioned the candidates’ names
and Winfrey’s but did not mention their appearance on her show were excluded, as
were articles devoted to the weekly television ratings and those that mentioned the
Oprah Winfrey Show appearances as part of a calendar of candidate events.
Reduced to unique, substantive news articles and transcripts about the candi-
dates’ appearances on the program, the data set included 53 articles and transcripts
about Gore’s appearance and 106 articles and transcripts about Bush’s. Although
there are significantly more articles about Bush’s appearance (possibly because by
the time he appeared, there seemed to be a trend toward candidates ‘‘doing’’ talk
shows), analysis shows that the coverage of each candidate’s appearance was remark-
ably similar. Rather than describing the coverage, this analysis remains theoretically
focused on assertions of journalistic authority and discipline. In capturing the insti-
tutional response of journalism, no distinction is made between news outlets or
individual journalists, nor is distinction made between ‘‘reporters’’ and ‘‘commen-
tators.’’ Instead, commonalities across the profession are highlighted. Discipline of
the candidates was associated with journalists either asserting the right to define
news and, by extension, political information, or using material from the Winfrey
interviews to generate news discourse. Discipline of the audience was associated
with journalists contrasting audience behavior to definitions of good citizenship or

recalling stereotypes that have been used to marginalize or exclude women from
political participation.

Findings: Forms of discipline
The analysis that follows considers how journalism affirmed its social relevance and
institutional authority as the sole, legitimate source of political information in the
face of an evident challenge from popular culture.
Defining political discourse

Journalists’ most consistent criticism of the candidates’ Oprah Winfrey Show appear-
ances was also the broadest in terms of disciplining the participants. They argued that
the programs lacked substance. Under this criticism, the candidates were disciplined
for circumventing journalists’ tough questions, Winfrey was disciplined for her less-
than-rigorous political questioning, and the audience was disciplined for demanding
this sort of content. This form of discipline establishes politics as the rightful domain
of journalism by contrasting the self-perceived hard-hitting questioning of news
reporters to the soft questions of Winfrey.
Media critic and reporter Howard Kurtz accused the candidates of avoiding
reporters and the substantive questions they would ask: ‘‘Candidates like the talk
show circuit for a reason. The questioning, shall we say, is not what you would get
with Tim Russert or Ted Koppel’’ (Inside Politics, 2000). He continued:
Chatting with the likes of Oprah, of course, is no substitute for answering serious
press questions on the road to the White House. . . .The voters may be
entertained by hearing the candidates talk about their favorite cereal, but it’s not
exactly a high-fiber diet. (‘‘Inside Politics’’)
New York Times reporter Alison Mitchell (2000) made the point more subtly with
the observation that the Bush campaign had sought a way to ‘‘speak to voters for
an hour ‘unfiltered’ by the news media.’’ Her use of quotation marks defends her
profession more than it preserves the language of Bush’s campaign staff and suggests
that Winfrey, unlike a ‘‘real’’ reporter, would be unable to hold her guest politically
accountable or prevent him from manipulating her audience.
A New York Times critic negatively contrasted the talk show appearances with
other, more traditional political forums like debates (James, 2000). CNN’s Tucker
Carlson equated Winfrey’s show with Jerry Springer’s talk show and World Wrestling
Federation programs as targeted publicity outlets for candidates (Inside Politics,
2000). The interviews were said to mark candidate efforts at image building rather
than at addressing the issues: ‘‘Such alternate television appearances are meant to
reach voters who are not glued to CNN, but they reach them with a hollow message:
vote for me, I’m a good guy’’ (James).

Evidence of this lack of substance was provided in a number of stories about the
talk show appearances, where discussion of the candidates’ favorite breakfast cereals,
sandwiches, books, dreams, and sleeping attire was commonly reported. Washington

Times writer Jennifer Harper (2000) equated such image building with emotional
(as opposed to rational) appeals: ‘‘‘Feels’ is the operative word here. The talk show
landscape is, after all, far from the madding polls, the horse race, and journalists
who ask policy questions.’’ Here, Harper associates polls and horse race coverage,
with their sheen of ‘‘science’’ (see Ginsberg, 1986; Herbst, 1993; Peer, 1992) with
journalism and opposes them to the emotional forum of entertainment television, a
point to which we shall return. She goes on to cast such appearances as a threat to the
entire political system: ‘‘Indeed, there is a risk that talk show chatter can disintegrate
into prepackaged tripe, void of substance and gravitas. Some think that talk show
appearances trivialize not only the campaign process but the very office of president
itself’’ (Harper).
Some journalists blamed candidates for this lack of substance (James, 2000),
but others accused Winfrey of asking ‘‘softball’’ (Cain, 2000) questions to keep her
audience entertained:
• ‘‘The talk show diva . . . frequently interrupted when the vice president lapsed into
his stump speech, steering him back to more viewer-friendly matters.’’ (Slater,
2000)
• ‘‘Ms Winfrey, who could be as tough as any political reporter if she wanted to,
knows her audience too well to expect it to sit still for a heavy policy discussion.’’
(James, 2000).
• ‘‘Gore often tried to steer the conversation into policy areas. But just as often,
Winfrey steered the talk into more entertaining areas. . .’’ (Shepard, 2000).
Transforming the appearances into news

As reporters dismissed the candidates’ Oprah Winfrey Show appearances as lacking
substance and failing to provide real political discourse, they nevertheless subjected
the candidates’ performances to the criteria they used to judge performances in forums
they did define as political, such as convention addresses or debate performances.
Once refracted through the news media, candidates’ public appearances, regardless
of how nontraditional a forum they use, look basically the same. They are depicted
offering calculated performances designed to win over voters, and the quality of
their performances can be judged by how effective they are at attracting support.
In Foucauldian terms, news media produced journalistic knowledge and repressed
alternative ways of knowing.
Two transformations of the appearances into news were made: one passive and
the other an active reconstruction of the subjugated knowledges into the dominant
paradigm of horse-race coverage and game framing. The first transformation of
the talk show appearances highlights politically substantive comments made by the
candidates on the talk show. Co-optation of newsworthy information from the talk

show appearances allows journalists to reclaim their position as the purveyors of

political information, as the substantive information only becomes political once it
makes it into the news. Even as their colleagues claimed the talk show appearances

lacked substantive content, some reporters used statements Gore made during his
Oprah Winfrey appearance in news coverage of a policy issue. Gore had appeared
with Winfrey shortly after the release of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report
that accused the entertainment industry of marketing products such as films and
videogames to underage users. A front page article in the Los Angeles Times treated
Gore’s statements as it might any stump speech: ‘‘Gore blasted Hollywood during an
appearance on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show,’ later pledging at a campaign stop to give
the industry six months to shape up before he pursues legislation to punish deceptive
marketing’’ (Shiver & Fiore, 2000; see also Eller & Bate, 2000). Gore’s comments
sounded even more substantive in a New York Daily News article: ‘‘Appearing on ‘The
Oprah Winfrey Show,’ Gore called for ‘an immediate ceasefire’ by the industry—or,
he said, it will face accusations of false advertising’’ (Bazinet, 2000). In the context
of commentaries on Winfrey’s interviews, Gore’s statements lacked substance, but
when they reappeared in traditional journalistic forums, they became news.
While treating talk show moments as news only when they are presented through
the news might be termed a passive form of Foucauldian discipline, the second
transformation of the talk show appearances to news is much more assertive. Many
stories about the candidates’ appearances with Winfrey evaluate their performances
in the context of campaign strategy; they are game framed (Patterson, 1993). Two
dimensions of game framing are especially evident in the reporting: The Oprah
appearances are situated in the greater context of campaign strategy, and the success
of the strategies is evaluated. Ironically, these frames ignored the substantive content
of the interviews as they transformed the (subjugated) knowledge of the Oprah
Winfrey Show into news.
First, journalists discussed how the talk show appearances fit into the candidates’
campaign strategy. Not only did reporters accuse the candidates of seeking to avoid
tough questions; they also described the candidates’ efforts to ‘‘court’’ the ‘‘women’s
vote’’ with their appearances. An MSNBC journalist observed, ‘‘Make no mistake,
Bush’s appearance on ‘Oprah’ is part of a calculated strategy to reach out to women
voters, now the crucial swing voters in this election’’ (The News, 2000). Other
journalists noted that the Oprah appearances gave the candidates a chance to reach
voters ‘‘they can’t normally get to’’ (News Recap, Today Show, 2000). Typical of
game-framed coverage, these kinds of stories not only discussed campaign strategy
but described who was ahead and who behind in public opinion polls of demographic
groups likely to affect the outcome of the election.
Campaign strategy was also revealed in stories that described the candidates’
appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show as strategic performances: ‘‘Well behind Al
Gore with women voters, George Bush took his turn today. . . with a sly imitation of
his opponent’s famous convention hug and kiss. This is a blatant pitch for Oprah’s
millions of female viewers’’ (Mitchell Report, 2000; see also La Ganga, 2000). Both

Bush and Gore were accused of avoiding Winfrey’s questions for strategic reasons.
Gore, asked by Winfrey if he had ever stolen anything, said he did not think so.
Journalists interpreted the hedge as an indication that he probably had but would not

admit it. Bush was asked if there had ever been a time when he needed forgiveness.
He declined to provide specifics, explaining that he was running for president. Both
these events appear several times in the coverage. In general, journalists interpreted
the construction of positive images by the candidates as a ploy: ‘‘Behind their smiles,
the candidates are fiercely playing the politics of personality’’ (James, 2000).
Second, journalists evaluated candidate performances on the Oprah Winfrey Show
in terms of winning and losing. In Bush’s case, the origin of this story may have been
his campaign staff; communication director Karen Hughes was reported describing
Bush’s appearance as a ‘‘home run’’ (Balz, 2000). A Fox News correspondent added,
‘‘The kiss helps. In fact, this whole show helps’’ (Special Report, 2000). A Dallas
Morning News entertainment writer was more circumspect, but still thinking along the
same lines: ‘‘[Bush] may have succeeded in making a favorable impression that money
can’t buy’’ (Bark, 2000). A New York Post story tried to put things in perspective by
offering a ‘‘tale of the tape’’ match-up of the candidates’ appearances, comparing them
on dimensions such as ‘‘best one-liner,’’ ‘‘biggest pander,’’ and ‘‘best moment’’ (Orin,
2000). Of course, the sports metaphors are also a common element of game framing.
Disciplining the audience

Journalists did not simply discipline the candidates by rejecting the Oprah Winfrey
Show as ‘‘real’’ political discourse. They disciplined the audience as well by claiming
that, in turning to nonnews forums for political information, audience members were
not fulfilling their obligations as citizens. Schudson (1998) traces these reporters’
underlying expectations that good citizens are highly informed and keep abreast of
public affairs to a Progressive era model of citizenship that, he reminds us, is neither
natural nor necessary to democratic politics. However, in defining ‘‘real’’ citizens as
highly informed and engaged in public affairs, the news media discipline audiences
by setting standards difficult to meet without attending to the news, reaffirming
journalism’s social relevance while undermining the legitimacy of alternative sources
of political information.
Some elements of this disciplinary rhetoric have already been presented: the jour-
nalists’ accusations that Winfrey steered the conversation away from ‘‘real’’ political
talk for the sake of her audience, which demanded to be entertained. Other journalists
also blamed the audience for the campaigns’ shift into popular culture forums. Kurtz
suggested that the politically disinterested had lowered the level of political discourse:
‘‘It’s a way of reaching folks who aren’t political junkies and particularly women. It
provides pretty pictures for the networks to replay’’ (Inside Politics, 2000).
Disciplining women
In addition to the relatively generic accusation that voters do not pay enough attention
to the news, journalists aimed barbs at Winfrey’s audience and the women voters that

audience was said to personify. News stories commonly forged a strong link between
the Oprah Winfrey Show and the women’s vote. They typically estimated Winfrey’s
audience at between 7 and 22 million, ‘‘mostly women.’’ USA Today said, ‘‘Al Gore,

seeking to solidify his gains with female voters, picked a perfect venue Monday with
a one-hour appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show’’ (Bennedetto, 2000). CBS’s Bill
Plante claimed, ‘‘George W. Bush has been ambushed at the gender gap. That is why
he was on daytime TV with Oprah Winfrey, hoping to win over some of the more
than 20 million women in her audience’’ (Early Show, 2000).
Reporters blamed women’s lack of political engagement for the actions of the
candidates:
If women voters won’t come to the candidate, then the candidate must go to
them. So George W. Bush went to the queen of daytime TV, Oprah Winfrey, to
court her huge audience—22 million, mostly women—submitting to the kind
of personal confessional he usually shuns. (Evening News, 2000)
In suggesting that women are politically inattentive, journalists are disciplining

not Oprah viewers but women as a social group. Their discipline of women for
the transgression of using nontraditional information sources drew upon historic
arguments opposing women’s participation in public life, defining ‘‘women’s issues’’
as those that emerge from the private sphere and suggesting that women made political
decisions based upon subjugated knowledges that were irrational and deviant.
A private sphere of women’s issues

In constructing Winfrey’s show as the lynchpin to a strategy for winning the ‘‘women’s
vote,’’ the journalists contributed to a very traditional image of women. Winfrey
appears on daytime television, so, video recorders notwithstanding, one would expect
her audience to lean toward stay-at-home mothers and women who work part-time
as opposed to women working full-time or in the professions. In other words,
reporters equate women voters with those women who enact relatively traditional
roles, suggesting that real women inhabit the private sphere of home and family,
whereas real citizens are attuned to news and public affairs.
Journalists also defined ‘‘women’s issues’’ in ways consistent with the traditional
belief that the private sphere is their legitimate domain. After reporting Bush’s claim
that he expected to do well with women voters because ‘‘I know what I’m talking
about when it comes to educating children,’’ the Associated Press put the quote in
context by saying, ‘‘Bush has spent much of the past week trying to stem Gore’s gains
among women voters, stressing cradle-to-grave domestic issues’’ (Raum, 2000). The
Atlanta Journal–Constitution led its story on Gore’s Oprah appearance, ‘‘Al Gore
used an appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s television show Monday to promote ‘family-
friendly’ politics and try to sustain his increased popularity among female voters’’
(Shepard, 2000). The Dallas Morning News described the Gore campaign’s strategy
as seeking to ‘‘widen their advantage among women voters by focusing on education

and ensuring that there is a government role in curbing the marketing of violent
entertainment to children’’ (Bark, 2000). Health care and Social Security also made
the list of ‘‘women’s issues.’’

Although public opinion polls do show that women are interested in these issues,
two additional points are worth noting. First, the issues typically identified with
women in the news media’s coverage of the candidates’ appearances with Winfrey are
issues in which women themselves are invisible. That is, they invoke women’s roles as
nurturers of (and advocates for) others, such as children and aging parents. Mention
of issues on what might be called a ‘‘women’s agenda’’ that did not involve their
roles as family caretakers, such as equal pay and women’s health issues, was rare. The
second point to be made about the identification of ‘‘women’s issues’’ is that such a
definition constructs women as a special interest group, distinct from both men and
other demographic groups who ‘‘own’’ other issues. Constructing women as a special
interest relies not on their minority status, for more women than men vote, but
rather on the assumption that men’s political attitudes are normal, while women’s
are distinguished to the extent that they are different from men’s. Defining women
as a special interest links them to a particularly disliked aspect of American politics.
Moreover, in asserting the ability to define women’s issues, journalists assert the
ability to define citizenship and create an audience for the knowledge they produce.
Women as emotional
While a limited and traditional range of women’s issues did figure into the news
media’s coverage of the Oprah Winfrey Show appearances, some journalists tied the
lack of substance they saw in the candidates’ performances to women’s emotional
nature. The lead of a Dallas Morning News story said: ‘‘Surrounded by Oprah’s
audience, famously wonkish Al Gore was all feelings Monday: family and parenting
and his ‘partnership’ with Tipper’’ (Slater, 2000). Many journalists seized upon Bush’s
tearful moment when describing his wife’s pregnancy and the birth of his daughters.
Fox News’ Morton Kondracke observed, ‘‘[T]he moment he started talking about his
daughters—that was a wonderful ‘Oprah’ moment, and it was entirely genuine. . . .
To the extent that I understand what appeals to women voters, it seemed to me to be
a homerun’’ (Special Report, 2000). A Salon.com commentator argued that Bush’s
display of emotion made his Oprah appearance more effective than Gore’s: ‘‘Bush
cried on the Oprah Winfrey Show . . . . And so, if Al Gore went on Oprah last week to
prove he was a real person, George W. Bush proved he was a real Oprah guest, which
is even better’’ (Skinner, 2000).
It is useful to consider these constructions of women’s political thinking in
light of the contrast developed by Washington Times reporter Harper (2000),
linking journalism to rational thinking and science while connecting talk shows
with emotion. In these formulations, ‘‘real’’ political discourse appears in rational,
scientific forums traditionally dominated by men, while forums designed to appeal
to women are emotional and not authentically political. Thus, the Oprah Winfrey
Show was depicted as an extension of the private sphere of women and not part of the

public realm of politics. The women who attended to it were not genuinely political
because they relied on emotion rather than reason to make decisions; therefore, they
were not real citizens. Real citizens watched news.

Women as sexual
Journalists covering the candidates’ forays into the private realm of women’s talk used
the language of sexual attraction, which takes the discipline of women as emotional
and irrational to a further extreme. Not only are women too emotional to participate
in politics; they are concerned with sex and sensuality, which have no place in political
discourse.
Bush and Gore were said to be ‘‘wooing,’’ ‘‘courting,’’ and ‘‘charming’’ women
voters with their Oprah appearances. Larry King was especially clear about the double
entendre, opening his show with: ‘‘Tonight, Al Gore and George W. Bush are happily
married men, but they’re courting other women on the campaign trail’’ (Larry King
Live, 2000). Another common double entendre was the use of the word ‘‘pander’’—a
word associated with the commercial sex trade—to describe the candidates’ attempts
to win women’s votes. Of course, the candidates were also said to be ‘‘courting’’ and
‘‘pandering’’ to other demographic groups, such as families and seniors, but only
with women were the metaphorical and literal meanings of this language so closely
bound.
Journalists used other phrases to suggest that the campaign had moved not just
into the private sphere but into the bedroom, singling out for attention moments
from the interviews that could be constructed as titillating. The Boston Globe said
Gore was allowed to ‘‘purr and flirt’’ with Winfrey’s audience (Nyhan, 2000), and
the Atlanta Journal–Constitution said ‘‘provocative questions. . . led to titters from
the mostly female studio audience’’ (Shepard, 2000). Kondracke described Winfrey’s
‘‘audience lovingly looking at Al Gore’’ (Special Report, 2000). Some news outlets
attached sexual innuendo to Gore complimenting Winfrey’s shoes, as in this sensual
passage from the Dallas Morning News:
‘‘I don’t have a magazine or a publishing house,’’ he said, alluding to her more
expansive business endeavors. Then pointing to her red stilettos he said: ‘‘And I
don’t have red boots.’’ Winfrey laughed, leaned back in her luxurious yellow
leather chair and lifted one leg to show off her ruby red footwear. (Slater, 2000)
The 2000 election was called ‘‘The Year of the Kiss’’ owing to Gore’s apparently
impassioned greeting of his wife at the Democratic National Convention and Bush’s
more modest greeting of Winfrey. Winfrey had teased Gore about not kissing her,
so when Bush kissed her cheek, it became one of the signature moments of the
interview. Margaret Carlson of Time magazine likened the image of Bush kissing
Winfrey in the next day’s papers to ‘‘the cover of a bodice-ripping romance novel’’
(Inside Politics, 2000). A Washington Post staff writer also embellished the story a bit:
‘‘He began the show with a kiss, a serious plant on the cheek that brought an ‘Oh,

yes!’ from the seemingly surprised Winfrey. ‘My pleasure,’ Bush said with a smile as
he settled into the easy chair beside her’’ (Balz, 2000). Both Brit Hume of Fox News
and CNN’s Carlson described the kiss as a ‘‘public display of affection,’’ or PDA, a

euphemism typically applied to teenagers and thus one that implies immaturity in
both the women Winfrey represents and the candidates.
Journalists also sexualized other elements of the candidates’ interaction with the
host. Gore was said to have ‘‘played footsie’’ with Winfrey (Brown, 2000) while Bush
sat ‘‘knee-to-knee’’ with her (McFeatters, 2000). Winfrey’s ‘‘provocative’’ questions
and the responses they drew were also a popular topic in the news. Several reports
described Gore’s near-admission that he slept in the nude in response to Winfrey’s
question about ‘‘his favorite thing to sleep in.’’ News outlets also reported that
in response to Winfrey’s question about his favorite dream, Bush said nothing
but blushed and raised his hand. The Bush campaign staff claimed that it was a
silent reference to taking the oath of office as president, but news media reports
suggested that what he had in fact been thinking about was too naughty to mention:
‘‘Communications director Karen Hughes was asked after the show whether the
blushing Bush was thinking about, oh, something personal, maybe racy even’’
(LaGanga, 2000). Sexualizing the candidates’ appearances on the Oprah Winfrey
Show gave journalists the best of all worlds: they titillated their own audiences
and ridiculed, reproached, and disciplined the candidates and Winfrey’s audience,
equating the political ‘‘transgressions’’ with sexual transgression. Women who made
political choices based on sexual attraction were not good citizens.
Conclusions
The 2000 presidential campaign was a moment in American political history when
the candidates challenged the norms of journalism, sitting for an hour with Oprah
Winfrey and engaging in alternative forms of political discourse. Faced with political
journalism’s aura of scientism and rationality, the candidates used alternative venues
and topics by which to connect with citizens. Journalism, in turn, reasserted its
social relevance and institutional authority as the legitimate producer of political
knowledge and disciplined those who digressed from the defined norm.
First, journalists used their institutional (disciplinary) power to define knowledge,
dismissing the Oprah Winfrey Show as inauthentic political discourse while at the
same time reframing elements of that discourse as ‘‘real news.’’ By claiming that the
hour-long discussions lacked reason and contained emotional and sexual appeals,
the news media asserted their authority as the legitimate and sole owners of political
discourse and disciplined the candidates for generating subjugated knowledge.
For journalists, the Oprah Winfrey Show appearances were evidence that other
(entertainment) venues were not appropriate places to discuss politics because they
failed to create rational discourse (Harper, 2000; James, 2000). Similarly, they were
critical of the woman who was once a journalist herself for failing to ask questions
that promoted rational discourse. It was her fault that the public lost the chance to

learn about policy, from which they would have later been able to make an informed
decision (James, 2000; Shepard, 2000; Slater, 2000).
Second, journalists disciplined the show’s audience and the social group that

audience was said to personify for failing to act as good citizens. Journalists disciplined
Winfrey’s audience and women in general for failing to live up to standards of
citizenship that require political information produced by the news media (Evening
News, 2000; Inside Politics, 2000), offering support for Carey’s (1987) observation
that journalism needs a public. They blamed women voters for the candidates’
digression into a nonstandard forum, drawing upon both the Progressive-era model
of informed citizens (Schudson, 1998) and even older models in which femininity
rendered one unworthy of enfranchisement or life in the public sphere. As part of
this discipline, journalists perpetuated traditional stereotypes that define women as
guardians of the private sphere, having no identity outside their roles as surrogates.
In an even more extreme form of discipline, some suggested that women’s use of
nontraditional media disqualified them as actors in the public sphere (Balz, 2000;
Brown, 2000; Inside Politics, 2000; Larry King Live, 2000; McFeatters, 2000; Slater,
2000). Women were portrayed as sexually motivated, incapable of acting as rational
citizens, and easy prey for exploitative pandering by candidates.
While these results do not contradict findings previously generated in the
paradigm repair and framing traditions, they do offer unique insights unavailable
to either perspective. Thinking of journalism as an institution and using Foucault’s
conceptualization of the production of social knowledge illustrates how power is
created through discourse and offers a richer picture of the social environment
in which journalism constructs and defends its authority and relevance. Beyond
simply revalidating its practices in the wake of accidents and errors, journalism
must continuously reassert its social authority both to define authentic political
discourse and to discipline social actors who challenge journalistic ways of knowing
to maintain its institutional power. In doing so, the profession both creates knowledge
and defines an audience that requires that knowledge. Perhaps most importantly,
Foucault’s concept of discipline brings the previously invisible public back into the
picture and gives life to Carey’s (1987) key insight that journalism, and for that matter
democracy, require a public. This analysis offers some insight into how journalism
creates one.
There is a long cultural and political history that grants journalists special status
when it comes to acquiring and disseminating information about public affairs.
Every day, reporters claim the ability to identify news, and it is not a large step from
there to claim they can identify authentic political discourse. However, this analysis
demonstrates that journalism also asserts the authority to define citizenship in ways
that make necessary, even ideal, the discourse it creates. If institutions maintain
power by reaffirming the ability to identify deviance, it makes sense that journalism
engaged in this disciplinary action not only for the noble purpose of creating better-
informed citizens, but also to help preserve its position as sole owner of political
discourse.

Nevertheless, there is also good reason to imagine that these journalistic attempts
at discipline are ineffective and may even backfire. By couching the talk show appear-
ances in their traditional style and manner, in which they analyzed each candidate’s

strategy and motives for appearing on the show and used game frames to guess which
hour was most successful, the journalists again engaged in the very behavior that
encourages candidates to avoid news venues. Nonnews forums may be popular among
candidates, not just to reach voters but to build a discourse better suited to their goals.
Disciplining voters for failing to act like good citizens could also have negative
repercussions. Maintaining that only the news media are capable of protecting
citizens from candidates’ manipulations suggests that citizens are incapable of
making informed political decisions on their own. Such a claim may further alienate
audiences from a news media that insults their capacity to perform basic democratic
tasks. Likewise, disciplining women by marginalizing their political agenda and
rejecting ways of knowing associated with femininity may drive them toward venues
that embrace their perspectives on politics and public life rather than demanding
rational, scientific citizenship.
Not only can such attempts to discipline the public sphere backfire for journalism
itself; they may have broader negative social consequences. Claims that journalism
is necessary to protect citizens from politicians assume the duplicity of candidates
(for a discussion of the negative impacts of this, see Gitlin, 1996; Patterson, 1993).
Upholding the Progressive-era model of highly informed citizenship, with news as the
key information provider, may be a drag on political participation (Schudson, 1998).
In disciplining those who turned to alternative sources for political information,
journalists suggest to news consumers that their fellow citizens cannot be trusted to
make good decisions, which could have negative impacts on social capital (Putnam,
2000) as well as political participation (Downs, 1957).
This analysis suggests several fruitful avenues for further research. First, it raises
questions about how traditional news media are laying claim to a niche in a new
information environment in which they do not have a meaningful monopoly on
political information. The nature and success of such claims are likely to help define
the nature of journalism and impact the economic viability of news organizations.
Second, it raises questions about how the news media depict citizenship, both generally
and in the context of specific social groups. Schudson (1998) has documented the
evolution of citizenship models over time, and other scholars have debated the nature
of citizenship in a globalized, capitalistic world, but it is the media, and particularly
the news media, that present images of citizenship to the public on a daily basis.
What do those images include? How might they affect the practice of citizenship?
How might they affect democratic functioning?
Acknowledgment
The authors thank Michael X. Delli Carpini and the anonymous reviewers for their
thoughtful criticisms of the manuscript.

Notes
1 Both Berkowitz (2000) and McCoy (2001) briefly reference public behavior in their
descriptions of paradigm repair, but both center their analysis on how members of the

journalistic profession were disciplined and punished.
2 Until the mid-20th century, legal precedent and cultural practice disconnected voting
rights from citizenship rights, but this essay embraces the modern perspective that
equates the two.
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让新闻变得必要：新闻业如何抵抗其他媒体的挑战

俄克拉荷马大学
【摘要：】
对 2000 年总统竞选中戈尔和布什做客《奥普拉温弗瑞秀》的新闻报道显示，
尽管和其他媒体竞争，但是新闻仍显示了其对管理政治话语的权威地位。通过运
用 Foucault 的知识、权力和纪律的概念进行分析，本文揭示新闻肯定了其持续的
相关性，并整合了框架和范式修复传统的灼见。记者们否定《奥普拉温弗瑞秀》
作为政治话语，但重新建构其元素以满足新闻机构所建立的新闻标准。通过利用
女性政治人物的负面刻板印象，记者们也认为温弗瑞的“大多是女性的”的观众未
能充分地扮演公民的身份。因此记者们既重新确定权威地位以管理政治话语以及
为公民设置标准，使新闻定位为民主的必需。
Produire la nécessité des nouvelles : comment le journalisme résiste au défi des médias alternatifs

La couverture journalistique qui a suivi les apparitions d’Al Gore et de George W. Bush au
Oprah Winfrey Show lors de la campagne présidentielle américaine de 2000 laisse voir le
journalisme affirmer son autorité à gérer le discours politique malgré la concurrence de médias
alternatifs. Une analyse basée sur les concepts foucaldiens de savoir, pouvoir et discipline révèle
un journalisme qui affirme sa pertinence continue et intègre des idées tirées des traditions du
cadrage et de la réparation de paradigmes. Les journalistes ont rejeté Oprah en tant que discours
politique mais ont recadré ses éléments pour répondre aux critères journalistiques établis par le
journalisme institutionnel. En utilisant des stéréotypes négatifs des femmes en tant qu’actrices
politiques, les journalistes ont également discipliné l’auditoire « surtout féminin » de Winfrey qui
échouerait à mettre adéquatement en pratique la citoyenneté. Les journalistes ont donc à la fois
réaffirmé leur autorité à gérer le discours politique et établi des normes de citoyenneté qui ont
positionné le journalisme comme étant nécessaire à la démocratie.
Mots clés : journalisme, information spectacle, nouvel institutionnalisme, réparation des
paradigmes, cadrage, citoyenneté, femmes comme citoyennes


Die Nachrichten unverzichtbar machen: Wie der Journalismus den Herausforderungen
alternativer Medien widersteht
Die Nachrichtenberichterstattung zu den Auftritten von Al Gore und George W. Bush

in der Oprah Winfrey Show während des Präsidentschaftswahlkampfes im Jahr 2000
zeigt, wie der Journalismus seine Rolle als Lenker des politischen Diskurses trotz der
Konkurrenz durch alternative Medien behauptet. Die Analysen, basierend auf den
Foucaultschen Konzepten von Wissen, Macht und Disziplin, zeichnen nach, wie der
Journalismus seine fortwährende Bedeutung manifestiert, während gleichzeitig
Annahmen des Framings und Paradigmenreparatur integriert werden. Die Journalisten
lehnten Oprah als politischen Diskurs ab und rahmten die Elemente neu, damit sie den
Kriterien von Nachrichten genügten, die im institutionellen Journalismus etabliert sind.
Ebenso verwendeten die Journalisten negative Stereotype für Frauen als politische
Akteure und straften damit das „zumeist weibliche“ Publikum von Winfrey dafür, dass
sie ihrer Rolle als Bürger nicht gerecht werden. Damit bekräftigen die Journalisten ihre
Rolle als Lenker des politischen Diskurses und als Autoritäten, die Standards für die
Rolle als Bürger setzen und unerlässlich für eine Demokratie sind.
Schlüsselbegriffe: Journalismus, Infotainment, neuer Institutionalismus,

Paradigmenreparatur, Framing, Bürgerschaft, Frauen als Bürger
뉴스 필요성의 창출:
어떻게 저널리즘은 대안적인 미디어의 도전을 거부하는가

Jill A. Edy, University of Oklahoma
Shawn M. Snidow, University of Oklahoma
요약
지난 2000 년 대선기간동안, 오프라 윔프리쇼에 엘 고어와 조지 부시의 출현이후의
뉴스보도들을 살펴보면, 저널리즘은 대안 미디어로부터의 도전에도 불구하고 정치적
담론을 관리하는데에 있어 아직은 권위를 유지하고 있다는 것을 보여주고 있다. 푸코의
지식, 파워, 그리고 규율의 개념들을 사용한 분석은 저널리즘은 그 역할의 적정성을
유지하고 있으며, 이는 기존의 전통을 수정하는 프레임과 파라다임을 통합하고 있다는
것을 보여주고 있다. 저널리스트들은 윔프리쇼를 정치적 담화로 간주하지 않고 있으며,
다만 이를 제도언론에 의해 설립된 뉴스기준에 맞추기 위해 재프레임하였다. 정치적
행위자들로서 여성의 부정적인 스테레오타입을 이용, 저널리스트들은 또한 윔프리쇼의
대수다 여성 시청자들이 적절하게 시민적행위를 하지 못했다고 정리하였다.

저널리스트들은 정치적담론을 관리하기 위한 권위를 재강화하고 민주주의에 대한
필요요소로서 저널리즘을 위치화하는 시민권을 위한 기준들을 설정하였다.

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Making News Necessary

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Journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9916

Making News Necessary: How Journalism

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A growing body of literature addresses the social consequences of what might be

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high-profile appearances represented a potent challenge to journalism’s authority to

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Disciplining the candidates

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a means of knowing (see Herbst, 1993). Knowledge generation paradigms such as

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Disciplining the audience

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alternative venues for information by defining them as deviant.1 Thus, journalism

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Methods: Identifying news coverage of the Oprah Winfrey Show

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Defining political discourse

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Transforming the appearances into news

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show appearances allows journalists to reclaim their position as the purveyors of

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Disciplining the audience

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In suggesting that women are politically inattentive, journalists are disciplining

A private sphere of women’s issues

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834 Journal of Communication 61 (2011) 816–834 © 2011 International Communication Association

Jill A. Edy & Shawn M. Snidow

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positionné le journalisme comme étant nécessaire à la démocratie.

Mots clés : journalisme, information spectacle, nouvel institutionnalisme, réparation des

paradigmes, cadrage, citoyenneté, femmes comme citoyennes