Weaving together analyses of archival material, news coverage, and interviews conducted with journalists from mainstream and partisan outlets as well as with activists across the political spectrum, Deana A. Rohlinger reimagines how activists use a variety of mediums, sometimes simultaneously, to agitate for - and against - legal abortion. Rohlinger's in-depth portraits of four groups - the National Right to Life Committee, Planned Parenthood, the National Organization for Women, and Concerned Women for America - illuminates when groups use media and why they might choose to avoid media attention altogether. Rohlinger expertly reveals why some activist groups are more desperate than others to attract media attention and sheds light on what this means for policy making and legal abortion in the twenty-first century.
**
Social Science
Political Science
Social & Cultural Studies
Sociology
Nonfiction
Cover 1
Half-title page
3
Title page
5
Copyright page
6
Dedication
7
Contents
9
Figures
11
Tables
12
Acknowledgments
13
Introduction Dilemmas, choices, and consequences 15
A strategic choice approach 17
Lessons learned from a strategic choice approach 24
Outline of the book 28
1 Constraints on strategic choice 31
Organizational dynamics and strategic choice 31
Institutional dynamics and strategic choice 37
Conclusion 42
2 The mass media field 45
Reputation and strategic choice in the journalistic field 45
Toward a choice-centered understanding of mass media 51
Reputation and responding to media dilemmas 54
Conclusion 55
3 Abortion, social movements, and mass media 57
Abortion politics after Roe and Doe 59
Overview of the study and organizations 63
Overview of media attention on the abortion issue 66
4 Media, politics, and the National Right to Life Committee 70
Mainstreaming the pro-life cause 72
Contending with the moderate middle 76
Dealing with direct action groups 81
The problem of the really radical fringe 87
Conclusion 88
5 Reputation, political change, and the National Organization for Women 92
The problems of principled pragmatism 94
Shifting the focus from ERA to abortion 98
Reasserting NOW’s public image 106
Conclusion 109
6 Branding and the success of Planned Parenthood Federation of America 113
The PPFA brand and the abortion issue 116
Reframing the Debate of Parental Rights 122
Elite agendas and organizational conflict 125
Conclusion 131
7 Concerned Women for America and sympathetic media 134
The strategic benefits of conservative, Christian media 137
Moving into the mainstream 143
Conclusion 151
8 Conclusion 155
The media dilemmas organizations face 156
Organizational dynamics: the building blocks of strategy 161
The complications of context 165
The mass media field: reconceptualization and reputation 167
Afterword: abortion politics in the twenty-first century
170
Works cited
174
Index
184

upload/motw_shc_2025_10/shc/Abortion Politics, Mass Media, - Deana A. Rohlinger.pdf

motw/Abortion Politics, Mass Media, - Deana A. Rohlinger.pdf

Rohlinger, Deana A.

Deana A. Rohlinger

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

PS, 2014

producers:
Cambridge University Press

Memory of the World Librarian: Calamitous Annunciation

Weaving together analyses of archival material, news coverage, and interviews conducted with journalists from mainstream and partisan outlets as well as with activists, this book re-imagines how activists use a variety of mediums, sometimes simultaneously, to agitate for - and against - legal abortion.

2025-10-27