The New York Times and the U.S. Presidential Election 2012: Framing Same-Sex Marriage

Same-sex marriage is receiving further attention because the U.S. President Barack Obama has endorsed such marital partnership throughout his previous 2012 electoral campaign. Pragmatic nature of the media to set the agenda of the state causes same-sex marriage issue to receive immense news coverage by many America’s news media ever since it becomes part of the Democratic Party electoral campaign, predominantly by the acclaimed “liberal” and “pro-gay” newspaper, The New York Times. The newspaper is deemed passionate to crusade gay issues, to encourage movement for liberalism, and attempts to exhibit same-sex marriage issue to appear salient within a particular timeframe by exploiting specific news framing, agenda-setting, and media bias therefore some critics perceive journalism is about to get sacrificed on the altar of advocacy for same-sex marriage. Hence, this study attempts to identify news frame employed by the newspaper in related issue, to determine the association of agenda-setting with same-sex marriage news coverage, and strives to ascertain affiliation of news coverage in relation to gay topics with efforts to propel movement for liberalism in the realms of American politics and society. This study uses two research methods: (1) qualitative media content analysis based on protocol provided by David L. Altheide and Christopher J. Schneider (2013) and (2) thematic analysis to scrutinize news framing thus the following results are anticipated to be obtained: (1) same-sex marriage issue indicates the usage of either “Support for Gay Rights” or “Support for Marriage Equality” as the most significant news frame and (2) The New York Times overtly promotes movement for liberalism. Eventually, findings and discussion of this study may provide better understanding pertaining to news framing and agenda-setting in the profession of journalism, homosexuals and the Spiral of Silence Theory, as well as to comprehend media role to set a specific agenda within a particular state’s political and societal settings.