Corporate Interests: How the News Media Portray the Economy

This study examines contradictory claims about the news media's coverage of the economy. After discussing various sociological perspectives on news media, I compare the objective performance of California's economy, as measured by statistical indicators, to accounts of the economy found in the state's largest newspaper—the Los Angeles Times. The data reveal that, despite growth patterns that overwhelmingly favored economic elites, the negative news about the economy disproportionately depicted events and problems affecting corporations and investors instead of the general workforce. When the Times did discuss problems affecting workers, the articles were relatively short, most often placed in the back sections of the newspaper, and rarely discussed policy alternatives to the status quo. Moreover, unlike the viewpoints of business leaders and government officials, the viewpoints of workers or their spokespersons were rarely used as sources of information. These findings provide qualified support for existing scholarship purporting that the news media, when reporting on the economy, privilege the interests of corporations and investors over the interests of the general workforce

Explaining Consensual Domination: Moving Beyond the Concept of Hegemony

This essay addresses the growing trend among working class voters in the United States to support political causes that seemingly undermine their class interests. In particular, it offers a theoretical critique of "hegemony," the standard Marxist explanation for this phenomenon, by showing that other social dynamics, such as "mass ignorance" and "collective misunderstanding," must also be taken into consideration. The resulting explanation demonstrates that, under certain circumstances, average people may employ rational means to achieve irrational political ends

Corporate Interests: How the News Media Portray the Economy

This study examines contradictory claims about the news media's coverage of the economy. After discussing various sociological perspectives on news media, I compare the objective performance of California's economy, as measured by statistical indicators, to accounts of the economy found in the state's largest newspaper—the Los Angeles Times. The data reveal that, despite growth patterns that overwhelmingly favored economic elites, the negative news about the economy disproportionately depicted events and problems affecting corporations and investors instead of the general workforce. When the Times did discuss problems affecting workers, the articles were relatively short, most often placed in the back sections of the newspaper, and rarely discussed policy alternatives to the status quo. Moreover, unlike the viewpoints of business leaders and government officials, the viewpoints of workers or their spokespersons were rarely used as sources of information. These findings provide qualified support for existing scholarship purporting that the news media, when reporting on the economy, privilege the interests of corporations and investors over the interests of the general workforce

Measuring Class Compromise: A Structural Equation Model of 15 Advanced Capitalist Democracies

Using a structural equation model, this article demonstrates a novel approach to studying the distribution of class-based political power in advanced capitalist democracies. Situated within a theoretical discussion of pluralism and class dominant theories of political power, the article begins with a critique of the literature’s existing measurements of political democracy. After showing the limitations of these indices, particularly their inability to measure the distribution of class-based political power over time, the article then presents an alternative measurement of democratic governance, one that is consistent with the general thrust of class dominant perspectives in sociology. The results of a structural equations model shows that, within the advanced capitalist democracies, class compromise manifests in a country’s prevailing rates of union density, voter participation, incarceration, and income inequality. Finally, applying this model to individual countries, the article ends by creating an index of class compromise for 15 advanced capitalist democracies from 1980 to 1999

Globalization, Class Compromise, and American Exceptionalism: Political Change in 16 Advanced Capitalist Countries

The social science literature contains competing theories on the relationship between economic globalization and class compromise. According to supporters of the "strong globalization thesis," over the last few decades many important nationallevel economic processes have been subsumed into a worldwide "borderless" economy in which global market forces, rather than electorates, now dictate national economic policy. This argument implies that globalization has signicantly eroded the ability of democratic governance to create a genuine class compromise. Conversely, supporters of the "weak globalization thesis" maintain that the strong version of globalization is largely a "myth," and that as a result national economic policy geared towards egalitarianism is still possible. After analyzing changes in four social and political indicators associated with class compromise – for 16 advanced capitalist countries over the period of 1960 to 1999 – I find qualified support for the weak globalization thesis. In particular, the data reveal that countries with substantially mixed economies and high levels of market regulation have participated in the global economy without substantially eroding their preexisting levels of class compromise. Conversely, for countries with low levels of state involvement in the economy, globalization has seemingly undermined class compromise. This is especially true in the United States. The paper concludes by suggesting that the unique structure of the American political economy explains the exceptionally low levels of class compromise found in the United States

Explaining Consensual Domination: Moving Beyond the Concept of Hegemony

This essay addresses the growing trend among working class voters in the United States to support political causes that seemingly undermine their class interests. In particular, it offers a theoretical critique of "hegemony," the standard Marxist explanation for this phenomenon, by showing that other social dynamics, such as "mass ignorance" and "collective misunderstanding," must also be taken into consideration. The resulting explanation demonstrates that, under certain circumstances, average people may employ rational means to achieve irrational political ends