Discussion of GENDER AND DIVERSITY IN MEDIA
NyeNye
notes.docxReel Injun (2010) Neil Diamond :88 Lorber Films MEF
Sanchez, J. (2012) Newsframes in Americas First Newspapers Chapter 1
“A brief examination of the sole issue of Publick Occurrences shows that a total of thirteen news
stories appeared in its few pages. More than half of them (eight) contained references to
American Indians, verifiable proof that American Indians have been a part of American
newspapers since that mass medium first existed on this continent.” (p11)
Sanchez (2012) describes content analysis and framing of each of the eight news stories and then
discusses “Bias, Framing and Newspaper Conventions” using research findings.
“Some of the news frames that were used to describe American Indians in
Publick Occurrences in 1690 can still be found in the American mass media in
the twenty-first century. On assessing positive and negative values exhibited
toward American Indians in the eight news stories from Publick Occurrences
that reference them, it can be seen that they fall within either positive or negative news
frames.”(15)
Frame 1. Positive
Shared Thanksgiving celebration
Frame 2. Negative
"barbarous" and lurking
Frame 3. Negative
"butchered" the ship's master and several of the men
Frame 4. Positive
collaboration of citizens of Albany and New York and members of the
Five Nations of the Iroquois
Frame 5. Negative
Indians "pretend" smallpox at home has prevented promised support of
colonists; several prisoners are used in a manner "too barbarous for any English to approve"
Frame 6. Negative
the people all either "butchered" or "captived"
Frame 7. Negative
Indians have in revenge "barbarously butchered" forty captives
Frame 8. Neutral
Indians take some French captives and are now sending a force farther
afield, outcome uncertain
“This summary reveals that only one of the eight news frames that include American Indians can
be considered entirely positive in referencing them. Only one story falls into a neutral category
and cannot be considered negative or positive in referencing American Indians. The remaining
five of these eight news stories exhibit framing images that are negative or insensitive toward
American Indians. Thus, negative imagery makes up the majority of all the news frames
referring to American Indians in the first recognized newspaper in America. One other notable
ethnocentric perception arose in the newspaper media with the publication of Publick
Occurrences: the monolithic images of the good Indian and the bad Indian. From the news stories
contained in Publick Occurrences one can see that Indians are considered good Indians when
they can be referenced as allies, friendly, and "our" auxiliary Indians.
They are considered bad Indians when they go against the status quo in the Boston of 1690” (15)
“...these are French Indians, butchers, lurking, lying about having smallpox, undependable,
"salvages," abusing French prisoners in a manner "too barbarous for any English to approve"—
even though in the same story, these Indians have gone on a military excursion into French
Territories at the request of General Winthrop, where the general himself felt unprepared to
venture. Instead of being hailed as a brave people for undertaking a military feat that a well-
trained English army would not attempt, these Indians are featured in this news story as
savages.” (16)
26
“One source of the power of the print media is the ability to create mental images with words.
This first American newspaper exerted its power of persuasion during a time when words were
the most powerful mode of understanding and knowing.” (16)
“Over time, these insensitive ethnocentric perceptions of American Indians would come to
represent a reality to European settlers and eventually to more recent citizens who absorbed the
images from stories in the media of their eras. The power of the media to create insensitive,
ethnocentric, and inaccurate media perceptions was as true in 1690 is it is today in the twenty-
first century.” (Sanchez, 2012, 16)
