Framing Feminism

For this study, The New York Times and Le Monde were selected because they occupy similar positions of prestige and politically they represent a neutral, or centrist viewpoint in their respective countries of the U.S. and France.

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The database Nexis Uni was used to access print articles of both The New York Times and Le Monde. The timeframe of the search for stories covered one month after the origin of each hashtag. For The New York Times, the search began with October 15, 2017, when Alyssa Milano encouraged people via Twitter to use the #MeToo hashtag. For Le Monde, the search began with October 13, 2017, when Sandra Muller created and used the #BalanceTonPorc hashtag on her Twitter.

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Within these time frames, a search for stories containing #MeToo in The New York Times yielded 22 results and a search for stories containing #BalanceTonPorc in Le Monde yielded 13. All stories labeled as opinion or op-ed were excluded, on account of containing bias. Week-in-review stories were also not considered, for they contained excerpts of larger and more important stories on the movements. In addition, a passing remark in coverage of a different event or a music review was not enough to warrant coding. The story’s main purpose had to center on the movement.

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Each article was coded for Lind and Salo’s amalgamation of the six frames of feminism: demonization, personalization and trivialization, goals, victimization, agency and site of struggle. Headlines and body text were analyzed for the presence of these frames. More than one frame could occur.

 

Frames were identified based on language that occurred throughout the stories. For example, stories containing explicit recounts of sexual assault were coded as having a victimization frame. Stories detailing women coming forward about the perpetrators of these crimes were coded as having an agency frame. It was possible for these two frames to co-exist in numerous stories.

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The subjects of these stories, the women themselves, were coded through the six frames of feminism. Stories which did not center on the women were coded through an “other” frame.

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The content analysis was mainly qualitative, and largely subjective based on my own coding and perception of the frames.