Media Bias, Perspective and State Repression: The Black Panther Party
Click here for news article on award
INtro: This book is colloquially known as The Rashomon Effect (to those who heard me talk about the work). This was inspired by the Akira Kurosowa film Rashomon and James Scott's use of the phrase in his book Weapons of the Weak.
Overview: Within this book, I suggest that incessant attention to "bias" (i.e., what is missed from some account) has compelled researchers to ignore "perspective" (i.e., why specific actors highlight the information that they do). I argue that the geographic locale and political orientation of the newspaper influences how specific details are reported, including who starts and ends the conflict, who the challengers target (government or non-government actors), and which part of the government responds (the police or court). To investigate this argument the book examines information reported within the media regarding the interaction between the Black Panther Party and government agents in the Bay Area of California (1967–1973). Specifically, I find that proximate and government-oriented sources provide one assessment of events, whereas proximate and dissident-oriented sources have another; both converge on specific aspects of the conflict. The methodological implications of the study are clear. My findings show that in order to understand contentious events, it is crucial to understand who collects or distributes the information in order to comprehend who reportedly does what to whom as well as why. The differences in accounts are not noise, they are perhaps the most important sound/signal sent by the actors to their respective sides.
Contents
Introduction
Part I. Conceptualization
1. Objectivity and subjectivity in event catalogs
2. The Rashomon effect, observation and data generation
3. Understanding state repressive behavior
Part II. Cases
4. The Black Panther Party vs. the United States, 1967-73: background
5. An event catalog of dissent and repression: the BPP in the Bay Area
6. A mosaic of coercion: five cases of anti-Panther repressive behavior
Part III. Conclusion
7. Conclusion: conflict, events and catalogs
Appendix 1: The Black Panther-U.S. Government event catalogs.
Artwork
The cover art of the three fists was developed by a good friend of mine, Christina Rannacher. For some reason, however, she was not credited.
Review Excerpts & Full Reviews
- Review in Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media (2011) - "Meticulous" and "Provocative"
- Review in International Journal of Press Politics (2011) - "a distinct contribution, first for its comparative approach—comparing realities across sources brings home the constructed nature even of “factual” chronologies of events—and also for its concrete and careful analysis, which successfully excavates the construction of a critical historical moment"
- Review in Mobilization (2011) - "Davenport's suggestions for the kinds of questions we should ask in the future, and the methodological strategies to answer them, are as important to consider as they will be challenging to execute. For this reason, the book should be required reading...
- Review in New Political Science (2010) - "Christian Davenport has written an intellectually ambitious book that should be or interest to students of social movements, state repression, and the news media."
Book Blurbs
This meticulously researched, well-written and broadly integrative book is simultaneously about a chief methodology used by scholars of contentious politics, and state repression of the Black Panther Party in the Bay Area during the late 1960’s. On the methodological level, the book illustrates the pitfalls of relying on single news source accounts of conflict and repression and it clearly delineates the sources of bias related to such news accounts. As such, the book stands out as a new and exciting addition to the growing literature on media bias and will become a classic text on this subject. On a substantive level, Davenport describes important events and details related to the state repression of a hitherto understudied social movement. Indeed, this work contributes to a much deeper and nuanced understanding of this movement during this period of time. Media Bias, Perspective and State Repression should be read and digested by political scientists, sociologists, historians, communications scholars and laypeople alike.”
-- Sarah Soule, Stanford University
“Scholars with an interest in social movements, repression, and/or the Black Panthers have been eagerly awaiting this book for the better part of a decade. It was worth the wait. The methodological implications of the work—as encoded in Davenport’s already well known Rashomon Effect—are reason enough to already regard the book as a classic. In addition, however, the work also represents a thoughtful, systematic study of the Black Panthers. Anyone who knows
this troubled corner of the literature is sure to appreciate what a rare and welcome achievement this is.”
-- Doug McAdam, Stanford University
“This is an important book with an important argument. It shows that different news sources not only covered different events relevant to the Black Panther Party, but constructed different narratives about cause-effect relations between movement actions and state repression. The sequences of mainstream news stories showed state repression to be a response to a few high-profile Black Panther actions and showed state repression effectively crushing the Black
Panther Party. The sequences of news stories in the movement news sources showed state repression to be a response to a much wider and more diffuse array Black Panther protest actions and showed Black Panther dissent continuing in the face of ongoing repression. Which theories of state repression got confirmed or rejected depended on which news sources you used. Christian Davenport provides the necessary context for this crucial analysis with informative and well-written summaries of research and theory on news coverage, state repression, and the history of the Black Panther Party and race relations in the Bay Area. The result is a book of crucial importance for scholars of social movements, state repression, mass media, and the history of the Black movement in the US.”
-- Pamela Oliver, University of Wisconsin
“This book explores the research implications of what Davenport terms ‘the rashomon effect.’ Davenport’s careful analysis of multiple (and sometimes contradictory) newspaper accounts of contentious interactions between the Black Panther Party and authorities in California’s Bay Area yields a number of new and fascinating findings on the dynamics of protest, violence, and repression. In sum, this book makes a compelling argument for using varied sources of data
on events as a method for understanding the process of collective action as experienced by different audiences.”
-- Susan Olzak, Stanford University
- Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics (2010).
Click here for news article on award
INtro: This book is colloquially known as The Rashomon Effect (to those who heard me talk about the work). This was inspired by the Akira Kurosowa film Rashomon and James Scott's use of the phrase in his book Weapons of the Weak.
Overview: Within this book, I suggest that incessant attention to "bias" (i.e., what is missed from some account) has compelled researchers to ignore "perspective" (i.e., why specific actors highlight the information that they do). I argue that the geographic locale and political orientation of the newspaper influences how specific details are reported, including who starts and ends the conflict, who the challengers target (government or non-government actors), and which part of the government responds (the police or court). To investigate this argument the book examines information reported within the media regarding the interaction between the Black Panther Party and government agents in the Bay Area of California (1967–1973). Specifically, I find that proximate and government-oriented sources provide one assessment of events, whereas proximate and dissident-oriented sources have another; both converge on specific aspects of the conflict. The methodological implications of the study are clear. My findings show that in order to understand contentious events, it is crucial to understand who collects or distributes the information in order to comprehend who reportedly does what to whom as well as why. The differences in accounts are not noise, they are perhaps the most important sound/signal sent by the actors to their respective sides.
Contents
Introduction
Part I. Conceptualization
1. Objectivity and subjectivity in event catalogs
2. The Rashomon effect, observation and data generation
3. Understanding state repressive behavior
Part II. Cases
4. The Black Panther Party vs. the United States, 1967-73: background
5. An event catalog of dissent and repression: the BPP in the Bay Area
6. A mosaic of coercion: five cases of anti-Panther repressive behavior
Part III. Conclusion
7. Conclusion: conflict, events and catalogs
Appendix 1: The Black Panther-U.S. Government event catalogs.
Artwork
The cover art of the three fists was developed by a good friend of mine, Christina Rannacher. For some reason, however, she was not credited.
Review Excerpts & Full Reviews
- Review in Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media (2011) - "Meticulous" and "Provocative"
- Review in International Journal of Press Politics (2011) - "a distinct contribution, first for its comparative approach—comparing realities across sources brings home the constructed nature even of “factual” chronologies of events—and also for its concrete and careful analysis, which successfully excavates the construction of a critical historical moment"
- Review in Mobilization (2011) - "Davenport's suggestions for the kinds of questions we should ask in the future, and the methodological strategies to answer them, are as important to consider as they will be challenging to execute. For this reason, the book should be required reading...
- Review in New Political Science (2010) - "Christian Davenport has written an intellectually ambitious book that should be or interest to students of social movements, state repression, and the news media."
Book Blurbs
This meticulously researched, well-written and broadly integrative book is simultaneously about a chief methodology used by scholars of contentious politics, and state repression of the Black Panther Party in the Bay Area during the late 1960’s. On the methodological level, the book illustrates the pitfalls of relying on single news source accounts of conflict and repression and it clearly delineates the sources of bias related to such news accounts. As such, the book stands out as a new and exciting addition to the growing literature on media bias and will become a classic text on this subject. On a substantive level, Davenport describes important events and details related to the state repression of a hitherto understudied social movement. Indeed, this work contributes to a much deeper and nuanced understanding of this movement during this period of time. Media Bias, Perspective and State Repression should be read and digested by political scientists, sociologists, historians, communications scholars and laypeople alike.”
-- Sarah Soule, Stanford University
“Scholars with an interest in social movements, repression, and/or the Black Panthers have been eagerly awaiting this book for the better part of a decade. It was worth the wait. The methodological implications of the work—as encoded in Davenport’s already well known Rashomon Effect—are reason enough to already regard the book as a classic. In addition, however, the work also represents a thoughtful, systematic study of the Black Panthers. Anyone who knows
this troubled corner of the literature is sure to appreciate what a rare and welcome achievement this is.”
-- Doug McAdam, Stanford University
“This is an important book with an important argument. It shows that different news sources not only covered different events relevant to the Black Panther Party, but constructed different narratives about cause-effect relations between movement actions and state repression. The sequences of mainstream news stories showed state repression to be a response to a few high-profile Black Panther actions and showed state repression effectively crushing the Black
Panther Party. The sequences of news stories in the movement news sources showed state repression to be a response to a much wider and more diffuse array Black Panther protest actions and showed Black Panther dissent continuing in the face of ongoing repression. Which theories of state repression got confirmed or rejected depended on which news sources you used. Christian Davenport provides the necessary context for this crucial analysis with informative and well-written summaries of research and theory on news coverage, state repression, and the history of the Black Panther Party and race relations in the Bay Area. The result is a book of crucial importance for scholars of social movements, state repression, mass media, and the history of the Black movement in the US.”
-- Pamela Oliver, University of Wisconsin
“This book explores the research implications of what Davenport terms ‘the rashomon effect.’ Davenport’s careful analysis of multiple (and sometimes contradictory) newspaper accounts of contentious interactions between the Black Panther Party and authorities in California’s Bay Area yields a number of new and fascinating findings on the dynamics of protest, violence, and repression. In sum, this book makes a compelling argument for using varied sources of data
on events as a method for understanding the process of collective action as experienced by different audiences.”
-- Susan Olzak, Stanford University
