Friends and Foes: Media, Politics, and Tactics in the Abortion War

Abstract

Political opportunities and threats are important to tactical choices. Yet, scholars have not examined how the political environment affects the tactical choices of social movement organizations in the media arena. In this article, I analyze how political threats and opportunities affect the media strategies and tactics of two reasonably successful and long-lived social movement organizations on opposite sides of the abortion debate, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), from 1980 to 2000. In particular, I examine how political shifts affect the tactics these groups use in response to their allies over time. I find that different social movement organizations respond to political opportunities and threats similarly. In times of political opportunity, groups remain silent on their allies' activities because silence distances their organizations from rancorous public debates and buttresses their political legitimacy. During political threats, groups cooperate with their allies in the media arena but they use public coalition work to advance their own political and media goals. Conceptually, this research broadens how we think about media tactics, which vary far more than scholars currently recognize, and deepens our understanding of coalition work and movement dynamics.