{"id":3902,"date":"2007-06-14T14:22:12","date_gmt":"2007-06-14T18:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=3902"},"modified":"2007-06-14T14:34:39","modified_gmt":"2007-06-14T18:34:39","slug":"the-bushman-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2007\/06\/the-bushman-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bushman Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Bushman’s recent appearance at a Pew Forum conference on Mormonism and Democratic Politics<\/a> has got me thinking about the role of scholars of Mormonism in shaping the religious news coverage swirling around Mitt Romney’s candidacy. I decided to do a little bit of informal content analysis of recent news stories, seeing which scholars are getting quoted. I picked Richard Bushman, Jan Shipps, Kathleen Flake, Armand Mauss, and D. Michael Quinn. Obviously, this choice is a bit random, but all five of these people are well-established scholars and between them I think that they have produced some of the most interesting stuff written on Mormonism in recent years. First, I searched all newspaper articles* for the last year. Here is what I found:<\/p>\n

Bushman: 46 articles
\nShipps: 26 articles
\nQuinn: 4 articles
\nMauss: 4 articles
\nFlake: 4 articles<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then I figured that some of this coverage would go to Bushman because of RSR, so I did a search of articles mentioning the scholars and Mitt Romney. Here is what I found:<\/p>\n

Bushman: 14 articles
\nShipps: 8 articles
\nMauss: 4 articles
\nFlake: 0 articles
\nQuinn: 0 articles<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then I thought it would be interesting to compare the appearance of the same 5 scholars in news stories that appeared in the last big burst of Mormon coverage: The 2002 Winter Olympics. So I searched newspaper articles published between June 2001 and June 2002, which I figured would capture a good chunk of both pre- and post-Olympic coverage. Here is what I found:<\/p>\n

Shipps: 30 articles
\nBushman: 18 articles
\nFlake: 15 articles
\nQuinn: 4 articles
\nMauss: 0 articles<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These numbers, however, massively overstate Bushman’s role in the Olympics coverage because the majority of those stories involved references to Bushman in non-Mormon contexts.<\/p>\n

It wouldn’t do to make too much of these numbers. The database that I am searching is very large but by no means comprehensive. I’m sure that it missed a lot of stories. Still, I think that the switch between Shipps and Bushman with regard to the Olympics versus Romney coverage is interesting. Shipps clearly seems to have been the go-to scholar to explain Mormonism during the 2002 Olympics, but does not seem to occupy the same position in the Romney coverage. Rather, it seems that journalists are more likely to contact Bushman this time around if they are looking for a scholarly voice on things Mormon. (Assuming, of course, that these numbers mean anything at all.) In part, I suspect that the timing of the publication of RSR and Romney’s run was perfect for pushing Bushman’s name forward. I wonder, however, if there might also be another dynamic going on here. Shipps is a respected voice for journalists in large part, I suspect, because she is not<\/i> Mormon, and hence journalists trust her to give them the strait scoop. I wonder if Bushman is trusted precisely because he is both Mormon and articulate and non-defensive. In other words, his authority comes from his insider status rather than his outsider status. If this is right, I think that it is a very encouraging sign. It suggests that people are interested in hearing Mormons tell their own story provided that they can do so in a frank and well-informed way.<\/p>\n

*I did my searches in Westlaw’s ALLNEWS database. I don’t get paid for this, so I don’t vouch for the ultimate accuracy my numbers. They are presented as is, and I disclaim all implied warranties, including the warranty of merchantability. Available only while supplies last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Bushman’s recent appearance at a Pew Forum conference on Mormonism and Democratic Politics has got me thinking about the role of scholars of Mormonism in shaping the religious news coverage swirling around Mitt Romney’s candidacy. I decided to do a little bit of informal content analysis of recent news stories, seeing which scholars are getting quoted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}