When explorer John Smith arrived at the Chesapeake Bay in the 17th century, he found an estuary that teemed with blue crab, rockfish, and oysters that “lay as thick as stones” (Captain John Smith n.d.). Indeed, the Bay was once one of the most productive bodies of water in the world (Cooper, 1995). Primarily due to fertilizer runoff, wastewater, and stormwater from the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the oyster, crab, and rockfish populations have been decimated (Schulte 2017; Seitz 2020; Shepherd et al. 2018). By every indicator, the health of the Bay is poor (UMCES, 2020).
The causes of the deterioration of the Chesapeake Bay are closely tied to human behaviors that occur upstream in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (CBW). Consisting of 64,000 square miles, the CBW is vast in geographic terms and hugely varied with respect to economics, politics, and culture. Diversity of interests and a lack of awareness of the impact of upstream and downstream actions on the Bay are major impediments to restoring the Bay to health. However, as one ecologist noted “Nothing is going to change until people in the whole Watershed understand that they are all in this together.”
This observation turned our attention to the literature on collective identity because collective identity often compels collective action. The central premise of this perspective is that individuals construct a sense of belonging and common purpose through communicative acts (David & Bar-Tal, 2009). At minimum, collective identity requires knowledge of the existence of a group and one’s membership status relative to it. One means by which individuals might be exposed to this information is media coverage of the CBW, where coverage would logically imply that residents were part of a collective defined by the boundaries of the watershed. Because the CBW is so large, we examined coverage of the bay in a sample of three local newspapers located in the upper, middle, and lower portions of the watershed. Using computerized text analysis, we addressed the following questions: How frequently are the bay and the watershed covered? What is the content and structure of that coverage? and to what extent do coverage and structure vary by time and place? To provide a theoretical lens, we first consider the literature on collective identity in more detail.
Identity and Identity Formation
What is collective identity? Although researchers have yet to coalesce around a single definition, it is easy to see common threads in the writings of different authors. For example, Polleta and Jasper (2001) conceptualized identity as a “…cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a broader community” (p. 285). Similarly, Taylor and Whittier (1995) contended that collective identity is “…the shared definition of a group that derives from members’ common interests, experiences, and solidarity” (p. 105). Two key features of these definitions include (a) the existence of some group and (b) the individual’s membership within it. These ideas are simple but fundamental and necessary conditions for the existence of identity. Simply put, individuals must have knowledge that a group exists and that they are, at least potentially, a part of it (cf., Breakwell, 1986).
Another aspect of these definitions is more variable. Both definitions stress that the individual’s connection with the group can be complex, involving thoughts, feelings, moral judgments, and shared experiences. But it is implausible that such complexity emerges full blown. Rather, as with any relationship, collective identity evolves over time. Breakwell (1986) proposes a cyclical process that includes three steps. First, individuals are exposed to identity-relevant information. Next, they evaluate that information against information previously stored in memory. Finally, if the information is deemed acceptable, it is integrated into the individual’s self-knowledge structure. The process repeats over time and with each (successful) cycle, collective identity becomes stronger and more nuanced. This logic underscores the dynamic nature of identity and points toward the need to incorporate time into empirical studies of identity.
As the cyclical model suggests, information exposure is key. In fact, many writers assert that collective identities can be seen in the actions and interactions of interlocutors (e.g., Taylor & Whittier, 1995). Hunt and Bedford (2004) made this point eloquently when they remarked that “…collective identities are talked into existence” (p. 445). Part of this process involves what has been called boundary work. As the phrase implies, the focus of boundary work is that of establishing the perimeter of the group. It involves defining who “we are” and who “we are not” (Fominaya, 2010, p. 395).
It is often the case that boundary work is a complex process of negotiating who qualifies for group membership based on their values, history, or willingness to engage with the group’s purpose (Ashforth et al., 2000). But, in the case of location-based identities, such as the CBW, that process is greatly simplified. Geophysical boundaries based on the drainage behavior of water define which individuals reside inside and outside of the CBW. In this context, boundary work is not metaphorical, but literal. Attribution of group membership is as straightforward as the assertion “we live in the CBW”, and the accuracy of that claim is factual based on a person’s residence. As a group, news media constitute one potentially important source of knowledge pertaining to attributions of group membership. Especially at the local level, news media play key roles in communities, including agenda setting, awareness, and engagement functions, all of which have import for how communities decide to address changes in environmental conditions. Local news outlets can be important facilitators of social change via information mobilization and consensus seeking, but most fundamentally by creating awareness of group membership (Nicodemus, 2004).
Identity and Media Discourse
To the extent that a collective identity exists, it must appear in the communal discourse of its members, which should include media. Giddens (1991) notes that mediated experiences “…have long impacted both self-identity and the basic organization of social relations” (p.4). Various factors can impede or facilitate the construction of a community. What Altheide (2004, p. 294) termed the “media logics,” or the rationales, emphases, orientations, and assumptions that undergird media production, processes, and messages, can serve to impede or sometimes facilitate the creation of a sense of we. Logics that emphasize entertainment, drama or action; language that is meant to be evocative or promote emotion rather than accuracy; personalization of narrative, rather than focusing on the efforts of the group can serve to discourage the prioritization of the collective group over the individual. They can also function to bridge the personal and collective, as communities seek to build networks of action (Gamson, 2009, p. 293).
Our study seeks to understand the potential for developing a collective identity among residents of a geographically large watershed by identifying key terms affiliated with watershed issues, uses, and communities. The uneven nature of news coverage of environmental issues or geographies has been the subject of much research (e.g., Duan & Takahashi, 2017; Schmidt et al., 2013), and the rationales for the presence or absence of such content are dependent on numerous factors. News can also be considered a social and cultural construct that reflects myriad influences operating at multiple levels, including factors within newsrooms, organizations and media systems, as well as individual perceptions and behaviors (e.g., Bennett, 1982; Gans, 1979; Tuchman, 1978). This is particularly the case for environmental issues because journalists must navigate shrinking newsrooms and other organizational constraints to translate often complex and abstract issues or policy discussions that may well not make it past gatekeeping considerations of fickle audience attention. In addition, journalists’ well-documented overreliance on official sources and narratives can sometimes serve to amplify weaponized political discourses surrounding environmental issues and actors, further alienating audiences and undermining any sense of identity building around those issues or regions. Yet, news stories are probably the primary sources of information for people living within boundaries of watersheds and other areas, and the degree to which these news stories contain words associated with the CBW has not been studied elsewhere.
Through their publications, local newsmakers can play especially prominent roles in making a collective identity more or less salient along with fostering senses of community, geographic identity, and social cohesion (Abernathy, 2018). Kaniss (1991) argued that a central function of local news media in the U.S. has been to produce local identity as a means of linking local audiences, a necessary condition to sell their products in regional markets. Local journalistic interpretative communities create meanings from events, both within their communities or those happening elsewhere, that resonate with their audiences and their regional identities (Gutsche & Shumow, 2019, p. 448). Journalistic representations of geographies and those living within them can also serve to formulate claims about them (Pietikäinen, S., & Hujanen, 2003, p. 252); revitalize local communities by highlighting cultural commodities (Rausch, 2009); highlight local angles of climate change impacts given audiences’ direct experiences (Jacobson et al., 2019); allow spaces for newsroom entrepreneurs trained in climate journalism to push climate stories past editorial gatekeepers (Pinto & Vigon, 2018); or serve to highlight national mitigation efforts in state-controlled media systems (Pinto & Vigon, 2018). Thus, local news sources can play an instrumental role in covering environmental issues and fostering a sense of collective identity grounded in geographical or environmental issues.
In terms of mediated approaches to collective identity, there are various conceptual approaches to collective identity. In this study, we looked at message content and took “…an essential pragmatic approach” (Neuendorf & Skalski, 2009 p.209) to researching collective identity represented through collections of message-centered empirical data. News media are considered to have the ability to disseminate messages to all citizens. News coverages not only announce issues and events but also diffuse the values of the culture in which they are produced. Therefore, news media are one of the social institutions that construct the collective identity of a group (Major, 2017). By covering issues such as climate change, news media can symbolically produce and reproduce ideas of the world and the audience’s place in it; therefore, its role in identity formation is essential (Olausson, 2009, 2010)
Communication is a fundamentally important component of identity construction and maintenance(Gamson 2009). Media content that incorporates identity-relevant information may be used as a first step toward the development of a collective identity, particularly frequencies and associations of and between issues that may activate senses of collective identity or belonging. Using local newspapers, we investigated the language associated with Chesapeake Bay issues, how frequently these issues occur, and how they may relate to one another in different geographic regions.
Research Questions
Collective identity within a certain geographical area can be intertwined with naming or branding of places. Branding of a place helps foster the formation of collective identity, while collective identity of certain place is usually anchored to the place brand (Kornum et al., 2017; Pedeliento & Kavaratzis, 2019; Varga, 2013). To form a collective identity, the branding of Chesapeake must be named first. So, we asked
RQ1a: To what extent are local newspapers providing coverage of the CB and CBW?
RQ1b: Does coverage vary by place or time?
An essential part of building any identity involves explicating its meaning. Becoming a farmer, for instance, requires more than an understanding that farmers are people who manage land for the purpose of raising livestock or crops. Someone who embraces the farmer identity must become conversant in tractors, feed, fencing, and more. Likewise, the CBW is a complex and multifaceted area. Especially with an issue as large, diverse, and complex as the CBW, coverage of relevant issues is not static. Coverage of events and issues that could arouse a collective identity likely vary based on several factors. Because David and Bar-Tal(2009) emphasized the historical/temporal and location-based aspects of collective identity, and these factors map on to measurable differences in newspaper coverage, we investigate how the nature of a CBW identity, as seen in newspaper coverage, varies based on time and place. As a general theoretical matter, we asked about the content and structure of the CBW identity.
RQ2a: What are the components and structure of the CBW identity?
RQ2b: Do these features vary by place or time?