527 Wilson, Pamela.

"Disputable Truths: The American Stranger, Television Documentary and Native American Cultural Politics in the 1950s." Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1996.

CHAPTER EIGHT: TELEVISION AND ITS PUBLICS: SHIFTING FORMATIONS IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

THE LONG VIEW: PERCEPTIONS, EFFECTS AND REPERCUSSIONS Once, not many years ago, an acquaintance who also happened to be a graduate student told me her quandary about explaining the significance of her esoteric academic research to her grandmother, a woman who had immigrated to this country from Eastern Europe early in her life and who had labored long hours in sweatshops and in domestic labor to eke out a living for her family. When she tried to explain her research topic, she was faced with a blank look, a So? What does that have to do with anything? For such a woman, her granddaughters choice of profession--and what she did every day--seemed of such little import as labor, as work. Why couldnt she be doing something more productive, the older woman wondered? By this, she meant of a socially meaningful nature--something tangible, or visible, which would affect the world in a material way. Another colleague related a similar frustration in trying to justify to his working class father the apparent luxury of his spending several years in graduate school (especially considering the student loans he amassed) writing papers, and eventually a dissertation, on some abstract theoretical topic. These anecdotes relate a gap in understanding between the cultures of working class and academic America (the first impulse of the academic being You

528 just dont get it! in her frustration to explain the relevance, in her circles, of her theoretical agenda). However, in this era of the mid-1990s in which political conservatives are again at the helm of our nation, pushing an agenda in which funding for soft research in the arts and humanities is being obliterated, the anecdotes also point to the need for academics to be able to explain the significance of their work to people beyond the ivory towers. Over the last decade, Ive realized that a guiding principle shaping my research must be that whatever I decide to work on must be something that is of social and political relevance to a group of people in our society, to the degree that if asked by a non-academic father or grandmother why I have chosen to devote a period of my life to a certain project such as this one, I can clearly respond with an explanation that will satisfy them. For myself then, I need to be able to answer the invariable, So what? This is really significant--trust me, just will not suffice. So in trying to provide evidence to support the So what? about The American Stranger, I have been faced with many historiographical and methodological questions. How do we, in retrospect, ascertain the effects of a single television program? How can we determine, with any measure of certainty, the degree of impact a single event, such as a broadcast, may have had upon an individual, a collectivity of individuals, a sociopolitical organization or institution, a cultural group, a nation, a public? How can we measure the effect any type of lobbying or advocacy effort has upon the mechanisms and very subjectively human processes that ultimately determine public policy? Ultimately, we cannot, at least with any degree of scientific exactitude. Such is the nature of qualitative, interpretive research and scholarship. What we can do,

529 however, is to look at the remaining evidence, to study the ripples and waves emanating out from the site where the object of our attention splashed into the waters of social and political discourse, and to look for ways that the very nature of those discursive waters changed in its wake. Historiographically, we are forced to rely a great deal on the perceptions of those people whom we grant the greatest credibility in determining the ultimate impact of such a media event. And even more, we are left with only the recorded perceptions, and even those which have survived the natural (and sometimes strategic) selection processes of time which have made it safely into an archival vault. Our evidence is partial, fragmented. Subjective. Flawed. In its subjectivity, it leads us to feelings and attitudes of people long dead--or even if living, long moved past the point of engagement with the issues at hand. It leads us to texts, expressive works which tell us stories about people and places and events from the perspectives of individual writers--and which also tell us about the social, cultural and political contexts within which those people were entrenched. Their writings invariably echo and perpetuate the social, cultural and political discourses of their historical moment and their geographical positioning on the social grid. As interpretive social scientists dealing with qualitative rather than quantitative evidence, people like myself walk a fine line trying to be on both sides of the fence at once. We are sociologists and anthropologists, students of the nature of human groupings (still considered a science by some), yet we are also historians and students of texts (the explication of such texts a literary specialty). We are cultural critics, synthesizers of many methodologies and raiders of many theoretical angles.

530 We want to fish in the waters of the soft, unmeasurable kinds of knowledge and evidentiary material, yet we also often feel compelled to prove our interpretations, like trial lawyers working hard to explain our positions beyond a reasonable doubt. Throughout my work on this project, I have kept in mind the timeless relevance question. First, we come to the issue of significance. Significance to whom? We begin to realize that even bestowing an acknowledgment of importance upon something is in itself a cultural and political act. What is significant to one social group may be totally disregarded--either through disinterest or intentional disregard--by another. Beyond the interpretation of primary archival texts, we are led to an interpretation of the politics of social and cultural memory--and the official or unofficial documentation of that memory. If no traces of an historical event remain, does that mean the event was meaningless and without historical significance? If different groups remember an event to different degrees, and when asked to reconstruct it, recreate two radically different versions of the same event, what does that mean? If some groups carefully documented the event for posterity, and another group assiduously tried to erase all cultural memory of it, what would that mean? How do these hypothetical situations influence our understanding of the significance or meaning or importance of an event in the past? For some historians, these facts about what remains and what doesnt, which voices are maintained and which are silenced to history, become evidentiary in themselves about the differential attitudes people held about the events, and their concerted efforts to either preserve or abolish the memory of it.

531 I ask these questions because of some observations I made while I was gathering as much historical material about the controversy surrounding The American Stranger as I possibly could. First, I was curious about why no one today I originally spoke with, nearly forty years later, seemed to remember the show or the controversy. Other documentaries and public affairs shows from the period, such as Edward R. Murrows See It Now and the very-similar Harvest of Shame, had been canonized by historians of the media and taught in every universitys film and television history class. When contacted in 1993, Reuven Frank, the NBC Executive Producer, vaguely remembered a show about Indians, and said he had no idea there had been a controversy. Charles Van Doren said his whole memory of that year was just a blur (understandably, since his indictment in the quiz show scandals was just around the corner at this time)--that he had just come in, read his lines, and left, never getting involved in the production. In January of 1959, an NBC News executive had written that within memory no program prepared by our new department has brought so much response, adding, All of us here [at NBC], as you must know, are delighted with the results. 1 However, nearly thirty five years later, the show had been so erased from the corporate memory of NBC that it took dozens of calls, many months, and some prodding from the records of the Library of Congress, for the NBC News Archive to actually acknowledge that they indeed had a film copy (and one missing sound on one reel, at that). Historical preservation of this broadcast had obviously not been a top archival priority. Does this mean that it was an insignificant broadcast? Was it not worthy of my scholarly investigation?

532 I made every effort to try to locate archival materials which would shed light on the perspectives on all of the competing interests which converged in the ensuing intercultural political debate. I started with the perspectives of the broadcasting producers, and some of the public who had written to the NBC network. The NBC corporate archives had not maintained them, but Robert McCormick himself (described only as narrator, and not even listed on the credits of the show, despite carrying out five months of in-depth research, conducting all of the interviews and providing the vision behind the program) had maintained them privately--stashing them away, in fact, in a personal collection in the Wisconsin State Historical Society archives only a year after the broadcast. Many such mysteries confront the researcher. For example, one curious aspect of the thorough documentation of this broadcast seemed to be the total lack of any official correspondence on NBC letterhead from the New York office in the McCormick Papers. The files contain extremely thorough background research and information gathered by McCormick, including reports of congressional hearings and legislation on American Indian policy (as well as Department of the Interior reports on pending legislation) and notes and materials McCormick compiled in his travels to various Indian communities. Archival documentation also included transcripts of interviews, and script preparation materials (the script is in the NBC corporate files held by the Wisconsin State Historical Society). Of special interest were the correspondence files, which included pre-broadcast correspondence from McCormick's field contacts, American Indian tribal leaders and national Indian legal advocacy groups such as the Association on American Indian Affairs, the National Congress of American Indians

533 and the Indian Rights Association, as well as hundreds of letters from individual viewers and organizations responding to the broadcast. Correspondence from the Department of the Interior in response to the broadcast consisted of a five-page letter addressed to NBC President Kintner from Acting Secretary of the Interior Elmer F. Bennett and a 31-page "Statement by the Department of the Interior Concerning the Kaleidoscope Television Program of November 16, 1958, on The American Indian." The letter from Bennett indicates that it is a follow-up to a telephone conversation he held with Kintner, yet there is no correspondence in the file from Kintner or NBC in response to the Department of the Interior. The Bennett letter also requested equal time to present "the other side of the coin," yet there was no indication in the McCormick Papers as to whether NBC provided the government this opportunity. Oddly, there also seemed to be no record of this entire controversy in the NBC corporate records housed in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It was only after extensive investigation elsewhere that I was able to find some of the missing pieces of NBC correspondence. Likewise, I found many pieces of evidence about one particular group, agency or organization only after looking elsewhere, in the most unlikely places. I searched the most official repository of American cultural memory, the National Archives, for files which might contain interoffice memos from federal agencies, official correspondence, letters from viewers, or other materials which would document the storm of defensiveness which was aroused in the halls of the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Indian Affairs following the broadcast. For an agency reported to have hired several extra staff just to deal with the mail, all that was

534 left were a handful of four or five letters that barely indicate that a controversy existed. Where were the rest? Why had the mass of correspondence from concerned citizens addressed to the Interior Department and Bureau of Indian Affairs not been filed for posterity? Were they possibly deemed to be not significant enough--or perhaps, too significant--to entrust to the annals of official, federal memory? 2 When I began to search in personal rather than institutional or official archives, however, a new picture emerged. Time after time, I would find entire files or groups of files labeled specifically as The American Stranger--not a more generic, all-encompassing label like Indians or television or documentary films. No--in most of these personal archives, The American Stranger merited a section of its own, since it was perceived as a singular event that transcended being a television show or an Indian issue or just another documentary film about Indians. In the collection of Blackfeet tribal correspondence personally maintained by Iliff McKay, in the personal files of Sister Providencia which also included the papers of the community grassroots group Friends of Hill 57, in the personal papers of Father Cornelius Byrne, seemingly every letter or piece of correspondence surrounding the broadcast had been saved and carefully organized into files for posterity. I also found similar files documenting the repercussions of The American Stranger in the professional files of Senators Lee Metcalf, Mike Mansfield and James Murray, and in the organizational records of the Indian advocacy organizations such as the Association on American Indian Affairs and the National Congress of American Indians. All of these archived collections contained subjective and fragmented evidence that The American Stranger and its aftermath were considered to be an extraordinary event, one with great

535 significance--perhaps not to the admissibility of the BIA, but to the tribes and to the organizations and legislators and activists who worked on behalf of the tribes. Together, these fragments begin to coalesce into a strong justification for the shows meaning and significance to the nations indigenous people and their supporters, an explanation which might be rallied in response to questions of So what? Let me review some of these evidentiary fragments. A few weeks after the broadcast, Sister Providencia wrote to AAIA President LaFarge: The American Stranger has had the most remarkable effect where such an effect was most unlikely--in the West itself. People keep telling me, "I learned so much." . . . We are deeply indebted to NBC for the miracle. I do hope it means that relief is in sight from the abandonment policy. . . .The public is awake. 3 A handwritten footnote on the copy sent to McCormick's read: The Blackfeet are on the verge of collapse. Only two people are working at the Tribal Office. No relief will start until January. . . . This note underscored the severity of the Tribes financial and socioeconomic situation prior to the political and humanitarian relief efforts which were to come within weeks, in the wake of the broadcast. AAIA Public Information officer Helen Meyers wrote to Walter Wetzel soon after the broadcast, providing evidence of the documentarys reception by the partial publics and counterpublics fighting termination: We want you to know how happy we are with the role you and Mr. McKay played in the recent NBC-TV Indian documentary, The American Stranger. If you have been in touch with Robert McCormick, you probably know that it stirred up quite a ruckus. In this office we keep getting reports from our NBC newsroom friends (the writer's husband is the network news director) as to how many extra clerical workers the Indian Bureau had to hire in Washington to answer the incoming mail from the show; that station KFBB in Great Falls got the greatest mail response they have ever had on any show, and so on. American

536 Stranger reviews which have been coming into the office here through our Clipping service are very favorable, and the word "courageous" is often repeated. We, ourselves, have had many telephone calls. . . . At last count NBC had more than 200 requests for kinescopes of the film. 4 Additional evidence is provided by the Minutes of a special session of the Blackfeet Tribal Council a month after the broadcast: Mr. McKay informed the council that as a result of the TV program, The American Stranger, shown November 16, the Tribal Council had received many letters from people all over the country asking for information about the Blackfeet Tribe and also offering assistance. . . . Mr. McKay commented that the filming of this show was real accomplishment as far as Indian people were concerned. . . . He went on to say that the showing of this film had brought to light a very serious problem which exists in this country and one which most people knew very little about until this program was carried. Mr. McKay concluded by saying that he felt this program did more for Indian people than any single act since Indians and non-Indians made peace and pledged to live together and assist each other. 5 Senator James Murray of Montana, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, soon wrote to Iliff McKay, indicating that the pressure from the public was beginning to break down some bureaucratic walls: Thanks for your . . . letter on the American Stranger. I suspect that there is some relationship between that excellent television program and the fact, as we wired you earlier in the week, that the Interior Department has changed its position [on the distribution of surplus clothing] among the Blackfeet. 6 By mid-December, 1958, a light was shining at the end of the tunnel for the Blackfeet, as indicated in this long and emotional letter from Sister Providencia to McCormick himself: NO ONE WHO HAS SEEN THE AMERICAN STRANGER IS EVER UNFRIENDLY AGAIN. To me, this is the biggest tribute to the power of the show, right out here where blood is scarcely dry on torn scalps (as history goes), and we who know our own people and their attitudes after years of work for Hill 57 are in a position to essay the change. . ..7

537 The AAIAs 1958 Annual Report on its Public Education efforts on behalf of American Indians recounted the fiscal impact of the television on the organization: The repercussion from the broadcast was immediate. It was reflected strongly in our subsequent mail and in contributions, even though our name had not been mentioned anywhere in "Stranger." Daily receipts which may be conservatively attributed to the broadcast were from 25 to 30 per cent higher for three days following the showing on Kaleidoscope. The cumulative receipts over the next week-end were 777 on the index, 100 being the base figure. A minimum estimate over the entire week following the broadcast reflected an increase in contributions of 25 per cent for the TV factor. The report continued: There has been a marked upsurge of editorial comment in national papers on the Indian situation in general since the NBC telecast, and of Indian stories connected with all tribes. We believe the stepped-up interest in the tribes is a direct result of the documentary and that it inspired editors to assign stories on the same subject on a local-angle basis. 8 And indeed, by the beginning of 1959, there was a palpable perception of policy changes coming from both within the ranks of the Interior Department and within the corridors of Congress. A glibly-written article in the Des Moines Tribune in January demonstrates that some of those outside of Indian country still didnt get it as far as writing about Indian issues with a respectful tone, though it reports on important policy changes in Indian Affairs. (The article, interestingly, substitutes the term integration for termination, and is about as politically incorrect as such public discourses got): The paleface bosses in Washington have decided to go slow on integrating the American Indians. A edict just announced by Secretary of the Interior Seaton puts the brakes on a 1953 Congressional decision to integrate the First Americans with all deliberate speed. In the case of the Indians, integration wouldnt mean gaining new rights, but losing old special privileges. The privileges, which had their roots in the conquerors treaties with the red men, include tax-free land on the

538 reservation and a cradle-to-the-burying-mound welfare program that sounds much better than it has been. Seaton last week announced five-year extensions of tax-free status for all individually-owned Indian lands. . . (one-year extensions have been the rule in recent years). . . . A number of Congressmen with Indian constituents, led by Senator Murray, plan to hustle through Congress a resolution quoting Seatons [September speech], making the sentiment official. . . The long-neglected Indian, it appears, will be a ward of the government for quite a time yet, but hes getting more attention from the Washington powwows than for many years before. 9 In a statement before the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee in February of 1959, Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton said: In the field of Indian Affairs, several controversial subjects will require the consideration of Congress. Unfortunately there are no easy answers. This is a field in which opinions frequently differ and in which emotional responses are sometimes strong. . . . The policy of terminating Federal supervision over the affairs of the various tribes as they become ready for that action has received much attention in the past. The Department expects to submit to this Congress a few termination bills, but as I have previously announced and emphasized, the Department will submit a proposal in this field only if it is fully understood and concurred in by a majority of the Indian groups affected. The groups under consideration are small ones and will not present the complex issues that were involved in the Klamath and Menominee legislation. 10 In March of 1959, a policy analysis memorandum from legal specialists representing the NCAI and many tribes noted that a February statement by Commissioner Glenn Emmons to the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs appeared to reinforce the policy changes Seaton had alluded to in his radio speech in September of 1958 and reinforced in his recent statement. This revision of Interior Department thinking had redefined termination as only an objective rather than an immediate goal, affirmed the notion of tribal consent rather than mere consultation, and stated a renewed

539 commitment to assuring appropriate health and education support, job training and other federal aid. The legal memo indicated that Senators Murray and Neuberger were introducing a resolution embodying this new policy, as were Representatives Metcalf and Anderson. The memo noted that such a resolution would be difficult for the BIA to oppose, since it was modeled directly upon Seatons words, though its adoption would constitute a repudiation of the interpretation of HCR 108, 83rd Congress, which has been persistently cited by the Bureau of Indian Affairs as federal Indian policy: While the very reference to termination . . . has become a dirty word with many tribal leaders, it should not be overlooked that adoption of Senator Murrays resolution will kick the sole remaining prop out from under those administration officials who persistently have worked toward abandonment of the trust responsibilities toward Indians and Indian tribes. 11 Congressional bills SCR 12 and its parallel HCR 92/93 were submitted in early March. SCR 12 was referred to the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee with a resolution stating that the Congressional policy expressed in the 1953 termination act, HCR 108, had been misinterpreted as proposing unilateral termination prior to the time the tribes concerned maybe willing. . . and without regard for the cultural differences and the economic disadvantages of the Indians concerned whereby they may be unable to compete on terms of equality and further, had been misinterpreted for calling for termination without tribal consent of tribal jurisdiction over its own members within reservation areas. 12 The rhetoric of even the most forceful Congressional took the position that the relinquishing of federal responsibility to Indians was an inevitability,

540 yet they argued that the time had not yet come, emphasizing the governments need to improve conditions of health, education and economics among Indian people. In March, Walter Wetzel and the Blackfeet Tribal Council received a letter from AAIA President Oliver LaFarge: You and your tribal council are surely aware of the fundamental change in Indian policy in the Department of the Interior, a change most beneficial to all the tribes of the United States. This change was brought about by a few courageous tribes that have stood up against the plans of destruction and termination that were being forced upon them and refused to give in. Among these tribes, who fought for all the Indian people as well as themselves the Blackfeet Tribal Council must be counted as warriors who planted their sticks and held fast. The resistance of your Tribe and the others had a great effect upon public opinion throughout the country. Without it, it would have been impossible for your friends to speak with any influence. We of the Association on American Indian Affairs have watched the courage and the new strength and hope among these tribes, including yourselves, with admiration. We have had the privilege of cooperating with you, and we are proud to think that we have had a part in this important victory. We hope that we may continue allied with you to help you complete and carry through your programs for economic development and all other forms of self-development. 13 In March and April of 1959, McCormick was honored by numerous tribes and Indian organizations for his work on their behalf, and the kinescope was screened before the Annual Meeting of the Association for American Indian Affairs. Also in March, tribal leaders from across the country gathered in Washington, D.C. as a delegation to request legislative changes in Indian policies. The Blackfeet Tribal delegation--besides attending meetings of the NCAI and holding intensive policy sessions with tribal attorneys, Interior Department officials and legislators--made a special presentation to Robert McCormick at an NCAI banquet by adopting him into the Blackfeet Tribe and presenting him with a Blackfeet headdress and the Indian

541 name Three Suns. 14 In June, The American Stranger won a Sherwood Television award, administered by the Fund for the Republic and presented by Eleanor Roosevelt. One of the most well-articulated expressions of the lasting significance of the NBC documentary came in April of 1959, in speeches at the Annual Meeting of the Association on American Indian Affairs at which Robert McCormick and NBC News were honored. AAIA President Oliver LaFarge opened his annual report gushing, This has been an astonishing year. I can remember no year in which I was able to come before you with such promising news. . . : Earlier in my talk I referred to the expanding role during the past year of the great broadcasting companies in educating the public--and government officials--in matters concerning the Indian tribes. I was thinking, of course, especially of the public service which the National Broadcasting Company's News Department performed last November 16 when it devoted an hour of Sunday television time to The American Stranger, a film documentary researched and narrated by Robert McCormick . . . . Mr. McCormick--a well-seasoned reporter--boasts that he is not a sentimental man, but he knew when he had got hold of a good story, and I have a feeling that the story also got hold of him. The script, wry and biting, which he wrote for The American Stranger, proves that. 15 Besides the startling impact on the American public of the documentary, there were also behind the scenes some amazing "side-bar" incidents in connection with the telecast. . . . In the end, four out of five broadcasting television stations in the State of Montana put The American Stranger on the air and the screen, and one station reported it had had the greatest audience response in its history. LaFarge continued his narrative about the shows impact: By the second or third day after the telecast, word got around that the Bureau of Indian Affairs had had to put on extra clerks to take care of the protest mail pouring in on behalf of Indians. The Indian Commissioner and his staff met in several closed sessions to discuss how to counteract this "bad publicity for the Bureau. They finally issued a 31-page document refuting--not the general facts--but the impression The

542 American Stranger had created in the public mind. A pro-Bureau Congressman asked for "equal time" on the Network to defend the Bureau, or for the Bureau to defend itself. A pro-Indian Congressman rushed into print to do battle with that suggestion. There were editorials pro and con in numerous syndicated columns and lively commentary in the radio-TV columns. Despite the stir, and the Bureau's return to the attack again and again, NBC top officials stood solidly behind their Washington newsman and their News Department. They said they were proud of "Stranger," believed it to be reporting in the best American tradition; that it had no political bias, and required no debate. 16 In June of 1959, McCormick received more testimony crediting The American Stranger with effecting policy changes in a letter from Bill Zimmerman: Have you seen the Interior Departments report on S. 51, and the news release of the same day? This is probably the best example yet available of a change in policy directly resulting from criticisms of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Kaleidoscope deserves a big share of the credit. 17 An accompanying BIA press release announced that Interior Secretary Seaton, hoping to keep as much of the present Indian estate as possible in Indian hands, had recommended major amendments to S. 51, a bill dealing with the sale or leasing of tracts of land owned by two or more Indians. These recommendations were designed to facilitate Indian purchase of allotted (heirship) lands, including a $15 million increase in the federal loan program which could help Indians and tribes secure funds for land purchases. The present system, according to the Interior Department, works to the detriment both of the Indian owners and of the Government. 18 For several years after the original broadcast, donations and shipments of clothing were still coming in to the Blackfeet tribe. On the first anniversary of the broadcast, Iliff McKay wrote his memorable and eloquent letter (printed in full in

543 Chapter Six) to NBCs Sarnoff , celebrating the change in the governments approach to termination since the airing of the program and the subsequent heart-warming response from the public. 19 In personal correspondence with Sister Providencia several months after the broadcast, McCormick's candor to the activist nun emphasized the discernible changes the controversy had wrought in the television industry as well, noting that it marks what could be the start of an entirely new era in this business. McCormicks letter continued with a candid personal assessment of the cultural politics of the controversy, which he attributed to the acquisition of media channels by Native American voices: Anyhow, I'm glad we got things stirred up. And strangely enough, running through all the letters from the Interior Department there was, it seemed to me, a deep resentment against the idea of letting the Indians have the access to information media that the Department and Bureau of course accept as a routine right. In one of the replies I wrote to one of the squawks--I couldn't understand why the chairman of a large and important Indian tribe wasn't just as much entitled to express his views as was any mayor or governor. We might disagree with what they said; we might even be able to prove what they said was wrong; but they still had a perfect right to say it, even though they were Indians. 20

AUDIENCES AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST The concept of audience has been a central theoretical issue in the interdisciplinary cultural studies of media in recent years. Yet most scholars recognize the need to reconceptualize the problematic notion of "audience" which has generally been used in public discourse to refer to (passive) consumers in the marketplace, receptacles for/of mass culture. As John Cruz and Justin Lewis have pointed out, for

544 most of this century this "audience" has been the target of both capitalist marketing engineers and of social guardians of moral values (who felt the need to protect the victimized recipients of immoral popular cultural messages). 21 Ien Ang has discussed the philosophy of public service broadcasting, a paternal and often elitist system characterized by a "pervasive sense of cultural responsibility and social accountability," and she contrasts the audience-as-public philosophy of much European broadcasting with the audience-as-market philosophy of America's commercial broadcasting system. Yet television and radio broadcasting policy in the United States have been built upon the tenet of serving the "public interest," and this concept is encoded into the 1934 Communications Act which set up the Federal Communications Commission as a government body to safeguard such a democratic concept and oversee the broadcasting industry. However, the governments definition of the "public" has been evasive and pragmatic, frequently appropriated to serve the interests of reigning political parties and their affiliated corporate interests in the broadcasting and advertising industries. Political scientists discuss the "public interest movement" with reference to a movement in national interest-group politics which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. These "peoples' lobbies," of which there are several thousand, include research centers, law firms, citizens' lobbies and localized community organizations, such as Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, which pursue governmental reform through strategies of increasing public participation in the democratic process, and which champion causes "in the public interest." Many of them, such as Norman Lear's People for the American Way, have been entrepreneurial, led by a charismatic

545 or visionary activist whose organization serves to articulate issues and political direction and to mobilize the public around such issues. Such organizations claim to be concerned "not with the advancement of special interests, but with the well-being of the nation," and they have relied heavily upon their abilities to use media events to mobilize public opinion and attract sympathetic (and financially generous) constituencies. 22 To the broadcasting industry, the "public" and the "audience" are considered to be one and the same--a vast, passive group of eyes and ears which collectively consume the broadcasting product. In this industry, the "audience" has been conceptualized in demographic marketing terms, measured by ratings services through sampling techniques. In her article about the "commodity audience," Eileen Meehan points out that the television industry and its advertisers have traditionally conceptualized the viewing public as "democratic" components of a ratings system in which viewers "vote" through ratings choices, and in which the majority "wins" when it comes to programming decisions. 23 Such myths of audience measurement validate the industrial and economic strategies of the networks as purely reflective of "what the public wants." Ien Ang emphasizes that the basic problem with the institutional point of view is that it leads us to treat 'television audience' as a conceptually non-problematic category, consisting of a definite, unknown but knowable set of people. 24 Ang also argues that most academic audience research has reproduced the same institutional construction of television audiences as a non-problematic category.

546 A reception study of The American Stranger reminds us that no television program is produced or broadcast outside of the cultural, social and political forces of the society into which it is articulated, and that we need to pay particular attention to the complex web of historically-situated cultural politics woven around and upon the reception of such a broadcast. This reception study, in particular, provides empirical evidence to counter a prevailing notion within media studies that audiences respond less emotionally, and with more detachment, to nonfiction forms such as news and documentaries than they do to fictional or entertainment forms of television. The letters written in response to The American Stranger reveal a deep investment by Americans of the 1950s in both the formal qualities of television and in the enlightenment potential of nonfictional forms of television. Public affairs programming has generally been considered by the commercial networks to be a secondary and generally not-profitable function, a bow in the direction of the vague FCC mandate that broadcasters devote a portion of their air time to serving the public interest. Discourses both within and outside of the television industry during the past few decades have frequently emphasized the perception that the FCC notion of public-interest-as-public-good has not necessarily been what the public was interested in. There has been a general perception that the public targeted by the networks (the cash-wielding, consumer public) desired to engage in entertainment television--that is, fictional dramas or comedies which would draw them away from the harsh realities of their social world rather than plunging them more deeply into such realities, as news and documentaries could potentially do. However, the case of The American Stranger is one of only a few empirical studies of the

547 reception of nonfiction television which can begin to provide media scholars with insight as to the types of pleasures experienced by viewers of television news and documentaries. The body of correspondence generated by the single broadcast of a network news documentary was in itself considered to be astounding for the historical moment in which it was located. However, this body of documentary evidence is also amazing historiographically, since it provides unprecedented access to an understanding of the reception of a television text by members of the television viewing audience. An empirically-based cultural analysis of all three of the major aspects of the media--industry, text and audience--which undergirds a cultural-studies approach to media has generally been considered unreachable when considering historical television programs. The prevalent ethnographically-informed approach to television audience studies (which has investigated the meanings made by active viewers of a text or other cultural production) presents difficult challenges when one tries to do historical ethnography. Alternative methods to locating the attitudes and emotions of a historically-located viewing public might include oral history--in which case the researcher is relying on memories of responses rather than the immediate responses themselves--or, alternately, the recorded responses left by viewers in the form of letters, diaries, and other written texts. Generally, the only remaining bodies of evidence of reception are those mediated and professionalized responses by members of the community of professional media critics, such as press reviewers for magazines and newspapers, and other contemporaneous cultural commentary.

548 In this study, I have been fortunate enough to have had access to a broad range of viewer responses, as well as the critical responses by the press. The correspondence about The American Stranger from the viewing public was addressed to various levels of television as an institution. Many viewers sent letters to their local television stations which had aired the documentary (most, but not all of which, were NBC affiliates), who forwarded them on to NBCs national headquarters. Others sent letters simply to NBC-TV, New York City, and some even sent letters about the show to the wrong network. Most of the letters sent to NBCs New York or Washington offices were personally addressed to Robert McCormick, since most viewers perceived McCormick as the author of the show. In this section, I will discuss some of the major themes and perceptions about television which were raised in the discourses reflected in the archival correspondence from the late 1950s. Many of the viewers who wrote letters to McCormick and/or the NBC network sent general applause and appreciative commendations about the quality of the show. They frequently commented on the boldness of the honest, hardhitting documentary, and lauded the courage of the network to expose such truths in the face of potential controversy with the federal government with phrases such as: Deepest thanks for making it possible for the nation to know the truth concerning Indian Affairs. We warmly support all you have said and commend your courage in saying it or I think your work on this subject was a magnificent and compassionate expose of the truth. 25 Some of those who wrote the network acknowledged the editorial nature of the documentary, and praised the shows use of persuasive techniques to get across its social and political message:

549 I planned for a week and arranged my time for Sunday afternoon and the N.B.C. Kaleidoscope presentation of the problem of the American Indian. I was not disappointed. For several reasons it was a thrilling experience . . . because the proposition you defended so eloquently in picture and comment, is a proposition that many of us who know the Indians have fought . . . often in vain . . . to bring to the attention of the American people. The boldness of your indictment was an inspiration. (I can already hear the cries for "equal time.") You have proved the worth and value of the T.V. editorial. I look forward to more editorial comment on our national problems and will thank you for it even though I may at times reserve my right to disagree. 26 Other viewers wrote: That was one helluva powerful piece you assembled on the plight on the Indians and the reprehensible record of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Edith and I sat enthralled at your vigorous editorial comment. I know how much work must have gone into the program. I congratulate NBC on having the guts to do the job. . . . 27 Slug em again, he's still moving!! I'm with you!! A friend of the First Americans. 28 Many viewers wrote that they wanted more, such as the Ohio woman who wrote: I'm afraid that making the Indian Bureau uncomfortable once isn't nearly enough. Keep up the good work, and let's have more programs that are meat instead of marshmallow. 29 Some even provided leads for future stories, or the names of contacts or places which might also be investigated. Many requested follow-up stories and reports on related topics: Could we have a follow up program depicting health, housing, jobs, governmental bungling of the Indians in the great South West--Navajo's, Hopi, Zuni etc.? Perhaps another jolt is needed to see that our Indians receive justice and governmental obligations are kept. 30 The program was certainly very informative, and showed the American people exactly what was happening to the American Indian. . . . We know that this program started the American people thinking, however--what will be the next step to help the American Indian? Will there be further follow-ups of this type of information, or will the subject

550 be dropped? We suggest some future programs along the same subject. 31 I sincerely hope that NBC News will not allow the matter to rest with this single broadcast but will see fit publish fully the facts and issues involved in the problem. 32 I would like to add my small vote for more and more of the same--only by airing such situations again and again will they eventually be eradicated. Please follow today's program with another of what has been done, let us see and hear the results, if you don't, and nothing is done, your hour was wasted. You know that if a follow-up is forthcoming, and the right authorities and politicians know it, something constructive will be done. 33 Many viewers applauded the program as representative of what television should be doing to serve the public interest function of television, and many organizations and some individuals extended their offer of assistance in producing or publicizing future programs. Viewers also responded to exclaim about televisions newly-discovered capacity to move or reach the public in ways that other media were not able to do: Mr. McCormick, I hope you will add our voice to yours, and send out the call for help to the Congress, to those who are especially in a position to have corrective measures enacted. The non-Indian public must know more, and be moved to action. But, if history teachers anything, we can expect that indeed absolutely nothing will be done, until the emotional, non-Indian, advertising-conditioned public is excitedly aroused. . . . 34 I hope the millions who probably saw your moving report on the plight of the American Indian (or the Indian American) yesterday afternoon will be moved to such righteous indignation and shame for the treatment of the Indians by our Government and agents, agencies and citizens who are exploiting them that something may be accomplished toward Congressional investigation and correction. I would like to commend both you and the National Broadcasting Company for your fearless handling of this somewhat controversial subject. 35

551 I was privileged to witness your remarkable program, The American Stranger. . . . It was truly one of the most outstanding TV programs I have ever viewed. . . . Perhaps if enough such documentary evidence could be presented before the American taxpayers the Bureau could be forced by an aroused public, to abandon its policy of tribal dissolution. At least your fine TV presentation is certainly a much-needed step in the correction of such bureaucratic injustices against our Indian population. 36 Congratulations on the courageous, honest and forthright program on the American Indian which you so ably presented on television this past Sunday. . . . In our opinion, a program such as yours can do much to bring the plight of these people to the attention of ALL Americans who must, in conscience, force the Government to honor its obligations to its first citizens. 37 Interestingly, many viewers took this opportunity to comment upon the quality of television programming in general, and many either compared or contrasted the representation of American Indians in this documentary with the fictionalized and stereotypical images of Indians in Hollywoods genre of Western films and television shows. Other comments reflected a growing public concern about the quality and ethics of television entertainment programming (a concern which would explode the following year with public revelations about ethical handling of quiz shows): We greatly appreciate the interests, time, skills and money that so evidently went into the production of The American Stranger. We are grateful for the public concern the film has developed. We especially appreciate the realistic approach of the film in presenting Indians as people rather than Hollywood characters. 38 I watch TV only infrequently, but would like to add my applause to your program, especially the very superior one called The American Stranger. I don't know whether this will produce any action, but it was extremely well done I thought, and I admire both your courage and the irony with which it was presented. Let's have more like this. There are some people who like other things than westerns! 39 Being an avid fan of the early Western saga, I thoroughly sympathized with your story of the Indian today, as depicted on your TV show. It

552 seems a crime these once proud people should be so humiliated by our own Government . . . whose first interest was for a peace treaty and now it is their land and practically their lives. If you expected to stir interest in your TV story, you have mine. 40 Although I am one who seldom writes in to either networks or sponsors to voice an opinion about television programs, either pro or con, I want to make an exception in this case. I want to offer my Congratulations to you and NBC News for your Kaleidoscope program on NBC-TV last Sunday. The American Stranger, on the American Indian, was one of the most straight-forward, thoughtful television programs I have seen in a long time. Nielsen, Trendex, Hooper, et. al. aside, I am sure there are millions of TV viewers like myself who are fed up with the over-abundance of cowboys, quizzes and crimes, and look forward to more programs like The American Stranger--not only on Sunday afternoons but for evening viewing too, we hope, in the not-too-distant future. 41 Our congratulations on your program concerning the Indians. There should be a special medal for you. In the past few years I have written to several news programs asking them to do such a story--the only answer I ever received was from the See It Now saying they put the suggestion on "file." I'm glad they did now for they could not have done a better report. 42 Many thanks to you, to Mr. Van Doren and to N.B.C. for the program, The American Stranger. It was very informative. It was a sensitive and sympathetic job of honest reporting. It was not maudlin. Thanks to you, my two active, normal, healthy "non-Indian" offsprings sat fascinated for one solid hour." I even believe I saw faint glimmers of indignation and interest on their faces (ages 11 and 4). Why isn't this sort of show being more highly publicized? Had it received half the advance notice given to Woody Woodpecker for example, I'm sure your audience would be encouraging even to "rate-conscious" sponsors and networks. As I'm sure you have guessed by now, I do not write "fan" letters. This is my first. Could that be the reason we receive so few good shows? Christopher Morley said, "People need books but they don't know they need them." By the same token we need television programs of higher caliber but we don't know we need them. N.B.C. is doing a great deal to convince us." Can they do more, maybe? 43 Quite a few viewers expressed the emotional reactions which had been provoked by the program (It made me furious with myself for my ignorance and

553 furious with my country for its inhumanity), 44 and many discussed particular scenes or images which remained vividly in their minds. In these letters, viewers described elements of the program that were particularly moving to them, particularly vivid or memorable. I so want you to know how much we appreciate a program like Kaleidoscope's The American Stranger. . . . As I watched with my eyes full of tears, I prayed hard that some way, some how, a way could be found to help our Indians, for the terrible wrong that has been, and is being done to them. Let us hope that Kaleidoscope yesterday opened a lot of eyes and Hearts. The scenery was superb. I could almost feel myself walking among those gorgeous trees. Thank you so much for a Big Job well done. 45 What touched me the most Sunday was the little Indian boy making his Pledge of Allegiance, the pathos and mockery involved in the emotional revelation of the two paradoxs, almost made me cry! His frailty and sincerely pitted against the odds of reality in what is called the greatest country in the world, of what caliber can the Indian really regard his pledge in the passage JUSTICE AND FREEDOM FOR ALL??. . all but the Indian?. . . Its my prayer that your wonderful presentation will in some way strike the hearts of people. . . . 46 After watching many interesting hours of television, your program today is the first one to prompt me to write a word of appreciation. I think, as American citizens, we are embarrassingly ignorant of the plight of our Indian population. It is certainly time that such programs revealing the true situation be brought to our attention. The picture of the little Indian child repeating "I pledge allegiance to the flag. . . ." brought tears to the eyes of this schoolmarm. 47 I have just seen Kaleidoscope: The American Stranger and came to the immediate conclusion that it was the best TV I've seen. I thought the photography remarkably excellent, the narration perfect, quietly and slowly, with distinct and clear enunciation which brought the point home and made the listener aware that you had, and undoubtedly have, a sincere feeling for the real plight of these people. It was quite sad to watch the little Indian children so sincerely and honestly pledging allegiance to the flag--and we who were watching and listening knowing what a rude awakening awaits them. Thank you for permitting me to witness what television can really do. 48

554 The day after that wonderfully moving documentary I phoned the producer to express my deep appreciation. We spoke at length and I was permitted to "spill over" as I was filled with anger, shame, sadness and frustration. How any American can feel any pride with his knowledge of the exploitation and almost extermination of a proud people is beyond me. . . . There were many unforgettable moments, some of them viewed through tears. The irony of the children reciting the pledge, the opening stark, beautifully photographed scene of the lone Indian, the work of the doctor (and that adorable child who peeped through his arms), the empty plates--so much--and may I mention your very expressive face which, for a detached newspaper reporter, revealed deep Emotion. This, truly, must have been a labor of love for you. Thank you, Mr. McCormick, for one of the most remarkable TV programs I have witnessed. It will haunt me for a long time. 49 Such letters provide evidence that the public--or at least a good portion of it--has been interested in, and taken pleasure in, the news and documentary programming provided by the public service arm of television networks.

INTEREST GROUPS, THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND COUNTERPUBLICS Television Audiences and Cultural Studies All in all, we will never be able to measure the effect that a single television documentary such as The American Stranger may have had upon the history of termination politics, of broader Native American politics, of television broadcasting, or of race relations in the Americas. We cannot claim that a television text alone has any effectivity, though we can examine what people have done with both the text and the insights they gained from consuming the text. We can look at the ripples made in the

555 political and intercultural waters when the text landed upon the surface of what was admittedly not a placid pool, and we can consider how the discourses inscribed and invoked in the text found resonance with the discourses produced by its consumers, whose interpretive perspectives were shaped by their own cultural and political frames of reference, as well as with already-existing discourses circulating within the diverse public spheres which intersected with regard to these social and cultural issues. We can speculate about the way that this single broadcast served as a media catalyst for the conjunctural constitution and emergence of an alliance of disparate publics, partial publics and counterpublics into a more effective political body than any of the smaller publics could have mobilized themselves. We can see that because of the politicization of that public body mobilized around a number of issues, Americas policy makers and bureaucrats were forced to be more accountable than they had previously been to the pressures of this temporary, issue-oriented public in the politics of Indian Affairs, particularly with regard to the implementation of termination policies. This case study demonstrates the potential role of media as a tool for coalitions to gain the attention of, and mobilize, a larger and more diverse public to put pressure upon those who determine policy. I am interested in finding new ways to think about what we mean by the term "audience," moving away from models which conceive of television viewers as individuals in front of a television screen, towards a model which can address the powerful role of "audiencehood" in social formations which have the potential to mobilize with social, cultural and political effectivity. The concept of the audience in this case is extended beyond the notion of individuals and families who gathered around their television sets one Sunday afternoon in late 1958 to witness the

556 sole, live broadcast of an investigative documentary called The American Stranger. This audience cannot be adequately measured or counted; what we do know of them is that some percentage of this broadcast audience felt moved to action by the show, and within hours began to respond with telegrams, letters and calls to officials of various agencies. We know that this response was noted to be exceptional by the standards of the time. Another, smaller percentage of this audience followed up with additional political and humanitarian action, and some became engaged in a continuing relationship with the issues raised by the program. It is important to note that, despite most conceptualizations of television's leveling, nationalizing influence during its first full decade, and its contribution towards shaping a normative public and a correspondingly passive audience, the behaviors exhibited by the audience of this documentary point to an active, thinking, letter-writing, politically-involved, altruistic television audience. These were social agents, in the 1950s, for whom television was becoming a dominant force in influencing their views and understandings of their society in all its complexity, and whose political complacency (so often ascribed to the period) was potentially challenged by television. The concept of the television audience in this case is also complexified and enlarged by the multiple non-broadcast venues of exhibition of the kinescope. This secondary, non-broadcast audience therefore includes those people who attended localized screenings of the kinescopes, for months and perhaps several years to come, in settings ranging from school auditoriums to tribal council chambers to church basements to the sanctified legislative chambers of Montana and the U.S. Congress. The existence of this secondary audience blurs our conceptual distinctions between

557 film and television audiences, creating a hybrid type of situation for reception in which the audience is constructed around calls for social action. Like a film audience, the kinescope audience was self-selected, having chosen to physically attend the screening, yet the act of attending also signified an interest in becoming involved in political or social action in their community or region. Also like a film audience, the conditions of reception were influenced by the dynamics of the group and the context in which the screening was situated and discussed as part of a larger program. The reception of the kinescope, regionally, was influenced as well by the intimate connection of the regional audience to the groups, localities and issues portrayed in the documentary. For example, we might speculate that the responses of the Blackfeet tribal community at the January 1959 screening of The American Stranger would be quite different from the responses of benevolent white community activists in Great Falls in April because of the distinct cultural, class and ideological relationships between viewers and the text. The audiences for The American Stranger were multiple and diverse, and meanings were generated through a wide variety of conditions of reception. In any study of the relationship between television audiences and social movements, one must look at the cultural resources and knowledge which are available to achieve social change--a combination of the resources that different viewers bring to the text, the resources that are available to be appropriated from the text, and, most importantly for this project, the resources and knowledges that can only be mobilized and activated through collective action with other like-minded members of a viewing community who rally together and pool such resources to

558 achieve political or cultural goals. The American Stranger controversy demonstrates the way discourses surrounding television journalistic documentary both sparked and nourished a multifaceted mobilization of the public by interest groups (defined by political scientists as broad-based voluntary associations representing social, moral or political causes, which work outside the representative/party system to effect policy changes) and by individual social agents. The tensions between the local/regional and the national can be seen to reflect the existence of fluid and shifting alliances built around particular issues and interests, rather than reflecting some fixed, empirically-verifiable groups. This perspective conceives of individual social agents as being able to choose to affiliate with particular local or regional interests (remembering that, at times, regional interests may be at odds with those of various constituent localities, which may in turn be at odds with each other); these people/agents may also affiliate themselves with interests and social formations based upon other criteria with which they identify, such as race, ethnicity, gender, class, occupational status, and so on. This model of shifting social alliances avoids the tendency to try to come to terms with defining the people/agents/actors on each side, looking instead at the processes by which strategies for power are exercised, maintained, challenged and socially mobilized. One of my goals in examining audience behaviors and practices is to bridge the theoretical schism which has been perpetually reproduced in structuralist academic discourses that dichotomize the individual and society, the elite and popular, proletarian and bourgeoisie, dominant and subordinated (power bloc vs. the people), citizens and the state, and other models which conceptualize power structures as

559 inherently dualistic. I propose that alliances and affiliations based upon common interests, which in many cases are related to involvements with popular culture, serve not only to construct real or "imagined" communities for sociocultural purposes, but also function significantly as interest blocs with potential political and economic power which mediate between these two hypothetical levels in important ways. The structuralist models reflect a model of power dispersed and of limited effectivity on one hand, and concentrated and totalizing on the other. Interest group formation, and social movements in general, are little-theorized social processes through which ideologies may be mobilized into practice and through which power may be concentrated into effective units for social change or conservative resistance to change. My premise is three-pronged. First, being a viewer, consumer or fan of certain cultural products often implicates people in voluntary affiliations or alignments with interest groups or specialized publics, whether long-term or temporary. Second, in contemporary (post-modern, post-industrial, post-colonial) American society, such interest group affiliations (which might also be conceptualized as participation in selected public spheres) have increasingly become primary mechanisms for identity construction, alongside and in conjunction with such central social markers as race, class, ethnicity and regional culture, and as such often become the basis for communities, or publics, formed in non-traditional ways. Recognition of this fractionalization of society into special interest groups is also reflected in recent media industry trends to market products and services to demographic "niches," a trend which has undermined traditional notions of "general circulation," "broadcasting" and

560 "the public." Third, ideologically-focused interest groups and social movements--selective publics or counterpublics--have wielded increasing power in American politics since the 1950s, and (as political scientists have noted) in recent years have radically challenged the traditional two-party system of representative democracy. As Kobena Mercer has pointed out, "Identities are in crisis because traditional structures of membership and belonging inscribed in relations of class, party and nation-state have been called into question." 50 For these reasons, the reconceptualization of audiences as springboards into socially and politically powerful communities, with significant effectivity in the public sphere, begs to be undertaken. A major problematic, then, begins with: How does one conceptualize an "audience" in any given situation? First, in terms of a relationship with a particular text, I find it useful to crudely distinguish the viewing audience (all who viewed) from the effective audience (those who did something as a result of viewing, such as writing letters or purchasing related items) from fans (engaged audience members who maintain a sustained level of involvement and are often part of a larger, interconnected fan community or culture). Shades of distinction run along a continuum of intensity of involvement with the text and the "issues" it represents. One might empirically investigate the degree of involvement/action/mobilization on the part of the audience--what actions or behaviors do viewers engage in as a result of their consumption of a text or series of texts? This concept of "issues" is where it gets sticky--emphasizing the need for empirical research to determine what aspects of a text people are relating to and why, and what ideological issues are resonating with

561 their lives, experiences, interests, and other historically-specific social, cultural and political discourses. 51 During the 1980s, cultural studies and reception theory approaches encouraged a move away from textual analysis to look at the interaction between texts and viewers. In cultural studies, this led to theorization of "active viewers," and interrogations of the ways that mass cultural forms could empower their consumers socially, culturally and politically. Research in this area diverged into several distinct methodological strands. One notable direction was the sociological empirical audience research represented by Morley, Brunsdon, Hobson, Lull, Ang and others, including the related theoretical work of Fiske. These scholars generally conceptualized viewers as (individual) social subjects who made their own meanings from, and found their own pleasures in, media texts. 52 While this was a major shift away from the viewer-as-receptacle concept prevalent in social science research, and provided insights into the social psychology of television viewing in peoples' everyday lives and domestic practices, it has provided only limited insight into the meanings which spun off from television viewing and became effective discourses and practices in the more public realms of society.
53

From the beginning of the British cultural studies movement, however, there has also been a significant research project involving subcultures, particularly those of working class youth as affected by mass culture, reflected in the works of Hoggart, Hall and Jefferson, Willis, Hebdige, McRobbie and others. Similarly, in her seminal analysis of readers of romance novels, American literary scholar Janice Radway dealt with the social aspects of reading groups as well as individual responses to novels. All

562 of the subcultural scholars have emphasized the cultural practices of consumers of mass cultural products, and many, like Paul Willis, have looked at a wide range of cultural forms and their interrelation in cultural practices. All have been interested in empirically investigating the meanings people actively make in their interface with the text; such research has led to a broader sense of what that "text" is. The connection to the media for many social actors is not limited to simple act of viewing a television show but is imbricated in a web of intertwined discourses and practices. In fact, the definition of the subculture itself may be difficult, since, as Jenkins notes of the group of "largely female, largely white, largely middle class" media fans who are the subject of his study, "This subculture cuts across traditional geographic and generational boundaries and is defined through its particular styles of consumption and forms of cultural preference," rather than by the particular texts to which its members relate. 54 Recent manifestations of the "subcultural" studies tradition exhibit a more anthropological approach to the study of the cultural meanings and community-generating practices which are often associated with media viewership and fan communities. Framing audience communities as cultural groups, recent studies have adopted ethnographic, situated participation/observation approaches, ranging from participating in fan communities as an active member to participating in Usenet discussion groups. Such an approach addresses such questions as: What are the connections between being in an audience--i.e., watching, viewing, consuming a mass cultural text--and the formation of social groups that we might consider to be communities (though not necessarily in traditional terms of co-residency or geographical contiguity)? I contend that such processes, which work simultaneously

563 to form inclusive groups of people with common interests as well as, in some cases, to demarcate these from others through exclusivity by emphasizing differences, are at the very heart of what constitutes cultural/social/political formation in our "post"-society. Recent scholarship has provided evidence that audiences can become mobilized into social formations of several types, ranging from fan communities, with accompanying social and cultural practices, to political interest groups (often allied with larger social movements) which take collective political action on behalf of certain values or issues in which they share a strong ideological stance. Such action can be aimed at influencing the shape of mass culture, turning a critical eye upon the process of textual production itself--as Cruz and Lewis ask: "Under what conditions do audiences become actors engaged in struggles over the meaning of the cultural goods that help constitute them as "audiences"? 55 Recent scholars such as D'Acci, Brower and Montgomery have examined the effects that collective action by viewers can have upon the television industry itself and its cultural products. 56 Or such collectivities can produce and circulate alternative discourses and texts through their creative appropriation of fragments of intertextual cultural products, such as Star Trek slash fanzines. Jenkins' and Penley's ethnographic work demonstrates how blurred the boundaries may become between consumers and producers in the participatory realm of fan culture, through which fandom becomes a significant outlet for creative expression. 57 "Organized fandom," Jenkins writes, "is perhaps first and foremost an institution of theory and criticism, a semi-structured space where competing

564 interpretations and evaluations of common texts are proposed, debated and negotiated and where readers speculate about the nature of the mass media and their own relationship to it." 58 In both cases of media activism groups and fan groups, the impetus of the viewers' relationship to the original "text" in question becomes a functional ideological link with other existing movements and discourses, often providing symbolic resources to fuel such movements (e.g., the right-wing Christian groups such as the American Family Association which have reacted against Soap and NYPD Blue through economic boycotts are a nexus of "concerned" viewers and other conservative agents for political and social change who construct a common goal in their political action). Jenkins and others acknowledge the link between fandom as a source of personal pleasure and fan communities as bases of consumer activism, but few scholars have linked the process of community-building around a text or series of texts which happens in fan cultures with the potential for political mobilization. Grossberg hints at this tie in his recent writing on the affective sensibilities of fans: I think that what we today describe as a fan' is the contemporary articulation of a necessary relationship which has historically constituted the popular, involving relationships to such diverse things as labor, religion, morality and politics. . . . The fan's relationship to culture in fact opens up a range of political possibilities and it is often on the field of affective relations that political struggles intersect with popular concerns. In fact, the affective is a crucial dimension in the organization of political struggle. No democratic political struggle can be effectively organized without the power of the popular. It is in this sense that I want to say that the relationship of fandom is a potentially enabling or empowering one. . . . At this level, culture offers the resources which may or may not be mobilized into forms of popular struggle, resistance or opposition. 59

565 Studies of the relationship between audiences and social movements point to the need to examine the cultural resources and knowledge available to achieve social change--a combination of the resources brought to the text by viewers, the resources available to be appropriated from the text, and the resources and knowledges mobilized and activated through collective action by viewers who pool their resources in the service of political or cultural goals.

The Politics of Interest Groups Political scientist H.R. Mahood defines interest groups or pressure groups as "membership organizations with political goals," and discusses pressure politics as an array of conflicting organizations interacting with public officials, involving a give-and-take of political influence. 60 For his colleague Jeffrey Berry, interest groups act to (1) represent their constituents, serving as a primary link between citizens and government, forming a "channel of access" through which citizens can voice their opinions about policy preferences: For many people, interest groups are the most important mechanism by which their views are represented before the three branches of government....[They] afford people the opportunity to participate in the political process...to do something about an issue they feel strongly on. By contributing money to a lobbying organization, and possibly participating through it to do other things such as writing letters or taking part in protests, members come to feel they have a more significant role in the political process. Berry also comments that interest groups perform the important function of (2) educating the American public about political issues, through advocacy efforts,

566 publications and publicity campaigns. However, he notes the obvious bias in the information presented, which overwhelmingly tends to offer facts and interpretations favorable to their position. The final two functions of interest groups Berry discusses are (3) agenda-building, the turning of problems into political issues in the first place, and (4) program monitoring. 61 Interest groups, or political factions, have existed since the nation's founding, noted but perceived as marginal by early politicians such as James Madison. The 19th-century social observer Alexis de Toqueville, too, noted the prominence of associational groups in American society, considering such groups to be a check on excessive governmental control. 62 Challenging the conventional wisdom of his day, political scientist Arthur Bentley, in 1908, characterized the political group as the basic element in political activity, the stuff of politics; for Bentley, all public policy resulted from the continual interaction of competing interests within the political system. Espousing what has become known as "pluralism theory," Bentley believed government's main responsibility to be the arbitration and protection of the public's interests, seeing modern democracy as a carefully-maintained balance among the interests of multiple political groups. In the 1950s, David Truman revisited Bentley's theories in his book The Governmental Process, in which he saw affiliative political interest groups as the way that individual citizens could participate in the political system of government. Like Bentley, Truman perceived interest group politics as a pluralistic system which contributed to an stabilizing equilibrium in the formation of public policy. 63

567 Mahood, along with American political scientists such as Walker, Berry and others, claims the recent escalation of interest group politics (also called organizational democracy) to be the most important political development of the 1970s and 1980s considering their expanding influence in contemporary American politics since the 1960s. The development of the mass media, particularly television, is considered one of the major factors in the changing political system. Mahood points out that the social movements for political equality in the 1960s led to an organization of many influential leftist groups (feminists, consumers, environmentalists) which learned to exploit the available technologies of television, mass mailings, and computer-based fundraising to achieve legislative changes. Mahood also discusses the predominantly affluent and well-educated (and presumably white) demographic composition of interest group membership, representing 13% of all Americans in 1981. Utilization of modern technologies to generate publicity and attract supporters and money has allowed entrepreneurs "to activate millions of middle-class Americans in support of their cause or idea." He also adds the growth of professional lobbying, the burgeoning business of political influence and persuasion to gain and maintain legislative support for a particular group's objective, as a central aspect of todays's political life in Washington, D.C. 64 One concern that runs through the pluralist political science literature on interest groups is the perception that such a political system fragments political power and influence, and represents a continuing decentralization of power within Congress and the administration, making legislative policy-making more chaotic than ever. Interest groups have been perceived by politicians as a grave threat to the two-party

568 system, who note the increasing fractionalization within the Democratic and Republican parties since the 1960s and the forging of issue-oriented interest groups across, or outside of, party boundaries. As Jeffrey Berry puts it, expressing the fears of many Washington politicians, "Interest groups constantly push government to enact policies that benefit small constituencies at the expense of a general public. . . . Many agree that interest groups are an increasingly troublesome part of American politics, yet there is little consensus on what, if anything, ought to be done about it." This fear of, and hostility toward, organized political interest groups was quite evident in the late 1950s, as I will discuss below. 65 The parallel between the development of television and the growth of interest groups during the last forty years deserves a great deal of research, since the interest group system has increasingly become one of the most powerful forces in American politics, as a system through which citizens become interpellated into effective "publics." The linking of audience behavior to interest group politics is one that is particularly relevant today in light of increasing pressures upon television producers and advertisers by interest groups associated with the New Right and conservative Christian coalitions. However, interest group activism can also be mobilized by the left to effect changes in public policy. The case study of the controversy surrounding The American Stranger provides empirical examples for understanding the ways that diverse groups of people may be moved to political and social action by a variety of stimuli and in support of a number of causes and issues, and in particular the way that different social formations coalesce, unify or set themselves in opposition around a set of ideological issues.

569 Such ideological issues may be enunciated by the media, such as this powerful one-hour 1958 television news documentary, in which case it is inevitable that the discourses activated by the media will intersect with and build upon extant political discourses and ideological arguments held by already-existing political, social and economic formations, either institutions or temporary formations. In this case, the significance of the media intervention was to broadcast (both literally and figuratively) these issues from their limited domains in Indian country and in the halls of Congress and the Department of the Interior to a large and diverse public audience. In so doing, the television report pushed some sort of ideological buttons in the political and social consciences of a percentage of its viewers, motivating them to take political or humanitarian action. By virtue of this action, they became an effective audience. Their actions in response to the television documentary took the form of writing letters, sending telegrams and making phone calls to the NBC network and McCormick, to the White House, the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to their Congressional representatives, to national pro-Indian interest groups and to tribes, especially the Blackfeet tribe (most prominently featured in the broadcast). As a direct response, the involvement of some of these viewers went even farther, either by making charitable donations of money and/or material goods to the tribes and to pro-Indian organizations themselves, or even by organizing localized community mobilizations of support in schools, churches and through newspapers throughout the nation. This overwhelming public response elicited a strong defensive reaction from federal agencies, letters of thanks from the networks, aroused Congressional leaders to investigate more fully, and served to empower localized

570 grassroots and tribal coalitions and national pro-Indian interest groups as their ranks of supporters swelled and they could ride the wave of this ideological and material support while it lasted. The case of The American Stranger might also be considered an example of early interest-group-oriented media activism. The 1958-1959 political controversy ignited by the television documentary may be understood as an incident whereby a single television text mobilized and constituted what might be considered a temporary public sphere or body politic--a geographically-dispersed group with intersecting social aims, humanitarian action, and political effectivity. The broadcast sparked an outpouring of political and humanitarian support for tribal causes, and created a temporary intercultural alliance of social forces whose impetus is credited with eventually changing federal policies. Federal efforts during the 1950s to "terminate" the land rights and federal status of American Indian tribes marked a turning point in the balance of power between the United States government and Native Americans. The termination movement, led primarily by Western Congressmen allied with timber, oil, mining and grazing corporate interests (other specialized public spheres), masked the economic lust for Indian trust land in the guise of assimilationist rhetoric to "liberate the Indians" from their bondage as second-class citizens and to instill "American" cultural values. Termination efforts were challenged by a coalition of American Indian interest groups and sympathetic non-Indian community groups, drawing upon the public indignation and call to arms aroused by The American Stranger. Media studies scholars have recently begun to take notice of the mobilization of interested publics and advocacy groups around media-related issues, such as

571 campaigns to save or cancel exceptional television shows. Kathryn Montgomery and Julie DAcci, for example, have written about entertainment television shows which sparked public debate or political controversy, and around which either oppositional or fan activists organized national grassroots campaigns to create publics which would put economic pressure upon networks and advertisers. 66 DAcci examines the controversies surrounding the female police buddy show Cagney and Lacey as a locus for cultural battles over the definition and construction of femininity, a program whose continued existence as well as content were shaped by the active audience response made evident through letter-writing campaigns. Montgomery discusses a number of case studies from the 1970s and 1980s in which partial publics were mobilized around the politics of television shows, ranging from the grassroots promotions by nuclear freeze activists surrounding the 1983 broadcast of ABCs made-for-television movie The Day After (challenged by right-wing advocacy groups), to the cultural battles over the representations of African Americans in Beulah Land, the representation of abortion as a viable option in Maude, and the representation of a variety of adult themes, including homosexuality, in the parodic Soap. Montgomery explained: During the twentieth century, all forms of the mass media have been targets of advocacy groups at one time or another. Motion pictures, comic books, plays, newspapers, and textbooks have been subjected to pressure. But prime-time television has surpassed all of these as a focus of protest. . . . [By] the 1970s this clash of forces turned prim-time television into a contested zone. By the early eighties, more than 250 advocacy groups had been involved in efforts to change network television. . . recognized [by the industry] as a permanent part of the television environment. 67

572 Noting that the advocacy groups are difficult to categorize, count, or even keep track of, Montgomery characterizes them: Theyve fluctuated in numbers and intensity, and varied in size and composition. theyve been called pressure groups, special interest groups, lobbies and citizens groups, depending upon whos doing the labeling. They have been large groups with enormous resources at their disposal, and small groups operating on a shoestring. . . . Sometimes several groups have struggled to represent the same constituency. In other cases, rival groups have teamed up in ad hoc coalitions. While some organizations have remained a presence over the years, others have been as ephemeral as the programs they sought to influence. 68 She classifies the advocacy groups into (1) minorities, women, gays, seniors and the disabled--a category which includes any group which is socially marginal to the hegemonic representations on prime-time television; (2) conservative religious groups, which have become self-appointed guardians of traditional or family values; (3) social issue groups seeking to incorporate messages about social issues (drug abuse, birth control, etc.) into television programming; and (4) anti-violence groups, who perpetuate a fear of television as a source of violent influence in society. She delineates a variety of strategies for pressuring networks and influence programming, ranging from protests, such as boycotts and letter-writing campaigns, to appeals to legal and governmental authorities such as Congress or the FCC. Montgomery credits televisions role as the central storyteller in American culture with the mediums power to arouse such diverse and critical publics, commenting that it is the fiction programming, even more than news and public affairs, that most effectively embodies and reinforces the dominant values in American society. 69

573 These studies are prime models for my interest in the mobilization of audiences by and around television programs, yet the case of The American Stranger is distinctively different from the situations discussed by DAcci or Montgomery. Rather than media activism directed to effect changes in the media industry and the representations in its programming, the controversies generated by The American Stranger were about social and political issues and policies, about historical intercultural relationships, and ultimately about the deep racialized gap in cultural experience and identity between Native Americans and non-Indian Americans, especially those considering themselves to be white. This case study shares with those presented by Montgomery and DAcci the characteristics of what Charlotte Ryan calls a mobilizing frame in which (1) the issue, the responsibility and the solution are all defined as collective rather than individual problems, (2) a conflictual us versus them model is created, with clearly-defined opponent and challenger positions around which publics can constitute themselves; and (3) a moral appeal is launched: whats happening to the challenger is unjust, unfair, just plain wrong, and violates basic social standards in some regard. 70 In the case of The American Stranger, the television show became a sympathetic tool used by the challengers (the temporarily-constituted coalition of publics and counterpublics mobilized by the broadcast) against clearly-defined opponents: oppressive or unjust political policies and conditions of poverty. In the other cases, the television networks themselves--and particularly the representations they constructed through their programming--became the opponents and targets of such activism.

574 The forces which converged around The American Stranger may be seen in terms of interest group politics, especially if we expand the concept of interest groups from the narrow definition of membership organizations and lobbying groups to one which includes any group with which individual social agents may choose to affiliate (although access to such affiliation may be limited by social, cultural, occupational or economic factors). On the one hand, there were what Walker calls the "regional-industrial blocs," 71 such as the timber industry, the cattle ranchers, the oil industry, etc., which were closely allied with Western Congressional representatives, many of whom who also happened to serve on the Congressional Subcommittees for Interior and Insular Affairs. Ironically, these same committees which oversaw policy decisions regarding land use also were responsible for decisions about American Indian reservations, "Indian country," in the same conflicting irony with which the Department of the Interior has jurisdiction over public lands, natural resources, and tribal peoples. So on this hand we have the interlocking interests of Western industries, conservative Congressmen and the Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Indian Affairs. Apparently swayed by the documentary, which was critical of the motives of this bloc, very few engaged viewers were sympathetic to this position, despite strong and defensive counter-rhetoric by the federal government. In the other corner (to use a fighting metaphor), we had the interest groups working to mobilize support on behalf of Native American peoples, the coalition through which the mobilized viewers were able to express their sympathies and engage in political and humanitarian action. I must stress that this notion of political altruism is a problematic notion, one that I explore more fully in an earlier chapter,

575 since it is based upon longstanding principles of paternalism and colonialism rather than self-determination. However, for the most part, in this case, there were several distinct interest groups working as a sometimes uneasy alliance against the perceived federation of forces representing federal bureaucracy and big business. On a national scope, these were the "Friends of the Indian" advocacy organizations, such as the Association for American Indian Affairs, consisting mainly of educated middle-class white liberals; the National Congress of American Indians, an all-Indian political interest group which served as a liaison between tribes and legislators. More regionally, there were also very active grassroots citizens groups with local interests to promote and protect, which worked in affiliation with localized religious activists in Indian communities such as Jesuit priests and missionary nuns, who were linked by their orders and religious affiliations to larger interest groups. And then, of course, there were the tribes themselves, the most localized of all, which were also organized into intertribal councils for political purposes. Although interest group politics provides us valuable insights into this situation, the political science model alone is not an adequate explanatory mechanism for the complex intercultural, class and local/regional dynamics surrounding The American Stranger.

Shifting Formations: the People, Publics and the Power-Bloc In its verbal/visual rhetoric, The American Stranger coalesced its discourses around long-simmering flames of social, political and economic struggle, into which it fed more fuel by arousing a groundswell of public interest. These flames were fanned by the documentary's enunciation of the terms of the struggle, through filmic images

576 and narrational oratory, in terms framed by discourses sympathetic to what might be broadly termed "the American Indian cause." Following the mythic structure found in the classic dramatic narratives which permeate Western culture and thought, this populist struggle was usually cast by its participants into a binary, usually "us" vs. "them," the good guys versus the bad guys, the little guys versus the invulnerable giant. From the populist perspective, "they" represented the powerful and institutionalized forces centered in Washington, D.C.--the policy-setting Congress and the policy-implementing federal agencies overseeing tribal land and governance issues. In further binary terms, the opposition may also be clearly seen as a matter of national versus localized interests (material/land-oriented/economic as well as sociocultural and political), as urban/centralized/Eastern versus rural/dispersed/Western, as a political Democratic versus Republican set of issues, as a matter of the exercise of dominant (white, American, capitalistic) cultural hegemony over indigenous subcultures, as a matter of race (in which case the binary model becomes problematized, unless one collapses the racial issues into what in 1990s discourses would be called white versus people of color), as a matter of social class differences (which inscribes socioeconomic conditions of poverty on top of the already-established demographic categories named above, and also sets up a binary contrasting the prosperous society of the politicians, government administrators and corporate entrepreneurs against the conditions portrayed as existing on many Indian reservations). It is certainly easy to analytically cast this struggle into one of the "power-bloc" vs. the "people," following the terms laid out by John Fiske, and such a model has

577 great explanatory power. Yet the binary model is greatly complicated by a number of factors which complexify this simple dichotomy, making it messy but infinitely more interesting. A number of social agents and alliances function to mediate between these two clear binaries, the "Indians" vs. the "government." And it is their story, their role in this whole narrative and political process, that is the most fascinating. These complicating, and mediating, agents include, first, the local Catholic missionaries and their supporters throughout the nation (other liberal religious organizations and publications, church members and financial supporters); second, the national pro-Indian ("Friends of the Indian") interest groups such as the Association for American Indian Affairs and the Indian Rights Association, the membership and leadership of which consisted primarily of white middle- and upper-class liberals who perceived themselves to be involved in a humanitarian and political movement; and third, the localized grassroots political groups, such as "Friends of Hill 57" in Great Falls, Montana, which involved local concerned white citizens in political lobbying at local, state and national levels on behalf of community-based socioeconomic issues, which in this case revolved around the conditions of the urban Indian ghetto in Great Falls. Other agents who may be seen to have "messed up" the good guy/bad guy dichotomy include employees of the federal government whose allegiances were torn between their personal beliefs and their need to represent the government position in their official professional positions, and the particularly complicated positions of elected representatives, especially members of Congress, who found themselves in a bind through their accountability to constituents who represented "both" sides of the

578 multifaceted issue (such as the oil or timber interests and the Native American interests). Most legislators leaned towards the more socially and economically powerful constituents, for a variety of personal and political reasons; a few politicians, such as Lee Metcalf and Mike Mansfield of Montana, took up the "American Indian cause" for ideological reasons. Many politicians appear to have been very conflicted about, and inconsistent in, their political commitments to the issues represented by The American Stranger, and were easily influenced by the outcries from their constituents which the broadcast elicited. And finally, the binary model is also greatly complicated by the empirical lack of unity among Native Americans, even within a tribe, in their attitudes about the federal government and its relationship to them. The inter- and intra-tribal politics within Native American culture run as a strong subtext of the larger narrative of federal-Indian relations, and it is difficult to say "The Indians/Blackfeet/Menominee/etc. took this particular position" when in fact there were tribal members who supported termination, who worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and/or who were committed to Indian assimilation into White America. The pluralist model in the field of political science, stimulated by the works of David Truman, Robert Dahl and others in the 1950s and 1960s, has conceived of interest groups as inherently democratic: "The major mechanisms of pluralist democracy are political interest groups and a decentralized governmental structure. Interest groups, reflecting as they do the opinions and aspirations of major segments of our society, serve as surrogates before and linkages to major policy-making bodies and numerous public officials." 72 This model rests on the assumption that all interest groups and segments of society will have equal access to resources, to the public, and

579 to the legislators. Admittedly, it has been widely criticized within the discipline as perpetuating normative, even conservative, values by validating the status quo. Berry acknowledges that, despite challenges to its validity by such "real-world events" as the civil rights movement (which demonstrated that certain segments of society were outside the normal channels of the political system), pluralism theory has had great residual force and dominance in political science since the 1960s, and has been taken up beyond academic circles into broader societal discourses. When this model is viewed through the lens of poststructuralist cultural theory, however--particularly the post-Marxist theoretical constellation surrounding issues of power and its distribution, as represented on the one hand by post-Frankfurt School scholars working from and building upon the public sphere paradigm as enunciated most eloquently by Jurgen Habermas, and on the other by the cultural turn in Marxist scholarship (usually known as cultural studies) as represented by the theoretical works of Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams, John Fiske and others, it becomes necessary to complicate and challenge pluralism theory, without throwing it out altogether as so often happens with theorists who encounter incompatible paradigms. In fact, the interest group model of society provides an important corrective to the binary model of power which has centrally shaped most critical theory, enriching and complexifying our understanding of processes of cultural and political hegemony and the bottom-up involvement of social and political agents in the struggles which define and shape their living conditions. An understanding of the workings of interest group politics in late twentieth century society also lends credence to poststructuralist notions of increasing fragmentation and decentralization as part of

580 the condition of postmodernity. Yet such an explanatory model must be poached upon rather than adopted in its completeness, and it must be problematized with reference to issues of class, race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality and other social determinants which have traditionally limited, and continue to limit, equal access to channels of influence, debunking the naive and idealistic notion of a truly democratic society operating in an "equilibrium" which balances the interests of all members of society. In his recent writing about modes of opposition between the "people" and the "power-bloc" (following Stuart Hall and Antonio Gramsci), Fiske begins to move the cultural studies paradigm in the direction I am proposing, though his model still maintains one foot mired in structuralism while the other ventures into more exciting poststructuralist directions. Fiske theorizes social formations, into which we might classify interest groups, as mobile rather than objective social categories, alliances of social interests and social agents which are "strategically and tactically formed and dissolved according to the perceived exigencies of the issue involved and its situating conditions." He defines the power-bloc as "a disposition and exercise of power to which certain social formations, defined primarily by class, race, gender and ethnicity, have privileged access and which they can readily turn to their own economic and political interests," and implicitly argues for an understanding of this concept as distinct from earlier sociological and political concepts of a fixed and demographically-determined ruling or dominant class. 73 The case of The American Stranger provides evidence for the shifting nature and composition of the power-bloc, as perceived by those whose oppose it. For example, many of the arguments made by official representatives of the Department

581 of the Interior and Bureau of Indian Affairs attempt to deny the federal institution's role in the oppression of Native American peoples by emphasizing that, by framing the Interior Department as the "bad guys," the opposition was implicating as guilty all of the agency's employees, many of whom were Indian (when in fact it was the institution which was under attack). For example, in a letter to a viewer who wrote the agency after watching The American Stranger, Assistant Secretary of the Interior Roger Ernst wrote: Your feeling of dismay is very understandable, and certainly reflects credit upon your humane sympathy. It was a deeply moving telecast, and I, too, would have been horrified by it if I didn't know the true situation. About half of the employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and perhaps more than half, are themselves American Indians. You can imagine their feelings at being portrayed as heartless brutes waging a bureaucratic war against their own people. 74 In fact, the actions of the government agency, and its agents (acting in their official capacity) were in general clearly differentiated from the private views of individual government employees or ex-employees, as evidenced by letters and statements of support for the Native American cause by such. Following Foucault, Fiske defines "the people" as those who benefit least and are disciplined most by the power system, and argues that such an abstract concept must be seen as a set of social forces rather than social categories, as "varied and changing social allegiances whose one constant is their comparable lack of privilege, deprivation of economic and political resources." 75 In this case, "the people" as an analytic and operational category are most clearly the Native Americans; however, in the process of interest group formation in solidarity with, and sometimes on behalf of, this social category, various social formations were created composed of individual

582 social agents whose subjectivities were frequently split by their allegiances and social identities. No single sociological or demographic determinant unified all of the people whose sympathies were united either for American Indians (and I must stress that the problematics of interpreting the ideological stances and motivations of all those in sympathy with tribal rights or the welfare of tribal members goes beyond the scope of this study) or against the historically-grounded mechanisms of colonial oppression implemented by agents of the United States government. Accounting for the tension surrounding the rise of interest group politics and its attendant tendencies toward a decentralization of government, Roberto Alejandro explains that the American political system has always embodied two conceptions of power and corresponding conceptions of citizenship: a "national citizenship associated with a strong central state and defined by passive participation in the electoral arena," and a "local citizenship predicated upon active citizens building common bonds in the political realm of their states." When citizen groups grow strong at a local level and begin to assert pressure at the national level, this insurgency threatens the well-established institutions of national representation, policy-making and administration. 76 Similarly, Fiske suggests a model of "imperializing" versus "localizing" power, through which the operations of power can be seen to originate in different places and serve different interests; we might conceptualize the regional/national tension in these terms. Fiske defines "imperializing" power as a strong, top-down power with the institutional resources for domination and the impulse to extend its reach as far as possible; in the case of The American Stranger we will see this type of power operating by federal agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs

583 and by Congress as an institution, as well as the regional-industrial power-blocs such as oil, timber, gas and cattle industries whose power is legitimated by their capital and their intimate historical connections to the government. To some degree, the agents of the Church (Catholic missionaries and others) also exercise some degree of imperializing power, especially on Indian reservations. The opposing tension comes from what Fiske calls "localizing" powers, which he conceptualizes as relatively weak, bottom-up efforts by local groups, such as Native American tribes and local communities, to control their immediate everyday social conditions of everyday life rather than to dominate other social formations. Mediating between the two opposing polarities of power are the brokers of social change--figures and groups which are able to utilize both localizing and imperializing power strategies to achieve their goals. Positioned to mediate between the local and the national are figures such as elected legislators (the Congressional representatives from Montana, for example), intellectual/professionals (such as tribal lawyers, anthropologists and the national lobbyist activists working on behalf of Native American interests), and religious figures (such as Sister Providencia and Father Byrne). Such religious leaders represent the Church (in its national and global institutional form) but, in the case of those missionaries practicing what has become known as "liberation theology," also position themselves as allies and advocates of their parishioners, championing their versions of the local interests though they themselves are in a more privileged position. Like the local white grassroots groups in Montana, with which they often affiliated, they have a stake in rallying localized power against the imperializing power-bloc.

584 The journalistic media as an institution also increasingly plays this mediating role; The American Stranger and other investigative television journalism of the 1950s (such as Murrow's See It Now) represents the beginning of an awareness of television's potential to effect social and political changes through advocacy. This mediation is especially effective in cases in which the media represents localized interests, using the powerful channels of information dissemination available through the press, radio and television to broadcast such local interests and gain the sympathy of a wide national audience. On the whole, this national audience is effectively a collective of people who, regardless of their institutional affiliations, hold loyalties to localized interests themselves, and who are empathetic to the struggles of other locales or regions against imperializing powers. David Chaney has stated that "public opinion is a more-or-less volatile attitude held by members of society at large towards institutions . . . or towards policies." Although he considers that it is most directly voiced in crowd demonstrations, he asserts that the predominant sense of the public in contemporary society has shifted to become identified with its expression in mass media: To the extent that an issue is the subject of public opinion means that competing interest groups are trying to impose their ambitions and values through the language used to conceptualize that issue. . . . There is therefore never a' public but a potentially large set of publics who differ on factors such as degree of organization, their status independent of this issue, their access to impersonal media and experience with administrative machinery. 77 Writing about documentaries and their potential to effect social change, Chaney argues that, by tradition, documentaries necessarily selectively represent publics. In other words, they take a particular rhetorical stance; even journalism is unable to

585 provide pure objectivity, and the tradition of social documentary in this century has generally been that of an advocate for social change, generally favoring a populist perspective: The conventions or codes used by media professionals in their reports are not caused by the way the world is, but are strategic devices which enable them to manage politically contentious features of reality. . . . The radicalism of the social rhetoric of documentary [has rested] in the way the facilities of mass communication were adapted to popular experience rather than vice-versa. 78 Another, less binary, way to conceive of the dynamics between various and often-competing localized and regional interests and those which are more national or global would be through the notion of publics and counterpublics. Oskar Negt, Alexander Kluge, Miriam Hansen and Nancy Fraser have radically reconceptualized the notion of the public inherited from Habermas and instead conceive of the public sphere as a "site of discursive contestation for and among multiple, diverse and unequal constituencies." 79 In their terms, a counterpublic is born from hegemonic efforts to suppress, fragment, delegitimize, or assimilate any public formation that suggests an alternative, autonomous organization of experience. 80 A nation will have multiple and competing counterpublics, each marked by specific terms of difference (class, race, gender, sexual preference, regional difference) from the dominant, "yet each understanding itself as a nucleus for an alternative organization of society." 81 Through what Gramsci would term hegemonic principles, the bourgeois/power-bloc exercises mechanisms of exclusion and silencing to block the participation of what Fraser calls subaltern counterpublics which contest the exclusionary norms of the power-bloc and elaborate "alternative styles of political behavior and alternative

586 norms of public speech." 82 For these theorists, the utopia of such a public sphere would ultimately be a radical form of democracy--involving not just the empowerment of formerly excluded constituencies, but also a different concept of public life. Negt and Kluge's notion of a counterpublic is grounded in the multiple and mediated contexts of production and consumption; as such, it differs from reinscriptions of the local which have adopted discourses of "community" as a site of resistance. Their notion of a counterpublic, according to Hansen, refers to a "specifically modern phenomenon, contemporaneous with, and responding to, bourgeois and industrial-capitalist publicity. It offers forms of solidarity and reciprocity that are grounded in a collective experience of marginalization and expropriation," but which are inevitably experienced as mediated, and as such are subject to discursive conflict and negotiation. 83 For social change to occur, alliances of counterpublics must be forged; if not, Hansen claims, the oppositional energy of individual interest groups and subcultures can easily be neutralized or polarized. Recent scholarship has theorized the black public sphere as the site within which black cultural work has been conceived and crafted, a cultural space often invisible to the white imagination. Houston Baker describes the historical and philosophical positioning of a black counterpublic: Black Americans arrived on New World shores precisely as property belonging to the bourgeoisie. . . Historically, therefore, nothing might seem less realistic, attractive or believable to black Americans than the notion of a black public sphere. Unless, of course, such a notion was meant to symbolize a strangely distorting chiasma: a separate and inverted opposite of a historically imagined white rationality in action. Such a black-upside-down world could only be portrayed historically as an irrational, illiterate, owned, nonbourgeois community of chattel. . . sitting bleakly in submissive silence before the state. It would be

587 precisely what white America has so frequently represented in blackface: the b, or negative, side of a white imaginary of public life in America. 84 Baker situates the rise of the contemporary black public sphere with the social movements beginning in the mid-Fifties, and claims that the civil rights struggle gave birth to a new black publicness. In a historical contextualizing with great relevance to an understanding of the growth of a parallel Native American public sphere, Baker discusses how the decade from 1955-1965 brought into mainstream view the active working of the imagination of a subaltern, black American counterpublic, noting that the Reverend Martin Luther Kings voice made fully visible and audible the black public sphere to the rest of America. 85 Hansen distinguishes counterpublics from partial publics (noting that the boundaries between the two may be sliding or relative). This distinction has great relevance to an understanding of television's role in social movements: Over the past decade or two, there has been a veritable explosion of partial publics, from the multimedia publicity crystallizing around traditional sports, through TV evangelism and pro-life organizations, to computer bulletin boards, video jukebox circuits, and telephone sex. What such partial publics have in common is that they operate through industrial-commercial venues . . . [and] they organize vast constituencies. 86 However, Hansen notes that the activities of partial publics, like interest groups and other specialized publics, generally remain somewhat hidden from public view from anyone who is not directly paying for and/or participating in them. Partial publics may be distinguished from counterpublics by the compartmentalization of the issues they are concerned with, rather than the whole of social or cultural life. Whenever partial publics do come into the purview of a more general media public (broadcast news

588 programs or the national press, for instance), Hansen notes, it is usually the result of particular combinations, conjunctures, or collisions with other types of publicity. However, the possibility also exists for partial publics to link up, at particular junctures, with otherwise separate or competing counterpublics--thereby creating a window for larger oppositional publicity." 87 In the case of The American Stranger, we have seen the processes by which an alliance of counterpublics and partial publics was forged to effect social and political change. The notion of counterpublics and partial publics complicates our received notion of the regional as a geographically delimited physical area; rather, the "regional" becomes the nexus for a set of interest-based issues which are activated by temporary alliances and formations constructed in opposition to the national or the hegemonic. For example, the Blackfeet and other tribes and native communities, as well as the supratribal Native America, can be considered to be subaltern counterpublics (since their unity is marked by multiple differences of region, class, ethnicity and race), while the white liberal altruists and grassroots activists in Great Falls represent what might be considered a regional counterpublic (an opposition created by shifting alliances, constituted and activated by particular salient issues which stimulate a regional response). 88 Others outside of the regional geographic area who chose to affiliate with what might be considered regional political or cultural causes--but also might be considered of relevance to the nation as a whole--might be considered as specialized partial publics, since their allegiances were based upon compartmentalized issues rather than entire cultural perspectives and lifestyles.

589 However, this study points to a need for another category of an effective public, one which is particularly relevant to media studies and the shifting social formations which may be constituted through the process of media reception. While counterpublics are usually considered to be constituted by differences in race, gender, ethnicity or other structural social positions that correspond to distinct cultural positionings with relation to the dominant or hegemonic culture, and while partial publics may be longstanding alliances structured around specific and consistent groups of interests or issues, a need exists for the conceptualization of a type of public that is temporarily-constituted in its oppositionality or in its attraction to certain issues and interests. Such temporary, specific issue-oriented publics share characteristics of both partial and counterpublics, and may join with selected partial and counterpublics in a coalition around a group of specific issues to increase the political effectivity of such a pressure group. Temporary issue-oriented publics are no less politically effective than their long-term counterparts, but they are distinguished by their ephemerality--they are aroused, formed, sustained and dispersed through highly-charged types of publicity (most often media) which can mobilize and bring together such a coalition in a brief but intense burst of public energy. Once the original impetus for their mobilization is gone, such publics usually fail to maintain the momentum to continue as an effective group, though they may reconstitute into a similar coalition should a new impetus arise. Much more scholarship needs to be done to explore the dynamics of the relationship of the media to the formation and effectivity of such temporary, issue-oriented publics--which can range from fan communities to media activist groups.

590 An examination of the cultural, social, economic and political discourses which intersected in this television broadcast exposes the complex alliances and formations constituted at this conjunctural moment in history. The media, particularly television, played an important enabling role in American Indian activism and the movement to restore self-determination to these colonized peoples. Like other movements of the postwar generation, such as the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and the women's movement, American Indian activists discovered the power of television to deliver their message into the homes of the American public, a public whose dominant perceptions of Indians previously had been shaped by television westerns. At this historical moment of the late 1950s, when both television and American Indian activism were still in youthful formation, television provided the promising opportunity to replace those racist and stereotypical perceptions with fresh images of contemporary American Indian conditions and to engage the public in the cultural politics of Native America in relationship to the government and dominant culture of the United States.

591 NOTES TO CHAPTER EIGHT

1. Letter to Sister Providencia dated 19 January 1959 from Arthur W. Hepner of NBC News, NBC, New York. Sister Providencia Papers (Cheney Cowles) 4/17. 2. The answer to the question of where the letters went may never be explained. The circular files of government bureaucracy are full of purposefully or inadvertently discarded documents, some sent to the shredder for security purposes and others because they were perhaps deemed unimportant and not worthy of archiving. In this case, we will never know if the files of letters received in response to The American Stranger were purged at the time, or if they fell victim, 15 years later, to the raid upon Bureau of Indian Affairs documents by Native American militants participating in the 1972 Trial of Broken Treaties takeover of the agency, during which time many documents pertaining to Native America were destroyed. 3. Letter to Dr. Oliver LaFarge [AAIA, New York] dated 1 December 1958 from Sister Providencia Tolan of Great Falls, Montana. A copy was sent to McCormick, with a handwritten note at the bottom. McCormick Papers. 4. Letter to Walter Wetzel, Chairman, Blackfeet Tribal Council (with a copy to Iliff McKay) dated 2 December 1958 from Helen McMillan Meyers, Director of Public Education, Association for American Indian Affairs. McKay Papers. 5. Minutes of Special Meeting, Blackfeet Tribal Council, held 11 December 1958. McKay Papers. 6. Letter to Iliff McKay, Blackfeet Tribal Council, dated 17 December 1958 from U.S. Senator James Murray, Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Copy sent to NBC executive Art Hepner in New York and Congressman Lee Metcalf. Metcalf Papers 225/3. 7. Letter to McCormick dated 17 December 1958 from Sister Providencia of Great Falls, Montana. McCormick papers. 8. AAIA Annual Report on Public Education, dated 17 December 1958, attached to Executive Committee Minutes. AAIA Papers. 9. Don Oberdorfer, Indians Tax Break Extended, The Des Moines Tribune (12 January 1959). 10. Statement of Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton before the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, February 18, 1959, Department of the Interior Information Service Press Release. NCAI Papers.

592

11. Letter To Tribes For Whom We Are General Counsel Re: Policy of Bureau of Indian Affairs, dated 3 March 1959 from Wilkinson, Cragun and Barker law firm, Washington, D.C. NCAI Papers. 12. Special Legislative and Administrative Memorandum D from General Counsel to Board of Directors, AAIA, dated 4 March 1959. Walter Taylor Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Microfilm Reel 19. 13. Letter to Walter Wetzel dated 4 March 1959 from Oliver LaFarge, President, AAIA. This letter was entered as part of the minutes of a Special Session of the Blackfeet Tribal Council on 27 April 1959. NCAI Papers. 14. Blackfeet Tribal Council Minutes, Special Session, 25 March 1959. Sister Providencia Papers (Cheney Cowles) 2/25. 15. LaFarge added, The finished product was the joint creation of Mr. McCormick; a talented NBC producer, Mr. Reuven Frank, and Mr. Tom Priestly, who recently won the Cameraman of the Year Award of the Encyclopedia Britannica for, among other television camera work, his Blackfeet Reservation scenes. . . . 16. Speech by Oliver LaFarge entitled Citation of Robert McCormick and NBC News, presented 27 April 1959 at the AAIA Annual Membership Meeting. AAIA Papers. 17. Letter to McCormick dated 24 June 1959 from William Zimmerman, Jr. of Washington, D.C. Skilling Papers. 18. Department of the Interior Information Service press release dated 5 June 1959, and letter to Sen. James Murray dated 5 June 1959 from Assistant Interior Secretary Roger Ernst. Skilling Papers. 19. Letter from Iliff McKay to David Sarnoff, Chairman of the Board, NBC, dated 16 November 1959. McKay Papers. 20. Letter from McCormick to Sister Providencia dated 25 Jan 1959, McCormick Papers. 21. John Cruz and Justin Lewis, eds, Viewing, Reading, Listening: Audiences and Cultural Reception (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994). 22. H. R. Mahood, Interest Groups Politics in America: A New Intensity (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1990) 37-38, 161-181. 23. Eileen R. Meehan, "Why We Don't Count: The Commodity Audience,"in Logics of Television, ed. P. Mellencamp (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990) 117-137.

593

24. Ien Ang, Desperately Seeking the Audience (London: Routledge, 1991) 11. 25. Letter to McCormick (no date) from Florence La Fontaine Randall, Ph.D., of Dillsboro, Indiana. Telegram to McCormick dated 16 November 1958 from Father Peter John Powell, Chairman, Committee on Indian Work, Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, Illinois. McCormick Papers. 26. Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Father J.P. Hurley (S.J.), Cathedral of St. James, Seattle, Washington. McCormick Papers. 27. Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Dick Thornburg, The Cincinnati Post and Times-Star, Cincinnati, Ohio. McCormick Papers. 28. Letter to McCormick dated 19 December 1958 from B. Deering, New York, New York. McCormick Papers. 29. Letter to McCormick dated 8 December 1958 from Mrs. Haylon Hepp of Granville, Ohio. McCormick Papers. 30. Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Mrs. Richard Carlson (a non-Indian) of Denver, Colorado. McCormick Papers. 31. Letter to McCormick dated 18 November 1958 from C.M. Douglas, Executive Secretary and Treasurer, Monroe County Electric Cooperative, Inc. of Waterloo, Illinois. McCormick Papers. 32. Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Robert D. Hodgsen of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. McCormick Papers. 33. Letter to McCormick dated 16 November 1958 from James E. Peterson of Studio City, California. McCormick Papers. 34. Letter to McCormick dated 16 November 1958 from Ben Calderone of Hyde Park, New York. McCormick Papers. 35. Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Annalee (Mrs. Alexander) Stewart, Legislative Secretary, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Legislative Office, United States Section, Washington, D.C. McCormick Papers. 36. Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Richard McColley of Zenith, Washington. McCormick Papers. 37. Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Victor and Ellen Perlo,

594 Croton-on-Hudson, New York. McCormick Papers. 38. Letter to McCormick dated 6 January 1959 from The Indian Committee (Dorothy O. Bucklin, Chairman, and Louisa R. Shotwell, Secretary) of the Division of Home Missions, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. of New York, New York. McCormick Papers. 39. Letter to McCormick dated 20 November 1958 from Mrs. Louis Miniclier of McLean, Virginia. McCormick Papers. 40. Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Lorraine (Mrs. William W.) Wulffleff of Wayne, New Jersey. McCormick Papers. 41. Letter to McCormick (no date) from Norman Pietan of Berkeley, California. McCormick Papers. 42. Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Mr. and Mrs. Ogden E. Power of Old Lyme, Connecticut. McCormick Papers 43. Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Mrs. W.A. Lamb of Denver, Colorado. McCormick Papers. 44. Letter to NBCs Public Affairs Department and to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Frances Ives Whiteman of New York, New York. McCormick Papers. 45. Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Vella LaNel Mare of Staunton, Virginia. McCormick Papers. 46. Letter to McCormick (no date) from Florence La Fontaine Randall, Ph.D., of Dillsboro, Indiana. McCormick Papers. 47. Letter to McCormick dated 16 November 1958 from Ramona J. Holsinger of South Bend, Indiana. McCormick Papers. 48. Letter to McCormick dated 16 November 1958 from James E. Peterson of Studio City, California. McCormick Papers. 49. Letter to McCormick dated 27 December 1958 from Mrs. Shel Champlin, New York, New York. McCormick Papers. 50. Kobena Mercer, "1968': Periodizing Politics and Identity," in Cultural Studies, ed. Larry Grossberg et al. (London: Routledge, 1992) 424. 51. Henry Jenkins offers five distinct levels of activity among fans: a mode of (textual)

595 reception; a particular set of critical and interpretive practices; a base for consumer activism; particular forms of cultural production, aesthetic traditions and practices; and the functioning of alternative social communities. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (New York: Routledge, 1992) 277-283. 52. Corner divides this research into two distinct camps, which he has labeled the "public knowledge" project, "concerned primarily with the media as an agency of public knowledge and 'definitional' power, with a focus on news and current affairs output and a direct connection with the politics of information and the viewer as citizen," as opposed to the "popular culture project," which has been primarily concerned with "the social problematic of 'taste' and of pleasure (for instance those concerning class and gender) within industrialized popular culture. Jack Corner, Meaning, Genre and Context: the Problematics of Public Knowledge' in the New Audience Studies," in Mass Media and Society, ed. James Curran and Michael Gurevitch (London: Edward Arnold, 1991) 268. 53. There was also a tendency during this period to reduce the tensions within society to a structural dualism between the popular and the state/power bloc, a reductionism which failed to provide for the myriad of social formations mediating between the two extremes of power/powerlessness. David Morley, The Nationwide Audience (London: British Film Institute, 1980) and Family Television: Cultural Power and Domestic Leisure (London: Routledge, 1986); Morley and Charlotte Brunsdon, Everyday Television: Nationwide (London: British Film Institute, 1978); Dorothy Hobson, Crossroads: The Drama of a Soap Opera (London: Methuen, 1982); James Lull, ed., World Families Watch Television (London: Sage, 1988) and Inside Family Viewing: Ethnographic Research on Television Audiences (London: Routledge, 1990); Ien Ang, Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination (London: Methuen, 1982); John Fiske, Television Culture (London: Methuen, 1987), Understanding Popular Culture (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), and Reading the Popular (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989). 54. Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy (London: Penguin, 1958); Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson, eds., Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Postwar Britain (London: Hutchinson, 1976); Paul Willis, Learning to Labour (London: Saxon House, 1977); Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London, Methuen, 1979); Angela McRobbie, "Settling Accounts With Subcultures: A Feminist Critique," in Culture, Ideology and Social Process: A Reader, ed. Tony Bennett et al (London: Open University Press, 1981) 112-124, and "Dance and Social Fantasy," in Gender and Generation, ed. A. McRobbie and Mica Nava (London: Macmillan, 1984) 130-161; Janice Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Culture (Chapel Hill: U North Carolina P, 1984); Paul Willis, Common Culture (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1990); Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers. See also Andrea Press, Women Watching Television: Gender, Class and Generation in the American Television Experience (Philadelphia: U Pennsylvania P, 1991).

596 55. Cruz and Lewis, 1. 56. Julie D'Acci, Defining Women: Television and the Case of Cagney and Lacey (Chapel Hill: U North Carolina P, 1994); Sue Brower, "Fans as Tastemakers: Viewers for Quality Television," in The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, ed. Lisa Lewis (London: Routledge, 1992) 163-184; Kathryn C. Montgomery, Target: Prime Time: Advocacy Groups and the Struggle Over Entertainment Television (New York: Oxford UP, 1989). 57. Jenkins, Textual Poachers; Constance Penley, "Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture," in Cultural Studies, 479-500. 58. Jenkins, 86. 59. Lawrence Grossberg, "Is There a Fan in the House?: The Affective Sensibility of Fandom," in The Adoring Audience, 63-65. 60. Mahood, 2-3. 61. Jeffrey M. Berry, The Interest Group Society (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984) 6-8. 62. James Madison, The Federalist, No. 10, and Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Colonial Press, 1899, I, 191), as discussed by Mahood, 3-5. 63. Arthur Bentley, The Process of Government (San Antonio: Principia Press, 1949) 210; David B. Truman, The Governmental Process (2nd Edition) (New York: Knopf, 1971) 502, as discussed by Mahood, 5-7. 64. Mahood, 19-21, 52-81, 182-192. See also Robert A. Dahl, Who Governs? (New Haven: Yale UP, 1961); Jack L. Walker, Jr., "A Critique of the Elitist Theory of Democracy," American Political Science Review, 60 (June 1966), 285-295 and Mobilizing Interest Groups in America (1991); Robert H. Salisbury, ed., Interest Group Politics in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1970); Ronald J. Hrebenar and Ruth Scott, Interest Group Politics in America (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980); Robert S. Lichter and Stanley Rothman, "What Interests the Public and What Interests the Public Interests?," Public Opinion (April/May 1983) 44-48; Berry, The Interest Group Society; Alan J. Ciglar and Burdett A. Loomis, eds., Interest Group Politics (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1986). 65. Berry, 1-2. 66. Montgomery, Target: Prime Time and DAcci, Defining Women. 67. Montgomery, 5-6.

597 68. Montgomery, 8. 69. Montgomery, 6-9. 70. Charlotte Ryan, Prime Time Activism: Media Strategies for Grassroots Organizing (Boston: South End Press, 1991) 70-71. 71. Walker, Mobilizing Interest Groups in America. 72. Mahood, 7. 73. John Fiske, Power Plays, Power Works (London: Verso, 1993) 10. 74. Letter to Mrs. David Stern dated 8 December 1958 from Roger Ernst, Assistant Secretary of the Interior. National Archives, RG 48, Office of the Secretary of the Interior, Classified Central Files, Box 313. 75. Fiske, Power Plays, 11. 76. Roberto Alejandro, Hermeneutics, Citizenship, and the Public Sphere (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993) 3. 77. David Chaney, "Public Opinion and Social Change: The Social Rhetoric of Documentary and the Concept of News," in Mass Media and Social Change, ed. E. Katz and T. Szecsko (London: Sage, 1981) 115-116. 78. David Chaney, "Public Opinion, 117, 124. 79. Miriam Hansen, Foreword, in Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluges Public Sphere and Experience, trans. Peter Labanyi et al. (Minneapolis: U Minnesota P, 1993) xxix. See also Nancy Fraser, Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy and Geoff Eley, Nations, Publics and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the Nineteenth Century, in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (ambridge: MIT Press, 1994). 80. Hansen, xi-xxxi. 81. Hansen, xxxvi. 82. Fraser, 61. 83. Hansen, xxxvi. 84. Houston A. Baker, Jr., Critical Memory and the Black Public Sphere, in The Black Public Sphere, ed. The Black Public Sphere Collective (Chicago: U Chicago P, 1995)

598 13. 85. Baker, 16-17. 86. Hansen, xxxviii. 87. Hansen, xxxviii. 88. What, then, unites and defines the local/regional? For the residents of Western Montana (both native and white), the unifying values seem to be a strong sense of place, protection of local interests and resources, resistance to outside intervention in local issues, and pride in local cultural traditions and production. In this particular region, the salient political issues were questions of land tenure and use, as well as fierce independence from federal control.