News Media and Mineral King: Framing Californian Development, Environmentalism, and Recreation, 1965-1978

Abstract

The US Forest Service and Walt Disney Productions clashed with the Sierra Club over construction of a planned ski resort in California’s Mineral King Valley between 1965 and 1978. This thesis qualitatively analyzed over 120 newspaper articles to find how the Los Angeles Times and New York Times framed developers and conservationists in the environmental conflict. Previous seminal framing studies guided this study’s scope and provided background. The Los Angeles Times and New York Times both framed the new ski resort predominantly positively when Disney received a development permit from the Forest Service and when the US Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior clashed over the development before 1970. Thereafter, newspaper articles framed conservationists more positively and development more negatively when the Sierra Club v. Morton lawsuit made it to the US Supreme Court and the valley was preserved through annexation into Sequoia National Park. These findings coincided with newspaper habits and environmental attitudes which transformed during the 1960s and 1970s. Learning how newspapers framed ski resort development at Mineral King Valley provides a much needed contribution toward overall understanding of environmental, outdoor recreation and media histories.