Framing sweatshops: Nike, global production, and the American news media

This study examines US newspaper coverage of sweatshops, focusing on the case study of Nike (1995–2000) and asking how the coverage was structured, how sweatshops were problematized, and how they were explained. We find that while activists established a measure of definitional control over the coverage, it tended to concentrate on solutions rather than causes, and the source of the problem tended to be rooted in the agency of consumers rather than producers. This has implications for explaining how social, political, and cultural issues are transformed into essentially economic problems.