Media Messages of Rural: Lessons From Minnesota

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Media Messages of RuralLessons From Minnesota

• By Benjamin Winchester
• Coordinator, Data Analysis Research
• Abby Von Arx, Neil Lindscheid, and Tara Schmidt,
  UMM Students
• June 4, 2004

www.centerforsmalltowns.org
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What is rural?
Source U.S. Census Bureau
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Number and Population of Cities by Size in
Minnesota, 2000
Over 85 of all cities are under 5,000
persons. Ratio Fact For each city of more than
25,000 persons, there are 22 under 5,000
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Organizing Ourselves

• The understanding of rural has changed between
  1900 and 2000
• Three epochs will be described
• Pre-1900 - 1930
• 1930 - 1970
• 1970 - today

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The First Minnesota

• Pre-1900 to 1930
• Defined by railroad transportation networks and
  the rise of central places and
• The rural areas are defined not by something they
  are, but by something they are not - dichotomous

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Railroads dropping off the town
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Rural Agriculture
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Small Towns Places to bring agriculture-related
products for system-wide distribution
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1905 77,988 automobiles were registered
1925 17,000,000 automobiles were registered
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Changes in distribution systems and connections
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Model A
Model T
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The Second Minnesota

• 1930 1970
• Marked by automobile transportation,
  industrialization, and education
• Defined in academic terms as a continuum
• Attempts to shift your location up along this
  line
• Rural understanding is still built upon an urban
  base

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A little bit country

• This period gives rise to the notion of rural
  growth and development and attainment of urban
  status (fully functioning service centers) for
  even remote cities
• Organizations do rural development
• Institutions such as the state and federal
  government create a structure to reinforce these
  notions

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Goods and services for all
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Building are occupied
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Rise of the Professionals

• Rural Electrification Act of 1936 within USDA
• Post-WWII GI Bill of 1944
• Attempts made to classify and study
• Professionals filled organizational positions
  each with their own understandings of rural
• Rural Development Industry arises
• Growth (or movement up the continuum) is a
  driving value
• Urban Ideal

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The Third Minnesota

• 1970 present
• (Post) Modern view of Rural
• Rural areas are no longer understood as something
  concrete, but defined by the symbolic definitions
  of the population and professionals
• The Decline of Rural Minnesota comes to an end

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Rural Rebound

• The Urban Ideal ends
• Record numbers of people move into
  nonmetropolitan areas in the 1970s and 1990s
• Also known as Rural Renaissance, Rural Revival,
  and Booming Boondocks

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Source Johnson, Kenneth and Calvin Beale, 1999.
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The Rebirth of Rural

• A rejection of the Urban Ideal? (crime,
  congestion, homelessness)
• The Rural Ideal, based on the Rural Idyll, is
  formed
• The rural idyll involves nostalgic, romantic,
  pastoral notions
• Journal of Rural Studies U.K.
• Repositories of essentially American values
• The doughnut effect on metropolitan areas

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Lakes
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Fishing
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Amish life
Barn Raising
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ATVs or Skiing
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There are 50 Paul Bunyan statues in the U.S.
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Social gatherings and tight-knit relationships
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Hunting
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Mississippi Headwaters
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Farming and agriculture
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Beliefs about Rural Life

• Rural life represents traditional American
  values, but is behind the times.
• Rural life is more relaxed and slower than city
  life, but harder and more grueling.
• Rural life is friendly, but intolerant of
  outsiders and difference.
• Rural life is richer in community life, but
  epitomized by individuals struggling
  independently to make ends meet.

W.K. Kellogg
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How do statewide, metropolitan media portray
rural?
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Methodology

• Print media focus
• St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minneapolis Star
  Tribune
• 2003 Sample
• Keywords Rural Small Town Outstate
  greater Minnesota
• Exclusions Obituaries, articles about or
  taking place in another state or country,
  articles about national politics or national
  legislation not relevant to or applied
  specifically to Minnesota, general entertainment
  news (book, movie, music, play reviews, etc.)
• Articles examined for Geographical place,
  description of setting, story topic

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Topical Codings
Agriculture Crime Economic Education Environment/
Natural Resources Government Health Land
Use Lifestyle Politics Public Interest Public
Safety
Endnote There may be stories that did not use
our keywords.
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Stories by Topic
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Clichés and Stereotypes

• The presence of clichéssignals lazy writing,
  just as the presence of stereotypes signals lazy
  reporting. (Frank, 212)

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What are Rural people and places like?

• As the morning sun works its way into the
  summer sky, a farmstead just outside of
  Northfield echoes with the sounds of the county
  cows mooing, a tractor rattling around in a
  nearby field, and bees buzzing through the
  purple-tinged prairie.
• In towns with populations of less than 2,000,
  the people you have business meetings with in the
  morning will be in the booth next to you at the
  coffee shop for lunch. So be nice!
• Said a State Representative, We have
  entertainment centers out in rural Minnesota and
  theyre called bars.
• The desire to live in a private, quite life just
  had to happen, said a 48-year-old woman, who
  traded her city lifestyle community, prestige and
  career that revolved around issues and ideas to
  live in the boonies and work with her hands She
  rises early with the chickens she tends in a shed
  out back. She reads, bakes bread and watches the
  finches and grosbeaks flit about her 10-acre plot
  in rural Harris Later, shell head downstairs
  to her tidy workshop, where she takes old clocks
  apart and makes them run like new.

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Topical Analysis
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• Economy
• Minnesota's growing season started strong, but
  the hot, dry weather in July and August cut
  sharply into expected yields in soybeans and
  corn, two of the state's big money crops, and
  potentially could hurt the state's rural economy.
• Economic worry gnaws like the frigid wind in
  the western third of Minnesota this January. The
  regions traditionally dominant industry,
  agriculture, remains depressed, many of its
  practitioners dependent on government subsidies
  to keep farming. Manufacturing is in such
  decline that nearly all the job gains of the
  1990s have been lost in the past two yearsThe
  regions political clout has dwindled. Its
  children have drifted away.

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• Economy
• Ethanol is an economic development success
  story, and I don't understand why they would want
  to damage an industry which has been one of the
  bright spots in the rural economic picture.
• Job-starved rural cities and development
  authorities had applied for designation of 38,000
  acres under the program Pawlenty's JOBZ
  program was a key element of his 2002 campaign,
  especially when he courted rural voters. And he
  wasn't too timid about touting its potential in
  reviving a rural economy that by most accounts is
  continuing a decades-long decline and falling
  further behind the Twin Cities.

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Government Previously, North Oaks City
Administrator had said the city ordinance dated
back to the late 1980s. Council members felt neon
was not in keeping with the rural character of
their city, though the area has since become more
commercial. Health She transformed the
facility from an old-style, traditional rural
hospital to a dynamic, modern, high-tech regional
medical center, it is also profitable, which is
somewhat unusual for our rural health care
delivery systems and hospitals.
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Public Safety The debate featured the same split
that has long followed this issue Many urban
lawmakers were vehemently opposed to encouraging
more guns in public places, while rural lawmakers
wondered what all the fuss was about. Crime In
the days since residents who didnt lock their
doors have locked them. Those who have already
secured doors and windows have double- and
triple-checked them. Our community feels
violated. How can something like this happen to
a quaint little community like Long Prairie? We
are not the little community anymore. it
affects everyone. It just really shakes them
up. In one sense the real world is coming to
Todd County and the real world is coming to the
rest of rural Minnesota.
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Conclusions

• There is not a conscious pattern of stereotypical
  rural portrayals.
• A clear definition of rural was not evident
  there is an absence of clarity outside of
  context.
• Rural areas are portrayed as in need of help
• In light of the negative portrayals, there is
  evidence of consistently positive idyllic imagery.

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