Media Framing of the Steroids Scandal in Major League Baseball: Negative Framing, the Fallen Hero, and Emerging Frames in Coverage

Long considered to be the 800-pound gorilla in the room that league officials, players, and owners ignored, the steroids issue in Major League baseball began to emerge in the late-1990s. It came to a head in 2004 with federal investigations of the Bay Area Lab Cooperative (BALCO) and several prominent Major League Baseball players, including Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, and Barry Bonds. Fans read along in the news as heroes came under question, the validity of records were challenged, and the people they once admired were potentially compromising a game they love. Investigations led to greater scrutiny and culminated in Congressional hearings and an eventual set of league reforms relating to drug testing and penalties for violations. This analysis is a content analysis of the print and Internet coverage of several regionally relevant newspapers and national news Web sites. It examines coverage in terms of frame presence, frame valence, issue specific frames, episodic frames, and incorporates emerging frames in the analysis.