ARTICLE: #Black Lives Matter? Analyzing the Effects of Police-Caused Black Deaths on Media Coverage and Public Interest in the Movement

Francesca Bordonaro (Washington State University),Dale Willits (Washington State University)

doi:10.21428/b6e95092.a155a6b5

Francesca Bordonaro (Washington State University), Dale Willits (Washington State University)

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.21428/b6e95092.a155a6b5

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Abstract

Black Lives Matter is a social movement, created and maintained on social media networks; its formation was spurred in part by the number of Black men and women who have been killed by police officers in the United States. This research focuses on the relationship between police-caused deaths of Black men and women and media coverage of and public interest in Black Lives Matter. The primary goal of the research was to determine whether traditional news coverage of Black Lives Matter was linked to the killings of Black citizens by police. We found that Black citizen deaths did not result in increased mentions of Black Lives Matter in either newspaper articles or Google searches. We did, however, find that when police officers were killed at a protest, mentions of Black Lives Matter in both the news and Google queries increased at a substantial rate, as did searches for “Blue Lives Matter.” The implications for police use of force, Black Lives Matter, and traditional news media are discussed.

Highlights

In February 2012, George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old Black male, in Sanford, Florida (Freelon, McIlwain, & Clark, 2016)
Black Lives Matter did not pick up any significant traction in news coverage in any part of the country until late 2014, despite the fact that the term “Black Lives Matter” was coined in July of 2013
The most likely explanation is the increased news coverage following the Ferguson protests and riots following the acquittal of a police officer charged with killing Michael Brown

Summary

Introduction

In February 2012, George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old Black male, in Sanford, Florida (Freelon, McIlwain, & Clark, 2016). The hashtag spread across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram when Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, whose body was left on the street for hours; this incident resulted in significant unrest (Buchanan et al, 2015). In essence, this hashtag spurred the formation of a social movement focusing largely on police officers’ treatment of people of color (BlackLivesMatter, 2017). Despite the fact that the Black Lives Matter movement has been associated with a number of policy successes, it is unclear that it has ever gained much traction from mainstream media sources, and it remains an online movement. Research demonstrates that Black Lives Matter has largely been maintained online through Twitter and other social media platforms (Ince, Rojas, & Davis, 2017)

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