Producing anti-regime protest news in a polarized and clientelistic media system: A frame building approach

Abstract

This study examines media coverage of the 2019 anti-government protests in Montenegro. Based on 13 in-depth interviews and a quantitative content analysis, the data shed light on ways in which democratization struggles are manifested via protest framing in a polarized media system. This paper argues that media clientelism, as manifested through political parallelism and media instrumentalization, provides a better theoretical and analytical framework to understand not only the influence of structural factors that determine protest coverage, but also the role of ideology and journalism cultures embraced at the individual level. This framework is helpful to understand the role of media in democratic struggle not only in emerging and defective democracies, but also in increasingly polarizing societies in the West.