The Effect ofNew York TimesEvent Coding Techniques on Social Movement Analyses of Protest Data

Abstract

Abstract We know a great deal about the ways in which routines of news coverage may bias newspaper content, but little about how different article retrieval practices influence newspaper data assembled by scholars. Using the New York Times as a source of data on social movement activity, we compare depictions of protest by the African-American Civil Rights movement over time produced using the two most common article retrieval methods: index versus full-story coding. Full-story coding clearly offers more depth and greater breadth in terms of the events identified. Moreover, many of the same event characteristics associated with selection bias in newspaper reporting (e.g., size and confrontational nature of a protest event, presence of counter-demonstrators or police, and event sponsorship by a recognized social movement organization) are selected upon again when stories are indexed by New York Times staff.