Protest Coverage Research Articles

Protest Paradigm Revisited: Is Depicting Protestors’ (Counter)Violence Really Bad?

This paper looks closely at the civil unrest in Iran sparked in 2022 by the murder of Mahsa Amini which visual documentation is flooded with imagery of violence and counter-violence. Through closely reading two videos of these protests and relying upon the theoretical framework of violence in the works of political philosophers, this study intends to examine and contextualize state and non-state violence and counter-violence. This paper primarily contributes to the literature on the protest paradigm and challenges the pre-established implications embedded in the framing of protests. This work aims to challenge the negative values associated with portraying protestors’ violence in the news and offer a new perspective on such portrayals and strategies for keeping protest coverage both appealing and sympathetic to non-locals. This study illustrates and supports the existing literature about how image affordances of citizen camera-witnesses present the opportunity to make the unseen visible and to highlight the counter-narratives censored and manipulated by the state.

Shifting the protest paradigm? Legitimizing and humanizing protest coverage lead to more positive attitudes toward protest, mixed results on news credibility

A US experiment ( n = 1506) demonstrated how a new approach to writing protest stories challenges press patterns in the United States of underrepresented groups. News stories that explain the goals and background of a protest—a concept called legitimizing—and that humanize—rather than criminalize—a person whose death sparked a protest led news audiences to better understand the protest and those involved in the social movement. We also found that those with conservative political beliefs perceived these stories as less credible than those written following journalistic norms typical in the United States that tend to cast protesters and their causes in a negative light, although the opposite was true for those with liberal views. Results are discussed in relation to the protest paradigm.

Professionalism and the Coverage of Protest: How an Ethos of Professionalism in Journalism Guided the Ways in Which Journalists Reported on an Anti-Trump Demonstration

ABSTRACT Although there has been a great deal of research on professionalism within the context of journalism, much of this research is highly generalised in nature rather than focused on the reporting of specific events. Through a series of interviews with print and television journalists, this paper investigates the extent to which many of the tenets that are said to characterise professionalism in journalism resonated with and may have even guided journalists when reporting on the protests against Donald Trump when the then American President visited London in 2018. The paper explores how certain aspects of professionalism relate to the practice of journalism, especially when reporting on protests. Particular focus is given to investigating how journalists guaranteed their “detachment” from the protests, as well as what it means for the journalists to have practiced “balanced” reporting in this case. Although the journalists claimed to be “balanced”, protesters and protest organisers were still not treated as fully legitimate actors as was evident from how protest organisers were typically denied any opportunity to articulate their grievances in depth.

“Shiny Happy People Laughing”: The Protest Paradigm, WUNC, and the Visual Framing of Political Activism

Media coverage of protest, particularly its visual framing, is crucial to the legitimacy and impact of protest movements. Typical patterns in media coverage of protests, which account for discrepancies between how protests are portrayed, are the protest paradigm and WUNC (worthy, united, numbers, commitment). In order to investigate how specific visual items and features of media images showing political protest elicit positive or negative perceptions and annotations by an audience, we study two questions: Which visual features in media images of protest elicit positive or negative perceptions and annotations by an audience? How do these perceptions correspond with the protest paradigm and WUNC, respectively? We answer these questions by conducting a qualitative focus group study with students from a mid-size German university.

Making their Mark? How protest sparks, surfs, and sustains media issue attention

ABSTRACT Media attention is both an important outcome and a resource for protest groups. This paper examines media-movement dynamics using television news coverage of 1,277 protests in Belgium (2003–2019). We situate protest coverage in media issue attention cycles and scrutinize whether features of protest or rather media issue attention fluctuations are key for protest’s agenda-setting effect. Our results show that while most protests fail to alter the attention cycle, a considerable share of protests is followed by a significant increase in media issue attention, especially when surfing issue attention already on the rise. Overall, media issue attention cycles rather than protest features affect protest’s agenda-setting effect, suggesting that protest agenda-setting is more a matter of exploiting discursive opportunities than of forcing one’s issue on the media agenda by signaling newsworthiness. These findings have serious implications for our understanding of protest group agency in news making and agenda-setting.

Protest reporting across clientelist media systems

Most protest paradigm studies examining news media's portrayals of protesters are based on an assumption that the way the paradigm operates within the U.S. media system is similar around the globe. To overcome these weaknesses, this content analysis (n = 1200) of protest-related news coverage in two Balkan and two Central American countries examines how media clientelism-manifested via ownership, concentration, and state advertising-influences media representations of protesters. Results highlight important regional differences in protest coverage, and confirm the role of government and elites in clientelist environments is more complex than hypothesized. We found that while clientelism contributes to the protest paradigm, delegitimizing coverage is not automatic, and varies by frame and media ownership, as political and economic interests differentially influence protest coverage depending not just on the outlets’ ties to the state, but also the social contexts surrounding the protests themselves.

#JusticeforGeorgeFloyd: How Instagram facilitated the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

We present and analyze a database of 1.13 million public Instagram posts during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, which erupted in response to George Floyd's public murder by police on May 25. Our aim is to understand the growing role of visual media, focusing on a) the emergent opinion leaders and b) the subsequent press concerns regarding frames of legitimacy. We perform a comprehensive view of the spatial (where) and temporal (when) dynamics, the visual and textual content (what), and the user communities (who) that drove the social movement on Instagram. Results reveal the emergence of non-institutional opinion leaders such as meme groups, independent journalists, and fashion magazines, which contrasts with the institutionally reinforcing nature of Twitter. Visual analysis of 1.69 million photos show symbols of injustice are the most viral coverage, and moreover, actual protest coverage is framed positively, in contrast with combatant frames traditionally found from legacy media. Together, these factors helped facilitate the online movement through three phases, culminating with online international solidarity in #BlackOutTuesday. Through this case study, we demonstrate the precarious nature of protest journalism, and how content creators, journalists, and everyday users co-evolved with social media to shape one of America's largest-ever human rights movements.

Journalistic knowledge production during a social crisis: How journalists claimed professional authority during the Chilean social uprising

In this paper we problematize protest coverage as an epistemological challenge for journalists, based on the case of the 2019 social uprising in Chile, in which the authority of professional journalists as narrators of events was questioned by audiences. The study aims at identifying the main dimensions of news production that become altered in an extended social crisis, as well as the main repertoires of practice and justifications deployed from the journalistic field to face them. The paper is based on the analysis of episodic narrative interviews ( n = 32), with journalists who participated in the coverage of the uprising in different capacities, in TV, radio, print and digital only media outlets. In our findings, we identify disruptions of epistemic consequence for news production during the coverage of the protests and riots, such as safety issues, and the relationship of journalists with space, time and the evidence recognized as appropriate for journalistic content, an issue that became particularly problematic around episodes of violence. We then identify four epistemic modes (approaches to knowledge-production) activated during the protests: detached narrator, conflict deflector, conflict mediator and involved narrator. These modes reveal differentiated responses to protest coverage inside professional journalism, which are in turn based on complementary claims of legitimacy for journalistic practice.

Another Violent Protest? New Perspectives to Understand Protest Coverage

This study assesses the relationship between two well-established sets of frames to better understand the news coverage of massive political protests. By relying on Semetko and Valkenburg’s generic frames and McLeod and Hertog’s protest frames, this study aims to identify whether certain generic frames emphasized in news stories increase the tendency to delegitimize protest movements. To this end, we analyzed the news coverage of Chile’s Estallido Social, a series of massive political demonstrations that developed across the country from October to December 2019. Data for this study come from stories published by Radio Bío Bío, the most trusted news outlet in the country, according to Reuters Institute. By analyzing a sample of 417 stories, we found the coverage replicated patterns that usually delegitimize protest movements, as many of the stories focused on violent acts and depicted demonstrators as deviant from the status quo. We also found a direct relationship between generic frames and protest frames, in which the presence of the former determines that of the latter. Generic frames provide information about how the news media interpret and package the news, which in turn affects demonstration-related features that the news media pay attention to. As such, we argue that combining both generic and issue-specific frames is a helpful approach to understanding the complexities of protest news coverage.

No Reckoning for the Right: How Political Ideology, Protest Tolerance and News Consumption Affect Support Black Lives Matter Protests

ABSTRACT After the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a flood of protest activity against racial injustice ensued around the world, and a significant uptick in support for Black Lives Matter followed. This study investigated the narratives produced in news coverage of Black Lives Matter protests and how media consumption and individual predispositions help us understand public support for the movement. Combining a content analysis of news about protests and a survey of people’s attitudes, we assessed if patterns in mainstream and partisan coverage have changed, and how those patterns relate to people’s level of support for the movement, assessment of its effectiveness, and of police response during demonstrations. Our findings suggest that persistent negative patterns of protest coverage continued to dominate news headlines, with a major emphasis on negative actions, disruption, and violence in centerist- and right-leaning media coverage from the Associated Press, CNN and Fox News. MSNBC produced the least coverage overall, but their coverage was most legitimizing. Survey results showed that preexisting attitudes remain consistently stronger determinants of support for the movement than media coverage and suggested a possible ideological asymmetry among the general public. Conservative affiliation and news consumption are strong predictors of less support for Black Lives Matter and perceptions of police response to these protests as too lenient. Mainstream news consumption, though producing predominantly delegitimizing coverage, is correlated with more support for Black Lives Matter.

From “Angry Mobs” to “Citizens in Anguish”: The Malleability of the Protest Paradigm in the International News Coverage of the 2021 US Capitol Attack

This study tests the robustness of the “protest paradigm”—a routinized, predominantly negative pattern in covering social protest—by examining the news coverage of the 2021 US Capitol attack in eight countries that vary in the nature of their political regime and geopolitical standing, with democratic US allies United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Australia on one side, and authoritarian adversaries Russia, China, and Iran on the other. Based on a computer-assisted analysis of 3,579 news articles, the study shows that rather than operating as a rigid template, the protest paradigm offers national media a malleable set of journalistic devices that can be appropriated to construct the meaning of disruptive global events in a way that reproduces dominant domestic ideologies and advances the ruling elites’ geopolitical interests. In addition to theoretical contribution, the study offers a novel empirical finding to the literature on protest coverage by providing evidence of national media not simply deviating from, but explicitly violating the protest paradigm. As demonstrated by the analysis of the Russian press, rather than delegitimizing the January 6 attackers by making light of their agenda and emphasizing their unruly behavior—which could be expected from coverage consistent with the protest paradigm—the Russian state-owned media trivialized the brutality of the attack by opting for cues with less violent connotations and elevated the legitimacy of the protesters’ actions by framing them as valid demands by politically minded citizens unjustly prosecuted for concerns about the integrity of electoral process.

“It’s Just Not the Whole Story”: Black Perspectives of Protest Portrayals

News organizations have a long history of covering civil rights protests in delegitimizing ways, and scholars have found that this coverage negatively affects public opinion. However, most media effects work has minimized the perspectives of Black people, and little is known about how racial identity might affect how protest coverage is perceived. We both survey (n = 1,052) and interview (n = 27) Black Americans to provide a rich understanding and interpretation of how they see and experience media coverage and how that influences them. We contribute to the literature by showing that Black Americans are dissatisfied with how news media cover their communities and covers protests, and they feel this coverage reifies harmful stereotypes and perpetuates invisibility politics.

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

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.

Protesting White supremacy: race and the status quo in news coverage of anti-segregation rallies in Forsyth County, Georgia

ABSTRACT A pair of anti-segregation marches held in Georgia in 1987 provides an opportunity for historical analysis of the role of race in mainstream news coverage of social protest. These protests were somewhat unique in that both anti-segregation marchers and counter-protesters – including KKK members – were on hand for both marches. Analysis of newspaper articles shows that coverage tended to give more space to White counter-protesters than Black protesters, did little to discuss the reasons behind the marches, and cast the primarily Black anti-segregation marchers as outsiders. This reinforces central themes of the protest paradigm – whereby groups that threaten the status quo are treated more critically. Perhaps most importantly, the findings also reinforce patterns of research demonstrating a disparity in news treatment between Black protesters and White counter-protesters.

Reverse-engineering political protest: the Russian Internet Research Agency in the Heart of Texas

ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election, the public slowly began to grapple with the extent of Russian disinformation campaigns by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), elements of which were carried out on Facebook. Campaigns targeted people in the United States in many ways, including by publishing event pages on Facebook that were at times piggybacking on existing events, stoking fear, anger and other emotions already on the rise in an increasingly tribal political climate. In the summer before the election, two particular Facebook pages – ‘Heart of Texas’ and the ‘United Muslims of America,’ published events advertising protests in front of the Islamic Da’wah Center, a mosque and religious center in downtown Houston. Our study reverse-engineers the IRA-inspired ‘Heart of Texas’ protests on 21 May 2016, using qualitative in-depth interviews with 14 individuals connected to these events – including counterprotest participants and local organizers, journalists who covered the protest, as well as representatives of local organizations. Results shed light on the role that news media played in protest coverage, the dynamics at the protest, issues around vetting information and the serendipity around how protests emerge and get organized on and off social media. This research documents and critically assesses the on-the-ground transactions such propaganda foments and offers insights into the role of social media in local protests.

Protest Coverage Matters: How Media Framing and Visual Communication Affects Support for Black Civil Rights Protests

ABSTRACT This study tests the impact of protest news frames on audience support for a civil rights movement. Using a 3 × 2 experimental design, we explored how frames and visuals affect audiences’ criticism of police and protesters, support for, and identification with the movement. Findings showed that articles with a legitimizing debate frame increased support for protesters, identification with protesters, and police criticism compared to articles with riot and confrontation frames. Riot and confrontation frames increase criticism toward protesters, decreased support for and identification with the movement, and decrease police criticism. We also considered predispositions toward Black people, the police, and social movements in general as essential to understanding support. Results revealed prior levels of support for the movement influenced criticism of police action and support for and identification with protestors more than media frames. As such, we argue that preexisting attitudes about actors in a news story are essential variables to consider in protest coverage effects research.

Mainstream Protest Reporting in the Contemporary Media Environment: Exploring (In)Stability and Adherence to Protest Paradigm From 1998 to 2017

This study uses content analysis of protest coverage and sourcing practices by five major U.S. daily newspapers over the past two decades (1998–2017) to examine the prevalence and evolution of a set of devices of representation present in news coverage of protest groups. They have been traditionally ascribed to a pattern of mainstream coverage deemed marginalizing of protest groups, the “protest paradigm.” The study concludes that the prevalence of marginalizing devices is stable over time, and that the degree of adherence to the paradigm in news stories systematically varies across protest type and geography. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Perceptions versus performance: How routines, norms and values influence journalists’ protest coverage decisions

Protest paradigm researchers theorize that protests are delegitimized in news coverage because of journalistic culture and practices. This study explores the degree to which norms, routines, values and perceptions explain coverage patterns of protest. This mixed-methods study utilizes self-reflections from a survey of US journalists in four regions, alongside a content analysis of their coverage. Our study highlights how objective-observer role conceptions, routines driven by newsworthiness, and a perception-performance gap help explain protest coverage patterns. Importantly, journalists believed they did a better job covering protests than the content analysis showed, raising questions about what protest coverage should look like.

A cultural aperture: An inter-provincial analysis of FNMI representation in Canadian news dailies

This study acts as a multi-disciplinary contribution to existing research in discourses of news production practices, and representation of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) issues and protest. Specifically, quantitative and qualitative research methods were employed to explore FNMI representation across three mainstream Canadian dailies leading to and following the Idle No More (INM) movement from October 1, 2012 until February 28, 2013. In doing so, the study acts as a longitudinal confirmation of previous studies, revealing minimal FNMI salience during “everyday” news cycles, a narrow range of key topics, and a drastic increase in coverage during times of protest. Keywords: protest coverage, FNMI media representation, media bias, agenda-setting, uses and gratifications theory, Idle No More, news framing

Politicizing What’s News: How Partisan Media Bias Occurs in News Production

ABSTRACT Notions of partisan media bias and ideological influences on the news have become much more prevalent since Gans wrote Deciding What’s News. We propose a framework to explain what partisan media bias is and how it operates. We argue that partisan bias occurs in two ways. First, editorial decisions influence the share of positive, neutral and negative content types, i.e., description bias. Second, partisan bias happens through production tools that emphasize or deemphasize the content of articles keeping it aligned with an outlet’s news ideology. We conducted our study on the historic 2011 Occupy protest movement in Israel using 1837 news items from the six largest newspapers. We found that reporting was slanted to align with outlets’ news ideology and that several production mechanisms were involved. Specifically, we found that front-page headlines, the sizing of articles, accompanying visuals, and protestors’ perspectives were consistently and strategically employed. Our study concludes by considering its implications for researching partisan media bias and protest coverage.