No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
From #Ferguson to #Ayotzinapa: Analyzing Differences in Domestic and Foreign Protest News Shared on Social Media
... On the other hand, when the coverage legitimizes the protest-as is the case in the debate frame-there is greater identification with protesters and more support for their demands . Several authors (e.g., Harlow et al., 2020;Kilgo et al., 2018;) have adopted the protest frame typology with some modifications. Instead of analyzing the five frames proposed by Hertog and McLeod, recent studies only use four of the five framing typesconfrontation, riot, spectacle, and debate. ...
... Instead of analyzing the five frames proposed by Hertog and McLeod, recent studies only use four of the five framing typesconfrontation, riot, spectacle, and debate. As Kilgo et al. (2018) explain, the most common frames presented in the news are the ones that marginalize the protest (confrontation, riot, and spectacle), while the ones that aim to legitimize are not so frequent in the mainstream media (debate and protest). However, they mention that the debate frame gives a more substantial voice and space for protesters to express their grievances and demands. ...
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.
... '(1) News frames that either emphasize the criminal behavior of protesters or trivialize the protesters' work; (2) A reliance on official sources and official definitions, instead of those of the protesters; (3) A reliance on bystanders' (rather than protesters') voices; (4) Delegitimization of the protest, where the protest's goals are emphasized far less than specific protest events; and (5) Demonization of protesters through an emphasis on protester-police conflict or on protesters' disruptive/criminal behavior' (Leopold & Bell, 2017and McLeod, 2007, cited in Umamaheswar, 2020 Hertog & McLeod (1995) also contribute five frames which are applied by this paradigm; circus/carnival, riot, confrontation, protest and debate (Kilgo et al., 2018;Cammaerts, 2018;McLeod & Hertog, 1999). Given the complex relationship between social movements and the mainstream media (Rucht, 2004), it is not entirely surprising that their challenging of the status quo, the dominant common-sense narrative, framed unfavourably by dominant state institutions and those in positions of power willing to defend this narrative and restore consent by any means necessary. ...
In recent years, the rise of right-wing populism and post-truth politics has created a dangerous cocktail, enabling ‘immigration’ and ‘anti-racism’ to be framed within dominant political and media coverage in such a way that it stigmatises and marginalises foreign nationals migrating to the United Kingdom, replicating social injustice. Several activist groups within the broader anti-racist movement are engaging in contemporary forms of video activism alongside protest action to resist and challenge these frames and framing processes.
This thesis makes the necessary four-way theoretical and methodological links between hegemony, qualitative frame analysis, video activism and knowledge production to explore the ways in which dominant framings of immigration are resisted by the broader anti-racist movement. Using a broad framework combining film theory/studies and cinematography, the analysis of the visual strategies employed by eight activist groups within this movement within video activist footage disseminated on YouTube and Facebook provides unique insights into the groups themselves, and the various stylistic, shot, angling, sound and editing strategies employed that open up opportunities for framing. A further qualitative, and discursive, frame analysis explores the various frames that are used by the groups through video activism itself; persecution, hardship, heroism, empowerment, incompetence and anti-racism; producing different new knowledges surrounding organisational knowledges of the movement (including collective identity), social injustice in general, dominant hegemonic narratives, and, most importantly, the struggles of migrants and refugees.
In doing so, it makes significant contribution to knowledge by proposing three unique typologies to demonstrate how the contemporary hegemonic post-truth narratives surrounding immigration can be, and are being, resisted in order to reinforce social justice.
... Social media, and Twitter especially, has become a home for sharing news of protests (Bailo & Vromen, 2017;Luna, et al., 2019). It is possible that this form of news sharing is fueled by the accessibility and authenticity that Twitter offers, as social media platforms are not controlled by mainstream media companies and thus can focus on sharing accurate details about social protests (Brown, et al., 2018;Luna, et al., 2019). Moreover, Twitter and other social media platforms offer a wider reach to attract audiences and can promote these news stories without temporal or geographic limitations (Bailo & Vromen, 2017). ...
... This media frame generally highlights the spectacular, theatrical, or performative aspects of protests. It also emphasizes "atypical," symbolic behaviors of protesters, such as dancing and flag burning, in ways that ridicule them (Kilgo et al., 2018). Artistic expressions are thus described as amateurish or eccentric. ...
In this chapter, we shed some light on disruptive communication across cultures. We explain differences between so called WEIRD and non-WEIRD populations, especially in regard to behavioral predictors. Subsequently we point toward important considerations, limitations, and conceptualizations such as the Culture-Person-Situation model which provides a useful framework when attempting disruptive communication in intercultural settings. The focus in this chapter lies on the distinction between disruptive and destructive communication. Disruptive communication is meant to be a first shocking but then positive lever for change, while destructive communication can lead to harmful effects within parts of the to the target audience. The potential negative consequences of destructive communication imply the need to tailor or, ideally, co-develop, communication approaches to different audiences, especially when working with marginalized groups, such as communities in the Global South. The chapter also introduces practical examples for disruptive communication across cultures, for example, through future scenarios. In addition, four selected case studies illustrate concepts described in the chapter, giving us some insights into firsthand experiences of disruptive communication around the world. The chapter concludes with suggesting an extension of the original definition of disruptive communication with the concepts of intentionality and applicability.
... This media frame generally highlights the spectacular, theatrical, or performative aspects of protests. It also emphasizes "atypical," symbolic behaviors of protesters, such as dancing and flag burning, in ways that ridicule them (Kilgo et al., 2018). Artistic expressions are thus described as amateurish or eccentric. ...
This chapter conducts an analysis of psychological mechanisms explaining why individuals and societies often are resistant to change and how these mechanisms might respond when confronted with disruptive communication. We will explore concepts like habits and routines, stabilizing social norms and values, lock-in situations, mechanisms behind status quo biases, and social identity. Then, we apply the concept of disruptive communication developed in Chap. 1 through each concept where potential levers for breaking up locked-in lifestyles can be found. We conclude with a discussion, under which circumstances disruptive communication might have negative effects on sustainable change making and refer these back to some of the identified mechanisms and concepts.
... Comparing the news coverage and sharing of posts related to domestic and foreign protests on Twitter and Facebook, Kilgo et al. (2018) find that posts concerning domestic protests are shared more often than those regarding foreign protests on Facebook, while no significant difference is found on Twitter. Particularly, Facebook users tend to share more legitimizing information about protests that are farther away than domestic protests. ...
This study uses TikTok (N = 8,173) to examine how short-form video platforms challenge the protest paradigm in the recent Black Lives Matter movement. A computer-mediated visual analysis, computer vision, is employed to identify the presence of four visual frames of protest (riot, confrontation, spectacle, and debate) in multimedia content. Results of descriptive statistics and the t-test indicate that the three delegitimizing frames - riot, confrontation, and spectacle - are rarely found on TikTok, whereas the debate frame, that empowers marginalized communities, dominates the public sphere. However, although the three delegitimizing frames receive lower social media visibility, as measured by views, likes, shares, followers, and durations, legitimizing elements, such as the debate frame, minority identities, and unofficial sources, are not generally favored by TikTok audiences. This study concludes that while short-form video platforms could potentially challenge the protest paradigm on the content creators' side, the audiences' preference as measured by social media visibility might still be moderately associated with the protest paradigm.
... Comparing the news coverage and sharing of posts related to domestic and foreign protests on Twitter and Facebook, Kilgo et al. (2018) find that posts concerning domestic protests are shared more often than those regarding foreign protests on Facebook, while no significant difference is found on Twitter. Particularly, Facebook users tend to share more legitimizing information about protests that are farther away than domestic protests. ...
This study uses data from TikTok (N = 8,173) to examine how short-form video platforms challenge the protest paradigm established by the mainstream media in the Black Lives Matter movement, which was triggered by George Floyd's death on 25 May 2020. A computer-mediated visual analysis, computer vision, is employed to identify the presence of four visual frames of protest (riot, confrontation, spectacle, and debate) in multimedia content. Results of descriptive statistics and the t-test indicate that the three delegitimizing frames-riot, confrontation, and spectacle-are rarely found on TikTok, whereas the debate frame, that empowers marginalized communities, dominates the public sphere. However, although the three delegitimizing frames receive lower social media visibility, as measured by views, likes, shares, followers, and durations, legitimizing elements, such as the debate frame, minority identities, and unofficial sources, are not generally favored by TikTok audiences. This study concludes that while short-form video platforms could potentially challenge the protest paradigm on the content creators' side, the audiences' preference as measured by social media visibility might still be moderately associated with the protest paradigm.
This article comparatively analyzes discourses that U.S. newspaper, The New York Times, and Chinese news outlet, The Global Times, constructed about the Hong Kong and Black Lives Matter protests. It finds that as Sino-U.S. relations have deteriorated to the lowest point in this century (Usher ), the selected U.S. news coverage of the domestic and international protests appeared to correspond to the tense relations. Nonetheless, the chosen Chinese news media’s negative portrayal of the overseas protesters suggests that in addition to international relations, a country’s racial background and national ideologies might also contribute to how news discourses about domestic and international protests are constructed.
Our study examined the relationship between media portrayals of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in hard and fake news in varying media modalities (print versus video) and participant attitudes toward African Americans. We also examined sociodemographic factors that may be related to susceptibility of fake news. Participants were primed with either hard or fake news (print or video) prior to completing the online questionnaire. Participants included 385 college students from a large southeastern public university. The findings revealed a direct effect of fake news on attitudes toward African Americans but only if the news was from a printed media modality. Hard news also had a positive impact on participant attitudes if from a printed media modality. These findings may help explain why information learned via fake news is persistent over time. Biological sex and political affiliation were associated with the impact of media priming on participants, with male and Republican participants being more susceptible to the effects of fake news. The results of this study should be helpful to those involved in policy making regarding social media and fake news and are timely considering that the BLM movement is growing stronger and the increase in fake news is ongoing.
Research Summary
This study investigates the role of the news media in shaping attitudes toward the protests of 2020. Using data from a nationally representative election survey, it examines the association between news consumption and support for law-and-order policies to address protest violence, with perceptions that the protesters were violent as a potential mediator. Findings indicate that viewers of online news are less likely to support law-and-order policies. This relationship is mediated by perceived protester violence, with perceived violence enhancing support for law-and-order policies. Further examination shows that political bias plays a role: viewers of left-leaning sites are less likely to support law-and-order policies to address protest violence, while viewers of right-leaning sites are more likely. These relationships are also mediated by perceived violence.
Policy Implications
A slight majority of respondents indicate that they lean toward solving problems of racism and police violence, indicating that much of the American public is open to criminal justice reform. Perceived violence helps to shape the association of online news media with support for law-and-order policies. Activists should avoid violence in their protests and use Internet-based media sources to publicize their peaceful activities and demands. Law enforcement agencies should use the Internet and social media to keep the public informed of the reality of protests, especially of any violence that occurs, in an effort to justify forceful tactics.
The protest paradigm, which describes the unequitable reciprocity of the media-social movement relationship, creates a double-bind for social movements. Mainstream news media in the United States emphasize emotion, drama, and irrationality while excluding the grievances, agendas, and substance behind a protest, contributing to negative narratives that can hinder public support for a movement. This analysis of Facebook news posts of protests by mainstream U.S. news organizations contributes to our understanding of how social media’s engagement affordances work in cohort with journalists’ use of emotional appeals to legitimize some protests and delegitimize others. Results show posts encourage the mobilization of some protests more than others, and media frames and emotional linguistic devices might contribute to a spectrum of delegitimizing framing effects. Legitimizing features significantly decrease emotional reactions from audiences, leading to more neutral but potentially less engaging audience reception and response. Findings advance our understanding protest paradigm framing outcomes.
Facebook is an integral part of the American news environment. Substantial numbers of users now seek or encounter news on the platform and news organizations depend on the site to build audiences and drive traffic to their websites. At the same time, Facebook has also become a space for people to engage alternative sources of news and political information, including highly partisan and ideological sources. Yet we know relatively little about the types of news sources Americans engage with most frequently on the platform. In this study, we evaluate the scope of news and information sources on Facebook, including engagement with these sources. We analyse nearly 12 million Facebook posts from 416 news organizations between 2012 and 2017. We find that the sources that receive the most user engagement are often the most ideologically extreme. We also find that alternative outlets that are politically conservative frequently get more engagement, which may provide them an outsized presence on users’ newsfeeds.
The shooting death of Michael Brown by a police officer in August 2014 served as a pivotal case that pushed excessive use of police force against minority groups to the national spotlight. Guided by the scholarship on protest coverage, this article investigates the interplay between advocacy and journalistic framing in the coverage of the Ferguson protests by national and local news. A content analysis of five newspapers during the first cycle of protests identified how journalistic frames of presentation derived from the ‘protest paradigm’ literature related to the content frames pushed forward by the Black Lives Matter movement. Results reveal that initial stories were predominantly episodic and focused on violence to the detriment of demands and grievances. However, episodic stories were also critical of the police response and the use of military-grade weapons to contain the demonstrations. As the weeks progressed, journalists gave space to the ideas of protestors in a more thematic way, especially on issues related to race beyond the topic of police brutality. Taken together, findings suggest small but significant progress as time continued during the first month of demonstrations after Brown’s shooting. Results presented here challenge the paradigmatic nature of protest coverage but reinforce that more space should be given to contextual narratives behind social movements’ actions in addition to coverage that is critical of police and protestor tactics.
News sharing across different social media platforms is increasingly impacting on our news habits. However, we know very little about what makes news popular in these settings. The current paper details what types of news stories are are shared the most on two social media platforms – Facebook and Twitter. By conducting a qualitative content analysis and comparing data from four Norwegian media outlets we find that editorial comment pieces about 'softer' news topics are more frequently shared than 'harder' news topics from all media outlets-except for TV2. For this latter broadcaster, the results suggest that sensational news and news regarding celebrities allows for viral effects to take place.
The well-known phrase 'if it bleeds, it leads' describes the sensational approach that has penetrated the history of news. Sensationalism is a term without complete consensus among scholars, and its meaning and implications have not been considered in a digital environment. This study analyzes 400 articles from online-native news organizations across the Americas, evaluating the sensational treatment of news categories and news values, and their associated social media interaction numbers on Facebook and Twitter. Findings suggest that 'hard' news topics like government affairs and science/ technology were treated sensationally just as often as traditionally sensationalized categories like crime or lifestyle and society. In addition, audiences are not necessarily
Facebook’s News Feed is an emerging, influential force in our personal information flows, espe- cially where news information is concerned. However, as the News Feed’s story selection mech- anism starts to supplant traditional editorial story selection, we have no window into its story curation process that is parallel to our extensive knowledge of the news values that drive tra- ditional editorial curation. The sensitive, trade-secret nature of the News Feed and its constant updates and modifications make a traditional, computer science-based examination of this algorithmic giant difficult, if not impossible. This study takes an alternative approach, using a content analysis of Facebook’s own patents, press releases, and Securities and Exchange Com- mission filings to identify a core set of algorithmic values that drive story selection on the Facebook News Feed. Informed by the principles of material culture analysis, it ranks these val- ues to create a window into Facebook’s curation process, and compares and contrasts Face- book’s story selection values with traditional news values, examining the possible consequences of one set of values supplanting the other. The study finds a set of nine News Feed values that drive story selection: friend relationships, explicitly expressed user interests, prior user engagement, implicitly expressed user preferences, post age, platform priorities, page relationships, negatively expressed preferences, and content quality. It also finds evidence that friend relationships act as an overall influence on all other story selection values.
From the listicle to the personalized headline, sensational form has become prevalent in online content. Interacting with online news articles through liking, sharing and commenting is one of the most popular social media forms of audience interactions with news organizations in modern times. Using a content analysis of viral Facebook news articles, this study examines the degree to which sensational forms appear in headline writing, including forward referencing, personalization, “soft” news structures and listicles. Findings suggest that while both types of organizations use these strategies, digitally native organizations are more likely to employ sensationalistic tactics in headlines while traditional organizations are more likely to appear in viral news for breaking stories. The discussion suggests that audience preference and expectation from specific news organizations may indicate content success.
This article represents a qualitative analysis of the Twitter feed from one news organization during the first phase of protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014. The tweets, images, and videos from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch journalists constitute a real-time record as the protests unfolded. By applying a strand of framing theory known as the protest paradigm, the analysis discovered that journalists’ tweeting marganalized protesters and framed police officers as dispassionate protectors of social order. Journalists’ tweeting of protesters took on a more sympthatic tone when they both were subjected to police tear gas.These findings have implications for the coverage of race, violence, and protests in the United States as well as the way Twitter binds and represents an interpretive community.
This study assesses the scope and applicability of the “protest paradigm” in non-Western contexts by examining the news coverage of Brazilian, Chinese, and Indian protests in their domestic media. Two publications from each nation, one conservative and one progressive, are content analyzed for adherence to a series of marginalization devices that have often been used by the U.S. media to ridicule protest movements and portray them as violent. The Indian media emerge as the least likely to follow the protest paradigm, while Brazilian and Chinese media conform to it in moderate levels. Comparative analysis suggests the historical legitimacy of informal power negotiations in a political culture makes news media more willing to take protesters seriously and limits adherence to the protest paradigm. In contrast, a news organization’s ideological affiliation with the government of the day, rather than any ideology per se, makes it relatively more likely to conform to the protest paradigm. Marginalization devices such as circus, appearance, and eyewitness accounts are rarely used in any of these nations. But disparity of sources, (non)reference to protesters’ causes and violence, and violence blame appear to be abiding features of news coverage of protests everywhere.
The emergence of a national “Tea Party” movement in the United States stimulated much media commentary regarding the movement’s origins, goals, participants, and even temperament. Unlike political movements of the recent past, the Tea Party stands starkly to the right. This study examines nightly cable news coverage of this movement by using key frames associated with the “protest paradigm”—the tendency for media to marginalize movements by drawing attention away from core concerns raised by such movements. We ask whether the protest paradigm can be applied to a right-wing movement and whether such application varies by the ideological leaning of a given source. That is, do cable news channels use frames in ways consistent with their respective ideological hues? We draw on a representative sample of stories regarding the national movement from the most viewed nightly news programs on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, with the Associated Press as a reference point. Results show significant differences across sources in issue and marginalization frame use. Although utilization of marginalization frames is popular among ideological channels, traditional news sources are not immune from using these devices.
Research shows that news coverage of protest groups that challenge the status quo treats them relatively critically. To develop a more precise understanding of such coverage, this study content analyzes an international set of newspapers (N = 220) to explore the relationships between a protest group’s goals and tactics on resulting news coverage. The findings indicate that a group’s tactics—more than its goals—play a substantial role in affecting coverage. Furthermore, the findings also show that the protest issue and location indirectly affect coverage through their relationship to a group’s tactics. Implications for journalists and protesters alike are discussed.
This study examines how conceptions of `public opinion' are embedded within news-coverage of social protests at two levels: the micro-level in terms of informal characterizations of public opinion and the macro-level in terms of general conceptions of public opinion. At the micro-level, public opinion is brought into news stories in a variety of ways, including: statements about public opinion, depictions of compliance with or violation of social norms and laws, and portrayals of bystanders as symbols for public reaction. At the macro-level, coverage may have an underlying conception of public opinion as (1) aggregated individual opinion, (2) attempts of various groups to affect public policy and (3) a mechanism of social control. This case study of mainstream and alternative media coverage of three anarchist protests reveals differences at both the micro-descriptive and macro-conceptual levels.
Although news coverage of protest is a necessary component to a protest movement's survival or growth, the way protest is covered can legitimate or delegitimate a protest movement. This article's perspective argues that television news coverage of protest is shaped by the degree of dissent from elite or institutional parameters. The data presented here look at protest on U.S. and Canadian national news programs. The data support the idea that the tone of news coverage depends on the protest's relationship to institutional interests. For domestic issues, the degree of debate among elites shapes the extent and tone of news coverage. The tone of coverage of protests in other countries tends to correspond with the government's foreign policy toward both the foreign government and protest movements. Canadian news coverage is more likely to give greater credence to protest and to the issues that protesters raise.
/ This study content analyzed international news published on two of the most visited websites in the US, cnn.com and www.nytimes.com. The influences of trade, existence of news agencies, national traits and cultural and geographic proximity on these two news websites were examined. The international news from the online version was analyzed and compared with the print and broadcast versions. The study found that trade volume and existence of news agencies are two leading predictors of international news coverage in both online and traditional media. Yet, the influence of news agencies on the websites seems greater than on the traditional media. Also, press freedom was found irrelevant to international coverage in the US media.
In liberal democratic theory demonstrations and protests have long been seen as a bridge helping to overcome possible disconnects between publics, opinion formation and decision-makers and, in more recent social theory, they are thought to perform a role in vitalizing moribund parliamentary democracies, crystallizing collective identities and circulating new cultural codes. In Britain today, as in many other Western democracies, emonstrations and protests have moved from the margins to the mainstream, becoming increasingly profuse and an accepted political tactic for an expanded range of organizations, single-issue campaigns, new social movements and transnational advocacy networks. They depend on the media, and the news media particularly, to get their message across and mobilize wider support. Much has changed however, since earlier studies documented how the news media reported protests and demonstrations through a dominant law and (dis)order frame, labelling protesters as deviant and de-legitimizing their aims and politics by emphasizing drama, spectacle and violence. This discussion considers some of these major changes and, on this basis, proposes a new research agenda for the exploration of the complexities and contingencies that now inform the news media's reporting of dissent.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine coverage of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in seven US-based newspapers to determine whether the protest paradigm, “a pattern of news coverage that expresses disapproval toward protests and dissent,” and other marginalizing techniques are present, and racialized.
Design/methodology/approach
Relevant articles published during a six-month period of 2014 near the death of Michael Brown were retrieved from the selected outlets, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the St Louis Post-Dispatch. Textual and content analyses were performed.
Findings
The articles heavily followed the paradigm. An additional characteristic, blame attribution, was also identified. Language of crime, lawlessness, violence, blame for nearby acts of violence, and inflammatory quotes from bystanders and official sources were often present. There was little discussion of key issues associated with the formation of BLM.
Research limitations/implications
Mainstream outlets rather than social media or alternative outlets were examined. Future research should study coverage of BLM in other outlets.
Practical implications
Measures to avoid marginalizing protests and racialization of coverage, including increased diversity in the newsroom and monitoring for racialized language are suggested.
Social implications
Racialization of news and coverage of BLM has widespread negative consequences, such as association of Blacks with criminality that may affect their quality of life. The protest paradigm has the ability to squelch participation in social movements, which have the possibility to bring about needed social change.
Originality/value
This interdisciplinary paper highlights the important role of mainstream media and news routines in affecting the BLM movement. It uses diversity research to make recommendations for media practitioners to avoid racialization of news.
In 2014 protests erupted around the world after 43 college students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico, were kidnapped and massacred. This bilingual, cross-national content analysis explores the relationship between multimedia features in stories about the Ayotzinapa protests and how social media users liked, shared, and commented on that coverage. This study furthers our understanding of the protest paradigm in a digital context, and sheds light on differences in mainstream, alternative, and online media outlets' coverage of protesters. Additionally, this study suggests social media users might prefer more legitimizing coverage of protesters than mainstream media typically offer.
The Times has fewer, but longer international stories than it did two decades ago, and the front page contains a higher proportion of international items.
Audiences play a fundamental role in disseminating and evaluating news content, and one of the big questions facing news organizations is what elements make content viral in the digital environment. This comparative study of the United States, Brazil and Argentina explores what values and topics present in news shared online predict audience interaction on social media. Findings shed light on what news values and topics trigger more audience responses on Facebook and Twitter. At the same time, a comparison between popular content produced by traditional media versus online-native media reveals that the former lean more toward government-related news and con-flict/controversy news values than online native media. Brazilian stories prompted more social media interactivity than content from the United States or Argentina. Through content analysis, this study contributes to improving our understanding of audiences' news values preferences on social networks. It also helps us to recognize the role of users' online activities (sharing, commenting and liking) in the social construction of news and meaning inside the networked sphere. Finally, it opens an old media debate about whether providing and sharing too much media content with conflict, controversy and oddity could potentially hinder understanding and agreement in society. Articles were collected via media tracking and the data collection company NewsWhip.
People increasingly visit online news sites not directly, but by following links on social network sites. Drawing on news value theory and integrating theories about online identities and self-representation, we develop a concept of shareworthiness, with which we seek to understand how the number of shares an article receives on such sites can be predicted. Findings suggest that traditional criteria of newsworthiness indeed play a role in predicting the number of shares, and that further development of a theory of shareworthiness based on the foundations of newsworthiness can offer fruitful insights in news dissemination processes.
Despite longstanding traditions of tolerance, inclusion, and democracy in the United States, dissident citizens and social movements have experienced significant and sustained - although often subtle and difficult-to observe - suppression in this country. Using mechanism-based social-movement theory, this book explores a wide range of twentieth century episodes of contention, involving such groups as mid-century communists, the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the modern-day globalization movement.
Amid the current “crisis” in the business and practice of journalism, entrepreneurial journalism has been offered as a solution. While the precise set of practices that constitute entrepreneurial journalism remain unclear, such discourse promotes a notion of the enterprising individual journalist forging a career for herself through practices of self-branding and self-employment and learning to be adaptable, flexible, and self-sufficient. This essay challenges the notion of entrepreneurial journalism, arguing that it emerges at a time of institutional crisis for journalism and uncertainty for journalists, intersecting with neoliberal enterprise culture and the spread of digital technologies to promote an ideology that masks the precarious nature of contemporary media work. The article considers the work of freelance journalists in historical context and argues that the discourse of entrepreneurial journalism closes the space required to envision alternative ways to organize the production of journalism and journalistic labor.
This article examines journalists' narratives of the constellations of factors that shaped the coverage of the 2011-2012 social protest in Israel, and how journalists used the protest to negotiate their roles, practices, and values against the backdrop of their own professional and economic struggles. Based on in-depth interviews with reporters and editors who were involved in the coverage of the protest movement, this article analyzes journalists' interpretations and negotiations of the various influences on their work during the two major waves of the protest. An analysis of patterns of collision and concurrence between individual, organizational, and professional domains of influence in journalists' narratives shows that while the norm of objectivity remains a key site of tension in relation to other factors, considerations of newsworthiness are constructed as complementing and justifying all other types of influence. An examination of diachronic patterns suggests that journalists' individual conditions and positions play a greater role in journalists' narratives in the first stage of the protest, giving way to professional values and organizational economic considerations in later stages. Although these findings further complicate the protest paradigm, they also show a dominant pattern of "paradigm repair" at the level of both journalists' professional ideology and protest coverage.
For ten years, Herbert J. Gans spent considerable time in four major television and magazine newsrooms, observing and talking to the journalists who choose the national news stories that inform America about itself. Writing during the golden age of journalism, Gans included such headline events as the War on Poverty, the Vietnam War and the protests against it, urban ghetto disorders, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and Watergate. He was interested in the values, professional standards, and the external pressures that shaped journalists' judgments. Deciding What's News has become a classic. A new preface outlines the major changes that have taken place in the news media since Gans first wrote the book, but it also suggests that the basics of news judgment and the structures of news organizations have changed little. Gans's book is still the most comprehensive sociological account of some of the country's most prominent national news media. The book received the 1979 Theatre Library Association Award and the 1980 Book Award of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. This is the first work to be published under the Medill School of Journalism's "Visions of the American Press" imprint, a new journalism history series featuring both original volumes and reprints of important classics.
This study examined coverage of protests in five major newspapers in the United States between 1967 and 2007, and found that during that time period, protests were depicted as a nuisance. Such depictions are attributed to the rise of a “public nuisance” paradigm in coverage of protests, theorized to be linked to an increased conservatism in America, and driven by the notion that protests are a bothersome interruption of everyday activities, as well as ineffective and unpatriotic. Discussion of protests as nuisances increased substantially across time, and ideologically liberal protests were treated as nuisances more often than were conservative ones.
This study uses qualitative in-depth interviews to examine journalists' attitudes and decisions about social protest coverage in the wake of (a) journalists' own use of the internet and (b) the use of the internet by social movement organizations. Interviews were conducted with journalists who covered protests that formed part of the movement for democratic globalization in US cities and in Canada during 1999 and 2000. Although regarded as major success stories for the role of the internet in political communication, mobilization over the web seems to have had little impact on journalists. The in-depth interviews revealed skepticism, not early adoption, of web resources in the coverage of these protests. This study provides an exploratory model for the sustained study of journalists' internet use and their attitudes toward social movements and protest as the internet age evolves.
Although a great deal of research has identified ways in which mass media can delegitimize social protest groups, little effort has been given to examining the relative prevalence of each of these mechanisms (labeled marginalization devices in this study) in media coverage of protest movements. By employing an innovative typology, the author examined the prominence of these devices in noneditorial coverage of Iraq War protest in 3 major U.S. newspapers over a 1-year period. In addition to gauging the prevalence of each device, the study also determined which specific devices were associated with either a positive or negative overall story tone toward the protesters. Although coverage in general was not more likely to be either negative or positive toward war-protest groups, stories containing the most commonly implemented devices were more likely to be negative in overall tone. Practical and scholarly implications are discussed in scrutinizing the mass media's role in shaping interpretations of sociopolitical issues.
In a recent article in this journal, Lombard, Snyder-Duch, and Bracken (2002) surveyed 200 content analyses for their reporting of reliability tests, compared the virtues and drawbacks of five popular reliability measures, and proposed guidelines and standards for their use. Their discussion revealed that numerous misconceptions circulate in the content analysis literature regarding how these measures behave and can aid or deceive content analysts in their effort to ensure the reliability of their data. This article proposes three conditions for statistical measures to serve as indices of the reliability of data and examines the mathematical structure and the behavior of the five coefficients discussed by the authors, as well as two others. It compares common beliefs about these coefficients with what they actually do and concludes with alternative recommendations for testing reliability in content analysis and similar data-making efforts.
Winner of the Frank Luther Mott Award for best book in Mass Communication and the Robert E. Lane Award for best book in political psychology. Living in a segregated society, white Americans learn about African Americans not through personal relationships but through the images the media show them. The Black Image in the White Mind offers the most comprehensive look at the intricate racial patterns in the mass media and how they shape the ambivalent attitudes of Whites toward Blacks. Using the media, and especially television, as barometers of race relations, Robert Entman and Andrew Rojecki explore but then go beyond the treatment of African Americans on network and local news to incisively uncover the messages sent about race by the entertainment industry-from prime-time dramas and sitcoms to commercials and Hollywood movies. While the authors find very little in the media that intentionally promotes racism, they find even less that advances racial harmony. They reveal instead a subtle pattern of images that, while making room for Blacks, implies a racial hierarchy with Whites on top and promotes a sense of difference and conflict. Commercials, for example, feature plenty of Black characters. But unlike Whites, they rarely speak to or touch one another. In prime time, the few Blacks who escape sitcom buffoonery rarely enjoy informal, friendly contact with White colleaguesâperhaps reinforcing social distance in real life. Entman and Rojecki interweave such astute observations with candid interviews of White Americans that make clear how these images of racial difference insinuate themselves into Whites' thinking. Despite its disturbing readings of television and film, the book's cogent analyses and proposed policy guidelines offer hope that America's powerful mediated racial separation can be successfully bridged.
Collective acts of disruption and violence are sometimes viewed as expressions of social protest, and sometimes as crime or rebellion, leading to different community reactions. Five theoretical perspectives can be used to predict when the protest interpretation will be made: (1) events must be credible as protest; (2) an optimal balance is required between appeal and threat; (3) protest interpretation is often an aspect of conciliation to avoid full-scale conflict; (4) protest interpretation can be an invitation to form a coalition; and (5) protest interpretation can be a phase of bargaining by authorities.
Justice Department's report on the Ferguson Police Department. The New York Times
- W Andrews
- A Desantis
- J Keller
Andrews, W., Desantis, A., & Keller, J. (2015, March). Justice Department's report on the Ferguson
Police Department. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/
2015/03/04/us/ferguson-police-racial-discrimination.html
Policías entregaron 17 normalistas al crimen organizado; habrían sido asesinados
Animal Político. (2014, October). Policías entregaron 17 normalistas al crimen organizado; habrían sido
asesinados. Animal Político. Retrieved from http://www.animalpolitico.com/2014/10/reportan-hallazgode-fosa-en-iguala-investigan-si-se-trata-de-normalistas-desaparecidos/
Alternative media and politics of resistance: A communication perspective
- J Atkinson
Atkinson, J. (2010). Alternative media and politics of resistance: A communication perspective. New
York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing.
Commercialism and critique: California's alternative weeklies
- R Benson
Benson, R. (2003). Commercialism and critique: California's alternative weeklies. In N. Couldry & J.
Curran (Eds.), Contesting media power: Alternative media in a networked world (pp. 111-127).
Digital gatekeeping: News media versus social media
- P Bro
- F Wahlberg
Bro, P., & Wahlberg, F. (2014). Digital gatekeeping: News media versus social media. Digital
Journalism, 2, 446-454.
The journalistic paradigm on civil protests: A case study of Hong Kong
- J M Chan
- C C Lee
Chan, J. M., & Lee, C. C. (1984). The journalistic paradigm on civil protests: A case study of Hong
Kong. In A. Arno & W. Dissanayake (Eds.), The news media in national and international conflict
(pp. 183-202). Boulder, CO: Westview.
Darren Wilson is cleared of rights violations in Ferguson Shooting. The New York Times
- E Eckholm
- M Apuzzo
Eckholm, E., & Apuzzo, M. (2015) Darren Wilson is cleared of rights violations in Ferguson
Shooting. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/us/darrenwilson-is-cleared-of-rights-violations-in-ferguson-shooting.html.
Do Black Lives Matter? Journalism Practice
- M H Elmasry
- M Nawawy
Elmasry, M. H., & el-Nawawy, M. (2016). Do Black Lives Matter? Journalism Practice, 11, 857-875.
Crisis in Mexico: The disappearance of the forty-three. The New Yorker
- F Goldman
Goldman, F. (2014, October 24). Crisis in Mexico: The disappearance of the forty-three. The New
Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/crisis-mexico-disappearanceforty-three
The whole world is watching on social media: Building a global protest typology. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association
- S Harlow
- D K Kilgo
- V García-Perdomo
- R Salaverría
Harlow, S., Kilgo, D.K., García-Perdomo, V., & Salaverría, R. (2017). The whole world is watching
on social media: Building a global protest typology. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the
International Communication Association, San Diego, CA.
How Americans view the Black Lives Matter movement
- J M Horowitz
- G Livingston
Horowitz, J. M., & Livingston, G. (2016 July). How Americans view the Black Lives Matter
movement. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/
08/how-americans-view-the-black-lives-matter-movement/
Newspapers' coverage of the Egyptian January 25 revolution: A framing analysis (Doctoral thesis). The American University in Cairo
- E Ibrahim
Ibrahim, E. (2012). Newspapers' coverage of the Egyptian January 25 revolution: A framing analysis
(Doctoral thesis). The American University in Cairo, Egypt, Australia. Retrieved from http://dar.
aucegypt.edu/handle/10526/3171
Black, White, and Blue: Media and audience frames from visual news coverage of police use of force and unrest (Doctoral thesis)
- D K Kilgo
Kilgo, D. K. (2017). Black, White, and Blue: Media and audience frames from visual news coverage
of police use of force and unrest (Doctoral thesis). University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved from
https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu
News coverage and social protest: How the media's protect paradigm exacerbates social conflict
- D M Mcleod
McLeod, D. M. (2007). News coverage and social protest: How the media's protect paradigm
exacerbates social conflict. Journal of Dispute Resolution, 2007, 185-194.