Floyd’s death gained global attention, in part due to the dissemination of bystander video which shows Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin holding his knee on Floyd’s neck as Floyd begs for his life, repeatedly telling Chauvin and the other three officers that he can’t breathe.2.1
In the month following Floyd’s death, more than 7,750 protests occurred nationwide.2.2 While George Floyd’s murder sparked the surge of protests during the summer of 2020, the movement highlighted the larger trend of police brutality towards Black Americans. Protestors demanded charges for all officers involved, as well as sweeping reforms to policing practices and funding.
Protest movements, particularly those that challenge the status quo, often face misrepresentation by the media, which tends to emphasize disruptive and violent displays in its coverage.
Protest paradigm research outlines the patterns that typify news media reporting on such demonstrations:
Protest movements often do not receive coverage from mainstream news outlets until the demonstrations reach a certain level of intensity that deems them ‘newsworthy.’
For more see:
McCarthy, J. D., McPhail, C., & Smith, J. (1996). Images of protest: Dimensions of selection bias in media coverage of Washington demonstrations, 1982 and 1991. American Sociological Review, 61(3), 478-499.
Myers, D. J., & Caniglia, B. S. (2004). All the rioting that’s fit to print: Selection effects in national newspaper coverage of civil disorders, 1968-1969. American Sociological Review, 69(4), 519-543.
Wilkes, R., Corrigall‐Brown, C., & Myers, D. J. (2010). Packaging protest: Media coverage of indigenous people’s collective action. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne De Sociologie, 47(4), 327-357.
Once the demonstrations enter the news cycle, the protest paradigm holds that journalists tend to direct their focus toward the behavior and actions of protestors, especially those which are viewed as violent.
For more see:
McLeod, D. M., & Hertog, J. K. (1999). Social control, social change and the mass media’s role in the regulation of protest groups. In D. Demers, & K. Viswanath (Eds.), Mass media, social control, and social change: A macrosocial perspective (pp. 305-330). Iowa State University Press.
Media coverage overemphasizes the violent aspects of the demonstrations in a manner which undermines the political goals of the protest movement and justifies aggressive suppression of the demonstrations by police.
For more see:
Della Porta, D., & Fillieule, O. (2004). Policing social protest. In D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule, & H. Kriesi (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to social movements (pp. 217-241). Blackwell Publishing.
Donson, F., Chesters, G., Welsh, I., & Tickle, A. (2004). Rebels with a cause, folk devils without a panic: Press jingoism, policing tactics and anti-capitalist protests in London and Prague. Internet Journal of Criminology. https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/60834/1/Rebel%20with%20a%20cause%20folk%20devils%20%20%20%20%20.pdf
Scholarship examining the framing of Black Lives Matter demonstrations has identified frames associated with the protest paradigm.
Common ways Black Lives Matter protests are framed include:
Coverage characterizes Black Lives Matter protestors as violent and the threat to public safety and property.
For more see:
Leopold, J., & Bell, M. P. (2017). News media and the racialization of protest: An analysis of Black Lives Matter articles. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 36(8), 720-735.
Reid, J. C., & Craig, M. O. (2021). Is it a rally or a riot? Racialized media framing of 2020 protests in the United States. Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, 19(3-4), 291-310.
Umamaheswar, J. (2020). Policing and racial (in)justice in the media: Newspaper portrayals of the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Civic Sociology, 1(1), 1-13.
Reporters focus on the disruption caused by the protests or the spectacle of protestor events, overlooking the political issues addressed by the protestors.
For more see:
Leopold, J., & Bell, M. P. (2017). News media and the racialization of protest: An analysis of Black Lives Matter articles. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 36(8), 720-735.
Researchers have found that over time coverage may shift from a focus on negative protestor behavior to reporting that is more legitimizing of the movement.
For more see:
Kilgo, D. K., Mourão, R. R., & Sylvie, G. (2019). Martin to Brown: How time and platform impact coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement. Journalism Practice, 13(4), 413–430.
Mourão, R. R., Brown, D. K., & Sylvie, G. (2021). Framing Ferguson: The interplay of advocacy and journalistic frames in local and national newspaper coverage of Michael Brown. Journalism, 22(2), 320-340.
This study fills a gap in current research by analyzing how the images selected by television newscasts framed the protests.
The research selected to study television visuals due to their impact on audiences:
Television news has faced criticism for its emphasis on violence and conflict2.5 2.6 and researchers have noted that the frequency of violence depicted in television news does not reflect actual statistics (e.g. Gerbner, 1996). Given the emphasis on dramatic events, the journalistic norms and routines that drive the protest paradigm may be more prevalent for television news, with broadcast journalist susceptible to placing a greater focus on the violent aspects of protests.
For more see:
Brown, D. K., & Mourão, R. R. (2022). No reckoning for the right: How political ideology, protest tolerance and news consumption affect support for Black Lives Matter protests. Political Communication, 39(6), 737-754.
Chuang, A., & Tyler, A. (2023). An obscured view of “both sides”: Default whiteness and the protest paradigm in television news coverage of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 100(3), 668-691.
Smith, J., McCarthy, J. D., McPhail, C., & Augustyn, B. (2001). From protest to agenda building: Description bias in media coverage of protest events in Washington, DC. Social Forces, 79(4), 1397-1423.
Research on the impact of visuals has shown that images often have an increased impact on audiences compared to text and audiences are more likely to recall negative visuals.
For more see:
Drechsel, R., & Grimes, T. (1996). Word-Picture Juxtaposition, Schemata, and Defamation in Television News. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 73(1), 169-180.
Gibson, R., & Zillmann, D. (2000). Reading between the photographs: The influence of incidental pictorial information on issue perception. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 77(2), 355-366.
Ito, T. A., Larsen, J. T., Smith, N. K., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1998). Negative information weighs more heavily on the brain: The negativity bias in evaluative categorizations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(4), 887-900.
Newhagen, J. E., & Reeves, B. (1992). The evening’s bad news: Effects of compelling negative television news images on memory. Journal of Communication, 42(2), 25-41.
Northup, T., & Carpentier, F. D. (2013). Exploring priming effectiveness within news stories according to media modality and valence. Electronic Journal of Communication, 23(3).
"The use of images amounts to additional storytelling that journalists may not be aware of."