III
Police Violence Emphasized After Nine Days of Protesting
As the Black Lives Matter movement’s political demands speak directly to the excessive use of force by police, coverage which is legitimizing of the protests should address police/military use of force at protest events and give salience to instances of police violence.
Despite protestor violence receiving more attention overall, at the tail end of the sample period coverage begins to focus on instances of police/military violence.
Primary Subject of Violent Protest Images by Day
(n=242), June 3, 2020 - June 7, 2020
No Data Found
On June 3, 2020, nightly broadcast news programs showed a nearly equal proportion of images of protestor and police/military violence, marking the end of the trend in coverage where protestor violence was made more salient than police/military violence. The shift coincides with a general transition away from an emphasis on violent visual frames in coverage, interpreted to indicate a shift towards more thematic framing of the movement.
Additional Criminal Charges
Originally, only Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was arrested following George Floyd’s death, facing third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges.
While officers Tou Thao, Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane were also charged with aiding and abetting murder.
However, on June 3, 2020, officer Derek Chauvin’s charges were upgraded to include second-degree murder.
The charges against all officers were a demand put forth by Black Lives Matter protestors8.1 and marked a political success for the protest movement.
However, on June 3, 2020, officer Derek Chauvin’s charges were upgraded to include second-degree murder.
While officers Tou Thao, Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane were also charged with aiding and abetting murder.
The charges against all officers were a demand put forth by Black Lives Matter protestors8.1 and marked a political success for the protest movement.
The formal recognition of the brutality of George Floyd’s murder and of the protestors’ demands appears to have given space to broadcast journalists to be more scrutinizing of police/military actions at the protests.
The persistence of the protest paradigm has been attributed to the social control function of the media, prompting journalists to report critically on protest movements that challenge the status quo, especially those that do so via more extreme measures.8.2 Here, the arrests of the officers signaled a recognition of protestor demands by official legal processes and therefore lessened the degree by which the movement was challenging the status quo, prompting more legitimizing coverage.
However, fair coverage should not have to wait for a formal decision to become legitimizing of protest movements.
To counter this trend, research by Fayne and Richardson (2023) underscores the importance of including Black journalists in newsrooms whose coverage of social justice issues is humanizing and challenges protest paradigm-style coverage.
Widespread Support for Black Lives Matter
While the charges against the officers involved in George Floyd’s death were likely a significant factor in the shift toward emphasizing police/military violence, other contextual factors may also have also contributed to this change.
The summer 2020 Black Lives Matter protests marked a turning point in how race and policing is discussed in the U.S.
Building upon the momentum of previous demonstrations, the protests following the murder of George Floyd managed to bring antiracist theory to the forefront of widespread cultural conversations.8.3
This resulted in a majority of Americans indicating that they support the Black Lives Matter movement.8.4
The immense backing for the movement can also be seen in the turnout for protests on June 6, 2020, where an estimated 26 million people across the nation participated.8.5
This broad popularity among the American public serves to normalize the protestors’ demands and push the movement’s ideology into the mainstream.
Buffalo Police Shoving Incident
Another significant event that shifted the focus of broadcast news coverage to police violence was when a Buffalo police officer shoved an elderly protestor to the ground.
Violent Protest Images of Police by Day
(n=128), June 3, 2020 - June 7, 2020
No Data Found
This event prompted the uptick in images of police/military violence on June 5, 2020, and June 6, 2020. The increase in images of police/military violence came not only in footage from the event itself, but also in thematic coverage which contextualized the event within a trend of police/military violence at the protests.
Despite these trends, the salience of police/military violence at the protests was still relatively limited, and never reached the prominence by which protestor violence was featured.