Existing research indicates that when mainstream news media report about demonstrations, protesters often face delegitimising coverage that focuses on, for example, clashes with the police or the appearance of protesters instead of their message. Recent studies have also found, however, that media treatment differs along several features of protest events. I test the influence of all known features by combining a large scale automated framing analysis on protest events from the UK and data from the Mass Mobilization Project (MMP). I find four main determinants for the use of legitimising or delegitimising framing in news coverage about protest: (1.) violent protests get more delegitimising coverage, and less legitimising coverage; (2.) the goal of a protest matters for the kind of reporting it receives, yet relationships between frames and goals are complex and goals overall matter more for legitimising frames; (3.) the type and ideology of an outlet — although to a much smaller degree than expected; and (4.) reports published more recently and longer after the start of an event have a higher chance of containing legitimising framing.
JBGruber/paper_voices
Paper: Whose voices are heard? Making sense of framing patterns in protest coverage
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