Protest Paradigm Revisited

Is Depicting Protestors’ (Counter)Violence Really Bad

Bibliographic Data

ID22010881
AuthorsAfrooz Mosallaei (0000-0001-8757-6210, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume13
Issue1
Pages159-178
Publication date2025-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDigital Journalism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2167-0811 • E-ISSN: 2167-082X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/21670811.2024.2329651
OpenAlexW4394603426
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited33

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

Counter terrorism · Criminology · Internet privacy · Media studies · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · Terrorism · Computer Science · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Populism, Right-Wing Movements

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