News media framing of social protests around racial tensions during the Donald Trump presidency

Bibliographic Data

ID7478971
AuthorsYotam Ophir (0000-0001-5049-7906, corresponding author), Devin K Forde, Madison Neurohr (University at Buffalo, State University of New York), Dror Walter (0000-0001-9870-998X), Virginia Massignan (0000-0002-7414-095X, Georgia State University)
Year2021
Volume24
Issue3
Pages475-493
Publication date2021-08-13
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournalism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-8849 • E-ISSN: 1741-3001
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14648849211036622
OpenAlexW3195984210
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited35

Media framing of social protests can influence public opinion and governmental response. An extensive line of scholarly work had pointed to the existence of two alternative news frames; public order and debate. We argue that prior work may have been limited by the reliance on deductive strategies using predefined, theoretically-driven frames. Using a data-driven computational method, the Analysis of Topic Model Networks (ANTMN), we examine mainstream news’ framing of two contentious protests that took place during Donald Trump’s presidency; Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA ( n = 1231 news articles), and the Black Lives Matter protests ( n = 2810). In addition to the frames found in past research, we identify a prominent Politics frame, often focussing on the role of Trump in inciting and reacting to racial tensions. An in-depth analysis of the application of frames to each protest revealed a nuanced use of the Protest Paradigm. We suggest possible revisions to existing theories, and discuss the potential social and political implications of our findings

Content analysis · Frame analysis · Framing (construction · Mainstream · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Presidency · Public opinion · Social movement · Social science · Sociology · Computational and Text Analysis Methods · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Media Studies and Communication · History · Law

Tools

Open DOI