News media coverage of protests plays a crucial role in how a social movement is understood and supported by the public. Studies show that media depictions of protests vary based on the subject of the protest, the year, and the ideological leaning of the outlet covering the story (Bae 2010). This variation extends to how media portray the people participating in the protest. News media coverage of protests that involve predominantly non-White protesters is more likely to use language that evokes fear and anger than coverage of protests that feature mostly White protesters. These differences remain significant even after controlling for the subject of the protest, the year, transcript length, and the outlet’s ideological leanings.
These findings support a growing body of research that shows that how media depict a protest movement and its members can have profound consequences for the movements’ ability to attract support and sway policymakers (Feinberg et al. 2020). Earlier research has shown that activists can strategically deploy tactics to affect how they are perceived by the media (Andrews and Caren 2010). Specifically, non-confrontational approaches to a protest often draw more coverage than confrontational approaches.
Our analysis further suggests that the racial makeup of protesters has a unique influence on how media cover them. In particular, a story describing a protest featuring mostly Black protesters is more likely to be framed using evocative language than a story describing a protest with mostly White protesters. These evocative wordings are most commonly used to frame protests that concern a racial issue or police grievance, but also appear in coverage of the UC Davis student protests and the Ferguson protests.