Leiden University Student Repository

Gearty, Róisín (2021)

Black Lives Matter - a fight for racial justice and legitimacy

Bachelor thesis | International Studies (BA)

This study carried out a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of 120 articles from American and international news outlets to uncover the framing of legitimacy of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in 2020. Language mechanisms, such as the framing and sourcing of both BLM activists and law enforcement were considered, tallied and analysed from differing news outlets such as CNN, Fox News, New York Times, China Daily, NOS and BBC. It concludes that overall, all outlets are found to frame the BLM protests as illegitimate - as they are unacceptable according to the law. However, the degree to which they engage in this discourse differs substantially between each network and so with it, the manner in which these protests were framed as justifiable. The results from international media also provides interesting insight into how BLM is perceived from third parties and each network was found with their own biases and inclinations. This study preposes that to a large degree, news coverage...Show moreThis study carried out a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of 120 articles from American and international news outlets to uncover the framing of legitimacy of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in 2020. Language mechanisms, such as the framing and sourcing of both BLM activists and law enforcement were considered, tallied and analysed from differing news outlets such as CNN, Fox News, New York Times, China Daily, NOS and BBC. It concludes that overall, all outlets are found to frame the BLM protests as illegitimate - as they are unacceptable according to the law. However, the degree to which they engage in this discourse differs substantially between each network and so with it, the manner in which these protests were framed as justifiable. The results from international media also provides interesting insight into how BLM is perceived from third parties and each network was found with their own biases and inclinations. This study preposes that to a large degree, news coverage regarding BLM both in the US and beyond proves significantly biased in relation to outlets’ own political stances and origins.Show less

Black Lives Matter

BLM

Legitimacy

Critical Discourse Analysis

CDA

Author

Gearty, Róisín

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

North America

Supervisors

Scott-Smith, G.

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en