No Justice, No Peace: Framing Protests Against Police Brutality by American Media 1992-2020

Public opinion on protests is largely determined by news coverage. News media function as gatekeepers, who decide how news is communicated to the audience. In the case of protests against racism and police brutality, framing tended to be delegitimizing. This study questions the framing of protests against police brutality by news media within the context of newspaper and televised news coverage, researching long-term developments based on two case studies: the Rodney King riots (1992), and the George Floyd protests (2020). Using a critical discourse analysis of coverage from four newspapers and two news channels, this research examines the framing of protests by media outlets to constitute the dominant narrative of the publications. Next, articles and fragments were quantitatively coded using several terms and ‘coded words’ to generate counts of the words within the articles, which reinforce negative frames. Research suggests media coverage of protests does not necessarily follow a...Show morePublic opinion on protests is largely determined by news coverage. News media function as gatekeepers, who decide how news is communicated to the audience. In the case of protests against racism and police brutality, framing tended to be delegitimizing. This study questions the framing of protests against police brutality by news media within the context of newspaper and televised news coverage, researching long-term developments based on two case studies: the Rodney King riots (1992), and the George Floyd protests (2020). Using a critical discourse analysis of coverage from four newspapers and two news channels, this research examines the framing of protests by media outlets to constitute the dominant narrative of the publications. Next, articles and fragments were quantitatively coded using several terms and ‘coded words’ to generate counts of the words within the articles, which reinforce negative frames. Research suggests media coverage of protests does not necessarily follow a delegitimizing pattern anymore, but protesters are still viewed negatively by the media. These findings contributed to the understanding of the role of news media in the framing of protests against racism and police brutality.Show less

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No Justice, No Peace: Framing Protests Against Police Brutality by American Media 1992-2020