853517

research-article2019
HIJXXX10.1177/1940161219853517The International Journal of Press/PoliticsBrown and Harlow

Research Article
The International Journal of Press/Politics
2019, Vol. 24(4) 508­–530
Protests, Media © The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
Coverage, and a Hierarchy sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1940161219853517
https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219853517
of Social Struggle journals.sagepub.com/home/hij

Danielle K. Brown1 and Summer Harlow2

Abstract
News coverage is fundamental to a protest’s viability, but research suggests media
negatively portray protests and protesters that challenge the status quo (a pattern
known as the protest paradigm). This study questions the validity of those claims within
the context of digital newspaper coverage, interrogating how topic and region shape
coverage. Using a content analysis of coverage from sixteen newspapers in various
U.S. market types and regions, this research examines framing and sourcing features
in articles about protests. Results suggest media coverage of protests centered on
racial issues (discrimination of Indigenous people and anti-Black racism) follows more
of a delegitimizing pattern than stories about protests related to immigrants’ rights,
health, and environment. A model to understand news coverage of protest based on
a hierarchy of social struggle is proposed.

Keywords
social movements, protest paradigm, media framing, media markets, digital journalism

Recent U.S. protests have tackled various societal, economic, and political issues, evi-
dence of the continuation of movements against patriarchy, racism, economic dis-
crimination, and social injustice. In 2017, some protests in the United States drew
worldwide attention and transnational participation, beginning with the massive pro-
tests of the newly elected U.S. president and demonstrations on behalf of women’s
rights and concluding with the fierce debate about on-the-field football protests by
players of the U.S. National Football League (NFL) during the national anthem.

1Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

2University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:
Danielle K. Brown, Indiana University, 601 E Kirkwood, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
Email: dkilgo@iu.edu
Brown and Harlow 509

Research shows that mainstream news organizations have struggled to accurately

and fairly portray protests that challenge the political and societal status quo (e.g.,
Gamson and Wolfsfeld 1993; Gitlin 1980). Media attention to protests tends to be
negative, stigmatizing protesters as deviant and depicting protests as violent (Chan
and Lee 1984; McLeod and Hertog 1999). Many factors can cause the quantity and
quality of journalism narratives to fluctuate, including the intensity of conflict and
radical nature of protester tactics (Almeida and Lichbach 2003; Amenta et al. 2012),
type of protest (e.g., Boyle et al. 2004), media outlet (e.g., Rohlinger et al. 2012; Rucht
2011), and proximity of the protest to the news organization (Kilgo et al. 2018a).
Technological, political, economic, and societal changes are factors behind the global
increase in protest activity since the 1980s (Carothers and Young 2015), and digital
technologies have created new venues to increase a protest’s visibility and extend
protesters’ reach (Bennett and Segerberg 2012). This trend presents an opportunity to
reexamine the patterns of press representations. Our study employs a content analysis
of articles from a diverse sample of mainstream newspapers to examine the frequency
with which different protest topics were covered, the qualifying content characteris-
tics, and the changes in coverage across regions. This research also situates empirical
findings within a broader critique of media, protest, and power, suggesting a hierarchy
of social struggle with practical and theoretical implications.

Protest Representations in the Media

Scholars across disciplines have scrutinized press coverage of collective action,
exploring the institutional, organizational, and individual influences that shift the
quality and quantity of coverage. Many different structural, organizational, and insti-
tutional features of media production and social disruption affect media coverage of
social movements. However, most scholars have shown that the institutional logics of
the mainstream media do not favor social movements (Gans 1979), and only the most
appealing or newsworthy features of a movement are likely to result in news coverage
(Almeida and Lichbach 2003; Gitlin 1980). Other factors that influence media produc-
tion include the distance of the protest to the media source (Oliver and Myers 1999),
conflict orientation and newsworthiness of the protest (Amenta et al. 2012), organiza-
tional ideologies and professional routines (Herman and Chomsky 1988; Rohlinger
et al. 2012), and protest sponsorship and support (McCarthy et al. 2008; Oliver and
Myers 1999).
Scholars have also found that structural and organizational biases built into the
norms and routines of traditional journalism have contributed to consistently detected
press patterns that marginalize and delegitimize social movements (e.g., Chan and Lee
1984; McLeod and Hertog 1999). These patterns, known as the protest paradigm, are
ultimately created by the symbiotic but imbalanced relationship between activists and
the press. This relationship develops in the following way: (1) the press does not cover
movements that do not engage in newsworthy activity; (2) advocates stage events to
attract media attention, which they need to distribute their message to broader audi-
ences and to signal their strength; and (3) journalists then cover these staged events
510 The International Journal of Press/Politics 24(4)

without generating substantive information about the event’s background or the griev-
ances or agendas of the movement behind the protest. The paradigm thus is a paradoxi-
cal situation: Movements must adapt and appeal to media logic to receive coverage,
but when they do, protest coverage tends to demonize protesters, characterizing them
as menaces to society, marginalizing their voices, and under or inadequately reporting
the grievances, demands, and agendas of movements.
The ideological position of the protest and the degree to which that position chal-
lenges the political or societal status quo is a key indicator of paradigmatic strength.
Boyle and authors (2004) argued that the topic and issue of a protest are related to the
goals of a protest, and as such, the political volatility of goals is the most efficient and
systematic way to categorize protests. Agendas that radically contest the societal and
political status quo are more likely to conform to the protest paradigm theory, while
protests that support the status quo are less likely to receive coverage that conforms
with the protest paradigm (Boyle et al. 2004; Gitlin 1980; McLeod and Hertog 1992).
Social movements that support the status quo could ultimately be categorized as those
that have agendas that maintain the power relations sustained by white supremacy,
patriarchy, capitalism, and ableism. Within these parameters, status quo-enforcing pro-
tests would include, for instance, pro-white protests and antifeminist protests. However,
not all scholars agree with this designation. For example, Claussen (2000) positioned an
evangelical, fundamentalist, and conservative movement as a status quo-challenging
movement. Because there is no irrefutable conceptualization of “status quo,” and con-
sidering the documented changes in paradigm coverage in recent work (e.g., Harlow
et al. 2017), we take a postmodern position acknowledging the cultural transitions that
shift the status quo at various political, institutional, and societal levels. Our research
thus categorizes protests by their events and topics, rather than by the forces being chal-
lenged, to identify differences in coverage patterns. Below we provide a broad over-
view of relevant research related to these protest topics.

Racial and Ethnic Injustice

The historical context and evolution of racism is important to consider when assessing
recent protests that address racial injustice. The 1960s Civil Rights protests were seen
as radical challenges to existing political, societal, and economic structures in the
United States, and the press marginalized Black protest1 through unethical journalism
production and indifference (Roberts and Klibanoff 2006). At the time, this coverage
fueled divided public opinion about Black people’s right to protest, though today’s
sentiment about these protests is more positive, a product of sanitized memories of the
era (Morgan 2006). However, public opinion about current and ongoing Black civil
rights protests is again divided (Updegrove et al. 2018), and the press continues to
marginalize these movements (Kilgo et al. 2018b).
Indigenous people in the United States have also engaged regularly in efforts to
fight the continuation of historical injustice, but coverage has ignored their move-
ments and their existence more generally (Alia 2004; Baylor 1996). Despite several
expansive mobilization efforts of the Red Power movement, including the Trail of
Brown and Harlow 511

Broken Treaties protest that began in 1972, media coverage was limited. Noting that
media coverage of the American Indian Movement from 1968 to 1979 was consis-
tently marginalizing and stereotypical, Baylor (1996) cautioned this population against
mobilizing in an effort to gain media attention.

Feminist Movements
The various waves of the U.S. feminist movement traditionally have been regarded
according to a three-part progression: First they are ignored, then they are marginal-
ized and ridiculed, and finally they are recognized as part of the societal norm and
presented as nonthreatening to the status quo (Robinson 1978). As an example of mar-
ginalization, Ashley and Olson’s (1998) examination of feminist movements from
1966 to 1986 found the media routinely discussed protesters’ appearance and ques-
tioned the validity of the movement.

Immigration
The 2006 wave of pro-immigrant rights protests raised awareness of immigration
issues, but media coverage was often negative and accused protesters of being unpa-
triotic (Wallace et al. 2014). McLeod (2007) noted that coverage of the massive 2006
anti-immigration policy reform marches and demonstrations was generally positive
and avoided controversial and derogatory frames. However, coverage was not neces-
sarily conducive to helping newsreaders understand the protests, and extensive
demands remained underreported.

Environmental Protests
In an analysis of early environmental advocacy initiatives, Anderson (1991) found that
environmental organizations were subject to political polarization, and therefore
needed to closely guard the messages distributed about the environment. Unlike grass-
roots movements, environmental movements generally engage through more formal
advocacy procedures and structures, like efforts constructed by well-established, non-
governmental organizations. Traditionally, environmental protests have received pref-
erential treatment by news media (Anderson 1991; Wright and Reid 2011). Wright and
Reid’s (2011) analysis of movements to increase biofuel developments found that The
New York Times not only included the substantial demands and agendas of the move-
ment, but it also placed those demands within a larger societal context to increase
legitimacy and relevance. However, Heinz (2005) argued that a significant portion of
environmental issues go uncovered until they affect a notable white community.

Conservative Movements
Media coverage of conservative movements is undertheorized. Far-right protests like the
Tea Party are subject to marginalization by newspaper organizations that ideologically
512 The International Journal of Press/Politics 24(4)

oppose the protest (Weaver and Scacco 2013). Studies show that conservative move-
ments are aided by conservative media coverage and that conservative movements’ per-
ception of liberal media bias benefits mobilization (Skocpol and Williamson 2016). In
the context of other extremist and far-right protests like those of the white supremacist
group the Ku Klux Klan, Nelson et al. (1997) argue journalists focus their coverage on
civil liberties protections and protest demands for free speech, which leads to more toler-
ance of these types of dangerous groups.

Framing, Sourcing, and Geographic Influence

Many components of movement-media relationships can influence the nature of cov-
erage and can contribute to explicit, implicit, and unintentional media bias. Aligned
with the structures of traditional norms and routines of journalistic news production,
McLeod and Hertog (1999) outlined fundamental components of media narratives that
contribute to the protest paradigm which included framing (or narrative emphasis) and
sourcing preferences. These features are central to journalism production across
genres, and thus offer a guide for the replicable, systematic, and comparative study of
journalism routines and norms about coverage of protests topics that vary in scope,
tactics, activity, and agendas. We discuss how frames and sources contribute to the
representation of protests and how variations in geographic considerations might
mediate the relationship between news organization and narrative production.

Framing
Framing serves as the overarching narrative of a story, and the frames of protest delin-
eated by McLeod and Hertog (1999) are informed by the news routines widely
employed by journalists. McLeod and Hertog (1999) identify four key frames in pro-
test coverage: riot, confrontation, spectacle, and debate. The riot (violent, deviant dis-
ruptive behavior), confrontation (conflict with authorities, police, and opposition), and
spectacle frames (sensational, dramatic and individualistic narratives) emphasize
action or behavior. Theory suggests these frames delegitimize the movement and neg-
atively affect public opinion. Contrarily, the debate frame discusses the agendas or
demands of the protest, and the inclusion of this frame in media coverage is an oppor-
tunity to engage audiences with the substance of the issues advocated by the move-
ment. Recent media effects research has shown that in the context of social movements,
framing is the factor that most consistently predicts audience engagement and inter-
pretation (e.g., Harlow et al. 2017).

Sourcing
The routine journalistic practice of using official sources means protests are covered
from the perspective of the power holders who are often being challenged (Bennett
et al. 2008). In some cases, official sources align with protester perspectives and sup-
port movement agendas, shifting media narratives (Mourão 2019), though not
Brown and Harlow 513

necessarily overturning the paradigmatic structure of news coverage. Bray (2012)

argues alternative voices are the key to legitimizing coverage, and even in coverage
considered positive, corporate media rarely use those voices as sources of expertise.

Geographic Influence
The importance of the relationship between protest coverage and geographic region
of media organization is also reflected in traditional journalism production norms,
especially news values. Proximity, or news events that are geographically close to
readers, is a key news value that shapes what events journalists cover and how they
present the news (Shoemaker et al. 2007). Proximity of a protest to the news organi-
zation can influence the overall amount of coverage (Oliver and Maney 2000), and
the quality of coverage (Kilgo et al. 2018a). Similarly, the environments that accom-
pany various geographic settings can influence coverage (Griffin and Dunwoody
1997; Hester and Gibson 2007). For example, news media organizations based in
larger, heterogeneous communities frame stories differently than media in smaller,
homogeneous communities (Griffin and Dunwoody 1997). Nevertheless, journalistic
norms and routines mostly produce similarities in recent protest coverage, and thus
some studies have not been able to detect substantial differences between local and
national coverage (e.g., Mourão et al. 2018).
Based on this review of the literature, our study explores the following two research
questions:

Research Question 1 (RQ1): How do (1) frames and (2) sourcing in news stories
differ according to type of protest?
Research Question 2 (RQ2): How does protest coverage differ according to news-
paper region?

Method
A corpus of protest-related newspaper articles was analyzed using systematic con-
tent analysis methods. Sixteen newspapers were selected from a variety of metro-
politan, suburban, and rural media markets in Texas. Rather than build a sample
from U.S. newspapers that attempt to cover events across one of the top three most
geographically expansive and populous countries in the world, the use of Texas
newspapers helps focus the assessment of regional differences and media coverage
to a population that features high levels of geographic, economic, and ethnic diver-
sity. Most U.S.-based content analyses of protest coverage rely heavily on content
from large media markets with nationwide distribution (e.g., Shahin et al. 2016). For
journalists, administering news to a population, the size of the United States inevi-
tably lends to sacrifices in an attempt to accommodate the masses, so content analy-
ses limited to such newspapers invariably miss out on nuances in coverage that
could be especially relevant when examining applicability of the paradigm across
multiple types of protests. Narrowing the geographic scope of newspaper coverage
514 The International Journal of Press/Politics 24(4)

to the largest and the second-most populated state in the continental United States
allows our research to consider large and small markets with various distribution
ranges. Although our analysis facilitates an understanding of the paradigm accord-
ing to location, culture, and population within a unique configuration inside the
United States, Texas shares notable similarities with other U.S. states and countries
around the world.
Texas’s political ecology includes a three-decade history of resistance to progres-
sive politics and a significant affiliation with right-wing populism. For example, the
Tea Party movement originated in Texas in 2009 as an anti-establishment movement.
The movement shares characteristics with extreme conservative U.S. political agen-
das. Texas’s longstanding conservative record provides an opportunity for an in-depth
look at political and social protests within a country increasingly characterized by
populist politics from the extreme right, mirroring a growing trend of right-wing popu-
list politics worldwide.
Texas is also unique in terms of its population, culture, exports, and laws. According
to the 2010 U.S. census,2 the state is one of the most diverse in the country: 39.4 per-
cent of Texas residents identify as Latino, notably higher than the overall U.S. average
(17.8 percent). Immigration rights protests coincide with Texas’s relationship to the
border (the state once was part of Mexico), as evidenced by a controversial statewide
bill aimed at allowing local law enforcement to question people’s immigration status
and at punishing so-called “sanctuary” cities.3 Although Texas’s Black population
(12.6 percent) is on par with the national average (13 percent), the state is home to the
country’s largest Black population (about thirty-eight million people). Several cases of
police brutality and racial injustice happened in the state,4 and in 2016 five officers
were killed during a peaceful Black Lives Matter march.5
Texas is located in an area known for protestant religious practices (i.e., “The Bible
Belt”). According to Pew Research’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study,6 residents
identify predominantly with Christianity (77 percent), slightly more than the United
States as a whole (70.6 percent). Only 1 percent of the Texas population identified as
Muslim (0.9 percent in the United States). Texas has restricted reproductive rights and
legislators have consistently sought opportunities to further limit abortion services.
Texas leads the United States in oil production and is home to Dakota Access, the
company that prompted protests starting in 2016 by building an expansive crude oil
pipeline that opponents argued negatively impacted the protected territory of the
Standing Rock tribe.7 Texas is also known for its American football culture and hosts
two NFL teams; both teams were part of the national debate about professional foot-
ball players kneeling during the national anthem. Therefore, while there are limitations
to understanding protest coverage by not engaging in comparative assessments of
news coverage across broader regions, Texas nevertheless hosts a unique population,
a large geographic area, and an important media ecosystem that allows us to better
understand journalistic practice in the face of political and community characteristics
that are equally salient and often at odds.
This project compared coverage from larger media markets and regional markets
across the state of Texas. The analysis included four newspapers from major
Brown and Harlow 515

metropolitan areas and sixteen from regional markets. The metropolitan newspapers
(The Dallas Morning News, The Houston Chronicle, San Antonio News Express,
Austin American Statesman) report on Texas and national politics regularly, and
their circulations extend well beyond the counties in which they are printed.
Metropolitan newspapers have contributed to the recent rise in racialized and gen-
dered politics within Texas (Harp et al. 2016). The smaller market newspapers
included in our sample include the following: El Paso Times, Laredo Morning Times,
The Monitor, Caller Times, Galveston Daily News, Victoria Advocate, Abilene
Reporter-News, San Angelo Standard Times, Midland Reporter Telegram, Longview
News-Journal, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, and Amarillo Globe News. The popula-
tions in these areas are notably less dense than in larger media markets, allowing for
a more nuanced understanding of how region and market relate to protest coverage.
More details about these papers and their regions are available in the Supplementary
Information.
Articles were retrieved using software that collected all unique URLs from each
newspaper’s website. The keywords “protest,” “protester,” “Black Lives Matter,” and
“Women’s March” were used in Boolean searches that collected all articles with these
words in the title, article summary, or URL. A total of twenty-one articles marked as
letters to the editor and 123 irrelevant articles were removed from the sample, and 777
articles were coded for this project.

Protest Identification
The type of protest covered in each article was open coded. After coding was com-
plete, the authors refined the open codes to identify prevalent relevant protest topics.
Table 1 details these categories, also indicating which protests were covered the most
overall. Figure 1 also shows the frequencies of protest coverage over time. Protests
with more coverage typically peaked with major national events. For example, gender-
related protest coverage occurred primarily in January, in correspondence with the
Women’s March on Washington, a massive demonstration from a feminist-aligned,
women’s rights movement following the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
Anti-Black racism protests peaked in early August 2017, coinciding with the protests
held in Charlottesville, North Carolina, where a white supremacist protest led to the
murder of a counterprotester.

Quantitative Coding Variables

To fulfill strict coding procedural expectations and to ensure reliability and validity of
all measures used in this study, the researchers and one additional coder engaged in
extensive training. Training sessions allowed researchers to develop codebook exam-
ples and address small details that helped coders account for differences in protest
framing and sourcing differences by topic. The three coders participated in four train-
ing rounds before engaging in initial intercoder reliability (ICR) testing (n = 150).
Final operationalizations and reliability scores are presented in Table 2.
516 The International Journal of Press/Politics 24(4)

Table 1. Protests Topics, Details, and Frequencies.

Protest Topic Specific Protest Included N (%)

Immigration Protests of immigration law changes including 158 (21.2)
Legislation of federal restrictions of immigration
law enforcement (“sanctuary cities,” Senate
Bill-4),a DACA protests, and the Travel Ban
(“Muslim Ban”), Mexican border wall, Day without
Immigrants
NFLb Protests and commentary on sports figures kneeling 147 (19.8)
during the national anthem
Anti-Black Confederate statues protests including the Unite the 110 (14.8)
racismc Right rally and counterprotests in Charlottesville,a
Black Lives Matter protests, protests of
discriminatory policing, White Lives Matter rallies
Gender Women’s March,a LGBTQ rights, sexual or 80 (10.8)
reproductive rights, Bathroom legislation
Dakota Protests of Indigenous rights and the environmental 75 (10.1)
Pipeline effects of building a pipeline
Anti-Trump Inauguration protests,a presidential cabinet choices, 63 (8.5)
general Donald Trump protests
Health and Affordable Care Act health coverage repeal,a climate 38 (4.9)
environmentd change, March for Science
Local issues Local, first-person reporting of local protest, typically 37 (5.0)
of ordinances and school policies
International Mexico (n = 5),a Venezuela, Spain, Catalonia, 36 (4.8)
Germany, Poland, Morocco, Russia, China, Greece;
primarily focused on economic and labor coverage;
government impunity

Note. DACA = Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals; NFL = National Football League;
LGBTQ = lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.
a. Denotes specific coverage event/topic that appeared most often in this category.
b. Although NFL protests are related to anti-Black racism protests, the coverage of NFL protests was
overwhelmingly centered on a debate about kneeling rather than Colin Kaepernick’s intent to protest
racial injustice, therefore these protests were separated.
c. This includes protests of racial injustice, protests against white supremacy, and white supremacist
protests, all of which included counterprotest narratives.
d. Health (n = 22) and environment (n = 16) were collapsed because these subjects appeared infrequently,
but are connected through science and concerns about the general public health. Environmental coverage
was not collapsed with Dakota Pipeline protests because though environmental issues were a concern in
pipeline protests, the protests centered on the protection of Indigenous people and territory.

Results
RQ1: Frames, Sources, and Type of Protest
Frames. Chi-square results showed significant differences between the frequency
with which different types of protests were covered using riot, confrontation, and
Brown and Harlow 517

Figure 1. Protest appearance in news articles by month.

Note. NFL = National Football League.

debate frames, though no significant differences were found as regards to coverage

that employed the spectacle frame (see Table 3). Coverage of anti-Black racism,
international protest, and anti-Trump protests included the riot frame more than
other types of protests. An overwhelming three-fourths of Dakota Pipeline protest
coverage included confrontation framing, significantly more than coverage of all
other protests. The debate frame appeared most in protests related to health and the
environment, followed by immigration protests. By contrast, this frame appeared
significantly less in coverage of the Dakota Pipeline, anti-Black racism, and NFL
protests.

Sourcing. The analysis indicates that different protest topics are characterized by dif-
ferent sourcing patterns (see Table 3). Coinciding with aforementioned results about
proportional differences in the debate frame, adjusted column proportions indicate that
protests focusing on health and the environment included quotes from protesters sig-
nificantly more than coverage of Dakota Pipeline, anti-Black racism, and NFL pro-
tests. Importantly, a considerable amount of coverage did not include any direct quotes
from protesters or officials (40.1 percent, n = 276).

RQ2: Topics and Region

The majority of coverage fell within regions with major metropolitan areas and publi-
cations: Houston (n = 205), San Antonio (n = 172), Austin (n = 107), and Dallas
518 The International Journal of Press/Politics 24(4)

Table 2. Coding Variables and Descriptions.

Variable Description Examples

Frames
Riot The focus on the violence of
(α = .84) protesters, on rioting, looting,
description of the destructions,
and chaos that protestors
create in society
Confrontation The focus on police versus
(α = .91) protesters
Spectacle The emphasis of protest as a
(α = .88) trivial show or circus
Debate The focus on dialogue and social
(α = .83) critique of messages that
substantially discuss agendas
Sourcing
Balance Protester sources include
(α = .81) demonstrators and
demonstration leaders,
affiliated leaders
Official sources include any
elected official (national,
state or local), official
administrators of issue being
challenged, police and police
administrators
Destroying public property,
graffiti, setting fires, behavior
that significantly and negatively
disrupt the daily function of
citizens
Arrests of protesters, conflicts
with police, employment of
police for enforcing protests
Descriptions of protests as
dramatic; emphasizing the size
of protests; sensationalizing
protestors by emphasizing
odd aspects like attire (e.g.,
hats, clothing)
Presence of the social
movement’s/protesters’
viewpoints and demands
1 = Protester only or
protester privileged sourcing
2 = Equal number of protesters
and officials sourced
3 = Official only or official
privileged sourcing
4 = Neither protester or
officials were directly sourced
Number of direct quotes were
used to assess balance

(n = 101). Although regions without metropolitan areas included multiple newspapers,

article numbers were smaller (see Table 4). Due to low cell counts, frequencies are
reported. Proportionally, newspapers in the Dallas market covered gender and NFL
protests most. Newspapers in the Houston market had the most international coverage;
those in San Antonio covered the Dakota Pipeline most; newspapers in the Border
region covered health and the environment and local protests most; and the Coastal
newspapers covered anti-Trump protests the most. Newspapers in the Northern region
covered immigration the most, and finally, newspapers in the West covered protests
against anti-Black racism the most. Chi-square tests were run to analyze differences
between large metropolitan regions (Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio) and
smaller regions (North, East, West, Border, Coastal) (see Table 5). Results show sig-
nificant differences in protest coverage between the two categories of newspapers,
 Table 3. Presence of Frames and Sourcing Balance by Protest Type.

Anti-Black Anti- Dakota Health and

Racism Trump Pipeline Environment Gender Immigration International
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) Local (%) NFL (%) (%) (%) χ2
Frames
Riot 43a 19.7ab 12b 0bc 4bc 0bc 0.7c 8.5bc 17.1ab 125.99***
Confrontation 25.2a 29.5a 74.7b 18.8ac 2.7cd 7.4ac 0d 19.4a 22.9a 192.14***
Spectacle 55.1 60.7 74.7 75.0 58.7 59.3 70.7 69.8 68.6 14.80
Debate 22.4abc 42.6cde 14.7b 56.3e 44.0acde 40.7abcde 25.2abc 51.9de 28.6abcde 55.50***
Sources 104.508***
Protester 23.4abcd 41.0cde 22.7abcd 59.4e 45.3bde 29.6abcde 17.0a 54.3e 28.6abcde
Balanced 7.5a 6.6a 2.7a 6.3a 2.7a 18.5a 12.9a 7a 14.3a
Official 29.9a 13.1abc 14.7abc 9.4abc 5.3c 11.1abc 27.2ab 12.4bc 17.1abc
Neither 39.3ab 39.3ab 60.0b 25.0a 46.7ab 40.7ab 42.9ab 26.4a 40.0ab

Note. Each superscript denotes z test column proportion comparisons that do not significantly differ from each other in a 2 × 2 comparison (p > .05). For
example, across each row, each cell percentage designated as “a” has no significant difference with the like-labeled cells, while all cells in that row without the
“a” designation are significantly different. Frames were not mutually exclusive and therefore individual chi-square tests were run. NFL = National Football
League.
***p < .001.

519
520 The International Journal of Press/Politics 24(4)

Table 4. Topics and Regions.

Austin Dallas Houston San Antonio Border Coastal East North West
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
Anti-Black 10.9 7.1 20.9 15.7 11.7 2.7 14.9 21.1 28.0
racism
Anti-Trump 8.9 6.1 10.5 7.2 5.0 13.5 10.6 10.5 4.0
Dakota 2.9 2.0 1.0 33.1 1.7 0 19.1 5.3 12.0
Pipeline
Health and 6.9 5.1 6.3 .6 8.3 5.4 6.4 5.3 8.0
environment
Gender 9.9 22.4 8.9 7.8 8.3 7.7 8.5 5.3 4.0
Local issues 5.9 2.0 4.2 2.4 18.3 2.6 4.3 5.3 0
NFL 22.8 30.6 25.7 15.7 5.0 7.7 10.6 5.3 20.0
Immigration 31.6 24.5 9.4 15.7 35.0 7.7 21.3 36.8 24.0
International 1.0 0 13.1 1.8 6.7 10.3 4.3 5.3 0
Total 13.7 13.2 25.7 22.3 8.1 5.0 6.3 2.6 3.4

Note. NFL = National Football League.

Table 5. Regional and Metropolitan Coverage of Protests.

Regional (%) Metropolitan (%)

Anti-Black racism 13.8a 15.1a
Anti-Trump 8.5a 8.5a
Dakota Pipeline 7.4a 11.0a
Health and environment 6.9a 4.5a
Gender 9.6a 11.2a
Local issues 9.0b 3.6a
NFL 10.1b 23.0a
Immigration 30.9b 18.0a
International 5.2a 5.2a
Total 25.3 74.7

Note. Each superscript denotes z test column proportion comparisons that do not significantly differ
from each other in a 2 × 2 comparison (p > .05). For example, across each row, each cell designated as
“a” have no significant difference with the like-labeled cells; however, a row with regional percentages
designated as “b” and metropolitan percentages designated as “a” are significantly different.
χ2(8) = 35.66, p < .001. NFL = National Football League.

χ2(8) = 35.66, p < .001. In particular, metropolitan newspapers paid significantly

more attention to NFL protests and less attention to local issues and immigration pro-
tests than newspapers in the smaller regions.
We also analyzed differences in frames used by metropolitan and regional newspa-
pers to cover different types of protests. For NFL protest coverage, metropolitan news-
papers were significantly more likely to feature the debate frame than newspapers in
Brown and Harlow 521

smaller regions (which were also significantly less likely to cover this protest topic
altogether), χ2(1) = 4.591, p < .01. No differences were found in any of the other chi-
square analyses, indicating that the topic of protests, rather than the framing, was the
key predictor of differentiation in coverage between newspapers in smaller regions
and metropolitan areas.

Discussion and Conclusion

This content analysis of protest coverage from newspapers in large and small media
markets in Texas enhances recent research suggesting the pattern of negative news
coverage as indicated by the protest paradigm is conditional and depends on contex-
tual and systemic characteristics (e.g., Shahin et al. 2016). We find the theory’s rele-
vance is specific to protest topic, newspaper location, and time. This study is an
important step toward understanding some of the external factors influencing how
journalists cover modern protests. Furthermore, this study probes the protest para-
digm’s relevance, comparing topics of protest across regions over a year—an essential
contribution to protest literature that tends to focus on one type of protest only.
This study found that certain protest topics are treated more critically than others,
especially through journalistic framing. Rioting and violence were most frequently
used to frame anti-Black racism protests, a topic that included the coverage of white
supremacist and antiracism protests. Coverage did not necessarily provide clear dif-
ferentiation as to who was engaging in violence. For example, a San Antonio Express-
News story about a protest against Confederate monuments highlighted how
“aggressive” protesters were and the “ruckus” they were making as “brawls broke
out.” Similarly, an August 12 article in the Laredo Morning Times emphasized the
“chaos and violence” as white supremacists “clashed” with counterprotesters. The
article referred to “unrest” as protesters “traded blows and hurled bottles and chemical
irritants at one another.” Against the backdrop of controversial commentary by
President Trump that attributed blame to “both sides” of the protests, newspaper cov-
erage characterized both the white supremacist/Confederate statue defenders and the
antiracism counterprotesters as violent in the same breath. The lack of riot-framed
coverage related to the health and environmental, local, and NFL protests draws a
sharp distinction with the anti-Black racism protests, though none of these movements
is exempt completely from marginalization, as discussed later in this section.
The confrontation frame was used significantly more in Dakota Pipeline stories
than any other kind of protest. A February 23 Longview News-Journal article focused
on the search for and arrest of dozens of protesters who had refused to obey police
orders to leave the pipeline construction path. No details were given about the protest’s
origin or goals. Gender protests rarely included the confrontation frame. Notably, this
category of protest was mostly comprised of stories about the Women’s March and had
a considerable amount of legitimizing coverage. Despite it being one of the largest
transnational mobilization efforts in history, stories did not even mention the potential
for confrontation, typically presented through coverage that accentuates police prepa-
ration for mass mobilizations, as well as calls to nonviolence (Kilgo et al. 2018b).
522 The International Journal of Press/Politics 24(4)

These findings add weight to public criticisms that the Women’s March was one of
immense privilege, while also updating previous research suggesting that the women’s
movement may not be considered a threat to the status quo (Robinson 1978).
The spectacle frame was present in more than half of news coverage of all protest
topics. Every protest topic included stories highlighting the drama and spectacle of the
protests: from the emphasis of the double-entendre knit pink “pussy hats” to the toting
of assault rifles. The lack of significant differences in the extent to which this frame
was employed in coverage of different protest topics underscores the dominance of the
frame as a ubiquitous form of presentation for all protests.
When it came to the legitimizing debate frame, results showed it appeared most
frequently in protests about health and the environment, and immigration. Details of
projected changes to the Affordable Care Act were a key feature of the appearance of
the debate frame in this coverage. More surprising was the regular use of the debate
frame in coverage of immigration protests. One article from the Dallas Morning News
gave extensive context to protesters’ demands, explaining that closing businesses and
pulling children from school in “solidarity” were part of an effort to counter claims
that high unemployment should be blamed on immigration. For immigration protests
specifically, the expansive Latino population leads to visibility, cultural, and political
standing not afforded to less prominent racial groups within the state.
Coverage of the anti-Black racism and Dakota Pipeline protests had the lowest
proportions of the debate frame in the entire sample. For anti-Black racism protest
coverage, the majority was dedicated to the controversy surrounding Confederate
monuments, which included the white supremacist rallies mobilizing under the anthem
“unite the right,” as well as a mobilized effort to counter the narratives produced by
white supremacists. Even after one such protest led to the violent death of a protester,
media coverage treated the white supremacist and anti-Black racism protesters as
combative and violent generally, ultimately delegitimizing both sides. Most coverage
failed to include a debate frame, excluding protesters’ voices and demands and thereby
ignoring the underlying racial injustice that led to the protests in the first place. This
delegitimizing coverage reinforces suggestions that critiques of institutional racism or
contemporary movements to remedy and prevent racial injustice will upset the status
quo, and coverage of these efforts will delegitimize them, if they are covered at all
(Kilgo et al. 2018b; Smith et al. 2001). This conclusion is amplified by the examina-
tion of the Dakota Pipeline protest coverage. These protests, centered on the intersec-
tions of Indigenous people’s rights and environmental concerns, were framed as
confrontational nearly three-fourths of the time, and coverage of them was the least
likely to include discussion of protesters’ concerns and demands.
Examining the sources quoted in stories also furthers our understanding of the
treatment different protest topics received in the media. The anti-Black racism stories
quoted officials the most, significantly more than stories about gender and immigra-
tion protests. Health, environment, and immigration protest stories quoted protesters
the most, significantly more than NFL, anti-Black racism, and Dakota Pipeline cover-
age. Quoting protesters alongside official sources allows protesters to speak for them-
selves and can contribute to a more objective narrative. By privileging official
Brown and Harlow 523

perspectives in anti-Black racism stories and NFL protest stories, newspapers present
official perspective as more valuable, credible, and accessible than the protesters’
views. Such a finding is not surprising in light of research suggesting enduring mar-
ginalization of Black protests (Mourão et al. 2018).
Our results also indicate that while geographical proximity is an important indica-
tor of which any particular protest might be marginalized (via lack of coverage
entirely), the content of the coverage, as regards framing and sourcing, does not vary
significantly across different Texan markets, both metropolitan and regional. Our
study thus shows that while location contributes to coverage quantity, it does not nec-
essarily influence coverage quality. In other words, regardless of location and scope of
protest, the same framing and sourcing techniques are employed, meaning that the
delegitimization or legitimization of a protest is dependent on the topic of the protest
more than the location of the media outlet. This finding, which is possible because of
our sampling choices and could not have been reached by content analyzing nation-
wide newspapers, is important for showing that when it comes to protest coverage,
widespread journalistic practices seem to matter more than location, meaning that
adherence to the paradigm remains a systematic feature of journalistic reporting (Gans
1979; Gitlin 1980).
Notably, the generalizability of our results is limited because of our methodological
choice to analyze newspapers within the expansive geographic boundaries of Texas. In
addition, this research was conducted with Republicans in control of all three branches
of the federal government. As such, the political status quo (or the ideological position
of those in power) may also explain some of the patterns we found in news coverage—
a critical question to be addressed by a longitudinal research design. Additional work
might also broaden the scope to consider different technological platforms and digital
media infrastructures—elements that contribute to shifts in paradigmatic patterns
(Harlow et al. 2017; Kilgo et al. 2018a).
Considering all factors, our results indicate that news coverage of protests focused
on race issues, specifically those related to Black and Indigenous people, have not
evolved beyond the traditional paradigm’s structure. Meanwhile, other protests are not
systematically delegitimized. Thus, we argue journalistic routines are subject to a hier-
archy of social struggle, in which certain topics are given precedence and legitimacy,
and others are delegitimized, trivialized, or ignored altogether. Importantly, we take
the normative position that social struggle should not be thought of as a competition;
no oppression should be considered more important or more critical than another.
Nevertheless, this hierarchy appears in empirical patterns of press coverage. Our
results position anti-Black racism protests and Dakota Pipeline protests in the lowest,
least legitimized tier of that hierarchy. These protests may have a consistent position
on this tier over time, especially as other content analyses have indicated the media
marginalize movements that call for the defense of the civil rights of Black and
Indigenous people (Alia 2004; Baylor 1996; Kilgo et al. 2018b). Notably, NFL pro-
tests were not delegitimized like other anti-Black racism protests, even though the
NFL protests originated around the same agenda. However, NFL protest coverage was
rarely centered on the issue of police brutality in Black communities and instead
524 The International Journal of Press/Politics 24(4)

tended to discuss criticism of players’ kneeling during the national anthem. Our work
shows that despite the intensity of coverage of NFL protests, the press minimized them
by ignoring the social critique of the protest’s substance and by allowing officials to
dictate narratives, which were often sensational.
Our results indicate that those protests that are legitimized the most and delegiti-
mized the least, including immigration, gender, and health and environment pro-
tests, might claim the highest tiers of the hierarchy. The position of immigration
protests in a higher tier of the hierarchy could be a result of the Texas statewide ethos
and the defining role of Mexico’s influence on the region. The legitimizing coverage
of this tier of protests might also be a result of the policies enacted or announced by
President Trump, in particular his implementation of executive orders on controver-
sial federal policies and the attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which
attracted resulting widespread criticism. It is also possible that these particular pro-
tests were covered in a more legitimizing fashion because of the communication
strategies enacted by the movement actors and organizers. For example, Rucht
(2004) described a “quadruple A” process by which movement actors attempt to
unravel or circumvent traditional media’s marginalization routines. The centraliza-
tion of the perspectives, objectives, and goals of the social movements within each
of the topics discussed in this research might provide complementary empirical
insights about the tensions between the press and social movements (Ryan 1991).
However, regardless of the social movement’s agency and tactics, or the amount of
coverage each topic or issue received, our work indicates that the substantive
demands of Black and Indigenous protest movements (which are not emergent or
new to the landscape of social injustice) were delegitimized to a greater extent than
other movements. In the context of 2017—a year saturated in protest activity in the
United States—these findings indicate that the asymmetrical power dynamics
described by Gamson and Wolfsfeld (1993) may be more pronounced for those bat-
tling issues of racial injustice, as this inequality have persisted overtly and covertly
throughout U.S. history.
The hierarchy of social struggle reflects the enforcement of deeper power structures
and social forces that influence newsroom practices, behaviors, and coverage, ulti-
mately contributing to the preservation of human subjugation. Several authors have
noted that when social movements adhere to formal political actions, more legitimacy
is granted to them (Shahin et al. 2016; Streeck and Kenworthy 2005). Other research-
ers have shown the political ideologies of news organizations, protesters, and institu-
tions predict the applicability of the protest paradigm (Rohlinger et al. 2012; Weaver
and Scacco 2013). Rucht (2011) has also identified how repetition and competition
can intensify and decrease overall media coverage. Building on this work, our research
finds that the topic or grievance addressed by protesters helps explain the persistence
of negative patterns in press coverage, and the hierarchy of social struggle created by
the media ultimately reinforces some of the existing race and class hierarchies that
characterize Western society. Specifically, protests of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous
racism fall at the lowest tiers of the hierarchy. Because news visibility and framing
have a distinct persuasiveness on public opinion and social policy (e.g., Scheufele and
Brown and Harlow 525

Tewksbury 2007), the maintenance of engrained societal hierarchies through journal-

istic practices is counterproductive to certain social change efforts.
Our findings point to a troubling pattern in media coverage for social movements:
When protests overcome the marginalization of neglect (i.e., the media not covering
the movement and its issues), we can expect that the topic that a movement addresses
becomes a paramount predictor of protest paradigm adherence. Our hierarchy is
likely influenced by the current political governance and climate, and the analysis of
Texas media serves as a prototype for understanding protest coverage in the context
of populist, radically conservative politics. One of the principal strategies that popu-
list leaders use is the delegitimization of opponents. It is possible that the influence
of a political system that delegitimizes some people and issues for political gain trig-
gers the press to react (or overreact) in the ways they reinforce and strengthen this
hierarchy.
The hierarchy established by the empirical evidence in this study is also built on
issues of race and racism, and it is possible that this finding is unique to the United
States, especially given the historical foundations and reiterations of racism in its
political system. However, at its core, the persistence of oppression enforced
through racist ideological precepts is evident throughout the histories of countries
across the globe, bound and reinforced by what Batur (2007) calls “willful igno-
rance.” For countries with racially or ethnically diverse populations, the protests’
position on the hierarchy is likely to extend beyond the context of the United States;
however, more comparative research is required to confirm this possibility.
Furthermore, we know that adherence to the paradigm has been found to varying
degrees in media coverage around the world (e.g., Harlow et al. 2017; Shahin et al.
2016), and the globalization of media and social movements has allowed for further
interconnectedness across borders, creating the possibility that how the media in
the United States cover a global movement could have consequences in other parts
of the world if that coverage is shared via online social networks. Future research
should pursue this possibility.
This study is limited in that, in an attempt to keep the sample size manageable, only
stories with the word “protest” in the headline, article summary, or URL were ana-
lyzed, so some protest coverage could have been excluded from the analysis. However,
this method combined with our manual checks ensured that only stories actually about
protests, rather than those that simply included a passing mention of protests, were
included in the analysis. The wide divergence in number of stories per newspaper also
posed a limitation, as some newspapers, especially the smaller ones, infrequently
reported on protests. Still, the effort to include large and small newspapers enables this
study to contribute to our understanding of how different types of newspapers cover
protests. The insights we drew from this comparative work clarify the parameters of
the protest paradigm and its hierarchical application to different types of protests,
while also considering the diversity of the media landscape by considering news media
with larger and smaller distributions. These findings ultimately illustrate the media’s
continued contribution to limiting social progress and its persistent role in a political
system of suppression.
526 The International Journal of Press/Politics 24(4)

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by an Emerging Scholars Grant from
the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Notes
1. Black and Indigenous are considered proper nouns throughout this manuscript. Following
the lead of authors such as Crenshaw (1990), we capitalize “Black” because (1) this term
denotes a specific cultural group in the United States, (2) it considers the histories of colo-
nialism and racism in the United States that have broadly erased specific geographic-based
descriptors used in other pan-ethnic designations, and thereby (3) it acknowledges both
African and Caribbean ancestries. Using similar logic that acknowledges the history and
culture of Indigenous people in the United States, we capitalize the term “Indigenous.”
The designation white is not reserved for a specific culture (Crenshaw 1990), and therefore
white is not designated a proper noun.
2. See https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/tx/POP010210.
3. In the United States, sanctuary jurisdictions’ (cities, counties and states) principal
characteristic is their restriction of local funding and resources to aid in federal immi-
gration enforcement. See https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics
/immigration/2018/05/07/283985/the-sanctuary-cities-law-in-texas-how-things-look-a
-year-later/.
4. Many made national news, including Sandra Bland, Dajerria Becton, and Jordan Edwards.
A database of police shootings in Texas is available at https://mappingpoliceviolence.org.
5. Details of the shooting and murders of police that occurred during a Black Lives Matter protest in
Dallas, Texas, are available at https://www.dallasnews.com/news/dallas-ambush/2016/07/14
/dallas-police-shooter-killed-4-officers-street-1-second-floor-window.
6. See https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/state/texas/.
7. See https://www.dallasnews.com/business/energy/collection/everything-need-know-energy
-transfer-partners-dakota-access-pipeline.

ORCID iD
Danielle K. Brown https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7637-8964

Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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Author Biographies
Danielle K. Brown, PhD, University of Texas at Austin, is an assistant professor in The Media
School at Indiana University. Her research examines marginalized communities, social media,
and media effects.
Summer Harlow, PhD, University of Texas at Austin, is an assistant professor in the Valenti
School of Communication at the University of Houston. She researches the intersections of
journalism, activism, social media, and alternative media, particularly within Latin America.
She is the author of Liberation Technology in El Salvador (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).