The news media play a crucial role in framing how protest movements are perceived. Media coverage that depicts protesters as rioters or criminals can delegitimize their concerns, even though the vast majority of protesters are peaceful. Moreover, studies on implicit racial prejudices suggest that news media depictions of protesters of color may trigger negative associations and undermine the legitimacy of their grievances. This is a particularly pressing issue for the news media because the media are so influential and rely on their audiences to make editorial decisions.
News media have a tendency to focus on the conflict and destruction that occur during protests rather than exploring the issues behind them. For example, a news story about the student-led encampment at Columbia University focused primarily on skirmishes between police and students rather than on the underlying issues.
This is especially true when the protests involve a racialized topic. Research shows that news coverage of racialized protests is significantly more likely to employ language that evokes fear and anger than similar coverage of non-racialized protests. Those racial disparities persist even after controlling for the subject of the protest, the year, transcript length, and the ideological leanings of the broadcaster.
These biases in news media coverage of protests can have real consequences for the ability of movement organizers to shift public opinion and pressure policymakers. Indeed, studies have shown that prior levels of support for a protester’s cause strongly influence criticism of the actions of the police and their level of political engagement (Arkes and Tetlock 2004). As a result, activists may find themselves caught in a trap in which they must provoke violence to attract news coverage, but if the resulting portrayals of them are negative, those attitudes can thwart the objectives of their movement.