We found that narratives about the Women’s March and anti-Trump protests gave voice to protesters and significantly explored their grievances.
They held that media narratives tend to emphasize the drama, inconvenience and disruption of protests rather than the demands, grievances and agendas of protesters.
In all, we identified 777 articles by searching for terms such as “protest,” “protester,” “Black Lives Matter” and “Women’s March.”
Around half of the reports on anti-Trump protests, immigration rallies, women’s rights demonstrations and environmental actions included substantial information about protesters’ grievances and contrast, Dakota Pipeline and anti-black racism-related protests got legitimizing coverage less than 25% of the time and were more likely to be described as disruptive and confrontational.
In coverage of a St. Louis protest over the acquittal of a police officer who killed a black man, violence, arrest, unrest and disruption were the leading descriptors, while concern about police brutality and racial injustice was reduced to just a few mentions.
