News media and the racialization of protest: an analysis of Black Lives Matter articles

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (8) ◽  
pp. 720-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy Leopold ◽  
Myrtle P. Bell

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine coverage of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in seven US-based newspapers to determine whether the protest paradigm, “a pattern of news coverage that expresses disapproval toward protests and dissent,” and other marginalizing techniques are present, and racialized. Design/methodology/approach Relevant articles published during a six-month period of 2014 near the death of Michael Brown were retrieved from the selected outlets, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the St Louis Post-Dispatch. Textual and content analyses were performed. Findings The articles heavily followed the paradigm. An additional characteristic, blame attribution, was also identified. Language of crime, lawlessness, violence, blame for nearby acts of violence, and inflammatory quotes from bystanders and official sources were often present. There was little discussion of key issues associated with the formation of BLM. Research limitations/implications Mainstream outlets rather than social media or alternative outlets were examined. Future research should study coverage of BLM in other outlets. Practical implications Measures to avoid marginalizing protests and racialization of coverage, including increased diversity in the newsroom and monitoring for racialized language are suggested. Social implications Racialization of news and coverage of BLM has widespread negative consequences, such as association of Blacks with criminality that may affect their quality of life. The protest paradigm has the ability to squelch participation in social movements, which have the possibility to bring about needed social change. Originality/value This interdisciplinary paper highlights the important role of mainstream media and news routines in affecting the BLM movement. It uses diversity research to make recommendations for media practitioners to avoid racialization of news.

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S537-S537
Author(s):  
Brianne M Stanback

Abstract Rhetorical inquires have shown connections between representation and power, workplace fashion and development of ethos, and the rhetoric of glamour through women’s fashion and dress. One element absent from that conversation is how the life course, which typically differs for women because of existing power structures advantaging men, may impact the experience of women as they age, their choice of dress, and the rhetorical implications of those decisions. To explore dress and rhetoric from a life course perspective, this project traces the evolution of Serena Williams’ work apparel across her professional tennis career to the catsuit worn at the 2018 French Open, which is the focus of the project. Press reports on the 2018 catsuit by Nike, New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Business Insider, BBC Sport, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, interviews given by Williams, and the television documentary, Becoming Serena, will be analyzed for their treatment of Williams’ work attire and the life course. Responses to the catsuit emphasize attitudes about gender, race, and class, either discounting or ignoring the life course implications such as motherhood and changes in health status. Despite professional success, responses about the catsuit may reflect that Williams faces the same jeopardies, and invisibility, common to many women as they age, and the rhetorical perspective provides new methodological and pedagogical possibilities for instruction in aging.


2019 ◽  
pp. 379-393
Author(s):  
Mike Dillon

American news organizations have long been criticized for failing to anticipate, appreciate and exploit the Internet as it became a fact of daily life in the mid-1990s. This chapter explores and analyzes the lack of planning that stymied the development of journalism on the Web and cast doubt on the viability of traditional public-service journalism with its enduring values of accuracy, fairness and advocacy. Specifically, the essay documents and analyzes the online debuts of two venerable “old media” news outlets (The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times) and two “new media” Web news outlets (Salon and Slate) in the mid-1990s by exploring the claims they made about their aims, purposes and expectations as they introduced themselves to the public via their salutatory editorials. It is a cautionary tale for a digital world that reconfigures itself in ever-quickening cycles.


1988 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Martin Lester

Mug shots from five U.S. newspapers: USA Today, Chicago Tribune, New Orleans Times-Picayune, New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, were analyzed for the same five-day work week of each month for 1986. The 300 front pages yielded 520 head shots of 1,148 photographs. USA Today and newspapers with its similar graphic style use more mug shots without an accompanying article on the front page than more traditionally designed newspapers.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-12
Author(s):  
Malia Wollan

An essay review of California Is a Place, a collection of three- to ten-minute web video vignettes, by filmmakers Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari. Their work has attracted more than three million viewers since their first videos went online in early 2010. Widely distributed across the Internet, the videos have won awards and been featured on news sites including PBS’s NewsHour, the New York Times, The Atlantic, and the Los Angeles Times. “People are craving honest stories,” Cooper says. “They want stories that are unmitigated by the television structure of dramatic moments.”


1992 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome O'Callaghan ◽  
James O. Dukes

Citizens hold the Supreme Court in high regard, and this esteem necessarily, for most, must be based on mass media news coverage. Content analysis of Supreme Court coverage by three networks, three news magazines and three major newspapers finds the press is selective in type of cases covered. The best coverage fit to actual types of cases decided was in the New York Times. All sampled news media gave more coverage to civil rights cases than the number of these cases would justify. First Amendment issues also received close news media attention, but economic and other issues did not. High public esteem of the Supreme Court is based on an incomplete look at the court's workload.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-78
Author(s):  
B.F. Battistoli ◽  

This study sought to answer the research question: How did media address climate change in reporting on Hurricanes Harvey and Irma? A content analysis was performed on the coverage of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma over a six-week timeframe by two national newspapers, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and two local newspapers, the Houston Chronicle for Hurricane Harvey and the Tampa Bay Times for Hurricane Irma. A keyword analysis yielded 630 news articles (N=630), of which only 23 (3.65%) mentioned “climate change,” “global warming,” or both. Language that addressed these terms was coded on a Likert Scale (0-5, negative to positive), yielding a median score of 3.44, “slightly positive.” An extensive literature review and discussion of the findings and implications for future research are included. Keywords: Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, climate change, global warming, newspaper content analysis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Mattson ◽  
Katie Mathew ◽  
Jen Katz-Buonincontro

Worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced people to adapt quickly, and to reexamine interactions and responsibilities toward communities in creative ways. This paper presents a qualitative media analysis (Altheide and Schneider, 2013) of 50 online news articles (Los Angeles Times and New York Times) published between March 17th and August 6th, 2020 using the key-words “creativity” and “COVID-19.” Informed by a definition of creativity as actions that are considered both “new” and “appropriate” (Sternberg and Lubart, 1999), articles describing a “creative action” were kept for analysis. These articles highlight creative responses to the COVID-19 quarantine in various domains including architecture, fashion, and faith. In this paper, we discuss the themes derived during this analysis- “renewal and continuity” and “the multidimensionality of creativity” which elaborate and contextualize a perspective of socio-cultural creativity theory and propose two implications of this study. The first implication posits that creativity was an observable, cultural response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The second implication offers a broader concept of how cultural resources function as dynamic constraints or “affordances” within the Five A’s model of creativity (Glǎveanu, 2013). Discussion of further research through the lens of socio-cultural creativity is discussed.


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