Protests, the paradigm, and the press

‘News’ is only created or manifested when something significantly fresh occurs in society. However, not every situation can become news because not every situation is worthy of being broadcasted or propagated on a large scale. There exists a set of characteristics, or a checklist, that any occurrence must fulfil in order to qualify as newsworthy.

In their book, Structure of Foreign News, two Norwegian scholars, Galtung and Ruge , observe 12 general ‘news values’ that contribute towards the selection and presentation of news – frequency, threshold, unambiguity, meaningfulness, consonance, unexpectedness, continuity, composition, reference to elite nations and persons, personalization, and negativity. It is assumed then, based on these news values, that there is a certain hierarchy within news and that an event must qualify in most, if not all, of the above values to be considered worthy of press, no matter the type or genre of the news.

The coverage of protests and social demonstrations also are subject to the aforementioned news values. Protests, in the modern democratic landscape, form an integral part of society as they allow a semblance of power to the previously passive citizens to hold the political authorities accountable and to demand a better society for themselves. It is becoming increasingly normalized as people have begun to feel the necessity to be more actively involved in the happenings and workings of the society.

There is a particular phenomenon that manifests when protests are covered, known as ‘the protest paradigm’. Within this paradigm, the protestors and the press enter a somewhat ‘symbiotic but imbalanced relationship’, as described by Brown and Harlow (2019) . Journalists, primarily, do not cover a peaceful protest as it does not satisfy the news values to make it newsworthy. Instead, they divert their resources to events that are much more dramatic and eye-catching. However, activists require media attention in order to get their message to the wider audience and ultimately the authority or organization that the demonstration is aimed to influence. When faced with this lack of coverage, protestors and their groups often resort to staging events and actions so as to entice journalists with the news values they are in search of – unexpectedness, meaningfulness, consonance, size, and personalization taking maximum importance among others.

Despite the noble intentions of these staged events, the protest paradigm indicates that the outcomes tend to veer in the opposite direction, with journalists focusing on these momentary actions, ignoring the larger and more imperative cause for movement, and demonizing the activists through underreporting the protest and setting a restricted ‘news frame’ around the coverage of it.

The protest paradigm hinges on news values, as is apparent. Which protest makes the news, in what connotation, how much is covered of it, and when it is released, is entirely decided by the 12 characteristics, few more important than the rest in the context of protest coverage.

1. Frequency

Frequency, as a news value, indicates the timespan of an event, i.e. how short or long the duration of the occurrence is. Journalists tend to prefer the shorter events as newsworthy, a preference driven purely by the ease of writing and the malleability of it to fit into the limited spaces in print or broadcast sections.
Protests, as an event, tend to be on the longer side, and most notable ones in history have been recorded to span a couple of months, counting from the first hundred in a neighbourhood, to millions celebrating or grieving an outcome.

This becomes the predominant reason why journalists, initially, hesitate in covering this type of event – there is just not enough to write about, regardless of the righteous intentions of the overall movement, because they just are not doing much.

The Anti-Vaccine Protests in the United States in the pandemic-riddled years of 2021 and 2022 are an example of the lack of coverage due to low frequency. These protests occurred in bursts and individually in isolated parts of the country. Each was quelled within a month’s time, much too quick for it to make headlines or receive any significant media attention.

However, contrary to the usual preference of quicker events, the press end up covering a protest only if it stretches over a considerable period of time as that indicates consistency and the chance of something ‘newsworthy’ happening is higher, like violence or conflict which are the tastiest treats for a newsperson.


2. Continuity

As mentioned above, journalists are more inclined to write about protests that last much longer than the rest and the news value of continuity is vital in this matter. If an event, though lacking in other fields, shows consistency and progression in its running, the media is more likely to take an interest in it, as it awards a novel publication that will allow them a fresher or unique angle.

In 2013, Ukraine’s population marched in the Euromaidan protest, in an outcry against the then-president’s decision to not sign a trade association with the European Union and instead strengthen political ties with Russia. The protest ran for 3 months, November to February, but initially the media, both global and some local, were slow in reporting it. When it reached its climax in the early months of the following year, violence had erupted, with many losing their lives, and the media chased after the story in pursuit of the sweet yet morbid nectar that is negativity, yet another news value.


3. Negativity

Bad news sells. This is because human nature inexplicably remains morbidly curious about the gruesome and negative. Gans (2004) offers an additional explanation by theorizing that the propagation of news that involves undesirable actions and connotations also, indirectly, portrays what is considered socially desirable. Thus, a consensus is assumed among the audience, even for values or norms that may not explicitly exist and such display of negative news, or dissent, shows the presumably agreeing audience the violation of said shared values.

This is why protests are newsworthy at times, particularly in times of conflict or violent displays. Hartley (1982) quotes Hall et al.’s theory of mapping culture, wherein it assumes that society exists in three forms – fragmented, i.e. divided into sections and spheres, individual persons, hierarchal, and consensual, which is paradoxical to the previous assumption that society is also fragmented. Hartley, using this theory, asserts that conflict works best in news as it provides a resounding consensus that those who do not agree with the status quo are dissidents who impose a threat to the unity of society. Thus, the negative portrayal of activists and their acts become both a way of uniting the audience and separating them from the so-called deviants in the world.

Negativity became the key reason why the George Floyd Protest in the United States in 2020 became one of the largest protests covered by the media in decades. The impactful video of the murder of George Floyd by the police became the driving force behind the movement and the aggressive nature of the Black Lives Matter movement that came along, with constant clashes between the police authorities and the protestors, damage of property, and other violent crimes.

Revisiting Galtung and Ruge’s original 12 news values and reevaluating them to fit into the technologically driven and changing modern industry, Harcup and O’Neill (2017) introduced some values that contribute to the selection of newsworthy events, one of the main ones being audio-visuals. These very audio-visuals are what spurred the BLM movement to the magnitude that it was and, in many places, continues to be. The videos of violence, police brutality, arson, and even personal recordings of victims and their families heightened the drama, another contemporary news value presented by Harcup and O’Neill, and attracted further and extensive media coverage.


4. Threshold

When speaking of magnitude of an event, threshold is another important news value. In this context, threshold refers to the size of an event, how much it is spread over the local or global audience, and the volume of occurrences within one situation. The larger the protest, the more the drama, the more the media attention. Protests with smaller turnovers or less violent proceedings tend to receive reserved attention from the press.

Taking the example of the BLM in the US, we can clearly see the extent of coverage it received is directly proportionate to the amount of people participating and the nature of the events taking place within the demonstrations – more conflict, more press. Happening parallelly on the other side of the globe in Belarus was another protest, with people marching against the fraudulent re-election of the corrupt then-president. This protest was largely peaceful before police authorities cracked down on the marching crowds, resulting in several casualties that caused the protest to be a historically significant event for the country.

However, the case of Belarus was overshadowed by the sheer magnitude and force of the BLM, and it also did not produce the same drama that the BLM procured for the media to latch onto.


5. Reference to elite nations or persons

Another reason Belarus did not receive equal press coverage is due to the lower global standing of the country. In comparison to the United States, Belarus is a nation that is not considered to be the global north, or ‘elite’.

News is more likely to be reported if it references one of the powerful countries like the US, the UK, China, or other such economical powerhouses. Boyle et al. (2012) suggest that the local press of non-elite nations provide substantial coverage and more often than not treat the groups of protestors according to the extent of aggression displayed or ‘dissent’ shown. However, on a global scale this is not the case. They go on to say that this bias is likely due to the organizational and political pressures of the news agencies of the journalists rather than a personal or individual discriminatory action. News organization’s pressure is yet another one of Harcup and O’Neill’s modern news values.


6. Consonance

The predictability of an event contributes greatly to the likelihood of its coverage, as the media is prepared with adequate information to report on it. Here is where the protest paradigm is clearly observed. If the protestors stage an event, the media covers it due its predictability and the ease of access to information, but the outcome is negative. The media prepares a negative frame for the event to shine an disagreeable light on the activists, labelling them deviants of society, as mentioned previously. This frame is largely chosen due to the lack of diverse and reliable sources.

In a staged event, the journalist only seeks access to certain kinds of sources, according to Gans (2004) , those who are powerful, have ‘newsworthy’ information to volunteer and are close to the journalist in geographical and social contexts. This is even though, at a protest where the main goal is to propagate the larger propaganda, almost all the people are desperate for media attention and the journalists remain passive to these potential sources, instead backing the regular and powerful ones.

When this frame has been chosen, says Gitlin (2003) , the journalist will rarely strive to seek out more information, despite it being important for the accurate representation of the protestor’s movement, as it goes beyond the usual news-gathering routine and forces the reporter to step outside the given and approved information. This restricts the perspective that is shown to the wider audience – only a single story is told from a single angle and on a single event that may very well be multifaceted.

Machin and Niblock (2006) speak of ‘pseudo-events’, indicating towards events that may not have occurred without the media’s interference. The framing plays a big role in pseudo-events, with reporters writing articles about a certain topic to induce unrest to create newsworthy ‘sellable’ news. The ensuing demonstrations or events in society then becomes a predictable event for the media, making it easier for the press to draw the protestors as bad and separate from the larger society.

The 2011 England Riots is a prime example of a media event. The protest, initially and largely peaceful, was misreported or ‘framed’ by the media to potentially turn violent and aggressive. A small number of individuals or minor groups committed violent crimes in isolation from the larger demonstration and yet, the media honed in on these acts, labelling the entire protest as one that was violent and filled with dissidents and deviancy.


CONCLUSION

The news values put forward by Galtung and Ruge in 1965 still hold significant weight in the selection of news in today’s developed world, enhanced comparatively for the digital landscape by Harcup and O’Neill’s contemporary introductions of values to the list. Protest coverage and the media attention that street demonstrations receive are also still greatly influenced by these values, albeit negatively. These values, unconsciously, turn protests with impactful messages into performances by the media for the entertainment of the watching audience and steering away society from the accurate and transparent propagation of news.