From Protest to Agenda Building: Description Bias in Media Coverage of Protest Events in Washington, D.C.

This study examines how social movement protest activity influences media framing of issues by analysing the mass media coverage of protest activity in Washington, D.C. in 1982 and 1991. The aim of the researchers is to determine whether the news media frames issues in a manner that is consistent with protest group aims, and what factors surrounding the protest and its coverage affect these frames. The primary variable is whether the coverage focuses on the episodic element of the protest event itself or the thematic element of the issues driving the protest. Their conclusions suggest that even when organisations are successful in garnering sufficient coverage, the likelihood is that the protest will be portrayed in a manner that ultimately undermines the movement's goals.

The authors begin with a brief examination of the role of political protest as a "political resource" suggesting that it plays a multifaceted role in social movements with multiple audiences including the movement constituents, media, general public, and the political audience (governments). Because most social-movement organisations are typically limited in terms of their communication resources they are in part beholden to the mass media to reach their audience. Public protest has become a routine part of life in Washington and while some have suggested that this has led to a reduction in its impact, it remains a staple of social movement activity in their efforts to draw attention to specific issues.

This interactive process between the media and SMOs is in fact two-part: the authors point to the distinction between agenda setting - "the process of identifying and advocating social problems for inclusion on public and governmental agendas," and agenda building - "efforts to influence the interpretation and prioritising of those problems." SMOs are invariably interested in affecting both processes. In order to do this, however, they must overcome two media biases. The first is selection bias, the process of how the "media gatekeepers" (senior editorial staff) decide what events are 'newsworthy'. The authors note that other than size there are few objective characteristics that can be correlated with coverage levels. One of the strongest determinants is related to "issue attention cycles", thus protests are most likely to be covered if they are related to some issue with which the media is already engaged. This suggests that timing and the establishing of linkages to current events is possibly more critical for organisers than achieving large turnouts.

Description bias is the second filter through which SMO events must pass, and involves how a selected protest event is portrayed in a media story - the inherent assumption is that the media will interpret an event in a way that will likely differ from protestor desires and the interpretations of third parties. The authors suggest that there are three main factors/models that influence the "packaging and portrayal" of news that can be categorised as organisational, structural, and ideological.

• "Organisational models see the institutional logics guiding mass media operations as influential in the selection and portrayal of news." These models focus on the way media actors construct images and compile messages. These "logics" do not favour SMO media access - editors prefer reporters who are generalists rather than specialists, they prefer government or "official" sources because of convenience and accessibility (whilst portraying them as credible and unbiased), and they are concerned with cost controls. They insure that only those social movements whose leaders provide the most appealing media images and rhetoric will be likely to gain media coverage.
• "Structural models assume that the broader structure of power relations in society affect the portrayal of the news. In these accounts, the mass media are invariably biased in favor of the capitalist interests of their owners." This has been enhanced in recent years through the increased privatisation and concentration of ownership. "Market forces 'naturally' marginalise dissent by crowding out any ideas for which there is no substantial economic backing and perpetuating self-censorship practices in media institutions." Advertisers' priorities for news-gathering do little to contribute to a better understanding of events for audiences.
• "Ideological models of the media explain the choices made in the selection and interpretation of the news in terms of the cultural reproduction of broader power relationships. The focus of these models, however, is more upon the subtle ways through which economic and political elites control images and meaning." The authors' derive their categories of 'episodic' and 'thematic' reporting from this model.

The authors then propose 6 Hypotheses for testing through the comprehensive media survey that they have performed during the time periods noted. The hypotheses will be presented in tandem with the study findings below. These hypotheses were tested after the development of an extensive codebook that graded each item in terms that focused on the three most important variables: (1) thematic or episodic frames, (2) the amount of coverage given to protestor issues, (3) the "spin of the coverage towards authorities or protestors."

Hypothesis 1: "Television news, with more limited 'temporal space,' is more selective in the range of social movement events it reports, but the coverage of these events is more thematic than print coverage." - The study confirmed this to be the case, with the television networks covering only 17% of protest events that received any media coverage while the newspapers produced the remainder of the stories. The television reporting was also more thematic in nature, and more likely to emphasise the protestor issues over the event itself.

Hypothesis 2: "Controversy such as the presence of counter-demonstrations, arrests, dramaturgy or violence generate more episodic than thematic coverage of a protest event." - Support was also found for this statement, with events marred by extensive conflict or confrontation far less likely to be covered in a thematic way, and less focus on the issues at hand.

Hypothesis 3: "Issues that are related to ongoing media issue agendas will attract more thematic coverage than episodic coverage." - Mixed results were obtained from this hypothesis. While issues that were already on the media agenda obtained an increased amount of attention, the coverage did not necessarily probe as deeply into the supporting issues. Gulf war protests, for example, were less likely overall to receive debate about the underlying issues of the protestors.

Hypothesis 4: "Media coverage of social movements will tend to favor the status quo; the 'spin' of news stories will in general tend to favor government and other authorities." - This conclusion was not supported. The independent participant reviewers of the media material were more likely to identify a spin in favour of the protestors at 21% while only 6% of news items were believed to contain a bias towards authorities - the vast majority (73%) thus were regarded as neutral evaluations.

Hypothesis 5: "Protest event stories that spin in favor of the status quo will rely principally on the government and authorities for information." - No statistically significant evidence was derived for this hypothesis.

Hypothesis 6: "Thematic news reports are more likely than episodic ones to 'spin' in favor of social movement actors and to rely on movement information sources." - The authors are of the belief that more thematic coverage is better for social movements because thematic news reports are more likely to confront audiences with the underlying issues rather than the protest itself. Thematic coverage is more likely to support social movement frames. The evidence from the study supported their beliefs. The presence of thematic coverage made it three times more likely that a news item would provide a movement-friendly spin rather than a neutral or negative one. The study also found that "stories relying on movement sources…exhibited characteristics that worked against social movement framing efforts: They devoted less space to a discussion of the issues at stake, and they tended to be less thematic in their frames than were stories based primarily on government or expert information sources."

From these findings the authors have drawn several conclusions. The first is that protest activity has an uncertain and potentially contradictory effect on social movement campaigns primarily because many of the most important variables - the type of media coverage, the existence of counter-demonstrations or violence, and the ability to relate a protest issue to an ongoing concern of the media - are all largely outside of demonstration organiser's control. The only factor available to social movements to shape the frames presented by the media is to attempt to exercise some influence on the selection of commentators that appear before audiences in regards to the issues being discussed, not necessarily movement insiders. Protest activity can thus not be expected to actually foist specific issues onto media agendas but ultimately only operates as a supportive strategy for ongoing debates.

Generating thematic coverage of protest events is thus very difficult for organisers to do, especially in light of ever increasing levels media concentration and a narrowing scope of reference and opportunity for discussion. The authors point out that there have been several important responses to this frustration, including the dramatic growth of the Independent Media Center (IMC) network, which provides a well-organised alternative source for social movement discussion and dialogue.

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