Marginalization Devices in U.S. Press Coverage of Iraq War Protest: A Content Analysis

Framing Thailand’s Political Crisis

“…Consistent with previous research (Boykoff, 2006;Dardis, 2006;Gitlin, 1980;McLeod & Hertog, 1998;Xu, 2013), media coverage of political protests and demonstrations tended to frame domestic protest activities in negative ways, thus creating negative impacts in Thai society. As shown in this study, over a quarter of the total news coverage by the mainstream newspapers (25.19 per cent) was given to the negative impact frame, as compared to more than one-fifth (21.53 per cent) of the total coverage for the public disapproval frame.…”

(Mis)Understanding Political Participation

“…At the same time, mainstream media heavily rely on official sources for information about the protests (McLeod and hertog 1999). Other journalistic tools for the marginalisation of the protesters include, according to Dardis (2006), a focus on the appearance or mental abilities of the protesters, calls on public opinion and judgement, statistics, generalisations, eyewitness accounts to counter the demonstrators' claims and counterdemonstrations. The ultimate consequence of these media template processes is the de-legitimisation of the protesters' claims and ultimately their demonization (McLeod and hertog 1999).…”

“…We also took into account explicit criticisms or praise of the protests, thus coding for the overall tone of coverage (Cammaerts 2013). Further marginalisation frames acknowledged in the literature and explored here include the lack of acknowledgement of the causes of the protests and motives of the protesters (Weaver and Scacco 2012), as well as the focus on the spectacle of the protests (Gitlin 1980;McLeod and hertog 1999;Dardis 2006). Regarding the latter, we coded for references to the performative acts of the protesters, their banners and slogans, the diversity of the crowd and the numbers of protesters.…”

A Tale of Two Sites

“…McLeod's work identified a series of marginalizing frames whereby journalists would present the protests as out of step with public opinion, violent, and disorganized, among other things. Research by Dardis (2006) examining Iraq war protests expanded this notion further to characterize the varied techniques journalists use to diminish protesters. Dardis found that stories that negatively characterized protesters included more marginalizing devices including general lawlessness, police confrontation, and protesters as antitroop.…”

“…First, the presence or absence of common frames used in protest coverage was assessed. These frames include marginalizing frames, mixed frames, and sympathetic frames identified in research by McLeod (1999;McLeod & Hertog, 1999) and others (see Dardis, 2006). Second, labels and other descriptors used to characterize the protesters were assessed, rooted in work by Shoemaker (1984) and others (McLeod, 1999;McLeod & Hertog, 1999), including characterizations of norms and norm violations.…”