The Instrumental Mediated Visibility of Violence: The 2013 Protests in Brazil and the Limitations of the Protest Paradigm

Abstract

Studies examining protest news coverage often look at it through a “protest paradigm,” arguing that “mainstream” media delegitimize protests by emphasizing violence and marginalizing grievances. Focusing on the June 2013 protests in Brazil, this article takes the discussion in a different conceptual and empirical direction, examining the forces that, according to national, alternative, and foreign journalists, shaped the coverage of violence during those demonstrations. Drawing on forty-three in-depth interviews, the accounts of these individuals confirm the need to move beyond deterministic approaches suggested by the protest paradigm, acknowledging that the mediated visibility of violence does neither invariably lead to support for the status quo nor to a demonization of social unrest. News coverage of violence emerges alternatively as an instrument with the potential to be strategically exploited for diverse political, ideological, and commercial purposes. A closer examination of the frictional processes leading up to mediated visibility also recognizes that sensationalism and drama are not exclusive to the mainstream media. Despite their potential to broaden the mediated visibility of protest, alternative and foreign journalists may narrate demonstrations as politically legitimate but ultimately shallow spectacles, where the drama of violence—committed by either authorities or demonstrators—obscures the underlying grievances driving people on to the streets. The views of journalists are an important contribution to debates about protest news coverage, given the scarcity of studies examining their accounts during these episodes.

A New Protest Paradigm: Toward a Critical Approach to Protest News Analyses

“…As a result, mentions of violence within the paradigm treat protesters as at fault, even if police were the perpetrators of the violence. Narratives of police violence during protests have, in the past, been limited, but some scholars have begun to disentangle the representation of violence (e.g., Jimenez-Martinez 2021; Mourão 2021). These are important advances, as the traditional paradigm framing seems to assume that all violence and destruction is negative, thereby negating any possibility of violence as a strategic protest tactic and minimizing the importance of the “logic of damage” (Della Porta and Diani 2006) in protesters’ repertoire of contentious actions.…”

The promotional regime of visibility: Ambivalence and contradiction in strategies of dominance and resistance

“…Similarly, scholars in social movements and activism have observed that communicative efforts aimed at challenging dominant social arrangements are underpinned by a belief that acquiring, maintaining and/or managing visibility is indispensable (Jiménez-Martínez, 2021;Neumayer & Rossi, 2018;Uldam, 2018). Hence, and despite their differences, individuals and organisations behind acts of dominance and resistance coincide on drawing on the logics of an 'attention economy' (Davenport & Beck, 2001), engaging in practices that capture, sustain or distract specific gazes and glances from events, individuals or organisations.…”

Another Violent Protest? New Perspectives to Understand Protest Coverage

“…Research on protest coverage has identified several frames the news media use to make sense of protest movements, from sympathetic portrayals (covering protesters' grievances and demands) to extreme depictions of protests and protesters, presenting those as violent and deviant, respectively (e.g., McCluskey et al, 2009;McLeod, 2007;Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). The "protest paradigm" is probably the most studied frame to explain protest coverage, focusing on the media practice of highlighting destruction and violence by demonstrators, quoting official sources, and marginalizing the core reasons behind the movement (Jiménez-Martínez, 2021).…”