Street demonstrations and the media agenda: an analysis of the dynamics of protest agenda-setting
Street demonstrations and the media agenda: an analysis of the dynamics of protest agenda-setting
This paper argues that the agenda-setting power of protest must be understood in dynamic terms. Specifically, it develops and tests a dynamic theory of media reaction to protest which posits that features of street demonstrations – such as their size, violence, societal conflict and the presence of a “trigger” – lead protest issues to be reported and sustained in the media agenda over time. We conduct a unique empirical analysis of media coverage of protest issues, based upon a dataset of 48 large-scale street demonstrations in nine countries. Time series cross-sectional analysis is used to estimate the dynamic effects of demonstration features on media coverage of the protest issue. The findings show that violence can increase media attention in the short-term and larger protest size sustains it over the longer-term. The agenda setting power of protest is structured in time.
2283-2313
Jennings, William
2ab3f11c-eb7f-44c6-9ef2-3180c1a954f7
Saunders, Clare
8480977c-b932-43de-921b-d4f34d53f53b
November 2019
Jennings, William
2ab3f11c-eb7f-44c6-9ef2-3180c1a954f7
Saunders, Clare
8480977c-b932-43de-921b-d4f34d53f53b
Jennings, William and Saunders, Clare
(2019)
Street demonstrations and the media agenda: an analysis of the dynamics of protest agenda-setting.
Comparative Political Studies, 52 (13-14), .
(doi:10.1177/0010414019830736).
Abstract
This paper argues that the agenda-setting power of protest must be understood in dynamic terms. Specifically, it develops and tests a dynamic theory of media reaction to protest which posits that features of street demonstrations – such as their size, violence, societal conflict and the presence of a “trigger” – lead protest issues to be reported and sustained in the media agenda over time. We conduct a unique empirical analysis of media coverage of protest issues, based upon a dataset of 48 large-scale street demonstrations in nine countries. Time series cross-sectional analysis is used to estimate the dynamic effects of demonstration features on media coverage of the protest issue. The findings show that violence can increase media attention in the short-term and larger protest size sustains it over the longer-term. The agenda setting power of protest is structured in time.
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JenningsSaunders_CPS
- Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 5 December 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 19 March 2019
Published date: November 2019
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 427061
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/427061
ISSN: 0010-4140
PURE UUID: e9db2099-89e4-4c08-b2a1-6a3c611c5624
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Date deposited: 21 Dec 2018 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 07:26
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Author:
Clare Saunders
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