Framing #Vemprarua: The 2013 Brazilian Protests on News Websites, Blogs And TwitterRachel Reis Mourao

Vem pra Rua Summer of 2013: massive protests in more than 150

cities encompassing an array of grievances.

First massive protest since President Collor’s impeachment in 1992

Bus fare increase, World Cup expenditures, human rights violations, corruption, etc.

Scheufele’s model of framing research

Definitions

Collective action frames: action-oriented sets of beliefs and meanings that inspire and legitimize the activities and campaigns of a social movement organization (Benford & Snow, 2000).

Master frame: not a concept.

Media: intermediary between SMO’s collective action frames and the public, including prospective supporters

“Protest paradigm”: structural biases that produce a pattern of coverage of social movement actions (Gitlin 1980; McLeod and Hertog 1992; Shoemaker 1984).

Historical overview of protest coverage in Brazil: media “flip-flop,” legitimizing protests when they become more powerful.

Entman & Rojecki (1992): the news grants legitimacy to participation by movements with little institutionalized power in politics but only so long as they steer clear of effective political action.

Research questions and hypothesesHow did Brazilian media outlets cover the 2013 protests online?

RQ1: What frames were employed by main media outlets when covering the 2013 Brazilian protests online?

RQ2: What frames were employed by bloggers when referring to the 2013 Brazilian protests?

RQ3: What frames were employed by Twitter users when referring to the 2013 Brazilian protests?

H1: The more people participate in protests, the more the media use “legitimizing” frames when covering them.

H2: The broader and more resonant the collective action frames, the more the media use “legitimizing” frames to cover the protests.

Method

Computerized content analysis using the software Crimson-Hexagon

Monitors: a) news websites; b) blogs and forums; c) Twitter news outlets; d) Twitter general.

Training: a sample was used to train the program on the various master frames proposed by Hertog and McLeod (2001): confrontation, riot and debate.

Algorithm applied the lessons to the large data sets based on the identification of central concepts (Hertog & McLeod, 2001; Miller & Riechert, 2001).

Results were compared with a timeline of the events (H1)

Hashtags were used as a proxy for the movement’s demands (H2)

Results: news websites and blogs

Results: Twitter news and general

Results

So what?

Brazilian media followed the “protest paradigm” more closely on the beginning of the events, but migrated to legitimizing frames as demands became generic and public support increased (H1 supported)

This is consistent with the literature on media coverage of previous protests in the country, but in contrast to US theory.

News stories follow public support on the streets. Twitter news accounts follow public support on the Twittersphere.

The rise of the resonant “rights frame” was closely followed by legitimizing media coverage (H2 supported)

Blogs emphasized “debate” frames from the beginning, essentially being used by the social movement organizations to gather support for the protests.

What’s next? Software training limited: could not identify the circus

frame.

Future studies on frame sponsorship are needed understand Brazilian media “flip-flop” behavior. Elites fail to index?

What is the impact of shifting from issue-specific to generic frames on the cohesion of social movement organizations?

Next step: compare the results of media frames analysis to the collective action frames put forward by the SMOs on blogs and Twitter.

Thank you!