Many scholars believe that media coverage of social protest tends to marginalize the movements behind them. They suggest that mainstream media is a lap dog of those in power, protecting the status quo by demonizing and criminalizing protesters (Entman and Rojecki 1993; McLeod and Olien 1999). More recent research has challenged this paradigm, showing that not all journalists adhere to it, that there are different conditions under which it operates, and that there is some evidence for a logic of normalization.

Nevertheless, some scholars argue that it is important to talk about protests in order to bring their issues to the public. They suggest that media should be more active in covering social problems on a regular basis, and not just when violent protest flares up. They should try to balance episodic coverage with analyses of the underlying issues and their historical context.

In this context, we study the impact of four factors on media coverage of protests: