Framing a social conflict: News media on the Peruvian protests of 2023

• In Event: 20220 - Section on Communication, Information Technology, and Media Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Section on Communication, Information Technology, and Media Sociology Roundtable IV: Digital Infrastructure II

Abstract

This paper analyzes the conflict-framing aspects of newspaper covers of El Comercio and La Republica on three dates after different massacres were committed in Peru during contention-related protests in 2022. The method used is of discourse analysis. The main theories used to understand the data were the process of democratic backsliding, contention-framing theory, and social mobilization theories; as well as the concept of “culture of fear”. The main findings extend the notion of contention actors to the media, and develop the process of framing not only through overt claiming that the protestors are vandals, but through information omission on the state-led violence and a phrasing that exploits the culture of fear and militarism that validates said violence.

Author

• M. Alexandra Madge Paredes, The New School