Healing alone or protesting together? Framing Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and Indigenous uprisings with trauma

• In Event: 20861 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 15: When does Framing Work?

Abstract

In recent social movements, discourses connecting trauma and political action have become increasingly prevalent. Given the media's important role in shaping public understanding of social movements by strategically deploying frames, how does mainstream media use trauma to frame social movements? To address this question, I conduct a comparative analysis of the media coverage of three social movements, Black Lives Matter, Indigenous uprisings, and #MeToo. I draw on a sample of 605 articles from two national newspaper outlets, the Globe and Mail and the New York Times. My analysis identifies two distinct uses of trauma as a framing device in media coverage of social movements: as motivational frames, linking trauma experience with protest participation and community building, and as diagnostic frames, critiquing the media’s overreliance on trauma to represent marginalized communities. While trauma-related coverage of the #MeToo movement is more frequent but episodic and celebrity-driven, Black Lives Matter and Indigenous movements receive less trauma-related coverage but with a more balanced mix of episodic and thematic framing, suggesting divergent media representation of sexual trauma as opposed to racial and historical trauma.

Author

• Siqi Rebecca Qin, University of British Columbia