The Protest Paradigm in a Multi-Channel Information Environment: A Content Analysis of Macau’s News Coverage from 2002 to 2017

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Poster Session: Political Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Protest communication studies have shown that, in order to maintain the status quos, the mainstream media, which act as the agents of social control, tend to marginalize the domestic protest activities. This phenomenon was characterized by the concept of “protest paradigm”. However, with the development of the media environment, and the changes in the social movement field. The media’s representation of the protest became more diversified and complex. Scholars begun to treat the protest paradigm as a variable. The former studies also paid attention to the macro effect, that comes from the media environment. Macau is a Special
Administrative Region of China. Macau’s political system is “One state, two systems”.
The media environment is heterogeneous. To examine the applicability of protest paradigm in a multi-channel information environment. By extending the established line of inquiry, this study content analyzed the newspapers from Hong Kong and Macau to examine how the combined multiple factors influence media coverages of Macau’s protests. The preliminary result shows that, when compared with the neutral and prodemocracy media, the conservative media adopted more “protest paradigm” framing strategies to marginalize the protesters. The news tended to be more critical if the protests with more radical tactics. When the protest focused on the controversy political issue, the news coverages didn’t show the feature of protest paradigm clearly. The protest coverage became less negative across time. The protest framing process based on the interaction between the status quos, media and protest. The study raises a dynamic theoretical interaction model that can interpret the variation of the applicability of the “protest paradigm”.

Author

• Min Xu, University of Macau