Syracuse University SURFACE at Syracuse University Theses - ALL Spring 5-22-2021 Police Brutality And Black Lives Matter Protests: Portrayal In The Mainstream Media And The Effects On Audience Perception Tyriana Chanel Evans Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/thesis Part of the African American Studies Commons, and the Journalism Studies Commons Recommended Citation Evans, Tyriana Chanel, "Police Brutality And Black Lives Matter Protests: Portrayal In The Mainstream Media And The Effects On Audience Perception" (2021). Theses - ALL. 479. https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/479 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by SURFACE at Syracuse University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE at Syracuse University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. ABSTRACT Police Brutality and Black Lives Matter Protests: Portrayal in the Mainstream Media and the Effects on Audience Perception examines newspaper coverage of the #BlackLivesMatter protests following the police killings of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray in 2015 and Korryn Gaines in 2016. The thesis seeks to analyze newspaper articles written by journalists of mainstream presses and Black American presses to interrogate the audience’s perception of #BlackLivesMatter protests. In other words, how is the audience’s perception about #BlackLivesMatter protests cultivated after reading the news? Through qualitative research, findings determined that The Washington Post and The New York Times occasionally published articles associating unlawful acts with African American protestors without properly contextualizing the #BlackLivesMatter movement’s intentional civil disobedience. The thesis utilizes Critical Race Theory to address the narrow analysis of newspaper content to ascertain The Baltimore Afro and The Washington Informer’s approach to the protest coverage alongside the mainstream newspapers.