GPI0010.1177/1368430220917752Group Processes & Intergroup RelationsRiddle et al. 917752research-article2020

G Group Processes & P Intergroup Relations I Special Issue Article R

Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 2020, Vol. 23(6) 882–901­ “What’s going on” in Ferguson? © The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: Online news frames of at sagepub.com/journals-permissions https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430220917752DOI: 10.1177/1368430220917752 the police killing of Michael Brown journals.sagepub.com/home/gpi

Travis A. Riddle,1 Kate M. Turetsky,2,3 Julia G. Bottesini4 and Colin Wayne Leach2,5

Abstract Public reactions to are often divided, with some viewing the protest as a legitimate response to injustice and others perceiving the protest as illegitimate. We examine how online news sources oriented to different audiences frame protest, potentially encouraging these divergent reactions. We focus on online news coverage following the 2014 police shooting of a Black teenager, Michael Brown. Preregistered analyses of headlines and images and their captions showed that sources oriented toward African were more likely to include content conveying racial injustice and legitimacy of the subsequent protests than sources oriented toward a general audience. In contrast, general audience sources emphasized conflict between protesters and police, making fewer references to the protesters’ cause. Whereas much work on media segregation addresses the propensity of audiences to consume different sources, our work suggests that news sources may also contribute to information fragmentation by differentially framing the same events.

Keywords digital media, news frames, police, protest, text processing

Paper received 30 September 2019; revised version accepted 18 March 2020.

1National Institutes of Health, USA Corresponding author: 2Columbia University, USA Travis A. Riddle, National Institute of Mental Health, 3Princeton University, USA National Institutes of Health, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, 4University of California, USA MD 20814, USA. 5Barnard College, USA Email: [email protected] Riddle et al. 883

Picket lines and picket signs news is now available to both readers and Don’t punish me with brutality researchers in a greater volume and from a Talk to me, so you can see greater variety of sources. Further, our focus on Oh, what’s going on divergent frames in online news addresses con- What’s going on cerns that news exposure is growing increasingly insular, specialized, and tailored, with different —Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On (1971) groups of people receiving different informa- tion online (see, e.g., Fletcher & Nielsen, 2017; In 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed Black Gans, 2010; Stroud, 2010; Tewksbury, 2005; teenager, was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, Turetsky & Riddle, 2018). Additionally, the a White police officer, in Ferguson, Missouri. downstream effects of these divergent frames Brown’s killing spurred high-profile protests in on behavior may be compounded by the super- Ferguson and beyond, eventually fueling a ficial way that online news tends to be consumed larger international movement to end police (Schäfer, 2020; Schäfer et al., 2017). The present brutality and other forms of against work is part of a growing trend in social psy- (e.g., Black Lives Matter; see chology to examine the (virtual) group dynamics Freelon et al., 2016). of social phenomena occurring in digital modes Reactions to the shooting and subsequent pro- of representation, opinion formation, commu- tests in Ferguson were sharply divided along racial nication, protest, and other collective action (for and political lines (Pew Research Center, 2014), discussions, see Jost et al., 2018; Kende et al., much like reactions to numerous other similar 2015; Thomas et al., 2018). events in the U.S. (Dukes & Kahn, 2017; Reinka & Leach, 2017; Weitzer, 2015) and around the world News Frames (Evans & Need, 2002; Goldberg, 2002; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). National surveys showed that At the core of framing theory is the idea that Black Americans were much more likely than communicating information necessarily involves White Americans to believe that Brown’s shooting subjective choices about what information to raised important racial issues (80% vs. 37%), to include, what information to leave out, and what believe police had gone too far in their response themes to make salient (Entman, 1993). News to the Ferguson protests (65% vs. 33%), and to outlets must make many choices about how to support the Black Lives Matter movement (65% organize and present reality in a story, including vs. 33%; Horowitz & Livingston, 2016; Pew which facts to emphasize, what kind of language Research Center, 2014). Partisan divides between to use, and when to bring in broader themes and Democrats and Republicans were similar in mag- context (Crenshaw, 2014). In their coverage of nitude: 62% of White Democrats believed Ferguson, news outlets needed to decide how Brown’s shooting raised important racial issues much to focus on the police killing Michael compared to 22% of Republicans, and 64% of Brown as the precipitating event for the protests White Democrats reported support for the Black versus the interactions between protesters and Lives Matter movement compared to 20% of police. More specific choices included which of White Republicans (Horowitz & Livingston, 2016; many possible descriptors to use when character- Pew Research Center, 2014, 2016). izing the protests (e.g., “riots” versus “demon- In this article, we examine one potential con- strations”), and how much to discuss race or tributor to these social divides: the framing of racism as a possible factor in the police shooting. Ferguson in online news media oriented to Black Thus, although news stories may be intended to versus White audiences. Our examination of present only factual information, they invariably online, as opposed to print or television, news frame information through many choices of both media enables a larger scale analysis, as digital content and form (Scheufele, 1999). 884 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 23(6)

These news frames have consequences for brutality, systemic racism, income inequality), and attitudes and beliefs, influencing consumers’ emphasizes protesters’ “violent actions rather understanding of particular events and inferences than their social criticism” (McLeod & Detenber, about broader underlying issues (Cappella & 1999: 3). By obscuring the believed injustice pre- Jamieson, 1997; Scheufele, 1999). For example, cipitating the protest, and casting protesters as experiments show that news coverage emphasiz- violent, disruptive, and deviant, this news frame ing either the effectiveness or controversy of vac- supports the status quo by delegitimizing protest cinations shifts attitudes in the direction of the and protesters (McLeod & Detenber, 1999; frame (Bigman et al., 2010; Gollust et al., 2010). McLeod & Hertog, 1992; see also Reicher, 1996). Differential emphasis on the reality, urgency, and Experimental exposure to this type of coverage cause of climate change in the news predicts has led news consumers to be more critical of consumers’ beliefs about the of climate protesters, identify with them less, support them change as well as consumers’ broader attitudes and their right to protest less, view the protest as about the trustworthiness of science and scien- less effective and newsworthy, and be less critical tists (Feldman et al., 2012; Hmielowski et al., of the police responding to the protest (McLeod 2014). The effects of news frames can be sub- & Detenber, 1999). However, little research has stantial: different frames of overweight people in examined the way in which news frames of pro- online news articles had large effects (average d test operate in contemporary online news. across studies = 0.99) on beliefs that fat is inher- Further, limited research in social psychology has ently unhealthy (Frederick et al., 2019). Framing examined the operation of the protest paradigm can also alter support for specific behavior and frame of protesters and police in conflict or its policy. In the same study of fatness news frames, role (online or offline) in framing protest as a reading an online article with a fat-negative frame legitimate response to a racial or other injustice (e.g., framing fatness as a public health crisis) led (but see Reicher, 1996). to greater support for job discrimination against fat people and charging obese people more Online News money for health insurance, compared to reading an article with a fat-positive frame. A greater understanding of frames in online news News frames are particularly important to is critical for at least three reasons. First, much of social movements, as protesters rely in part on the foundational work on news frames of protest news to raise awareness and garner support for was conducted on television or print media. Yet, their cause among a wider audience (J. Smith so much of news consumption, opinion forma- et al., 2001). The 2015 photo of a drowned tion, and protest now occurs online (Freelon 3-year-old Syrian refugee drew widespread atten- et al., 2016). Online media is already the domi- tion to the refugee crisis, and illustrates how a nant platform for news consumption in many frame can mobilize policy change, financial sup- countries around the world (Newman et al., port, and public solidarity on a global scale (L. G. 2018), dwarfing print news consumption in par- E. Smith et al., 2018). Nevertheless, common ticular (Matsa, 2018; Newman et al., 2018). news frames often undermine social movements Second, the digital platform has given rise to a by challenging the legitimacy of the protest and news browsing experience that is fundamentally protesters (Arpan et al., 2006; Shoemaker, 1982). different from other forms of news media (for a For example, a dominant news frame, dubbed the review, see Molyneux, 2017). Most news sites “protest paradigm” (Chan & Lee, 1984), frames have more visitors on mobile devices, especially protest as a “battle between the protesters and smartphones, than on desktop or laptop comput- police, rather than as an intellectual debate ers (Pew Research Center, 2015). Indeed, at least between the protesters and their chosen target” 85% of U.S. adults get news on a mobile device (McLeod & Detenber, 1999: 5; e.g., police (Lu, 2017). The proliferation of smartphones and Riddle et al. 885 tablets has driven major design changes in online be more easily persuaded by quickly and superfi- news platforms, including increased prominence cially processed peripheral cues such as headlines, of headlines and images (Meijer & Kormelink, images, and image captions (Cyr et al., 2018). The 2015; Ofcom, 2018). As online news websites, moral charge (Brady et al., 2019), and dramatic apps, and aggregators are optimized for smart- visual and linguistic content (Cyr et al., 2018), in phone-led consumption, they often emphasize the highly salient headlines and images of online breadth rather than depth of exposure to news news are likely to further encourage a focus on stories, serving up many headlines and image such peripheral cues. Experimental research has thumbnails at a rapid pace in newsfeeds and noti- begun to document the attitudinal and behavioral fications (Ofcom, 2018). Sometimes called “snack consequences of modern news consumption: news,” this ubiquitous news format containing exposure to newsfeeds containing many head- only headlines, images, and brief captions repre- lines and image thumbnails increased viewers’ sents a major change from news stories in print illusions of being informed about a particular and television news (Schäfer, 2020; Schäfer et al., news topic, but in reality, their actual knowledge 2017). Most prior work has examined news of the topic did not differ from that of control frames of protests in full article texts (e.g., Boyle participants who saw no news (Schäfer, 2020). In et al., 2005) and television segments (e.g., McLeod turn, viewers exposed to the contemporary & Detenber, 1999); much less is known about superficial newsfeed format formed more news frames transmitted through the small snip- extreme attitudes about the topic, despite no con- pets of content—headlines and images—that current increase in actual knowledgeability, com- dominate the online news landscape today. pared to controls. Taken together, these lines of Recent research suggests that news frames work suggest that the type of brief, passive news may be even more impactful in contemporary consumption facilitated by the online news for- online news consumption, as online media plat- mat makes for citizens who are simultaneously forms and changing news consumption norms less informed, yet more easily persuaded into encourage frequent but piecemeal, superficial, endorsing the most salient and morally charged and passive browsing, rather than prolonged, positions, and more certain of their untethered proactive searching and exploration (Meijer & attitudes—a combination some have suggested Kormelink, 2015; Ofcom, 2018; Schäfer, 2020). will lead to more polarization over time (Schäfer, Estimates suggest that people are spending less 2020). This makes a greater understanding of and less time in each news visit. For example, in frames in online news especially important. the U.S., the average news visit was just 2 minutes Finally, online news media has multiplied the long in 2018, compared to 2.4 minutes in 2017 number and diversity of news sources available to (Pew Research Center, 2019). Many visits are consumers today. Some researchers have sug- even shorter, as people increasingly check the gested that the high-choice media environment news during “micro-periods of waiting,” such as online encourages news outlets to cater their con- while using the bathroom or waiting for an eleva- tent to particular sought-after segments of con- tor, rather than reserving news consumption for sumers (see Tewksbury, 2005). Such tailoring of longer sittings as in the past (Meijer & Kormelink, content could have implications for news frames 2015). Some work suggests that the rise of this used in sources oriented to different audiences type of brief and passive news consumption (Feldman et al., 2012; Hmielowski et al., 2014). reduces critical thinking about online news and There is also concern that online news media rep- increases shallow forms of information process- resentations of protest may be tailored specifi- ing (Ofcom, 2018; Schäfer, 2020). Indeed, the cally to presumed audiences in ways that reinforce Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion their pre-existing views (Earl & Garrett, 2017). (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) suggests that contem- Thus, a greater understanding of frames in online porary browsing may cause news consumers to news today is essential to discussions of the way 886 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 23(6) in which “truth” may be growing increasingly of media consumers. In comparison to positive, insular, as groups are exposed to heavily curated counter-stereotypic portrayals, negative, stereo- information that reinforces what they already typic portrayals of a shooting victim can increase know and believe (see, e.g., Fletcher & Nielsen, the degree to which readers victim-blame and 2017; Gans, 2010; Stroud, 2010; Tewksbury, reduce the degree to which readers have sympa- 2005; Turetsky & Riddle, 2018). Such virtual thy or empathy for the victim. Relatedly, Reinka “echo chambers” may make social and civic and Leach (2017) showed that Black participants engagement on heated issues like Ferguson, mass write about images of Black protest in a way protests, police violence, or racial injustice, more that reflects greater emphasis on the causes of difficult (for discussions, see Dukes & Kahn, the protest, and greater solidarity with and sup- 2017; Reinka & Leach, 2017, 2018; Richeson & port of the protesters. In two studies of neural, Sommers, 2016; Weitzer, 2015). physiological, and self-reported responses to photos of police force and protest against it, The Social Psychology of Online News Reinka and Leach (2018) found White college students to be less familiar, engaged with, and Content emotionally reactive than Black college students. One way that social psychology can help examine Additionally, Turetsky and Riddle (2018) showed online news is in analysis of the psychological that the media outlets analyzed here tended to meaning conveyed in the content of this contem- selectively link to other sources that covered porary form of news. A wide range of research in these events with emotional valence and levels social and cognitive psychology shows that the of stereotypical content similar to their own. meaning in visual information like headlines, photos, and captions is evaluated quickly and eas- Legitimacy of protest. The legal and moral legiti- ily when it is clear and salient (for a review, see macy of protest is implied in the basic human Balcetis & Lassiter, 2010). Indeed, a headline, rights of freedom of assembly, association, and image, and brief caption are all that is necessary speech. However, judgments of protest legiti- to provide a narrative of who did what and with macy are more complicated because they take which effect (e.g., Iyer & Oldmeadow, 2006; many other aspects of protest into account (e.g., Reinka & Leach, 2018; L. G. E. Smith et al., Reinka & Leach, 2017; L. G. E. Smith et al., 2018; 2018). Teixeira et al., 2019). In the U.S. and elsewhere, In the context of the police killing and pro- there is widespread opposition to disruptive pro- tests in Ferguson and beyond, the featured test (Teixeira et al., 2019), especially about racism words and images in online news could include (Davenport et al., 2011; Pew Research Center, references to socially and psychologically pow- 2016). This is partly because disruptive protest is erful concepts such as race, injustice, righteous seen as a moral and material threat to existing resistance, tense conflict, or dangerous unrest political, economic, and social systems (see (e.g., Dukes & Gaither, 2017; Reinka & Leach, McLeod & Detenber, 1999; Sidanius & Pratto, 2017, 2018; Turetsky & Riddle, 2018). Our inter- 1999; Teixeira et al., 2019). est here is in the way that such online news con- The above discussed work on the protest par- tent may frame and explain Ferguson in the adigm frame highlights another way in which moral terms of legitimacy and injustice (e.g., as news about events like Ferguson can frame pro- legitimate protest at a true injustice). Prior test as less legitimate. Framing protest as a conflict research has highlighted the importance of the between protesters and police diverts attention from social psychological content of police and pro- the believed injustice about which protesters have test news. For instance, Dukes and Gaither organized (McLeod & Detenber, 1999; Reicher, (2017) show that media portrayals of the victims 1996). In fact, a focus on the police at protests of police shootings can influence the attitudes can itself frame protest as less legitimate because Riddle et al. 887 many people presume that police are present to emphasize that he was young and unarmed. It mainly to protect against crime and disorder (e.g., may also be particularly important for news Drury & Reicher, 2000; McLeod & Hertog, 1992; media to emphasize that Michael Brown was Reinka & Leach, 2017). This fits with a more gen- Black: racializing a victim of undeserved harm eral view in the U.S. (for a review, see Weitzer, can facilitate the suggestion of injustice when it 2015), and in many societies, of the police as fair is made explicit and combined with other con- and just protectors of societal order (Sidanius & tent suggestive of racial discrimination (Reinka Pratto, 1999). Given that lay people generally & Leach, 2017, 2018; for discussions, see assume police will observe and protect protesters Eberhardt & Goff, 2004; Weiner, 1995; Weitzer, engaging in legitimate exercise of their demo- 2015). cratic rights (Drury & Reicher, 2000), emphasiz- Further, given the prevalence of dehumaniz- ing clashes between the two groups may ing and de-individuating racial frames, simply undermine the perceived legitimacy of the pro- showing or naming a Black victim can serve to testers and their actions. humanize and individuate them (see Eberhardt & Goff, 2004; Goff et al., 2014; Richeson & Apparent injustice. The legitimacy of protest is Sommers, 2016; Weitzer, 2015). This is the ration- also determined by whether the issue being pro- ale behind several political campaigns, such as tested is viewed as a true injustice that warrants #SayHerName (African American Policy Forum, collective complaint (Cappella & Jamieson, 2015) and #IfTheyGunnedMeDown (“If They 1997; McLeod & Detenber, 1999; Reinka & Gunned Me Down,” n.d.). Including images of a Leach, 2017; Scheufele, 1999; L. G. E. Smith Black victim in particular serves to simultane- et al., 2018; Teixeira et al., 2019). In the context ously individuate and racialize them. Racializing of Ferguson, a news headline neutrally declaring victims in this way can also be understood as an that a death or police shooting occurred is likely antidote to more neutral, deracialized, representa- not sufficient to suggest an injustice, as it does tions of victims that frame them so minimally not ascribe agency or moral responsibility to and generically that there is little basis for infer- anyone for Brown’s death. Given prevalent ences of injustice. More generally, there is a good beliefs that police are fair and just, many readers deal of evidence that portraying a specific identi- will presume that the police must have used fiable victim elicits greater interest and a more lethal force only if it were warranted (see Sida- sympathetic response than generic information nius & Pratto, 1999; Weitzer, 2015). In contrast, (e.g., Iyer & Oldmeadow, 2006; Thomas et al., headlines that highlight the agency of the police 2018; Västfjäll et al., 2014). officer in killing Michael Brown using active, agent-caused death words—such as “kill,” “mur- The Current Study der,” “butcher”—highlight police moral respon- sibility for an unjust death (see Weiner, 1995). In the current study, we examined how online One consensual basis of injustice is harm, news media oriented to different (racial and polit- especially that which is clearly undeserved by the ical) audiences framed Michael Brown’s shooting victim (for reviews, see Haidt & Kesebir, 2010; and the subsequent protests in Ferguson. Drawing Weiner, 1995). In the case of Michael Brown, he on theory suggesting framing is primarily derived can be framed as an undeserving victim because from decisions about what information to he was young and unarmed (e.g., for general dis- include, leave out, and emphasize in the news cussions, see L. G. E. Smith et al., 2018; Weiner, (Entman, 1993), we examined the presence or 1995). Given stereotypes that inhibit sensitivity absence of key concepts in headlines, featured to harm to Black victims (Goff et al., 2014), it images, and captions. We focused on headlines, may be especially important in events such as images, and captions in an effort to pinpoint the Michael Brown’s killing for online news media content most ubiquitous in modern online news 888 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 23(6) browsing consumption patterns. We analyzed the In addition, we preregistered a plan to conduct extent to which online news outlets included an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using the images and words referencing (disruptive) pro- visual and textual content of the headlines and testers and police in the 10 days following Michael featured images in order to identify the overarch- Brown’s shooting. We expected a high frequency ing frames in news sources (e.g., “the protest of such references given the widespread use of paradigm,” “the death of Michael Brown”). the protest paradigm news frame that portrays protest as a conflict between protesters and police (McLeod & Detenber, 1999). We also examined Method the extent to which online news focused on Data Brown’s death and the presence or absence of content suggesting that his death was unjust and The present data come from a database created thus a legitimate cause for protest. Specifically, we by Turetsky and Riddle (2018), who collected examined the extent to which online news refer- 3,278 online news articles published in the 10 enced Brown by name or image, or mentioned days after the shooting of Michael Brown in race, that Brown was young and unarmed, that Ferguson, Missouri. This time period was strate- Brown was dead, or that he was (actively) killed. gically selected to capture the initial wave of pro- We expected that African American-oriented test in Ferguson. The sample includes all sources would include more of these protest- published articles that mentioned “Ferguson” legitimizing types of references, given the above from the top 51 online news sources and the top cited work showing that Black readers are more 18 African American-oriented online news media familiar with incidents of police killings and their sources in the U.S. The top general news sources precipitating role in subsequent protests of police were identified based on the number of unique force, and more supportive of the protesters U.S. visitors to their websites in January, 2015, (Reinka & Leach, 2017, 2018). We additionally and were reported by Pew Research Center expected that left-leaning news media would (2015). The top African American-oriented news exhibit characteristics more similar to African sources were identified by the Maynard Institute, American-oriented sources than right-leaning a non-profit devoted to emphasizing diversity in media, given that White Democrats in the news media, and their web traffic data was also U.S. responded to the events more similarly to reported by Pew Research Center (2015). The Black Americans, whereas White Republicans’ sample sizes of general news sources and African responses sharply diverged. We preregistered two American-oriented news sources are unequal general hypotheses about how news frames because we relied on the Pew reports for these would differ by type of news outlet (https://osf. data and are unable to independently identify io/sd58n/): more African American-oriented sources to make the samples more equal at the time of data collection. The dataset includes the text of all Police and protest images should not dif- H1: articles mentioning the correct Ferguson, fer much by outlet’s political leaning or source screened manually by research assistants, along audience, except that perhaps general public with all images included online within each arti- and right wing sources refer to protest a little cle, from 66 sources (after accounting for over- more or moderately more negatively. lap in sources and sources without relevant H2: African American-oriented and left-lean- articles). Full details of data collection, coding, ing news media should provide at least moder- and other aspects of the dataset can be found in ately more explanatory information that may Turetsky and Riddle (2018), who reported net- frame the killing as unjust and therefore the work analyses of these online news sources and subsequent protests as legitimate. their linguistic content. Riddle et al. 889

The present analyses focus on aspects of the Article-level measures. For the results presented in dataset not analyzed or reported in Turetsky and the main text, we scored article headlines, fea- Riddle (2018). Here, we examine article headlines, tured images, and featured image captions in a featured images, and featured image captions, and binary fashion such that they either did or did not the relationship between this content and source contain the measured concept. Alternative speci- characteristics (audience and political leaning). fications, reported in the online Supplemental Featured images are those embedded in the text Material, are consistent with the results presented of the article published online (as opposed to here. images included as part of a gallery to which an article links). In total, the present data include Featured images. Each image featured in an headlines from 3,278 articles, 5,502 featured article was coded by a pair of research assistants images from these articles, and 4,220 correspond- as depicting Michael Brown, protest, or police. ing image captions (1,282 images did not have a These categories were not mutually exclusive; caption). each image could be coded as depicting one, mul- tiple, or none of these categories. Interrater reli- Measures ability on this binary labeling task was very good, Cohen’s κ = .85. Source-level measures. We used two key source characteristics as predictor variables in our analy- Words in article headlines and image captions. We sis. The first was source audience: top general used custom-written R code (R Core Team, 2019) (sources among the top 51 most-frequented implementing dictionary methods to measure the online news organizations identified by Pew) or linguistic content of article headlines and fea- top African American (sources among the top 18 tured image captions. Although there are now a African American-oriented news organizations variety of ways to measure the linguistic content identified by Pew). The second variable was an of texts, dictionary methods are simple, straight- estimate of political leaning for each news source, forwardly interpretable, and easily understood. based on the political leaning of their audience. We measured three broad categories of linguistic The estimates were calculated by Turetsky and content with word lists that we specified in our Riddle (2018) based on data collected from both preregistration. Several aspects of this content Amazon Mechanical Turk workers in the U.S. were examined with similar custom dictionaries and a Clearvoice panel of American homeown- by Reinka and Leach (2017, 2018) and Turetsky ers. Estimates reflect the relationship between the and Riddle (2018). political leaning of those individuals and the The first two linguistic categories we meas- extent to which they trust each news source (for ured were mentions of police and protest. Police details, see Turetsky & Riddle, 2018). mentions included words containing the stems The online news sources frequented most by police*, cop*, officer*, and trooper*, as well as law those in the U.S. included six U.K. based sources: enforcement, patrolman/men, and lawman/men. the BBC, Daily Mail, Independent, Mirror, Protest mentions included words containing the Telegraph, and . Additional analyses stems protest*, riot*, unrest*, loot*, demonstrat*, and reported in the online Supplemental Material march*, as well as uprising. In addition to this examined whether treating U.K. sources as a third broader protest category, we also examined the type of source improved upon the two-category subcategory of disruptive protest mentions, audience variable we preregistered (general vs. measured by the words riot*, unrest*, and loot*, as African American-oriented). Model comparisons a particular way of framing the protests in using Bayes factors suggested that the two-cate- Ferguson. gory audience variable, as preregistered and The third linguistic category we measured reported below, fit the data better overall. One included words related to Michael Brown and interesting exception is discussed below. his death, given that news sources’ descriptions 890 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 23(6) of Brown and the circumstances of his killing by article-level observations nested within source, police are key to their framing of the events, and with source-level intercepts allowed to vary (i.e., could have implications for perceived legitimacy random intercept models). These models weight of police actions and the subsequent protests. We effects of source by the number of articles pro- examined six subcategories of this overarching duced by each, such that the more prolific news theme. First, we examined mentions of Michael sources have greater weight in the analyses. Brown by name (measured using the word list Unless otherwise indicated, all model quantities Michael Brown, Michael, Mike, Brown). Second, we are reported in terms of the median of the pos- examined the use of three types of descriptors of terior distribution, with 95% highest density Brown and the circumstances surrounding his intervals, and with the posterior probability that shooting: race words (black, african american, white, the relationship is in the direction stated. caucasian, race, ethnicity), words related to him being Robustness checks can be found in the supple- unarmed (unarmed, weaponless, innocent), and words mental materials. None of these indicated mean- related to his youth (teen*, youth, young, adolescent, ingful disagreement with the results we present child, graduat*, high school). Finally, we examined in the main text. two ways of referring to the police shooting of Brown: active, agent-caused death (kill*, gun* down, mow* down, murder*, slaughter*, butcher*, Results execut*, massacr*) and neutral, non-agentic All models examined the effect of source politi- death (dead, death, died, perish*, shot, shoot*, fatal*). cal orientation and source audience simultane- It should be noted that, as with any diction- ously. Thus, all analyses presented in the main ary method, it is not possible to directly com- text contain the effect of political orientation and pare different dictionary categories, since there all figures comparing the top general and African are different numbers of words in each cate- American-oriented sources show predicted val- gory, and the words composing the category are ues at the mean of the political orientation distri- likely to differ in how frequently they occur in bution. However, because of concerns about the natural language. Thus, readers should not nature of the political orientation variable, the interpret differences in estimated rates of use generally weaker effects of political leaning are between word categories as representing differ- discussed mainly in the Supplemental Material. ential emphasis on the underlying theoretical Specifically, our sample contains only three right- construct, as there are many additional contrib- leaning sources, with one conservative source utors to those differences. nearly five standard deviations away from the mean political leaning, and the vast majority of Data Analysis Strategy sources having a moderately liberal bent (Figure S1). Although this accurately captures the media We preregistered our analysis with an open- landscape of top general news sources at the time ended analysis plan on the Open Science of the shooting, this distribution makes it diffi- Foundation (https://osf.io/sd58n/). Analyses cult to reliably assess the effect of political lean- not reported here may be found in the supple- ing. These concerns are detailed further in the mental material. Any additional analyses, or supplemental material. departures from the preregistration, are noted explicitly. Furthermore, the OSF contains many Police and Protest: Words and Images additional details of the work, including code, data, and analyses that did not fit into the main Figure 1 displays results comparing representa- text or the supplemental material. tions of police and protest in article headlines, Our analyses consisted primarily of a series captions, and images in top general and African of Bayesian multilevel logistic regressions, with American-oriented sources. Across all five ways Riddle et al. 891

Figure 1. Probability of images or text including a given concept. Points represent the median of the posterior distribution, and bands represent 95% highest density intervals. Note: Please refer to the online version of the article to view the figure in colour. of measuring these representations, sources ori- and protesters were in Ferguson, aimed to shed ented toward the general public were more likely more light on this. to emphasize both police and protest than sources oriented toward . For Michael Brown and his Death: representations of police, the top general sources Explanatory Words and Images were more likely to feature images of police, PGen = .36, [.33, .39]; PAA = .16 [.12, .21], probGen>AA Figure 2 shows the results for each of the con- > .99, and refer to police in headlines and cap- cept measurements relevant to the second tions, PGen = .46, [.43, .49]; PAA = .27 [.21, .32], hypothesis. Consistent with this hypothesis, probGen>AA > .99, compared to African online news sources oriented to African American-oriented sources. For representations Americans included more words and images that of protest, the top general sources were more explain why police and protesters were in likely to feature images of protest, PGen = .46, [.43, Ferguson by suggesting the police unfairly killed .50]; PAA = .32 [.26, .40], probGen>AA > .99, refer unarmed, Black, young Michael Brown. The to protest in headlines and captions, PGen = .33, aggregate of the seven categories of content [.30, .37]; PAA = .19 [.13, .25], probGen>AA > .99, shown on the far left of Figure 2 shows that, in and refer to disruptive protest specifically in general, African American-oriented sources were headlines and captions, PGen = .06, [.04, .07]; PAA more likely to feature words and images that = .03 [.01, .05], probGen>AA = .99, compared to explained Ferguson in ways that legitimize the African American-oriented sources. This may protests, PGen = .40, [.37, .43]; PAA = .63 [.56, .70], suggest that narratives of police and protesters in probAA>GP > .99. In individual analyses of con- conflict in Ferguson were more prevalent in cept measures, African American-oriented sources oriented to the general public than to sources were more likely than top general sources African Americans. Our analyses of images and to reference Michael Brown by name, PGen = .28, words describing Michael Brown and the circum- [.25, .31]; PAA = .48 [.40, .57], probAA>Gen > .99, stances of his death, which explain why police to feature images of Michael Brown, PGen = .06, 892 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 23(6)

Figure 2. Probability of images or text including a given concept. Points represent the median of the posterior distribution, and bands represent 95% highest density intervals. Note: Please refer to the online version of the article to view the figure in colour.

explain events in Ferguson than did online news [.04, .09]; PAA = .11 [.05, .19], probAA>Gen = .95, oriented to the U.S. general public. and to reference race, PGen = .08, [.06, .10]; PAA = As explained in the supplemental materials, .12 [.08, .18], probAA>Gen = .97, in their narratives of the events. Additionally, African American- there was little indication that the U.K. online oriented sources were more likely than top gen- news sources should be distinguished from the eral news sources to reference active, agent-caused top U.S. general sources. In fact, according to model comparisons, of the 14 facets of content death, PGen = .09, [.08, .11]; PAA = .14 [.09, .19], examined above, for only two was it preferable to probAA>Gen = .98, whereas the top general news sources were more likely than African American- use a three-category audience variable distinguish- oriented sources to use neutral, non-agentic death ing the U.K. general sources from the U.S. general descriptors, although the latter difference was not sources: Michael Brown images and Michael Brown words. In these cases, including the U.K. robust, PGen = .28, [.25, .32]; PAA = .24 [.18, .32], sources along with the U.S. sources in the top gen- probAA>Gen = .17. Counter to our second hypothesis, references eral audience news source category had the effect to Michael Brown being unarmed were roughly of making the top general sources appear a little more similar to the top African American-oriented equivalent for the two source types, PGen = .04, sources because U.K. sources included more tex- [.03, .05]; PAA = .04 [.02, .07], probAA>Gen = .49. Additionally, the top African American-oriented tual and visual references to Michael Brown than sources were less likely to focus on youth than the did the top U.S.-based general sources. In these cases, excluding the six U.K. sources from the cat- top general sources, PGen = .12, [.10, .14]; PAA = egory of general sources made the differences .07 [.04, .11], probAA>Gen = .02. Thus, support for our second hypothesis was not as consistent as between general and African American-oriented that for our first hypothesis. Nevertheless, online sources even larger and more robust (e.g., for news sources oriented to African Americans images of Michael Brown: PAA = .12, [.06, .18]; made greater reference to race and Michael PGen = .05, [.03, .07]; probAA>Gen > .99; see the Brown being actively killed by the police to Supplemental Material online for more details). Riddle et al. 893

Figure 3. Correlation matrix of all source-level measurements (*p < .05). Note: Please refer to the online version of the article to view the figure in colour.

Latent Structure of Content Within Ferguson (e.g., as a conflict between police and Sources protesters over a death not characterized as racially or otherwise unjust). Figure 3 shows the correlation of all measure- Table 1 shows how each variable loaded onto ments when aggregated to the level of online the three extracted factors (loadings < .3 are not news source (e.g., NY Times, Daily Mail, Fox shown for legibility). Factor 1 appears to repre- News). As specified in the preregistration, we sent online news sources that frame Ferguson as used these source-level correlations in an a disruptive protest at an unjust police killing of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to assess the an unarmed, Black youth (who is not named or latent structure of article content. In other words, pictured). Thus, Factor 1 explains Ferguson in we examined whether the words and images racialized terms as a seemingly legitimate protest aggregated into meaningful categories (i.e., fac- at a racial injustice because the victim of the tors). In addition, we created Factor Scores for police killing is young, Black, and unarmed, but these aggregated categories of content to exam- this victim is not individuated. ine whether online news sources oriented to dif- Factor 2 appears to represent online news ferent audiences had different patterns of content sources that frame Ferguson as a conflict between that together suggested an overall framing of police and protesters over a death. These sources 894 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 23(6)

Table 1. Variable loadings for the exploratory factor analysis on source-level content. Words & Images Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Protest images .498 Police images .819 Michael Brown images –.393 .324 Race words .305 –.587 Unarmed words .580 Youth words .775 Michael Brown words 1.02 Active, agent-caused death words .606 –.387 Neutral, non-agentic death words .388 .302 .540 Police words .815 Protest words .712 Disruptive protest words .590 appear to deracialize the killing as they are very provide a comprehensive framing of Ferguson as unlikely to show images of Michael Brown or a disruptive protest at the unjust police killing of mention race, and also de-individuate Brown by unarmed Black youth Michael Brown. not referencing him by name. That these sources As seen in Figure 4, the top general online are also less likely to reference active, agent- news sources did not tend to frame Ferguson as caused death further suggests that this framing either a disruptive (racialized) protest at an unjust avoids a suggestion of (racial) injustice and thus police killing of an unarmed, Black youth, F1 = likely casts the Ferguson protests as illegitimate. .12, [-.13, 37], or as the (racialized) death of In all these ways, Factor 2 fits the protest para- Michael Brown, F3 = -.11, [-.37, .16]. Indeed, digm frame found previously in print and televi- both of these factor scores were statistically sion news (Chan & Lee, 1984; McLeod & indistinguishable from zero for top general Detenber, 1999). sources. Thus, consistent with Hypothesis 2, the Factor 3 appears to represent online news top general sources did not tend to frame Ferguson sources that frame Ferguson in very stark terms in a way that legitimizes the protests. Rather, the as the death of Michael Brown who tends to be top news sources tended to frame Ferguson as a named and shown (and thus both racialized and (deracialized) conflict between police and pro- individuated) in an accompanying image. testers over a death, F2 = .32, [.12, .53]. As in The correlations between the factors ranged prior work on the protest paradigm in print and from very small to moderate. The first factor is television news (Chan & Lee, 1984; McLeod & weakly correlated with the second (r = .13) and Detenber, 1999), the most popular online news moderately correlated with the third factor (r = media in the U.S. tended to avoid framing the .32). The second factor has a small negative cor- Ferguson protests as legitimate challenges to the relation with the third factor (r = -.05). Thus, the societal status quo. second factor—Ferguson as a conflict between In stark contrast to the top general news police and protesters over a death—is most dis- sources, those oriented to African Americans are tinct from the others. That the first and third fac- much less likely to frame the events in Ferguson tors are moderately correlated with each other, as a deracialized conflict between police and pro- but not with the second factor, reinforces the testers, F2 = -.91, [-1.33, -.55], probAA

Figure 4. Factor scores as a function of source audience. Points represent the median of the posterior distribution, and bands represent 95% highest density intervals. Note: Please refer to the online version of the article to view the figure in colour. police killing of an unarmed, Black youth, F1 = results for the top general U.S.-based sources of news. Interestingly, U.K. sources were distinctive -.51, [-1.0, -.04], probGen>AA = .99. The frame of the events in Ferguson most characteristic of the in their relatively frequent reference to Ferguson top African American-oriented news sources was as a disruptive (racialized) protest at an unjust focused on the death of Michael Brown, F3 = police killing of an unarmed, Black youth (Factor 1). Given the limited size of, and the great varia- .93, [.40, 1.41], probAA>Gen > .99. This frame was racialized given the frequency of his image in bility in, the six U.K. sources, such findings news articles, and individuated given the naming should be interpreted with caution. of Brown as the victim. This is consistent with Hypothesis 2. However, the apparent avoidance by the top African American news sources of Discussion the Factor 1 frame that most clearly describes Our analysis of online news media shows how Ferguson as legitimate protest at racial injustice is sources oriented to different audiences differen- inconsistent with Hypothesis 2. There are numer- tially frame the same event. Examining article ous possible reasons for this, some of which we headlines, featured images, and their captions, we discuss in the Discussion section. find that online sources oriented toward the gen- Because Factor 3—the (racialized) death of eral public tend to use a framing that emphasizes Michael Brown—included the content that sup- a disruptive conflict between protesters and plementary analyses showed to be affected by the police, consistent with prior work on the protest six U.K. sources (i.e., Michael Brown images and paradigm news frame (McLeod & Detenber, words), the supplemental materials report parallel 1999). In contrast, media sources oriented toward analyses that examine the effect of the three pos- African American audiences use framing features sible source types on the Factor Scores. As there that convey information about the legitimacy of are only six U.K. sources in the present study, the protesters’ social cause, including explicit ref- distinguishing them had very little effect on the erences to Michael Brown and use of images of 896 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 23(6) him in their coverage, as well as referencing race We focused our analysis on the elements of and death in a way that highlighted the police news coverage that are most likely to be con- officer’s active, agentic role in killing Brown. sumed in an online news browsing context: Our findings that online news sources ori- headlines, images, and captions. As online news ented toward different audiences employ dis- consumption is increasingly oriented toward tinct news frames when covering protest have breadth rather than depth, the framing that several potential implications for social psycho- exists in these elements takes on increasing logical processes of polarization and collective importance (Ofcom, 2018). When news con- mobilization. Most generally, to the extent that sumers engage with content more superficially, the different news frames used by sources are images and headlines take on even greater per- compatible with their audience’s preexisting suasive power (Cyr et al., 2018). Our work beliefs, differential framing of the same events emphasizes the need for greater understanding may promote selective exposure to like-minded of the frames that exist in these bite-size pieces perspectives and reinforce individuals’ attitudes of news content, especially with respect to per- and beliefs (DiFonzo et al., 2013). Such rein- suasive power of images (Eberhard et al., 2004; forcement can make individuals more extreme Reinka & Leach, 2017, 2018). in their views, contributing to social and political Given that we predicted that African polarization. More specifically, sources’ differ- American-oriented sources would provide more ential use of the protest paradigm frame could, information legitimizing the Ferguson protests in particular, exacerbate polarization. Recent across the board, it was notable that these sources research shows that conflict frames—news were not more likely than top general sources to media’s emphasis on conflict or disagreement frame the events in Ferguson using the frame between two entities (in this case, police versus identified by Factor 1 of the exploratory factor protesters)—lead to the perception of greater analysis, but were more likely to use the frame mass-level polarization between the entities, identified by Factor 3. Though it also emphasized which in turn can lead to greater personal atti- disruptive protest and police, the Factor 1 frame tude polarization (Han & Yzer, 2019). In other stressed the death of someone who was Black, words, when encountering the protest paradigm unarmed, and young, information that ostensibly frame in mainstream media, people who are pre- supports the legitimacy of the subsequent pro- disposed to identify more with the police may tests by highlighting the role of race and harm believe more strongly that the protest is illegiti- against an undeserving victim. However, it did mate and the police response was warranted. In not name or show images of Michael Brown contrast, people predisposed to identify more (nor did the Factor 2 protest paradigm frame). In with the protesters may believe more strongly in contrast, the Factor 3 frame emphasized the the legitimacy of the protest and the importance death of Michael Brown as a specific Black indi- of the protested injustice. These findings also vidual, referencing him by name and showing his have implications for collective mobilization. picture. These results suggest that individuation Polarization could increase mobilization among of the victim may be a particularly salient dis­ the group identifying more with the protesters, tinction in news frames of protest. Indeed, an if they are led to strengthen their beliefs that the emphasis on individuation is consistent with protest is legitimate. However, by emphasizing other related movements, such as #SayHerName, the most fraught clashes between protesters and which explicitly calls for naming and individuat- the police, the protest paradigm frame could ing Black victims of (African also reduce collective mobilization across main- American Policy Forum, 2015). The galvaniza- stream audiences, given that highlighting tion of support for addressing the Syrian refugee extreme protest actions reduces public support crisis after the drowned 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi’s for protests (Feinberg et al., 2020). photograph and name were widely distributed in Riddle et al. 897 news and also supports the idea that environment that could increase selective expo- individuation of victims may be a particularly sure beyond consumer choice (see Turetsky & powerful aspect of news frames of social issues Riddle, 2018). Work in this area could also pro- and the protests they spark (L. G. E. Smith et al., vide insight into the extent to which online news 2018). Protest movements and disadvantaged frames are determined by traditional top-down groups could benefit from understanding and influences (e.g., editorial decisions based on the capitalizing on the apparent strength of this type news team’s own belief systems and interpreta- of individuating frame, though future work tion of events, professional and societal norms should attend to the distinction between individ- and values, and organizational pressures and uation frames in the mass media and individua- constraints; Scheufele, 1999; Shoemaker & tion frames on the part of protest groups, as the Reese, 2013; McCombs & Shaw, 1972) or bot- effects may not be the same. tom-up influences (news organizations covering Our work highlights the need for additional events in response to real or perceived demand work on source specialization and fragmenta- by the public). Understanding the source of tion. Much research has focused on the extent digital news frames is important for those who to which audience fragmentation, defined as dif- wish to shape or understand the psychology of ferent sources (or groups of sources) having these frames. largely non-overlapping audiences, is growing Additionally, although we captured a near cen- with the advent of online news and social media sus of relevant articles from the top African (e.g., Fletcher & Nielsen, 2017). However, little American-oriented sources, this still amounted work has addressed whether the actual content to just 18 sources. Although it would perhaps of these sources is also becoming more special- be informative to capture a larger number of ized as news outlets compete for the attention sources, the relative audience sizes quickly of desired segments of the consumer popula- become much smaller. For instance, the smallest tion in a high-choice information environment. African American site in our sample, Tewksbury (2005) shows that the sites fre- ClutchMagOnline, had just 139,000 unique visi- quented by consumers vary in their content, but tors in January of 2015, when Pew Research it is not clear whether this pattern has become Center (2015) identified top sources. Although more pronounced with the proliferation of this is a large number, it is a small fraction of the online news sources, or whether the content var- approximately 42 million Black people in the ies systematically by audience. Our work may United States as enumerated by the 2010 U.S. answer the latter question in the affirmative, but Census (Humes et al., 2011). Although more as our data is limited to coverage of one particu- sources would be helpful, they would be drawn lar event, we hesitate to generalize to news from sites with vanishingly small audiences. media content more broadly. If online news Additionally, because of our sampling methodol- sources are increasingly tailoring their content ogy, the general public sources also featured six to their presumed audience, especially in ways sources headquartered in the U.K. Although that align with the audience’s pre-existing beliefs, these sources are in our sample because they are efforts to understand the impact of this phe- heavily consumed by American audiences, there nomenon on selective exposure will be impor- are likely to be some dimensions on which a fully tant. Source specialization could heighten random sample of English-speaking interna- selective exposure to attitude-confirming infor- tional sources would yield consistent differences mation and potentially increase polarization— in the variables we examined here. For example, even with no change in consumer behavior perhaps sources are more likely to highlight injus- (DiFonzo et al., 2013; Iyengar & Hahn, 2009). tices and legitimize protests occurring in other This idea dovetails with recent work illuminating countries, when doing so does not implicate their situational influences in the online news media own systems and institutions as potentially unjust. 898 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 23(6)

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