Hands Up, Don’t Shoot, Whose Side Are You On? Journalists Tweeting the Ferguson Protests

Abstract

This article represents a qualitative analysis of the Twitter feed from one news organization during the first phase of protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014. The tweets, images, and videos from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch journalists constitute a real-time record as the protests unfolded. By applying a strand of framing theory known as the protest paradigm, the analysis discovered that journalists’ tweeting marganalized protesters and framed police officers as dispassionate protectors of social order. Journalists’ tweeting of protesters took on a more sympthatic tone when they both were subjected to police tear gas.These findings have implications for the coverage of race, violence, and protests in the United States as well as the way Twitter binds and represents an interpretive community.