Engaging social media audiences with riots: TV and newspapers’ coverage of the 2019 protests in Colombia and Chile

Abstract

This research utilizes the theoretical framework of the protest paradigm to analyze how major TV channels and newspapers in Chile and Colombia covered—on their official X (Twitter) accounts—the massive 2019 protests. The paper collected data using the software Crimson Hexagon (CH), a social media analysis software that accesses all public messages posted on Twitter, and then conducted a manual content analysis to fully explore the adherence to the paradigm in digital environments, including audience interactions with media content. Results show that chosen media outlets take mainly the riot and confrontation frames to delegitimize protesters, partially influencing the reaction of audiences who engaged with those diminishing devices. A further analysis demonstrates how deeply intertwined the media are with the status quo and elites. In addition, legacy media, particularly TV, seem to fall into a systematic delegitimization of social protest. This research is valuable as it enhances the understanding of media portrayals of protests in Latin America given the new dynamics of news engagement on social media.