Police, Violence, and the “Logic of Damage”: Comparing U.S. and Chilean Media Portrayals of Protests

ABSTRACT

Drawing from the protest paradigm and the mediation opportunity structure, this study textually analyzes mainstream and alternative media coverage of the 2019 inequality protests in Chile and the 2020 racial justice protests in the United States. In both cases, violence and forceful policing were linked to the protests, allowing this study to explore mediated violence and compare the discursive construction of the demonstrations, protesters, and police as articulated through 1) violence/damage, 2) repression, 3) oppression, and 4) blame. Findings revealed Chilean and U.S. mainstream media emphasized protester violence in juxtaposition with police trying to maintain order, peacefulness was portrayed as a novelty, and violence was disengaged from historical context. In contrast, alternative media treated protester violence as a response to structural violence, and police repression of protesters was criticized. This study shows the continued pervasiveness of the protest paradigm in mainstream news, and the way alternative media can offer discursive opportunities to counterframe police and protester violence and challenge mainstream media’s hostile portrayals of protesters’ use of the logic of damage. Ultimately, we suggest media and discursive opportunity structures are key to understanding mainstream and alternative media portrayals of protests.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ This term was chosen because it is how the protests were referred to in the beginning. Protests were later referred to as a “social outburst” (estallido; see Garcés, 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Summer Harlow

Summer Harlow is an associate professor of journalism in the Valenti School of Communication at the University of Houston. Her research examines the intersections of journalism, activism, alternative media, and technologies, with an emphasis on Latin America. Her latest book, Digital-Native News and the Remaking of Latin American Mainstream and Alternative Journalism, is available from Routledge.

Ingrid Bachmann

Ingrid Bachmann is an Associate Professor in the School of Communications at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Director of the Millennium Nucleus on Digital Inequalities and Opportunities (NUDOS). Her research focuses on the role of news media in the definition of identities and meanings within the public sphere, and she specializes in the intersections between news narratives, political communication, and gender.