The influence of new and traditional media coverage on public attention to social movements: the case of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests

ABSTRACT

Social movements often seek news media attention as a means to garner public attention to social problems; social movements may also attempt to circumvent traditional media channels through the use of social networks. The role of social media in cultivating political and social change is an area of increasing interest to scholars studying the politics of social movements, yet there exist few systematic studies on how social media attention interacts with traditional forms of media to produce public attention to social issues. Using the 2016–2017 protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and allies, we examine how social media (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter) influenced public attention to the NoDAPL protests, demonstrating that engagement with social media has effects independent of traditional forms of media coverage.

KEYWORDS:

• Social movements
• social media
• public attention
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Twitter

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 https://www.facebook.com/Standing-Rock-Sioux-Tribe-402298239798452/.

2 See https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/changelog/version2.11#gapi-90-pages.

3 E.g., a shared story from The Intercept, ‘“Police Viciously Attack Peaceful Protestors” #standwithstandingrock #nodapl,’ available at https://www.facebook.com/StandingRockST/posts/1411601465534786.

4 ‘Jesse Jackson to Join the Protectors #standwithstandingrock #nodapl’, available at https:://www.facebook.com/StandingRockST/posts/402298239798452_1411481915546741.

5 Available at https://www.facebook.com/402298239798452/videos/1435600033134929/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kate Hunt

Kate Hunt is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University. She studies social movements, human rights, and media. One of her core areas of study concerns the discursive tools social movement organizations use during competitions over abortion rights.

Mike Gruszczynski

Mike Gruszczynski is an Assistant Professor in The Media School at Indiana University. His primary area of research is in agenda-setting, with specific focus on the dynamics of attention between the public, social and traditional media, and elites in orienting attention to political issues.