https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4821-5724
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ABSTRACT
In this article, we explore how the 2020 wave of BLM mobilisations has impacted the media debates on racism in Germany. We analyse overall shifts in the salience of racism and the resonance of key frames articulated by BLM protesters. Drawing from a mix of quantitative content analysis and semi-structured interviews, we find evidence that the BLM protests have changed the public debate on racism in Germany through agenda setting and reframing. Firstly, our data documents that the salience of racism in public debates increased after the protests. Secondly, specific movement frames, especially the distinction of anti-Black racism as one particular form of racism, became increasingly visible. Yet, resonance of frames has remained selective with some being hardly picked up in media debates. The article bridges insights from social movements, media, race and ethnicity studies to advance interdisciplinary scholarship on social and cultural change induced by collective action.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This echoes Alexander's work on the requirements and at times strategic employment of ‘re-fusion’ by communicative content creators to construct resonance with public audiences (Alexander, Citation2004, p. 529).
2 We want to thank Folashade Ajayi for conducting these interviews.
3 For the same reason, we preferred the liberal SZ over the other natural choice, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).
4 This does not mean that these were the only issues discussed in the movement. We focussed on those major frames which were dominant in the movement and translatable into quantitative media analysis.
5 Aware of the emotional intensity and with the idea of creating safer spaces of empowerment during the protests, the first rows of the demonstration were reserved for Black protesters.
6 In Berlin, a metro station was renamed following the protests. Thus, local authorities eventually responded to Black organizations’ advocacy efforts over the course of several years.
7 This finding and the invisibility of at times large antiracist mobilizations by migrants underlines that media resonance of claims articulated by antiracist mobilizations is highly selective.
8 Resonance for the first core frame, labelling racism as racism, was assessed in the first part of the analysis on the general salience of racism in the German media debate.
9 This is important, as frame resonance analyses, which only take into account the protest events, might overestimate the effect of the mobilisation on agenda setting in the newspaper.
10 This agrees with existing research which shows that professional athletes play a crucial role in transforming the media discourse about belonging and racism (Evans et al., Citation2021; Jarvie, Citation1991).
11 Similar efforts to bridge frames to the context of the pandemic have also been documented for other movements (Zajak et al., Citation2020).
12 Some of these aspects are currently being addressed in the research agenda of the German racism monitoring at the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM).