Adherence to the protest paradigm: media stand with Standing rock

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Adherence to the

protest paradigm:

media stand with

Standing rock

A comparative analysis on the

coverage of the protests against the

Dakota Access Pipeline in the

alternative and mainstream news

Alessia Melchiorre S3238547 MASTER’S THESIS

University of Groningen Supervisor: Tamara Witschge

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Amy Goodman covering the Standing Rock protests in October 2016 (R. Brody)

This research examines the news coverage of the Standing Rock movement of protests that mobilised thousands of people to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. More specifically, it aims to determine whether an alternative outlet, DemocracyNow!, and a mainstream newspaper, the New York Times, adhered to the protest paradigm – a pattern of journalistic routines that express disapproval towards dissent. A content and a qualitative framing analysis were performed to detect the three structural conditions of the paradigm: marginalising frames, the reliance on official sources and the invocation of the public opinion. A six-month period was chosen as time frame for the analysis as the most intense in terms of demonstrations and relevant actions. Main findings indicate that the outlets didn’t strictly adhere to the protest paradigm; they both stressed on the violence of the arrests but quoted more frequently the protesters and therefore dedicated a wide discussion on the key issues generating the movement. However, the overall tone of the reports still characterizes the protests negatively. Consequently, the study could represent a different case of the same protest paradigm. Additional features on the coverage were identified: the criminalization of the police in the case of DemocracyNow!, where the violence of the authorities was framed as unlawful and extreme; the Climate Justice feature in both the media, where the leading principle of the protests is the equation between the environmental cause and the survival of the Indigenous tribes. Further research should include other outlets, both alternative and mainstream, as well as similar cases of protests.

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4 1. INTRODUCTION

“There's a battle raging on the sacred land Our brothers and sisters had to take a stand Against us now for what we all been doing On the sacred land there's a battle brewing

I wish somebody would share the news” [Indian Givers – Neil Young]

When Neil Young – the famous Canadian musician – joined in November 2016 the protests at the camp of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota, already eight months had passed since the beginning of the demonstrations against the project Dakota Access Pipeline. As he sings in his song “Indian Givers”, the story of this “sacred land” is part of the history of the United States of America and yet, hardly received an adequate echo in the media.

In early 2016, the Native American People brought together a huge movement to demonstrate against the construction of a 1, 172-mile pipeline which would transport 470,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the Bakken/Three Forks formations in North Dakota to a terminus near Patoka, Illinois.1_{The indigenous tribes living in these areas immediately disputed the crossing of the} pipeline as a threat to the region’s clean water as well as their sacred burial grounds; they quickly started a resistance camp which over the summer was joined by thousands of people (Business Insider, 2016).2_{Although being an impressive mobilisation of people, only a few journalists –} mostly working at indigenous or independent media – approached the story at its early stages; moreover, as Jenni Monet in a long piece for the Columbia Journalism Review explains, the general attitude to reservation reporting is that “few stories in mainstream publications emerge from

on-the-ground reporting on reservations, and the rare stories that do typically focus on one of two themes: extreme poverty or chronic crime” (Columbia Journalism Review, 2018).

Indeed, the lack of proper news coverage on the Native American battle started a debate which explored the causes of such a blackout not only aimed at the media institutions, but also among

1_{Data retrieved at:}_{https://landowners.daplpipelinefacts.com/resources/faq.html#panel3a} 2_{https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-north-dakota-pipeline-protest-2016-9?IR=T}

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reporters themselves. Several programs or websites – from Aljazeera (2016) to NPR (2016) – hosted the discussion and agreed on one main argument: the protests at Standing Rock rarely reached the mainstream news cycle. Interestingly, the logistical challenges were cited (in Aljazeera, 2016) as factors that led to the scarcity of journalists covering from the field: the distance of the protest camps from the airport as well as facilities (hotels, restaurants or even an Internet connection) and the difficult weather conditions as examples. Again Jenni Monet, on NPR (2016), argued that both local and national reporters were not following the Standing Rock protests because they were exhausted by the 2016 electoral campaign. Besides these, the major factor adduced by freelance journalist Tristan Ahtone is the WD4 rule, that is representing the Indians in the news as “warriors, drunks, dying, dancing or drumming” (Al Jazeera, 2016); as these images were missing in the Standing rock battle, journalists were not initially engaged in the story. However, the role of the media with covering protests has been a constant feature for discussion in different fields and has often highlighted several sides of a contextual issue; this, in turn, proves useful in understanding our particular case.

According to a 2015 survey published by the PewResearch Center (see Appendix 1), more than three quarters (86%) surveyed in U.S. – as well as the Global median (78%) – say that media should be able to report about large political protests without government interference. The relevance attributed to the act of disseminating information during demonstrations is enclosed by both American and European law frameworks; as Sofia Verza recalls in a piece for the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (Caucaso, 2018), the 1st_{Amendment right protects the American} citizens for recording public events while the 1980 Federal Privacy Protection Act extends this right also to freelancers and citizen journalists. Verza (idem) also cites the thematic factsheet published by the Council of Europe in 2018: “The media has a crucial role in providing information on the

authorities’ handling of public demonstrations and the containment of disorder” (see Appendix 2).

Also, the OSCE – of which United States are members – Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) clarified the role of media during protests: “Journalists have an important

role to play in providing independent coverage of public assemblies. As such, they must be distinguished from participants and be given as much access as possible by the authorities.” (OSCE

ODIHR, 2007, Section A ‘Implementing legislation on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly’, p.17). However, even with such favourable figures and conventions, journalists had a hard time covering the story of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe movement; for example, the DemocracyNow! host, Amy

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Goodman, received an arrest warrant – which was later rejected – for allegedly participating in the “riot” while filming the pipeline protests (The Guardian, 2016).3

Considering such a massive demonstration was defined as “an unprecedented gathering” (idem), this paper inquires the type of coverage that journalists produced on the events during these protests. The past academic research has outlined a protest paradigm where media use specific patterns of coverage, specially using marginalising frames, to represent the social movements and their demonstrations, yet alternative media are rarely included in the analysis of such reporting (Reul et al., 2016). Therefore, one of the principal aims of this research is to provide an examination where both mainstream and also alternative media are observed and compared in their news coverage of the protests. Hence, this study asks:

1) Has media coverage of the Standing Rock movement and protests followed the protest paradigm? 2) To what extent and how the mainstream news coverage of Standing Rock differed from the alternative one?

This case is particularly relevant for the analysis because it allows to research the adherence to the protest paradigm on a story which was initially bypassed by the mainstream news outlets and heavily represented by the alternative ones; the two types of media are investigated in their journalistic practice to remark what differences (or common points) they have when dealing with protest events and this distinction should trace a new path of the same paradigm considered. As I will discuss further in the following chapters, this specific story involves the climate justice cause: a theme which is becoming increasingly present in the current political debates and activism because, as Powys Whyte points out (2016), it implies the ethical principle for which it is not right for certain groups of people to suffer the consequences of climate change.

In this context, the Standing Rock protests represent a valid study case as it entails all these features: being big in the number of participants to the demonstrations (thousands of people gathered, over the summer and the following winter, in the resistance camps to protest peacefully)4_; being a rare study, conducted by the guide of the protest paradigm, which includes the alternative news media in the sample; being a qualitative and quantitative measurement of the different characteristics between the two types of media; and finally, being an example of protest with an environmental issue invoking from the U.S. government both a Climate-oriented policy and the

3_{https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/17/amy-goodman-north-dakota-oil-access-pipeline-protest-arrest-riot} 4

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respect of the right of existence for the Native Americans (which could represent, in general terms, any minority of colonised people in the world) on their lands. By investigating the professional routines that journalists employed on the pipeline protests, it is intended to understand what version of reality they depicted; this is also the academic relevance of the study: to look closer at what image comes out of their reporting means to interpret the responsibilities that media have in reproducing and shaping public opinion. Finally, it will be useful to verify whether the laws of policing, as well as the societal perception of the role of media at protests, made any impact on the events that surrounded and followed the Standing Rock protests.

1.1 History Background

Much information of what follows is taken by the “history” section of the tribe’s official website5_as well as the first sites that resulted in a Google search and that could serve as official sources of information to consult and check too (such as Wikipedia, The Guardian). The Standing Rock Sioux reservation, located between the North Dakota and South Dakota border, was originally established as part of the Great Sioux Reservation after the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868. The reservation includes Sioux County in North Dakota, Corson County and small portions of Dewey and Ziebach Counties in South Dakota. It is the sixth-largest Native American reservation in the US, with a land area of 2.3 million acres and a population of 6,171 according to the tribe’s own official website. In 1960 the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation built five dams on the Missouri River – the major source of water for the reservation – forcing many Native Americans to migrate due to the floods caused by the dams. Consequently, the Lakota populations turned to the Lake Oahe to face their shortage of water supply. Problems with the water quality and inadequate supply have damaged the economy as well as the health of the population in the reservation; as of today, the unemployment percentage rate is 79, according to the own tribe’s website (idem).

In July 2014, the Dakota Pipeline, LLC – a company owned by Energy Transfer Partners LP, Philips 66 and Sunoco Logistics Partners LP – announced a USD 3.8 billion project for the construction of a 1,172-mile-long underground U.S. oil pipeline (BankTrack, 2016). According to the project found in the website “Dakota Access pipeline Facts”,6_{the pipeline is designated to transport up to 570,000} barrels of crude oil per day, from the Bakken oil fields in Northwest North Dakota, through the states of South Dakota, Iowa and terminate at Patoka, Illinois. The dispute with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe immediately started as the pipeline’s route, crossing beneath the Missouri River as well

5_{https://www.standingrock.org/content/environmental-profile} 6_{https://daplpipelinefacts.com/}

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as the Lake Oahe, represents a threat to the only sources of clean water and also to the sacred burial grounds for the reservation; apparently the fight is still going on with the tribes stressing on the potential risks of leak, now that the pipeline is fully built.7

As of the 1st_{of April 2016, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, an elderly member of the Lakota tribe, and} her grandchildren established the Sacred Stone Camp to protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). By late September, the camp counted thousands of supporters and 300 tribes of Native Americans united for what has been called “the largest gathering in more than 100 years” (BBC, 2016). The movement was joined by politicians such as senator Bernie Sanders and 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Gill Stein, actors such as Leonardo Di Caprio and Susan Sarandon,8 and several other organizations such as Black Lives Matter.9_{Meanwhile, CNN reports that the} Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Interior, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation asked the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a formal Environmental Impact Assessment and issue an Environmental Impact Statement. 10_{As The Standing Sioux Tribe filed a} suit against the Army Corps Engineer which had approved the permits for the construction of the pipeline; as the federal court denied the injunction, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of the Interior (DOI) ordered to stop the building of the pipeline until further environmental assessments were compiled (idem).

In September 2016, the protests erupted in violence as the Dakota Access Pipeline workers started to dig up with bulldozers part of the sites that just a day earlier the tribe had identified in a court filing as sacred and historic; when protesters entered the area to stop the action, they were stopped by private security workers for Dakota Access who used guard dogs and pepper spray to drive them back. As The Guardian and many other sites reported (Levin, 2016). The clash was filmed by

DemocracyNow!’s main host Amy Goodman and her crew; the footage went viral on YouTube with

14 million views in few days. Amy Goodman soon received an arrest warrant issued by Morton County for trespassing the area to film the protests (idem). In October, Goodman turned herself to the Morton County–Mandan Corrections Center to fight the charges, which were successively dismissed by the District Judge John Grinsteiner (idem). Another 140 arrests took place at the camp in the same month. The violent confrontations between protesters and police continued in November when, according to the Guardian reports, the North Dakota enforcement officers used tear gas and water cannons leaving 26 activists hospitalized and other 300 injured (Wong, 2016).

7_{https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a12181154/still-fighting-at-standing-rock/} 8_{https://www.ecowatch.com/justice-league-dakota-access-pipeline-2000093607.html} 9_{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHPZjESoKjI}

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On November 14, the Army Corps of Engineers demanded more time to implement the study on the environmental impact of the project. On December 4, the Army announced that it would not grant an easement for the pipeline to drill under the Lake Oahe. However, what represented a victory for the protesters did not last too long: in January 2017, the newly-elect President Donald Trump issued an executive order to advance the construction under the terms of conditions negotiated, complaining the “incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process”, as reported by the

Washington Post.11_{Consequently, the Army Corps of Engineers was dismissed from the assessment} on the environmental impact. This was the final act of the US Administration before clearing all the protest camps by the 22nd_{of February.}

I chose to analyse this particular protest not only because it represents “one of the largest movements of the recent American history” (Aljazeera, 2016; BBC, 2016) dealing with an environmental issue and the relationship of U.S. with the Indigenous tribes in North and South Dakota, but also because it can be used as a reference for local protests currently happening in other countries of the world. There is a pattern not only in the way media portray these issues but also in the way the social movements are started; the Standing rock protests – and their coverage in the media – for instance, can be comparable to those against the Keystone pipeline in Canada as well as against the construction of the TAP gas pipeline in Southern Italy. The goal of this study is therefore also to present an additional example of analysis that can be used to understand the journalistic flaws over these types of events and consequently to improve professional habits.

1.2 Outline of the thesis

This study begins with the contextualization of its main query in the literature review of the academic theories on the topics of interest. Then it draws the methodology chosen and displays an explanation for each step taken. Consequently, figures and data of the research are presented in detail in the chapter Analysis and Findings, before the Conclusion section, where I examine the results and suggest possible subjects for further research.

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10 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

“Sisters Brothers and the whiteys Blacks and the crackers Police and their backers They're all political actors” [(Don’t Worry) If there’s a Hell Below, We’re all going to go - Curtis Mayfield]

In this chapter I present the theoretical framework to give the context of the main research question, namely: are there differences in the coverage presented by US mainstream and alternative media of the protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline? To what extent and how the mainstream news coverage of Standing Rock differed from the alternative one?

In the first section of the chapter, the theories of sociology, political science and communication are reviewed in depth to explore the meanings of media representation, social movements and protests. There is a wide review in the current scholarship of which media strategies have been used to portray demonstrations in the past and how they evolved. The digital age has clearly changed the media environment, leading to a more diverse offer of outlets and, possibly, of voices. As such, this has been reflected in studies of new forms of news production and event coverage through attempts to understand the effects of contemporary technology on communication. The outcome of this recognition, as its relative examples, is the focus of this chapter.

Furthermore, researchers have adopted in the last thirty years the so-called “protest paradigm” (Chan and Lee, 1984) as a tool, both practical and theoretical, to analyse how media representation of protests works. Such a model – also used in this thesis – presents an interdisciplinary approach where framing analysis has a major role. Consequently, in the second section, I proceed to delve into the framing literature as it provides a valid (and common) theoretical context for understanding the effects of media representation on the audience and therefore on the social movement itself. Framing has been one of the first tools – as well as the most important – used by scholars to study media (Entman, 1993) and social movements (Benford 1997; Snow and Benford 1988). However, there is still not a standardized methodology for the study of media frames despite the wide use of such approach.

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Previous studies focused in particular on the role of mainstream news outlets in contributing to a perpetuation of certain negative frames rather than covering why a social movement came to rise. If and how the alternative media differ from such process is one of the scopes of this research, in the attempt to give further examples of analysis on the topic.

In the final paragraph I present the previous academic research on the protest paradigm and explain thoroughly its features in order to give a sense of the aim of the thesis and which further steps need to be taken to accomplish it. Several scholars (Boykoff, 2006; Lee, 2014; Reul et al., 2016) have outlined this pattern of routines that journalists use specifically when reporting on socio-cultural movements demanding social change; in many cases, their coverage resulted in the delegitimization of the protesters and in the lack of space given to their issues. The reasons why such professional repertoires are operated are also a very relevant aspect of focus in the section. Moreover, this study intends to present an additional case to be included in the protest paradigm with its peculiar aspects.

2.1 Media representation of social movements

The point of departure is the theoretical assumption that media represent the “construction site” of reality, where public opinion and societal beliefs are shaped and influenced (Gamson, 1989). Here, the concept of representation entails a comprehensive understanding of the social and cultural context where meanings are constructed; according to Cammaerts et al. (2008), representation is the “struggle for meaning and an important source of social knowledge production” because it is defined by a system of power relations and social practices (p.16). When discussing power and media representation, much of the scholarship relates to the theories outlined by Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1971): his notion of hegemony allows us to interpret the central role of media in reproducing and reinforcing the dominant ideologies within a certain political context. More specifically, Gramsci asserts that ideology is the container of power through which dominant groups maintain their political and social control over the subordinate classes (Gramsci, 1971); in other words, a challenge to the ruling ideology is a challenge to the whole political and social order. This is a relevant premise to consider when addressing the topic of how protests are represented in the media.

As the media environment reflects the social context, when social instability happens there is a negotiation of power between different social actors representing different ideologies through different types of media. The role of social movements in this case appears crucial: they are defined as “the efforts to change the existing power structure through sustained and collective actions with

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elites, adversaries, and authorities” (Leopold and Bell, 2017, p. 720). As such, social movements

often erupt in protests in order to gain media attention and achieve their goals; social movements act like “containers” of what the protests “carry” and usually evolve improperly (this also explains why the two entities, a subject and an action, are often conflated). A definition of protest, which I consider still valid today, was given by Paul D. Schumaker in the mid-Seventies – at the dawn of a wide political turmoil in the Western democracies – citing Michael Lipsky: “a mode of political

action oriented toward objection of one or more policies or conditions, characterized by showmanship or display of an unconventional nature” (Schumaker, 1975; p. 490). It follows that

protest groups are composed of “those who use demonstrations, obstructions, boycotts, and other

"unconventional" participation strategies” (idem). A form of political engagement which, I argue,

has not changed, as the specific case of this study demonstrates, with its large numbers of people involved, its tactics of demonstration and organisation and its inherent issues. Finally, the Standing Rock protests especially are referred both as a social movement and as the demonstrations they involved because they both challenged the existing power structure (present in the specific policies of the U.S. Government on the matter) in a way that can be fairly described as “unconventional” if we consider the summer camps, the tribes’ rituals or the exceptional marches.12

According to Boyle et al. (2012), the function of protest groups in challenging the status quo helps to bring attention to certain issues to the prevailing political agenda, providing critical feedback to institutions or encouraging social reforms. As such, the action of social movements and the amount of coverage they receive can assess the vitality of a democracy (idem). In fact, unsurprisingly, the strong interrelation between media and social movements became much evident during those years of massive mobilisations started by the 1960s in the United States as well as in Europe. At the same time, television was the mainstream medium par excellence and soon found newsworthy any protest event happening in the Western world due to the massive participation of the people and the spectacular nature of the demonstrations. However, as Natalie Fenton notes, television also became the outlet that, driven by commercial reasons, trivialized this arrangement between citizens and working democracy and led to the current political disenchantment (Fenton, 2018, p.3, chapt. 3). Consequently, many scholars started to study the deep and interdependent relationship between these two entities: media and social movements. Ralph Negrine (as cited in Fahlenbrach, et al., 2014) makes a consistent theoretical recap of the academic works of those years: among them, Halloran et al’s Demonstrations and Communication (1970) is a reference point in the analysis of media representation. Their examination of the British print and broadcast news coverage of the

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Anti-Vietnam war protests revealed a theme which, according to Nagrine, is still valid in the current media landscape and provides for a central idea to this study, that is: news media are not simply bystanders of the events but have an active role in shaping their audiences’ perceptions of the events. As such, Gitlin explains, the protesters are forced to adapt to the journalistic notions of story and protest in order to receive adequate coverage in the media (Gitlin, 1980, p.3). What these professional routines are and the journalistic notion of protest will be discussed more extensively in the third section of the review.

In his review of the scholarship on social movements, protests and mainstream media, McCurdy (2012) explains that social movements tend to rely on mainstream media as this helps to mobilize the public, validate the existence and enlarge the scopes of the movement and its power through debates over the issues at stake. As Boykoff puts it, “Mass-media coverage—or a lack thereof—

influences the nature, form, and development of social movements, as well as the ability of these movements to reach their goals (Boykoff, 2006, p. 203)”.

This argument, however, underlies the bigger role of the media, which is to decide what information can be transmitted to the general public, and that is also endorsed by Ralph Nagrine: “those who

understand the way the media work are therefore in a powerful position, because they can play an active part in shaping news stories rather than simply remaining an object of comment” (as cited in

Fahlenbrach, et al., 2014, p.61).

Although the current media environment has been radically changed by the advent of the digital age, this concept is still very applicable and is a source of a constant debate in the recent academic contributions: according to the same scholar Nagrine, the fragmentation of the audiences, the arrival of social media and the infinite possible combinations of new media outlets due to the technological advancement – such as web radio and/or Tv broadcasts, online news sites etc. – did not change how the media choose to represent the protests (idem). As he concludes, protesters are still obliged to rely on mainstream media to reach bigger audiences; the media still frame the protests in a way that delegitimises them; the new environment has not necessarily made available new spaces for the protest movements (ibidem, p.60). Also, Natalie Fenton (2018) came to the same considerations: more communicative freedom does not necessarily correspond to an increased political participation if we take into account all those factors that have an impact on the digital public spheres, such as surveillance and malware, censorship and blocking, and corporate exploitation and dominance (Fenton, 2018, p. 4, chapt. 3). By contrast, she adds, “where there is political conflict, the means of

circulating information will always be a primary aim” (p.7, chapt. 3); meaning that, essentially,

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struggles rather than vice versa. Consequently, the question on how this enhanced counter-publicity can influence the coverage of the protest events is still relevant today as well as among the questions addressed in this research.

Considering that mass-media usually frame negatively those who challenge the status quo and the social order, it is important to define how this framing process runs within the system. Before we can continue with the analysis of the Standing Rock protests, we must first establish a guide to the framing literature.

2.2 The process of framing

The literature on framing is broad and implies several disciplines according to the subject of analysis. For the purpose of this research, I use the sociologist Todd Gitlin’s fundamental definition that, while examining the student protests in the sixties, described frames as “persistent patterns of

cognition, interpretation, and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion, by which symbol-handlers routinely organize discourse’’ (Gitlin, 1980, p. 7). In other words, journalists – the

“symbol-handlers” – present the events by using frames or codes that simplify the explanation of the issues in a continuous routine of selection, emphasis and exclusion.

However, there is not an objective and standardized description of what is a frame; according to Williams and Benford, frames can be conveyed in the grammar, the structure through which meaning is given (Williams and Benford, 2000). For example – as Gamson and Modigliani outlined – there are five devices that imply the use of frames: metaphors, exemplars, catchphrases, depictions and visual images (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989). One of the main aspects of interest in this study is the value that words can have according to who is employing them and how; Pan and Kosicki consider that the above-mentioned five rhetorical devices allow the interaction with individual agents’ memory for the meaning construction (Pan and Kosicki, 1993, p.58). The authors define them as “lexical choices of codes” that can direct the attention of the audiences as well as constrain their perspective (Pan and Kosicki, 1993, p.59): “They function as framing devices

because they are recognizable and thus can be experienced, can be conceptualized into concrete elements of a discourse, can be arranged or manipulated by newsmakers, and can be communicated in the "transportation" sense of communications.” (Pan and Kosicki, 1993, p.59).

Following the two authors’ theorization of this process, it is possible to understand that framing consists of highlighting certain aspects of an issue according to the individuals’ shared social meanings; in this way, it is proved that journalists use narratives that are already embedded in their

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publics’ memory. In fact, frames are given via words and/or periphrasis that are used to organise and transmit the information in a patternable and understandable structure; similarly, Reese et al. (2003) define frames “are organising principles that are socially shared and persistent over time,

that work symbolically to meaningfully structure the social world” (p.11). Evidently, given the

inherent role of frames in the media (and their extensive use), many scholars attempted to provide a precise description of what these are.

Maintaining readers’ attention is certainly one of the first concerns of journalists when reporting their stories; as Robert Entman explains (1993), the process of framing consists in selecting some aspects of perceived reality and conferring them more salience in the text to promote a particular issue (p.55). Hence, frames are those cognitive lenses which allow journalists to portray their version of reality; Benford and Snow provide an additional definition: frames are “interpretive

schemata that simplify and condense the ‘world out there’ by selectively punctuating and encoding objects, situations, events, experiences, and sequences of actions within one’s present or past environment” (Benford and Snow, 1992, p.133).

As this study focuses on a conflict, it is relevant to uncover not only what is reported but also what type of meaning is assigned by the journalists to the event; William Gamson, one of the most cited authors of the framing literature, defined media frames as “a central organizing idea or story line

that provides meaning” to the events on the matter (Gamson and Modigliani, 1987, p. 143). Such

definition lays the foundation for the constructionist model, where the beliefs and concepts provided by frames operate in the same cultural system. A system where, clearly, also media workers fit in and choose which cultural meanings are more applicable according to their and their publics’ cultural context. A theoretical conjecture that still finds confirmation: in fact, Van Gorp suggests (as cited in Kathrin Fahlenbrach, et al., 2014), journalists not only present the conflict but also contribute to construct new frames according to their interpretation of the events (p.75). In addition, Tim Baylor rejects the simplistic view for which media mould public opinion in a one-way direction (1996). As such, news works on one level, by creating frames that can be acknowledged and understood by individuals; on another level, individuals work with those frames by creating new meanings (Scheufele, 1999). It is a mutual process of definition and recognition of these cultural references. As many scholars before me (Carlson, 2016; Gitlin, 1980), I picture this process as an unceasing “tug of war” between journalists, their sources – protesters and activists in this specific case – and their audiences, where one struggles with the other but needs the other at the same time in order to construct the proper narratives for the story. A more in-depth review of the literature on the journalistic routines and their use of the sources is present in the last section of this chapter.

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In summary, this study uses the epistemological concept of framing as a contextualisation for the people’s meaning-construction of certain events according to their cultural backgrounds. Takeshita called such an effect “the reality definition function of the media” (1997). According to Gamson and Modigliani (1989), the process of framing combines three steps: cultural resonance, sponsor activity and media practices (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989). Cultural resonance comes from the images commonly accepted by society; sponsor activity refers to any content promoted by politicians or other organizations; media practices are all the routines of news gathering and news production through which information is published (Kenix, 2011).

2.3 Media frames for collective actions

The major aim of this research is to identify the frames used by journalists to report the massive protests which erupted in the United States against the construction of a pipeline; when applied to social movements, the framing process is a phenomenon through which different social actors struggle to present their own frames and obtain major space in public discourse. As such, media play a vital role as they can assign to social movements public relevance or blank them out (Gitlin, 1980). Bert Klandermans (as cited in Kathrin Fahlenbrach, et al., 2014) outlines in particular the types of collective action frames that are “sets of collective beliefs that serve to create a state of

mind in which participation in collective action appears meaningful” (p.52). According to

Klandermans (idem), these beliefs are elaborated following a social construction that involves both campaigners and the media.

As Boykoff makes clear, news organizations have the role of arbiters in the framing contest and they usually decide – in accordance with their professional routines and norms – to focus more on the events or the appearance of the participants rather than the social issues that started the demonstrations (Boykoff, 2006). This the case, for example, of the New York Times’ coverage of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement; De Luca, Lawson and Sun found in their framing analysis that the protesters were pictured as hippies and flakes while the OWS movement itself “as frivolous and aimless” (DeLuca, Lawson and Sun, 2012, p.491). Moreover, DeLuca et al. have noted that there are two strategies that mainstream mass media use to marginalize social activist groups: one is to ignore them, “doom them to invisibility and non-existence”, the other is to frame them negatively (DeLuca, Lawson and Sun, 2012, p. 488).

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Scholars have observed that there are certain features of the protests which make them newsworthy: the size of the demonstrations, the presence of the police, the contingent violence and/or its proximity (Oliver and Maney, 2000). In addition to these, there are other points that require an explanation to understand how the demonstrations are reported.

As Ralph Negrine notes (as cited in Fahlenbrach, et al., 2014), from Halloran et al.’s seminal work

Demonstrations and Communication (1970) until now, there has been a general academic consensus

in attesting the character of some of the typical frames of the reporting on collective actions; for example, the dominant “law and order” frame present in the analysis of the protests in the 1960s and 1970s is still applicable today (p. 63). Moreover, as already mentioned, media coverage tends to accentuate only the sensationalist aspects of a protest (Rosie and Gorringe, 2009) and in particular mainstream media present more negative frames than alternative equivalent (McCurdy, 2014); however, Kenix (2011) explains that there are also instances of positive framing by mainstream media, in recent history: the Restore Honor Rally, recent environmental protests or demonstrations against the war in Iraq saw the media not only covering under positive frames but also instigating the action (idem). According to Walgrave and Manssens (2005), media may take up this active function when there is evident dissent between the population and the elites, when the issue is not political and simple or emotional (idem). In the study case of the Deaf President Now! (DPN) movement, Kensicki (2001) outlined additional factors which may apply in different contexts: the availability of protest sources and the lack of elite sources, the peaceful organization of marches and the sponsorship from corporates.

It is important to reiterate that the media spectrum is in constant evolution and that as it changes, the protesters’ tactics may vary accordingly and adapt even more to news media routines. Indeed, Cottle (Cottle, 2008) observed “variable, shifting and sometimes more progressive alignments of the news

media’s reporting of demonstrations and protests than in the past” (p. 858). This, together with the

considerations on the framing of collective actions mentioned above, is a definition to acknowledge when I present the “alternative way” in the following section.

2.4 Alternative media and how they frame protests

Considering the media environment in constant reshape and produce new journalistic sources, I outline the category of alternative media which is taken in this study as a term of comparison with the mainstream type.

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Language, the object of analysis of the thesis, acts as a “vehicle” for new meanings and messages that would produce counter-hegemonic ideologies: in this regard, Foucault defines the “language of resistance” as a tool to contest the “language of power” by changing the connotations for the representation of certain issues (Foucault in Cammaerts et al. 2008). The notions of hegemony and language are important to outline the two types of media that have emerged especially with the technological innovations of the last four decades: mainstream and alternative.

According to Cammaerts et al. (2008), current mainstream media are presented as large-scale state-owned organizations or private business companies, oriented to a homogeneous public; they have a pyramidal structure of the staff and represent dominant discourses. Alternative media are described as the opposite in each of these features: they are small-scale and oriented towards specific small and under-represented communities; they have a business model which is independent of state and market; their horizontal structure facilitates the participation of the public; they use counter-hegemonic discourses stressing on the self-representation (idem).

A comparative frame analysis of WTO Protest coverage in Seattle (Feffer, 2008) displayed a clear difference in the way protesters were depicted: violent and disruptive on the mainstream media, less unlawful and problematic on the alternative media; also, the police and the maintained order were described in a more favourable way in the first case while more criticized in the second (ibidem, p. 60-61). In short, alternative media offer a space that allows different societal groups to produce their own “non-conformist and counter-hegemonic representations” (Cammaerts et al., 2008, p. 17). However, they do it in the same social and economic context of the mainstream media, which means that alternative media operate their counter-narratives through those same institutions of cultural control, such as university, books, etc, used by mainstream media. As Cammaerts (2008) puts it, they are “trans-hegemonic media” because they still engage with the market and state (p. 28). As such, Kenix (2011) reports, many hegemony theorists argue that “these episodes of alternative ideologies are often co-opted within a commercialized media system while major hegemonic ideologies continue unabated or usurped over time” (p.59). This argument suggests that – even following the digital age – mainstream and alternative media do not stand in fixed and separate categories without osmotic influence; it is quite the opposite, if we consider Mattoni’s definition of the media environment, which adds a conclusion on the way the two operate and intersect: “an open, unpredictable and controversial space of mediatization and communication,

made up of different layers that continuously combine with one another due to the information flows circulating within the media environment itself” (Mattoni, 2009, p.33). In the end, alternative news

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While analysing the ways alternative and mainstream news outlets cover protests differently, several studies have outlined a model, the so-called "protest paradigm", where any form of challenge to the social order is framed as negative. This has mainly applied to the mainstream sources but also includes the alternative sources – either at the other end of the paradigm (reporting against the mainstream bias) or complicit in the negative framing. (Gitlin, 1980; Chan and Lee, 1984; Dardis, 2006; Weaver and Scacco, 2013). The following section expands on this concept.

2.5 The protest paradigm

As I explained the concepts of hegemony and the process of framing, I now can outline how these two phenomena interact with the professional conventions of the news system. Again, sociologist Todd Gitlin (1980) has pioneered the theory in this sense: the notions of “objectivity”, “credibility” and “newsworthiness” in particular indicate those rules that set the rhythm of the news production but at the same time collide with the dictates of the commercial boundaries, especially in the case of demonstrations: “through the everyday workings of journalism, large scale social conflict is

imported into the news institution and reproduced there: reproduced, however, in terms derived from the dominant ideology” (p.270).

Therefore, many scholars, such as McLeod and Hertog, started to collect in a paradigm all the professional routines, patterns and templates that occur in the news coverage of social protests (McLeod and Hertog 1999). In their more recent review of the scholarship on the topic, Reul et al. (2016) indicate three conditions that occur in this model: marginalising story framing, reliance on official sources and the invocation of public opinion (p. 3). First, the marginalising frames depict the protesters through the typical dichotomy “us” versus “them”, in a way that emphasizes the bizarre characteristics of the protesters – such as their physical appearance or attitude – especially in situations of confrontation with the authorities (Hertog and McLeod, 1995). This is the case, for example, of the media coverage of the “Right to Party” movement, which was depicted by mainstream media only in its clashes with police, with marginalising labels (McLeod, 1999).

The use of frames that accentuate the violence of the protesters is relevant if we consider Slavoj Žižek’s (2008) argument on language as “the ultimate resort of every specifically human violence” (p.66). The Slovenian philosopher explains that through the symbols of language it is possible to deconstruct the meaning of anything to a single feature, which is per se already a violent act. The same applies when it comes to protests, where protesters are able to express their dissent not only

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with brutal demonstrations but also with radical messages. However, this is also true for the journalists, who tend to report more on the actions and therefore to emphasize only that aspect; following Žižek’s assumption, if violence is a human act and language the ultimate resort of human violence, then the coverage of violence can be even more destructive than the action itself. Consequently, if the audience’s perception on the demonstrators is deviated to their protest activity rather than their messages, it generates a paradox for the dissidents, that have to provide constantly visual imagery and action if they want to receive media coverage (Gamson, 1989). Clearly, as Corrigal-Brown and Wilkes point out, visual framing presents more dramatic aspects of the protests than the text as the images and headlines garner first-hand attention (Corrigal-Brown and Wilkes, 2012, p.228). According to Boykoff: dissidents “feel compelled to foment protest activities that are

novel enough to be newsworthy, yet not easily dismissible as gimmicky, violent, or weird, or that distract from or trivialize their social movement goals.” (Boykoff, 2006, p. 203). This is an

important point to understand how and why certain social protests appear under greater coverage than others.

For example, in his framing analysis of the Global Justice Movement, Boykoff (2006) identified inductively five predominant frames: the Violence Frame, the Disruption Frame, the Freak Frame, the Ignorance Frame, and the Amalgam of Grievances Frame. Each of them intersected and reinforced the other (Boykoff, 2006, p.211). As those are among the most common frames that apply to protest news stories – and eventually to this research too – it is worth giving a brief description of each of them.

• The violence frame, in particular, is the most used by journalists, both because it entails the spectacular imagery, instead of the philosophical debate of issues (Dardis, 2006), and at the same time it delegitimizes the movement’s tactics. In the case of Boykoff’s analysis (2006), the violence frame applied to stories even when protesters were not actually violent as journalists would accentuate on “the lack of destruction, the absence of violence or the

potential of violence” (p. 211).

• The disruption frame, also broadly adopted in news stories, pictures the protests in terms of the negative effects they have on the economy, the residents, etc.

• The freak frame “focuses on the non-mainstream values, beliefs, and opinions of these

dissidents, as well as their age and appearance” (Boykoff, 2006, p. 216). More specifically,

this frame tends to pose the attention on the exterior factors that describe the protesters in a way that trivialize their aspect and their goals.

• The ignorance frame depicts the activists as ignorant or not informed on the issues for which they are demonstrating.

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• The amalgam of grievances frame references the disparate issues that demonstrators fight; while it can be a way for them to engage and include different discourses and struggles within one movement, this frame triggers various responses by the mass-media: value-neutral, positive or negative (Boykoff, 2006, p. 221).

• Another marginalising label of a social movement can be the reference to its limited numbers, a way – through opinion polls – of portraying it as not representative of the general population (MCleod and Hertog cited in Kenix, 2011).

In the methodology chapter, I will specify which of these frames I will use during my analysis. As Boykoff notes, the protest paradigm triggers what McCarthy and McPhail call the gradual “institutionalization of protest”. The two scholars (as cited in Boykoff, 2006) observed that the patterns and routines through which media operate their negative framing of demonstrations have minimized the effect of the actions of the protesters: “the recurring behavioral repertoires of both

protesters and police, and their interactions with one another, have become institutionalized and therefore routinized, predictable, and, perhaps as a result, of diminishing impact.” (p. 204).

The second feature of the paradigm is the reliance on official sources which represents one of the main professional norms in journalism and leads to the predominance of authoritative viewpoints in the news coverage (Bennet 1990; Sigal 1973). Previous studies have proved the framing power of the official sources in the news stories dealing with social protests (McLeod and Hertog 1999). Because journalists have to work on strict time schedules, they prefer to quote these routine sources, who are easy to contact on many different issues. Moreover, as Baylor clarifies, the class bias affects media framing as most print and online media have close affiliations to other corporate groups or politicians (Baylor, 1996). This explains why news outlets tend to support the status quo and dismiss any challenge to the institutional power; granting a dominant role to official sources in the coverage means to save time and costs which are extremely relevant in a media organisation (Gans, 1979; Corrigall-Brown and Wilkes, 2012).

The third point of the protest paradigm, which is directly linked to the second, is the invocation of the public opinion, a strategy that media use as a form of social control (McLeod and Hertog, 1999). Opinion polls, overt characterizations, invocation of social norms and violations of laws or symbolic use of bystanders are usually used to discredit protesters, delegitimize them and isolate them (idem). Broadly speaking, the protest paradigm is a relevant theme of research as it adds further literature for the definition of the role of media in the public discourse. Protest activity is a reliable indicator of the vitality of a democracy (Boyle et al., 2012, p. 3); indeed, protesters push

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forward new issues in the social and political agenda, provide critical feedback to the institutional action and contribute to the marketplace of ideas (McLeod and Hertog, 1999). Thus, protests represent not only an alternative form of political participation but a contribution to shaping social policy. Nevertheless, as discussed above, those who challenge the status quo of existing power structure are framed by media as deviants or criminals. McLeod and Detenber (1999) investigated the framing effects of television news coverage of an anarchist protest and substantially confirmed the theories around the influence media have on the audience. In fact, status quo support stories led the viewers to be more critical against the protesters and less against the police; moreover, status quo support decreased the level of public support, perception of newsworthiness and the protest’s accomplishment (McLeod and Detenber, 1999).

Corrigal-Brown and Wilkes (2012) identified the journalistic pursuit for the news value as an additional factor for the media slant; indeed, journalists publish stories that present drama and novelty under the dogma “if it bleeds, it leads” (Gitlin, 1980). As such, social movements organizations (SMO) – more specifically Native American SMOs – seek media attention through confrontational tactics, such as “demonstrations”, “marches” and “seizures of property” since the 1960s, as Baylor remarks in his study (Baylor, 1996, p. 241).

Previous scholarship has thoroughly analysed the protest paradigm of Indigenous People’s collective actions as it presents different features for research. More specifically, the Canadian study cases offer a relevant term of comparison: events such as the Oka crisis in 1990 or the Gustafsen Lake crisis in 1995 generated large media coverage. As Grenier (1994) and Stuart’s (1993) analysis assessed, over 208 articles published in 15 Canadian newspapers, almost 60 percent framed the Oka crisis as a law-and-order conflict, depicting the protesting Native tribes as criminals, instead of asserting their reclamation for nationhood (Grenier,1994; Stuart, 1993). Also studies on the coverage of Gustafsen Lake crisis found that journalists promoted official sources, such as police and politicians, who legitimated the use of violence against First Nation leaders and members (Miller, 2005, p.8). As opposed to single-event focus of analysis, Corrigal-Brown, Wilkes and Meyer conducted a systematic examination of coverage of different events in a period ranging from 1985 to 1995 (Corrigal-Brown, Wilkes, Weyer, 2010). They found out that the size and the length of the demonstrations did not gain much media attention while the disruptive tactics did. Moreover, the use of pictures was due to professional routines, not to the activist pressure for coverage. These study cases provide relevant examples on the previous analyses that have been conducted on stories very similar to the Standing Rock protests and they proved to be adherent to the protest paradigm with their negative framing.

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23 2.6 Conclusions

This research aims to analyse the possible differences operated by mainstream and alternative media in the coverage of the protests against the construction of Dakota Pipeline; more specifically, this examination may define other aspects of the applicability of the protest paradigm as previous scholarship rarely included the alternative media contributions.

As mentioned above, past research outlined a tendency, mainly by mainstream media, in covering social movements and their demonstrations in a negative way (Boyle, McCluskey, Devanathan, Stein and McLeod, 2004); scholars have argued that such media bias is due primarily to their function of social control: media support the status quo because they are intrinsically tied to dominant institutions within society (Gans, 1979). Secondly, the professional norms and routines generate a coverage that frames protests with marginalising labels (Boykoff, 2006). In the current multi-layered media environment, studies that focus on the protest paradigm have started to consider this pattern of coverage as a variable configuring across different types of media and protests (Weaver and Scacco, 2013). As such, the present study aims to investigate whether such a pattern is confirmed or rejected, including the analysis of alternative media outputs. Plus, looking into the media treatment of more cases of protests could extend the definition (and therefore enhance the comprehension) of this paradigm.

Moreover, the research builds up on the constructivist theory of media as the stage of the political contest between different social forces (Wolfsfeld in McCurdy, 2012); in this “struggle for recognition” (Thomson, 1995), media act as arbiters and assign more or less visibility according to their and their audiences’ cultural backgrounds (Boykoff, 2006). This is possible through the process of framing, where frames are selected and emphasized by media, either in the text or in the use of visual content, to give salience on certain issues among others (Gitlin, 1980; Entman, 1993). Specifically, I use Reese’s concept of frames as the main framework to this study: “Frames are

organising principles that are socially shared and persistent over time, that work symbolically to meaningfully structure the social world” (in Reese, Gandy and Grant, 2003, p.11). This definition

clarifies that through framing journalists use symbols to organise the information, while emphasizing certain aspects of a problem, and with meanings they share with their audiences. As such, it is relevant to understand which interpretation they offer when a conflict of two or more parties is involved.

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The case study of this analysis relates on an environmental conflict involving Native Americans, a story that may present several features for misrepresentation if we consider the previous examples of research on these topics (Grenier, 1994; Stuart, 1993). In this particular case, media have a relevant function in bolstering a certain ideology over another: a deprecatory coverage of Native tribes, for example, could dictate not only the end of their social movement, but also of their existence. By framing them in a negative way, media have a direct impact on the public opinion and on the government policy over the construction of a pipeline that could endanger their water resources. As such, the analysis will scrutinize the portrayal of the protesters and whether there are more frames concerning the specific environmental issue or the political implications.

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25 3. METHODOLOGY

“The revolution will not be right back after a message About a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.” [The Revolution will not be televised (Pieces of a Man version) – Gil Scott-Heron]

In this chapter I present the research design and the methodology employed: the operationalization of the protest paradigm and the rationale beyond the sample and the data gathering.

3.1 Research Design

In this research I focus on the coverage of the protests of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The main goal is to attest any relevant differences or similarities of news production across different types of media, especially in this case of collective actions where the output from the mainstream media is scarce and the alternative is more than sufficient (quantitatively). Investigating which frames journalists have used on this event means understanding what version of reality they intended to depict to their publics; as sociologist Todd Gitlin (1980) described them: “Frames bring order to events by making them something that can be

told about; they have power because they make the world make sense” (p.6). Hence, using the

protest paradigm as a methodological tool, this study asks the following questions:

1) Has media coverage of the Standing Rock movement and protests followed the protest paradigm? 2) To what extent and how the mainstream news coverage of Standing Rock protests differed from the alternative one?

The analysis relates to the articles published in the New York Times, one of the most influential American newspaper in the world, and the transcripts of the episodes broadcasted by

DemocracyNow!, a representative program for alternative news in the United States. Both a textual

and content analyses were performed as they are the most common approaches employed by researchers to identify the paradigm. The content analysis served to count both the sources used by the two outlets and the frames that occurred in their coverage. The qualitative analysis was applied to identify and locate the frames as well as the other characteristics of the paradigm (details of the unit of sample, the overall tone, the invocation of the public opinion). Together these methods

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aimed to attest relevant differences between the two types of coverage both in a qualitative and quantitative mode.

3.2 Sample and data gathering

This paper presents a cross-sectional comparative assessment between a mainstream newspaper and an alternative broadcast TV/radio show. The sample was drawn from The New York Times (NYT) and DemoracyNow! (DN!), in a six-month time-span in 2016. The six-month period, from September 2016 until February 2017, was chosen because the most intense in terms of protests and therefore in terms of coverage.

In September 2016, for instance, thousands of pipeline resistance supporters gathered and occupied three main camps in the proposed pipeline’s path; their demonstrations sparked international media attention when the construction company’s security guards used bulldozers to dig up part of the area which the Standing Rock Sioux tribe had included, as sacred ground for “significant cultural and historic value”, in their injunction filed the day before. According to the reports (NBCnews.com, 2016), the clashes between several hundred protesters and the construction crews caused injuries for four security guards and two guard dogs while at least 30 people were pepper-sprayed and other 6, including a child, were bitten by the security dogs. The footage of the violent confrontation, provided by Amy Goodman and her crew from DemocracyNow!, spread across YouTube and social media raising the attention of the international audience on the issue. From this moment on, the

Standing Rock protest, joined also by Black Lives Matter and several celebrities, is defined as “the

biggest gathering of its kind in history” (BBC.com, 2016). Tensions between the activists and the police reached the boiling point in different occasions afterwards: on October 27, 141 protesters were arrested and housed in kennel-like enclosures where police officers wrote identification numbers on their arms (Splinternews.com, 2016); in the lead-up to Thanksgiving, November 21, police used against the activists water cannons in freezing weather, tear gas and rubber bullets, leaving 167 people injured. These were only some of the most violent moments of the protest in the period of interest.

The outlets chosen for this research are outstanding examples in their own category of the American media landscape: the New York Times for the mainstream and DemocracyNow! for the alternative. The New York Times is one of the most influential newspaper worldwide as it counts 125 Pulitzer Prizes, more than 2.6 million of digital-only subscriptions (Ember, 2017) and has the second major circulation in the United States as for September 2017 (Statista.com, 2017). More interestingly, the

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newspaper has a self-proclaimed liberal editorial line (Okrent, 2004) that not always comes out when speaking of the mass rallies: according to De Luca, Lawson and Sun (2012, p. 490), the New

York Times “frivolously framed” the protesters of the Occupy Wall Street movement and left poor

space to the issues they were raising. As such, the New York Times represents frequently a valid challenge in the research field of journalism as it displays so many aspects (liberal, mainstream, influential and yet with flaws in the news production).

DemocracyNow! is a daily news hour that is broadcasted by several TV and radio stations as well as

being available on the Internet; the show is entirely funded by the audience and does not accept neither corporate or governmental sponsorship nor has any advertising revenues. This economic independence reflects in the editorial line of the program: DemocracyNow! has in fact – as for the description on its website13_{– a long history of covering protest movements and under-represented} issues and was one of the first media outlets to report from the camps of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Amy Goodman, the principal host, also faced an arrest warrant after she filmed the security guards unleashing the dogs on the activists and pepper spraying them; the footage went viral online (14 million of views only on Facebook) and attracted the attention of the whole world via the mainstream media. Due to her direct involvement in the story and to the “nature” of the show itself, the program is therefore expected to produce a more extensive coverage of the issues at stake as well as the Standing Rock protest movement, its organization and its demonstrations, than the New

York Times.

The two outlets certainly present already different media formats but considering the main aim of this study is to outline the overall picture of the protests – the analysis of the language is only a part of the whole research – makes them still comparable. Moreover, it is not the first time these two media formats, newspaper and Tv/Radio/Web broadcast show, were investigated together in the protest paradigm of the Global Justice Movement (Boykoff, 2006). In the last section of this chapter, I add further justifications for potential limitations.

The unit of analysis is a media text in the selected study period: the articles published on the NYT and the transcripts of segments extracted from the NewsHour DN!. Data gathering sought only pieces that directly related to the protests and the construction of the pipeline; thus, in the case of the New York Times, letters to the editor or articles mentioning the protests briefly, were eliminated. Two main methods were implemented to create the sample: one is an advanced articles exploration