Instances of civil disorder in the form of organised riots, strikes and protests are a significant part of the political process. Riots, strikes and protests serve to highlight fissures in society, express discontent, and stimulate public debate. Ultimately, riots, strikes and protests aim to challenge and effect change in existing social and economic structures and policies. The ‘success’ of such instances of civil disorder depends heavily on media treatments of the social actors and actions involved, including whether events are labelled as ‘riots’, ‘strikes’ or ‘protests’. Since, as Lee points out, most instances of civil disorder take place in highly specific times and places, witnessed first-hand by only relatively small numbers of people, ‘the capability of protests to communicate their messages and achieve the desired outcomes depends on whether and how they are portrayed by the mass media’ (2014: 2725). It is through positive and prominent media coverage that social movements can gain traction, galvanise public support and thus influence governmental authorities (Gamson and Wolfsfeld 1993). However, mainstream media, for reasons of political economy, tend to marginalise, delegitimise and undermine riots, strikes and protests, presenting them as illegitimate acts of non-conformity or criminality that constitute a ‘threat’ to civil society. Research on media representations of civil disorder points overwhelmingly to a tendency among mainstream media to focus on the violent and/or disruptive consequences of riots, strikes and protests rather than addressing the structural conditions and political cause(s) that motivated the action (Boykoff 2006; Di Cicco 2010; Gitlin 1980; Glasgow Media Group 1976, 1980, 1982; Hackett and Zhou 1994; Leung 2009; McLeod and Hertog 1992; Shoemaker 1984; Small 1995; Xu 2013). The media, in other words, typically adhere to a discourse of deviance (Hall 1973; Murdock 1973) and report riots, strikes and protests within a violence ‘frame’ (Entman 1993; Gamson and Modigliani 1989). Chan and Lee (1984) describe this pattern of representation as ‘the protest paradigm’.

For example, Hackett and Zhou (1994) analysed US press coverage in the first two weeks following the start of the Gulf War and found the dominant frame to be an ‘Enemy Within’ frame, which positioned anti-war protesters as the violent and/or treasonous internal Other.