Validity and Media-Derived Protest Event Data: Examining Relative Coverage Tendencies in Mexican News Media *

Abstract

This essay engages the debate over the validity of media-derived protest data through an assessment of event coverage for three Mexico news sources. With a focus on "relative"—as opposed to "absolute"—coverage tendencies, it is argued that certain coverage tendencies in news sources can be identified and, in turn, incorporated as controls into more substantive analyses of protest phenomena. Specifically, this analysis finds that that, for the Mexico media, claims that coverage is representative of all protest events is dubious with respect to the overall population of specific events and to the geographic distribution of events. At the same time, it is shown that tendencies driven by regional biases, chronology, event size, event targets, and event issues can be exposed and identified through a simple comparison of the principal media source to one or more others.

The Interdependency of Mass Media and Social Movements

“…Remarkably, many students of social movements see the selection and description bias not as phenomena that have to be studied in their own right but rather as data problems. Instead of taking the variation in coverage as an starting point to theorize about the relationships between protest and mass media, the main question that drives most investigations is how useful media data, especially newspaper data, are to serve as an 'objective' measure for the occurrence and characteristics of protest events (see among others the discussions in Earl et al 2004;McCarthy et al 2008;Ortiz et al 2005;Strawn 2008) (Koopmans & Rucht 2002). The resulting data on protest have been used in many groundbreaking studies, especially those that focus on political opportunity structures, one of the classical theories in the study of social movements (some of the most well-known examples include Kriesi et al 1995;McAdam 1982).…”

Stakeholder influence strategies in construction projects

“…The selection of cases covered and the journalistic content of online newspapers can each demonstrate biases (Yin, 2011). These biases are offset by the collection of multiple newspapers with different levels of readership, coverage and attitude towards an event (Grey, 2010; Jacobs, 1996; Martin, 2005; Strawn, 2008). An alternative offset to newspaper bias is to also consult non-press sources (Barranco and Wisler, 1999; Almeida and Lichbach, 2003).…”

From bias to coverage: What explains how news organizations treat social movements

“…Scholars initially sought to ascertain whether collective action reported in newspapers was subjected to “selection biases.” By comparing official records and coverage, they found that newspapers are more likely to report collective action that is large, violent, geographically proximate to the newspaper, or draws the participation of larger groups (McCarthy et al, ; Oliver & Maney, ; Myers & Caniglia, ; Strawn, ; reviews in Earl et al, ; Ortiz et al, ). As a result, scholars have used newspaper data on protest more as a potential explanation for political and other outcomes—given that only covered events get on the radar of political officials—than as valid measures of collective action events (e.g., McAdam & Su, ; Soule & King, ; Walgrave & Vliegenthart, ).…”