Racism, Death, and Protests in Brazil: digital and traditional news coverage of Black Awareness Day after a racism crime on Twitter

Abstract

Abstract Purpose On November 19, 2020, a man was brutally murdered by security guards of a supermarket chain located in a city in the very south of Brazil, home to the world’s largest Afro-Black community outside Africa. This killing triggered protests across the country, as a Black man was killed one day before Black Awareness Day. This large popular mobilization happened at the end of 2020 and resembled the George Floyd protests. Despite the anger resonating across communities in Brazil and abroad, the news media coverage on social media resulted in an inequitable distribution of editorial space to both the affective and critical dimensions. As users often adopt view-based practices by not clicking on social media content shared through URLs, it is essential to understand how news media portrays content in short text posted online. Study design Under the lens of news frame and social media theories, our study was built on a multi-method approach combining computational, quantitative, qualitative methods to understand how news media portrays content in a tweet. To do so, we collected 267,576 tweets. They were filtered through the case’s perspective and analyzed using frame theory. Findings Results show that Brazilian news media value different angles concerning Mr. Freitas’s death and subsequent events. While traditional media tends to be more neutral in portraying protests and the killing, digital media raised the debate on the issue and about racism in the country, highlighting protests and using supporting hashtags. Furthermore, cultural hybridity can be seen in Brazil with Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Practical and social implications In a media system that shares some aspects with those found in the United States, such as highly commercial media, our study demonstrates the importance of digital media for articulating racial issues and segregation in Brazil. Originality/value A long tradition of scholarship in sociology and communication studies has investigated how news media frames social movements and the impact this coverage might have on protesters and their ability to gather public support in Western-rich democracies. Less well documented is the use of news frames in Brazil. Furthermore, it shows how BLM is hybridized with local topics and has gained traction with digital media outlets. This study aims to fill this gap by becoming the first study investigating how news media frames social movements against racism in Brazil.