“Shiny Happy People Laughing”: The Protest Paradigm, WUNC, and the Visual Framing of Political Activism

Abstract

Media coverage of protest, particularly its visual framing, is crucial to the legitimacy and impact of protest movements. Typical patterns in media coverage of protests, which account for discrepancies between how protests are portrayed, are the protest paradigm and WUNC (worthy, united, numbers, commitment). In order to investigate how specific visual items and features of media images showing political protest elicit positive or negative perceptions and annotations by an audience, we study two questions: Which visual features in media images of protest elicit positive or negative perceptions and annotations by an audience? How do these perceptions correspond with the protest paradigm and WUNC, respectively? We answer these questions by conducting a qualitative focus group study with students from a mid-size German university.