Framing Pro-Palestine Protests: A Comparative Analysis of News Coverage by The Guardian and USA Today

Abstract

This study examines the framing strategies employed by The Guardian and USA Today in their coverage of the pro-Palestine protests in American universities during April and May 2024. Accordingly, the corpus comprises 213 news texts, with The Guardian contributing 106 articles and USA Today contributing 107 articles from April 17 to May 17, 2024. The research identifies and contrasts the dominant frames used by these two newspapers by conducting a framing content analysis on the selected news articles. The Guardian frequently utilizes conflict and adversarial frames, emphasizing university-wide ideological and political struggles. Conversely, USA Today focuses on broader political confrontations and administrative accountability, often highlighting institutional responses and governance issues. The analysis process is guided by framing theory to reveal how news representations influence public perception and interpretation and media agenda-setting theory to explore how media news coverage prioritizes specific issues within the same event. The findings underscore the decisive role of media framing in shaping public opinion and priorities, particularly in the context of global and political issues.