Publication
Amplification, contestation, and toxic interactions with protest news: How social upheaval reshapes dynamics between news organisations and their audiences
Digital Journalism
Abstract
This study examines audience-media relations in the context of protest coverage, testing how dynamics of news media amplification and contestation in social media compare between legacy and alternative media. Empirically, we use difference-in-differences models to analyse the effects of the 2019 Chilean protests and a subsequent political agreement on audience-media interactions. Additionally, we probe such interactions as spaces for the expression of negative emotions, directed to media outlets as toxic replies. To this end, we apply pre-trained machine learning models to identify toxicity in user comments. Our dataset includes over 21 million posts mentioning 22 Chilean news organisations during a six-month period spanning three months before and after the protests. The findings show overall increased interactions with both media types after the outbreak of the protests, with distinct patterns of response: alternative media was more amplified while legacy media was more contested, reflecting on broader patterns of public media criticism. These results underscore the audience-media dynamic as a foundational element in how protests are portrayed and collectively interpreted.
Research highlight
Key highlight
Our results show that audience interactions with both legacy and alternative news organisations significantly increased after the social outburst of October 2019 in Chile. However, the upsurge is more pronounced in alternative rather than legacy media outlets after the protests, considering our treatment event. Peak retweet dates for alternative media show that audiences amplified pro-protests perspectives, and actions of police brutality. A striking example is *Chile Okulto*, a relatively obscure alternative outlet that garnered over 23,000 retweets on October 21st by publishing user-generated content denouncing police brutality during the protests. Another peak of alternative media amplification was *The Clinic* on November 12th, four days after university student Gustavo Gatica was blinded by police gunfire during a demonstration, by featuring a message from Gatica who called demonstrators to “keep fighting.” These patterns continued until the end of December when legacy and alternative trends became similar. However, three months after the social outburst, alternative media accounts retained higher audience engagement levels than before the protests.
