An Analysis Of The Report Frame Of The Yellow Vest Movement In French Media In The Perspective Of Protest Paradigm

The media play an important role in the progress of social movements.The mainstream media represent the views of mainstream thoughts on social movements and their reporting methods affect subconsciously the public's attitude towards them.In their news reports of social movements,mainstream media tend to adhere to the “protest paradigm”,which focuses on the external characteristics of protests rather than their internal causes,emphasizes the violent,funny and ignorant nature of protest organizations and protesters and marginalizes protest to reduce the effectiveness of protests and maintain the status quo of society.The “yellow vest movement” in France has been in full swing since its inception,and has had an important impact on France's economic and social development and political ecology,and its impact on the world cannot be ignored.In order to understand how the mainstream media of France cover social movements,this research selects three well-known French media,Le Figaro,Le Monde and Libération and conducts content analysis to study their reporting frames of the “yellow vest movement” and verify if the three French mainstream media's reports on the “yellow vest movement” conform to the protest paradigm.In the research,this article find that in terms of the news frames,these three media's reports on the “yellow vest movement” focus mainly on riot frames and public nuisance frames rather than carnival frames and crime story frames.In addition,there're also many reports focusing on the different opinions about the “yellow vest movement” from different parts and the official responses from the government rather than the cause of the protest and the struggle of the protesters therefore these reports conform to the “protest paradigm” in terms of reporting frames.The image of “yellow vests” is generally negative and violent in these three media reports.As for selection of information sources,these three media all select a lot of official sources,which also conforms to the “protest paradigm”.But compared to Le Figaro,Le Monde and Libération give the “yellow vests” more room to speak.Moreover,these three media cite relatively few civilian sources and third-party polls that viewed negatively the “yellow vest movement”,which is different from the traditional “protest paradigm”.In terms of delegalization indicators,the reports by Figaro,Le Monde and Libération are negative towards the “Yellow Vest Movement".The deep cause of the "yellow vest movement" and the hardships of the "yellow vest" who went to the streets are rarely mentioned in the reports.These reports pay more attention to the superficial appearance of the “yellow vest movement”,such as the situation on the scene,the number of participants,and so on.In this way,these reports conform to the “protest paradigm” in terms of delegalization indicators.In conclusion,the “Yellow Vest Movement” reports by Le Figaro,Le Monde and Libération generally conform to the “protest paradigm”.Through careful selection of information sources and news frames,the mainstream French media present the readers the riot and disorderly side of the “yellow vest movement” and the negative and violent appearance of the “yellow vest”.