How does an ignored, systemic issue become newsworthy? Comm scholars sometimes describe news coverage as an ocean of overlapping "news waves." Some waves, like sports, have a natural cycle. What about issues like police violence that somehow don't get much coverage?
Kepplinger & Habermeier (1995) proposed that "key events" like an earthquake or a string of deaths can "trigger waves of reporting on similar events." To test this idea, they studied German news on deaths from earthquakes, AIDS, & traffic accidents—before & after key events. 
Was Michael Brown's death a "key event" followed by increased news coverage of black people killed by police? To find out, we studied news on 343 unarmed black people killed by US police over 2.5 years in 1,124 outlets. After Brown, the chance of coverage went from 40% to 64%
What's the point of news coverage? #BlackLivesMatter & other movements try to influence *how* people see events—by "framing" individual deaths as connected to racism and police violence. Benford & Snow (2000) end their review by asking: does it work? jstor.org/stable/223459
In our paper, we asked if reporters covered police violence toward black people as a systemic issue after Michael Brown's death. Before his death, 2% of stories mentioned more than one victim. Afterward, 21% of stories mentioned more than one victim. The frame had changed.
Attention toward police violence will come & go. We don't yet know if Floyd's death will transform frames. The first #BlackLivesMatter news wave declined in 2016 during Trump's rise to power. Search trends are declining now. But social media can sustain attention over time.
To learn more about how the death of Michael Brown was a key event that marked changes in how the media framed police violence, you can read our open access paper "Whose Death Matters" at IJOC: ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc…
Whatever journalists do, organizers & movements persist, and so can frames, as we have seen this summer.
Many scholars are seeing changes this year that we couldn't have imagined, as @dfreelon points out in this insightful thread:
Many scholars are seeing changes this year that we couldn't have imagined, as @dfreelon points out in this insightful thread:
How *did* #Blacklivesmatter organize to amplify marginalized voices, educate observers, and move for structural police reform in 2014? Beyond the Hashtags by @dfreelon @cmcilwain @meredithdclark is an essential guide to the movement online & offline: cmsimpact.org/resource/beyon…
For a wider view of how social movements and allies have organized on Twitter the brand new book "#HashTagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice" by @sjjphd @moyazb @foucaultwelles is available for free / open access from @MITPress mitpress.mit.edu/books/hashtaga…
