Policing Protest: An Examination of Support for Police Suppression of Protest

Abstract

The freedom of peaceful assembly is a key component of a healthy democracy. However, even democratic nations sometimes respond forcefully—and even violently—against demonstrations of public dissent. According to Barker, Baker, and Watkins (2021), in the United States, the state response to protests surrounding several highly visible incidents of police violence directed toward Black citizens illustrates the degree to which state force may be used to thwart peaceful protest. These responses are in contrast to the state response to violent protests aimed at overturning the results from the 2020 presidential election. They have heightened concerns that suppression of social protests varies depending on the racial background of the protesters involved (Chason and Schmidt 2021). Media reporting on demonstrations can profoundly affect the way the public reacts not only to protest but also the state response to protest. The extensive literature on media framing (see Chong and Druckman 2007 for a review) found that how the media choose to frame a story plays an important role in the public’s evaluation of protestors and the reaction from authorities to the protests (Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley 1997) and institutional legitimacy (Nicholson and Howard 2003)—and even can shape how voters decide on ballot questions related to the relevant news (García-Perdomo, Harlow, and Brown 2022). For this study, we considered the role that the media framing of protest events, issues, and race of protesters has on support for police suppression. Using a 3 (i.e., race of protester: white, Black, or Latina/o) x 2 (i.e., media frame: social order or free speech) x 2 (i.e., issue: policing or the environment) factorial experimental design, we find little evidence that the characteristics of protest events shaped support for police suppression. Instead, the race of the respondent had the strongest effect on attitudes toward protest suppression. White respondents reported significantly higher levels of support for police intervention than Black respondents. Latinas/os reported lower levels of support than white respondents but not as low as Black respondents. Ultimately, we conclude that whereas characteristics of a protest did not shape attitudes, the effect of the respondents’ race likely reflects fundamental differences in the faith that each racial group places in police authority and, consequently, in their actions to suppress protest activities. MEDIAFRAMING, ISSUES, ANDTHERACEOFPROTESTERS