Invasion: Framing War Protestors at National Conventions

This study examines local press coverage of protests during the 1968 Democratic Convention, the 2004 Republican Convention and the 2008 Republican Convention. As hometown papers for the host cities of national conventions during times of war protests, the Chicago Tribune in 1968, the New York Times in 2004 and the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2008 had key similarities and differences in their coverage of the protestors. Each paper utilized the protest paradigm to varying degrees in the construction of their stories about the protests. This study found that the Chicago Tribune in 1968 and the New York Times in 2004 developed the theme of an invasion of their respective cities by outsiders who threatened the social order. The newspapers emphasized the threat to social order poised by the protestors through reporting on violation of laws and on the disruption to the everyday lives of city residents. An unexpected finding of this study was that the Star Tribune had significant differences in its coverage compared to the other two newspapers and it varied from the protest paradigm in its coverage.