Aiming Close to Make a Change: Protest Coverage and Production in Online Media as a Process Toward Paradigm Shift

Abstract

This study examines the evolving relationship between online media coverage and protest movements by analyzing year-long demonstrations in Israel against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Through comprehensive qualitative thematic analysis and content analyses of 219 online newspaper articles from five major Israeli newspapers; 324 social media posts across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter; and 9 semi-structured interviews with protest leaders, this research identifies a gradual paradigm shift in protest representation in online media. The findings reveal a transition from the traditional “protest paradigm”—which frames protests as violent and remote through warlike discourse and visual distancing—toward an emerging “our protest paradigm”, characterized by rhetorical and visual proximity to protesters. This new paradigm manifests through personal testimonies in mainstream media and portrait photography on social media platforms, both creating a sense of closeness and accountability. The study further reveals a significant disconnect between protest leaders’ perceptions and legacy media, as leaders increasingly view traditional media as irrelevant despite their advisers’ recommendations to engage with it. Using polysystem theory as a theoretical framework, this research demonstrates how two media systems—legacy media and social media—operate with epistemological rigidity, challenging the previously established notion of “competitive symbiosis” between protesters and journalists. This investigation offers a novel analytical perspective through the lens of distance, illuminating how changing dynamics in online information transfer are reshaping protest coverage and production. The resulting paradigm model explains the coexistence of two simultaneous protest paradigms and provides valuable insights into the contemporary relationship between social movements, legacy media, and digital platforms in an evolving media ecosystem.

1. Introduction

The production, distribution, and consumption of news are changing due to the increasing popularity of social media platforms. Surveys show an increase in people consuming news on social media. For example, in 2023, 43% of the American adult population that uses TikTok will consume news on TikTok on a regular basis (Matsa, 2023). In 2022, in Israel, young individuals between the ages of 18 and 24 tended to rely heavily on social media (34.9%) and news websites (22.2%) as their primary sources of news consumption (Perach, 2022). Internationally, 22% of survey participants from 46 markets in America, Asia, Europe, and Africa say they prefer to consume news through a website or app as a starting point. The consumption of traditional media, such as television and print media, continues to decline in most surveyed markets (Newman et al., 2023).

Consequently, traditional news outlets have recognized the importance of establishing a digital presence and engaging with younger audiences through social media (Broersma & Eldridge, 2019). News organizations realized they should adjust their content, language, and aesthetics to connect with these demographic groups effectively. This involves prioritizing visual elements, utilizing concise language, and embracing pluralistic approaches to journalism (Vázquez-Herrero et al., 2020; Hendrickx & Vázquez-Herrero, 2024). News organizations also produce unique news channels on social media, such as a youth-oriented Instagram channel devoted to daily news updates through native content (Hendrickx, 2021).

These changes in the press system also manifest in weakening legacy media dominance of the public agenda in favor of civilian news production. Civilians use cell phones and social media to establish mobile journalism (Richardson, 2017). In some cases, it even leads to large-scale activism (Richardson, 2024).

This study examines the implications of these changes regarding the public and the media by focusing on protests, which constitute an intersection of a meeting point between two actors—civil activists and the press. Both operate in two different media systems—social (civil–public) and mainstream (legacy) media, with both consciously engaging in corresponding media practices to advance their interests. Therefore, the current study examines how legacy online media covers large-scale political protests, how regular protesters and social movements present their activism on social media, how protest leaders perceive legacy media in relation to them, and how they explain their own media practices. This examination will make it possible to understand the mutual consequences of encounters between these two dynamic media systems in a changing environment. The findings will lead to the design of a model that explains two simultaneous protest paradigms based on novelty analysis of proximity and distance perspectives.

To investigate the dynamics of large-scale political protests, a year-long protest in Israel was selected as a case study since Israel is a country where demonstrations are a common form of expression, as protests have played a significant role in its social and political landscape (Lehman-Wilzig, 1992), as well as its rapid rate of technology and social media diffusion (Kemp, 2021). The case study involves a protest against the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, held from June 2020 to June 2021. Physically, the protest was held at intersections and main squares in various places in Israel, especially in the streets around the Prime Minister’s official residence in Jerusalem. The media referred to it by using various nicknames, mainly the “Balfour Protest”. The protest also took place on social media—in live broadcasts of street protests on Facebook and YouTube, and in photos and posts of demonstrations distributed on social media by protest leaders and demonstrators. The protest mainly dealt with the demand for the resignation of Netanyahu due to criminal charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in three cases (Lemelshtrich Latar et al., 2021), which, according to the protesters, prevented him from making decisions impartially. This protest is particularly suitable for analyzing media coverage in mainstream and social media and the attitude due to its duration, locations, variety of participating social movements, extensive use of visual representations, and scope of its coverage in various media.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Press–Protester Relations and Coverage of Protests by Legacy Media

Public protests take different forms at different times and places, and their success often depends on media coverage. Media coverage is crucial for protesters by creating awareness, announcing the organization leading the protest, inviting the public to participate, and publicizing the need for change (Herman, 1996; Katz, 2014). Media framing can influence public perception and political change (Entman, 1993). However, media framing can also encourage opposition framing through alternative means of communication (Ng et al., 2023).

Studies dealing with the relationship between legacy media and protesters seek, among other things, to define the nature of the relationship between journalists and protest leaders. Thus far, it has been argued that these relationships are asymmetric (Gitlin, 1980) due to journalists’ control over coverage modes, their use of institutional sources, and the need for protestors for media coverage. Other studies have defined this as a competitive symbiosis relationship (Wolfsfeld, 1984). That is, journalists and protest leaders rely on each other to realize their goals. However, each side also tries to control the main goals, penetrate the other’s domain, and protect its resources so that competition is created over interpreting the protest, its goals, and consequences. As a result, protest coverage is a product of struggles for meaning between the media and protesters (Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993).

Examining the relationship between protest movements and the mainstream media, it has been argued that the media has held the upper hand (Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993). However, it is claimed that protest movements and their leaders have four options. The first is refraining from interacting with the media. The second is to attack the media by criticizing its coverage. The third is to create alternative media. Today, this option is particularly relevant because of the availability of social media, as will be shown in detail later. The fourth is to accept and adapt their activity to the norms expected from the media in an attempt to ensure coverage (Rucht, 2004).

The relationship between journalists and protest leaders is based on their shared interest in covering the protest. Protestors seek to attract attention and recruit support using mainstream media, while journalists are interested in major protest headlines. Therefore, refraining from cooperation with the media (Rucht, 2004) is difficult to implement. Protestors understand the need to produce dramatic events to attract media attention (Branzon, 2015), and violence and disorder are somewhat effective strategies. This repeated pattern of dramatic media coverage is known as the protest paradigm (McCarthy et al., 1996; F. L. F. Lee, 2014; Shahin et al., 2016).

The protest paradigm has been repeatedly confirmed in studies that examined the coverage of protests in the press, such as the New York Times. A study that examined the coverage of over a thousand social groups throughout the twentieth century revealed that a strategy of disrupting public order, such as civil rights movements, particularly contributes to more frequent visibility in media coverage (Amenta et al., 2009). A later study that also examined the same coverage of the same newspaper over three decades revealed that the effect of the violence and the size of the protest that encourages coverage and prominence weakens in relation to the duration of the protest. That is, time is a factor that weakens the salience of coverage (Rafail et al., 2019). Additionally, in Israel, during the large-scale social protest of 2011, the media covered it according to the protest paradigm (Volodevsky et al., 2012).

The prominence, quantity, and frequency of media coverage of protests are also influenced by distance and intensity factors. These findings were presented in a study examining media coverage of local and international protests in four major newspapers in the US and on websites of activists of protest movements (Almeida & Lichbach, 2003). Findings revealed that proximity of protest events and media ideology plays a significant role in determining media coverage. However, activists’ websites are not affected by the intensity of the protests (Shahin et al., 2016). Also, an experiment found that news stories that challenge press patterns by explaining the goals and humanizing the people involved in a protest help audiences better understand the protest and the social movement (Masullo et al., 2024). The current study will examine these aspects differently, focusing on rhetoric and visual aesthetics of closeness and distance in legacy and social media.

2.2. Protests and Social Media

One of the protest movement’s strategies to spread their messages and receive recognition and support to make change is creating their own alternative media (Rucht, 2004). Currently, social media is an accessible, convenient, and popular platform. Social media constitutes a digital site of protest to manifest social activism in cases such as sexual abuse (Aharoni, 2020), human rights (Katriel, 2020), and racism (J. J. Lee & Lee, 2023). It also serves as a platform for criticism of the media’s protest coverage, using it for other purposes (Literat et al., 2022).

Researchers claim that the separation between online and offline protests no longer exists (Poell & van Dijck, 2018). Because smartphones accompany protestors during offline protests and bring protests online to social networks, the political activity of citizens can be said to have expanded (Margetts et al., 2016). In these cases, the desire is to create participation among followers, who are invited to respond, share, and distribute content. Through massive sharing of information; documentation of events; and presentation of feelings, tone, and urgency, protests can be accelerated and carried out with the help of connective leaders, who elicit and direct user participation (Poell et al., 2016). These practices also have the potential to weaken the asymmetry of information between protesters and police (Earl et al., 2013).

Social media also challenges the relationship between protestors and mainstream media, as social media enables different and alternative coverage of protests (Harlow, 2019). One of the alternative narratives is performative activities: the colorfulness of the demonstrators; musicality; and the use of festive elements, such as blowing soap bubbles (Neumayer & Rossi, 2018). However, Neumayer and Rossi (2018) found that on Twitter, the alternative narrative was not distributed virally in the same way and quantity as the images of violence. That is, even on social media, many more shares of photos and video clips show riots, threats, criminality, and scenes of violence, thus reaffirming the protest paradigm. In this case, it is argued that social media algorithms promote the virality of the visuals of performative acts and violence (Poell & van Dijck, 2015). It was also found that activist documentation of police violence was designed to condemn law enforcement, contributing to protests by generating public solidarity with protestors (Della Porta, 2013).

This study will show how protest leaders see and design the use of social media for the benefit of the protest in a way that does not meet the accepted dramatic representation in mainstream media and uses shared collective visual rhetoric, which also affects the representation of the protest in the online mainstream media.

3. Theoretical Background

Polysystem Theory

Polysystem theory is a functional–dynamic approach that sheds light on the relationships and functions within and in between cultural or media systems. It posits the existence of a complex network of systems within a culture. It provides insights into the practices of systems that strive to preserve their relevance, existence, and vitality by integrating new actors and content from parallel systems and renewing the repertoire of content and the nature of practices (Even-Zohar, 1990, 2010).

Polysystem theory is defined as a versatile and supradisciplinary framework for analyzing the systemic relations that give rise to cultural phenomena, objects, institutions, and ideological movements. It highlights the constant intersystemic transfer within cultural and media systems (Harrington, 2021). The theory scrutinizes various practices alongside shifts within the canon, delving into the reciprocal influences of systems with a specific focus on their flexibility versus rigidity and stability in epistemological or temporal aspects, and further contextualized by exploring the diverse environments that precipitate these processes (Aharoni, 2022).

Media studies use this theory to examine encounters between alternative and mainstream media systems, such as religious-community films and national films, and the consequences of integrating independent web-series creators within commercial television (Aharoni, 2022). It also explains advertisements’ integration and adjustments in independent web-series (Aharoni & Roth-Cohen, 2024).

This study uses polysystem theory to elucidate the connections and mutual influences between two key actors—journalists and protest leaders—who operate in mainstream media systems and social media pages.

4. Research Questions

Continuing with the literature regarding the intersections of protests, demonstrations, and various media, the following research questions will be examined:

• How was the Balfour Protest covered in the mainstream online press and presented by social movements and regular protesters on social media?
• How do the leaders of the Balfour Protest present and explain their conduct and media use?
• How can the media coverage and the relationship between the online press and social media be theoretically explained?

5. Methodology

Thematic and content analyses were performed in a process that included four main stages of collecting and analyzing the following empirical materials. First, 219 online newspaper articles (not including opinion columns or news briefs) regarding protests that were published (from June 2020 to June 2021) were located and selected from websites of five popular newspapers in Israel, Ynet (54 articles), Walla! (56 articles), Maariv Online (27 articles), Israel Hayom (48 articles), and Haaretz (34 articles). The search was performed by two well-trained research assistants, using the respective website search engines, by searching with relevant keywords.

In the second stage, related posts published on social media were located and selected for analysis. Out of 855 posts that came up in searches on the Balfour Protest, only 324 were included. These posts feature photos and were published by regular protesters (who published several photos from at least four demonstrations). Additionally, posts from social movement pages that participated in the protest were selected. The 324 posts were distributed as follows: 151 posts from 22 different Facebook accounts, 107 posts from 31 Instagram accounts, and 66 posts from 45 different Twitter accounts. This sampling approach ensured focus on consistent participants rather than occasional attendees, whose sporadic posts might not represent the sustained protest narrative strategy.

Thirdly, the author conducted semi-structured interviews with nine protest leaders (five women and four men). From each of the nine social movements that participated in the protest, one main key figure—the founder or director of the movement—was interviewed. The age of the interviewees ranged from 25 to 68 years. The interviews were conducted as video calls. They were gathered from the end of 2021 until the beginning of 2022 and lasted an hour on average. The author’s University Ethics Committee approved this study.

The fourth step was the analysis of the empirical materials. First, the author conducted a thematic analysis of all the empirical material (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The thematic analysis was carried out after all the materials were read several times. The process started with coding the content according to repeated motifs and detecting the main patterns. The initial categories were drawn up so that every image, article, or topic that came up in the interviews was defined and placed in a category. Similar categories were joined together, so they were reformulated with greater generalization. The categories were re-examined and redefined as the main themes. The themes were defined so that they answered the research questions and presented the main mechanisms, features, or social and cultural meanings of the subject. Representative examples were chosen for each theme to substantiate and explain each theme.

After extracting the themes, the two research assistants conducted a descriptive statistical content analysis to present the number and percentages of articles and posts relevant to each theme—violence, testimonies, closeness, remoteness, and eye-level angles. After two training sessions, the inter-rater reliability between the two research assistants in coding the articles was assessed using Cohen’s kappa coefficient. The kappa coefficient was 0.92 (p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.89, 0.95]), indicating a very high level of agreement, well above the commonly accepted threshold of 0.70 for good reliability.

6. Findings

The thematic analysis of the protest media’s coverage reveals two central perspectives regarding the aspect of distance. The images and texts are expressed in physical, structural, or ideological remoteness or proximity in relation to the demonstrators. The last two main themes emerged from interviews with protest leaders. They explain the existence of the two modes of distance and the relationship between the protestors and the media.

6.1. Coverage of the Protest in the Online Press—Between Proximity and Remoteness

6.1.1. Look at Them—Warlike Discourse and Violence in the Streets

Most of the online newspapers included in the sample expressed the accepted mode of coverage for protests, known as the “protest paradigm”. That is, the press covers the protest as violent. Of the total number of articles in the sample, 52.97% (116) were found to present the protest as violent, and another 21 articles (9.59%) combined stories and testimonies of protestors alongside violence, as explained in the next section. Alongside expressions of violence, the press uses visual and textual rhetoric that expresses distance toward demonstrators. In this way, it prevents identification with demonstrators and does not allow for an understanding of their goals and perceptions.

Violence is expressed textually in newspaper articles in warlike discourse. It includes the use of repeated words such as “attack”, “war”, “battlefield”, “threats”, “hostages”, “assault”, “injuries in conflicts”, “elimination”, “rage”, “destruction”, and “explosion”, as well as phrases such as “pays with his life”.

The emphasis on violence is also expressed in symbolic actions by the demonstrators. They are shown by actions such as lighting torches, throwing objects, dismantling barriers, and trying to set fire to a tent. Additionally, on the part of the police officers, violent actions taken against demonstrators are presented, such as beating demonstrators and firing water hoses at them. The violence in the protest is attributed to both sides, which are presented as opposites. For example, the violence is expressed in the main title and the subheading (Levi, 2020) quoting senior police officers: “Acting Police Commissioner on the allegations of violence against protesters: ‘The discourse against us borders on incitement.’ After Deputy Superintendent Niso Guetta and other police officers were recorded acting violently toward protesters, Superintendent Moti Cohen called to ‘lower the level of anger.’ The Acting Commissioner added: ‘Unfortunately, we also heard disparaging and destructive talk that needs to be put down”.

Visually, the violence in the articles is shown in images where the police are often seen forcefully dragging protesters while in situations of disorder and chaos. In the photos chosen for publication, the contrasts between the protesters and the police are especially highlighted. For example, in a photo titled “A more violent and stormy demonstration than before” (Friedson et al., 2020), a protester is seen wearing a half-torn black shirt in the center. He is trying to free himself from the grip of two police officers. While holding him, they look at him. He looks ahead and shouts with his mouth open, as if calling for help. This contrasts the policemen, whose mouths are covered by masks. This configuration creates the connotation of helplessness and restraint of the demonstrators and emphasizes the existence of a conflict between two parties.

In other photos, many protesters are seen standing before police officers. There are barrier elements between them, such as police barriers or fences, which are breached. These photos are taken from the side to show the violent struggle between the two parties. In these photos, the contrasts between the two sides are emphasized mainly in the colors and erupting energies of the demonstrators compared to those of the police, as presented in the article entitled “Evidence from a Battlefield in the Center of Jerusalem” (Yaron, 2020).

The combination of the written texts with the visual aspects shows that the focus on the various elements of the violence in the protest does not invite identification with one of the parties but rather expresses a distant point of view. This conservative/traditional representation of the protest paradigm does not accompany and even hinders a main feature of the protest—its unique theatrical and performative characteristics.

6.1.2. Hear Them—Personal Testimonies from the Street

Along with the distance expressed in the press, there was a change in the framing of the protest. Some newspaper articles sought to express an understanding of the protesters by presenting their personal testimonies or testimonies of journalists reporting at the time and place of the protest. In these cases, newspapers use “close-up” textual rhetoric (Roeh, 1994), which presents quotes from the protesters. They express their feelings and present their experiences and thoughts, which generate a feeling of proximity.

Of all the articles in the sample, 21.92% (48) presented testimonies, and another 21 articles (9.59%) presented testimonies from protesters alongside violence. A minority of the sample articles were neutral articles (34 articles—15.53%) that did not address violence or testimonies from the protest.

For example, in the newspaper Haaretz (Ben Zachary et al., 2020), 17 demonstrators who, for the first time, participated in the protest were interviewed. The interviewees present their reasons for participating, their opinions, their stories, and especially their feelings. In the words of protestor Yair Yuval, 80 years old, from the Jezreel Valley: “I think the country has lost its way […] Yesterday I participated for the first time […] I thought I should do this minimum act and express how I feel. My participation is a result of disappointment and frustration”.

Another type of press article presents personal testimonies of journalists sent to cover the protest; others include testimonies of protesters during the protest and articles of experiential stories of protesters. The basic mutual narrative is based on the fact that there are usually two opposing sides—good versus bad. For example, the journalist Moran Sharir (2020) describes what is happening during a protest as an unfolding story: “It looks calm, but the atmosphere is tense. The police officers who were patrolling and handing out reports heard shouts from the protesters […] There was a feeling that something was wrong […] Suddenly, a whimper was heard. An elderly man in an orange usher’s vest shouted that he had been beaten with a stick by a man opposing the demonstration. The protester looked all upset”.

The articles are accompanied by photos showing the protestors from eye level as part of the protest in a documentary style. They are often depicted in movement—protesters waving flags, holding posters, or expressing their protest in performative acts and costumes, as if to illustrate the passion of the protesters.

Overall, these articles textually and visually present the protestor’s point of view in rhetoric, inviting proximity to the protestors or the protest. Despite this innovative perspective, on the one hand, the articles maintain conservatism in terms of the dramatic narrative, as two opposing sides of the protest are usually presented, expressing tension and conflict between them. On the other hand, this narrative structure moves away from the distant protest paradigm to emphasize subjective stories and testimonies.

6.2. Coverage on Social Media—Between Proximity and Remoteness

The protests in Jerusalem were presented on social media mainly in images due to the nature of the platforms. Two perspectives related to distance were also found. On the one hand, some photos express closeness regarding camera distance and what is shown in the photos—portraits of individual protesters and families protesting together. These constitute almost half of the photos in the sample (152 photos—46.913%). On the other hand, photos taken from remote and high angles show the protestors as a crowd (52 photos—15.74%). In addition to the two perspectives, there are photos documenting different protest situations at eye level (110 photos—33.95%). These images invite viewers to experience the protest and the wide variety of its participants, both vocally and in terms of its strength. Photos of violence during the protest were almost never published (11 photos—3.395%).

6.2.1. See and Hear Us—Portraits of Protesters on Social Media

The images that depict protestors emphasize two main senses: sight and hearing. In addition to photos that emphasize the direct gaze of individual protesters, there are photos that show the portraits of several protesters. They emphasize their situation—their expressions and dynamic actions. These photos allow and invite viewers to experience the protest up close in exciting, festive, and dynamic moments, such as dancing, walking in a procession, and waving flags and hands.

For example, in the photo published on the “Pink” Instagram account under the informative text “March to Balfour, yesterday”, a central activist is seen. She was photographed from the waist up, wearing a pink shirt, representing one of the protest’s dominant colors. She holds a megaphone in her hands, which symbolizes the power of her voice. She looks directly at the camera, which encourages reflexivity on the part of the viewers (Aharoni, 2020), and smiles. Her smile expresses joy and happiness, which, with her gaze, evokes a positive feeling that invites viewers to participate in the protest and experience it.

There are also portraits of several protesters together that emphasize their voice, movement, and diversity. For example, in a photo published on an Instagram account under the name “Rani G.”, a young protestor is shown demonstrating her entire body in a bottom-up shot. She is drumming on a big drum during her march. She looks up, and her hand is also raised up, swinging the drumstick in a movement that symbolizes determination and strength. The text presented in the picture also emphasizes actions: She is wearing a black shirt with the words “to dance”. A black sticker with the inscription “Go” is pasted on her drum. The diversity is also expressed in the demonstrators behind her. On her right side, an elderly man (approximately 60 years old) wears a white shirt, and on the other side, a woman (approximately 40 years old) wears a red shirt. Behind them are young protesters carrying red flags. All of these factors create a sense of positive energy.

These portraits, shot in a documentary style and expressing the dynamism of the protest, can be seen as the visual equivalent of the rhetoric of testimony found in the mainstream online press. Thus, it expresses and emphasizes the change in the representation of the protest, now expressed on social media.

6.2.2. Look at Our Strength—Remote Images Expressing the Protesters’ Power

Another style of photo on social media documents protestors from a distance, as a united collective. These photos present theatrical performances, protestors in costumes, and public demonstrators holding protest signs and other artistic displays. They emphasize the atmosphere, camaraderie, and energy of the protest. That is, these remote images do not emotionally distance viewers from what is being done but rather express the strength of the collective.

For example, in images taken from a high perspective, many protesters are seen raising their hands. Some have clenched fists, some are holding signs, and some are waving flags. They express their power and conceptual unity. Among them, a protester looks at the camera and raises his hand, as if calling to the photographer (and thus the spectators) to join. Behind him, a large banner stands out due to its white color, contrasting with the night’s darkness: “Come” is written on it in red. The text accompanying the photo anchors the meaning of the display—“Tonight in Balfour. The protest continued and intensified. We will not give up until he resigns!” In this text, the publisher of the photo emphasizes both the power (“intensifies”) and positioning himself as part of the protesting collective, using the first-person plural (“we”).

These and other photos of crowds of protestors taken from a distance also emphasize the colorfulness of the protest, the unity and uniformity of the protestors, and their determination, all of which challenge traditional dynamic representation.

6.3. Long Live Social Media: Protest Leaders Reject Mainstream Media

The partial paradigmatic change found in the representation of protest can be explained from the protest leader’s perspective and their attitude toward the press. The interviews revealed that they saw the protest as a process that began with dissemination on social media and should be disseminated there. Even during its peak, the street protest was designed to create resonance on social media without conflicts or dramatic scenes, eventually leading to press coverage.

Social media is exploited to recruit protesters and influence voters in parliamentary elections. In this context, Diego, a protest leader, claimed, “Our contribution to the protest was to reach young people, and the one message that united them all was Bibi go home. Shahar, another protest leader, added: I realized we could not reach the [mainstream] media because the media loves blood. Therefore, we realized that networks and live broadcasts are the way to bring people and convey messages. We created bypass routes”.

Along with this move, the mainstream media was present at the protest, but the protest leaders were ambivalent. On the one hand, they were aware of its power to influence public opinion and its need for dramatic and violent images, as Shahar noted above. On the other hand, they denied its influence on them. They refused to provide such provocations and sensational images, arguing that the media is no longer relevant and does not serve their purpose—to voice their authentic voice and talk about their (non-violent) protest strategy. In their eyes, the media will eventually follow them, and they will then direct its coverage. According to Ella, “We wanted to tell a different story. To touch the emotional, feminine, delicate button. To make a perceptual change in how democracy should be”. In other words, protest leaders are agents of change who challenge the accepted relationship between protestors and the press, defying the protest paradigm and resisting what is requested.

According to the protest leaders, the protest started on social media. This medium was most available and accessible to them, without conditions. They began spreading their messages and establishing their social movements through it. Ben, one of the first protesters, pointed out that he started by publishing his activities on social media. For him, it was the relevant and accessible medium, which then led to mainstream press coverage:

“We posted our activity on Facebook. Every time we stood at intersections, we posted pictures of us with our signs and a few words. I called people to join our activity. We were so few, and we were not interested in [mainstream] media. My way to interest the media is to advertise on Facebook or Twitter”.

When the protest gained momentum, this strategy was found to be successful. Ben’s movement began to hire experts on social media because, in his view, postings on social media led to news coverage without providing violent images. Similarly, the head of another major social movement, David, noted that his movement’s messages on social media were published in the press because journalists saw it as a “sexy brand with a lot of promise”.

Hadas’s protest also began following a call by a single person on social media to demonstrate. Her movement, which became one of the major ones in the protest, also refused to provide the media with the provocative, dramatic, and violent images it expected. In her words, “We came out against extremism”. However, she understood the importance of provocation in protest alongside the normative wing to express pluralism and to attract the mainstream media.

The protest leaders realized that the media was interested in provocations and, therefore, decided to control this kind of image as well. Therefore, the provocations or violent conflicts that took place were documented by members of the protest movements. The distribution of the photos was managed by what Hadas calls “net patrols” of volunteers who are experts in this field; they carefully ascertained the contents and passed selections to the press. Indeed, according to her, the photos chosen by the volunteers are those published in the mass media. This gatekeeping function was crucial given social media’s open nature, where any participant could potentially post content that contradicted the movements’ strategic messaging.

In contrast to the controlled relations that Hadas forged with the mainstream media, other protest movements sought to avoid such relations from the start. They did not want to be involved with the mainstream media, much less the object of its coverage. According to Dekla, members of one of the main movements in the demonstrations “refused to talk to the media. I tried to convince them that we needed [mainstream] media, but they made a smart move. They said, ‘We want to make it young and cool. We are doing FOMO [feeling of missing out] on demonstrations—doing something you cannot help but come to”.

Dekla emphasized that they decided to use performance, theatricality, and color in their movement without the intention of attracting the attention of the mainstream media. According to her, “The media did not interest them as such. The mainstream media is losing its importance. They do not see it as powerful and meaningful”.

These social movements used social media tools and mobilized the norms of web culture to their advantage, in which their members were experts. Dekla noted the following: “They said it should be pirated, underground […] They released events on social media and designed cool invitations with teasers and video clips. They took their understanding and knowledge of the web and applied it”.

Noam, a leading figure from another major movement, also saw theatrics as a means of attracting people to a protest other than through the mainstream media. In his understanding, the protest is a party that evokes a feeling that should not be missed: “My friends and I do not have a TV at home. Many went to Facebook Lives and saw that there would be a big happening […] Balfour had what the best networks have—the FOMO. It’s fun there. Lives had an important part, and we could influence it”. Therefore, leading protestors are indeed aware of the presence, ability, and role of the mainstream press in protests. However, protest leaders reject the traditional expectation to produce dramatic images for mainstream media coverage, relying instead on their own accessible and popular social media platforms to reach audiences directly.

6.4. Is the Mainstream Media Still Relevant? Spokespersons and Consultants as Conservation Agents

Although some of the protest leaders believe that the mainstream media is not relevant, the stable presence of the protest paradigm resulted from the work of social movement spokespersons and consultants. They served as mediators between the media and social movements and acted as preservation agents. The spokespersons and consultants were media professionals who initially volunteered their expertise out of ideological support, with some later hired through donated funds as the protest expanded.

During the protest, spokespersons and consultants explained to the protest leaders the relevance and importance of the mainstream media and tried to preserve proper relations with the press. They sought to direct the protest and its media coverage to provocations and violence. They also tried to link the different approaches—the use of social media, which expresses joyful web culture—with the traditional dramatic coverage that the media seeks.

Diego indicated that consultants instructed him to use violent events to gain mainstream media coverage: “I was in a conversation with X [a former politician], who told me that my arrest gave a shot of energy to the protest, but it is not enough. We need a lot of arrests. To light up the protest”. Another advisor asked him to disrupt the order and to use the tactic of lighting the area on fire, which was designed to generate anger using media coverage.

Some spokespersons and consultants tried to convince protest leaders to change their minds regarding the relevance of the media. Dekla, a leading figure in the protest who also served as a consultant, described the relationship between several protest leaders and journalists: “With the mainstream media, there is a love-hate relationship. There is also a misunderstanding of how the media works […] I worked hard to reduce destructive behaviors aimed against journalists and to show that the [mainstream] media has a place in the protest”.

In addition to the coordination between the parties, the spokespersons realized that the power between the two has changed, so through social media, it is possible to influence mainstream media coverage. Dekla emphasized when she realized the power of the web: “There was a day when we made a move to issue a unified statement from four movements to the press from social media, and it worked. The press echoed it […] This is how we found a hybrid way to connect the networks and the journalists without using an official leader of the protest”.

However, even though optimal new relations were achieved, some protest leaders believe that the demand of spokespersons to maintain a uniform message damaged the innovation, pluralism, and uniqueness of the protest. According to Shahar, certain spokespersons silenced alternative protest voices to highlight the movement they represented. According to Shahar, the spokesperson “wanted to ‘flatten’ the protest out, but that is a mistake because you need all kinds of opinion leaders on social media. People I can identify with. Many styles had to be developed, each of which would connect to something else in the protest”.

Therefore, the spokespersons attempting to mediate between the press and protest leaders prevented the completion of the paradigmatic shift away from dramatic protest coverage. Their advocacy for maintaining traditional media relations also challenged protest leaders’ perception of mainstream media irrelevance.

7. Discussion: Toward a Paradigm Shift?

Studies addressing protests and the media have thus far characterized the relationship between journalists and protest activists as “competitive symbiosis” since protestors need media for wide exposure, and the media needs a certain type of protest image—dramatic and provocative. Within these relationships, the legacy media usually had the upper hand due to its control over the means of information dissemination, and the protests could reach the media interest only through the back door—violence and provocation (Wolfsfeld, 2011). This common form of coverage has been defined as the protest paradigm.

However, the media ecosystem has been fundamentally transformed since the emergence of social media platforms. Social media, such as X (Twitter) and Facebook, has become a major source of information and news (Aldaihani & Shin, 2022), and even serve as a source of information for the press (Von Nordheim et al., 2018), as this study shows. Social media enables protest activists to frame demonstrations according to their perception of the protest. Therefore, by re-examining the modes of coverage on mainstream and social media, this study found that a new perspective was offered. Due to the nature and frequency of the protest, the year-long Balfour Protest was used for a particularly relevant case study.

The analysis of the media content and the interviews with the protest leaders revealed that a process of paradigm change is taking place due to different distance perspectives—from the traditional protest paradigm to a new paradigm, which will be called our protest paradigm. This new paradigm relates to the mainstream and social media by proximity, manifesting in texts and photos of protesters, as seen in the paradigm model of protest (see Figure 1).

The model focuses on two modes of coverage and interactions. One is remote coverage and relations. The online mainstream press focuses on remote coverage of violence and provocations, which protest consultants encourage. The second mode expresses proximity, as it presents the point of view of protesters and journalists. On social media, portrait photos express proximity to the protesters, and photos taken from a distance express the joint group’s power.

Alongside this change in media content, there is also one in the perception of protest leaders regarding the role, power, and conduct of the mainstream media. The use of civil media (social media) enables them to manage protests in a different way that is adapted to web culture in contrast to journalism practices. Regular protesters within this model serve as amplifiers of movement messaging, following informal posting norms that reinforce rather than challenge the “our protest paradigm” established by protest leaders. This move will be presented and theoretically discussed here as two change processes: changing representation and changing perception.

7.1. Changing Representation: Testimonies, Portraits, and Accountability

The main characteristic of the coverage of the Balfour Protest in mainstream and civil media (social media) is the distance from the protesters. In mainstream media, proximity is created through the use of testimonials. The testimonies of protesters and journalists, who present their stories and experiences from the protest, are not routine reports from the field. They encourage critical thinking about protests when witnesses express something that is socially larger than a single daily event. It is a media testimony, which is defined as testimony performed by and through the media, a systematic and ongoing reporting of the experiences and realities of distant others to mass audiences. However, in this case, the frequency of the mediated evidence can lead from empathy to apathy (Frosh & Pinchevski, 2009).

According to Shoshana Felman, to testify means not only reporting a fact or an event but also committing to the narrative of others, taking responsibility for history, and going beyond the personal to the general past (Felman & Laub, 1992). In the current case study, this rhetoric reveals a two-valued position of the mainstream press toward the protestors since: on the one hand, it creates identification with the protestors who present their stories; and on the other hand, it makes the testimony impersonal and moves into the realm of history and accountability toward society through the eyewitness accounts of those who were present at the scene.

The practice that links witnessing with seeing and accountability is also expressed visually in civil media (social media) using portraits of protesters, which express proximity. Photographed portraits are a genre that centers on a single person or several people in a situation with an event. Part of the situation is an interaction between the photographic subject and the photographer (Angier, 2015), which is reflected onto the viewer. Portrait photographs play a social role: they seek to penetrate through the mask or the image of the photographed, thus encouraging reflexivity on behalf of the viewers on social identities and other social aspects created in the meeting place between the photographer and the photographed (Jonisová, 2019).

The prevalence of portraits over selfies in social media posts from protests can be attributed to the movements’ use of designated photographers to document participants, as well as individuals capturing their experiences during the demonstration. This shift moves away from everyday, immediate, and personal images, favoring instead unique, social, and critical representations of the events. One of the characteristics of the portrait is the delay of time, which allows one to linger and devote thought to the photographed, to the situation in which the photograph was created, and to the meaning of both. That is, portraits also include political and critical dimensions, which can be expressed because they provide evidence of what happened. Ginzburg (2018) calls this type of testimony civic testimony, the testimony of ordinary people (citizens) participating in producing knowledge through photography. These testimonies become part of the non-institutionalized historical knowledge about the protest and its social and political aspects.

7.2. Changing Perception: A Rigid Encounter of Two Different Media Systems

The central place of social media in the protest in relation to legacy media, the change in the coverage of the protest, and the denial of the protest leaders regarding the influence of the legacy media on their conduct can be explained using concepts regarding the integration of media systems (Aharoni, 2022), which are based on the polysystem theory (Even-Zohar, 1990). They focus mainly on the flexibility or rigidity of each system in terms of its ability to accept changes.

According to the polysystem theory, the basis of the relationship between protest leaders and journalists is an intersection between two different media systems—civil media (social media), which serves and represents the protest leaders, and the mainstream media, which is represented here by the online press. Each of them has a different organizational culture and different principles, to which they accordingly conform.

Civil media operates according to epistemological principles of participatory web culture: community, equality, pluralism, decentralization, accessibility, reciprocity, and lack of professionalism. It emphasizes the ability and needs of each user to contribute to the community, even without formal or professional knowledge (Jenkins et al., 2009). As mentioned, the protest started on social media and expressed its culture. It was reflected on the streets. While there were no official leaders who publicly appointed or represented the protest in the media, the founders and directors of the participating social movements, who are the protest leaders interviewed in this study, made a strategic decision to avoid centralized media representation. As Diego, one of the protest leaders, explained, “We had a media strategy that the protest should not have faces. The briefings were that the protest has no leaders, so they couldn’t succeed in “cutting off the head of the snake” because media and politicians tried to delegitimize movement leaders. The narrative we presented to the media also caught on with the public. No single organization is leading.’ This strategic facelessness was designed to present the protest as pluralistic and grassroots while preventing targeted delegitimization efforts”. Therefore, there were different and diverse groups that manifested plurality, participation, and creativity. The web culture was also expressed by using video clips and photos that created a sense of fear of missing out (FOMO) on festive demonstrations.

In contrast, mainstream media operates according to the principles of professional and organizational journalism. That is, journalists identify news events and create dramatic stories from them (Boesman & Costera Meijer, 2018). Thus, the press coverage conformed to the traditional mode of representation known as the “protest paradigm”, which emphasizes the violent aspects of the protest. However, like any system that seeks to maintain relevance and adapt itself to changes, it requires dynamism in relation to parallel systems (Even-Zohar, 2010). This is especially relevant in an ecosystem that is experiencing changes—the mainstream media has lost its role as the gatekeeper in representing protests in favor of social media. Hence, the media adapts to web culture (Vázquez-Herrero et al., 2020). In the present case study, the change found in the representation of the protest—the use of testimonies—did not completely challenge the traditional modes of journalistic coverage but added to the familiar framework a new type of representation—proximity to the demonstrators.

Therefore, in the relationship between the two media systems examined in this study, both systems tended toward epistemological rigidity. From the point of view of the protest leaders on which the study focused, there was no reciprocity or competitive symbiosis with mass media, unlike the claims of past studies. According to protest leaders, the mainstream media is irrelevant since it has created its own alternative gateway to the people—civil–social media.

Based on the theoretical importance of examining contexts, it was found that social conditions made this paradigm change possible in a particular period—a time of pandemic (COVID-19)—which caused, among other things, lockdowns. It made it easy for demonstrators to go into empty streets, where it was only possible, thanks to the freedom of demonstration, to participate in ideological–political causes.

The media ecosystem, as mentioned, has also changed in favor of protest leaders so that they can represent themselves as a united front and refuse to produce dramatic and conflicting interpretations. Even special consultants and spokespersons failed to persuade them to ignite violent situations. All of this was performed to produce a new paradigm that echoes web culture and focuses on “us the protestors” and “our power” to coalesce from diverse groups that share common basic ideas. They had the power to influence the mainstream media, which drew information from civil–social media. This represents an evolution in gatekeeping practices—from traditional centralized media control to distributed yet coordinated narrative management adapted to social media’s participatory nature.

8. Conclusions

The two main changes found regarding the representation of the protest and the perception of protest leaders toward the media show that a process of paradigmatic change is beginning in relation to protests and the media. The change is mainly expressed from the distance perspective. However, these changes are incomplete and imperfect due to two factors. First, the somewhat distant view that still exists in mainstream media, where the traditional ways of working are still accepted, makes change difficult. Second, on the part of the protestors, using consultants and spokespersons makes it difficult to break free from the protest paradigm. Therefore, today, in the Israeli case, two paradigms are used in different doses. As the model shows, next to the old protest paradigm, whose position is declining, our protest paradigm is rising.

To validate this change process, additional local and international protests from different contexts must be examined. This is particularly important given that this study examined a year-long protest, which may not represent shorter or more episodic demonstrations that could exhibit different paradigmatic dynamics. It seems that the current study’s claim is strengthened by a non-research examination of political protests being held in Israel since the Balfour Protest. It appears that protest leaders are placing greater emphasis on using social media, with protesters spreading their message through these platforms more than ever before.

The current study focused in part on the point of view of protest leaders and retrospectively examined their subjective stories. To obtain a more comprehensive picture, additional studies are required in different periods, including the point of view of journalists. Future research should also examine protests in countries with different media systems to test the generalizability of the paradigm model, and compare protest dynamics between democratic and authoritarian regimes to understand how political context affects media–protest relations

Additionally, the relationships between different media systems, such as community and alternative media systems, as well as those that are offline, broadcast, and print media, should be examined, which will allow framing to be explored in light of additional data, such as the location to which the news relates.

Longitudinal research that tracks paradigmatic development in real time, rather than retrospectively, would provide valuable insights into the temporal dynamics of paradigm shifts. Furthermore, future studies should examine the impact of social media algorithms on protest representation, as these technological factors may significantly influence which content gains visibility and shapes public perception.

Regarding the visual aspect, this study primarily focused on consistent participants and specific social media pages of social movements. However, there may be other social media posts from occasional participants that fall outside this study’s sampling criteria, which could offer different perspectives on the protests. To gain a more comprehensive understanding, a broader approach is needed, utilizing big data analysis to examine all relevant reactions and images related to the protests.