Revisiting the protest paradigm: Al-Jazeera English, CNN and Fox News framing of pro-Palestine campus protests

This research examined how Al-Jazeera English (AJE), CNN and Fox News framed pro-Palestine protests on US college campuses from 7 October 2023 to 7 October 2024. The study assesses whether coverage reproduced the protest paradigm by delegitimizing protests through reliance on official sources, negative frames and a predominantly negative tone, or challenged it. The quantitative content analysis of 170 news articles (AJE = 51; CNN = 56; Fox News = 63) coded ten framing categories, source types and overall tone. Findings show systematic, statistically significant divergence among outlets. Across the sample, negative frames were most prevalent while legitimizing frames were least common. CNN and Fox News converged in their reliance on officials and overwhelmingly negative portrayals, while AJE diverged by foregrounding protesters and contextualizing protest demands. AJE most frequently legitimized and humanized the protests, yielding a predominantly positive tone. Fox News consistently framed the movement as antisemitic and as a spectacle and relied almost exclusively on officials. It also portrayed protests negatively in nearly all cases. CNN offered limited balance but leaned negative overall, with comparatively sparse contextualization. The two US networks largely adhered to the protest paradigm, while AJE offered a counter-narrative that humanized protesters and supplied interpretive context. Overall, the study contributes evidence to comparative research on protest coverage and media framing of Israel–Palestine.