How Twitter Shaped Media Framing of the George Floyd Protests in the U.S.

Abstract

This preprint examines how Twitter influenced the agenda and framing used by U.S. news media during the George Floyd protests in 2020. Focusing on user-generated video, hashtags, and activist interactions, the paper argues that Twitter shaped both the urgency of news coverage and the interpretive language used to explain the protests. Drawing on framing theory and intermedia agenda-setting, it analyzes how widely circulated video evidence established early public interpretations, how hashtags such as #GeorgeFloyd, #ICantBreathe, and #BlackLivesMatter functioned as framing devices and agenda signals, and how activist discourse encouraged a shift from episodic reporting toward broader systemic explanations of police violence and racial injustice. The paper concludes that Twitter operated not only as a channel for distributing information but also as an active site of framing that influenced how professional journalism responded to the protests.