2022/03/01 by Kevin Drakulich, Megan Denver · 59 citations
Social Sciences · #Context (archaeology) #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Framing (construction) #Gender studies #History #Law #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Resentment #Social Media and Politics #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Sociology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s1537592721004114
published in Perspectives on Politics 20(4), 1191-1208 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2022/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
In the spring and summer of 2020, a remarkable number of Americans participated in a remarkable number of protests in support of Black Lives Matter. How did the general public understand these protests, and where does support for the movement stand overall? We answer this question by drawing on several national surveys from 2020 and then examining the results of a framing experiment we conducted in June 2020. We structure the story we find in two parts—the partisans and the persuadables—both of whom are important to understanding public views of Black Lives Matter. Democrats and Republicans differ strongly in their views of the movement but are similar in the firmness of those views, which did not change in response to our framing experiment. Nonpartisans, in contrast, were more persuadable, though their reactions to some of our frames were conditioned by racial resentment. We conclude by setting the movement in historical context and assessing its impact, which we describe as complicated and contradictory but consequential.