How events enter the public sphere: Conflict, location, and sponsorship inlocal newspaper coverage of public events

Protest events occur against the backdrop of public life. Of 382 public eve nts in police records for one year in a small U.S. city, 45% convey a messa ge, 14% involve social conflict, and 13% are standard protest event forms. Local newspapers covered 32% of all events, favoring events that were large , involved conflict, were sponsored by business groups, and occurred in cen tral locations. The more Liberal paper also favored rallies and events spon sored by national social movement organizations (SMOs) or recreational grou ps. Discussion centers on the ways these factors shape the content of the p ublic sphere.