According to a U-M study, news media covered the National Football League national anthem protests more heavily on their Instagram accounts when readers’ reactions were more negative and polarized. Wenche Wang and Stacy-Lynn Sant, faculty at the U-M School of Kinesiology, co-authored a recent study that analyzed 496 official Instagram posts and 137,735 user comments to determine whether media actively modified their coverage of athlete protests in response to user interest and sentiment. The faculty experts share further insights and findings from their research.
