Essay on The Black Lives Matter Movement

There have been many instances in the news lately of protests following the shooting of an unarmed African American male by a white police officer. These riots have taken place in cities like Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland. In Ferguson the riot developed following the court’s ruling to not Indict the police officer in the case of Michael Brown. These cases are widely known due to national coverage, but people are unaware of the smaller cases that predate cases like that in Ferguson. This could be due to the fact that these smaller cases came before media decided to push the agenda of Black lives Matter. In my Mass communication class our teacher, Dr. Roberts argues that the “media is the message.” Basically media control how we view topics by the way they are presented to us. Media has the ability to set an agenda or “Prime” how we view something without us even realizing it. This brings a bigger question, is the Media setting the Agenda for the Black Lives Matter Movement? The Black Lives Matter Movement gained National recognition following the decision not to indict the officer involved in the Michael Brown case. This sparked riots throughout the streets of Ferguson and St. Louis and commenced the first demonstration to the Black Lives Matter Movement. This ruling occurred on November 24th 2014 and the shooting took place on August 9th 2014 a year after the shooting of Cameron Massey. (Drehle) Many people are unaware of the shooting of Cameron Massey…