Framing: Washington's Missing Girls

These articles discuss the recent social media flash-point that has been made of the issue of the missing girls in Washington D.C. While they both address the often ignored factor of minority race linking the individuals, they frame the central problem and the most effective course of action differently.

TIME attempts to balance the social media spread as well as official police department responses evenly, but ultimately casts a negative tone over the social media involvement. The article portrays a sense of hysteria as a result of the social media coverage, which has unfortunately disseminated false information to a large population. It warns in several different manners how "social media can be [sic] spread inaccurate or alarming information without full context." It seemingly implies that such information should be left to the D.C. officials who had been working to dispel the myths about the volume of missing children, although the article acknowledges that activists have been expressing the lack of media coverage for this demographic, specifically.

AFRO, on the other hand, only briefly mentions the role social media has played in the development of this issue. It cites that an instagram post led to some initial awareness of 14 missing black girls. However, the rest of the article only quotes political figures and justice officials. It references the pressure the Congressional Black Caucus placed on federal authorities to help find the girls and mentions some of the efforts of police officials thus far. Interestingly, the article concludes with what seems to be a call to action for these authorities to not only resolve the immediate issue, but also address the systemic causes underlying these cases.

I think the primary difference in framing between these two articles is the difference in institutional interests of the sites. AFRO is for "black news, sports, entertainment, and politics," and is more likely to look at the issue and the underlying system than TIME, which has a much broader readership.