Lexojeni në shqip: Kush del në rrugë ndryshon si quhet protesta
On 13 October, almost one in two headlines about the protest speaks of "students". On 18 October, the day with the most headlines on Molotov cocktails, only one in ten does. On 20 October, when lecturers march alongside the students, the word comes back. The name the media give to the people in the street is not fixed: it changes with what happens and with who appears.
In brief
- Headlines with the word "students" fall from 43% of the day's headlines on 13 October to 10% on 18 October, the day with the most headlines on Molotov cocktails.
- On 15 and 16 October, when high school pupils take to the streets, the protest spreads beyond Tirana: headlines about other towns rise from 14 to 183 in a single day.
- Lecturers are almost invisible until 19 October. On 20 October they appear in 13% of headlines, and "students" rises again.
- The students' concrete demands (rents, dormitories, scholarships, fees) appear in less than 1% of headlines.
What the data show
1. The name follows violence and calm
From 13 to 18 October, "students" falls every day, while "protesters" rises from 24% to 31%. The two days with the most headlines on Molotov cocktails, 17 and 18 October (31 and 57 headlines), are the two days with the fewest "students". On 20 October, lecturers go from 14 headlines to 118, and "students" overtakes "protesters" for the first time since 14 October.
This does not happen only in one group of outlets. As the article "Two words for the same protest" shows, both groups of outlets move in the same direction, even though they start from different points.
2. Pupils take the protest to other towns
| Date | All headlines | Headlines on towns outside Tirana | Share of the day | Headlines on minors, pupils or high school students |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Oct | 438 | 3 | 0.7% | 2 |
| 14 Oct | 879 | 14 | 1.6% | 14 |
| 15 Oct | 1,041 | 183 | 17.6% | 131 |
| 16 Oct | 897 | 158 | 17.6% | 123 |
| 17 Oct | 860 | 52 | 6.0% | 23 |
| 18 Oct | 872 | 26 | 3.0% | 25 |
| 19 Oct | 1,089 | 83 | 7.6% | 71 |
| 20 Oct | 884 | 33 | 3.7% | 28 |
| 21 Oct (until 14:00) | 325 | 31 | 9.5% | 11 |
The headlines of 15 and 16 October link the spread outside Tirana mainly to schools (our translations):
- Euronews Albania, 15 October: "High school students in Korçë leave class and take to the city's streets, joining the students' protest"
- Top Channel, 16 October: "Pogradec joins the protest too, high school students march through the town calling for Rama's resignation"
- RTSH, 16 October: "Protest in Korçë, two people arrested and 23 others charged, 15 of them minors"
The towns mentioned most over the whole period are Korçë (136 headlines), Durrës (104), Shkodër (103), Vlorë (78) and Elbasan (71). After 16 October, attention to other towns falls quickly, even though the remaining headlines show protests there continue; on 21 October it partly returns, mainly for Korçë.
Outlets do not follow other towns equally. Euronews Albania (12% of its headlines), MCN (11%), Syri (10%) and Top Channel (10%) cover them most; Report TV (5%) and TV Klan (1%) least. This split does not match the split between "students" and "protesters": an outlet can name the protest differently and still go to other towns.
3. Minors: from the street to government measures
Headlines on minors have two peaks of a different nature. On 15 and 16 October, they speak of pupils taking to the streets and of minors being detained. On 19 October, the second peak (71 headlines) comes mainly from the government's response: the Prime Minister warns that families will pay for damage and that students involved in violence lose their scholarships. TV Klan, 19 October: "Violent protests, Prime Minister Rama: Minors are being used as 'cannon fodder', the bills for vandal acts will be paid".
4. The demands are missing from the headlines
Out of 7,285 headlines, only about 50 mention rents, dormitories, scholarships, fees or "the students' demands". Even among these, a good part speak about attacks on dormitories in Student City, about the warning that scholarships may be removed or about the government's offer on 21 October to pay 50% of rent. The reader learns a lot about what happens in the street and very little about what the students are asking for.
Why it matters
The media are often accused of naming the protest according to their own line. The data show that the protest itself also has an effect: when there are Molotov cocktails, all outlets speak less of students; when lecturers appear, all speak more. So the way the protest is named also depends on what happens in the street and on who takes part, not only on the outlets' line.
The presence of minors also changes the state's response. When the protest spreads through high schools, parents, schools and the police face minors, and the government responds with measures aimed at families. When media attention leaves other towns, what happens there, including the detention of minors, damage and injuries, is documented less.
Finally, when the demands do not appear in headlines, public debate turns around violence and order, not around what can be solved: rents, dormitories, the cost of studying.
Other possible explanations
- The make-up of the protest really changed. High school pupils are not students, and some groups that clashed with police were not students. On those days, "protesters" may be the more accurate word.
- Headlines follow the news of the hour. Clashes, arrests and damage are new every hour; demands are the same every day and rarely become a headline.
- National outlets have fewer journalists outside Tirana. The drop in headlines on other towns may also come from a lack of resources, not only a lack of interest.
What the data do not show
- We measure headlines, not how many people were in the street. Fewer headlines on a town do not mean the protest there stopped.
- A headline may mention a town without speaking of the protest there.
- We do not measure local media, which may have covered their own towns better.
What to watch
- Do the students' demands return to the headlines now that lecturers and the Lecturers' Union are in the protest?
- What happens to the minors detained in Korçë, Elbasan, Shkodër and other towns, and to the investigations into damage there, once national media stop following them?
How it was measured
For each day, we counted the headlines containing the Albanian words for "student", "protester" and "lecturer" (in all their forms) and divided by all headlines of the day. For towns outside Tirana, we counted headlines that mention another town or centre; names of Tirana streets such as "Rruga e Durrësit" or "Rruga e Elbasanit" were removed so they are not counted by mistake. For minors, we counted the words for "minor", "pupil", "high school student" and "adolescent". For demands, we counted the words for "rent", "dormitory", "scholarship", "fee" and the phrase "the students' demands". Data for 21 October run until 14:00. Source: Artivista media monitoring.
