The British Online Media's Representation of the George Floyd Anti-Racism Protests from his Murder in May 2020 until May 2021.

This article analyzes the framing of the 2020 George Floyd protests in the headlines, subheadings, summaries, and captions of three UK-based online news outlets: the Mail Online (right-wing), the Guardian Online (left-wing), and BBC News Online (broadly impartial). Using a qualitative linguistic and syntactic analysis grounded in social semiotics and functional grammar, it identifies differences in how these publications portray the protests, focusing on references to conflict or peacefulness, predicational strategies (actions attributed to protesters), the cause of the protests, and referentials (naming of protesters). The Mail’s coverage emphasizes conflict, violence, and criminality linked implicitly to anti-racism protesters while explicitly foregrounding the specifics of George Floyd’s murder by American police, thereby legitimizing the protests’ cause but framing UK protesters as an external threat. In contrast, the Guardian and BBC depict protesters engaging in normative, peaceful actions, background conflict, and often omit explicit mention of police culpability in Floyd’s death, reflecting ideological orientations and differing editorial policies within the UK media context. The study highlights how ideological stance, political proximity, and media format influence the representation of social movements in online news discourse.