News coverage of protests typically employs a protest paradigm: framing strategies for marginalizing protest actors and reducing the significance of protest issues and aims. However, recent studies are detecting less prototypical media responses, indicating the need to identify the extent of application of the protest paradigm and the underlying determinants for variations within media politics of dissent. This analysis of the framing of a Cypriot environmental campaign ‘Save Akamas’ by three national newspapers indicated that the coverage deviated from the protest paradigm. The results showed little emphasis on social deviance but validation of the protests in varying magnitudes through frames articulating governmental responsibility, environmental conservation, and ambivalence towards economic grievances. Finally, supplemented with interviews with two protest organizers and journalists, respectively, this article examines the conditions under which citizen protests mitigate media spectacles through appropriating legitimation strategies.

抗议的新闻报道通常采用抗议范式：制定策略以边缘化抗议参与者并降低抗议问题和目标的重要性。然而，最近的研究发现了不那么典型的媒体反应，这表明需要确定抗议范式的应用程度以及异议媒体政治变化的潜在决定因素。三家全国性报纸对塞浦路斯环保运动“拯救阿卡马斯”的框架分析表明，报道偏离了抗议范式。结果表明，很少强调社会偏差，而是通过阐明政府责任、环境保护和对经济不满的矛盾心理的框架，对不同程度的抗议活动进行了验证。最后，