This study is set out to conduct a comparative analysis of mainstream and alternative media to understand how The Cape Times mainstream newspaper and GroundUp alternative online media outlet framed the 2017 “service delivery protests” in Cape Town, South Africa. Scholarly literature has demonstrated that the mainstream media marginalises the voices of certain communities and that the alternative media can fill this gap. Often, marginalised communities use protests to attract media coverage, as a way of reaching both the public and elected officials. Ultimately, numerous protest groups find it difficult to get the attention they desire, while news coverage of the social conflict is framed within a protests paradigm. The study analyses differences in the two media outlets’ coverage of social conflict, including the use of delegitimising devices such as the prominent use of official sources for quotes, while using dramatic frames that tend to ridicule protest action and portray them as violent. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used in a multimethod approach. The data was found in the SA Media news clippings database, supplemented by searches on Google and the GroundUp search engines. Coverage of the protest in GroundUp was in line with the literature, which states that the horizontal nature, bottom-up and fluid traditions of alternative media may be a more appropriate conduit for protest communications and social movement (Van De Donk et al, 2004; Dahlberg, 2007). The key finding of this study was that the mainstream Cape Times deviated from the protest paradigm, using the protesters as sources in preference to officials. This finding is a departure from the reviewed literature, which indicated that the mainstream media has a habit of following the protest paradigm when covering protests events, marginalising and dehumanising protesters and relying on official sources (Mcleod & Hertog, 1999). It also links to previous scholarship that has established a strong connection between the commercialisation of the media and the robust representation of official sources in the media.