Mainstream media use “the protest paradigm” in framing social movements. The protest paradigm frames protests negatively by marginalizing protesters, trivializing their demands, focusing more on violent and dramatic issues instead of trying to establish a rational discussion around the reasons behind the protests and by neglecting the existence of their presence by simply not covering the protests at all. . The main function of a social movement is to challenge the status quo, while a main function of the mainstream media is arguably to contribute to the governance of society and the maintenance of public order; in a sense, to maintain the status quo. Thus, a main reason behind the consistent usage of the protest paradigm in covering protests is the conflict between social movements and mainstream media in society. But is it easier for mainstream Canadian media to challenge the status quo abroad than at home? Are Canadian media more reliant on the protest paradigm for covering global protest than local ones? Grounded in the theory of Media Framing, particularly the works of Entman (1993) this thesis compares the framing strategy that various Canadian media outlets applied while covering the 2011 Egyptian Uprising and the Occupy Toronto Movement. Empirical data collected by conducting deductive content analysis is applied to the coverage of the Toronto Edition of the Toronto Star, The Global and Mail and The Toronto Sun during the 18 days of the Egyptian uprising in January and February 2011 and the 42 days of Occupy Toronto from October 14th till November 24th, 2011 . The main argument of this thesis is that the Canadian media did not follow consist framing strategy in covering the two protests’ activities. The literature of the protest and media only focus on the notion of challenging the status quo without taking into consideration the factor of the location of the protests. Consequently, this paper is trying to add the location factor to the literature by trying to discover if the Canadian media is taking the same position from social movements that challenge the status quo regardless of where it is taking place or not.

Using quantitative content analysis, this study explores social movement (SM) framing in commercial news media -- by comparing how leading newspapers covered prominent protest occupations in 2011 and 2016. More than other SMs, anti-systemic protests like the 2011 Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and the 2016 Malheur Refuge Occupation (MRO) only have partial frame-setting agency, raising a broad theory question (to inform the research questions below): If SMs and media relate as interacting systems, are protest news frames more movement- or more media- driven; and do media not just enable but also constrain SMs? With the movement-media theory question above, the study design adapts media opportunity structure (MOS) to model a hierarchy of influences on news coverage of ideologically opposed or "distant twin" OWS and MRO, as 40- to 60-day protest occupations. The focused research question -- exploring media's constraining potential -- asks if commercial news framing of collective action: i) commercially frames or "sells" even anti-corporate protest; or ii) instead marginalizes or neutralizes such protest? Coverage from three top national or state newspapers (The New York Times, USA Today, and The Oregonian) was analyzed randomly from all protest stories during the occupations. Sampled time periods in 2011 and 2016, during actual encampments/ occupations in Portland, OR and New York City (OWS) and in Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon (MRO), also correspond with transitional years in print news. The inductive-based comparative results, from 15 coding dimensions for news framing of collective action, dispersed passivity, and commercially-framed activism, showed some evidence for the "selling protest" question. And the compiled summary Framing Advantages and Disadvantages yield this study's key finding: Although anti-corporate OWS was far larger, with more widespread media coverage, the comparative overall media frame for the small, remote, anti-government MRO was far more potent and resonant. Comparing media-and-movement framing of these distant twin 40-day protest occupations finds some support for the "selling (or underselling) protest" question. This comparative frame analysis helps bridge micro- and macro-theory levels, addressing an enduring dual gap in movement-media research literature -- to yield insight on SMs' and media's respective roles in protest news framing and then identify potential mechanisms for future research.

Occupy Wall Street galvanized the country and attracted thousands of participants, who came to New York City in order to protest corporate greed. Occupy Portland, standing in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, began their encampment less than a month later and attracted more participants on its first day than did Occupy Wall Street. This grounded theory inquiry uncovers the principle reasons why individuals participated in Occupy Portland. The findings revealed that participants were (1) upset about the bank bailouts and corporate irresponsibility; (2) swept up by the size and organization of Occupy; and (3) looking to get some fundamental societal needs met. The findings do not neatly fit collective behavior or resource mobilization theory, paving the way for further scholarship.

Submitted by Irene Nascimento (irene.kessia@ufpe.br) on 2016-07-21T18:47:50Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertação de Mestrado - Guilherme Amorim.pdf: 691520 bytes, checksum: faf9df2d03171350e2b7678a0b3638e3 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-21T18:47:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertação de Mestrado - Guilherme Amorim.pdf: 691520 bytes, checksum: faf9df2d03171350e2b7678a0b3638e3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-02 / CNPQ / This article investigates the influence of broadband Internet availability in the occurrence of events of civil unrest, both with theory and empirical evidence. We first expand a recent model of protests considering the hypothesis that the Internet sets an environment for communication and information exchange that boosts collective dissatisfaction towards unfair policies. We then use collected data on the locations of 2011’s Occupy Movement in the United States to estimate the impact of one extra Internet Service Provider on the probability of evidencing protests in a given location. To identify the effect of broadband provision, we use an instrumental variable approach based on topographic elevation as a source of exogenous variations in the cost of building and maintaining cable infrastructure. As an alternative approach, we also use identification through heteroskedasticity, which does not rely on exclusion restrictions. In accordance with our theoretical predictions, our results show that the availability of broadband services during the time of the Occupy protests was greatly associated with the occurrence of such events. / Este artigo investiga a influência que o acesso à rede de Internet banda larga pode exercer na ocorrência de eventos de inquietação civil, através de uma argumentação teórica e de evidências empíricas. Primeiro, expandimos um recente modelo de decisão sobre o ato de protestar, considerando a hipótese de que a Internet define um ambiente para comunicação e troca de informações que aumentaria a insatisfação coletiva contra políticas injustas. Em seguida, utilizamos dados recolhidos sobre os locais das manifestações relacionadas ao Movimento Occupy nos Estados Unidos em 2011 para estimar o impacto que um provedor de serviços de Internet a mais exerceria sobre a probabilidade de evidenciar protestos em um determinado local. Para identificar o efeito do fornecimento de banda larga, usamos uma abordagem de variável instrumental utilizando elevação topográfica como fonte de variações exógenas no custo de construção e manutenção de infraestrutura de Internet a cabo. Como abordagem alternativa, também realizamos identificação através de heterocedasticidade, que não depende de restrições de exclusão. Em concordância com nossas previsões teóricas, nossos resultados mostram que a disponibilidade de serviços de banda larga durante a época dos protestos do Movimento Occupy esteve fortemente associada com a ocorrência de tais eventos.

This thesis documents and examines Occupy Portland's organizational structure and the impact of this structure on the leadership roles of participants. Interviews with key activists and participant observation reveal that the ideologically influenced horizontal organization employed by the movement disrupts the emergence of centralized authority and charismatic leadership. This, in turn, encourages the rise of a "distributed leadership" comprised of multiple, task driven leaders. It finds that these task-oriented leaders within Occupy Portland tend to fulfill three specific leadership roles; the facilitation of process, the construction of movement structures, and the organization of actions. This study provides an exploration of conceptualizing leaders in a non-hierarchical, decentralized, consensus-based decision-making social movement and works to give needed expansion to the literature on social movement leadership.

The Occupy movement has spread over hundreds of cities nationwide and over 1,500 cities around the world. The movement is formed around a common goal, which is to protest the way government actions or inactions have rooted widespread discontent. The Occupy movement has encountered opposition from the cities and counties where it is located. Arrests have been made for a number of violations of city and county codes including resistance to police orders and disorderly conduct charges. In our country, freedom of speech and the right to protest have been regarded as inalienable rights. The question becomes how to balance the rights of the people involved against the rights and obligations of the government. This thesis will provide an in depth look at the issues being discussed in cases and hearings involving the Occupy movement. The key issue plaintiffs argue is that their First Amendment rights are being infringed on. In January 2012, both international human rights and United States civil liberties experts at seven law school clinics across the country met and formed the Protest and Assembly Rights Project. The project investigated the United States response to Occupy Wall Street. This thesis will discuss and recap some of their findings. In addition, it will analyze the Federal Constitutional restrictions to protestor's rights and the cases that arise on the grounds of these restrictions, as well as examine how the courts interpret the First Amendment and clarify these issues along with defining protestor's constitutional rights. Based upon the Constitutional rights and legitimate restrictions, the thesis will make appropriate recommendations on the limits for both the protestors and the local government.

This exploratory study set out to uncover views from the Occupy Movement’s Johannesburg leg. The Occupy Movement arose in late 2011, aiming to occupy public space and challenge conventional economics, politics, and governance. Data were collected by means of an online survey amongst 39 ‘core’ members of the group. The study took up a mixed methods approach underpinned by critical realism. Basic descriptive statistics and cross tabulations were used to analyse 6 closed-ended survey items in a quantitative fashion; thereafter, 4 open-ended items were qualitatively examined by delineating responses into discursive themes based on response content and positions taken up by respondents in their claims and statements. Finally, a cluster analysis was performed in order to cluster or profile significant groups that emerged from the data based on demographics, selection of closed-ended items, and quantitatively transformed response content to qualitatively examined open-ended items. It was found that the sample mirrored the demographics present in foreign movements as it was primarily male (61.5%), white (87.2%), highly educated (51.4% holding a bachelor’s degree or higher) and young (74.4% in the 21 to 40 age range). Furthermore, it was found that within a group that stood against various macro-level social systems, confidence in all social institutions was extremely low, in particular for big corporations, national government, and political parties. This sample was highly comparable to a representative South African sample as regards their views on the causes of social division; the factors that were seen as most socially divisive (in descending order) were: (1) socio-economic status; (2) race; (3) politics; (4) cultural differences; (5) language; (6) religion; (7) AIDS/disease. Qualitatively, the first item asked whether or not they believed that their movement lacked focus. Upon analysis it was found that four distinct themes existed in response: (1) duality (those revealing support for the movement but disdain for its processes); (2) aggressive justification (vehement justification and defense of the Occupy stance); (3) denial (lacking full knowledge of Occupy processes but ardently defending them while moving away from the difficult questions); (4) straddling the fence (vague and contradictory positions). Members responded to the question of whether their movement differed from foreign movements by stating that it did, based primarily on local socio-historical, economic, and contemporary issues peculiar to South Africa – these members sought a special place for their movement and acted in contradiction to the global Occupy stances; others said no and based this on appeals to homogeneity of cause, global concerns, and an Occupy solidarity. When asked why they, personally, were motivated to engage with the movement, the sample maintained either: (1) the unfair world argument (a strong theme in which perceived ‘systemic unfairness’ proved motivation enough); (2) socialist argument (a string of socialist-based positions connected to classic socialist disdain for the creation of capital, accruing of personal wealth, estrangement of labourers from produce etc.); (3) personal plight argument (exclusively personal standpoints appealing to individual socio-economic woes). Finally, pressure was placed upon the Occupy protestors to reveal what their ideal, utopian society would look like, given the option. The sample called for: (1) orthodox anarchy (stark calls for 4 absolute anarchy); (2) anarchic socialism (marrying socialism and anarchy – less extreme than anarchy, more equal than capitalism, incorporating multiple freedoms and backed by orthodox socialist rhetoric); (3) advancing through decentralized civil society (no clear ideology, rather providing a special place for civil society with few central power structures; driving forth through family and community); (4) fundamental equality and freedom (emphasis of final desires over process and ideology with a belief that society does not require strict regulation, it rather holds its own ‘homeostatic’ capabilities). The hierarchical cluster analysis for this study found 4 distinct clusters; each cluster was defined by a generally homogeneous set of responses and demographics. Significantly, cluster 3 included 50% of the cases analysed (50% of the sample) and uncovered a common profile (homogeneous demographics, vastly similar stances on sources of social division, similarity in terms of confidence in social institutions, and agreement on the rationale and motivation to be personally involvement in Occupy). Cluster 4 consisted of so-called outliers. / Psychology / M. A.( Psychology with specialisation in Research Consultation)

This exploratory study set out to uncover views from the Occupy Movement’s Johannesburg leg. The Occupy Movement arose in late 2011, aiming to occupy public space and challenge conventional economics, politics, and governance. Data were collected by means of an online survey amongst 39 ‘core’ members of the group. The study took up a mixed methods approach underpinned by critical realism. Basic descriptive statistics and cross tabulations were used to analyse 6 closed-ended survey items in a quantitative fashion; thereafter, 4 open-ended items were qualitatively examined by delineating responses into discursive themes based on response content and positions taken up by respondents in their claims and statements. Finally, a cluster analysis was performed in order to cluster or profile significant groups that emerged from the data based on demographics, selection of closed-ended items, and quantitatively transformed response content to qualitatively examined open-ended items. It was found that the sample mirrored the demographics present in foreign movements as it was primarily male (61.5%), white (87.2%), highly educated (51.4% holding a bachelor’s degree or higher) and young (74.4% in the 21 to 40 age range). Furthermore, it was found that within a group that stood against various macro-level social systems, confidence in all social institutions was extremely low, in particular for big corporations, national government, and political parties. This sample was highly comparable to a representative South African sample as regards their views on the causes of social division; the factors that were seen as most socially divisive (in descending order) were: (1) socio-economic status; (2) race; (3) politics; (4) cultural differences; (5) language; (6) religion; (7) AIDS/disease. Qualitatively, the first item asked whether or not they believed that their movement lacked focus. Upon analysis it was found that four distinct themes existed in response: (1) duality (those revealing support for the movement but disdain for its processes); (2) aggressive justification (vehement justification and defense of the Occupy stance); (3) denial (lacking full knowledge of Occupy processes but ardently defending them while moving away from the difficult questions); (4) straddling the fence (vague and contradictory positions). Members responded to the question of whether their movement differed from foreign movements by stating that it did, based primarily on local socio-historical, economic, and contemporary issues peculiar to South Africa – these members sought a special place for their movement and acted in contradiction to the global Occupy stances; others said no and based this on appeals to homogeneity of cause, global concerns, and an Occupy solidarity. When asked why they, personally, were motivated to engage with the movement, the sample maintained either: (1) the unfair world argument (a strong theme in which perceived ‘systemic unfairness’ proved motivation enough); (2) socialist argument (a string of socialist-based positions connected to classic socialist disdain for the creation of capital, accruing of personal wealth, estrangement of labourers from produce etc.); (3) personal plight argument (exclusively personal standpoints appealing to individual socio-economic woes). Finally, pressure was placed upon the Occupy protestors to reveal what their ideal, utopian society would look like, given the option. The sample called for: (1) orthodox anarchy (stark calls for 4 absolute anarchy); (2) anarchic socialism (marrying socialism and anarchy – less extreme than anarchy, more equal than capitalism, incorporating multiple freedoms and backed by orthodox socialist rhetoric); (3) advancing through decentralized civil society (no clear ideology, rather providing a special place for civil society with few central power structures; driving forth through family and community); (4) fundamental equality and freedom (emphasis of final desires over process and ideology with a belief that society does not require strict regulation, it rather holds its own ‘homeostatic’ capabilities). The hierarchical cluster analysis for this study found 4 distinct clusters; each cluster was defined by a generally homogeneous set of responses and demographics. Significantly, cluster 3 included 50% of the cases analysed (50% of the sample) and uncovered a common profile (homogeneous demographics, vastly similar stances on sources of social division, similarity in terms of confidence in social institutions, and agreement on the rationale and motivation to be personally involvement in Occupy). Cluster 4 consisted of so-called outliers. / Psychology / M. A.( Psychology with specialisation in Research Consultation)

Amid the 2011 Arab Revolts, and the subsequent worldwide Occupy movement, social movement scholars faced sudden, powerful mass mobilisations without easily identifiable resources, networks, or forms of organisation underlying them. These instances of mobilisation beyond the scope of what we traditionally consider ‘the movement’ have stretched existing theories of social movements to their limits, defying both conventional theoretical frameworks and existing approaches. This work undertakes a novel analysis of mobilisation which accounts for these new, disruptive cases. It advances the concept of Affinity: a predisposition to participate in certain causes based on social or psychological traits. Alongside this concept, it outlines conditions of Convergence: emergent situations, frames and spaces which encourage those with such Affinity to temporarily participate in mass mobilisations. These two concepts are advanced and developed through a study of the 2011 Egyptian Revolt and Occupy Wall Street movement, alongside the classic case of the 1789 French Revolution. These cases are analysed in comparative perspective to develop a powerful analytical tool with which scholars can augment conventional analyses: The Affinity-Convergence Model of Mobilisation.

With camera, smart phone, and wireless connection to a worldwide distribution source on a single device that fits in your pocket, now billions of citizens are able to become sousveillant micro-media activist – in real time. This case study investigates purposive texts in detail from over 50 hours of live and archived streaming video webcasts taken from geographically diverse sites. The goal is to explore how this tool is being used by videographers in a complex 21st century social movement. My sample video texts were gathered in late February and early March 2012 as the Occupy Movement stirred to life after a relatively quiet winter (from the corporate media’s point-of-view). In this project, I examine how Occupy’s use of live-streaming video combines “mediated co-presence” (Giddens 1984; Ito 2005) with “networked autonomy” (Castells 2011) to represent the ambivalent face of a complex, postmodern movement for social justice. / text