This thesis focuses on the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS), and argues that a narrative analysis of this movement’s social media stories can shed light into how contemporary social movements and their supporters endeavour to politically negotiate and present themselves to the world on Twitter. Social media narratives are important elements surrounding the discourses of social movements. However, despite the resurgent interest in the ways in which social media are used strategically by activists to organise their networks, and in the ways in which their communities use these platforms as windows to express their shared sentiments, little of these approaches focus on the narratives constructed on social media networks, or on the stories told by users of social media networks in response to social movements. Instead, quantitative analysis, sentiment analysis, organisation analysis, and network analysis have governed social movement studies of Twitter, focusing on metric aspects of movements and their organisation. Moving beyond these frameworks, this thesis deploys the original analytical framework of Network Thematic Analysis (NTA) as a six-step analytical process, in order to look into the elements—stories, micro-narratives, and narratives—constructing the big story of OWS on Twitter. Network analysis of Twitter communication unveils the dynamics of the stories told about OWS, and reveals the dominant narratives of the movement’s story on Twitter. This thesis advances our knowledge about OWS’ political and identity narratives, stimulates new discussions about social media’s role in contemporary social movements, and provides a springboard for new analyses of social movements.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:718582 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Vrikki, Photini |
| Contributors | Gerbaudo, Paolo ; Jordan, Timothy |
| Publisher | King's College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-story-of-occupy-wall-street(343cb69a-7f5a-4704-854e-5ed65c060e77).html |
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