Mohnatkin, Nicholas

Professor David Harris

UGBA 192AC

15 December, 2016

Social Media and Disruptive Protests in Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter

Collective action frames are “action oriented sets of beliefs and meanings” that employ

three components: injustice, agency, and identity, to “inspire and legitimate social movement

activities and campaigns” (Snow and Benford, 1992). The injustice component refers to the

expression of indignation through political consciousness in response to the harmful actions of

authoritarian leaders. Indignation is a powerful driver of social movements as it draws on

intellectual judgments of fairness as well as raw, emotional responses, deemed “hot cognition”

(Gamson, 1992). The agency component refers to the cognizance of the possibility of altering the

status quo through collective action. The identity component refers to the process of defining the

collective and its adversaries (Gamson, 1992). Using the collective action framework to compare

and analyze the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the Black Lives Matter Movement’s usage of

social media, it becomes apparent that the standard, modern form of activism entails disruptive

occupation.

Four days after the Spanish Indignados were disbanded in 2011, a group of New Yorkers

set up an encampment in front of City Hall, dubbed “Bloombergville”, in protest of budget cuts

and other policies enacted by former mayor Michael Bloomberg. Following the passage of the

new budget, the camp disbanded and reconvened at an artivist space near Wall Street.

Interactions with Egyptian, Greek, and Spanish immigrants in the artivist space led to discourse

on protests in their native countries (Carty, 2015). On July 13th, Canadian magazine Adbusters

called for a massive occupation in Lower Manhattan starting September 17th, an idea which was

met with enthusiasm by independent activists. On August 2nd, a group called “New Yorkers

Against Budget Cuts,” comprised of Bloombergville and immigrant protesters, held a rally on

Wall Street protesting policies related to the Great Recession. Another group of independent

activists joined them the same day to plan for the September 17th occupation of Wall Street. On

August 23rd, a blog named “We Are the 99%” encouraged contributors to post difficulties they

had faced at the hand of wealth inequality in the United States. Occupy Wall Street officially

began on September 17th, when one thousand protesters gathered in Zuccotti Park and marched

on Wall Street (Greene, 2011).

.

“We Are the 99%” was critical in defining the movement’s identity component because it

established the bottom 99% of wage earners as the collective and defined the flawed corporate

and political world as their adversaries. The indignation component consisted of a long-term

disappointment in the status quo, as shown in the Tumblr blog through the “stories of lost jobs,

lost homes, crippling debt, and a lack of government support or accountability to its citizens”

(Carty, 2015). Other blogs, wikis, and web pages provided citizens with an understanding of

societal flaws rooted in the economic and political systems (Carty, 2015). Occupy Wall Street’s

indignation component was comparable to that of the Indignados and Arab Spring movements,

as all three movements protested against authoritarian political and corporate regimes. In

receiving assistance from the organizers of the Indignados and Arab Spring movements

(Milkman et al, 2013), Occupy Wall Street’s occupation form came to resemble that of the

camps of Tahrir and Puerta del Sol (Romanos, 2016). The Indignados movement utilized social

media to expedite the flow of information, furthering political strategizing (Day and Cobos,

2012) and taking advantage of the hashtag #acampadasol to incite over 180 other occupy

movements (Uldam and Vestergaard, 2015). From Arab Spring’s and the Indignados

Movement’s worldwide social media influence and collaboration with American activists

emerged Occupy Wall Street’s agency component, the awareness of the potential for change.

Following its fledgling protests, Occupy Wall Street’s demonstrations were met with

increasingly violent police backlash. Social media was able to capture many of these altercations,

exemplified by a video of women falling to the ground and screaming in pain after riot police

met demonstrators with pepper spray. This footage went viral, garnering support and empathy

for the activists. Occupy Wall Street utilized social media to increase their legitimacy, attracting

over 100,000 followers to their Twitter handle @occupywallstnyc and over 300,000 people to

their Facebook page, with 2.7 million followers distributed among four hundred occupy-related

Facebook pages. Occupystream.com provided over seven hundred occupy-related streams and

YouTube hosted 1.7 million videos tagged with “occupy” which were viewed over seventy-two

million times (Carty, 2015). The immense volume of online activity “quickly transpired into

interest, motivation, and street activity” (Carty, 2015). Digital media spanning Facebook,

Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms fueled collective action in the form of direct, disruptive

protest. An expanded following culminated in seven hundred activists blocking traffic on the

Brooklyn Bridge on October 1st, ending in sweeping arrests.

Occupy Wall Street’s presence on social media allowed its ideology to spread like

wildfire and awakened similar disruptive “Occupy” movements across the country including

Occupy Our Homes, Occupy L.A., Occupy Chicago, and Occupy Oakland. Occupy Oakland was

a particularly influential derivative movement thanks to the overwhelming amount of police

brutality it incurred. On October 15th, an image depicting an eighty-four-year-old retired

schoolteacher being pepper-sprayed at an encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza went viral on

photo of Dorli Rainey after being peppe- sprayed: Joshua Trujillo/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

YouTube. After the police closed the camp, demonstrators began planning a street march via

social media. The movement attracted 32,000 protesters to re-establish the camp, resulting in

further clashes with the police. Two days later, a video showing a protester being punched in the

face by a Deputy Inspector went viral, feeding the positive-feedback loop of protests met by

police violence. In attempting to disband the camp yet again, police fired a projectile into a

crowd, hitting and badly injuring Iraq marine veteran Scott Olsen. Activists took to social media

to protest the police brutality, spreading the phrase “We are all Scott Olsen” across Twitter and

Facebook, subsequently organizing future marches (Carty, 2015). Social media was used to

inspire, ensure effective organization, and encourage participation in other “Occupy”

movements. Without social media, the collective would’ve encountered great difficulty in

organizing the large groups necessary for successful militant protests.

On February 26th, 2012, Trayvon Martin was shot by neighborhood watch volunteer

George Zimmerman, bringing racial profiling and police brutality into the public limelight and

sparking raging debates over whether or not Zimmerman was acting in self-defense. After the

acquittal of Zimmerman in 2013, the Black Lives Matter movement began with the use of the

PhotographofOccupyOaklandprotesterscarryingScottOlsenafterhewashitintheheadwithaprojectile:KimihiroHoshino/AFP/GettyImages

hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. The following year saw similar shootings, with the deaths of Eric

Garner and Michael Brown spurring violent protests across the country over the allegedly

unprovoked deaths. Both instances involved the shooting of an African American suspect by

Caucasian police officers who were later acquitted in court. During the second day of protests in

Ferguson, Missouri over the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, tensions swelled as police began

to spray the protesters with rubber bullets and tear gas. On August 16th, Governor Nixon

declared a state of emergency in Ferguson, resorting to deploying the National Guard as

protesters began to retaliate against the police with Molotov cocktails. Later that month, Black

Lives Matter organized its first national protest in the form of a Freedom Ride, bringing nearly

six hundred supporters from across the country to the streets of Ferguson where they began a

march. Black Lives Matter grew into a national movement via usage of social media following

the shooting of Michael Brown and subsequent Ferguson protests (Freelon, Mcilwain, & Clark,

2016).

Fig1Top hashtags from September 1st to November 23rd, during Ferguson’s aftermath

Black Lives Matter did not solely emerge from the fatal shootings of Trayvon Martin,

Eric Garner, and Michael Brown preceding its inception, but rather was created as a continuation

of the “counter-offensive against workers and people of color that has defined the long aftermath

of the 1960s and 1970s liberation struggles” (Rickford, 2016). Driven by enduring

disenfranchisement perpetuated by a totalitarian judicial system, the indignation component of

the Black Lives Matter Movement represents a continuation of the long-established means of

expressing grievance through disruptive protest. After Trayvon Martin’s death, Alicia Garza, one

of the founders of the Black Lives Matter Movement, ended her reaction blog post with three

words: Black Lives Matter. Garza has credited the Civil Rights Movement with providing

inspiration for Black Lives Matter in realizing its means to affect change, which comprises its

agency component. The momentum provided by concurrent, galvanizing movements, such as

Occupy Wall Street, assisted Black Lives Matter in its quest to draw attention to police brutality

via heightening media attention to the disruptive tactics employed by both groups. Members with

high-profile social media accounts provide the organization with the ability to interact

with “politicians, the press, and the public” (Freelon et al., 2016). These key members assist the

movement in clearly defining its identity component as those afflicted by police misconduct and

social inequality, and its adversary as the judicial system of the United States.

Modern civil rights movements such as Black Lives Matter are able to circumvent the

consolidated leadership required by the Civil Rights Movement thanks to the unifying power of

social media. Utilizing social media platforms, organizations are able to communicate with their

constituent groups instantaneously, increasing effectiveness by providing live information while

coordinating movements (Stephen, 2015). DeRay Mckesson, a prominent Black Lives Matter

activist with over 300,000 Twitter followers, noted that institutions were no longer necessary to

build movements, because the “tools that we have to organize and to resist are fundamentally

different than anything that’s existed before in black struggle.” Black Lives Matter’s rise to

prominence was due in part to a social media-based framework capable of organizing expedient

protests in response to police misconduct. On November 15th, 2015, Jamar Clark was shot by

Minneapolis Police during an altercation with two officers. In response to this incident, Black

Lives Matter organized a protest at the Mall of America and key transportation sites. Hundreds

of protesters gathered at the central rotunda, shutting down the mall. Protesters then took public

transportation to the Minneapolis International Airport to engage in disruptive protest. Black

Lives Matter gave live updates on Twitter and united protesters through the hashtags

#BlackLivesMatter, #BlackXmas, and #BlackXmas2. The hashtags were used to connect

activists to the Minneapolis protest as well as numerous other Black Lives Matter protests around

the country that day. The Minneapolis protest inspired smaller protests in Baltimore, San

Francisco, Chicago, and other cities across the country. Demonstrators in Los Angeles shut down

the 405 freeway and used the hashtag #BlackXmas2 to share their efforts. The protest came to an

end after LAPD made eight arrests.

Black Lives Matter’s success in inciting disruptive protests using social media spread to a

coalition of organizations called the Movement for Black Lives. The coalition utilized

#ReclaimMLK to spur another surge of nationwide protests. Protesters used #ReclaimMLK to

reclaim Dr. King’s legacy as they believed his legacy was being clouded by “efforts to soften,

sanitize, and commercialize it” (Movement for Black Lives). Black Lives Matter and the

Movement for Black Lives typically protest to ensure accountability following police shootings

and to remove grand juries in cases resulting in acquittals. The Movement for Black Lives

outlined three categories of objectives for the MLK Day protests: “1. Divest from racist systems

& invest in Black communities, 2. Community control, and 3. Alternative institutions”

(Movement for Black Lives). The Movement for Black Lives organized a text messaging system

that provided updates on the protests that occurred over the weekend. On MLK Jr. Day, drawing

inspiration from Black Lives Matter, sister organization Black.Seed held a protest blocking the

San Francisco Bay Bridge. Black.Seed members planned to stay chained to the bridge for 96

minutes to represent the 96 hours of protests that occurred in Oakland that weekend. The

activists remained on the bridge for about half an hour before being disrupted by arrests.

Demonstrations continued to erupt that day in Columbia, South Carolina; Flint, Michigan;

Atlanta, Georgia, punctuated by a 300,000 person MLK Jr. march stretching 2.75 miles in San

Antonio, Texas (Toppo, 2016).

Black Lives Matter’s rise to prominence was defined by its social media involvement

during the Ferguson riots (Freelon et al., 2016). Since then, social media has been instrumental in

mobilizing collective action, reporting live events, and influencing protests nationwide. The

disruptive tactics Black Lives Matter uses were defined by their “commitment to independence

and militancy” (Rickford, 2016), assisted by the extensive reach of social media. Black Lives

Matter’s successes include the discipline and charging of police officers with misconduct,

proving that “popular outcry can help force concessions from even the most repressive system”

(Rickford, 2016). Black Lives Matter utilized a slew of hashtags and viral tweets to orchestrate

occupation “of highways, intersections, sporting events, retail stores, malls, campaign events,

police stations, and municipal buildings,” die-ins, marches, and rallies. These tools replaced the

institutional structure needed in the 1960s in propelling Black Lives Matter to efficacy. Social

media gives Black Lives Matter’s members across the country live updates on mass protests,

encouraging increased attendance of demonstrations. This participation boost provides Black

Lives Matter with the numbers critical to success in militant protests.

Black Lives Matter’s indignation component arose from the incessant suffering of racial

injustices by people of color before and after the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Occupy Wall

Street’s indignation component also stemmed from long-term oppressive conditions, as the

financial strifes of the working class have worsened since the 1990s (Carty, 2016). Similarly, the

two movements’ identity components originated from local community conditions and actions.

For Black Lives Matter, the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting pitted people of color

against police forces and grand juries. Occupy Wall Street, although establishing itself as

representing the bottom 99%, held loose definitions for parties involved in the movement.

Whereas Occupy Wall Street advocated on behalf of the broad “99%,” Black Lives Matter aims

to improve the lives of an oppressed racial minority, primarily Black youth (Freelon et al., 2016).

As a consequence, Occupy Wall Street focused on diffuse goals and “issues such as regime

change and dissatisfaction with the financial system” (Freelon et al., 2016) which were never

accomplished. Black Lives Matter, on the other hand, demands specific forms of resolution for

one policy issue and has made progress through each protest (Rickford, 2016). Black Lives

Matter’s agency component exhibits a combination of “the organic Black tradition” (Rickford,

2016) of collective action, and the occupation methods employed by Occupy Wall Street.

Occupy Wall Street’s agency component also emerged from other movements, namely Arab

Spring and the Indignados, through direct immigrant involvement in meetings and indirect social

media influence. The collective action framework shows that in the cases of Black Lives Matter

and Occupy Wall Street, the indignation and identity components arose from local conditions,

whereas the agency component obtained knowledge of collective action from outside sources

(Gamson, 1992). Social media assisted the spread of successful forms of collective action to

activists around the world, exemplified by Black Lives Matter’s extensive use of social media

bringing “high visibility and success in eliciting elite responses [which] positioned [them] at the

center of the national conversation on police misconduct” (Freelon et al.. 2016).

Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street hold in common their use of digital media to

incite disruptive protests challenging state power. Both groups’ collective action influence

operated by use of social media to attract members to ongoing protests and to incite continual

demonstrations around the country. Black Lives Matter is adept at using Twitter to aggregate live

updates into a hashtag, as shown by the popularity of #BlackXmas and #ReclaimMLK, while

live updates encourage followers to join ongoing disruptive protests and attend future events.

The movement’s social media outreach encourages other activists to protest, as exemplified by

Black Lives Matter’s influence on Black.Seed’s Bay Bridge occupation and protesters blocking

the 405 freeway in Los Angeles. Black Lives Matter’s outreach through social media exemplifies

how the “online environment has facilitated youth and others’ participation in public discourse

and civic action around issues of race, criminal justice and civil rights” (Freelon et al., 2016).

Occupy Wall Street’s streams and tweets were instrumental in informing followers on the

movement’s progress. Viral videos of police brutality and impacts of #OccupyWallStreet spread

throughout the country and incited other disruptive protests. Although Black Lives Matter and

Occupy Wall Street differ in strategy, efficacy, and organization, they are united by their use of

social media to increase participation in disruptive protests.

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