New forms of Activism in a Network Society MJM17 Seminar Presentation

Michelle O’BrienStudent #10843673

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Presentation Outline1. Definitions of key terms2. The Internet as a tool for mobilisation3. OWS social media use4. Impact of ICTs in offline participation (link

between virtual & physical)5. The Network Society as context for modern

protest movements6. Conclusion7. Forum questions

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The Internet as a tool for mobilisation

OWS Manifesto:

“Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless people powered movement for democracy that began in America on September 17 with an encampment in the financial district of New York City. Inspired by the Egyptian Tahrir Square uprising and the Spanish acampadas, we vow to end the monied corruption of our democracy!”

Adbusters (http://www.adbusters.org, 2011)

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The OWS movement began with a single tweet from Canadian activist group Adbusters on 4 July 2011.

Source: http://twitter.com/#!/Adbusters/status/88013043438600192, 2011

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The campaign was followed up a few weeks later with the Charging Bull campaign which quickly went viral on the Internet. The image is a public sculpture of a bull near Wall Street, NYC. Possible interpretation is capitalist dynamism of a bull being controlled by Zen-like stillness of a ballerina (Schwartz, 2011). Protesters are emerging from a cloud of tear gas in the background and the text reads “What is our one demand? #Occupy Wall Street, September 17th, Bring tent”.

Source: Adbusters, http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreet, 2011

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Memes & culture jamming

Many images and symbols have arisen in the political vocabulary of the OWS movement, going viral online as memes. An internet meme is a concept, in forms such as a hyperlink, video, image, hashtag or catchphrase, which spreads quickly via the Internet (Knobel & Lankshear, 2007).

The use of culture jamming is also an important tools of activism in a Network Society, spreading “ideas by playfully subverting the familiar ideas captured by popular cultural and commercial memes” (Bennett, 2003:28). New forms of activism often use culture jamming to stage subversion on the Internet and through media channels, for example through virtual ‘sit-in’, hacking, blocking access to official sites and disrupting official information flow (Van Aelst & Walgrave, 2002).

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Example of OWS meme: Mister President, We HOPE You’re On Our Side

Source: http://obeygiant.com/headlines/occupy-hope, 2011

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Example of OWS meme: #OWSSource: http://www.occupytogether.org/downloadable-posters/, 2011

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Example of OWS meme: Opening animation for a special Occupy Wall Street screening, curated by Zero Film Festival NYC

Source: http:// www.vimeo.com/32169063, 2011

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Example of OWS meme: This Person Supports the Occupy MovementSource: http://www.facebook.com/OccupyWallSt?sk=photos, 2011

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Example of OWS meme: Occupy Canberra PosterSource: http://occupycanberra.wordpress.com/ , 2011

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The Internet as a tool for mobilisation

OWS uses the Internet as a mobilisation tool to:

• Produce frames to signify collective identity and field of action– E.g. publishing a manifesto, principles, policies and collective statements

• Build networks– E.g. creation of online ‘groups’ coordinating various aspects of the movements including

think tanks, alternate banking, accountability, legal, volunteer services and media • Provide access to resources

– E.g. online toolkits and how to guides such as organising a rally to designing an OWS poster

• Physically manifest emerging political ideals – E.g. Coordinating rallies, marches, stand-ins and other physical protest actions and events

Examples of various OWS websites can be seen in the following slides.

NYGA (http://www.nycga.net/, 2011), Juris (2005), Moussa (2011)

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New York City General Assembly WebsiteSource: http://www.nycga.net/, 2011

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Occupy Wall Street Website HomepageSource: http://www.occupywallst.org/ , 2011

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Occupy Together Website HomepageSource: http://www.occupytogether.org/, 2011

The Internet as a tool for mobilisation

• These websites are not only political campaign websites, but are also tools for OWS's internal activities, mostly organised around independent working groups within the movement.

• Underlying the operations of these online hubs is a horizontal structure that encourages anyone to participate in the movement.

• This online presence represents more than the facilitation of the movement; it can be argued that it has also inspired the design and structure of the movement.

Rosen (2011)16

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The Internet as a tool for mobilisation

The voice of the Occupy movement online, as quoted from the Declaration posted across many of their unofficial websites, has a revolutionary rhetoric. An example can be seen here:

“To the people of the world, We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power ... To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal. Join us and make your voices heard!”

NYCGA (http://nycga.net, 2011)

Through this choice of language, it can be claimed the movement is:• focussing on joint/collective action• projecting general ‘change’-oriented goals and claims• promoting non-institutional collective action• aiming to attract supporters not limited to location or specific political

stanceMoussa, 2011

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Example of NYGA rhetoric: Declaration of the Occupation of New York City Info GraphicSource: http://www.nycga.net/resources/declaration/, 2011

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OWS Social Media UseFrom early on in the movement, OWS has chosen not to use social media

channels as their official communications channels, but instead to rely on tools including:

• WordPress • other open-source platforms

Rosen (2011) Why? “The movement is so heavily based around the check and balance of corporate

power. Relying on sites such as Facebook, they felt, placed them too much under someone else's control... We decided that low-tech communication methods would be best… If we’d used a mass text message, or Twitter, it would have been easy for the police to track down who was doing this.”

OWS organiser Jake DeGroot, as quoted by Rosen, 2011

Despite this decision, many unofficial OWS social media profiles have proliferated. Examples can be seen in the following slides.

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Occupy Wall Street Twitter ProfileSource: http://www.twitter.com/occupywallst, 2011

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Occupy Wall St. Facebook PageSource: http://www.facebook.com/OccupyWallSt, 2011

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We Are the 99% TumblrSource: http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/, 2011

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OWS Social Media UseThe OWS social media presence is largely decentralised, for example there are

multiple Facebook pages and blogs dedicated to the movement rather than single official profiles. The use of Twitter hashtags in the OWS movement is an example of this decentralisation:

#ows #occupy #occupytogether #occupywallst#occupywallstreet #sep17 #anonymous

#globalrevolution #occupywallstnycTwitter (http://www.twitter.com, 2011)

This decentralisaton of hashtags is a possible reason why the OWS movement is not trending as highly on Twitter as organisers want. This has lead to conspiracy stories that Twitter is censoring the movement, a theory Twitter claims are incorrect (Social Media Collective, http://socialmediacollective.org, 2011).

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This graph shows the movements of the #occupy hashtag on Twitter on October 13, 2011, the day the owners of Zuccotti park (OWS main location), requested that NYPD clear the park. The graph represents over 6000 tweets posted by almost 5000 Twitter users, spreading information about the “impeding standoff” between OWS protesters and NYPD. The bigger the cluster, the more important the source in terms of Retweets and mentions by Twitter users.

Source: Social Flow (http://blog.socialflow.com/, 2011)

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This report on the use of the #occupy hashtag in Twitter over the past three months shows peaks on Oct 10, 2011, the day NYC Mayor Bloomberg suggested that he did not anticipate the removal of demonstrators from Zuccotti Park (OWS main location) and Nov 14, 2011, the day NYPD raided and cleared the camp.

Sources: Occupy Wall Street Website, (http://www.occupywallstreet.org , 2011)Trendistic (http://trendistic.indextank.com/occupy/_90-days , 2011)

OWS Social Media UseUse of social media via mobile technologies is also a valuable

communication tool for protest movements such as OWS, providing organisers with tools such as wireless internet and reception/coverage to:

• coordinate movements of groups• communicate across diverse protest locations• easily record and disseminate information and documentation of

events (e.g. police brutality)Garrett (2006)

However, heavy reliance by protest movements on ICTs can be problematic due to the fact that government and corporations often have control over these networks. For example, if activists depend on cell phones to coordinate action and these actions become threatening to the interests of those with power, disrupting or monitoring cell phone service may demobilise protest efforts. An example of this was seen after the UK riots of 2011 when Blackberry assisted police in an investigation into communications between rioters sent through their network.

Rosen (2011), Halliday (2011) 26

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Example of the importance of the dissemination of information through social media in the movement: Occupy Together Poster - Sorry, The Revolution Will Not Be TelevisedSource: Occupy Together Website (http://www.occupytogether.org, 2011)

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Example of the OWS live stream, not seen of mainstream media channels: Global Revolution Livestream Website

Source: Global Revolution website (http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution, 2011)

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Impact of ICTs in offline participation (link between virtual &

physical)

There is an intrinsic link between the virtual and physical elements of the OWS movement

– E.g. physical protests are often organised through virtual communications channls

The distinction between online and offline community is often exaggerated

– Theorists such as Gladwell (2010) argue digital activism is in no way linked with physical participation

Online networks is not a place apart but rather a crucial element of the protest movement. Online networks complement and strengthen offline networks, and vice versa, through the integration of technology into communication channels.

Spyridakis et al (2009), Juris (2005)

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Example of offline OWS protest projects: Image from Occupy George Website

Source: Occupy George website (http://www.occupygeorge.com/, 2011)

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Example of mass offline participation: Screenshot of CCN News Coverage of Physical Occupy Protests - Nov 17, 2011

Source: New Economies Tumblr (http://neweconomies.tumblr.com/, 2011)

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Impact of ICTs in offline participation

Protest movements such as OWS also actively encourage online contributors to extend their participation to a physical level.

For example the slogan of the email discussion list provider Riseup is “Get off the Internet. We’ll see you in the streets.”

Rise Up (http://www.riseup.net, 2011)

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Example of encouragement for protesters to move offline: ‚Like‘ Is Not Action

Source: Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/OccupyWallSt?sk=photos, 2011)

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Impact of ICTs in offline participation

The link between the virtual and the physical in modern protest movements usually occurs in the following progression:

Step 1: Access to technologyStep 2: Exposure to online networkStep 3: Online participationStep 4: Offline participation

Juris (2005)However, even when activists are participating in offline

activities, “they often move back and forth between online and offline political activity, using the internet as the protest movements technological architecture” Juris (2005:4).

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The Network Society as context for modern protest movements

The Network Society provides a conducive environment for organising modern protest movements.

One reason is that protest movements in a Network Society boast a hacker ethic based on the values of “free information, decentralized coordination, collaborative learning, peer recognition, and social service” Juris (2004:4). Like computer hackers, activist-hackers share and circulate information through communications networks using cultural codes and symbols.

OWS is not the first protest movement that has used the framework of the Network Society for mobilisation. In the recent 2011 Arab Spring protests, Islamic movements benefited greatly from the use of ICTs, given strict government control and media censorship.

Juris (2004), Moussa (2011)

The Network Society as context for modern protest movements

The Network Society not only provides a framework for modern protest movements such as OWS but also represents a model for “creating alternative forms of social, political, and economic organisation” Juris (2005:4). This innovation is possible largely through the technology at the movement’s disposal:

“Whereas before, hierarchy would have been assumed in a national happening like Occupy, protesters could look to other models of organizing work. They could look to open source projects or, more simply, the insta-networks that spring up around metastatic information. Networked organization is a useful reality as well as a sort of psychological support structure.” Rosen (2011)

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ConclusionIt can be claimed that power in the Networked Society is shifting away

from traditional institutions such as the state, capitalist forms and the mainstream media, towards more disseminated groups, technologies and communications tools.

“Power is no longer concentrated in institutions, organisations or symbolic controllers. It is diffused in global networks of wealth, power, information and images” Castells, (2007: 167).

This can be seen in the growing power of ICTs as an important tool for new forms of activism. For example on June 16, 2011, in the height of the Arab Spring Revolution, the US government requested that Twitter postpone updates to the service by “highlight[ing] to them that this was an important form of communication” in both external information exchange as well as internal organisation of the movement.

Gaffney (2011:1)

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ConclusionThus, the Network Society provides a conducive breeding ground for

the rise of modern protest movements. These new forms of activism are intrinsically linked to the growing power of technology in our society.

To conclude, a quote from a blogger who views OWS as the birth of a new social, ethical and political form, born of a Network Society:

“Born as a phenomena of and by the Internet and social media, chronicled and measured based upon Web-derived metrics and artefacts, I believe we are witnessing the birth and emergence of a new social, ethical and political form in its earliest nascent stage. It will continue to grow, and begin to develop ways of expressing and asserting itself, as an aggregated expression of the will of all those who by participating are its de facto contributors and constituents, which over time shall comprise a global 99%”.

Breitbart (http://thewhyaxis.info/occupy/, 2011)

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Forum QuestionsPlease select two questions to answer in the Student Central Forum.

1. How have ICTs, in particular the Internet, changed the way you personally engage with social and political issues?

2. When people participate in activism via social media, do you believe they are doing anything meaningful? Is the line as straightforward as Internet activism and physical activism?

3. Select an image from the presentation and examine how its design and message fits within the framework of a Network Society.

4. Mattelaart (2003: 23) states that “each new generation revives the ‘redemptive discourse’ of liberating effects of new communication technology, only to be disappointed when old hierarchies of power prove to persist”. This quote shows the paradox between the liberation through ICTs and the over-arching corporate and government control of these technologies. Does this sentiment resonates within OWS movement?

5. Are modern protest movements such as OWS an expression of today’s Network Society? In what ways do you think they are related?

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