Class 7: Aspects of Social Movement Activity

Social movements and the media

Dr. Michael C. Zeller

Opening notes

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Presentation groups

Presentations line-up
Date Presenters Method
4 Dec: Daichi, Seongyeon, Jehyun TBD
18 Dec: Ayla, Tara, Theresa, Annabelle TBD
15 Jan: Luna, Emilene, Raffa, Sofia TBD

Opening questions

  • Where do you get your news?

  • When you read the news (thinking only of ‘traditional media’ for the moment), what is reported, generally?

So Many Questions Dr Roger Bentley GIFfrom So Many Questions GIFs

Media: the translator of social movements

What are the mechanisms of…

  • movements advancing their frames (Class 3),
  • mobilisation, recruitment, participation (Class 4),
  • tactics and strategies achieving results (Class 6)?

often it is the media (including social media)

how media covers a movement is often how most people know about it

  • big practical and theoretical stakes
  • often plays a gatekeeper role

Past and present eras: a change of arena

Past and present eras: a change of arena

  • previous eras: direct action, confrontation between movements and authorities more common
    • here: barricade in Paris, 1848
  • modern era: indirect contention filtered through media more common
    • here: press pack ahead of movement press conference in Hong Kong
    • ‘the whole world is watching’ era
      • the prospect (for movements) and peril (for targets/authorities) now? the whole world may be watching

Poll: movements and media

A QR code for the survey.

Take the survey at https://forms.gle/ngepuqqzaFu8nCfBA

  • ever personally supported a movement online?
  • how do media generally portray protesters?
  • what is most likely to help a movement get media coverage?
  • should movements tailor their messaging/framing to gain more attention?
  • is traditional media coverage still necessary for movement success in an age of social media?
  • does social media encourage ‘slacktivism’?

how do media generally portray protesters?

most likely to help a movement get media coverage?

Poll results - boosting media coverage

should movements tailor their messaging/framing to gain more attention?

is traditional media coverage still necessary for movement success in an age of social media?

Poll results - online

ever personally supported a movement online?

does social media encourage ‘slacktivism’?

Movements and (traditional) media coverage

  • (some) factors influencing media coverage
  • Jennings and Saunders (2019)
    • research questions, importance
    • data and methods
    • hypotheses
    • results
Kaa Snake GIFfrom Kaa GIFs

Movements and (traditional) media coverage

Factors that may affect media coverage

  • other news events (set number of ‘column inches’)

Movements and (traditional) media coverage

Factors that may affect media coverage

  • size of event, violence/disruptiveness, whether there is a counterdemonstration (Denardo 1985; McCarthy, Mcphail, and Smith 1996; Biggs 2018)
    • larger protests get reported – duh!
    • media attention cycles (topicality) (McCarthy et al. 1996)
      • if Germany’s energy is in the news, then energy/climate protests may get more attention
    • counterdemonstrations may help attract more attention (media bias for ‘both sides’)

Jennings and Saunders (2019) - RQs

  • Why do some protests get reported on and others not?
  • What protests get covered over the long term and why?
  • Why? What’s at stake?
    • demonstrations are effective when they not only hit newspaper headlines, but create a “sustained shift in media focus, onto the issues that the demonstration raises” (p. 2287)

Jennings and Saunders (2019) - data and methods

  • 48 street demonstrations in nine countries between 2009 - 2013
    • surveys – how do you think this is done?
    • Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom
    • any important contextual considerations?

The design of our study is large-N (based on a sample of demonstrations, avoiding the tautology endemic to many studies of media attention to protest, which select cases based on their being reported in the media), at the same time as putting protest in context. (pp. 2293-4)

Jennings and Saunders (2019) - data and methods

  • 48 street demonstrations in nine countries between 2009 - 2013
    • surveys – how do you think this is done?
    • Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom
  • DV: level of national media attention to related issue over time
  • IVs:
    • number of participants
    • presence of counterdemo
    • extent of violence
    • presence of trigger event
    • any ‘omitted variables’ problems

Jennings and Saunders (2019) - hypotheses

Feature Static Dynamic
Number of participants larger = more coverage short- and long-term coverage
Contentiousness high = more coverage short- and long-term coverage
Exhibit violence violence = more coverage short-term coverage, long-term losses/costs
Trigger event trigger = more coverage short-term coverage

do these expectations make sense to you? do you disagree with any?

Jennings and Saunders (2019) - reg table

Reading a regression table

Remember: regression is a tool for understanding a phenomenon as a linear function (generally) → (y = mx + b)

  1. Numbers not in parentheses next to a variable: regression coefficient: expected change in DV for a one-unit increase in IV. NB: ositive or negative relationship?

  2. Numbers inside parentheses next to a variable: standard error: estimate of the standard deviation of the coefficient

  3. Asterisks/‘stars’: statistical significance: probability of results as extreme as observed result, under the assumption that the null hypothesis is correct. Smaller p-value means such an observation would be less likely under null hypothesis; hence, significance. Statistical significance suggests more precise estimates—NOT necessarily that one IV is more important than another.

Jennings and Saunders (2019) - reg table

  • Numbers not in parentheses next to a variable: regression coefficient: expected change in DV for a one-unit increase in IV.
  • Numbers inside parentheses next to a variable: standard error: estimate of the standard deviation of the coefficient
  • Asterisks/‘stars’: statistical significance: probability of results as extreme as observed result, under the assumption that the null hypothesis is correct. Smaller p-value means such an observation would be less likely under null hypothesis; hence, significance. Statistical significance suggests more precise estimates.

Jennings and Saunders (2019) - marginal effects

Jennings and Saunders (2019) - conclusions

  • demos increase media coverage, but effect decays quickly
    • practical importance? ‘strike while the iron is hot’
  • large size and police aggressiveness increase media coverage
  • counterdemos significantly reduced media coverage of protest issues in longer term
    • puzzling finding

Social movements and social media

  • from #hashtag to mobilisation
    • BLM example
  • Slacktivism
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From #hashtag to mobilisation

(USA Today on BLM)

From #hashtag to mobilisation

(USA Today on BLM)

social media breaks down traditional media gatekeeper roles

  • helped BLM form coalition of K-Pop fans, Anonymous, celebrities, etc.
  • enhanced BLM’s ‘narrative capacity’ (i.e., efficacy in advancing frames, shifting status quo)
    • cf. ‘disruptive capacity’ and ‘institutional/political capacity’

Movements and social media - revisiting a debate

Class 4: we listened to Tufecki and social media mobilisation and ‘old-school organisation’ - can attract more participants, but perhaps with less commitment

  • “Slacktivism” & network structure of protest media coverage

Movements, media, and astroturfing

  • Torches of Freedom
  • astroturfing
  • knock-on effects
Turf War Turf GIFfrom Turf War GIFs

Torches of Freedom

1929, Easter Sunday Parade: a Tabubruch? more emancipation for women?

Movements, media, and astroturfing

astroturfing - manipulation of public sphere (media, information, movement scene)

  • fake ‘grassroots movements’ are a common form of astroturfing
    • a way of harnessing the ‘power of movement’
    • e.g., ‘Tea Party movement’ - a ‘people’s’ movement funded by Koch Industries
  • any examples, instances of this in/around your case?

Torches of Freedom

  • Edward Bernays (‘father of PR’)
  • working for American Tobacco Company from 1927
    • ‘smoke instead of eating’/thinness advertising
    • medical experts enlisted to promote smoking over eating sweets
  • Easter Day Parade, 1929
    • Bernays paid feminist movement members to smoke on the parade
    • ‘while [the women] should be good looking, they should not look too model-y’
  • 1923: women accounted for 5 per cent of cigarette sales; 1929: 12 per cent; 1935: 18 per cent

Astroturfing: knock-on effects

  • when movements are sometimes faked/manufactured, it undermines potential credibility of other movements
    • are people being ‘paid to protest’? who is ‘behind’ this protest?
    • questioning motives/genuineness of movements
      • Letzte Generation: funding from Climate Emergency Fund (U.S.), including Aileen Getty, heir of Getty Oil company
      • Just Stop Oil (U.K.): large amounts of funding from Climate Emergency Fund, from Dale Vince (green energy industrialist)
    • examples of conspiracy beliefs in U.S. (George Soros, Sandy Hook, etc.)

see further, on the theory: Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N. (1988). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. Random House.

Any questions, concerns, feedback for this class?

Anonymous feedback here: https://forms.gle/AjHt6fcnwZxkSg4X8

Alternatively, please send me an email: m.zeller@lmu.de

References

Atkinson, Matthew D., and Darin DeWitt. 2018. “Does Celebrity Issue Advocacy Mobilize Issue Publics?” Political Studies, no. 2. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717751294.
Biggs, Michael. 2018. “Size Matters: Quantifying Protest by Counting Participants.” Sociological Methods and Research 47 (3): 351–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124116629166.
Denardo, James. 1985. Power in Numbers: The Political Strategy of Protest and Rebellion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jennings, Will, and Clare Saunders. 2019. “Street Demonstrations and the Media Agenda: An Analysis of the Dynamics of Protest Agenda Setting.” Comparative Political Studies 52 (13-14): 2283–313. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414019830736.
Madestam, Andreas, Daniel Shoag, Stan Veuger, and David Yanagizawa-Drott. 2013. “Do Political Protests Matter? Evidence from the Tea Party Movement.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 128 (4): 1633–85. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjt021.Advance.
McCarthy, John D, Clark Mcphail, and Jackie Smith. 1996. “Images of Protest: Dimensions of Selection Bias in Media Coverage of Washington Demonstrations, 1982 and 1991.” American Sociological Review 61 (3): 478–99.