“Erika Fry”:http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/is_occupy_wall_street_getting.php at the _Columbia Journalism Review_ brings the social science:
bq. For a perhaps concurring perspective from the world of social science, consider the canonical work of American sociologist and political scientist Charles Tilly (he died in 2008) who developed widely-accepted criteria of what constitutes a ‘social movement.’ Yes, the media is not academia—there is of course a place for things that are timely, newsworthy, and important—the police’s questionable use of pepper spray on protesters for example—but in deciding the extent to cover a nascent protest movement, to which national media attention is oxygen, it is worth considering his criteria.
bq. Condition 1: Campaign. OWS vows it will be a sustained effort—they swear they’re not budging from Zuccotti Park—but 13 days in, it’s a little early to tell, eviction looms, and we’ll have to take them at their word. Organized? By some press accounts and the looks of the livestream feed, not really. Yet, saying the group is totally disorganized is also unfair: a visit to OWS’s various websites quickly proves the group has some semblance of structure and organization, and very much has it together on the internet. … Condition 2: Social Movement Repertoire: OWS seems to be in the process of developing this. They have adopted the repertoire of many a past protest (signs, drums, marching, an air of hippiness). … WUNC displays, (i.e. how the movement tries to represent itself to the public): so far, OWS has not brought the WUNC. Worthy? Tilly explains this can come from participant demeanor and an air of seriousness. OWS seems to project by it’s worthiness by its own media machine, shrewdly developed in advance of the protests to steer the narrative and call attention to itself—the rather sophisticated websites, Twitter feeds, livestream technology, and thought that has gone into documentation and projecting an image online is impressive. … Unity? Doesn’t seem like it. Interviews with those camping out on Wall Street seem to indicate their grievances are all over the place … Numbers? OWS has displayed numbers, but they haven’t been impressive At its peak, OWS has drawn, at the very most, 5,000 demonstrators. … So, maybe Occupy Wall Street is a social movement in the making—as the start-up of satellite efforts like this might indicate—but it’s not one that deserves the national media spotlight, or to be the “lead story on every nightly newscast,” as Olbermann imagines would be the case with Tea Party occupiers, just yet.
For a complementary take on the anti-globalization protests of the late 1990s, see this “older piece”:http://essays.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/ayres.htm by Jeffrey Ayres and Sidney Tarrow – it identifies strengths and weaknesses that are reasonably consonant with those Fry sees in the newer protests.
