NEW MEDIA, NEW MOVEMENTS: Tracing the Construction of #OccupyWallStreet

A Thesis Presented to the Department ofSociology

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirementfor the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with

Honors

By Nicholas Walker-Craig

April 2013

Prof. Karin Martin, Professor and Directorof Undergraduate Studies in Sociology

Honors Faculty Professor

Prof. Sandra Levitsky, Assistant Professorof Sociology

Honors Faculty Advisor

Acknowledgments

To Karin and SandyThe thesis process has been just as much an emotional endeavor asan intellectual one. Writing this meant not only challenging myself academically, but also required the confidence to claim authority over my ideas. Such confidence absolutely could not have come without the constant academic and emotional support from my advisors. Karin, you led our cohort such a positive and calming presence – you quelled our anxieties while pushing us to excel. Sandy, my thesis would not have so much as a semblance of an argument without your consistent guidance. Your constant encouragement always pushed my writing to be both more theoretical and more concise. Both of you were invaluable in steering me away from a post-coding breakdown and into a thesis writing “breakthrough.” No matter what happens in the crazy uncertainty of life, you both have given me a nugget of assurancethat I’ll always take with me. I’ve come out of this feeling stronger as a writer, thinker, and person.

To my friendsI couldn’t have gotten through this year, let alone my thesis, without all of you. The amount of times you zip my backpack and keep track of my belongings alone is… startling. I would be a floundering mess without your sea of love, compassion, and support.

To my mom and sisterThank you for making me feel like I’ll always be “the bestest boyin the world.”

Abstract

Contemporary discourse has highlighted the role of user-

generated media in social movements, such as the so-called

“Twitter Revolution” of the Arab-Spring. Despite such discourse,

little empirical research examines the use of user-generated

media and social movements. To examine the role of not only user-

generated media, but also alternative and mainstream media, this

thesis asks: what role did multiple forms of media have in

challenging or contributing to the growth of Occupy Wall Street?

Using a mixed-method approach to analyze the first five weeks of

Occupy Wall Street, this thesis samples data from 967 articles

and transcripts, 90,000 YouTube videos, and 850,000 tweets,

pooling from nine forms of mainstream, alternative, and user-

generated media. Key findings challenge established notions of

the relationship of power between the mainstream media and social

movements posited by Gamson and Wolfsfeld (1993) given the role

alternative and social media played in the growth of Occupy Wall

Street when there was little to no mainstream media coverage.

After Occupy Wall Street caught mainstream media attention, much

of Occupy’s public support may have stemmed from deradicalized

narratives of Occupy through the mainstream media. Finally, all

mainstream coverage contained moments that discussed wealth and

inequality in the U.S., perhaps significantly raising awareness

towards the issues that Occupy sought to address.

Table of Contents

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………..1

Research Question………………………………………………………………………….....4

Literature Review.………………………………………………………………………….....6

Methods……………………………………………………………………………………...19

Chapter I: Historical Overview of Occupy Wall

Street……………………………………..28

Chapter II: Reporting and Underreporting of Occupy Wall Street:

Quantitative Analyses of Articles, Broadcasts, Tweets, and

YouTube Videos Per Day of Occupy Wall

Street…………………………………………………………………………………33

Chapter III: New Media and Power Dependency Theory: The Role of

Progressive Alternative Media and User-Generated Media in the

Growth of Occupy Wall Street…………..53

Chapter IV: New Movements: Media Portrayals of Occupy Wall

Street…………………...60

Conclusion: Tracing the Construction of

#OccupyWallStreet……………………………...99

Implications…………………………………………………………………………………101

References…………………………………………………………………………………..106

Appendices………………………………………………………………………………….110

INTRODUCTION

“This isn’t a movement like other movements... this isn’t a protest – this is a way of

making a new space. We have taken Liberty Square, we have renamed it, and we have

rebuilt it. Maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s a way to start a conversation.” 1- Patrick Bruner,

Occupy Wall Street organizer.

In a small nook of a room in Spain, I opened a link on

Facebook that led me to the Occupy Wall Street website. The day

was September 26th, 2011, nine days after the first of what would

be a fifty-nine day occupation of Zuccotti Park, reclaimed as

“Liberty Square.” What started as an interest, days later, became

a ritual – I found myself consumed by Occupy’s website, YouTube

videos of masses of protestors, and news coverage by Democracy

Now! discussing the future of the American political landscape.

Despite being thousands of miles away, I began to form an

emotional connection to the newly formed Occupy movement that was

sweeping the nation. I began to feel that I was somehow

1 Bruner, Patrick and Moore, Michael (November 25, 20110). Occupy Everywhere: On the New Politics and Possibilities of the Movement Against Corporate Power.” Lecture conducted from The New School, New York, NY. Available at http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/25/occupy_everywhere_michael_moore_naomi_klein

Walker-Craig 1

participating in something; I began to feel a sense of

solidarity.

While talking to friends and family across the globe,

however, I was surprised to hear a completely different story –

or no story at all. Although it seemed odd that those closer in

proximity to Wall Street were unaware of Occupy’s existence, at

the same time, those familiar with the mainstream media are aware

of its tendency to underreport and undermine social movements.

Though I was curious and hopeful about the future of an early

Occupy Wall Street, I expected it to be another Battle of Seattle

– another ignited fire that the media monopoly extinguishes.

Much to my surprise, however, Occupy Wall Street steadily

began to increase in media coverage and public interest. Even my

traditional, small-town family and friends were aware of Occupy,

and many of them supported it. During this time, I also received

an email2 from a friend who attended an Occupy DC event:

Today was the fullest day of my life.  What do I mean? Let's

figure that out. Today I felt alive as a participatory

organism ... today I spent the day, from 10-6 in downtown DC

2 For a full account of the email, see the Appendices Section.

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traveling the streets with various peoples gathered to

protest the 10 year occupation of Afghanistan… and the

capitalism crisis that has caused massive unemployment,

terror, tuition, and taxes for the majority of the US

people. My voice became a voice in THE voice as we marched

down streets chanting to the tourists and talking heads of

DC.  We chanted “How do we fix the deficit? End the wars and

tax the rich!” “We are the 99% (and so are you),” “We're

fired up can't take it no more, money for health care not

for war” and much more.

The email goes on to detail the rest of the day, which includes

police pepper spraying her and her parents upon trying to enter

the DC National Air and Space museum, which is free and open to

the public. While reading the email and the media coverage of

Occupy Wall Street, one thing seemed clear: as one protestor sign

read, this was not a moment, but a movement.

While Occupy has certainly become a matter of interest for

the general public, Occupy has challenged the way we think social

movements work. Although historically social movements only

address one specific issue, the Occupy movement addresses a

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series of related issues that are all connected by the same

system. Likewise, rather than one group of people protesting an

issue which has affected that particular group, people of all

different races, sexualities, nationalities, and classes have

come together for the same cause. Instead of having a typical

demonstration that lasts a couple of hours, occupiers around the

country have taken a space and claimed it as their own.  

But how exactly did all of this change happen? Questions

regarding how and why social movements take place when they do

have been the subjects of academic inquiry for decades among

social movement scholars. Although social movement theory never

completely aligns with a particular social movement, the Occupy

movement in many ways has called into question some of the very

basic, underlying assumptions of social movement theories.

For example, while social movement literature suggests that

social movements need positive media coverage for their success,

many occupiers criticized the media for ignoring and negatively

portraying the Occupy movement. But despite the lack of

(positive) mass media portrayal, Occupy Wall Street managed not

only to survive months after initial protests, but became a

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movement that more Americans supported than opposed.53 The

question then becomes – with such support, are Occupy critiques

of the media justifiable? After all, how can a social movement

gain nationwide support if the only depictions the public

receives are negative?

Nationwide polls seem to offer evidence that not only

legitimizes Occupy critiques, but also gives an outline of the

development of Occupy Wall Street. Despite the fact that Occupy

Wall Street began on September 17th, The Pew Research Center

released a publication on October 12th called “Wall Street

Protests Receive Limited Attention.”34 One week later, they had a

study named “Growing Attention to Wall Street Protests.” 45 Just

five days later on October 24th, the Pew Research Center

published “Public Divided Over Wall Street Movement.”5

Within this twelve-day period, a series of interesting 3 Remez, Michael. Wall Street Protests Receive Limited Attention. The Pew Research Center: For the People and the Press. October 12, 2011. http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/10-12-11%20NII%20Final.pdf4 Remez, Michael. Growing Attention to Wall Street Protests. The Pew Research Center: For the People and the Press. October 19, 2011. http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/10-19-11%20NII%20Final.pdf5 Public Divided Over Occupy Wall Street Movement. The Pew Research Center: For the People and the Press. October 24, 2011. http://www.people-press.org/2011/10/24/public-divided-over-occupy-wall-street-movemet/

Walker-Craig 5

social phenomena occurred. Occupy Wall Street became an issue

that divided the American public shortly after being an issue of

little importance. Occupy evolved from a “protest” to a

“movement.” During this change in public perception, the news

seemed to lag behind the public interest; Pew publications found

that the public interest in Occupy Wall Street was significantly

higher than the actual news coverage of Occupy itself. 4

The relationship displayed by these studies brings up an

important theoretical inquiry for social movement research.

Though social movement scholars have theorized that the news

media is a necessary tool for social movements to mobilize and

enter the public sphere, empirical findings seems to suggest

otherwise. Is it possible that a social movement was able to gain

massive public support independent from traditional media? Is it

possible that alternative forms of media have gained the power

and influence to enter the public sphere? To explore such

questions, this thesis investigates the role of different forms

of media and its contributions to the making of the Occupy Wall

Street movement.

RESEARCH QUESTION

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Among various forms of media (mainstream media, alternative

media, and user-generated media), who were the first and last to

dedicate coverage to Occupy Wall Street? How did the media

portrayals of Occupy Wall Street contribute to the public

understanding, support, and awareness of the Occupy movement?

Broadly speaking, how did different forms of media play a role in

the construction of Occupy as an international movement?

This study finds that, in Occupy Wall Street's first two

weeks, Occupy received significant coverage from user-generated

media and alternative media while receiving little to no coverage

from the mainstream media. During these two weeks, Occupy Wall

Street also grew in size while the movement spread to over

twenty-five cities throughout the world. Alternative and user-

generated media likely played a role in this growth for two key

reasons. First, it provided organizing tools for expanding the

movement to new sites. Second, it provided real-time coverage of

events that not only portrayed Occupy in a way that legitimized a

growing movement, but also provided highly emotional coverage of

events that connected with audiences, with some viral coverage

that reached millions of viewers. This relationship between the

Walker-Craig 7

growth of Occupy Wall Street and alternative media coverage

challenges media theories which posit that mainstream media

coverage is indispensable for social movements.

During the third week of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy began to

catch the interest of the mainstream media. With this mainstream

coverage came several narratives that shaped the movement in a

number of significant ways to the mass public. By narrating

Occupy as an incoherent movement filled with fringe characters,

such mainstream coverage discredited the movement to much of the

broader public. Conversely, sympathetic mainstream coverage of

Occupy Wall Street tended to give a reformist narrative that

deradicalized the movement. Despite differences in mainstream

narratives, all forms of mainstream media focused less on

Occupy's message, but more on what the mainstream media deemed

"newsworthy." Instead of focusing on the American political

institution, for example, mainstream coverage focused on the

particular viewpoints of politicians and the effect of these

viewpoints on the 2012 elections. Although all mainstream media

narratives were often unrelated or unsympathetic to Occupy Wall

Street, all mainstream coverage contained moments that discussed

Walker-Craig 8

wealth and inequality in the U.S., perhaps significantly raising

awareness towards the issues that Occupy sought to address.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Given that the research question analyzes Occupy Wall Street

as a social movement and its media portrayal, I have research

from both social movement and media studies. The literature that

I have taken from social movement research specifically examines

social movements and the media. While there is an overlap between

the sections below, I provide context about the relationship

between media and social movements by describing 1) power

dependency theory, 2) mainstream media research, 3) alternative

media research and 4) user-generated media research.

1. Power Dependency Theory

Media has long played a crucial role in the promotion of

social movements. Whether it is the Tweets from the Arab Spring

or the radio waves from labor strikes during the Great

Depression, media has been a vital tool for creating a sense of

solidarity and moving its audiences into collective action. But

for all its potential, the media can also fall on deaf ears,

Walker-Craig 9

hindering the growth of a social movement. Even worse, the media

can serve as a barrier to collective action by misrepresenting

social movements. To explore the power dynamic between social

movements and the media, Gamson and Wolfsfeld (1993) apply social

psychologist Richard Emerson’s “Power Dependence Relations”

(1962) to the relationship between media and social movements.

Essentially, Gamson and Wolfsfeld argue that the mainstream

media – i.e., traditional forms of media like broadcast media

– have more power in the relationship between mainstream media

and social movements. Although mainstream media might value

social movements as potential news stories, the mainstream media

have an overload of potential news stories outside of social

movements, thus mainstream media do not need social movements to

be successful. Social movements however, Gamson and Wolfsfeld

argue, do need the mainstream media.

Gamson and Wolfsfeld argue that social movements need

mainstream media for three reasons: scope enlargement,

validation, and mobilization. Social movements need scope

enlargement from the mainstream media in order to broaden the

scope of the conflict. By enlarging the scope of conflict, social

Walker-Craig 10

movement actors and third-party sympathizers enter the conflict,

often rearranging dynamics of power in social movement’s favor.

Social movements need validation from the mainstream media

because, by portraying a social movement through the media, it

shows to the general public that the social movement matters.

Finally, social movements need mainstream media in order to

mobilize. According to Gamson and Wolfsfeld, social movements

need the mainstream media in order to reach their constituency

and enter into a form of public discourse. Though they

acknowledge that there are other forms of media in which to reach

their constituency, Gamson and Wolfsfeld argue “media discourse

remains indispensable for most movements because most of the people

they wish to reach are part of the mass media gallery, while many

are missed by movement-oriented outlets (pp. 116) [emphasis

mine].” Though Gamson and Wolfsfeld provide a useful theoretical

framework to understand the relationship of power between social

movements and the mainstream media, their article does not delve

into the specifics of how such power dynamics arise. Hence, the

next section details the various ways the mainstream media bias

social movements.

Walker-Craig 11

2. Mainstream Media Research

To get a richer understand of not just what the power

dynamic between social movements and the media is, but also how

this imbalance is perpetuated, much research has examined biases

in mainstream media. Though not all research on media bias

analyzes social movements, the biases discussed are still

pertinent. Drawing from the structure of Ryan’s (1991) research,

I have divided mainstream media research into three approaches

that tend to dominate in media studies: the organizational

approach, the structural approach, and the cultural approach.

Organizational Approach and Reporter Bias

Emerging in 1961 with David White’s “The ‘Gatekeeper’: A

Case Study in the Selection of News,” much research has examined

how producers of the news go about selecting (and not selecting)

countless possible news stories. Gatekeeper models of media

analysis look at the organizational structure of the newsroom,

observing how reporters’ work in the newsroom affect the news

that is produced. Since reporters are ultimately workers that

have tight deadlines, a series of news routines filter what is

and is not news.

Walker-Craig 12

Beginning in the ‘70s, groundbreaking research emerged that

examined how daily routines select news stories. In Tuchman’s

(1978) research, for example, she observed four newsrooms and

interviewed both print and television journalists. She found that

what media broadcast largely depends on “cover beats,” which are

certain places where news reporters usually go to report news–

typically city or government agencies. Similarly, Sigal (1973)

found that reporters use regular sources that they rely on to

give them trusted information. In particular, these sources of

information tend to be official sources such as policemen or

mayors versus event participators. According to Gans (1979),

official sources are favored due to the newsmakers need to

efficiently produce news. Though news organizations have changed

in the last forty years, these first pioneering studies are still

relevant to the field of media studies.

Outside of these daily routines, McCarthy and McPhail’s

(1996) study on DC protests found that media events are subject

to “media attention cycles,” or moments in which media sources

talk about one particular issue for a period of time. Likewise,

Ryan (1991) found that journalists use “pegs” to report news.

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Ryan describes pegs as “a ‘hook’ on which to ‘hang’ a news story

(pp. 96),” using an example in which Columbus Day produces

stories on Italians, or the first sub-zero days produce stories

on the homeless. Research on media attention cycles and pegs both

highlight how they can increase or decrease the likelihood that

the media will cover a social movement; if the media can

incorporate the social movement into a peg or are related to a

media attention cycle, they are more likely to be covered, but if

the media cannot, coverage is less likely.

Arguing that news content is ultimately a consumer product,

Oliver et al (1999) analyze what goes into packaging news into

something that audiences will indeed consume. By analyzing local

newspapers in Madison, Wisconsin, they found that events that

have a conflict are more likely to be covered, suggesting that

larger and more contentious events are more marketable for

audiences. In a similar vein, Jacobs (1996) argues that events

with a higher degree of “narrativity” for the reporters are more

likely to be reported, while Gamson and Meyer (1996) find that

events that have more “drama” are more reported. Finally, Ryan

also finds that television news that has “news leads” (the

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introduction before a news story is broadcasted) is more

frequently used in the media, as it is more captivating to the

viewer.

While not all of the works above only use an organizational

approach, there are limitations in looking at media bias in such

a way. Primarily, it tends to side with a pluralists notion of

media in which all actors are more or less competing on an even

playing field. This ignores larger institutional forces that

allow for the overrepresentation of some interests and the

underrepresentation of others.

Structural Approach and Corporate Bias

To address the flaws of gatekeeper theory models, much

research has used political economic analyses of the media,

examining the unequal balance of power within various social

actors. On the whole, such literature highlights that only

certain opinions break through the airwaves. Rather than being a

public good meant to serve the interest of its viewers,

mainstream media is in essence a profit-seeking institution whose

interest heavily lies in its funders– the media owners and the

advertisers.

Walker-Craig 15

Steinmen (1990), for example, analyzes the relationship

between the ads in Ms. magazine and the advertisers. She describes

how advertisers demanded copies from the magazine, stating if any

article had material on anything they considered controversial, –

gun control, abortion, or anything reflecting negative views of

religion– the advertisers would remove their advertisements and

funds from the magazine. Steinmen argues that advertisers gave

such demands because they did not want alienate magazine readers

and potential consumers from their product. Bagdikian (1978) also

analyzes the readers of Detroit News in terms of buyer potential.

Bagdikian found that stories were aimed at people with large

salaries, with one editor memo saying “story choice should be

obvious: they won’t have a damn thing to do with Detroit and its

internal problems,” and to instead report about “the horrors that

are discussed at suburban cocktail parties (pp. 78).”

Bagdikian later (1980, 1988, 2004) describes the “media

monopoly.” In the various editions of his publication, he

investigates the ownership of media organizations within this

twenty-year time frame. In the year 2004, he finds that eleven

corporations control most of the business in daily newspapers,

Walker-Craig 16

magazines, television, books and motion pictures, down from

twenty-three in 1990, and from forty-six in 1983. According to

Bagdikian, by having media in the hands of so few, the media

monopoly defies notions of democracy and pluralism. Furthermore,

Bagdikian argues that by having media controlled by corporations,

media portrayals suppress those that oppose corporatism. Not

surprisingly then, Morley (1976) finds that mainstream media tend

to underplay labor struggles.

One of the most lucid and powerful syntheses of corporate

bias in the media is that of Herman and Chomsky’s (1988)

“propaganda model” of the media, in which news is filtered

through five mechanisms. First, similar to Bagdikian’s work, news

is filtered by the size and profit orientation of mainstream

firms. Second, like Steinmen’s work, news is filtered through

the advertising financial power of the mainstream. Third, since

government and business officials are deemed to be the “experts”

is news media, they restrict dissident voices that oppose such

experts. Fourth, “flak,” or negative response from viewers,

discipline the media and make media more cautious of

controversial content. Fifth, Herman and Chomsky argue that

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“anti-communism” as the “national religion” filters anti-

capitalist sentiments. They say that these filters are not

lineal, but rather interact with and reinforce one another.

According to Herman and Chomsky, “The raw material of news must

pass through successive filters, leaving only the cleansed

residue fit to print. They fix the premises of discourse and

interpretation, and the definition of what is newsworthy in the

first place, and they explain the basis and operations of what

amount to propaganda campaigns (pp. 36).” Hence, structural

analyses such as Herman and Chomsky’s argue that the mainstream

media are institutionally devised to have a corporate bias that

promotes consumerism and corporatism while denying thoughts that

challenge such values.

Both organizational and structural approaches of media

analysis have several limitations inherent in their underlying

assumptions. Chiefly, both approaches assume that all viewers are

passive entities incapable of critically analyzing what is being

presented. This fails to examine the interactive process by which

viewers and readers negotiate the portrayals presented.

Cultural Approach and Audience Agency

Walker-Craig 18

To address these problems, many works have used a cultural

studies approach to the symbolic interaction between audiences

and the media. Gitlin (1980) uses a cultural approach to examine

the mainstream media coverage of Students for a Democratic

Society in Berkeley in 1965. Using Gramsci’s hegemony thesis as

his theoretical grounding, he writes how media is a dynamic

process by which the mainstream media co-opt audiences, and

audiences voluntarily comply in their own cooptation: “hegemony

is done by the dominant and collaborated in by the dominated

(Gitlin 1980, pp. 10).” Hence, Gitlin and others give the

theoretical space for viewer agency, avoiding a pluralist model

like that of other works. While the viewer does have a role in

the process of cooptation, there is a largely unequal

relationship of power between the dominant and the dominated.  

Similarly, Hall (1982) examines how readers interpret text.

He argues that, even when text has a slanted point of view,

readers must either accept or decline the slant of the text. This

presents a space in which readers can negotiate the dominant

meaning in their own terms or reject it outright. Fiske (1987)

then further opens the space for text interpretation by

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incorporating symbolic devices. By using irony, metaphor, jokes,

contradiction, and hyperbole as devices to understand a text he

argues that such devices “[produce] an explosion of meaning that

can never be totally controlled by the text and forced into a

unified sense... The contradictions are always left reverberating

enough for sub-cultures to negotiate their own inflections of

meaning.”

Pioneered by Morley’s (1980, 1986) research, cultural

theorists have conducted comparable research on television media.

A series of scholars (Hobson 1980, 1982; Palmer 1986; Livingstone

1990), for example, have done ethnographic studies by going into

television viewers homes to see how they respond to various

television programs. Liebes’s (1991) study in particular

highlights the diversity of the negotiation of television meaning

by examining the differences in negotiation of Israeli television

news between moderate and nationalist Arab and Jewish families.

Liebes found that while Arab nationalist families rejected the

dominant representations of reality, Arab moderates had to

negotiate such portrayals with their personal and collective

experiences. Accordingly, Jewish nationalist families simply

Walker-Craig 20

accepted the televised narrative, while Jewish moderates

negotiated what they saw.

Thus, a cultural approach gives a richer notion of how the

media contribute to the news and how viewers and readers come to

understand it. In this light, a cultural approach avoids what

Ryan (1991) has critiqued in both organizational and political

economic/structural approaches as being deterministic narratives

of the media.

Like the organizational and structural approaches, the

culturalist approach has its own limitations. On one hand,

although it avoids structural and organizational determinism,

cultural approaches alone can suggest an almost unwarranted

optimism of viewer agency, ignoring the institutional forces that

shape how viewers are limited to their interpretations of the

media.

3. Alternative Media Research

While mainstream media research is useful in illustrating

how media biases can disadvantage social movements, it can depict

a simplistic view that denies the existence of alternative routes

of information. Within the last decade, however, a small but

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growing body of work has researched the effects and processes of

alternative media.

Because alternative media studies are relatively new, there

is not yet an agreed upon conceptualization of what alternative

media is. Many scholars have defined alternative media by what it

is not, meaning anything that is not the mainstream media

(Comedia, 1984; Rodríguez 2004). One of the most concise ways to

define alternative media comes from Rauch’s research (2007). He

defines alternative media in four dimensions. First, the content

is dedicated to oppositional issues, events, and opinions that

are not regularly advocated elsewhere. Second, the content

provided is through mediums that are not necessarily wide

reaching, such as zines, podcasts, blogs, flyers, or handmade

buttons. Third, the content features focuses on poor, minority,

and other dissident voices. Fourth, values of alternative media

include citizen participation, direct action, and collective

decision-making.

One of the critiques of media studies (Groshek and Han 2011)

is that, although there is an abundance of research about the

shortcomings of mainstream media, and some about alternative

Walker-Craig 22

media as an alternate to mainstream, there is very little

literature about both mainstream media and alternative media.

Groshek and Han (2011) offer one exception: Eliasoph’s study

(1988). In her work, she effectively compares and contrasts the

inner-workings of mainstream media to a Berkeley alternative

radio station in which she did participant observation for two

years. In her dissertation, she questions many of the theories

about the organizational bias of news making organizations, since

the Berkeley radio station employed news routines different from

those of the mainstream media news organizations studied.

In Groshek and Han’s work (2011), they look not at the

organizational differences between mainstream and alternative

media, but in the differences in which mainstream and alternative

media frame the same event. To do this, they looked at the World

Economic Forum events, and examined the media coverage by The

New York Times and of various sources pooled from the Alt-Press

Watch database. The findings of their study affirmed previous

studies that describe biases in mainstream media, particularly

that The New York Times represented the voices of WEF participants

more than protestors, whereas as alternative media publications

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represented protestors more.

In addition to comparing alternative media to mainstream

media, much research has analyzed the relationship between

alternative media and social movements. Armstrong’s “A Trumpet to

Arms: Alternative Media in America” (1981), for example,

describes the relationship between activists in social movements

and the media that they use. In his work, Armstrong examines

social movement actors and the media they produce, from Thomas

Paine’s anti-slavery Common Sense letters to the Berkeley student

movement’s underground publications in the 60s. According to

Armstrong, alternative publications can be the “central nervous

system” of adversary social movements.

Downing (1984) expands on the relationship between social

movements and the alternative media. Instead of having a one-way

relationship between social movements and alternative media,

Downing argues that alternative media can shape the life and flow

of social movements, suggesting a reciprocal relationship between

the two. He finds that when there is an upsurge in a social

movement, this generates more alternative media. With the

increase in alternative media, the alternative media publications

Walker-Craig 24

strengthen its social movement, creating a circular process

between alternative media and social movements. A similar process

happens if there is a lull in the social movement.

Although alternative media research provides a useful

framework in understanding how non-traditional forms of media can

help social movements and counter the mainstream media, little

research exists on newer forms of non-traditional media. The next

section, then, examines user-generated media research.

4. User-Generated Media Research

One of the least studied forms of media is “user-generated

media” – media users produce, such as blogs, Facebook, YouTube,

etc. Though some user-generated media research exists, one of

its limitations is that it is a rapidly changing phenomenon –

while usually research published five years ago is considered

recent in most academic fields, many aspect of user-generated

media can significantly change within a relatively short amount

of time. However, certain themes in user-generated media research

still remain useful in a contemporary context.

Much user-generated research focuses on the relationship

between user-generated media and notions of democracy and the

Walker-Craig 25

public sphere. Kahn & Keller (2004), for example, detail how

blogs have contributed to democratic processes of communication.

To begin, Kahn & Keller argue that easy access to blog creation,

maintenance, and contribution allow for pluralist participation.

Whereas professionalized news industries, or professionally-

generated media, inherently only have select qualified writers as

contributors, anyone that has access to the Internet can

participate in the blogosphere. The layout of blogs also allows

for dialogical, continuous conversations among all of its

participants; at any time, anyone can contest the content of

blogs via user comments while remaining anonymous.

Martea (2008) provides another perspective as to how blogs

redefine the public sphere. As noted above, Bagdikian’s work on

the “media monopoly” argues that there is a uniformity of news

content since only a few corporate conglomerates control news

industries. Since blogs are independent from such monopolized

ownership, Martea argues that there is a larger diversity of news

content in the blogosphere. Moreover, Martea argues that blogs

expand “carrying capacity,” or the amount of information that can

be presented. For example, in professionally-generated media

Walker-Craig 26

writers can only include the small amount of information

permissible within a thirty-minute time span or within the space

of a newspaper. Blogs, however, have an unlimited amount of

information that can be presented in one individual blog and in

the blogosphere as a whole.

In addition to offering an alternative to mainstream media,

blogs have directly challenged the mainstream media as a

legitimate news medium. In Sheffield’s dissertation (2011), she

details the “Rathergate” scandal to illustrate how blogs can

serve as a media watchdog. In 2004, some bloggers argued that Dan

Rathers failed to investigate documents that questioned President

George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. After

many bloggers presented a convincing argument that President

Bush's documents were false, Dan Rathers resigned and CBS and “60

Minutes” lost credibility. As a result of watchdog instances like

these, blogs have gained credibility in the political realm, with

some politicians using blogs to get insider information that is

not presented elsewhere.

Though blogs can challenge mainstream media, they also have

their own limitations. Martea (2008) argues, for example, that

Walker-Craig 27

although there is a diversity of information in blogs, they have

a hierarchical structure because blog users read only a small

number of the most popular blogs. Similarly, Sheffield (2011)

argues, that although media blog users have limitless

possibilities for what they read, since bloggers can choose what

they follow, blog readers might only read information that

reinforces their own beliefs. Instead of democratizing

information consumptions, blogs potentially polarize readers from

hearing opposing viewpoints.

Despite the problems that face user-generated media, some

research notes how social movements employ user-generated media

in innovative ways. As Sheffield (2011) describes, blogs can

offer unique social movement communities. Analyzing

“Warblogging,” a genre of blogs opposing the wars in Afghanistan

and Iraq, Kahn & Keller (2004) detail how blogs create inter-blog

solidarity by giving hyperlinks to other blogs. Such references

also can transcend national borders as well, notably with the

inclusion of Iranian and Iraqi in Warblogging blogs. Furthermore,

Sheffield’s work also describes how user-generated media can be

used as a novel tool for social movements. According to

Walker-Craig 28

Sheffield, blogs are an innovative social movement tool because,

through the process of blogging and reblogging another person's

blog, the blogosphere can take advantage of already-existing

networks to grow without being confined to only specific activist

social networks.

Eltantawy and Wiest’s (2011) article goes into further

detail about how user-generated media can be used in social

movements by describing the use of Facebook and Twitter in the

Egyptian revolution during the so-called “Arab Spring.” They find

that, while there were many political and historical factors in

the cause of the 2011 Egyptian protests, user-generated media was

an important tool for the international community and for

community organizing tactics. By using real-time posts on

Facebook and Twitter, such media held the Egyptian government

accountable to the international community like never before.

Though user-generated media research has been useful, there

are several weaknesses in user-generated media literature. For

one, the bulk of user-generated media research pertains to blogs,

and while this is still relevant, new, arguably more important

forms of user-generated media – Facebook, YouTube, Twitter,

Walker-Craig 29

Reddit – researchers have rarely analyzed. Second, little

research has given a quantitative glimpse of the audience reach

of user-generated media. Third, there has been little research on

the relationship between user-generated media and professionally-

generated media in alternative and mainstream media.

Thinking Across Medias

In fact, little research in media studies compares one form

of media to another. In particular, there is scarce research on

how two distinct forms of media frame the same event. Of the

research that does exist, they appear to regard mainstream media,

alternative media, and user-generated media as disconnected forms

of media that do not interact.

This study seeks to shed light on the interactive

processes between mainstream, alternative, and user-generated

media by looking at these three forms of media during the first

five weeks of Occupy Wall Street. In particular, while some works

have shown how alternative media responds to mainstream media,

few studies examine the possibility of mainstream media

responding to alternative media. In terms of the media and the

findings, by using Occupy Wall Street as one example of many new

Walker-Craig 30

global movements, I hope my work will provide the opportunity to

reconsider the ways scholars understand contemporary social

movements.

METHODS

Data Collection Overview

In order to gain a broad understanding of the multiple media

narratives of Occupy Wall Street, I collected data from a total

of nine media outlets in three categories: mainstream media,

alternative media, and user-generated media. For mainstream

media, I used FOX, CNN, and MSNBC. For alternative media, I

selected The American Spectator, Newsmax, Democracy Now!, and The

Huffington Post. For user-generated content, I used Youtube and

Twitter. I used 9/15/11 to 10/23/11 as my time frame.

Time Frame

As the literature review highlighted, despite that Occupy

Wall Street began on September 17th, on October 12th, the Pew

research center released a publication called “Wall Street

Protests Receive Limited Attention.” Just twelve days later on

October 24th, the Pew Research Center published “Public Divided

Walker-Craig 31

Over Wall Street Movement.” These publications indicate that, by

October 23rd, Occupy Wall Street had reached a definitive point

in public awareness to be categorized as a nationwide social

movement. For the purposes of my broader research question – how

Occupy Wall Street grow as a social movement—the 23rd seems

reasonable as the end of my time frame. Though the protests

started the 17th, I choose the 15th as the beginning of my time

frame as many media outlets reported on Occupy Wall Street before

it had actually started.

Data Sample

Mainstream Media: I selected FOX, CNN, and MSNBC for three

reasons. First, as corporately owned broadcast media, they are

relevant to the mainstream media literature that analyzes how

corporately-owned media entities are inherently biased as profit-

seeking industries instead of public goods. Second, since these

three are all large broadcast channels in terms of viewership6,

one can reasonably assume that they had a significant role in

contributing to the public perception of Occupy Wall Street.

6 FOX as conservative: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067, MSNBC as liberal http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/business/media/06msnb.html?_r=3&oref=sl ogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin. CNN: http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/93962_0_2_0_c/

Walker-Craig 32

Third, by analyzing a conservative, moderate, and progressive

medium (respectively, FOX, CNN, and MSNBC7), one can observe to

what extent political leaning affected media coverage.

Alternative Media: For the alternative media, I collected data

from The Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, The American Spectator, and

Newsmax. I have selected these four news mediums for three

reasons. First, two of these publications are progressive

(Democracy Now! and The Huffington Post) and two are conservative

(Newsmax and The American Spectator), so it will again help see how

political affiliation shaped the framing of Occupy. Second, all

of these media are some of the most respected alternative media

sources and are also some of the farthest-reaching alternative

media in terms of viewership8.

Given that there lacks a precise conceptualization of

alternative media, the third reason I have selected these four

7 “Cable: By the Numbers.” The State of News Media 2012: An Annual Report on American Journalism. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/cable-cnn-ends-its- ratings-slide-fox-falls-again/cable-by-the-numbers/8 Democracy Now! – see awards at: http://www.democracynow.org/about/awards; Newsmax reported as the most visited conservative site in the US – http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/newsmax-nielsen-number-one/2010/01/17/id/346606; Editor-in-Chief of The American Spectator http://spectator.org/people/r-emmett-tyrrell-jr/all; The Huffington Post as the most visited political website – http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/political-websites

Walker-Craig 33

media roots in contributing to understandings of alternative

media. Some define alternative media by what the media offers to

its viewers, where scholars define alternative media by its

ability to present information that does not exist in the

mainstream media. Others define alternative media by how the

media operates, in which definitions stem from the for-profit or

non-profit status of news organizations. Hence, to look at both

of these ways of defining alternative media, two of these media

(The Huffington Post and Newsmax) are for-profit owned industries

that have a reputation as being alternative because the content

they present, with one having a conservative leaning (Newsmax)

and one having a progressive leaning (The Huffington Post). To look

at media that are independent, nonprofit industries, I will look

at Democracy Now! and The American Spectator, with Democracy Now! being

progressive and The American Spectator being conservative.

User-Generated Media: I sampled from YouTube and Twitter9 for

accessibility purposes in that both could provide me with a

9 “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate andstay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages. People write short updates, often called "Tweets" of 140 characters or fewer. These messages are posted to your profile, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search.” Source: https://support.twitter.com/articles/13920-frequently-asked-questions

Walker-Craig 34

quantitative trends in user-generated content (described in

further detail under “research instruments”). Further, both

represent widely known and discussed user-generated content

mediums.

Data Collection

Mainstream Media: I used the “TV and Radio Transcripts”

section of the Lexis Nexis Academic database for the mainstream

media. I used the search term “Occupy Wall Street” or “anti-Wall

Street protests” as my search terms. I used the term “anti-Wall

Street protests” to include TV transcripts that may not have used

the term “Occupy Wall Street” in the beginning. Under “specify

date,” I selected “date is between” to use my 9/15/11 to 10/23/11

time frame. Given that many of the results yielded included

transcripts which only mentioned Occupy Wall Street in passing or

mentioned Occupy Wall Street as a “hook” for another TV show

(e.g. “coming up, our reporter covers the “Occupy Wall Street”

protestors. That’s next.”), I searched all of the results to see

which ones discussed Occupy Wall Street at length. I counted the

number of relevant articles (articles that were not hooks or

mentioned OWS in passing) and compiled them into a spreadsheet.

Walker-Craig 35

Alternative Media: For Democracy Now!, I used their advanced

search of their website (see footnote10 for the link to the

search for further specifics). For Newsmax, The American Spectator,

and The Huffington Post, I used an advanced Google search which

would limit the results to each respective website domain. I then

used the “search tools” and used my time from under the “custom

range” option. I then placed the links to all of the articles in

a spreadsheet, again throwing out articles that only mention

Occupy Wall Street in passing.

YouTube: I used Youtube.com and ran searches like “Occupy

Wall Street September 17th” for each date and the complied the

“results” number of each search into a spread sheet. I ran the

searches before 9/17/2012, so the results should not have videos

from 2012.

Twitter: For Twitter, I used the Twitter analytics tool

“Topsy Pro”- (https://pro.topsy.com). I used the search terms

10http://www.democracynow.org/search/advanced/Occupy%20Wall%20Street/17?advanced_query=true&as_date=any&as_date_type=published&as_from%5Bas_min_d%5D=21&as_from%5Bas_min_m%5D=8&as_from%5Bas_min_y%5D=2011&as_to%5Bas_max_d%5D=20&as_to%5Bas_max_m%5D=8&as_to%5Bas_max_y%5D=2012&models%5B%5D=All&occurs_as=&query_type=phrase

Walker-Craig 36

“#occupywallstreet” and “#ows” to see the amount of exposure of

each hashtag11 within the 9/17/11 to 10/23/11 timeframe.

Data Analysis

Reporting and Underreporting of Occupy Wall Street: Quantitative Analysis: To

quantify the extent in which the discussion of Occupy Wall Street

grew or decreased for each news medium, I looked at the number

broadcasts/web articles/YouTube uploads/Tweets per day over the

five-week period.12 I analyzed the data with simple descriptive

statistics, indicating early-comers and latecomers by analyzing

when there was a period of increasing coverage by analyzing

slopes over five to ten day periods. The analysis also includes

the dates of maximum number of broadcasts/web articles/YouTube

uploads/Tweets.

Quantitative Analysis: Organizational Considerations: Given that each of

the news sources and the methodology to collect news sources are

significantly different from each other, it is necessary to

11Definition: “The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.” Source: https://support.twitter.com/articles/49309-what-are-hashtags-symbols12 A spreadsheet of the data is available in the Appendices Section.

Walker-Craig 37

explain certain aspects of each news medium to contextualize the

data presented. There are five organizational considerations

described: 1) determining average overall articles per day vs.

OWS articles per day, 2) weekend coverage, 3) The Lexis Nexis

collection discrepancies for MSNBC, FOX, and CNN 4) analyzing

MSNBC and The American Spectator trends, 5) The Huffington Post and

average articles per day 6) Twitter and data presented in

Greenwich Mean Time.

1) Determining Average Overall Articles per Day vs. OWS articles per day –To make

the number of articles (or broadcasts) about Occupy Wall Street

more meaningful, the graphs provide an approximate number of the

average articles produced on any given day. While certain mediums

provide archival data that provide all of the articles on any

given day, to obtain the approximate average for most news

mediums, however I needed to use imprecise techniques such as

searching "CNN" within the CNN section of the CNN database. While

this may not be entirely accurate, the numbers still provide a

rough estimate of the average overall articles/broadcasts

produced each day. Further, to analyze trends in each news

medium, it is not necessary to have percentage data since one can

Walker-Craig 38

still see the rises and decreases in the articles per day.

2) Weekend Coverage – Since Democracy Now! does not report on the

weekends, the graphs exclude weekend dates. Similarly, the Lexis

Nexis database does not provide transcripts for the weekends for

MSNBC, so weekends have been excluded for the charts for MSNBC.

3) Lexis Nexis Collection Discrepancies– CNN, FOX, and MSNBC. Although I used

the same Lexis Nexis database to collect data from CNN, Fox News,

and MSNBC, the data available for each news medium is not

balanced. Whereas CNN collects from over 130 television programs,

MSNBC and FOX collect from only around twenty-three programs.

Further, some programs have not been broadcasted within the last

several years. This is particular true for MSNBC since many of

the twenty-three programs are not current. Upon considering the

considerable differences in data pools, then, the differences the

broadcast totals seem less stark.

4) Analyzing MSNBC and American Spectator Trends – Given that there is a

smaller total number of broadcasts with MSNBC and the American

Spectator, the quantitative trends are less definitive than with

other news mediums. With MSNBC, there is not a concise point of

increasing media coverage (the date of increasing media coverage

Walker-Craig 39

could be as early as September 28th and as late October 3rd).

5) The Huffington Post and Average Articles Per Day –Given that the Huffington

Post is a news aggregator with countless articles uploaded per

day, finding the overall number of articles in a given day is

impossible. Moreover, trying to compare the number of Occupy Wall

Street articles to a total number of articles in a given day

would not have the same meaning as with other news organizations;

the number of articles for any topic will always be small since

the Huffington Post has countless articles on a variety of topics

everyday. Thus, the data highlights trends in The Huffington Post by

comparing the article per day to the maximum number of articles

about Occupy Wall Street observed in the five-week timeframe.

6) Twitter and data in Greenwich Mean Time – Topsy Pro Analytics lists

the exposure of Tweets per day using the GMT time zone to

determine each day. Therefore, Topsy Pro Analytics considers

tweets from the evening as tweets from the proceeding day. This

likely affected the data whereby there was an upsurge of tweets

one day after a large Occupy event. This appears to be true for

almost all events, with the exception of an international event,

in which case GMT is the logical time reference.

Walker-Craig 40

Media Portrayal- Thematic Coding: In order to work with a

manageable data set to code, I used a systematic sampling

approach in which I selected the first article/TV transcript

published, and then coded the first article of every ten

articles/TV transcripts. Overall, I coded 81 articles from a

total of 967 articles, coding 8% of the data. Using NVivo, I

started out with seven code themes (or “nodes”) and coded the

articles in chronological order in order to have a fuller

understanding of the development of narratives for each news

medium. Though I started with seven codes, I took an inductive

approach by which I continuously added more codes and sub codes

in the process. I ended with six codes, which are highlighted in

detail in Chapter IV, the media portrayal section.

Media Portrayal – Search Queries: The methodology employs three

search queries to expand on three prominent themes: political

references, growth, and references to the “99%.” The timeframe

for the search queries was from October 1st, 2011, to October

12th, 2011 and October 17th (or October 18th, for Newsmax). I

selected this timeframe since, as the results section will show,

increasing media coverage began around October 3rd for most media

Walker-Craig 41

outlets and peaked around October 12th, with another moment of

increasing coverage on October 17th (or, October 18th, for

Newsmax). For all news medium but CNN and The Huffington Post, the

data sample includes all articles produced within this timeframe.

For CNN and The Huffington Post, I used systematic random sampling

in order to have data samples comparable to the other news

medium.

Of the three search queries, the first search query is for

terms related to politics, i.e., Democrats, the Tea Party, Herman

Cain, etc. The second search query relates to terms related to

growth, e.g., “grow” or “spreading.” The third search query is a

simple search for the “99%,” “99% movement,” or the “99%ers”. The

“99%” search query is meant, as will expanded on in the results

section, to gauge to what extent different news mediums embraced

Occupy as being representative of the broad American public.

Specific search queries are listed in the Appendices Section.

Limitations – The largest limitation to the data used in this

thesis is that the methodology does not examine the

organizational structure of Occupy Wall Street’s media

Walker-Craig 42

efforts.13Meaning, my data cannot analyze the extent to which

changes in Occupy’s media outreach efforts may have altered the

reporting of Occupy Wall Street. One could argue, then, that it

is hard to tell to what extent the change in media coverage is

due to the change in the organizational structure of OWS as

opposed to the change in the decision making processes of the

media. Similarly, one could point to increased media coverage

primarily as a result of an increase in the movement itself.

Though both critiques are valid, there are two points of

interest that weaken the significance of these limitations that

will be discussed in greater detail in the findings section. In

terms of mainstream media coverage, one can point to the fact

that almost all forms of media had their first report of Occupy

Wall Street on the day of or the day before the initial rally (on

September 17th). While a series of newsworthy events occurred

after September 17th, there was an absence of mainstream media

stories. Similarly, one can point to the momentous “Brooklyn

Bridge protest” (over 700 arrests) that occurred on October 1st

that was not reported on until October 3rd. Both instances

13 http://s17nyc.org/press/ –Information available on Occupy’s media team.

Walker-Craig 43

indicate a change in the decision making process of newsworthy

events that is not entirely related to the growth of Occupy Wall

Street nor changes in Occupy’s media efforts.

It is also important to recognize my own bias in my data

analysis and collection. Since I was exposed to Occupy Wall

Street via Democracy Now! and social media outlets, there is no

doubt that this influenced my selection of Democracy Now! as a

media outlet, my perceptions of mainstream/alternative media

narratives, and my opinions of Occupy Wall Street. However, since

I took systematic approaches of analysis by examining the

articles per day, analyzing a spectrum of media outlets, and

using a thorough search query, such biases can be assumed to not

significantly alter my findings.

Walker-Craig 44

I.Historical Overview of Occupy Wall Street

In order to contextualize Occupy Wall Street’s media

coverage, this chapter provides a basic history of the

significant events that occurred within the first five weeks of

Occupy Wall Street. This chapter is meant to not only present

Occupy’s history, but also highlight some of Occupy’s rhetoric

and demands. Following the written summary of Occupy Wall Street

is a table that highlights key events14.

The beginning of Occupy Wall Street can be traced to June

9th, when Kalle Lasn from Canadian anti-consumerist organization

14 It is important to note the numerous newsworthy events that occurred beforeOctober 3rd, when there is a lack of mainstream media coverage. Further, this is not meant to be a comprehensive timeline of Occupy events, but rather only those that are significant to the findings of this thesis. A more detailed timeline is in the Appendices Section.

Walker-Craig 45

Adbusters registered the website www.OccupyWallSt.org. Occupy Wall

Street first became public on July 13th, when Adbusters posted

their first call to action on their website. A section of the

call to action post is below, followed by one of their pre-Occupy

promotional materials, Figure 1.1:

Alright you 90,000 redeemers, rebels and radicals out there:

A worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right

now that bodes well for the future ... The time has come to

deploy this emerging stratagem against the greatest

corrupter of our democracy: Wall Street, the financial

Gomorrah of America. On September 17, we want to see 20,000

people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens,

peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.

Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in

a plurality of voices.

Figure 1.1 – Pre-Occupy Promotional

Material

Walker-Craig 46

A month following Occupy Wall Street’s first public announcement

on Adbusters, influential Internet activist group “Anonymous”

endorsed Occupy Wall Street and uploaded a video calling for its

audience to occupy Wall Street on September 17th.

September 17th, 2011 marked the first day of Occupy Wall

Street. An estimated 1,000 to 2,000 protestors occupied Zuccotti

Park (renamed Liberty Square by protestors) in New York City’s

Wall Street financial district. Within the first week, police

arrested nine protestors, YouTube footage captured moments of

police brutality, Occupy created a non-exhaustive list of

demands, and Occupy spread to San Francisco. Also within the

first week, Occupy received endorsements from Roseanne Barr, Lupe

Fiasco, and Jesse Jackson.

Walker-Craig 47

During week two, Occupy received the support of influential

leftist leaders and celebrities – Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore,

Susan Sarandon, Cornell West – as well as the large NYC local

Transport Workers Union of America (TWU local-100). Also in the

second week, a video of a police officer pepper spraying a

peaceful protestor received more than 1 million views on YouTube.

Occupy also spread to over twenty-five large cities, nationally

and internationally.

Throughout the second week of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy

also began to produce various texts that outlined the core

principles and philosophies of Occupy Wall Street. One document

that gives key insights to Occupy Wall Street is the “Declaration

of the Occupation of New York City.”15 While Occupy’s Declaration

outlines a series of grievances, it roots the problem in the

economic power and influence of corporations. The following

excerpt from the Declaration, for example, claims “no true

democracy is attainable when the process is determined by

economic power”:

15 Available online at: http://www.nycga.net/resources/documents/declaration/

Walker-Craig 48

We write so that all people who feel wronged by the

corporate forces of the world can know that we are your

allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: …

that a democratic government derives its just power from the

people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract

wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true

democracy is attainable when the process is determined by

economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations,

which place profit over people, self-interest over justice,

and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have

peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these

facts be known.

Through Occupy Wall Street’s critiques of corporate influence,

Occupy connected a series of issues that stemmed from such

economic power. For example, Occupy’s “one demand,” contrary to

its name, aired a succession of diverse grievances. While

asserting that various grievances were not a part of an official

list of demands, Occupy’s blog stated that the one demand was a

“rhetorical device” meant to highlight the “democratic process of

Walker-Craig 49

choosing the ‘one demand.’” The “one demand” took the form of the

following, taken from Occupy’s fifth communiqué16:

On September 21st, 2011, the richest 400 Americans owned

more wealth than half of the country's population.

Ending wealth inequality is our one demand.

On September 21st, 2011, roughly one sixth of Americans did

not have work.

Ending joblessness is our one demand.

On September 21st, 2011, roughly fifty million Americans

were without health insurance.

Ending health-profiteering is our one demand.

Such texts highlight the radical nature of Occupy Wall Street.

Indeed, Occupy claimed that even election reforms would “[ignore]

the causes which allowed such a system to happen, ” a “capitalist

political system… based on the existence of have and have nots.”

17

On October 1st, the third week began with one of the most

newsworthy events in the five-week time frame – police arrested

more than 700 protestors on the Brooklyn Bridge. Protestors 16 Available online at: http://occupywallst.org/archive/Sep-22-2011/17 Taken from a post on: http://occupywallst.org/archive/Sep-18-2011/

Walker-Craig 50

claimed that police led them on to the bridge, only to be

arrested by police moments later. Police, however, argued that

they told protestors of the unlawfulness of protesting on the

bridge before they protested on it. On October 5th, there were

somewhere between 10,000 to 20,000 protestors for their

“international day of action,” with the support of thirty-nine

organizations, including the AFL-CIO, other large labor unions,

and MoveOn.Org.

On October 10th, Mayor Bloomberg announced that protestors

would not be arrested if they followed the law. The official OWS

Twitter account interpreted this with the tweet: “Bloomberg Say

We Can Stay Indefinitely! Big Win!” On October 13th, however,

Bloomberg told Occupiers that they must vacate Zuccotti Park for

cleaning and the NYPD declared that sleeping equipment cannot

stay in Zuccotti Park. On October 14th, however, the company that

owns Zuccotti Park, Brookfield Office Properties, postponed the

cleaning of Zuccotti Park, leaving protestors to remain until

November 15th, 2011. During this time, the Occupy movement spread

across the globe, with more than 1,500 cities participating in

the international event, the “Global Day of Rage” on October

Walker-Craig 51

15th. The Global Day of Rage gathered 10,000 protestors to occupy

Times Square on the 15th and 16th. Throughout these weeks,

countless other protests, arrests, and other events occurred.

Table 1.2 outlines the key events presented:

Table 1.2 – Timetable of Significant Events

Date (2011)

Event(s)

7/13 • Adbusters first makes Occupy Wall Street by a post on their websitecalling audiences to occupy Wall Street on September 17th, 2011

9/17 • The first day of OWS. An estimated 1,000 protestors are present.

9/24 • 80 protestors are arrested during a march• YouTube video goes viral (+1 million views) of police officer pepper spraying a young female protestor, portrayed as non-violent protestor.

9/26-9/28

• Endorsements of OWS by Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Cornell West, and firstofficial support of large union –Transport Workers Union (TWU Local-100).

10/1 • OWS protests on the Brooklyn Bridge, where 700 are arrested.

10/5 • 10,000 to 20,000 people march for the “international day of action,” bringing at least 39

Walker-Craig 52

organizations, with some of NYC’slargest labor unions and MoveOn.Org.

10/10 • Protestors interpret Bloomberg’s statement with the following tweet: “Bloomberg said we can stay indefinitely! Big win!”

10/15 • “Day of International Rage” – more than 1,500 cities participate, tens of thousands inNew York occupy Times Square.

Walker-Craig 53

II.

Reporting and Underreporting of Occupy Wall Street: QuantitativeAnalyses of Articles, Broadcasts, Tweets, and YouTube Videos Per

Day of Occupy Wall Street

To understand the role of multiple forms of media in

contributing to or challenging the Occupy movement, it is

essential to examine the extent to which media discussed Occupy

Wall Street. As Gamson and Wolfsfeld argue, social movements need

the media to disseminate the message to mobilize viewers onto the

streets. However, Gamson and Wolfsfeld also highlight that the

mainstream media may not cover social movements since they

represent only one potential story among countless others. Though

theories of the mainstream media are still crucial to

understanding social movements, such research fails to consider

the role of newer forms of influential media.

To examine the influence of not only mainstream media in

shaping Occupy, but also alternative and user-generated media,

Walker-Craig 54

this chapter analyzes the amount of broadcasts, articles, Tweets,

and YouTube videos regarding Occupy Wall Street in Occupy’s first

five weeks. The data indicate that during Occupy’s first two

weeks, while there was little to no media coverage from the

mainstream media and conservative alternative media, there was

consistently increasing media coverage in progressive alternative

media and user-generated media. Given that coverage of Occupy in

progressive alternative media and user-generated media coincided

with the growth of Occupy Wall Street, these findings challenge

Gamson and Wolfsfeld’s work that posits the mainstream media are

the only media source capable of mobilizing a nationwide

movement. This chapter starts with findings that overview media

trends, followed by an individual analysis of each news medium.

After media coverage findings, a small section summarizes media

trends with Occupy events, followed by an analysis of the

findings presented.

Findings of Overall Media Trends

Overall, media coverage of Occupy Wall Street started to

increase after October 1st (the beginning of Occupy’s third week),

or the date of the Brooklyn Bridge protest. Though the earliest

Walker-Craig 55

media started to cover Occupy Wall Street before October 1st,

other media did not have a significant amount of coverage until

October 3rd. Although peak coverage time varied for each news

medium, most fell from the beginning of the third week to the end

of the fourth week. With the exception of Twitter and The

Huffington Post, October 10th or October 11th represented the date of

the maximum number of articles or broadcasts within the observed

timeframe. Below, Graph 2.1 shows these trends across all media

from September 15th – October 23rd:

Walker-Craig 56

Graph 2.1 – Percentage (%) of Occupy Related Media per Day (Occupy Related Media Divided by Average DailyMedia)18, 9/15/11 – 10/23/11

9/14/07

9/17/07

9/20/07

9/23/07

9/26/07

9/29/07

10/2/07

10/5/07

10/8/07

10/11/07

10/14/07

10/17/07

10/20/07

0

50

100

150

200

250

300FOX

CNN

MSNBC

Newsmax.com

Date

Percen

tage

(%) o

f Oc

cupy

Rel

ated

Medi

a pe

r Da

y (O

ccup

y Re

late

d Me

dia Di

vide

d by

Avera

ge D

aily

Medi

a)

18 See methodology for explanation of Occupy articles, etc. per day and percentage of overall articles. Average tweets, articles, and video uploads per day could not be determined for Twitter, The Huffington Post, and YouTube. To show the trends of Twitter, The Huffington Post, and YouTube, 100% is defined as 100% of the maximum number of Occupy related media in this five-week period.

Walker-Craig 57

Walker-Craig 58

The first news organizations that started to cover Occupy Wall

Street were Democracy Now!, The Huffington Post, and Twitter. Those

latest to dedicate consistent coverage of Occupy Wall Street were

Fox News, Newsmax, and The American Spectator. The media that were

between the first and last to have increasing media coverage of

Occupy were MSNBC, CNN, and YouTube. Graph 2.2 isolates September

15th – September 30th, the first two weeks of Occupy Wall Street,

given that I distinguish which media were the first and last to

dedicate consistent coverage of Occupy largely on the coverage

within Occupy’s first two weeks:

Walker-Craig 59

Walker-Craig 60

Graph 2.2 – Percentage (%) of Occupy related media per day (Occupy related media divided by average dailymedia), 9/15/11 – 9/30/11

9/14/07

9/16/07

9/18/07

9/20/07

9/22/07

9/24/07

9/26/07

9/28/07

05

101520253035404550

FOX

CNN

MSNBC

Newsmax.com

Date

Perc

enta

ge (

%) o

f Occu

py r

elated

me

dia

per

day

(Occup

y rela

ted

medi

a di

vided

by a

vera

ge dai

ly

medi

a)

Walker-Craig 61

To detail the patterns of the data presented in Graph 2.1 and

Graph 2.2, Table 2.1 includes descriptive statistics of all news

mediums examined. This table not only further highlights who

were among the first and last to have consistent increasing media

coverage, but also shows the date of the maximum articles or

broadcast in the five-week time period:

Table 2.1 – Descriptive Statistics of Media Coverage of Occupy Wall Street

Walker-Craig 62

Walker-Craig

News Source Date of Increasing Coverage

Period of Peak Coverage

Date of Maximum Articles/Broadcasts/Tweets/Videos

Democracy Now! 9/28 (slope = 1.5)

10/5 – 10/17 10/11 (253% of avg. articles per day)

The Huffington

Post

9/28 (slope

= 1.17)

10/10 –

10/14

10/13

Twitter 9/28 (slope

= 3.5)

N/A 10/15

MSNBC 9/30 (.625) 10/6 – 10/17 10/11 (86% of avg. broadcasts per day)

YouTube 10/1 (slope

= 189)

10/1 – 10/11 10/11

CNN 10/2 (slope

= 1.75)

10/5 – 10/11 10/8 and 10/10 (64% of avg. broadcasts per day)

Fox News 10/3 (slope

= 1)

10/10

– 10/14

10/10 (47% of avg. broadcasts per day)

Newsmax 10/3 (slope

= .875)

10/10

– 10/19

10/10 (29% of avg. articles per day)

The American Spectator

10/6 (slope

= .6)

10/7 – 10/17 10/11 (80% of avg. articles per day)

63

In sum, the data regarding the media coverage of Occupy Wall

Street of the nine media analyzed indicate that progressive

alternative media and user-generated media began to have

consistently increasing media coverage of Occupy within the first

two weeks of Occupy. Conversely, mainstream media and

conservative alternative media began to increase in media

coverage during Occupy’s third week (after October 1st). To

further detail the data, the next section provides an individual

analysis of all news mediums.

Individual Findings of News Mediums

In order to provide a thorough analysis of the reporting of

Occupy Wall Street, this section details the quantitative changes

in reporting for every news medium. Detailed analyses highlight

that Democracy Now!, Twitter, and The Huffington Post were the first

news mediums to have increasing media coverage of Occupy Wall

Street, while the other media began consistently covering Occupy

on or after October 1st. The section starts with mainstream

media, is followed by alternative media, and ends with user-

generated media.

Walker-Craig 64

Fox News – Fox reported on Occupy Wall Street on September 16th,

the day before the initial protest. However, during the first

week of Occupy Wall Street, there were no other broadcasts.

Later, in the second week and beginning of the third week, there

was little media coverage, totaling with three broadcasts on two

days (9/26 and 9/30). Media coverage only started to increase on

October 3rd, two days after the Brooklyn Bridge protest. From

October 10th to October 14th, media coverage peaked with a total

of thirty-four broadcasts in this five-day timeframe. In

particular, the maximum number of broadcasts per day was on

October 10th. Coverage started to decrease after October 17th.

Graph 2.3 illustrates these trends within the five week period

for Fox News:

Graph 2.3 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, Fox News, 9/15 – 10/23

Walker-Craig 65

9/14/07

9/17/07

9/20/07

9/23/07

9/26/07

9/29/07

10/2/07

10/5/07

10/8/07

10/11/07

10/14/07

10/17/07

10/20/07

02468101214161820

Fox News Broadcasts on Occupy Wall Street

Date

Numb

er of

Broadcas

t

CNN: CNN first broadcasted Occupy Wall Street on September 17th.

While there were a small number of broadcasts during the first

two weeks of Occupy, the media coverage began to increase on

October 2nd, as Graph 2.4 demonstrates. The peak coverage of

Occupy Wall Street was between October 5th and October 11th, with

the max number of broadcasts on October 8th and October 10th. The

coverage started to decrease on October 14th:

Graph 2.4 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, CNN, 9/17 – 10/23

Walker-Craig 66

9/16/07

9/19/07

9/22/07

9/25/07

9/28/07

10/1/07

10/4/07

10/7/07

10/10/07

10/13/07

10/16/07

10/19/07

10/22/07

0

5

10

15

20

25

CNN Broadcasts on Occupy Wall Street

Date

Broa

dcas

ts

MSNBC: In the first two weeks of Occupy Wall Street, MSNBC had

three broadcasts related to Occupy Wall Street. While coverage

generally began to increase on September 29th, given that there

were only three broadcasts during the first two weeks, MSNBC is

not considered to be one of the first media sources to give

consistently increasing coverage of Occupy Wall Street.19 Peak

coverage time was somewhat before and after the third week of

Occupy Wall Street, from October 6th to October 17th. Coverage

started to decrease after the 17th. Graph 2.5 highlights these

changes:

Graph 2.5 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, MSNBC, 9/17 – 10/2320

19 As noted in the methods section, trends in MSNBC are less definite given that there are fewer total broadcasts. 20 Note that there were no broadcasts (not just on Occupy, but in general) on weekends. See methods section for more information.

Walker-Craig 67

9/16/07

9/19/07

9/22/07

9/25/07

9/28/07

10/1/07

10/4/07

10/7/07

10/10/07

10/13/07

10/16/07

10/19/07

10/22/07

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8 MSNBC Broadcasts on Occupy Wall StreetMSNBC Average Broadcast Per Day

Date

Broa

dcas

ts

Democracy Now!: Democracy Now! started reporting on September 16th,

one day before Occupy Wall Street started. While there was

significant coverage of Occupy Wall Street from the start, there

was a steady increase of coverage starting September 28th21. The

max number of articles and broadcasts fell on October 11th, with

seventeen articles/broadcasts for that day – a considerable

number considering Democracy Now! averages around seven

21 It is important to note that, while Democracy Now! increased in media coverage roughly when other news outlets did, the meaning of the increase is different. While with most outlets an increase represents going from little/nocoverage to a significant amount of coverage, with Democracy Now!, the increaserepresents going from significant coverage to going close to their full capacity to report on Occupy Wall Street. Considering that Democracy Now! is a smaller news organization than mainstream media, days in which the broadcasts/articles reached over ten is especially noteworthy.

Walker-Craig 68

articles/broadcasts a day. Though coverage started decreasing

after the 11th, as Graph 2.6 illustrates, there was considerable

coverage afterwards, with some days receiving as much as five

articles/broadcasts per day (October 17th and 19th):

Graph 2.6 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, Democracy Now!, 9/17 – 10/2322

9/15/07

9/18/07

9/21/07

9/24/07

9/27/07

9/30/07

10/3/07

10/6/07

10/9/07

10/12/07

10/15/07

10/18/07

10/21/07

024681012141618

Democracy Now! Broadcasts on Occupy Wall Street

Date

Broadcasts/Articles

The Huffington Post: The Huffington Post had its first article on

September 15th. There was intermittent coverage during the first

week of Occupy (four articles in total). Overall, The Huffington

Post had twenty-five articles on Occupy Wall Street in its first

two weeks. Although there was at least one article per day on

Occupy Wall Street starting on September 23rd, there was not an

22 Note that there were no broadcasts (not just on Occupy, but in general) on weekends. See methods section for more information.

Walker-Craig 69

overall increase of media coverage until September 28th. Media

coverage peaked between October 10th and October 14th, with a

total of 122 posts, accounting for nearly one-third (31.7%) of

the all of The Huffington Post's articles. As Graph 2.5 shows,

unlike most news media, there was steady coverage after October

17th:

Graph 2.7 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, The Huffington Post, 9/15 – 10/23

9/14/0

7

9/17/0

7

9/20/0

7

9/23/0

7

9/26/0

7

9/29/0

7

10/2/0

7

10/5/0

7

10/8/0

7

10/11/

07

10/14/

07

10/17/

07

10/20/

070

5

10

15

20

25

30

35The Huffington Post

Date

Arti

cles

Newsmax: Although Newxmax’s first article was on September 17th,

as shown in Graph 2.8, Newsmax did not report on Occupy Wall

Street again until October 3rd. Starting October 3rd, there was a

Walker-Craig 70

steady increase of media coverage. Newsmax peaked in media

coverage on October 10th, with a total of ten articles. Unlike

most of the media sources analyzed, coverage remained steady

after the 10th, with nine articles on the 14th, the 18th, and the

19th. After the 19th, coverage starts to decrease with a total of

eleven articles in the last four days analyzed:

Graph 2.8 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, Newsmax, 9/16 – 10/23

9/15/07

9/18/07

9/21/07

9/24/07

9/27/07

9/30/07

10/3/07

10/6/07

10/9/07

10/12/07

10/15/07

10/18/07

10/21/07

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40Newsmax Articles on Occupy Wall Street

Newsmax Average Articles Per Day

Date

Arti

cles

The American Spectator: With the smallest number of total articles

(thirty-nine), the trends in The American Spectator are less

definitive. Though the first article about Occupy Wall Street was

Walker-Craig 71

on September 19th, there was not an increase in coverage until

October 6th. The max number of articles was on October 11th, with

six articles that day. The peak coverage time was around October

7th to October 17th, though there were considerable abeyances in

this timeframe. Media coverage started to decrease on October

17th. Graph 2.9 highlights these variations in The American

Spectator’s media coverage:

Graph 2.9 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, The American Spectator 9/17 –

10/23

Walker-Craig 72

9/16/07

9/19/07

9/22/07

9/25/07

9/28/07

10/1/07

10/4/07

10/7/07

10/10/07

10/13/07

10/16/07

10/19/07

10/22/07

012345678 American

Spectator Articles on Occupy Wall StreetAverage American Spectator Articles Per Day

Date

Articles

Twitter: The Twitter activity had an irregular, wave-like pattern.

Overall, twitter activity increased on September 28th. While the

patterns are too irregular to identify a time period of peak

coverage, the max number of tweets was on October 15th, with a

total of 45,000 tweets. After the 15th, the number of tweets per

day steadily decreases. Finally, the twitter activity analyzed

examined the number of tweets per day for both #occupywallstreet

and #ows. Though for almost three weeks, the number of tweets per

day was significantly higher for #occupywallstreet, on October

8th, there were more tweets per day for #ows and thereafter23, as

shown by Graph 2.10: 23 The analysis section discusses the switch in popularity from #occupywallstreet to #ows in detail.

Walker-Craig 73

Graph 2.10 – Twitter, 9/17 – 10/23 (Source: Topsy Pro Analytics)

YouTube: Within the first two weeks, there were consistently

around 500 YouTube videos per day. On October 1st, however, over

6,000 videos were uploaded. For the following nine days, there

was a steady decrease in videos per day, until the number spiked

Walker-Craig 74

again to 56,900 videos on October 10th. The 11th represents the

max number of videos, with more than 66,000 videos that day. The

number of videos started to decrease on October 17th. Below are

two graphs – Graph 2.11 shows YouTube uploads today from

September 17th to October 23rd and Graph 2.12 also shows overall

YouTube uploads, but excludes the dates with the two highest

uploads to emphasize trends before and after these dates:

Graph 2.11 – YouTube uploads, September 17th to October 23rd.

9/16/07

9/19/07

9/22/07

9/25/07

9/28/07

10/1/07

10/4/07

10/7/07

10/10/07

10/13/07

10/16/07

10/19/07

10/22/07

010000200003000040000500006000070000

YouTube

Date

Video Uploads

Walker-Craig 75

Graph 2.12 – YouTube uploads, 9/17–10/23 (maximum dates excluded)

9/16/07

9/19/07

9/22/07

9/25/07

9/28/07

10/1/07

10/4/07

10/7/07

10/10/07

10/13/07

10/16/07

10/19/07

10/22/07

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

YouTube (without maximum dates)

Dates

Video Uploads

Summary of Media Coverage with Occupy Events

To better orient the media coverage and the history of

Occupy Wall Street, Table 2.2

pairs the media coverage of Occupy Wall Street with related

Occupy Wall Street events:

Walker-Craig 76

Walker-Craig

Date Occupy Wall Street Related Event

Media Coverage

9/16 – 9/19 • All mediums, except MSNBC, had reports before or closely after the first day of OccupyWall Street.

9/17 • 1st day of OWS.9/24 – 9/30 • Police arrest 80

protestors.• Endorsements of OWS by Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Cornell West, Transport Workers Union (TWU Local-100).

• Democracy Now!, Twitter, and The Huffington Post dedicate consistently increasing coverage. Little orno coverage from other media.

10/1 • Brooklyn Bridge protest – 700+ arrests.

• Sharp increase inTwitter and YouTube. MSNBC and CNN increase significantly shortly thereafter.

10/3 – 10/6 • Newsmax, Fox News, and The American Spectator began to have increasing coverage.

10/5 • 10,000 to 20,000 people and 39 organizations marched for the “international day of action.”

• Increase in Twitter.

10/10 – 10/11 • Protestors interpreted Bloomberg’s statement with the following tweet: “Bloomberg said we can stay indefinitely! Big win!”

• Peak coverage across all media (except Twitter).

10/15 • 1,500 cities participated in the

• Peak coverage forTwitter.

77

Table 2.2 – Timetable of Media Coverage Trends and Occupy Events

Analysis of Quantitative Findings of Media Coverage

Media Attention Cycles – Although there were significant

differences in the time period in which news organizations began

to increase their coverage of Occupy Wall Street, there were a

number of similar trends between nearly all news mediums. All

news mediums, for example, increased in coverage from October 5th

to October 12th. Additionally, with the exceptions of Twitter and

The Huffington Post, all news mediums’ day of maximum coverage was

October 10th and 11th, the day when Occupy interpreted Bloomberg’s

statements as permission to occupy Wall Street indefinitely.

While the perceived indefinite stay of protestors was certainly

newsworthy, it seems odd that this represented the period of peak

coverage for most news mediums. Indeed, it seems coverage on

October 15th, the day that over 1,500 cities participated in the

“Global Day of Rage” and when 10,000 protestors occupied Times

Square for two days, would garner comparable media attention.

Walker-Craig 78

These shared media patterns suggest that Occupy’s media

coverage was a one-week media attention cycle (McCarthy and

McPhail, 1996) from October 3rd to October 10th. After this media

attention cycle, Occupy became less of a media priority after its

third week, despite notable events like the Global Day of Rage on

October 15th. This is particularly true for the mainstream media

(and The American Spectator) given that there was a clear decline of

media coverage in the last week of the five-week time frame.

While media attention cycles are well established in

mainstream media literature, alternative media studies have yet

to apply this concept to alternative media sources. Applying the

concept of media attention cycles is significant for two reasons.

First, if alternative media is subject to media attention cycles,

this would challenge notions that alternative media exists as an

entity independent from the mainstream media, thus suggesting

that alternative media is, to some extent, limited in its media

portrayal. Second, the existence of media attention cycles in

alternative media may imply a certain relationship between

alternative media and mainstream media. Given similar

fluctuations of media coverage, alternative media is, again, not

Walker-Craig 79

entirely independent from the mainstream media. Instead, this may

highlight the need for alternative media to dispute relevant

topics covered in the mainstream with their own analysis. With

such analyses in alternative media, its viewers are well equipped

to contest the mainstream narratives they may encounter.

Twitter as Empirical News Measure – In contrast to all other sources

of media, the increases and decreases of Twitter directly

corresponded to the events of the Occupy movement. Not only did

#occupywallstreet and #ows peak in exposure on the 15th, during

the Global Day of Rage, but the smaller peaks on September 24th,

October 1st, and October 5th correspond to Occupy’s first protest

with mass arrests on the 24th, the Brooklyn Bridge 700 person

arrest on the 1st, and the International Day of Action on the 5th.

The matching of Twitter trends with Occupy events then

legitimizes contemporary discourse claims of Twitter offering a

real-time measure of world events.

Twitter and Public Awareness – As the data show, on October 8th,

#ows gained more exposure than #occupywallstreet. Since OWS is

not a recognizable acronym to someone unfamiliar with Occupy Wall

Street, this switch from #ows to #occupywallstreet represents a

Walker-Craig 80

marker in the public awareness of Occupy Wall Street. In other

words, the predominance of #ows over #occupywallstreet meant that

on October 8th, the public, or more appropriately, the

“Twitterverse24,” had reached a point of familiarity with Occupy

Wall Street to recognize the letters OWS. While this represents

an interesting time reference for Occupy Wall Street, more

importantly, for social scientists, this indicates that Twitter

may be used as a tool to gauge public interest and awareness.

Underreporting in Mainstream and Conservative Alternative Media – When

looking at the events that occurred within the first two weeks of

Occupy Wall Street, it is clear that there were numerous

newsworthy events, from having as many as 2,000 protestors, to

having 80 arrests, to having support from well-known activist and

scholars such as Cornel West, Susan Sarandon, and Noam Chomsky.

Despite these noteworthy events, there was little to no reporting

from the mainstream media and the conservative alternative media.

The underreporting was not due to lack of knowledge: all news

mediums (except MSNBC) had a report before, or closely after, the

24 From Oxford Dictionary: Another term for TWITTERSPHERE: postings made on the social media website Twitter, considered collectively:the Twittersphere was abuzz when the story first broke

Walker-Craig 81

first day of Occupy Wall Street. Instead, this lack of coverage

of Occupy events suggests a bias in the mainstream and

conservative alternative media.

In addition to the underreporting of Occupy Wall Street

within the first two weeks, there is further quantitative

evidence in the mainstream coverage of Occupy Wall Street that

points to a bias to underreport Occupy events. Although the media

seems to have increased in coverage in response to mass arrests

during the Brooklyn Bridge protest, mainstream/conservative

alternative media coverage did not start to increase until,

overall, two day after the Brooklyn Bridge protest. While this

may seem like a short delay for the mainstream media, this is

significant given its capacity for same-day coverage of events.

In terms of existing social movement and media literature,

the claim that mainstream media would have a bias against Occupy

Wall Street is not unusual. There is a wealth of studies that

argue that any anti-corporate organization or event is likely to

be framed negatively or underreported due to the corporate

influence on the mainstream media. Considering that Occupy is

sometimes referred to as an “anti-corporate” movement, the

Walker-Craig 82

underreporting of Occupy Wall Street is consistent with such

research.

Although the mainstream media underreported Occupy Wall

Street in its first two weeks, Occupy managed to spread to over

twenty-five cities across the world while gaining support from

unions and notable activists. The history of Occupy’s growth and

its mainstream media coverage then challenge Gamson and

Wolfsfeld’s research that hypothesizes that the mainstream media

is indispensible for social movements. But why does Occupy

represent an exception to one of the most established theories of

social movements and the media? Given that there was significant

coverage in progressive alternative media and user-generated

media, the data indicate that newer forms of media may have

contributed to growth of the Occupy movement. To not merely

examine the extent to which progressive and user-generated media

covered Occupy Wall Street, but how progressive alternative media

and user-generated media facilitated the growth of Occupy Wall

Street, the next chapter analyzes the role of progressive

alternative media and user-generated media in the growth of

Occupy Wall Street.

Walker-Craig 83

III.

New Media and Power Dependency Theory: The Role ofProgressive Alternative Media and User-Generated Media in the

Growth of Occupy Wall Street

Gamson and Wolfsfeld’s power dependency theory of media and

social movements suggests that the mainstream media is

“indispensable” for the mobilization and validation of social

movements: they need the mass media to reach potential

constituents, to enter into public discourse, and to demonstrate

to the general public that the social movement matters. Gamson

and Wolfsfeld argue that alternative media outlets are not

capable of reaching the mass public in a way that accomplishes

Walker-Craig 84

these goals. And yet the growth of the Occupy movement in the two

weeks before mainstream media began covering the movement

challenges this view. Occupy Wall Street was able to gather

thousands of protesters in what turned into a high-risk

demonstration without the benefit of any widespread mainstream

media coverage. What it did have during this time was significant

coverage in alternative and user-generated media. What role,

then, did alternative media play in facilitating the growth of

Occupy Wall Street? This chapter argues that alternative and

user-generated media provided Occupy Wall Street with the three

facets Gamson and Wolfsfeld argue the mainstream media can only

provide: mobilization, validation, and scope enlargement.

Gamson and Wolfsfeld argue that social movements need

mainstream media to mobilize people from their living rooms and

into the street. With the unique tools from the howtoocuppy.org

website, however, this form of user-generated media may have

mobilized protestors by means outside the mainstream media.

According to the howtooccupy.org website (which the main

occupywallstreet.org links to on the home page), its purpose is

to “promote[] and spread[] the methods, techniques, and knowledge

Walker-Craig 85

about peaceful occupation of public spaces while developing

sustainable ways of living based on participatory democracy.” As

the tabs on Figure 2.1 show, #HowToOccupy users have access to a

range of practical organizing information – from legal

information, to civil-disobedience tactics, conducting General

Assemblies, camping in public spaces, and dealing with police:

Figure 3.1 – #HowToOccupy homepage, with tabs on the bottom that provide

organizing tools

To highlight the specificity of the tools available on

#HowToOccupy, below Figure 2.2 and Figure 2.3 give examples of

the resources provided by #HowToOccupy. Figure 2.2, for example,

Walker-Craig 86

is a map of the occupation of Wall Street, showing the locations

of vital areas such as medical areas and the kitchen. Figure 2.3

presents a police forum on #HowToOccupy, with information such as

what to do in case of detention or question of police, how to

effectively use cell phone technology during peaceful assemblies,

and the European Code of Police Ethics:

Figure 3.2, Map of the occupation of Zuccotti Park

Walker-Craig 87

Figure 3.3, Discussion Threads on “Police” Forum on #HowToOccupy

When considering that Occupy spread to over 1,500 cities, it

is reasonable to see how clear guidelines made it possible to

facilitate such growth. With user-generated media providing such

key resources, interested residents with less organizing

experience could more effectively “occupy” their cities. The fact

that such tools existed before Occupy Wall Street’s mainstream

media coverage then suggests that user-generated media played a

crucial role in the growth of Occupy Wall Street.

Walker-Craig 88

Another aspect of Gamson and Wolfsfeld’s power dependency

theory posits that social movements need validation from the

mainstream media; by publicizing a social movement, the

mainstream media, to some extent, legitimizes the movement as an

issue that deserves public attention. For those connected to

alternative and user-generated outlets, Occupy may have been

validated in its first two weeks despite the lack of mainstream

media reporting. Upon hearing or reading coverage of Occupy Wall

Street through alternative and user-generated media, audiences

may have not only been aware of Occupy, but also its presence in

several locations outside of Manhattan. Those connected to the

Occupy Wall Street blog, for example, would have received daily

updates regarding the continued growth and spread of Occupy

throughout the world. Just one week after the first day of Occupy

Wall Street, for example, Occupy blog readers would have read

this update25 detailing the progress of the global Occupy

movement:

We are here. We are growing. And we will not be moved. We

stand in solidarity with Madrid, San Francisco, Los Angeles,

25 Retrieved at: http://occupywallst.org/archive/Sep-24-2011/

Walker-Craig 89

Madison, Toronto, London, Athens, Sydney, Stuttgart, Tokyo,

Milan, Amsterdam, Algiers, Tel Aviv, Portland, Chicago and

Palestine. Soon we will stand with Phoenix, Montreal,

Cleveland, Atlanta, Kansas City, Dallas, Orlando and Miami.

We're still here. We are growing. We intend to stay until we

see movements toward real change in our country and the

world

While there was a lack of mainstream media coverage, excerpts

like these give a sense of energy and momentum to the movement,

making it seem important to those aware of Occupy’s growth.

Hence, reading such updates perhaps validated Occupy Wall Street

as a growing international event without mainstream media

coverage.

In addition to validation, Gamson and Wolfsfeld argue that

social movements depend on the mainstream media for scope

enlargement. Through the process of scope enlargement, the media

broaden the scope of the conflict to incorporate third-party

players into the conflict, changing the power dynamics between

social movements and their targets (116). One of Occupy’s

defining qualities is its breadth of the scope of “the” problem

Walker-Craig 90

that they sought to address. From poverty, to healthcare, to

American imperialism, Occupy’s rhetoric connected a span of

grievances to the “corrosive power of major banks and

multinational corporations over the democratic process26.”

Whether it was the participation of national unions, prominent

activists, or community-based organization, the breadth of

Occupy’s grievances was to crucial the countless number of so-

called third party actors that participated in Occupy Wall

Street.

Alternative and user-generated media were like key to

Occupy’s impressive scope enlargement. Though Occupy’s broad,

radical commentary was later simplified or critiqued in the

mainstream media27, through Occupy’s own user-generated media,

they could spread their message independently from the message

translation process that occurred in the mainstream media.

Instead of critiquing or simplifying Occupy’s far-reaching claims

like the mainstream media, progressive alternative media coverage

legitimized the breadth of these claims28, promoting the message

26 http://occupywallst.org/about/ 27, 28 As discussed in further detail in Chapter IV.28

Walker-Craig 91

to a large base of viewers. With such message independence and

alternative media coverage, Occupy’s rhetoric likely more

effectively enlarged the scope of conflict while connecting to a

variety of organizations.

Alternative and user-generated media likely had a key role

in contributing to the development of Occupy Wall Street as a

global movement. By providing organizing tools on the

howtooccupy.org website, readers had a wealth of resources from

which to mobilize their communities in creating a new “occupied”

public space. Further, Occupy was validated as a growing social

movement for those connected to alternative and user-generated

media covering Occupy Wall Street events. Finally, user-generated

media and alternative media promoted Occupy’s broad critiques of

the American political and economic institution, enlarging the

scope of conflict.

While understanding the role of alternative and user-

generated media is important for understanding the construction

of Occupy Wall Street as a social movement, the power of

alternative media also challenges notions regarding the imbalance

of power between social movements and the mainstream media.

Walker-Craig 92

Although there was a lack of coverage in the mainstream media,

Occupy was able to not only sustain itself for two weeks, but was

also able to mobilize thousands of protestors to participate in

the event that would catalyze mainstream media coverage of Occupy

Wall Street and galvanize it as a movement – the Brooklyn Bridge

protest on October 1st.

And though Occupy Wall Street challenges the work of Gamson

and Wolfsfeld, this does not mean that the imbalance of power

does not exist or that the mainstream media did not contribute to

understandings of Occupy Wall Street. Indeed, as indicated by Pew

polls, it was not until weeks of mainstream media coverage that

nearly all Americans knew of Occupy Wall Street. Given the tie

between Occupy’s mainstream media coverage and the public

awareness of the movement, the next chapter details how various

forms of media shaped Occupy Wall Street.

Walker-Craig 93

IV.New Movements: Media Portrayals of Occupy Wall Street

Given that quantitative data in the second chapter indicate

that the mainstream media eventually provided consistent coverage

Walker-Craig 94

of Occupy Wall Street, in order to gain a richer understanding of

the Occupy movement’s media coverage, research must not only ask

if the media covered Occupy Wall Street, but also how the media

covered Occupy. By analyzing the media portrayals of Occupy Wall

Street, this chapter analyzes not only how different media

portrayals shaped the public perception and support of Occupy

Wall Street, but also the extent to which Occupy’s media coverage

aligns with and contributes to social movement and media

research.

This chapter groups media portrayals into six sections. Each

section focuses on one theme that may have shaped the public

understanding, support, and awareness of Occupy Wall Street to

the mass public. The first section details how mainstream

coverage discredited Occupy by portraying the movement as having

incoherent demands and by portraying the protestors as fringe

characters. The second section explores sympathetic media

coverage that portrayed the movement in a deradicalized fashion.

Following the second section, the third section describes how

news coverage that focused on the suspense of Occupy’s rapid

growth and mass arrests distracted mainstream coverage away from

Walker-Craig 95

Occupy’s core grievances. Similarly, the fourth section examines

how mainstream media coverage of the politics between Republicans

and Democrats also distracted the content away from Occupy’s

critiques. Subsequent to the fourth section, the fifth section

focuses on how progressive alternative media and user-generated

media countered mainstream media portrayals. The sixth and final

section observes moments of media coverage that contained moments

that discussed wealth and inequality in the U.S.

1. Bongo Drums, Clowns, and Woodstock: Discrediting Occupy Wall Street

When considering the role that the media had in shaping the

public perception of Occupy Wall Street, research on mainstream

media and social movements would suggest that the mainstream

media would serve as an oppositional force to Occupy. Media

research by authors such as Herman and Chomsky (1988) and

Bagdikian (2004), for example, argue that mainstream media as a

corporate institution bias social movements. In particular, given

that the mainstream media is dependent on corporate funding by

advertisers, the mainstream media underreport or undermine social

movements that challenge corporatism in particular (Steinmen,

Walker-Craig 96

1990). For Occupy Wall Street, a movement dedicated to fighting

“the corrosive power of major banks and multinational

corporations,”29 research on the bias against anti-corporate

movements provide a negative forecast for Occupy’s mainstream

media coverage.

Overall, much coverage of Occupy Wall Street discredited

Occupy as a social movement, reinforcing established theories of

mainstream media bias. Moreover, negative media coverage

undoubtedly contributed to the large percentage of Americans that

did not support the Occupy movement. There were three primary

ways Occupy was discredited in media coverage. First, media

coverage narrated mass arrests of Occupy Wall Street in a way

that placed blame on the protestors while describing them as

chaotic or unlawful. Second, coverage described individual

protestors as fringe characters, calling into question the

representativeness of the movement to the broader public. Third,

by critiquing the broadness of Occupy’s demands, such coverage

discredited Occupy Wall Street as a social movement. Media

narratives that discredited Occupy Wall Street were found in

29 Found on Occupy website: http://occupywallst.org/about/

Walker-Craig 97

conservative mainstream and alternative media and the early

coverage of CNN. These findings align with research that details

the processes by which mainstream media undermine social

movements, whether its by describing arrests as inherently the

fault of the protestor, broad messages as being indecipherable to

mainstream media, or protestors as being fringe characters.

Mainstream media narratives frequently discredited Occupy

Wall Street by blaming Occupiers for mass arrests. For Occupy

Wall Street, narratives around violence arguably were

particularly key to the legitimacy of the movement given its

claim to peaceful protests. Despite Occupy’s claims, conservative

mainstream media, conservative alternative media, and earlier

coverage of CNN framed the arrests in a way that described the

protests as violent or unruly. The segment below by Fox, for

example, highlights various actions of disruption and violence:

The "Occupy Wall Street" protest in Lower Manhattan is now

entering its second week. …And it's not all peaceful

protest. It turned violent over the weekend as protesters

clashed with police (Fox News, 9/26, On the Record with

Greta Van Sustren).

Walker-Craig 98

Like much of conservative media coverage, this segment described

protests as “violent” to describe conflicts, despite protestors’

absence of physical harm towards others. The next quote from

Newsmax not only describes the protests as violent, but also

implies that Occupy Wall Street is inherently violent:

About 200 Occupy Wall Street protesters ran over barriers in

New York's financial district and scuffled with police after

learning that a planned cleanup of Zuccotti Park had been

postponed. Things turned predictably violent with police

chasing protesters and forcing everyone onto sidewalks. One

group flipped a police scooter (Wall Street Protesters

Scuffle With Police – 10/14 Newsmax).

By describing Occupy Wall Street as predictably violent, this

subtlety implies that the instance was likely to occur because of

some intrinsic quality of Occupy Wall Street as a group. Overall,

media narratives that portrayed protests as violent were one of

several ways the media, conservative media primarily,

delegitimized Occupy Wall Street as a social movement.

Another narrative that discredited the Occupy movement

focused on the qualities of individual protestors. For not just

Walker-Craig 99

Occupy’s public perception, but the perception of social

movements in general, media depictions of protestors are crucial

– one clip of unintelligible, extremist protestors can

delegitimize an entire social movement as a fringe movement that

is out of touch with broader societal values. Negative narratives

of individual protestors discredited the Occupy movement by

connecting their narratives of lazy protestors to Occupy’s

critiques of wealth inequality. The quote from Newsmax, for

instance, implies that Occupy protestors simply have not worked

hard enough:

They want more money to be stolen from those that earn it,

to be redistributed to themselves. They are screaming for

their own personal bailout. (Newsmax, 10/10, “Wall St. Mob

Is Partly Right – but Its Solution Is Wrong”).

By claiming that Occupy protestors are attempting to “steal” the

wealth from those who have “earned it,” this Newsmax article

implies that Occupy protestors merely do not work hard enough to

have wealth. In addition to portraying Occupiers as lazy, media

coverage highlighted supposed fringe qualities of protestors.

Walker-Craig 100

This excerpt from CNN in particular demonstrates how media

coverage focused on hippie-like qualities of protestors:

Bongo drums, even a clown. It was sort of a tent city meets

Woodstock kind of feel (CNN, 10/3, Erin Burnett Outfront).

Though short, this excerpt is full with descriptions and imagery

that literally describes Occupiers as clown-like characters. By

comparing Occupy to Woodstock, for example, these hippie-like

descriptions narrate Occupy as an unserious movement out of touch

with mainstream America.

In addition to discrediting the individuals that comprised

Occupy Wall Street, media coverage often critiqued that which is

core to any social movement: its demands. Much of Occupy’s media

coverage discredited Occupy Wall Street as a movement because of

its broad demands. This excerpt from Fox News, for instance,

argues that the demands are too broad to have a “unified

message”:

…There is no unified message. Each person has their own

grievance. Some people are anti-war, some people don't like

Wall Street, some people hate Israel, whatever their flavor

of the month is. And you can't really push anything yet

Walker-Craig 101

again, if you are so disorganized (Fox News, 10/10, Fox

Hannity).

By claiming that Occupy is “so disorganized” so it “can’t really

push anything,” this excerpt from Fox calls into question the

coherency of Occupy’s message and its capacity to effect change.

Similarly, the following excerpt from CNN posits that the

broadness of Occupy’s message makes it “impossible to support”:

I want to be able to dismiss "Occupy Wall Street," and it's

impossible to do that. It's also impossible to support it,

because there's no coherent message that I can find. Is it

against capitalism? Is it against banks? (CNN, 10/7, CNN

Newsroom)

As both of these excerpts from CNN and Fox demonstrate, media

coverage discredited Occupy Wall Street for its broad demands

that the media deemed indecipherable.

Whether they portrayed Occupy as having an incoherent

message, unlawful demonstrations, or unserious protestors,

mainstream and conservative media coverage delegitimized the

movement. Such narratives that discredited Occupy are

particularly important for Occupy given that Occupy claimed to

Walker-Craig 102

not just speak for a large sector of the population, but 99% of

it. Though the excerpts highlighted thus far have indirectly

challenged Occupy’s populist claims, the follow does so

explicitly:

… Anyone who uncritically claims to speak for 99 percent of

the populace is — 99 percent of the time — deluded and

incorrect. Occupy Wall Street is less for the downtrodden

than it is for the bored and self-important…When they say

their voices are not being heard, they are saying their

relevance is vanishing. They think they are 99 percent of

the country when in reality they are closer to 0.99 percent

(The American Spectator, 10/7, “The Importance of Seeming

Earnest”).

The narratives produced from excerpts such as these undoubtedly

played a role in the public perception of Occupy Wall Street.

With many influential media sources filled with descriptions that

discredited both individual protestors and inherent qualities of

Occupy Wall Street, it is understandable why 35%30 of the country

did not support Occupy Wall Street. Hence, coverage from not only

30 According to the Pew Research Center Poll referenced in the introduction.

Walker-Craig 103

mainstream media, but also conservative alternative media, played

a part in the narrative production of unfavorable views of Occupy

Wall Street.

As social movement and media research indicate, Occupy Wall

Street’s coverage was not the first social movement in which the

mainstream media discredited. Given Occupy Wall Street’s anti-

corporate focus, the media coverage of Occupy Wall Street

strengthen social movement and media theories regarding the

inherent bias of the mainstream media as a profit-seeking

institution. Further, given that conservative alternative media

discredited the Occupy movement, alternative media researchers

must consider what other factors contribute to the ways social

movements are discredited besides their corporate status.

Although many Americans did not support Occupy Wall Street,

the majority of Americans did support Occupy Wall Street five

weeks after it began. Does this mean there was positive media

portrayals of the Occupy movement, particularly in the mainstream

media? What does this mean for theories about corporate bias in

the mainstream media? To explore such possibilities, the next

section analyzes positive media portrayals of Occupy Wall Street.

Walker-Craig 104

2. Picking Up Where the Election Campaign Left Off –   Reforming Occupy

In contrast to coverage that discredited Occupy Wall Street,

some media coverage gave sympathetic narratives of Occupy Wall

Street. Much of these narratives, however, deradicalized Occupy

Wall Street. Although deradicalized narratives may have played a

crucial role in the mainstream support of Occupy, what parts of

Occupy’s message were lost in the media translation? While Occupy

had critiques of a “capitalist political system… based on the

existence of have and have nots” and posited that election

reforms alone would “[ignore] the causes which allowed such a

system to happen,”31 some sympathetic narratives of Occupy Wall

Street focused less on radical institutional changes and more on

holding President Obama accountable to his 2008 promises. In some

ways, deradicalized coverage also reinforces theories of the

corporate bias of mainstream media, given notable omissions of

Occupy’s radical corporate critiques. In terms of the public

support of Occupy, then, we must consider whether such support

was aligned with Occupy’s more radical goals or its reformed

media narrative counterpart. 31 Taken from a post on Occupy’s official website, found here: http://occupywallst.org/archive/Sep-18-2011/

Walker-Craig 105

Specifically, the media deradicalized Occupy in three ways.

One, media coverage described protestors with a mainstream

narrative portrayal. Two, deradicalized coverage often supported

Democrats and President Obama. Three, deradicalized narratives

often simplified Occupy’s demands into smaller grievances such as

unemployment or bailouts. These narratives were most commonly

found in MSNBC, but also The Huffington Post.

Sympathetic narratives, instead of discrediting Occupy Wall

Street by describing protestors as odd characters out of touch

with the broader populace, legitimized Occupy protestors.

Sympathetic commentary sometimes even directly challenged

specific comments that discredited Occupy. In particular,

sympathetic portrayals often gave mainstream narratives to

protestors. The following excerpt from MSNBC, for example, not

only directly challenges commentary by Fox analysts Brit Hume and

Dick Morris, but also purports that Occupy protestors are “the

people who supported [Obama] three years ago”:

SCHULTZ: Brit Hume and Dick Morris, they want you to think

the 99 Percent Movement, those folks out on the street, they

are nothing but a bunch of dangerous leftist. Brit Hume

Walker-Craig 106

thinks it is risky for President Obama to support the

protesters… Yeah, those librarians will get you every time.

President Obama is not playing with fire. In fact, he is

dealing with the people who supported him three years ago

(MSNBC, 10/18, The Ed Show)

The excerpt by Ed Schultz, by implying that Occupy protesters

were not “dangerous leftists” but rather “librarians” and

Democrats (“the people that supported [Obama]”), evokes a

mainstreamed portrayal of the protestors. Additionally, by

referring to the Occupy movement as the “99% movement,” this

excerpt portrays a mainstreamed movement that appeals to the vast

majority (99%) of Americans. Overall, as displayed in Table 3.1,

MSNBC in particular used the phrase “the 99%” to describe Occupy

Wall Street more than any other news medium:

Table 4.1 – Search query for “the 99%”News Medium Number of ReferencesMSNBC 92CNN 48Democracy Now! 31The Huffington Post 27The American Spectator 11

Walker-Craig 107

Fox 9Newsmax 4

Such mainstream narratives of protestors, though likely key in

contributing to Occupy Wall Street’s public support, may have

excluded voices that are more underrepresented in mainstream

media coverage than “those librarians… who supported [Obama]

three years ago”. With such mainstream narratives of protestors,

how does this bode for Occupy’s overall message?

Overall, some of Occupy’s sympathetic media coverage focused

on supporting President Obama rather than broader critiques of

the American political system. An article from The Huffington Post,

for example, implies that Occupy Wall Street is less about

rethinking American institutions, but rather holding President

Obama accountable to his election campaign:

Dissatisfaction with President Obama's ability to capitalize

on the progressive energy that helped catapult him into the

White House is clearly on display... Let's face it: OWSM

[OWS message] is simply picking up where the election

campaign left off. (The Huffington Post, 10/10, “Occupy Wall

Street Movement: It’s About the Process, Stupid”).

Walker-Craig 108

By arguing that Occupy was “simply picking up where the election

campaign left off,” this excerpt implies that Occupy still sought

to support those candidates that work within the political

systems Occupy critiqued. While the article from The Huffington Post

implicitly supports President Obama, the following excerpt from

MSNBC clearly narrates Occupy in a way that legitimizes President

Obama and critiques Republicans:

SCHULTZ: Herman Cain and the Republicans, they don’t

understand why Americans are taking to the streets and all

for social and economic justice. President Obama does…It

seems to me President Obama understands why people are angry

in this country and he knows this could have a major impact

on the 2012 election (MSNBC, 10/6, The Ed Show).

Both excerpts from MSNBC and The Huffington Post, by only voicing

support for President Obama, deradicalized Occupy’s commentary

regarding perceived intrinsically flawed institutions in which

Obama takes part.

In addition to containing narratives that reformed Occupy’s

radicalism by supporting President Obama, sympathetic media

narratives deradicalized Occupy by only highlight reform issues.

Walker-Craig 109

This excerpt from MSNBC emphasizes support for increasing taxes

and stopping funding cuts:

KEVIN O`DONNELL, TEACHER: I believe they shouldn’t get

special privilege. The banks, Wall Street, that they deserve

to get taxed. If democracy is supposed to be by the people

and for the people, why do they get these loopholes? And why

do you have to be a millionaire to be a senator?

DENISE JULIAN, LIBRARIAN: I’m a librarian and school

teacher, proud to be one. And they’re cutting libraries all

across the country, especially here in Illinois… (MSNBC,

10/10, The Ed Show)

This excerpt encapsulates how the media translated Occupy Wall

Street’s radical demands to mainstream reforms. Instead of

focusing on a “political system [that] has been beholden to

political machinations of the wealthy well before its

founding,”32 mainstream media coverage focused on tax and

political reforms.

When considering the role the media, and in particular the

mainstream media, played in shaping the public perception of

32 Found on: http://occupywallst.org/archive/Sep-18-2011/page-1/

Walker-Craig 110

Occupy Wall Street, one must bear in mind the extent to which

deradicalized narratives surrounded Occupy. When noting that more

American supported the movement than not, for example, one must

ask: did this majority support come from the majority of

Americans agreeing with Pelosi, Obama, and Schultz’s support of

Occupy Wall Street, or did it come supporting more radical ideas

about representative democracy, capitalism, and systems of

inequality? Not to say that supporting one necessarily excludes

the other, but among Occupy participants, there seemed to be a

celebratory moment when polls indicated majority support for

Occupy, as if 40% of the country had been radicalized. Findings

regarding deradicalized narratives of Occupy Wall Street then

call us to re-conceptualize such support.

Further, deradicalized narratives of the Occupy movement in

some ways reinforce mainstream media theories regarding corporate

bias in the mainstream media. First, although coverage from

sympathetic mainstream media like MSNBC may have legitimized the

movement, it only legitimized those parts that made sense in a

liberal reformist framework. This translation into the mainstream

media strengthens Herman and Chomsky’s claim that “the raw

Walker-Craig 111

material of news must pass through successive filters, leaving

only the cleansed residue fit to print (pp. 36).” According to

Herman and Chomsky, this biases social movements since the

mainstream media “fix the premises of discourse and

interpretation (pp. 36).” Second, having supportive coverage of

Occupy Wall Street arguably makes sense as a business strategy.

Considering the 45% of Americans that identify as Democrats or

Democrat-leaning independents33, supporting a mainstream media

cleansed movement that garnered the support of influential

Democrats would logically attract a large market of liberal

viewers.

Although media coverage may have filtered and deradicalized

demands, sympathetic media coverage at the very least gave some

sort of version of Occupy’s core grievances. But what about media

coverage of Occupy that was entirely unrelated to Occupy’s

message and demands? The next two sections, then, detail media

coverage that was altogether separate from the core aims of

Occupy Wall Street.

33 http://www.gallup.com/poll/151943/record-high-americans-identify-independents.aspx

Walker-Craig 112

3. Occupying a City Near You –   Distracting Occupy through Growth and Arrests

Figure 4.2 – Clip from

CNN, 10/5

As the last chapters highlight, the core argument of

corporate bias in the mainstream media lie in the profit-seeking

nature of the mainstream media. To increase viewership, and

therefore profit, mainstream media tend to cover stories that

serve as entertainment to viewers. Specifically, the mainstream

media tend to dramatize the news in a way that makes the news

more exciting and appealing (Gamson and Meyer, 1996). In

particular, the dramatization of news focuses on elements of

Walker-Craig 113

strife and conflict (Oliver and Myers, 1999). Often, such

dramatization distracts the mainstream media coverage of social

movements from the central issues for which the social movement

advocates (Gamson and Wolfsfeld, 1993). When considering the

public understanding and interest of Occupy Wall Street, one must

consider to what extent dramatized narratives distracted coverage

from Occupy’s fundamental grievances.

Occupy Wall Street had perhaps what was needed for the

perfect story. First, Occupy’s rapid spread across the country

and the globe gave elements of excitement and suspense. Second,

the mass arrests associated with the Occupy movement also

provided elements of tension and conflict. CNN demonstrated the

dramatized narratives of arrests and Occupy’s growth in

particular as this section highlights. Although Occupy’s spread

and mass arrests may have increased the news coverage of Occupy

Wall Street, these elements also saw Occupy as a source of

entertainment rather than one to start a discussion of wealth and

power.

The growth and spread of Occupy to other cities was one

topic that the mainstream media dramatized. While Occupy’s global

Walker-Craig 114

growth certainly deemed news attention, the way the mainstream

media, and CNN in particular, narrated the growth gave an element

of suspense. The excerpt below, for example, questions if the

growth of Occupy is a “tipping point” for the future:

Is this a tipping point? Will the movement continue to grow

from here or might it go on the decline? Was this the

biggest day? (CNN, 10/5, John King).

By asking whether Occupy will grow or whether October 5th was in

fact “the biggest day,” the excerpt from CNN narrates the growth

of Occupy Wall Street more as a cliffhanger than a source of

conversation. As table 4.3 indicates, not only did CNN reference

growth more than any other news medium, but also the mainstream

media on the whole referenced growth more than alternative media:

Walker-Craig 115

Table 4.3 – References to the Growth of Occupy Wall Street News Medium Number of References

to Growth (N)

Percentage (%) of Articles/Broadcasts with References to Growth

CNN 184 91%MSNBC 101 72%Fox 62 54%Mainstream Media

Average

115.67 72.3%

Democracy Now! 61 63%Newsmax 36 43%The Huffington Post 34 39%The American Spectator 4 18%Alternative Media

Average

33.75 40.75%

With 91% of CNN’s broadcasts referencing the growth and spread of

Occupy Wall Street, and 72.3% of the mainstream media’s

broadcasts on average, the data point to Occupy’s growth as a

contributing factor to Occupy as a newsworthy topic. Given that

the mainstream media referenced growth substantially more than

the alternative media (over 30% more), the data also highlight

that discussions of growth were particular to the mainstream

media.

Walker-Craig 116

In addition to dramatizing the growth of Occupy Wall

Street, the mainstream media dramatized Occupy’s mass arrests.

While the mass arrests of Occupy Wall Street undoubtedly deserved

media attention, certain media discussed the arrests as a topic

of speculation rather than conversation. Instead of asking why

such arrests occurred or the motivation of protestors, mainstream

media often dramatized the arrests by questioning whether the

arrests would become larger and violent. The excerpt from CNN,

for example, states, “it’s hard to predict certainly what will

happen at the end of the day”:

PHILLIPS: And last Saturday, you know, Susan, there were 700

arrests alone on the Brooklyn Bridge. What do you think

about today? More peaceful? Could we see the same type of

arrest count?

CANDIOTTI: You know, it’s hard to say. Certainly the

organizers of the protest say they're all about being

peaceful, but they also acknowledge that whenever there are

clashes, they know they're getting more publicity out of it.

So it's hard to predict certainly what will happen by the

end of the day (CNN, 10/5, John King)

Walker-Craig 117

Through questioning whether “we [could] see the same type of

arrest?,” whether future arrests will be “more peaceful?”, and

emphasizing that “it’s hard to predict… what will happen,” this

excerpt narrates the Occupy’s mass arrests with unpredictability,

giving Occupy an element of suspense. In terms of Occupy’s media

coverage, Graph 4.4 of media coverage before and after indicate

that increasing media coverage occurred in response to the 700

person arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1st:

Graph 4.4 – Broadcasts/Articles per day, 9/30 – 10/3

9/29/07 9/30/07 10/1/07 10/2/070

2

4

6

8

10

12

FoxCNNMSNBCNewsmaxThe American SpectatorDemocracy NowThe Huffington Post

Date

Articles/Broadca

sts Per Day

When comparing the increase in media coverage of Occupy Wall

Street to the Brooklyn Bridge mass arrest on October 1st, the

Walker-Craig 118

data strongly suggest that this event represented a catalyst,

perhaps the catalyst, in increasing Occupy’s media coverage. For

the mainstream media in particular, as CNN highlights, this

interest may have centered on dramatized narratives of

anticipation and surprise.

Overall, mainstream media coverage dramatized the growth of

Occupy Wall Street and its mass arrests. The data indicate that

these dramatized narratives contributed to increasing mainstream

media coverage. In terms of the public perception of Occupy Wall

Street, while dramatized narratives may not discredit Occupy like

other media narratives, dramatized narratives of Occupy distract

viewers from considering Occupy’s critiques of wealth and power.

Findings concerning the dramatized narratives of Occupy Wall

Street further support theories of the mainstream media. In

particular, Occupy’s coverage reinforces that which the

mainstream media regards as news. Academics and activists alike

must consider that even the series of significant events that

occurred in Occupy’s first two weeks – from thousands of

protestors, to an eighty-count mass arrest, to Occupy’s global

spread to twenty-five cities, to the endorsements of key

Walker-Craig 119

activists and scholars – did not garner mainstream attention.

Only until Occupy reached a climactic 700+ arrests in one event,

or until Occupy spread to thousands of cities, did Occupy catch

the consistent interest of the mainstream media. While in some

ways the fact that Occupy received mainstream media coverage

represents a moment of exception and triumph in the mainstream

media, one must consider what events spurred such coverage. For

the comparatively “small” and orderly thousand-person protest,

findings regarding what the mainstream did and did not cover

frown upon the vast majority of social movement efforts.

IV. Democrats, Republicans, and the Tea Party –   Distracting Occupy through Politics

As the previous section argued, one must consider how

certain narratives distracted media coverage from Occupy’s

criticisms of the American economic and political system. In

particular, discussions of not the political system, but rather the

politics between Republicans and Democrats pervaded throughout all

mainstream media coverage. In fact, when comparing the results of

the politics search query34 to the 99% search query and the 34 “Political References” were operationalized by the political references search query, which included terms like “Democrats” “Pelosi” “The Tea Party,”

Walker-Craig 120

growth search query, the political reference are the most

prevalent: every news medium made over 100 political references

in the 12 days analyzed, with CNN making over 500 references and

MSNBC and Fox making over 1000 references. In contrast, with the

exception of Newsmax, alternative media made fewer than 200

political references.

Considering the notable extent to which references to

politics surrounded Occupy’s mainstream media coverage, this

section begins by providing a brief history of politicians’

commentary of Occupy Wall Street. Following this overview of

politicians’ commentary, a quantitative analysis highlights the

relationship between political references and the increase in

media coverage, emphasizing the strong tie between a political

framework and the increase in media coverage. Following the

quantitative data, qualitative data examine how different sources

of media incorporated political references. Specifically,

findings of qualitative data demonstrate how the mainstream media

used Occupy Wall Street as a part of their own political

leanings. Both quantitative and qualitative data suggested that

etc. See Appendices for the entire search query.

Walker-Craig 121

the mainstream media discussed Occupy Wall Street largely in

terms of its effects on the politics between Republicans and

Democrats rather than Occupy’s broader grievances.

In order to provide an understanding of the relationship

between political references and media coverage, it is necessary

to know to what extent political activity occurred. Below,

Timetable 4.5 details when notable politicians made comments of

Occupy Wall Street and whether their comments were sympathetic or

unsympathetic. The table indicates that the majority of well-

publicized commentary on Occupy Wall Street occurred between

October 5th and October 12th:

4.5 – Timetable of Politician Commentary (and location of commentary)35 Date Politician Commentary

(location and political party in parenthesis)

Type of Commentary (Unsympathetic or Sympathetic)

10/4 Mitt Romney (R) (retirement community)Joe Biden (D) (local Florida radio station)

Unsympathetic

Sympathetic

10/5 Mitt Romney (R) (ABC)Herman Cain (R) (CBS) Ron Paul (R) (National Press Club)

UnsympatheticUnsympathetic Sympathetic

10/6 Nancy Pelosi (D) (Press Conference) Barack Obama (D) (Press

SympatheticSympathetic

35 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/17/occupy-wall-street-politician-reactions_n_1014273.html

Walker-Craig 122

conference)10/7 Eric Cantor (R) (Press

conference)Unsympathetic

10/9 Michelle Bachmann (R) (CNN) Newt Gingrich (R) (CBS) Herman Cain (R) (CBS) Jon Huntsman (R) (town hall meeting)

UnsympatheticUnsympatheticUnsympatheticSympathetic

10/12

John McCain (R) (Politico)

Bill Clinton (D) (Lettermen)

SympatheticSympathetic

As Timetable 4.5 shows, not only did the politicians’ comments on

Occupy fall largely between October 5th and October 12th, but also

party lines divided the stances of politicians. With only some

exceptions among moderate Republicans, Democrats tended to

support Occupy Wall Street while Republicans tended to oppose

Occupy.

Upon comparing the dates of when politicians made statements

of Occupy to when Occupy received increasing media attention,

there appears to be a positive relationship between the amount of

statements politicians made regarding Occupy Wall Street – as

more politicians took stances on Occupy, the more media coverage

Occupy received. As Figure 4.6 shows, the increase of Occupy’s

Walker-Craig 123

media coverage occurred in the timeframe of politician

commentary, both occurring between October 5th and October 12th:

Graph 4.6 – Composite Articles/Broadcasts Per Day

Date

10/2/11

10/4/11

10/6/11

10/8/11

10/10/11

10/12/11

10/14/11

10/16/11

10/18/11

0102030405060708090

The Huffington PostDemocracy Now! The American SpectatorNewsmaxMSNBCCNNFOX

Date

Comp

osite

Poli

tical

Refere

nce

The concurrence between increasing media coverage and increasing

commentary by politicians suggest a positive correlation between

political references and media coverage. This correlation is not

to suggest, however, that there was a one-sided relationship

between the statements of politicians and occupy media coverage;

meaning, politicians’ pro-Occupy or anti-Occupy statements did

not cause the increase in media coverage in Occupy. In addition

to the existence of other factors that contributed to Occupy’s

increasing media coverage, the increase in media coverage of

Walker-Craig 124

Occupy undoubtedly prompted politicians to make statements about

Occupy; that is to say, there was likely a reciprocal

relationship between increasing Occupy media coverage and

politicians statements of Occupy, as illustration 4.7

demonstrates:

Illustration 4.7 – Relationship Between Politicians’ Statements on

Occupy and Increasing Media Coverage of Occupy

Though the proliferation of political references was likely,

in part, a response to the increasing commentary of prominent

Walker-Craig

Increasing Coverage of Occupy

Statements from Politicians about Occupy

125

politicians, the data suggest that political references continued

even when politicians did not take stances on Occupy Wall Street.

As figure 4.8 shows, on October 17th, though five days passed

since a noteworthy politician discussed Occupy, certain news

mediums still made over 100 political references in that day

alone:

Graph 4.8 – Composite Political References Per Day

Walker-Craig 126

9/30/07

10/2/07

10/4/07

10/6/07

10/8/07

10/10/07

10/12/07

10/17/07

0100200300400500600700800

The American SpectatorThe Huffington PostDemocracy Now!NewsmaxMSNBCFOXCNN

Date

Political References Per Day

This unprompted recurrence in political references of Occupy may

indicate that Occupy may have been discussed less on its own

terms as a social movement, but as a factor into the politics in

Washington. Such findings then suggest that Occupy’s mainstream

media coverage was partially contingent upon existing in a

political frame.

While the quantitative data indicate a reciprocal

relationship between discussions of politics and Occupy’s

increased media coverage, a qualitative analysis of the text can

illuminate both how and why such a relationship may exist. Hence,

the next segment further examines the political and subsequent

themes therein.

Walker-Craig 127

Overall, mainstream media sources not only discussed Occupy

Wall Street more in

terms of its relation between stances of Republicans and

Democrats, but also incorporated political discussions of Occupy

Wall Street into their own political leanings. Coverage by MSNBC,

for example, tended to use Republicans opposition to Occupy Wall

Street as a way to discredit Republicans. The following excerpt

from the Ed Show, for instance, highlights the “stupidity of

Herman Cain’s statement”:

Herman Cain and the Republicans, they don’t understand why

Americans are taking to the streets and all for social and

economic justice...He’s got a 9-9-9 plan and it’s nothing

more than a gift to the top 1 percent and the financial

institutions that put Americans out on the street. So, if

you are out of a job and you’re on the street, Herman

Cain says actually it’s your fault … If you don’t have a

job, just blame yourself…The stupidity of Herman Cain’s

statement is astounding. Americans are out of work because

Republicans in Congress … they just want to beat this

president more than anything else, more than creating jobs.

Walker-Craig 128

(MSNBC, 10/11, The Ed Show)

By emphasizing how Republicans “don’t understand why Americans

are taking to the streets,” this excerpt highlights MSNBC’s

coverage that discredited Republicans because of their

oppositional attitudes of Occupy. Overall, as table 4.9 shows,

MSNBC references Republicans more than any other political

references:

Table 4.9 – Table Political References for MSNBC

MSNBC Total Political References

Republicans

Obama

Democrats

TeaParty

Unions

2012 Election

Bailout and American Jobs Act

Number of References

1223 (100%)

511 (42%)

330 (27%)

131 (11%)

97 (8%)

82 (7%)

40 (3%)

32 (3%)

In addition to using Occupy Wall Street as a way to critique

Republicans, MSNBC’s media coverage of Occupy used Occupy as a

way to support Obama and Democrats. Specifically, such coverage

discussed the relationship between Democrats and Occupy Wall

Street in terms of political strategy. This excerpts ask how the

“Obama campaign… [will] turn this into a political victory”:

Walker-Craig 129

But how does the Obama campaign in your opinion … recapture

this emotion and turn this into a political victory? And do

you think this 99 percent people are going to vote? … And

what should the reaction of the Obama re-election campaign

be? How – when they say they’re going to embrace this, what

does that mean? (MSNBC, 10/17, The Ed Show)

Through merely emphasizing how the “99 percent people are going

to vote,” this excerpt sees Occupy more as a political move than

a point of conversation about wealth and power. Such political

framing of the Occupy movement further strengthens notions of

deradicalized narratives of sympathetic media. Instead of

sympathizing with Occupy for its claims against the American

political economy, for example, sympathy from MSNBC may have

stemmed from the fact that Democrats supported the movement.

Acting as MSNBC’s conservative mainstream counterpart, Fox

incorporated Occupy into political discussions by delegitimizing

Democrats for their support of Occupy Wall Street. In this

excerpt, Fox analyst Brit Hume contends would be “wary of

associating… [himself] with this”:

INGRAHAM: So who's on the winning side politically of these

Walker-Craig 130

demonstrations?

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: …The sense

that I think people may get of this movement that is

composed almost entirely of fringe characters… if I were a

Democratic politician, I'd be awfully wary of … associating

myself with this.” (Fox, 10/10, The O’Reily Factor)

By discrediting Occupy as a movement “composed almost entirely of

fringe characters,” Brit Hume uses such claims to discredit

Democrats’ support of Occupy Wall Street. Overall, conservative

media on the whole referenced Democrats and President Obama more

than any other political group:

Table 4.10 – Table Political References for Fox News, Newsmax, and The American

Spectator

News Medium

All Political References

Tea Party

Obama

Democrats

Republicans

Unions

2012 Election

Bailout/ American Jobs Act

Fox News

1066 (100%)

222 (21%)

297 (28%)

131 (12%)

298 (28%)

39 (4%)

35 (3%)

45 (4%)

Newsmax

521 (100%)

64 (12%)

174 (33%)

53 (10%)

148 (28%)

44 (8%)

18 (3%)

11 (2%)

The America

108 (100%)

9 (8%)

30 (28%

19 (18%)

27 (25%) 15 (14%

0 (0%)

8 (7%)

Walker-Craig 131

n Spectator

) )

As well as discrediting Occupy Wall Street and Democrats,

conservative coverage, like all mainstream media, focused on

Occupy as a political strategy for candidates. By the motivating

question from the excerpt above being “who’s on the winning side

politically of these demonstrations?,” the emphasis on Occupy as

part of a debate among politicians distracts from Occupy’s core

messages.

CNN, with its moderate leanings, did not discuss Occupy in a

way that delegitimized Republicans or Democrats. Instead, CNN

discussed Occupy more in comparison to the Tea Party. As table

4.11 shows, CNN had more references to the Tea Party than any

other political term:

Walker-Craig 132

Table 4.11 – Table of CNN’s Political References

CNN Tota

l

Tea

Part

y

Obam

a

Democra

ts

Republic

ans

Unio

ns

201

2

Bailout/

American

Jobs Act

Numberof

References

(and %)

560

(100

%)

200

(36%

)

111

(20%

)

25 (4%) 155

(28%)

45

(8%)

9

(2%

)

17 (3%)

Comparisons of the Tea Party in CNN’s coverage often highlighted

the similarities between the two rather than the differences, as

the following excerpt demonstrates:

Cooper: We're also talking about the tea party over the last

two years. Like occupy Wall Street. There are people from

all walks of life, like occupy Wall Street people in the

movement hold a grab bag of policy goals. Neither side has

resorted to violence. Both sides are calling for peaceful

change within the process. There have been large number of

arrest in the occupy Wall Street movements in New York. You

may agree with one side. The other, neither or both, that's

Walker-Craig 133

not for us to say. (CNN, 10/7, Anderson Cooper 360)

In addition to the list of similarities between Occupy and the

Tea Party, Cooper’s commentary asserts that the Tea Party and

Occupy are two “sides” of the same political equation.

Fundamental differences between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall

Street aside, such comparisons to the Tea Party translate

Occupy’s radical grievances into a simplified “grab bag of policy

goals” for the sake of comparison. Further these comparisons, by

focusing on the similarities between the Tea Party and Occupy

Wall Street, fail to discuss that which is different from the Tea

Party: Occupy’s radical critiques of the American political

economy.

Overall, the mainstream media generally discussed Occupy

Wall Street within a political discussion that focused on the

statements of politicians rather than Occupy itself. Considering

the noteworthy pervasiveness of political references within the

coverage of Occupy, one must question how discussions of

Republican and Democrat politics affected the public perception

of Occupy Wall Street. The political polarity of commentary

regarding Occupy, among politicians and mainstream media alike,

Walker-Craig 134

may suggest that such political polarity rooted much of the

opinions and interests of the Occupy movement. Instead of

supporting Occupy on its own terms, public support may have come

from agreeing with the deradicalized support from Democrats in

the White House and liberal media commentary.

In addition to highlighting the relationship between the

mainstream media’s political framework and the public perception

of Occupy Wall Street, the politics surrounding Occupy’s media

coverage contribute to understandings of mainstream media bias.

When considering research about the mainstream media’s

functioning as a corporate industry, the way mainstream media

incorporated Occupy into their own political leanings becomes

relevant. Corporate bias research may explain the way MSNBC used

a deradicalized Occupy as a way to support Democrats, for

example, by arguing that such deradicalized liberal coverage

would increase viewership among its liberal consumers. Such

reasoning also applies to CNN and Fox – by giving conservative or

moderate portrayals of Occupy, this appeals to their conservative

or moderate bases. Though the ways in which mainstream media

incorporated their political leanings differed, all centered on

Walker-Craig 135

increasing viewership, and thus profit, among its consumers.

Findings of the mainstream media’s pervasive political

framing of Occupy may also reinforce media research regarding

media tendencies to cover events of conflict. Though the conflict

may not be as overt as clashes between protestors and police,

political coverage portrays conflict of its own. Whether it is

through comparisons of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street or

Democrats and Republicans, political commentary portrays a

battlefield of conflict and suspense between political actors.

V. Countering The Mainstream – The Role of Alternative and User-Generated Media

Given the role of progressive alternative media and user-

generated media in mobilizing Occupy Wall Street as highlighted

in Chapter III, one must consider how alternative media shaped

the public perception of the Occupy movement. Throughout Occupy’s

coverage, progressive alternative media and user-generated media

countered the mainstream portrayals highlighted in previous

sections in a number of interesting ways. For example, user-

generated media, by providing empirical evidence of police

brutality, challenged the notion that protestors caused their

mass arrests. Additionally, progressive alternative media

Walker-Craig 136

disputed the idea that Occupy needed specific demands.

Progressive alternative media also contested depictions that

discredited individual protestors. Finally, progressive

alternative media and user-generated media also challenged not

only the specific narratives of the mainstream media, but also

the mainstream media as an institution itself. By countering the

mainstream media in a variety of ways, progressive alternative

media and user-generated media likely contributed to the support

of Occupy Wall Street. Further, these findings reinforce the

central argument of alternative media studies – that alternative

media offers alternatives to mainstream media narratives.

Moreover, the use of user-generated media highlights striking and

powerful ways of critiquing the mainstream media.

One notable way user-generated media countered the

mainstream media’s portrayals of Occupy Wall Street was by

showing on the ground accounts of unprovoked police brutality.

Footage of police’s actions convincingly refutes mainstream

commentary that blamed Occupy protestors for mass arrests. Figure

4.1236, for example, is a frame of a video that shows a group of

36 Found on: http://occupywallst.org/archive/Sep-26-2011/

Walker-Craig 137

young women being penned-in by a police barricade by police.

Approximately thirty seconds after protestors are penned-in, the

protestors are pepper sprayed without provocation, with many of

them screaming:

Figure 4.12 – Frame from YouTube video of police macing protestors

By showing real protestors and their emotional reactions to their

experiences with the police, this use of user-generated media

humanizes the protestors and their experiences. Instead of only

Walker-Craig 138

hearing about police brutality, the viewer witnesses the screams,

surprises, and pain that the protestors experienced. With this

video alone receiving over 1.5 million views, user-generated

media likely played a role in contesting mainstream portrayals of

unlawful protestors.

Alternative media also disputed mainstream portrayals by

challenging the need to have a specified list of demands. The

following quote from The Huffington Post, for example, asserts that

specific demands assume responsibility on established

institutions rather than “calling for a radical rethinking and

restructuring of government, power, and wealth in the United

States”:

What the mainstream media has failed to recognize is that to

make demands of the institutions currently in power would

mean that the protestors actually want those institutions to

remain in control. Rather than issue demands of the

institutions in place, the protestors are calling for a

radical rethinking and restructuring of government, power,

and wealth in the United States. The mainstream media has

also failed to realize that it isn't one issue that is

Walker-Craig 139

inciting thousands of Americans across the nation to support

Occupy Wall Street, but rather a litany of grievances

everyday citizens have with their government (The Huffington

Post, 10/9, “Occupy Wall Street: The Revolution Will Not Be

Televised”).

By highlighting the limitations of specific demands, this

critique of mainstream media narratives challenges mainstream

media portrayals of Occupy as a disorganized, incoherent

movement.

In addition to questioning the value of specified demands,

alternative media disputed narratives that discredited

protestors. This excerpt from Democracy Now!, for example, argues

against narratives of Occupiers as “crusty hippies” and “people

without jobs”:

LAURIE PENNY: … there’s been a lot of bias, a lot of writing

off of these people as crusty hippies, students, people

without jobs, which is really very untrue. I’ve been down

there. I’ve met a lot of people who are employed, people who

are all different ages, all different backgrounds. And

everyone starts off by trying to dismiss these protesters.

Walker-Craig 140

Then they start off by trying to demonize and criminalize

these protesters, saying they’re obstructing public highways,

they’re… making a nuisance of themselves. And then, hopefully

then, they’ll really start to listen. And people have to

decide what they’re going to do then (Democracy Now!, 10/3, “700 Arrested on Brooklyn Bridge as Occupy Wall Street Enters

Third Week, Protests Grows Nationwide”).

As the last clip shows, the interviewee on Democracy Now! not only

critiques the particular coverage of Occupy Wall Street, but

indicates larger biases in the mainstream media by first

discrediting protestors as “crusty hippies,” and then later by

“criminalizing” protestors.

Besides critiquing particular portrayals of the mainstream

media, progressive alterative media and user-generated media

critiqued the mainstream media as an institution itself. This

quote from The Huffington Post challenges the idea of “liberal media

bias” and highlights the influence of “Corporate Overlords”:

…one of the most valuable lessons I have learned in the

intervening thirty days since Occupy Wall Street began is

Walker-Craig 141

that the concept of “liberal media bias” is a complete and

utter myth. The only thing I’m confused about is whether

that myth has been perpetuated by the right-wing media (e.g.

Faux [Fox] News), by the MSM [mainstream media] trying to

disguise itself as being completely independent of its

Corporate Overlords (the media conglomerate owners, and the

sponsors and advertisers without whom there would be no

MSN), or some unholy combination of the two (The Huffington

Post, 10/17, “Why Occupy Wall Street Scares the Shit Out of

the Political Establishment and the MSM, and Why the

Movement Shouldn’t Conform to Either”).

In pointing out the influence of “media conglomerate owners, …

sponsors and advertisers” The Huffington Post criticizes systemic

problems of the mainstream media. Figure 4.13, a photo that went

viral with over one million views, also critiques the mainstream

media, specifically The New York Times and its quick shift in blame

from the police to protestors. In particular, the photo

highlights the change in a The New York Times article, which

changes from the description, “after allowing them onto the

bridge, the police… arrested… demonstrators” to “police arrested

Walker-Craig 142

hundred of… demonstrators after they marched onto the bridge’s

Brooklyn-bound roadway”:

Figure 4.13 – User-generated content highlighting changes in an article in The

New York Times about Occupy arrests.

By showing this change, Figure 4.13 emphasizes how the final

edition quickly shifts the blame from the police, who first

“[allowed] them onto the bridge,” to the protestors, who were

arrested “after they marched onto the bridge,” implicating that

protestors did not have police permission. By emphasizing that

“it only takes 20 minutes to shift the blame,” this photo offers

a broader critique of the mainstream media by highlighting the

Walker-Craig 143

ease in which the mainstream media can “shift the blame” to

protestors. Though short, this photo and other media not only

delegitimize the particular commentary of the mainstream media,

but also delegitimize the mainstream media as a valid source of

news.

Whether its through user-generated media providing evidence

of police brutality, alternative media refuting the need for

specific demands, or broader critiques of the mainstream media as

an institution, alternative and user-generated media persuasively

discredited the legitimacy of the mainstream media and its

coverage of Occupy Wall Street. Through providing empirical

evidence that counters mainstream claims, these findings

reinforce how alternative and user-generated media act as

“watchdogs” (Sheffield, 2011) to the mainstream media. Broadly

speaking, these findings demonstrate how alternative and user-

generated media offer their own analysis and portrayals of Occupy

Wall Street, underpinning the wealth of media research that

highlights how alternative media provides an alternative to the

mainstream media.

Walker-Craig 144

Since alternative and user-generated media can have upwards

of one million views, it is key to consider how alternative and

user-generated media shaped the support of Occupy Wall Street. In

particular, the data demonstrate user-generated media’s striking

capacities to connect with its viewers. Instead of merely

discussing police brutality, for example, YouTube videos allow

viewers to have an almost vicarious protestor experience in which

the anguish and powerlessness of protestors seems more

perceptible. With user-generated media’s growing influence and

its unique ability to connect to viewers, these findings call for

future research regarding the role of user-generated media and

social movements.

VI. Starting a Conversation –   Moments of Mainstream Legitimacy

Though much of the data highlight how the mainstream and

conservative media discredited, deradicalized, and distracted

from Occupy’s message, the mainstream media had moments of

coverage that legitimized vital aspects Occupy’s grievances. Such

moments, as they are scarce, do not defy previous findings, but

rather offer a nuanced perspective of the mainstream coverage of

Occupy Wall Street. These findings, especially for conservative

Walker-Craig 145

media, provoke a more complex understanding of media coverage

that goes beyond positive, negative, and mixed. Further, while

much of the mainstream portrayals devalued or departed from

Occupy’s critiques, fleeting moments of mainstream coverage, in

its validation of Occupy’s grievances, may have played a role in

discussing wealth, power, and inequality in the US and abroad.

This section incorporates data from MSNBC, Fox, and Newsmax.

MSNBC’s sympathetic coverage, though largely rooted in

deradicalized narratives of Occupy, occasionally legitimized

Occupy’s more radical perspectives. In a segment with Naomi

Klein, she not only challenges the need for specific demands, but

gives a historical analysis of the state of the American Left:

But if it’s a big movement … we can dream big. We have been

… NGO- ized, in the sense that there really isn’t an

organized left in this country anymore. It’s been beat up by

decades of witch hunts and McCarthyism and attacks on trade

unions, which are really the backbone of the institutional

progressive movement. So people are really in the rubble of

those decades of attacks, and they’re starting the process

of rebuilding…. [NGO’s have] got their demands. They’ve got

Walker-Craig 146

their messages. What they don’t have is a base…there’s no

shortage of groups that have all kinds of very specific

demands about what should happen with Wall Street and what

should happen with the tax system, but they … don’t have

power because a group that’s working for income

redistribution is never going to be funded by large

corporations (MSNBC, 10/6, The Rachel Maddow Show).

In many ways, Naomi Klein’s commentary on MSNBC legitimizes

Occupy’s absence of precise demands. Instead of framing Occupy as

an NGO without clear demands and messages, this excerpt portrays

Occupy as social force in the “process of rebuilding” a base for

the progressive movement. Moreover, Klein’s comments imply a more

radical demand of challenging the power of large corporations

since NGOs don’t “have power because a group that’s working for

income redistribution is never going to be funded by large

corporations.”

Although conservative media tended to discredit Occupy Wall

Street, certain coverage legitimized parts of Occupy’s

grievances. In this excerpt, Fox’s O’Reily agrees that “the

Walker-Craig 147

system shouldn’t be like this” and that Occupiers have a

“legitimate beef”:

O’REILY: “I mean, take the kooks out of the mix; and there

are a lot of kooks down there, let's face it. But do they

have a legitimate beef that you get a college degree, you go

out and no jobs and you've got to flip burgers, and the

system shouldn't be like this… Let's take the kid who goes

to Boston University and my alma matter and runs up a

$200,000 tab, all right? And he gets out with a degree in

sociology, and he's looking around and who's going to hire

him? Nobody. And now he gets a little teed off about it and

says, "Where's my slice of the American dream?" … There is

some excess in capitalism. And you can't really regulate it,

but it has to be exposed, so the folks know… (Fox, 10/7, The

O’Reily Factor).

Though this excerpt both discredits Occupy protestors (“there are

a look of kooks down there”) and fails to discuss the root of

Occupy’s grievances, it also gives legitimacy to some of Occupy’s

“beefs” regarding student debt and unemployment with claims that

“there is some excess in capitalism.” While this statement is

Walker-Craig 148

countered with conservativism (“you can’t really regulate

[capitalism]”), by discussing institutional flaws of the American

system, such commentary starts a dialogue on wealth and power.

Similar portrayals that both discredit protestors but legitimize

their message is found in Newsmax, fittingly entitled “Wall St.

Mob is Partly Right – but Its Solution is Wrong”:

The Occupy Wall Street protests are filled with leftist

malcontents and rabble rousers… But what conservatives are

missing is that the protesters have a few good points. The

U.S. political system is corrupt. Big corporations,

lobbyists, and lawyers are taking advantage of the

taxpayers. The bailout of banks and Wall Street was a

massive mistake…. I’ve spent my life defending capitalism.

But the system we have now isn’t capitalism. It’s “Crony

Capitalism” … Conservatives need to face the truth. Just

because we dislike the messengers, doesn't mean there isn’t

some truth to the message… as much as I hate to admit this,

part of the protesters' message is striking deep in the gut

of middle-class Americans (Newsmax, 10/10, Wall St. Mob Is

Partly Right- but Its Solution Is Wrong)

Walker-Craig 149

While portraying Occupy protestors as “leftist malcontents and

rabble rousers,” this excerpt also contends that the “U.S.

political system is corrupt.” Like Fox, such moments represent

conversation starters about the influence of “Crony Capitalism”

in the United States and abroad.

As all these excerpts highlight, moments of mainstream and

conservative media coverage discussed wealth, power, and the need

to restructure entire institutions. Such moments do not, however,

overshadow the large extent to which mainstream media portrayals

discredited or distracted from Occupy’s broader critiques.

However, when considering that Occupy Wall Street arguably

contributed to one of the largest shifts in positive attitudes of

redistributive economies since the Great Depression,37 one must

consider the influence of these moments of mainstream media

coverage. Without ignoring other countless invaluable

contributions, (e.g., progressive alternative media coverage, the

organizing efforts of Occupy, the negotiation and agency of

viewers, and Occupy’s public presence in its Occupied cities), it

is likely that the mainstream media contributed to these 37 As indicated by a CBS poll: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20125515-503544/poll-43-percent-agree-with-views-of-occupy-wall-street/

Walker-Craig 150

political shifts. When understanding Occupy’s media coverage, a

quote from an Occupy organizer about Occupy Wall Street seems to

apply to Occupy’s overall media coverage: “Maybe it’s not

perfect, but it’s a way to start a conversation.”

But how do we make sense of these moments in the mainstream

media while recognizing its biases? Further, how does

conservative alternative media fit into media research? To

explore such questions, the discussion section analyzes

complications of Occupy’s mainstream and conservative portrayal,

the conceptualization of alternative media, and the role of all

forms of media in shaping understanding of Occupy Wall Street.

DISCUSSION OF MEDIA PORTRAYALS OF OCCUPY WALL STREET

In terms of understanding Occupy Wall Street, it is

essential to analyze its portrayal through multiple sources of

influential media. In particular, one must ask how different

types of media affected the awareness, support, and

understandings of Occupy Wall Street. Overall, media data present

a range of media portrayals that both challenge and support

Occupy Wall Street in a number of ways. To analyze these

Walker-Craig 151

portrayals and their relationship to the public understandings of

Occupy Wall Street, this discussion section is divided into four

sections: 1) mainstream and conservative portrayals that biased

Occupy Wall Street, 2) portrayals that legitimized Occupy’s

grievances and discredited its protestors, 3) alternative media

portrayals that focused on Occupy as a social movement and 4)

progressive alternative and user-generated media portrayals that

legitimized Occupy Wall Street while countering mainstream media

narratives.

1. The Role of Bias of Mainstream and Conservative Media in the Public Perception of

Occupy

Though the particular portrayals of individual mainstream

and conservative outlets differed, all arguably distorted or

discredited Occupy Wall Street. For one, mainstream media

discussed Occupy less on its own terms, but rather in the

dramatized elements that deemed Occupy Wall Street a newsworthy

topic. With a heavy emphasis on politicians’ commentary,

protestor clashes, and Occupy’s numbers, these dramatized

elements may have spread awareness of the movement, but also may

have distracted from Occupy’s core goals. Two, conservative media

Walker-Craig 152

and CNN tended to discredit protestors and Occupy Wall Street on

the whole. Portrayals that discredited protestors reasonably

produced much of the narratives that mainstream America would use

to discredit Occupy Wall Street themselves. Finally, sympathetic

coverage by MSNBC portrayed Occupy and its demands in a way that

deradicalized the movement. Although the particulars of how the

mainstream media portrayed Occupy Wall Street varied, all point

to bias in the mainstream media – whether such portrayals exist

to increase viewership or to appease corporate sponsors, these

portrayals highlight how the mainstream media as an institution

motivated by profit bias social movements.

Though these biases certainly played a role in discrediting

Occupy, these biases also may have also shaped the support of

Occupy Wall Street. When considering such support, it is

important to examine the extent to which discussions of politics

and deradicalized narratives surrounded Occupy. Given that Occupy

received support from notable Democrats and mainstream liberal

media, we must question whether the support drew more from

liberal political affiliations than resonating with a social

movement that called for a “revolution of the mind as well as the

Walker-Craig 153

body politic.”38 While data regarding politics and deradicalized

portrayals suggest that American support did not necessarily

align with Occupy’s radical rhetoric, to what extent would

radicalized portrayals alienate the vast majority of Americans?

Further, though deradicalized narratives may have omitted certain

aspects of Occupy Wall Street, did at least some radical aspects

of Occupy Wall Street breakthrough the mainstream? Considering

the widespread recognition and incorporation of “the 1%” into

American rhetoric, Occupy’s mainstream media coverage perhaps

played a part in getting at the root of American disparity and

institutional inequality.

2. Credibility of Protestors vs. Legitimacy of Message

As the last section of this chapter highlights, even

conservative media legitimized aspects of Occupy’s grievances.

Such findings suggest that Occupy’s media coverage cannot be

understood simply as positive, negative, or mixed. In fact, the

portrayal of Occupy Wall Street seems to suggest that there are

two ways of describing social movements, one in terms of the

legitimacy of grievances and the other in terms of the 38 From Occupy’s first call to action: http://occupywallst.org/article/September_Revolution/

Walker-Craig 154

credibility of the social movement organization. For many

conservative outlets, for example, even though they may have

discredited Occupy as a movement either by its descriptions of

protestors or its lack of demands, moments existed in its

coverage that still gave legitimacy to their overall message. To

illustrate this distinction, Table 4.14 below categorizes media

coverage by portrayals that legitimized Occupy’s grievances

versus portrayals that legitimized Occupy on the whole. It is

important to note that the specifics of Table 4.14 are not

grounded in reliable empirical data and that the particular

distinctions are not critical to understanding Occupy Wall

Street’s media coverage. Instead, Table 4.14 is meant to

highlight a way of conceptualizing the media coverage of social

movements:

Table 4.14 – Table of News Mediums Legitimizing Occupy’s Grievances and Occupy

on the Whole

News Medium Legitimated

Grievances

Legitimized

OccupyThe American Spectator

Newsmax

Walker-Craig 155

XFox News

XEarly Coverage of

CNN

XLate Coverage of CNN

X

XMSNBC

X

XThe Huffington Post

X

XDemocracy Now!

X

X In addition to complicating understandings of media portrayals,

legitimized grievances likely shaped the perception of Occupy

Wall Street. Despite opposition to Occupy Wall Street, coverage

that credited parts of Occupy’s grievances generated discussion

about wealth and inequality in the United States.

3. Alternative Media, “Newsworthy” Coverage, and Occupy’s Message

Although there were stark differences between progressive

and conservative alternative media coverage of Occupy Wall

Street, there were also notable commonalities. In particular, by

quantitative measures, alternative media on the whole referenced

Walker-Craig 156

both politics and the growth of Occupy Wall Street significantly

less than the three sources of mainstream media. These findings

may suggest that, despite various political and organizational

differences among alternative media, alternative media as a

medium focuses more on the social movement itself rather than

unrelated elements that the mainstream media value as newsworthy.

Whether alternative media discredited or legitimized Occupy Wall

Street, these finding suggest that alternative media portrayals

discussed the Occupy movement more as a social movement rather

than a source of entertainment.

4. The Role of Progressive Alternative Media and User-Generated Media in Perceptions

of Occupy

Given that certain photos and videos related to Occupy Wall

Street garnered more than one million views, one must consider

the power of new media in influencing Occupy Wall Street. For

Occupy Wall Street, alternative and user-generated media played a

role in discrediting not only specific commentary of the

mainstream media, but the mainstream media itself. In addition to

discrediting the mainstream media, user-generated media provided

an on the ground account of the protestor. With such footage of

Walker-Craig 157

not just police brutality, but also the daily pleasantries of

life at Occupy Wall Street39, user-generated media offers the

unique ability to form an emotional connection with its viewer.

Such footage likely cultivated not just sympathy for Occupy Wall

Street, but solidarity. With its growing influence, alternative

and user-generated media represent an oppositional force to the

mainstream media like never before.

CONCLUSION: TRACING THE CONSTRUCTION OF #OCCUPYWALLSTREET

Mainstream, alternative, and user-generated media

undoubtedly shaped Occupy Wall Street. As the quantitative data

indicate, Occupy received little to no mainstream media coverage

in its first two weeks. But despite the absence of mainstream

media coverage, in its first two weeks, Occupy managed to gain

the support of notable activist and scholars, spread to over

twenty-five cities throughout the world, and mobilize thousands

of protestors to the Brooklyn Bridge protest – the event that

would later catch the interest of not only the mainstream media,

eventually spreading the word to the American public.

3912 http://occupywallst.org/archive/Sep-22-2011/

Walker-Craig 158

But how, then, did Occupy not only sustain itself, but also

grow into a global social movement if established research by

Gamson and Wolfsfeld (1993) argues that the mainstream media is

“indispensible” for social movements? The data highlight that

progressive alternative and user-generated media played a key

role in providing the three elements that Gamson and Wolfsfeld

posit the mainstream media offer social movements: scope

enlargement, mobilization, and validation. For example, user-

generated media and alternative media promoted Occupy’s broad

grievances, thus enlarging the scope of conflict by connected

seemingly separate issues. User-generated media also provided

useful organizing tools that gave a layout from which to occupy

public spaces throughout the globe, thus facilitating the

mobilization of Occupy Wall Street. Further, user-generated media

offered the unique capacity to present a vicarious protestor

experience that connected its viewers to the movement in striking

and powerful ways that validated Occupy. Though countless other

efforts went into the spread and mobilization during the first

two weeks of Occupy Wall Street, progressive alternative media

and user-generated media were crucial to its success.

Walker-Craig 159

Eventually, the mainstream media and conservative

alternative media caught up with their media counterparts and

began to shape Occupy Wall Street in a number of interesting

ways. Although portrayals varied, mainstream coverage of Occupy

Wall Street reinforced theories of mainstream media bias. Whether

it was through discussing Occupy’s effects on the 2012 election

or the uncertainty associated with the growth and arrests of

Occupy Wall Street, mainstream coverage largely strayed away from

focusing on Occupy’s core issues and instead focused on that

which made Occupy an exciting news story – what made Occupy a

source of profit. While the mainstream media produced distracting

portrayals of Occupy Wall Street, not only did all alternative

media generally avoid coverage from elements that the mainstream

media deem newsworthy, but also progressive alternative media and

user-generated media persuasively countered mainstream media

claims with empirical evidence.

Although portrayals of Occupy Wall Street differed both

between and among mainstream and alternative media, even media

coverage that largely distorted the movement contained fleeting

moments that discussed wealth, power, and institutionalized

Walker-Craig 160

inequality. Whether it was through the mainstream media,

alternative media, or through Occupy’s presence in public spaces

throughout the country, Occupy’s message broke through the

airwaves and the hearts and minds of the American people,

reshaping the economic and political landscape of the future.

IMPLICATIONS

I was down there, one cop down there actually asked, … Why don’t you think theeviction happened? He said because the mayor is afraid of YouTube. I mean, when youstop and think about it, the power of the new media, the media that’s in the hands ofthe people that those in charge are afraid of what could possibly go on… They’re not

dumb. They didn’t get to own most of the world’s wealth by being stupid people.(MSNBC, 10/14, Lawrence O’Donnell)

Mass Alternative Media and Power – Gamson and Wolfsfeld argue that

mainstream remains essential for social movements because “most

of the people they wish to reach are part of the mass media

gallery, while many are missed by movement-oriented outlets

(116).” Though in 1993 “movement-oriented outlets” may not have

had a large enough audience to mobilize the masses, shifts in the

ways Americans receive information cast doubt on such

assumptions. In fact, more Americans receive their news from

digital outlets than newspaper and radio, and in particular,

Walker-Craig 161

those under twenty-five receive news from digital outlets more

than any form of traditional media, including TV40. While media

studies often equate “mass media” with “mainstream media,” with

the number of Americans turning off their televisions and tuning

into new forms of media, shifts in information habits signify a

new age of alternative media: the age of mass alternative media.

For social movements, alternative media shifts represent an

opportunity to spread their message to the masses with newer,

less biased forms of media. From the Arab Spring, to Los

Indignados, to Occupy Wall Street, the world has already seen an

uprising of social movements that incorporated newer media to

call for democracy in their respective countries and across the

globe. And though Occupy Wall Street and other movements

challenge the power of mainstream media, this does not mean that

the imbalances of power do not exist or that the mainstream media

was not crucial for these movements. Indeed, as indicated by Pew

polls, it was not until weeks of mainstream media coverage that

nearly all Americans knew of Occupy Wall Street41. However,

40 http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/189819/pew-tv-viewing-habit-grays-as-digital-news-consumption-tops-print-radio/41

Walker-Craig 162

alternative and user-generated media have clearly redefined the

power dynamics between social movements and the media. With this

redefinition of power, social scientists must generate more

nuanced theories of the changing dynamics and changing structures

of mainstream media, alternative media, and social movements.

Defining Alternative Media – One of the fundamental limitations of

alternative media studies is the very lack of a concise

definition of “alternative” media. In fact, some scholars may

even dispute classifying The American Spectator and Newsmax as

alternative media given that they do not express the concerns of

“poor, minority, and dissident” voices, as some (Rauch, 2007)

have defined alternative media. Given that this thesis

demonstrates some striking similarities and differences between

conservative and progressive alternative media, however, there is

evidence that conservative alternative media both fits and does

not fit into conceptualizations of “alternative” media.

Rather than attempting to categorize media as simply

“alternative” and “mainstream” media, further studies should make

distinctions within alternative media. With such distinctions,

further studies can answer questions like, what are the

Walker-Craig 163

differences between professionally-generated news media and user-

generated news media? How can we make sense of web-based

corporate media like CNN.com? How does conservative alternative

media align with alternative media studies? With such studies,

academic work can draw closer to understanding the complexities

of alternative media.

Social Media and Social Science – The methodology of this thesis

employed new Internet-based research methods. With the growing

influence and pervasiveness of new media, Internet-based methods

provide an array of methodologies to not just understand the

relationship between alternative media and social movements, but

also social phenomena in general. In fact, social network scholar

Duncan Watts (2011), for example, goes as far as to compare the

significance of the telescope to physics to the significance of

social media to Sociology; social media provides a quantifiable,

specified measure of interest and opinion of the general public.

This thesis, for instance, examined changes in trends from the

popularity of #occupywallstreet to #ows to point to a precise

time period of public awareness of the Occupy movement.

Walker-Craig 164

While Internet-based media offers new ways of understanding

social phenomena, Internet-based methodologies also provide more

accessible research methods. Although only a handful of well-

endowed research institutions may have access to news archives

like Lexis Nexis, anyone with an Internet connection and a

computer can access an abundance of news archives that many news

outlets provide. Of particular use to this thesis, for example,

were Google’s advanced search and archive options that allowed

for collecting data from specific news outlets during the first

five weeks of Occupy Wall Street. Given that Internet-based tools

are relatively new, it is likely that more research tools will

appear with time. Navigating these tools will take not only

innovative approaches to social research methods, but also an

experienced understanding of the Internet. To take full advantage

of new Internet-based research methods, future research should

incorporate younger researchers in particular, given that many

younger researchers are more connected to the Internet world.

Comparative Media Analysis: Researching Across Medias – One way this thesis

incorporated Internet-based methodology was by taking a

comparative approach to various sources of media. By looking at

Walker-Craig 165

multiple sources of media, the data can give a more holistic and

complex account of the media and media narratives. Rather than

just examining one or few sources of media, by looking at several

sources of media, the data can analyze not just the narratives of

one particular news medium, but entire progressive, conservative,

and mainstream narratives. Further, by looking at multiple

sources of media, future research can examine the relationship

between and among different forms of media. While this study

glimpses at the ways in which certain media responds to each

other by contesting certain narratives, future research can take

a quantitative analysis to examine occurrences such as networks

of stories connected through hyperlinks, the use of user-

generated media in mainstream media, and more.

Political Shift – To close this thesis, I will finish with the end of

the #OccupyDC email I received from my friend. The following

excerpt I believe accurately represents both the shortcomings of

Occupy and its implications for future social change efforts:

I'm writing you because I'm feeling a momentum. Like

something is brewing. Like there is some action going on in

our country that I want to be a part of.  I don’t know how

Walker-Craig 166

to.  Tomorrow I will talk to some young people about how

they got involved and how they recommend starting something

in a place like Ann Arbor (Do you think that could work? I

have many doubts, but how can I not try??)

This is it. This is our beginning as a possibly

revolutionary force. A list of grievances is easy to

articulate – a list of demands is harder.  An entirely new

world order is perhaps The Greatest Challenge.  If not now

though, when?

Reading this email a year and a half later, it is clear that

Occupy indeed fell short of being a “revolutionary force.” When

regarding the 2013 sequestration policies, we must consider the

shortcomings of Occupy’s lack of creating institutional changes.

Indeed, if Occupy did take on the harder task of articulating a

list of demands, where could the United States political and

economic system be? At the same time, one cannot deny the changes

brought on by Occupy Wall Street. Not only did Occupy strengthen

or create networks for many social change efforts today, it also

shifted the conversation from debt ceiling to income disparity,

from the politics of the day to the political institutions of the

Walker-Craig 167

day. In short, Occupy has provided a new political climate from

which to continue reimagining American political and cultural

institutions of wealth and power.

If there is one thing that comes through my friends email,

it is that Occupy instilled a sense of urgency to partake in the

reimagining of American systems of inequality. Although one may

feel discouraged from challenging injustice, in the words of the

email: “if not now though, when?”

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Walker-Craig 173

APPENDICESFull Occupy DC Email:

Subject: #OccupyDC

So today was the fullest day of my life.  what do i mean? let's figure that out.  today i felt alive as a participatory organism.Today was truly dionysian (however the eff you spell that).today i spent the day, from 10-6 in downtown DC traveling the streets with various peoples gathered toprotest the 10 year occupation of afghanistan (as organized, primarily, by the US veterans for peace) and the capitalism crisis that has caused massive unemployment, terror, tuition, andtaxes for the majority of the US people)

So.  my voice became a voice in THE voice as we marched down streets chanting to the tourists and talking heads of DC.  We chanted "How do we fix the deficit? End the wars and tax the rich!", "We are the 99%(and so are you)", "We're fired up can't take it no more, money for health care not for war" and much more.

There's so many different kinds of people here, Nick.  It's the world. There's old, young, white, black, brown, asian, gay, straight, queer, weird, anarchist, democrat, women, men.

There's two different locations for the scene in DC - one is at Freedom Plaza and its called "Stop the Machine"..this is the one organized by vets for peace.  then there is occupyDC a few blocksover.  There's a small and strange politic between the two of them - a competative distraction,really.  but today they joined forces for several "actions"

I went to the general assembly for occupyDC, which was so cool, and observed the process for deciding the day's "action".basically there's a growing number of people camping out at McPherson's square in Downtown DC for the occupydc bit.  They

Walker-Craig 174

have food, cigarrettes, signs, sleepingbags all for free.  they have medics, they have committes, they're really well organized.besides occupying space they organize "actions" and workshops (like dealing with Median and know your rights)  today's action was a collaboration with Stop the Machine.  Together, we marched on the streets to the aerospace museum where there is currently an exhibit on Drones (the unmanned killing planes that have been implented by the US military machine accross the world to kill, among "targets", women and children)  we marched to the museum toprotest this technological warfare.  we were rejected forcefully from entry, despite the museum being a free and general admissioninstitution.  The police and security guards ensured their blocade by using pepper spray.  Me, my parents, and dozens of others were sprayed.  I can't describe it.  After 15 minutes or so the effects wear off but until then there was a fire in my face.  Women were in tears, young people collapsed on the ground,and my  dad nearly passed out.  This is our police state.

Anyways, after that we marched to the capitol building, a different cohort.  By this time the majority of the drama had taken place.  But a few people were detained, one arrested at themuseum.

I had to use the bathroom.  So I walked to the corner to gain entry into a public museum that wasnt pepperspraying...and overheard a father explain the event to his daughters "Girls, pepper spray is a beautiful thing.  It's too bad the police aren't allowed to use hoses on them"

I shouldn't let you think that this in any way defined my day, this tragic and utterly dispicable quote.  Because, if nothing else, the day inspired solidarity.  BUT I haven't felt so aggressive in my life as i did when i heard this fat ass white guy say that after having just been sprayedmyself.

But the fight is not against the police, at least not entirely, and pepper spray is not a lasting weapon.

Walker-Craig 175

I'm writing you because I'm feeling a momentum.  like something is brewing.  like there is some action going on in our country that i want to be a part of.  i dont know how to.  tomorrow i will talk to some young people about how they got involved and how they recommend starting something in a place like ann arbor (do you think that could work? i ahve many doubts, but howcan i not try??)

this is it.  this is our beginning as a possibly revolutionary force.  A list of grievances is easy to articulate..a list of demands is harder.  an entirely new world order is perhaps The Greatest Challenge.  If not now though, when?

Thanks for, supposedly, reading.  i know i suck at spelling and iprobably am not the most coherent right now...i just wanted to spread this energy.

i'll put up pictures soon.

imissyou.iloveyou.xooxo

Timeline of The First Five Weeks of Occupy Wall Street (non-exhaustive)

Walker-Craig 176

Week 19/17 – The first day of OWS. An estimated 1,000(1) to 2,000(2) protestors are present. 9/19 – Roseanne Barr and Lupe Fiasco speak to OWS. 9/20 – Occupy spreads to San Francisco. • Police arrest 5 OWS demonstrators using an 1845 arcane law regarding mask wearing. • Jesse Jackson gives support to OWS on Democracy Now!9/21 – OWS protests the execution of Troy Davis, 2000 present. 4 arrested. Video footage of police officer pushing protestor face first to the ground. 9/22 – OWS creates a non-exhaustive list of demands.

Week 2 9/24 – 80 protestors are arrested during a march. • A video goes viral on YouTube (+1 million views) of police officer pepper spraying a young female protestor, portrayed as non-violent protestor. • Occupy spreads to: Madrid, Los Angeles, Madison, Toronto, London, Athens, Sydney, Stuttgart, Tokyo, Milan, Amsterdam, Algiers, Tel Aviv, Portland, Chicago, and Palestine. OWS website announces activity to shortly occur in: Phoenix, Montreal, Cleveland, Atlanta, Kansas City, Dallas, Orlando, and Miami. 9/25 – The “hactivist”(3) group “Anonymous” uploads a YouTube video threatening the NYPD: “If we hear of brutality in the next 36 hours then we will take you down from the internet as you havetaken the protesters voices from the airwaves” 9/26 – Noam Chomsky vocalizes support. • Michael Moore speaks at an OWS protest. 9/27 – Cornell West and Susan Sarandon speak to OWS, give support. 9/28 – First large union to endorse OWS through vote –Transport Workers Union Local 100 9/30 – Occupy spreads to Boston (called Take Back Boston!). • 1,000 demonstrators march at NYPD headquarters to protest police brutality •Rumors of Radiohead playing for OWS – ultimately false.

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Week 3 10/1 – OWS protests on the Brooklyn Bridge, where 700 are arrested. 10/3 – “Corporate Zombie” march. 10/4 – More unions endorse OWS, including AFL-CIO.10/5 – Somewhere between 10,000 to 20,000 people march for the “international day of action,” bringing at least 39 organizations, with some of NYC’s largest labor unions and MoveOn.Org. 10/6 – 4,000 protesters march in Portland, Oregon. •Demonstrations in Houston, Austin, Tampa, and San Francisco.

Week 4 10/7 – OWS website claims Occupy spreads to 847 cities internationally. •Occupy San Francisco shuts down Wells Fargo. 10/8 – “Stop the Machine”/Occupy DC protest at National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. Several protesters are pepper sprayed. 10/9 – Congressman Lewis denied to speak at Occupy Atlanta.10/10 – 100 arrested in Occupy Boston. •32 arrested in Occupy Iowa. •Mayor Bloomberg tells protestors they can stay given that they follow the law, tweets respond with interpretation: “Bloomberg say we can stay indefinitely!” 10/11 – “Millionaire March” demonstration in wealthy area of Manhattan. 10/13 – Brookfield company, owner of Zuccotti Park, tells protesters must leave the park at 7 a.m. on 10/14 for it to be cleaned.

Week 5 10/14 – Brookfield postpones cleaning early in the morning. • OWS website claims Occupation of 950+ cities10/15 – “Day of International Rage” – more than 1,500 cities participate, tens of thousands in New York 10/16 – 10,000 protesters remain in Times Square (continuation of“Day of International Rage”) 10/17 – Occupy DC action during MLK anniversary.

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10/18 – Study reports that majority of NYCers support Occupy.

10/19 – Study reports ¼ of protestors have been “Occupying” Wall Street since October 5th. 10/20 – Viral internet support through OWS “care packages” – messages that air grievance and end with “I am the 99%”

Week 6 10/21 – Family “sleep-over” night in which children sleep at Zuccotti Park. 10/22 – Anti stop-and-frisk protests 10/23 – 15 arrested at a protest, 120 are in process of arrest.

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Search Queries

1. Growth search query:

"grow" or "growing" or "grows" "goes global" or "spread" or "spreading" or "spreads" "across the country"

2. 99% search query "99%ers" or "99%" or "99" or "99 percent" or "99 percenters"

3. Political references search query:

"Democrats" OR "Democrat" OR "Democratic Leaders" OR "Democratic Party" "Pelosi" OR "Nancy Pelosi" OR "liberals" "The President" or "Obama" OR "Joe Biden" or "Biden" OR "Republicans" or "Republican Party" OR "Republican" or "Mitt Romney" or "Romney" or "Mitt" or "Herman Cain" or "Mr. Cain" or "Cain" or "Newt" or "Gingrich" or "Newt Gingrich" or "Michelle Bachmann" or "Bachmann" or "Eric Cantor" OR "Ann Coulter" OR "Karl Rove" OR "Glenn Beck" "Tea Party" OR "Union" OR "Unions" or "AFL-CIO" or "American Federation of Teachers" OR "AFT" OR "Transport Workers Union" OR "TWU" OR "big labor" OR "labor" OR "re-election" OR "2012" OR "bailout" OR "bailed out" OR "American Jobs Act" OR "Jobs Bill"

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Data Spreadsheets – Articles, Broadcasts, Tweets, YouTube Videos Per Day

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Data Spread Sheets –   Political References Per Day

Date CNN FOX MSNBC NewsmaxDemocracy Now!

The HuffingtonPost

The American Spectator

10/1/11 0 6 510/2/11 0 310/3/11 80 102 54 8 14 2310/4/11 84 6 42 6 14 1210/5/11 99 43 40 27 46 11 2010/6/11 47 66 176 23 36 3210/7/11 149 29 88 73 11 4110/8/11 42 41 1 410/9/11 12 21 1 5 3810/10/11 37 309 196 106 59 8 510/11/11 5 85 183 71 32 16 910/12/11 3 99 30 18 23 9 4310/13/11 2 53 59 84 1 11 510/17/11 5 234 355 33 2010/18/11 103 269

Total 565 1088 1223 521 269 197 129

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Graphs, Tables, and Figures

Figure 1.1 – Pre-Occupy Promotional Material

Table 1.2 – Timetable of Significant Events

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Walker-Craig

Date (2011)

Event(s)

7/13 • Adbusters first makes Occupy Wall Street by a post on their websitecalling audiences to occupy Wall Street on September 17th, 2011

9/17 • The first day of OWS. An estimated 1,000 protestors are present.

9/24 • 80 protestors are arrested during a march• YouTube video goes viral (+1 million views) of police officer pepper spraying a young female protestor, portrayed as non-violent protestor.

9/26-9/28

• Endorsements of OWS by Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Cornell West, and firstofficial support of large union –Transport Workers Union (TWU Local-100).

10/1 • OWS protests on the Brooklyn Bridge, where 700 are arrested.

10/5 • 10,000 to 20,000 people march for the “international day of action,” bringing at least 39 organizations, with some of NYC’slargest labor unions and MoveOn.Org.

10/10 • Protestors interpret Bloomberg’s statement with the following tweet: “Bloomberg said we can stay indefinitely! Big win!”

10/15 • “Day of International Rage” – more than 1,500 cities participate, tens of thousands inNew York occupy Times Square.

185

Graph 2.1 – Occupy Articles/Broadcasts/Tweets/Video Uploads per day (as % of overall articles, etc., perday)42, 9/15/11 – 10/23/11

9/14/07

9/18/07

9/22/07

9/26/07

9/30/07

10/4/07

10/8/07

10/12/07

10/16/07

10/20/07

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

FOXCNNMSNBCNewsmax.comThe American SpectatorDemocracy Now! The Huffington PostTwitterYouTube

42 See methodology for explanation of Occupy articles, etc. per day and percentage of overall articles. Average tweets, articles, and video uploads per day could not be determined for Twitter, The Huffington Post, and YouTube.

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Graph 2.2 – Occupy Articles/Broadcasts/Tweets/Video Uploads per day (as % of overall articles, etc., perday), 9/15/11 – 9/30/11

9/14/07

9/16/07

9/18/07

9/20/07

9/22/07

9/24/07

9/26/07

9/28/07

05101520253035404550

FOXCNNMSNBCNewsmax.comThe American SpectatorDemocracy Now! The Huffington PostTwitterYouTube

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Table 2.1 – Descriptive Statistics of Media Coverage of Occupy Wall Street

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Graph 2.3 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, Fox News, 9/15 – 10/23

9/14/07

9/17/07

9/20/07

9/23/07

9/26/07

9/29/07

10/2/07

10/5/07

10/8/07

10/11/07

10/14/07

10/17/07

10/20/07

02468101214161820

Fox News Broadcasts on Occupy Wall Street

Date

Numb

er o

f Br

oadc

ast

Graph 2.4 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, CNN, 9/17 – 10/23

9/16/07

9/19/07

9/22/07

9/25/07

9/28/07

10/1/07

10/4/07

10/7/07

10/10/07

10/13/07

10/16/07

10/19/07

10/22/07

0

5

10

15

20

25

CNN Broadcasts on Occupy Wall Street

Date

Broa

dcas

ts

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Graph 2.5 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, MSNBC, 9/17 – 10/23

9/16/07

9/19/07

9/22/07

9/25/07

9/28/07

10/1/07

10/4/07

10/7/07

10/10/07

10/13/07

10/16/07

10/19/07

10/22/07

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8 MSNBC Broadcasts on Occupy Wall StreetMSNBC Average Broadcast Per Day

Date

Broa

dcas

ts

Graph 2.6 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, Democracy Now!, 9/17 – 10/23

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9/15/07

9/18/07

9/21/07

9/24/07

9/27/07

9/30/07

10/3/07

10/6/07

10/9/07

10/12/07

10/15/07

10/18/07

10/21/07

024681012141618

Democracy Now! Broadcasts on Occupy Wall Street

Date

Broadcasts/Articles

Graph 2.7 – The Huffington Post Articles Per Day, 9/15/11 to 10/23/11

9/14/0

7

9/17/0

7

9/20/0

7

9/23/0

7

9/26/0

7

9/29/0

7

10/2/0

7

10/5/0

7

10/8/0

7

10/11/

07

10/14/

07

10/17/

07

10/20/

070

5

10

15

20

25

30

35The Huffington Post

Date

Arti

cles

Graph 2.8 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, Newsmax, 9/16 – 10/23

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9/15/07

9/18/07

9/21/07

9/24/07

9/27/07

9/30/07

10/3/07

10/6/07

10/9/07

10/12/07

10/15/07

10/18/07

10/21/07

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40Newsmax Articles on Occupy Wall Street

Newsmax Average Articles Per Day

Date

Arti

cles

Graph 2.9 – Occupy Broadcasts Per Day, The American Spectator 9/17 –

10/23

9/16/07

9/19/07

9/22/07

9/25/07

9/28/07

10/1/07

10/4/07

10/7/07

10/10/07

10/13/07

10/16/07

10/19/07

10/22/07

012345678 American

Spectator Articles on Occupy Wall StreetAverage American Spectator Articles Per Day

Date

Articles

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Graph 2.10 – YouTube uploads, 9/17 – 10/23. Source Topsy Pro Analytics.

Graph 2.11 – YouTube uploads, September 17th to October 23rd.

9/16/07

9/19/07

9/22/07

9/25/07

9/28/07

10/1/07

10/4/07

10/7/07

10/10/07

10/13/07

10/16/07

10/19/07

10/22/07

010000200003000040000500006000070000

YouTube

Date

Video Uploads

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Graph 2.12 – YouTube uploads, 9/17–10/23 (maximum dates excluded)

9/16/07

9/19/07

9/22/07

9/25/07

9/28/07

10/1/07

10/4/07

10/7/07

10/10/07

10/13/07

10/16/07

10/19/07

10/22/07

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

YouTube (without maximum dates)

Dates

Video Uploads

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Figure 3.2, Map of the occupation of Zuccotti Park

Figure 3.3, Discussion Threads on “Police” Forum on #HowToOccupy

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Table 4.1 – Search query for “the 99%”News Medium Number of ReferencesMSNBC 92CNN 48Democracy Now! 31The Huffington Post 27The American Spectator 11Fox 9Newsmax 4

Figure 4.2 – Clip from CNN, 10/5

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Table 4.3 – References to the Growth of Occupy Wall Street News Medium Number of References

to Growth (N)

Percentage (%) of Articles/Broadcasts with References to Growth

CNN 184 91%MSNBC 101 72%Fox 62 54%Mainstream Media

Average

115.67 72.3%

Democracy Now! 61 63%Newsmax 36 43%The Huffington Post 34 39%The American Spectator 4 18%Alternative Media

Average

33.75 40.75%

Graph 4.4 – Broadcasts/Articles per day, 9/30 – 10/3

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9/29/07 9/30/07 10/1/07 10/2/070

2

4

6

8

10

12

FoxCNNMSNBCNewsmaxThe American SpectatorDemocracy NowThe Huffington Post

Date

Arti

cles

/Bro

adca

sts Pe

r Da

y

4.5 – Timetable of Politician Commentary (and location of commentary)Date Politician Commentary

(location and political party in parenthesis)

Type of Commentary (Unsympathetic or Sympathetic)

10/4 Mitt Romney (R) (retirement community)Joe Biden (D) (local Florida radio station)

Unsympathetic

Sympathetic

10/5 Mitt Romney (R) (ABC)Herman Cain (R) (CBS) Ron Paul (R) (National Press Club)

UnsympatheticUnsympathetic Sympathetic

10/6 Nancy Pelosi (D) (Press Conference) Barack Obama (D) (Press conference)

SympatheticSympathetic

10/7 Eric Cantor (R) (Press Unsympathetic

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conference)10/9 Michelle Bachmann (R)

(CNN) Newt Gingrich (R) (CBS) Herman Cain (R) (CBS) Jon Huntsman (R) (town hall meeting)

UnsympatheticUnsympatheticUnsympatheticSympathetic

10/12

John McCain (R) (Politico)

Bill Clinton (D) (Lettermen)

SympatheticSympathetic

Graph 4.6 – Composite Articles/Broadcasts Per Day

Date

10/2/11

10/4/11

10/6/11

10/8/11

10/10/11

10/12/11

10/14/11

10/16/11

10/18/11

0102030405060708090

The Huffington PostDemocracy Now! The American SpectatorNewsmaxMSNBCCNNFOX

Date

Comp

osite

Poli

tical

Refere

nce

Illustration 4.7 – Relationship Between Politicians’ Statements on

Occupy and Increasing Media Coverage of Occupy

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Graph 4.8 – Composite Political References Per Day

9/30/07

10/2/07

10/4/07

10/6/07

10/8/07

10/10/07

10/12/07

10/17/07

0100200300400500600700800

The American SpectatorThe Huffington PostDemocracy Now!NewsmaxMSNBCFOXCNN

Date

Political References P

er Day

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Increasing Coverage of Occupy

Statements from Politicians about Occupy

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Table 4.9 – Table Political References for MSNBC

MSNBC Total Political References

Republicans

Obama

Democrats

TeaParty

Unions

2012 Election

Bailout and American Jobs Act

Number of References

1223 (100%)

511 (42%)

330 (27%)

131 (11%)

97 (8%)

82 (7%)

40 (3%)

32 (3%)

Table 4.10 – Table Political References for Fox News, Newsmax, and The American

Spectator

News Medium

All Political References

Tea Party

Obama

Democrats

Republicans

Unions

2012 Election

Bailout/ American Jobs Act

Fox News

1066 (100%)

222 (21%)

297 (28%)

131 (12%)

298 (28%)

39 (4%)

35 (3%)

45 (4%)

Newsmax

521 (100%)

64 (12%)

174 (33%)

53 (10%)

148 (28%)

44 (8%)

18 (3%)

11 (2%)

The American Spectator

108 (100%)

9 (8%)

30 (28%)

19 (18%)

27 (25%) 15 (14%)

0 (0%)

8 (7%)

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Table 4.11 – Table of CNN’s Political References

CNN Tota

l

Tea

Part

y

Obam

a

Democra

ts

Republic

ans

Unio

ns

201

2

Bailout/

American

Jobs Act

Numberof

References

(and %)

560

(100

%)

200

(36%

)

111

(20%

)

25 (4%) 155

(28%)

45

(8%)

9

(2%

)

17 (3%)

Figure 4.12 – Frame from YouTube video of police making protestors

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Figure 4.13 – User-generated content highlighting changes in an article in The

New York Times about Occupy arrests.

Table 4.14 – Table of News Mediums Legitimizing Occupy’s Grievances and Occupy

on the Whole

News Medium Legitimated

Grievances

Legitimized

OccupyThe American Spectator

Newsmax

XFox News

XEarly Coverage of

CNN

X

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Late Coverage of CNN

X

XMSNBC

X

XThe Huffington Post

X

XDemocracy Now!

X

X

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