Patrick McCurdy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Ottawa. His research and areas of interest include media, protest and spectacle and the media strategies of social movement actors. Patrick received his PhD from the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in May 2009 for his dissertation, entitled “‘I Predict a Riot’ – Mediation and Political Contention: Dissent!’s media practices at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit”. His work has been published in academic journals including the International Journal of Communications, Critical Discourse Studies, and Communications – European Journal of Communication Research. He is currently working on the collectively authored book Protest Camps: imagining alternative worlds (Zed forthcoming 2013). For more information on the project visit www.protestcamp.org.

Workshop Format

Occupy! the Media is intended to be an interactive workshop where participants are able to discuss, debate, exchange, and develop a better understanding of the role of media in activism. The workshop takes as its starting point, the view that media is a site of struggle on par and in tandem with physical places of resistance. It views the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement as engaged in a struggle which ultimately is over people’s minds. As such, the representation of the OWS movement in both mainstream and social movement-produced media can have a powerful impact on its public standing and success. Recognising that media – in all its forms – serve as an important environment and platform for the struggles of the OWS movement, this workshop has three related objectives.

First it seeks to examine the media’s representation and “framing” of the Occupy movement and consider the reasons behind this. Specific attention will be put towards understanding the idea of “media frames” and “framing” as key concepts which come from media and social movement theory. Media frames may be understood as hegemonic routines and activities which shape and structure the practice of journalism and ultimately influence what the news reports and how the news reports it (Gitlin, 1980). Put differently, a media frame may be understood as the central idea of a news story. The frame, like a picture frame, places the events being covered into perspective. It is hoped that workshop participants will be able to develop an understanding of what framing is and then be able to critically apply this concept to media coverage of the Occupy movement.

The media’s framing of the Occupy movement, or any movement for that matter, is not inevitable. Instead, social movements engage in contests between each other and against political competitors to get their messages in the media. Thus the second objective of this workshop is to examine the mainstream and social movement media strategies deployed by the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Social movements have always been innovators when it comes to media and technology; OWS is no different. To this end we will examine how, and to what end, social media resources were used by the OWS movement.

Related to this, and working with a broad understanding of media, our third objective is to explore the multiple uses of communication technologies and social media platforms by OWS for organizing and mobilizing. Depending on time and the interests of workshop participants, this may also provide an opportunity to discuss and wade into debates around the utility of social media to activism often referred to as the ‘clicktivism’ or ‘slacktivism’ debate.

Suggested Readings

 A note on the workshop readings: Below is a collection of websites, links and readings which may be of interest to those attending the Occupy! the Media workshop. Presented below is first a collection of links directly related to the Occupy movement which predominantly consists of media sites made by Occupy members. This is followed by a more general collection of academic articles which deal with issues pertaining to how social movements such as the Occupy movement are covered by media (framing), how they interact with media (media strategies) and debates over the utility of social media to such movements.

In selecting these readings, an effort has been made to include references to sources which may be accessed for free. However, a separate section has been created which lists some additional articles which require paid academic journal subscriptions and books. It is not necessary that you read these articles for the workshop.

The list of links and suggested readings is work in progress and a complete and revised list will be shared during the workshop.

In addition to the below links, the Berkley Journal of Sociology has a fantastic collection of updated papers and lectures available on its website: http://bjsonline.org/2011/12/understanding-the-occupy-movement-perspectives-from-the-social-sciences/

Occupy Websites of Interest: 1. Adbusters Magazine: http://www.adbusters.org/

2. Crowd sourced film project: 99% — The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film: http://www.99percentfilm.com/

3. Occupy Comics Crowd sourced comic project inspired by the Occupy movement: http://occupycomics.com/

4. Occupy Design, a grassroots project connecting designers with on-the-ground demonstrators in the Occupy Together movement seeking to create freely available visual tools for the movement: http://occupydesign.org/

5. Occuprint hosts showcases posters from the worldwide Occupy movement, all of which are part of the creative commons, and available to be downloaded for non-commercial use: http://occuprint.org/

6. OccupyWallSt.org is the unofficial de facto online resource for the growing occupation movement happening on Wall Street and around the world. http://occupywallst.org/

7. Occupy Research is a open, shared space for distributed research focused around OccupyWallStreet / OccupyTogether movement: http://occupyresearch.wikispaces.com/

8. Occupy Together is a hub for all of the events springing up across the world in solidarity with the Occupy Wall St. http://www.occupytogether.org/ 9. The Occupied Wall Street Journal is one of many media projects participating in the occupy movement: http://occupiedmedia.us/

10. The Occupied Times of London is the independent newspaper of and for the London occupations.http://theoccupiedtimes.co.uk/

Free Access Online Readings 1. Castells, Manuel (2007). “Power and Counter-power in the Network Society”, International Journal of Communication, Volume 1. Available from: http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/46/35 Article captures the core ideas of Castells’ 2009 book, Communication Power. The idea of counterpower is helpful for understanding the rise and media resistance of the Occupy movement.

2. Donson, Fiona, Graeme Chesters, Ian Welsh and Andrew Tickle (2004).“Rebels with a Cause, Folk Devils without a Panic: Press jingoism, policing tactics and anti-capitalist protest in London and Prague”, International Journal of Criminology. Available from: http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Donson%20et%20al%20-%20Folkdevils.pdf

This study is based on Stanley Cohen’s idea of ‘folk devils’ which is a helpful lens for reflecting critically on the media’s coverage of the Occupy movement. 3. Gladwell, Malcolm (2010). “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted”, The New Yorker¸ Available from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell A now famous polemic on the debate about the potential for social media to facilitate activism. 4. Morozov, E. (2009, May 19). ‘The Brave New World of Slacktivism’ Foreign Policy. Available from http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/19/the_brave_new_world_of_slacktivism Inspiration for the term ‘slacktivism’ and another text which debates the utility of media to protest

5. Stelter, B (2011, November 20). “Protest Puts Coverage in Spotlight”, New York Times. Available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/business/media/occupy-wall-street-puts-the-coverage-in-the-spotlight.html Article which acknowledges the challenges and critiques mainstream media have faced in their coverage of the Occupy movement

Subscription based articles or books Cohen, Stanley. (2003). Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Routledge: London. Pp. 1-15 and 161-172.

Gamson, W., & Wolfsfeld, G. (1993). Movements and Media as Interacting Systems. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 528, pp. 114-125. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1047795

Gitlin, Todd (1980). The Whole World is Watching. University of California Press: London. Pp. 1-31

Juris, Jeffrey S. 2008. Networking Futures: The Movements Against Corporate Globalization. London: Duke University Press.

Rosie, M and Gorringe, H. (2009). “The Anarchists' World Cup’: Respectable Protest and Media Panics Anarchist World Cup”, Social Movement Studies 8(1): 35-53.

Shirky, C. (2011). “The political power of social media”, Foreign Affairs. 90(10), January/February, 28-41.

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