Mic Check! Media Cultures and the Occupy Movement
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A Brief History of Occupy Wall Street ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG NEW YORK OFFICE by Ethan Earle Table of Contents
A Brief History of Occupy Wall Street ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG NEW YORK OFFICE By Ethan Earle Table of Contents Spontaneity and Organization. By the Editors................................................................................1 A Brief History of Occupy Wall Street....................................................2 By Ethan Earle The Beginnings..............................................................................................................................2 Occupy Wall Street Goes Viral.....................................................................................................4 Inside the Occupation..................................................................................................................7 Police Evictions and a Winter of Discontent..............................................................................9 How to Occupy Without an Occupation...................................................................................10 How and Why It Happened........................................................................................................12 The Impact of Occupy.................................................................................................................15 The Future of OWS.....................................................................................................................16 Published by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, New York Office, November 2012 Editors: Stefanie Ehmsen and Albert Scharenberg Address: 275 Madison Avenue, Suite 2114, -
Real Democracy in the Occupy Movement
NO STABLE GROUND: REAL DEMOCRACY IN THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT ANNA SZOLUCHA PhD Thesis Department of Sociology, Maynooth University November 2014 Head of Department: Prof. Mary Corcoran Supervisor: Dr Laurence Cox Rodzicom To my Parents ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is an outcome of many joyous and creative (sometimes also puzzling) encounters that I shared with the participants of Occupy in Ireland and the San Francisco Bay Area. I am truly indebted to you for your unending generosity, ingenuity and determination; for taking the risks (for many of us, yet again) and continuing to fight and create. It is your voices and experiences that are central to me in these pages and I hope that you will find here something that touches a part of you, not in a nostalgic way, but as an impulse to act. First and foremost, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Laurence Cox, whose unfaltering encouragement, assistance, advice and expert knowledge were invaluable for the successful completion of this research. He was always an enormously responsive and generous mentor and his critique helped sharpen this thesis in many ways. Thank you for being supportive also in so many other areas and for ushering me in to the complex world of activist research. I am also grateful to Eddie Yuen who helped me find my way around Oakland and introduced me to many Occupy participants – your help was priceless and I really enjoyed meeting you. I wanted to thank Prof. Szymon Wróbel for debates about philosophy and conversations about life as well as for his continuing support. -
Women Activists of Occupy Wall Street Consciousness-Raising and Connective Action in Hybrid Social Movements Megan Boler and Christina Nitsou
11 Women Activists of Occupy Wall Street Consciousness-Raising and Connective Action in Hybrid Social Movements Megan Boler and Christina Nitsou REDEFINING SOCIAL MOVEMENT “SUCCESS” On the Second Anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, September 17, 2013, political commentator Robert Reich dismissed the movement as having failed, in part due to its “lack of a clear leadership.” 1 Such judgments per- sistently accusing Occupy Wall Street (OWS) of having “no clear goals or aims”—widely held misrepresentations of OWS which began almost as soon as media began reporting—refl ect a fundamental misunderstanding and misrecognition of the particular commitments, aims, and visions of OWS as well as how contemporary “hybrid social movements” function, mobilized by a new generation of young, often fi rst-time activists. In par- ticular, the horizontal (nonhierarchical) organizational structure can appear to those unfamiliar with horizontalism as a lack of clear goals. Such accu- sations fail to recognize a key feature of contemporary social movements: the increasingly important commitment to a process of liberation as part and parcel of any end goals or singular aims. OWS is known as a leaderless movement for this reason, including features such as consensus-based deci- sions and radical inclusivity. Horizontalism creates a nonhierarchical space which invites women to thrive and fi nd spaces and places to assume “leadership.” A key participant from Occupy Santa Cruz tells us, . since we were in a horizontal structure, and in a vertical structure women are often put at the lower rung of the ladder, it was a way for women to be heard. So that did happen and . -
Copyright by Judith A. Thomas 2012
Copyright by Judith A. Thomas 2012 The Thesis Committee for Judith A. Thomas Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: Live Stream Micro-Media Activism in the Occupy Movement Mediatized Co-presence, Autonomy, and the Ambivalent Face APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Karin Gwinn Wilkins Joseph D. Straubhaar Live Stream Micro-Media Activism in the Occupy Movement Mediatized Co-presence, Autonomy, and the Ambivalent Face by Judith A. Thomas, BFA Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2012 Dedication For my husband, inspiration and co-conspirator, Rob Donald. (Photo: The First Adbusters’ Poster for Occupy Wall Street, September 2011. Acknowledgements The work of Manuel Castells on autonomous networks and communication power has had a profound impact on this scholarship. The breadth of his vision and theoretical analysis is inspiring and insightful. I hope this work contributes to the continuing critical cultural discussion of the potential of citizen micro-media in all contexts but especially the international uprisings of 2010-2012. Most especially, my sincere thanks to the following University of Texas at Austin professors whose knowledge and curiosity inspired me most: Joe Straubhaar, Paul Resta, Shanti Kumar, Sandy Stone, and especially my generous, gifted and patient supervisor, Karin Gwinn Wilkins. I will miss the depth and breadth of debate we shared, and I look forward to following your challenging work in the future. v Abstract Live Stream Micro-Media Activism in the Occupy Movement Mediatized Co-presence, Autonomy, and the Ambivalent Face Judith A. -
Clayton Thomas-Muller
Study Guide About The Film Occupy Love is a moving, transformative feature documentary that asks the question: how are the economic and ecological crises we are facing today a great love story? A profound shift is taking place all over the world. Humanity is waking up to the fact that the current system that dominates the planet is failing to provide us with health, happiness or meaning. The dominant paradigm is based on separation, as exemplified by the financial system, and the corporate emphasis of profits before people. Our headlong rush towards infinite growth is destroying our communities, our ecology, and threatening our very existence. The climate crisis is hitting us with droughts, extreme weather, floods, sea level rise and more, yet corporate lobbyists block any attempts at miti- gation. Unemployment is at an all time high, and the gap between the wealthiest 1% and the remaining 99% is growing alarmingly. People are losing their homes, and the quality of life for the many is plummeting, while the few are raking in absurd profits. Wall Street is making dangerous bets, greed is running rampant, and entire economies are collaps- ing. Governments have been bought by the corporations, and many of us had lost hope. Until now. This crisis has become the catalyst for a profound transformation: millions of people are deciding that enough is enough - the time has come to create a new world, a world that works for all life. We have experienced an extraordinary year of change, from the Arab Spring, to the European Summer, and now, erupting into North America: the Occupy Movement. -
Occupying Identities: Hierarchal Divisions and Collective Identity in the Occupy Movement
1 Occupying Identities: Hierarchal Divisions and Collective Identity in the Occupy Movement By Bridget Eileen Stirling A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Social and Applied Sciences in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Intercultural and International Communication Royal Roads University Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Supervisor: Dr. Phillip Vannini July 2015 Bridget Stirling, 2015 Occupying Identities 2 COMMITTEE APPROVAL The members of Bridget Stirling’s Thesis Committee certify that they have read the thesis titled Occupying Identities: Hierarchal Divisions and Collective Identity in the Occupy Movement and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the thesis requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Intercultural and International Communication: Dr. Phillip Vannini [signature on file] Dr. David Black [signature on file] Dr. Robert Benford [signature on file] Final approval and acceptance of this thesis is contingent upon submission of the final copy of the thesis to Royal Roads University. The thesis supervisor confirms to have read this thesis and recommends that it be accepted as fulfilling the thesis requirements: Dr. Phillip Vannini [signature on file] Occupying Identities 3 Creative Commons Statement This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ca/. Some material in this work is not being made available under the terms of this -
Vol. 54, No. 14, April 12, 2012
La lucha en CHINA 12 workers.org April 12, 2012 Vol. 54, No. 13 $1 TRAYVON MARTIN OUTRAGE BUILDS By Monica Moorehead INT’L DAY OF JUSTICE 4 TRAYVON MARTIN April 3 — As each day passes without an arrest of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, the anger and outrage around the country among the grassroots masses increase tenfold. It has been 37 days since Mar- tin, a 17-year-old African American, was fatally shot on TUES APRIL 10 Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla., as he was returning home from A Florida grand jury is scheduled on April 10 to ‘consider’ whether to arrest the buying iced tea and a bag of Skittles candy. A so-called vigilante who lynched by bullet our brother & son, Trayvon Martin, on Feb. 26. neighborhood watchman, Zimmerman stalked the un- armed teenager with a 9mm gun, then shot him in the chest as Martin cried for help. Zimmerman’s “excuse” TAKE TO THE STREETS for going after Martin was that he looked “suspicious” because he was wearing a hoodie. 6 pm Gather @ Union Square 14th Street & Broadway Zimmerman has said that he shot Martin in self-de- The People’s Power Tour and Occupy 4 Jobs urges all organizations, activists and fense because the youth attacked him, jumping on him, slamming Zimmerman’s head on the sidewalk and giv- communities to UNITE AS ONE to tell the grand jury that we demand the arrest of ing him a bloody nose. Those claims were discredited George Zimmerman and hold the police responsible for him walking the streets free. -
Occupy Wall Street's Challenge to an American Public Transcript
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 10-2014 Occupy Wall Street's Challenge to an American Public Transcript Christopher Neville Leary Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/324 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] OCCUPY WALL STREET’S CHALLENGE TO AN AMERICAN PUBLIC TRANSCRIPT by Christopher Leary A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2014 This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Dr. Ira Shor ________ _ 5/21/2014 __________________ ______ Date Chair of Examining Committee __Dr. Mario DiGangi ______________ _________________________ Date Executive Officer Dr. Jessica Yood Dr. Ashley Dawson Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK ii Abstract OCCUPY WALL STREET’S CHALLENGE TO AN AMERICAN PUBLIC TRANSCRIPT by Christopher Leary Adviser: Dr. Ira Shor This dissertation examines the rhetoric and discourses of the anti-corporate movement Occupy Wall Street, using frameworks from political ethnography and critical discourse analysis to offer a thick, triangulated description of a single event, Occupy Wall Street’s occupation of Zuccotti Park. The study shows how Occupy achieved a disturbing positionality relative to the forces which routinely dominate public discourse and proposes that Occupy’s encampment was politically intolerable to the status quo because the movement held the potential to consolidate critical thought and action. -
Vol. 53, No. 47, Dec. 1, 2011
• Cierre del puerto en Oakland • Cumbre Socialista 12 DEC. 1, 2011 Vol. 53, No. 47 50¢ Struggle resumes in Tahrir Square Egyptian masses defy military By John Catalinotto Nov. 21 — The masses have opened IN U.S. a new chapter in the Egyptian revolu- BOSSES’ BUDGET tion. They have stood strong in Tahrir Workers’ crisis 3 Square for nearly four days against bul- Occupations battle lets and gas demanding that the military regime, which succeeded President Hosni Mubarak last Feb. 12, step down. SOCIALIST As the day ended in Egypt, the Health police evictions ministry reported that 23 people had SUMMIT been killed and more than 1,500 wounded If the mayor of New York City thought However, that evening OWS regrouped by the Egyptian army and police. But the that he, his judge and his shock troops and held a General Assembly at Zuccotti Comes to Philly 3 people keep filling Tahrir Square. could put a halt to the Occupy Wall Street Park. The city’s repression had only made As a result of the mass determination to movement by raiding Zuccotti Park in the the protesters more resolute, and solidar- stay in the streets, as well as the spread of early hours of Nov. 15, he was wrong. ity actions spread around the country. the struggle to other Egyptian cities, the At 1:00 a.m., police brutally descended On Nov. 17 OWS then organized a “His- OCCUPY L.A. civilian government — that is, the politi- on the park with no warning and ousted toric Day of Action for the 99 percent“ Arrests teach role cians who provide a civilian cover to the activists, first pushing away reporters and with several events to celebrate the two- 5 U.S.-backed military — offered to resign. -
Strange Speech: Structures of Listening in Nuit Debout, Occupy, and 15M
International Journal of Communication 12(2018), 1840–1863 1932–8036/20180005 Strange Speech: Structures of Listening in Nuit Debout, Occupy, and 15M JESSICA FELDMAN Stanford University, USA Practices and techniques of listening were at the core of recent social movements that explicitly espoused horizontal direct democracy: 15M, Occupy Wall Street, and Nuit Debout. These movements sought to imagine nonhierarchical structures through which large groups of strangers could speak and listen to each other, considering seriously the coconstruction of communicative form and political values. Drawing on participant observation; 23 long-form interviews with social movement actors in Paris, Madrid, and New York City; and texts such as video documentation and “best practices” literature, this article performs a comparative analysis of internal assembly communications— particularly bodily mediated methods of transmitting and perceiving spoken language— and their relationships to deliberation and decision making. All of these movements struggled to reconcile the mandate to listen with the material and infrastructural challenges of autonomous public space. Nuit Debout’s strong commitment to accommodating those who could not comfortably participate in an occupation (day laborers, sans-papiers, disabled, etc.) caused its internal communication practices to differ in its attempts to conserve time and to prioritize translation. Keywords: social movements, listening, voice, Nuit Debout, Occupy Wall Street, 15M, horizontal democracy In order to enter into political exchange, it becomes necessary to invent the scene upon which spoken words may be audible, in which objects may be visible, and individuals themselves may be recognized. —Rancière, Dissenting Words (Panagia & Rancière, 2000, p. 118) Starting in late 2010, an upsurge of publicly sited social movements, broadly termed “the movements of the squares,” attempted to solve the problems of democratic deliberation, public speaking, and group listening. -
Revolutionary Leadership: from Paulo Freire to the Occupy Movementi
1 Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology Volume 4, Number 2 Fall 2012 Revolutionary Leadership: From Paulo Freire to the Occupy Movementi Mary Watkins Pacifica Graduate Institute Abstract All over the world, individuals in groups are attempting to occupy their “Commons.” In an era of gross income and power divides, this reclamation must go hand-in-hand with a process of psychic and interpersonal decolonization, where the received hierarchical roles and leadership practices we have inherited are disrupted and thrown into question. Beginning with Paulo Freire’s ideas on revolutionary leadership, and continuing to the principles and practices emerging in the OCCUPY movement, the author focuses on the consensus process and on horizontalism (horizontalidad). To aid in the radical transformation of the structures of oppression, counselors and other dialogically-skilled individuals are needed to help facilitate shared leadership, inclusive dialogue, conflict transformation, and consensus decision-making. Keywords: reclaiming the commons, consensus, revolutionary leadership, horizontalism (horizontalidad), revolution, dialogue, communities of resistance, cultural worker, limit act, OCCUPY movement I. Recovering the Commons Mistrust, disappointment, disillusionment, and anger mark our current relationship to leaders. The exercise of excess power, including violence, to satisfy rapacious desires for further power, prestige, privilege, and wealth have bled away the lifeblood - the needed nutrients for a decent life - from the majorities. Lies, manipulation, corruption, and deceit have betrayed and marred our hopes for forms of leadership for the common good. The raping of resources, including the labor of human beings, from one place and its inhabitants for the benefit of another much smaller set of people in another place is familiar to us from colonialism. -
Mayor Bloomberg Announced That the Very Act of Challenging Wall Street Would Be Treated As a Crime
SPRING 2012 ISSUE 6 vote every day deep democratic moment, something most of us have never seen and scarcely imagined, turned a small park A near Wall Street into the center of a global storm. Everybody knows the deck is stacked. But it turns out not every- body is willing to put up with it. Without asking permission, hundreds converged on the financial district to stop the machine. People convened open assemblies to think out loud together. Kitchens were built and volunteers served hundreds of thousands of meals. Books were borrowed and lent at the People’s Library with no need for a card. Nobody did it for the money. Occupy Wall Street changed not just what we think is realistic, but what is actually possible. Then the 1% hit back. “If you want to get arrested, we’ll accommodate you,” is how Mayor Bloomberg announced that the very act of challenging Wall Street would be treated as a crime. “Nobody can hear you when everybody’s yelling and SPRING TRAINING AT LIBERTY SQUARE: Eight months into direct democracy and screaming and pushing and shoving.” Funny stuff. fear is still not on the agenda. Learning direct action and consensus decision-making In school, we were taught that we are free to speak and free — to keep the pressure on Wall Street. PHOTO: Jed Brandt to assemble. Now we’re told we have “First Amendment Rights Areas” located inside steel barricades. Over the last eight months, ST nearly 7,000 have been arrested and occupations in dozens of cit- ies have been systematically evicted.