Occupy Online: Facebook and the Spread of Occupy Wall Street

Abstract

Since Occupy Wall Street began in New York City on September 17th, the movement has spread offline to hundreds of locations around the globe. Social networking sites have been critical for linking potential supporters and distributing information. In addition to Facebook pages on the Wall Street Occupation, more than 400 unique pages have been established in order to spread the movement across the US, including at least one page in each of the 50 states. These Facebook pages facilitate the creation of local encampments and the organization of protests and marches to oppose the existing economic and political system. 'Based on data acquired from Facebook, we find that Occupy groups have recruited over 170,000 active Facebook users and more than 1.4 million “likes” in support of Occupations. By October 22, Facebook pages related to the Wall Street Occupation had accumulated more than 390,000 “likes”, while almost twice that number, more than 770,000, have been expressed for the 324 local sites. Most new Occupation pages were started between September 23th and October 5th. On October 11th, occupy activity on Facebook peaked with 73,812 posts and comments to an occupy page in a day. By October 22nd, there had been 1,170,626 total posts or comments associated with Occupation pages. The density of Facebook activism is highest in college towns and in state capitals. Major uses for Facebook within the movement include the recruitment of people and resources to local occupations; information sharing and story telling; and across-group exchanges. While the focus of Occupy Wall Street is on mobilizing individual’s offline, online activities greatly facilitate these efforts.

The inefficacy of LinkedIn? A latent change model and experimental test of using LinkedIn for job search.

“…Latency refers to the length of time it takes to share content (McFarland & Ployhart, 2015), and low latency allows users to share and access a higher level of information quickly as well as communicate rapidly. For example, social networks allow things to go viral and spread to a high number of users in almost real-time (Caren & Gaby, 2011; Mills, 2012). This characteristic, in turn, leads users to extend a high level of energy and cognitive resources to manage this communication and associated information, resulting in ego depletion.…”

Shifting Stakes: Understanding the Dynamic Roles of Individuals and Organizations in Social Media Protests

“…For instance, as early as 1997, scholars examined the use of the internet by the Zapatista movement in Mexico and argued that the movement was able to overcome the traditional geographic constraints of access to media thanks to the “constant and reciprocal connections between cyberspace and other social spaces” [ 4 ]. Similarly, others have noted the emergence of new forms of political dissent mediated by technologies like SMS in the“Pasalo” movement in Spain [ 5 ], and by modern tools such as Facebook and Twitter during the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States [ 6 , 7 ] and the Arab Spring in Egypt [ 8 – 10 ].…”

Student Activism in the Technology Age

“…A survey of participants in a May 2011 Occupy rally found 24% current students and 39% more already holding degrees (Milkman, Luce, & Lewis, ). Student involvement in Occupy could also be seen through the coverage within college media outlets (Reimold, ), college town social media activity (Caren & Gaby, ), and within one of the central grievances of the activists, the call for relief from the tremendous amount of student debt held nationally (Declaration of the Occupation, ). Among Occupy participants, one survey found that greater than 50% of respondents under age 30 had over $1,000 in student debt at the time (Milkman et al., ).…”

“…The Tumblr page, which featured user‐submitted images of individuals holding signs that told personal stories of economic strife, was a driving force behind the Occupy narrative that the average person was facing unprecedented difficulty due to the few powerful individuals at the top of the societal hierarchy. Almost immediately after it was started, the Tumblr account gathered followers in large numbers (Caren & Gaby, ). Although there were a few early participants who set general terms of the Occupy movement, members were able to bring personal narratives into the cause in a way that the movement adapted and grew iteratively to suit the needs and demands of the activists.…”