Occupy the government: Analyzing presidential and congressional discursive response to movement repression

I examine the role of Occupy Wall Street in shifting presidential and congressional discourse on economic fairness and inequality. Using data from 4646 presidential speeches and 1256 congressional records from 2009 to 2015, I test different mechanisms, including repression, media coverage, public opinion, and presidential agenda-setting by applying a novel combination of web scraping, natural language processing, and time series models. I suggest that movement success can be measured in its ability to shape discursive opportunity structures, and I argue that the role of the president should be at the forefront of social movements research. Ultimately, I demonstrate (1) that the repression of Occupy protesters not only predicts media coverage but also increases discursive opportunities through President Obama and Congress, (2) that media coverage of Occupy predicts presidential discourse, (3) that the president's rhetorical shift increases congressional response, and (4) that this change persists after the movement faltered.     

Causes of ethnic conflict and protest in Urban America, 1877–1889

Studies of ethnic conflict and protest find patterns of systematic “cycles of protest” in which minorities become the targets of concentrated attack or instigate protests against discrimination and prejudice. Such cycles have been linked to the persistence of economic exploitation and the occurrence of economic contractions, which exacerbate ethnic tensions. Proponents of competition theory claim that rising levels of ethnic competition over jobs, housing, and other resources increases the likelihood of ethnic collective action. This paper extends competition theory by specifying the effects of changes in immigration flows and economics on ethnic competition. It uses data on collective actions in 80 large cities in the United States from 1877 through 1889 to test propositions about competition and contagion. Analyses reported here support the contention that (a) high levels and rapid rates of immigration, (b) increases in the wages of common laborers, (c) increases in business failures, and (d) contagion, indicated by the recency of prior waves of events, all raise rates of ethnic collective action.     

Social media processes in disasters: Implications of emergent technology use

This article seeks to extend social science scholarship on social media technology use during disruptive events. Though social media's role in times of crisis has been previously studied, much of this work tends to focus on first-responders and relief organizations. However, social media use during disasters tends to be decentralized and this organizational structure can promote different types of messages to top-down information systems. Using 142,786 geo-tagged tweets collected before and after Hurricane Sandy's US landfall as a case study, this article seeks to explore shifts in social media behavior during disruptive events and highlights that though Sandy disrupted routine life within Twitter, users responded to the disaster by employing humor, sharing photos, and checking into locations. We conclude that social media use during disruptive events is complex and understanding these nuanced behaviors is important across the social sciences.     

中西方利益集团参与政策制定方式之比较

西方利益集团参与政策制定的方式主要包括渗入选举过程以对选举结果施加影响,疏通政府以影响政府的行政活动,广泛介入立法过程以影响立法结果,以及采用公开运动、和平示威、停止合作等方式。中国利益集团是通过人民代表大会、政府行政部门和大众传播媒介来参与和影响政府决策的。这种差异是源于国家政治体制和文化的不同。要促进我国利益集团的健康发展。政府必须努力营造有利于利益集团发展的外部环境,培育社会公众和利益集团的公共精神,制定相关法律法规,促进利益集团的规范化发展。     

中国文化国际社交媒体传播研究——基于YouTube热门视频的分析

以YouTube、Facebook、Twitter为代表的新型社交媒体对国际传播范式和文化传播方式带来深度渗透和冲击,成为许多国家高度重视和积极利用的传播新领域,显现出在全球传播中的显著效应与战略价值。当前,中国在国际社交媒体平台中的文化走出去和文化软实力建设亟待加强和提高,文章以YouTube具有一定传播热度的视频为对象,对中国文化的国际传播现状、效应与特征进行分析,并提出加强YouTube语境下中国文化对外传播的对策建议。     

Sexual identities and participation in liberal and conservative social movements

The desire for social change, political activism, and sexual identities may all be related. Lesbians and gays generally contest heterosexism more than heterosexuals but we do not know how sexual identities sways participation in class, race, and gender based social movements. When analyzing the American National Election Surveys of 2012 (n = 3519), gays and lesbians were about twenty times more likely to join LGB justice campaigns than heterosexuals. Moreover, the greater activism of gays and lesbians also crossed over to recent Occupy Wall Street, peace, and environmental mobilizations. Finally, this analysis ends with logistic regressions that determine if any sexual identity gaps in movement participation are the result of demographic, contextual, and ideological covariates.     

西方纵容袒护中国民族分离主义的原因

2010年伊始,美国总统奥巴马罔顾中国政府的严正抗议,执意会见达赖喇嘛,引发了中国舆论和民意的强烈愤怒。2008年和2009年,＂藏独＂和＂疆独＂势力分别策划实施的拉萨3.14事件和乌鲁木齐7.5事件以来,西方国家的政客和媒体不顾中国人民的民族感情,指责中国政府为稳定局势采取的措施是＂镇压少数民族和迫害宗教信仰自由＂,公然为中国民族分裂主义者张目。一个接一个的西方国家上演反华＂秀＂,允许中国分裂分子窜访进行反华活动。西方之所以这样做,有着深刻的政治背景和社会根源。分化中国的战略目的;根深蒂固的政治偏见;衡量中国事务的西方价值标准;偏听偏信分离主义分子的蛊惑宣传;猎奇理念,商业炒作;政治做秀和捞取选票;多元体制,混水摸鱼都是西方纵容和袒护中国民族分裂主义的原因。     

Perceived group cohesion versus actual social structure: A study using social network analysis of egocentric Facebook networks

Research on group cohesion often relies on individual perceptions, which may not reflect the actual social structure of groups. This study draws on social network theory to examine the relationship between observable structural group characteristics and individual perceptions of group cohesion. Leveraging Facebook data, we extracted and partitioned the social networks of 109 participants into groups using a modularity algorithm. We then surveyed perceptions of cohesion, and computed group density and size using social network analysis. Out of six linear mixed effects models specified, a random intercept and fixed slope model with group size as a predictor of perceived group cohesion emerged as best fitting. Whereas group density was not linked to perceived cohesion, size had a small negative effect on perceived cohesion, suggesting that people perceive smaller groups as more cohesive. We discuss the potential of social network analysis, visualization tools, and Facebook data for advancing research on groups.     

Migration and protest in the Jim Crow South

The Great Migration and the Civil Rights Movement were two pivotal events experienced by the southern African American population during the 20th Century. Each has received considerable attention by social scientists and historians, and a possible connection between the two phenomena has been speculated. However, no systematic investigation of the effect of migration on protest during the Jim Crow era has been conducted. In this study we use data for 333 southern communities to examine the relationship between youthful black migration between 1950 and 1960 and the occurrence of sit-ins early in 1960. We find a strong positive, non-linear, relationship between net-migration and the likelihood of a sit-in which can be explained by two sets of mediating influences: local demographic conditions and local organizational presence. Our findings offer strong empirical support for an association between southern black migration and protest during Jim Crow and suggest the value of considering the influence of demographic forces on collective action.     

邯郸市城市社会不稳定因素及其对策研究

城市相较农村 ,虽地小人少 ,但人口却极为集中 ,信息媒体广布 ,背曲遭损者极易聚集而酿成大规模不稳定事件。一旦出现不稳定事件 ,就会借助相互交谈、报刊、电视、因特网等信息媒体迅速而广泛地传播 ,短时间内即可家喻户晓 ,故其不稳定因素具有相对外显性、暴发性和不确定性 ,对社会稳定具有极大的破坏力。消除和控制城市社会不稳定因素是消除和控制整个社会不稳定因素 ,实现社会安定和持续发展的关键 ,会起到稳定全局、事半功倍的效果。本文对邯郸市城市社会不稳定因素分“贫困和失业”、“腐败”、“不公平、不公正”、“治安状况不佳”、“领导失信”、“政府效能不佳”六个方面作了抽样调查 ,并结合其它有关调查 ,提出了一系列消除和控制不稳定因素的对策。     

社会运动理论的演变理路：国家视角的再出发

现代社会运动本质上是民众为影响日益扩大的国家权力来实现自己的局部利益或影响一定社会变迁的一种集体行动。因而国家视角对于整体性把握社会运动理论意义重大,故以国家视角对社会运动研究文献进行系统回顾,来梳理社会运动理论的发展,并给出对国家视角兴起、衰落和回归历程的可能解释。在此基础上,社会运动研究对于中国国家转型的意义将不言自明。     

Measuring structural similarity in large online networks

Structural similarity based on bipartite graphs can be used to detect meaningful communities, but the networks have been tiny compared to massive online networks. Scalability is important in applications involving tens of millions of individuals with highly skewed degree distributions. Simulation analysis holding underlying similarity constant shows that two widely used measures – Jaccard index and cosine similarity – are biased by the distribution of out-degree in web-scale networks. However, an alternative measure, the Standardized Co-incident Ratio (SCR), is unbiased. We apply SCR to members of Congress, musical artists, and professional sports teams to show how massive co-following on Twitter can be used to map meaningful affiliations among cultural entities, even in the absence of direct connections to one another. Our results show how structural similarity can be used to map cultural alignments and demonstrate the potential usefulness of social media data in the study of culture, politics, and organizations across the social and behavioral sciences.     

The success of protest groups: Multivariate analyses

This paper reviews earlier research and presents new analytical findings regarding the outcomes of social movements. Using the resource mobilization/management approach, empirical propositions that seek to explain protest group success or failure are tested. Based upon data gathered from a sample of 53 US protest groups, the causal models explained the majority of the variance in degree of success between these groups. Our findings indicate that protest groups which threaten to replace or destroy established groups are usually unsuccessful, and those having many strong alliances tend to be more successful than groups fighting alone. The use of violence does not greatly aid the prediction of group outcome because of the unpredictable, ambivalent reaction to violence by established groups.     

How to study political activists: A petition survey approach

A major challenge for social movement and political campaign studies is generating large, representative samples of political activists. This paper outlines a strategy of surveying those who participate in a common, baseline form of political action: signing petitions. Similar to protest surveys, signing a petition constitutes a more baseline low cost/low risk form of political activism. In 26 states in the U.S. petition lists are public record and, with modest effort, can be used to study a wide variety of issues, groups and campaigns. We outline the steps and costs involved in such a petition survey and how to improve response rate. To assess response bias, we compare demographic and political affiliation measures acquired from a marketing analytics company (Experian) for respondents and non-respondents to our survey of petition signers for two state-level initiative elections, finding only modest and interpretable response bias. The methods presented here have broader implications for survey research in general.     

互联网对社会运动的影响机制阐释

互联网业已成为群体行动的舆论平台和发生渠道,通过资源动员、政治机会结构的供给与共识解读及建构,促使网络社会运动的专业化与草根化并行的发展趋势。围绕国家——社会关系的核心逻辑,以资源动员、政治过程和框架建构等理论范式为研究框架,分析在我国社会转型的背景下,政治机会结构与群体行动的互动与平衡,剖析网络社会运动的发生机理,并探索促使其有效发生的制度性资源配置的合理化路径。     

Social and Economic Distress in Large Cities, 1970–1990: A Test of the Urban Crisis Thesis

This paper is a test of the urban crisis thesis, which argues that the social and economic conditions of large cities have continued to deteriorate since 1970. In addition, we examine the factors that account for differences in social distress among the cities. Finally, we investigate the regional location effect on urban social distress. In general the findings show both cross-sectionally and longitudinally that (1) the urban crisis has become worse over the years; (2) differences in social distress among cities are largely a function of economic distress, urban scale, and regional location; and (3) levels of distress have converged among cities in the old industrial North (the Rustbelt) and the South and West (the Sunbelt). In fact, the most distressed cities in the country are in the Sunbelt.     

传播技术的演进模式及其与社会的互动关系

无论是强技术决定论,还是弱技术决定论,都过分强调了技术的核心与主导作用,而忽略了社会政治文化因素对技术扩散的影响。媒介进化史表明,传播技术与社会之间是一种动态的互动关系:一方面,社会需要导致了对过时技术的排斥和对新技术的刺激;另一方面,与过时技术有关的社会压制因素会延缓新技术的扩散。另外,传播技术对社会塑造力量的发挥,亦无法脱离特定的社会和文化背景。作为决定论的一种替代性范式,"技术—社会互动"论可以更好地解释传播技术的演进模式及其与社会之间的相互作用关系。     

晚清自治时期上海街头的警民冲突

晚清自治时期,自治官绅从租界引进了不少西方近代城市管理措施,以加强对居民日常行为的干预。但是,长期养成的旧习惯肯定非一日之功可以改变。于是,当租界当局、老城厢的自治士绅以警察强力推行新的行为规则时,国人仍以习惯行事,在租界街头就首先出现了居民与租界巡捕之间的暴力冲突;数十年后,曾经发生在租界街头的冲突又在老城厢重演,并成为当时老城厢居民生活中的一个值得注意的话题。在近代上海,不管是发生在19世纪后期租界街头的警民冲突,还是20世纪初在老城厢上演的街头闹剧,在某种程度上都反映了前近代与近代城市生活的差异,说明中国城市居民要适应近代城市生活,需要改变某些被视为理所当然的生活习惯,重新调适个人行为。在近代中国社会的急剧变革过程中,相对革命、立宪所导致的社会冲突而言,发生在人们生活领域中的冲突应该更能反映社会的变迁。     

仪式与意义:1919-1928年间为自杀殉国者举办的追悼会

近代中国,外患频仍,一些仁人志士为警醒同胞,自杀殉国。1919-1928年间的爱国运动中,尽管人们不认同自杀这种抗议方式,但由于自杀行动具有激励国人的作用,又对自杀者表示理解、尊重,赞扬他们的爱国精神,将他们看成以身殉国的烈士,为他们举行追悼会,通过启事、公祭、追悼、公葬、抚恤等仪式环节,使他们为国捐躯的烈士价值定位获得肯定。追悼会也为人们抗议帝国主义的侵略暴行,呼吁同胞团结御侮、誓雪国耻提供了契机和场所,人们在感受追悼仪式所内含的意义时,增强了对国家面临的危难及共同价值的认同。追悼会在赋予自杀行动象征性社会意义的同时,也在中国现代爱国运动进程中发挥了社会动员的功能。     

Peer influence on protest participation: Communication and trust between co-workers as inhibitors or facilitators of mobilization

In this article, we investigate how communication and trust networks between employees affect participation in a strike. We analyze whether the strength of network relations is related to congruence in strike behavior using social network data on 59 Dutch workers. We find that private communication networks and trust networks lead to similar strike behavior. This finding indicates that networks not only promote protest mobilization but are also vehicles for demobilization, albeit through different network relations.