Analysis Of The Occupy Movement

The first Occupy movement began on Wall Street in September 17th 2011. Over the next three weeks area’s became occupied in 951 cities throughout 82 countries. While the movement first occurred on Wall Street the idea of occupying a public space arose earlier in the year with the Arab Springs movement. In the middle east, the oppression democracy drove citizens into public areas to protest while the Occupy movement was driven by the state of an unequal distribution of resources, which exists globally. With uneven resource distribution existing internationally and the use of the internet the conditions were right for the Occupy movement to spread globally.
Currently there is enough food, water, clothing, and shelter in the world to provide
for the needs of civilization, yet all over the globe people are hungry, homeless, and uncertain ???. While this situation has existed for some time now it is better understood as the internet makes the information readily available and the disparity more apparent. This situation could be avoided by a more effective distribution of resources. Many citizens feel the division or resources is inequitable and see banks as the epitome of the issue, hence the Occupy Wall Street movement originated. There is not just the distribution of wealth that is associated with the banks, but the way they represent the free market that dictates recourse distribution. The idea was that Occupy Wall Street would bring attention to resource inequality, more specifically income inequality. Wealth distribution was the targeted as some bankers made multi million-dollar bonus during the 2008 recession while the 99% felt the burden of the crisis. This imbalance created the feeling of relative deprivation as the 99% could see that the 1% had created a situation that was exploiting the 99%.
It was middle-aged males who had been in blue-collar positions who felt the effects of the 2008 financial crisis the hardest. The way the recession left many of them jobless increased their biographical ability to protest. With new free time and a reason to be frustrated with the market crash, the costs for these individuals to become involved decreased. The 2008 financial crisis was a global phenomenon that left individuals like these in all the large cities around the world. This biographical group only accounted for …% of the protesters. Others would join the protest after work as they looked to make time to become involved in the movement. Through the internet it was possible for people to pick a location, meet up at the right time, and organize their lives so they could stay involved.
The internet did not just make the disparity more apparent through the availability of information. It made the information easy to compare through graphs and diagrams that could be shared easily online. It can be debated over the usefulness of this sharing on social media. An issue of putting information of contentious issues on social media is the lack of thought people give to them. Often people access social media to fill free time when they are board. This can create a dangerous situation people often just scrolled through important information only paying attention to the title. This can lead to people feeling informed while they still do not grasp the complexities of the movement.
This form of slacktivism leads to people feeling involve while they do not understand the root of the movement. One of the main ideas of Occupy was that the movement was an active process. No specific demands were made or message was trying to be sent. Rather an alternative reality was being discussed (Castells). Assuming reading and sharing information about income inequality online was not that the movement was about as the active discussion stage was being ignored.
Sections of the media chose to criticize the movement for lacking clear goals or leadership.
This was intended as at the occupy locations the protesters would discuss the situation that had brought them to the site and examine the way’s beneficial change was possible. Since this movement was based on active involvement the passive slacktivism did not aid the visual aspect of occupying public space where the movements aim’s were fluctuating based on its makeup. Along with discussion came a connection within the protesters. This allowed grievances to be shared easily (Howard & Hussian). This connection was vital to keep the protesters involved. As important as the internet was in sharing information it could not create the same strong ties that personal interactions could
(Gladwell). It is surprising that Occupy grew so large and spread so fast as normally the size of a movement is related to the resources available (McCarthy & Zald). In the case of Occupy there was no formally organization to try to lower the costs of joining or being part of the movement and without a fixed goal it was hard to see a tangible result the protesters could reach. Yet people flooded public spaces to protest. The internet showed this was happening and allowed cases of students being pepper sprayed go viral, yet the costs of joining the movement stayed the same. McCarthy & Zald focused on the preferences in society as the growing case of income inequality had caused people to seek change.
Occupy used the internet to coordinate events and connect the movement globally. Hashtags such as “#Occupy” filled Twitter and slogans like “we are the 99%” were started on Tumblr’s blog page. The people who saw the movement in internet sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Internet Relay Chat, and Meetup were able to organize themselves without a group or official leader. This meant movements could start anywhere since higher-up leadership and direction was not required.
While the Occupy movement was effective in bringing resource distribution and specifically income inequality to the public agenda, it fell short in creating tangible change. Since the Occupy movement lacked organization protests were eventually removed by the state. The governments were systematic, had the finical backing, and the force to eventually remove all the Occupy protesters from their locations by February 2012. Even though the protesters were removed the discussion has continued on over the internet. This has been the most valuable role of the internet in the movement: the ability of the movement to continue through hashtags and blogs so it stays as a contentious issue. Even though the public areas were occupied for multiple months, Occupy is considered a short-term movement.
The protesters created a lot of noise through the way they attracted attention, were visually seen, and filled the internet with their thoughts, but they struggled to influence the governments around the world. This is because they focused on direct action, instead of lobbing for structure institutional change. The Occupy movement never intended to have a second component that would search for structural change like … did during the women’s movement (Joe Freeman). Instead the idea was to bring the issues that were discussed to the public agenda. In this case the movement was a success as presidential candidates, especially Bernie Sanders, are discussing income inequality as an important issues that faces our country
today.