Social Media Campaigning – a reflection

At the end of the social media campaigning class it is adequate to do a short review of what it has meant for me. In this space I have tried to bring some of the elements of academic writing (referencing, examples, etc) so that I could strongly back up my opinion. I am not going to do that in this post which I want to keep more personal, a reflection of my own work and evolution of thinking.

Looking back at the blogs posted, I think it is obvious that for me this blog space allowed me to take two routes that are somehow connected. First, I tried to explore some topics that I was interested before such as Occupy Wall Street and Open Access Movement and tried to question it as tools for participation and activism. At the same time, the class and this space presented me with news topics and tools, such as digital mapping and photographic metadata. I tried to approach these topics as a learning experience mostly but I also wanted to question them using the academic framework that I am to. Most likely not an 100% success on either approach, but definetely an enriching experience.

On a more general level, I want to point out how a lot of the work surrounding online platforms and its political consequences have gone through a weird history. Taking a look at studies and books around the time the Web 2.0 was created, it seems that there was the dismissal of critical analysis towards an all or nothing view. Notions that this new medium would revolutionalize the wold, that it would democracy and plurality everywhere and to everyone seem farfecth right now. However, wasn’t that the discourse that people adopted to explain the Arab Spring, the so-called Twitter revolution?

A couple of “internet revolutions” later we are surprisingly left with more than just skepticals. It seems that we are finally facing a moment in academia (and elsewhere I am sure) where the study of the new medium is focusing not on the technical possibilities but instead on how people use it. Indeed, what I take from this class, and this is probably what has marked me the most, is that the technology is nothing without social and individual’s appropriation. The same way we must never address current events with simplifying frames, we should never approach all participatory tools with the same frame: we need to remain attuned to the particular, concrete and contextual. In the end, it is people and not technology who create the successess of participatory tools and activism online.

The prefigurative politics of Occupy

I started this blog with a post on the importance of Occupy in the creation of active political identities. Today, I want to take another angle in studying agile movements by taking a closer look at Occupy and its prefigurative politics function. The origins of the term are disputed but Wini Breines created one of the most used definitions of it in “Community and Organization in the New Left, 1962-1968: The Great Refusal“ (Bastani 2011):

““...the term prefigurative politics … may be recognized in counter institutions, demonstrations and the attempt to embody personal and anti-hierarchical values in politics…the crux of prefigurative politics imposed substantial tasks, the central one being to create and sustain within the live practice of the movement, relationships and political forms that “prefigured” and embodied the desired society.”

This concept is wide and may actually point to multiples types of meta-politics (for more see (Yates 2014). However, in this post I am solely addressing Occupy’s prefigurative character which as a diverse movement that did not have a specific pre-established demand opted instead in creating a physical space where people could meet, discuss and, in effect, enact a “real, direct and participatory democracy” (Sitrin 2011, 8).

The structure is well-know. There was a General Assembly which was connected to de-centralized working groups, following a horizontal, networked structure (Sitrin 2011). The internal structure kept on being updated according to needs of the protesters, so it was also an organic network. Decisions were made under a consensus model by which proposals were not simply accepted or rejected, they were constantly re-worked till no-one disagreed with them (Kaufman 2011). These methods were used both for traditional political debates as they were for the everyday problems that occupying a private space involved.

Prefigurativeness is not new in social movements. Indeed, even the structure that Occupy adopted was deeply rooted in historical practices that date back to the Zapatistas in Mexico and their rejection of hierarchical power, which then inspired the anti-WTO protests in Seattle (Sitrin 2011). Horizontality was especially defined in the Argentina crisis protests of 2001 where local assemblies were created under total horizontalidad (Sitrin 2011). The consensus decision making was first introduced to social movements in 1976 by the Clamshell Alliance when protesting against a project for nuclear power. Surprisingly, they had adopted it from Quakers who had been using consensus decision making for over three centuries (Kaufman 2011).

This is of course not to say that there was nothing new to Occupy’s enactment of direct democracy nor that it was a futile gesture. Prefigurative politics and the continuous refining of alternative structures are of extreme importance nowadays. As Zizek has pointed out, it is hard to imagine a political system that could replace capitalist democracy (Zizek 2011).  By enacting a different political structure Occupy (as other prefigurative social movements) are providing the language that allows us to imagine a different system (Zizek 2011).  Prefiguration is a way of creative experimentation that, whilst building on historical examples, provides hope that new political alternative can emerge.

References

Bastani, Aaron. “A New World in the Shell of the Old: prefigurative politics, direct action, education.” Open Democracy. 13 May 2011.  (accessed March 24, 2014).

Kaufman, L.A. “The Theology of Consensus.” In Occupy! Scenes from Occupied America, by Astra Taylor, Keith Gessen, & Dissent, Triple Canopy and The New Inquiry and editors from N+1, 46-50. New York: Verso, 2011.

Sitrin, Marina. “One No, Many Yeses.” In Occupy! Scenes from Occupied America, by Astra Taylor, Keith Gessen, & Dissent, Triple Canopy and The New Inquiry and editors from n+1, 7-11. New York: Verso, 2011.

Yates, Luke. “New article on Prefigurative Politics in Social Movement Studies.” movements@manchester. 14 February 2014.  (accessed March 24, 2014).

Zizek, Slavoj. “Don’t Fall in Love with Yourselves.” In Occupy! Scenes from Occupied America, by Astra Taylor, Keith Gessen, & Dissent, Triple Canopy and The New Inquiry and editors from n+1, 66-70. New York: Verso, 2011.

 

Grandolar, the Portuguese Viral Protest

In February 2013, a new type of protest was created in Portugal when people assisting the Parliamentary session interrupted the Prime-Minister Pedro Passos Coelho’s speech by singing the old, revolutionary song “Grandola, Vila Morena”. The video of this immediately went viral and inspired tens of protesters to do the same whenever in the presence of a public official (Barros, 2013).

This protests started in the midst of continued austerity policies which were subjecting the Portuguese people to serious economic and social problems. Faced with an unresponsive government that kept on proclaiming that “Portugal was on the good path” even when members of its own administration secretly admitted to how acute the situation really was (Saraiva, 2013).

“Grandola, Vila Morena” holds an important symbolism for Portugal. It was written during the Portuguese dictatorship by Zeca Afonso, arguably Portugal’s most beloved and popular revolutionary singer-songwriter. It speaks of fraternity and equality (see lyrics below) and was the one used by the Capitaes de Abril to signal the beginning of the democratic Carnation Revolution that overturned the dictatorship.

It became so popular that “Grandolar” started being as a verb to describe “singing songs as a form of peaceful protests, aiming at stopping speeches or communications from government representatives” (Infopedia, n.d.).

The government responded by calling these interventions anti-democratic and of going against freedom of speech (Saraiva, 2013). This, of course, seems to be a way of understanding democracy that stops with the voting process (Barros, 2013).  Not only that as it (in a very rough way) tries to revert the claim of protesters – Grandola Vila Morena made obvious how the Portuguese political elite was monopolizing the entire political discourse. The same people that were allowed to voice an opinion at Parliament, Party conferences and Troika meetings were then invited to share their opinion with the mass media and at debates and conferences. Ordinary people were excluded on all levells of the public sphere. Grandolar was an ephemereal way of limiting that monopoly of voice.

As with such protests, the Grandolar movement was in a certain way a spontaneous, organic phenomena and by now (2014) it has all but disappeared. Still, it is worth noting that Miguel Relvas, minister of the Presidency and Parliamentary Issues, one of the most targeted politicians, did resign in April, 2013. It would be rash to say that it was the “Grandolar” protests alone that caused it, but it would also be inconsequential to dismiss the role it played in creating a political crisis that led to Relvas’ resignation.

Grândola, swarthy town*

Land of fraternity

It is the people who lead

Inside of you, oh city

Inside of you, oh city

It is the people who lead

Land of fraternity

Grândola, swarthy town

On each corner, a friend

In each face, equality

Grândola, swarthy town

Land of fraternity

Land of fraternity

Grândola, swarthy town

In each face, equality

It is the people who lead

In the shadow of a holm oak

Which no longer knew its age

I swore as my companion,

Grândola, your will

Grândola, your will

I swore as my companion

In the shadow of a holm oak

Which no longer knew its age

References

Barros, M. (2013, March 05). “Grandolar” ainda nao chegou a verbo. Retrieved from Publico

Infopedia. (n.d.). Grandolar. Retrieved from Infopedia – Enciclopedias e Dicionarios da Porto Editora

Saraiva, N. (2013, March 02). Muitas razões para ‘grandolar’. Retrieved from Diario de Noticias

The easy case for Open Access Science

The explosive development of communication technologies have made it impossible to continue ignoring the issue of access to scientific knowledge. The Open Access movement is pushing for the online distribution of free of charge academic papers, free as well of most copyright and licensing restrictions. The aim is to make scientific knowledge available to all to access and use regardless of economic power. This, of course, would benefit resource-poor institutions and countries (Noble, 2002) and lead to a democratization of scientific knowledge.

A great initiative in this movement has been the Budapest Open Access Initiative, created in 2002, and that counts with the support of 5770 individuals and 681 organizations (Budapest website).Their working framework is as follows:

“There are many degrees and kinds of wider and easier access to this literature. By ‘open access to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.” (Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002)

 This movement is clearly clashing with the academic publishing industry for whom paid access is a part of their business model. Even though it could be dismissed as a simple copyrights issue akin to that that is happening to the music or movie industry, there are indeed some specificities in the academic publishing model that set it apart (Suber, 2004)

For one, there is the point that most of scientific research is actually publicly funded by government subsidies, university stipendiums, etc. There has even been a struggle in the United States where directly taxed paid research has suffered attempts of being privatized by the publishing companies (Eisen, 2012). In this cases, the public are asked to pay for research that they had already paid for with their tax money  As Michael B. Eisen, founder of the Public Library of Science, puts it, open access could “send a powerful sign of gratitude to the taxpayers, on whose continued support our research depends” (Eisen, 2012).

The publishing industry defence is that they do add value to the final product and, as such, deserve an adequate compensation (Eisen, 2012). However, open access advocate professor Stevan Harnard of the University of Southampton pointed out that the peer-review process is actually performed on a voluntary basis by other scientists (Noble, 2002). One is left thinking that the only value added is reputation and server space.

Another big difference between the above mentioned creative industries and the academic publishing industries, is that most of the times researches are not paid to publish their work (Suber, 2004). Authors, unlike other artists, are willing to distribute their work for free as the academic sphere works mostly on research and university subsidies and that authors are highly motivated by peer review and recognition.

What is interesting about many of the open access movements like the Budapest Open Access Initiative is that they allow space for both types of academic publishing. This is not (at least not always) a struggle to destroy private academic publishing companies. In a way, this movement could be framed as striving for what already exists in European and US broadcasting where private companies co-exist with public companies such as the BBC or PBS (Suber, 2004). Now, this is not to say that open access models must be funded in the same way as public broadcasting. Instead, it simply points out to the democratic need for open access to scientific knowledge, limited only by access to the internet and the author’s consent.

In the end, Open Access seems to simply be in synch with the traditional scientific value of sharing of ideas and open discussion.

References

Budapest Open Access Initiative. (2002, February 14). Read the Budapest Open Access Initiative. Retrieved from Budapest Open Access Initiative: http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read

Eisen, M. B. (2012, January 10). Research Bought, Then Paid For. Retrieved from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/research-bought-then-paid-for.html?_r=2&

Noble, D. (2002, February 14). Boost for research paper access. Retrieved from BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1818652.stm

Suber, P. (2004, December 29). Open Access Overview. Retrieved from Earlham College: http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm

 

 

Social business versus social business model

Today I would like to explore the idea of social business. I believe that there is some confusion as to this term includes, especially in the differentiation between social business, as advocated by Muhammad Junus, and the social business model, made famous by the Cluetrain Manifesto.

Social business is a radically new term. It refers to social enterprises that take the form of an enterprise, a business. However, they subvert the concept by having a solely social benefit and dispensing with the logic of profit. Social business is run like a business, deploying business strategies but it does not work on a dividend basis, and all income (when possible) is reinvested into the business to make it more durable.

It is a refreshing theory as it tackles two issues at the same time. First, as Junus himself told the Economist, it is disproving the myth that there is only type of business and this business is solely guided by the idea of profit maximization.  

Simultaneously, it is a step forward for the social justice campaigning sector which thus far is dependent on subsidies and donations which keeps in constant need to search for funds, and makes it extremely dependent on external circumstances and actors.

The social business model, on the other hand, has more to with a new type of enterprise whereby the logic of profit is not questioned. It seems to me that this is more of a question of strategy which puts the social at the centre of the corporation. The main ideas behind this concept come from the Cluetrain Manifesto.

Noteworthy, is their conception of the conversational market. Whilst there is nothing especially wrong about this concept, one should quite careful not to confuse it with Junus’ social model. A belief that techno possibilities will make the world a better place (even is this is limited to the workings of business) is, at the very least, dangerous. And one could question to what extent this has been put into practice. Today’s biggest companies seem still have a social media strategy, not having become themselves a social businesses.

Digital Maps and Social Activism

In this short post, I want to review the way in which digital maps can be useful in social activism and campaigning. Way too frequently we hear (positive and negative) accounts of GoogleMaps role in today’s world but not so frequently do we hear about the how social activists have appropriated new mapping technologies.

Such developments are revolving around new Geographic Information Systems (GIS) which allowed both the maturing of ESRI, the leader of privately owned mapping software, and of open-source projects such as MapServer, PostGIS and GRASS GIS (The Economist, 2009). Still, one should not entirely discount the simplicity of use of both GoogleMaps and OpenStreetMaps.  The open source software are especially noteworthy as they have allowed resource-poor NGO’s and activists to access these developments.

Maps can be a great tool for acivists as they are a good way to present large and complicated data sets in such a way that creates an immediate response (Kreutz, 2009, Pedersen, 2009, The Economist, 2009). As Barbara Samuels, campaigner for fair housing at the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland explained to the Economist, maps were useful for their campaign as they allowed them to ”show segregation in a way that talking about it doesn’t do” (The Economist, 2009). To sum it up, maps are useful because they ):

• Lead to instant recognition
• Create a feeling of proximity
• Allow a visualization of different links between complex data
• Create audience engagement

In the past few years, we have seen a multiple maps developed by social justice campaigners and, even though  their use is many times a form of creative appropriation,  Movement.org has categorized some methods which will be useful for campaigners testing out mapping.

One of such ways is tactical mapping which is great tool to monitor the implementation of a policy strategy or even the progression of human right abuses (Cullum, 2010). A great example is the (now famous) Tunisian Prison Map or the HarassMap Project.

NGO’s and activists have also used crisis mapping in order to increase the efficiency and speed of responses to humanitarian emergencies. Crowdsourcing is a big part of these efforts as it often allows a quicker response. Here, Ushahidi have really become notorious as it has provided the technology that can easily be used in different crisis such as the Pakistanese flood or for the violence that succeeded the Kenyan elections.

Lastly, we can point out to geo-mapping and data collection whereby invisible data is made visible. In other words,  by using new mapping technologies activists can expose problem areas that have been ignored or understudied. A great example is the mapping of Kibera, a Kenyan slum that was not included in regular maps.

However, we should keep a healthy dose of skepticism towards overtly optimist perspectives about maptivism. John Kim, campaigner for Health City, is right in pointing out that “maps don’t change the world – but people who use maps do” (The Economist, 2009). Still, we should also remember that, just like all other communication tools available , the use of digital maps will always depend on the cause, its audience and objectives. Sometimes, a map can simply be a waste of time or even create further confusion. But sometimes it is the simplest way of showing a problem.

References

Cullum, B. (2010, September 29). Maptivism: Mapping Information For Advocacy and Activism. Retrieved from Movements.org

Kreutz, C. (2009, September 14). Maptivism: Maps for activism, transparency and engagement. Retrieved from Criss Crossed

Pedersen, A. (2009, July 26). Geomapping Making Invisible Data Visible. Retrieved from Slideshare

The Economist. (2009, June 4). Mapping a Better World. Retrieved from The Economist

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How to protect your photo metadata

In 2012, Vice became the centre of a controversy a bit different from the regular. Vice was developing a documentary based on John Mcafee’s escape from the Belize police, which Vice had managed to join. Mcfee, founder of antivirus company McAfee Inc, was being pursued by Belize police as a “person of interest” in a murder investigation. By all accounts, an incredible scoop.

However, the whole thing ended quite abruptly when, on their very first post  (1), the reporters gave away the exact location of Mcafee (2). They did this by simply publishing a photograph that contained  embedded information, including their exact GPS coordinates.

This is just an example of what can happen when journalists, activists, or even regular individuals are not aware of the information that is automatically embedded within a picture. In this post I want to test the photo that I include in my Curriculum Vitae, a photo that I normally send in a digital format, without even considering what extra information it contains.

So, I will try two easy ways of checking what data is in that photo and then try to erase the information that might give away my location or identity.

Checking the metadata

I am going to test two different software programs that enable me to access the metadata in my photo without it being handled by a third party server.

a)      Exif Tool

First thing I had to do was to download the Exif Tool. For that, I simply went on the website and looked for the latest version of the stand-alone programme. Once I had it, I extracted the .exe file into a folder of my own choice.

Once this was set up, I simply drag-and-dropped my CV photo unto the .exe file.

The Exif Tool automatically opened a window, displaying all the metadata it could find in the picture. As you can see below, in my photo, it found a really long list of details such as:

• The brand and model of the camera that took the picture
• The date and time when the original picture was taken and last modified
• The time zone
• The option to extract a thumbnail of the original picture

b)     Exif Viewer

Exif Viewer is an add-on that you can install on Firefox which allows you to check the metadata from your photos, similarly to Exif Tool, but it also allows you to check photos directly from the Internet.

First thing I had to do to use this process was to get Firefox. After that, I simply opened the Add-on manager, searched and installed the Exif Viewer.

With the add-on installed, I just had to open it by clicking Tools – Exif Viewer.

Then, I selected my photo and clicked Display Exif Data.

It takes only a few seconds to process the photo and return results. It showed me exactly the same information as Exif Tool but in a format that was easier to read.

Erasing the metadata

Unfortunately, from the two tools we have tested, only Exif Tool offers the option to erase sensitive data. However, it is quite a simple process to follow.

I only had to make a copy the Exif Tool .exe file that I had previously used and renamed it as exiftool(exiftool -overwrite original -all= ).

Once it was renamed, I moved it to the folder containing the original .exe file. Then, as before,  I just drag-and-dropped the photo into the new file.

This automatically processes the photo and overwrites the original metadata.

Once again, I checked my photo using the original .exe file and all I could find was technical details about the photo. So I now have a CV photo that will not disclose any more than what I want it to.

For more information and tips about photo metadata visit this website developed by Stock Artists Alliance (3) or read this Peta Pixel article (4). The AVP tutorial (5) is also quite useful.

References:

1. Vice Staff. “We Are With John Mcafee Right Now Suckers”. Vice. [Online] 03 December 2012. [Cited: 06 January 2014.]

2. Honan, Mat. “Oops Did Vice Just Give Away John Mcafees Location With This Photo”. Wired. [Online] 03 December 2012. [Cited: 06 January 2014.]

3. Stock Artists Alliance. Photo Metadata. [Online] [Cited: 06 January 2014.]

4. Scott, Preston. “Hack Your Exif Data From the Command Line: Five Fun Uses For Exif Tool”. PetaPixel. [Online] 25 May 2012. [Cited: 06 January 2014.]

5. AV Preserve. “AVPreserve Exiftool Tutorial Part 1“. AV Preserve. [Online] 21 de November de 2013. [Cited: 06 de January de 2014.]

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Mobilizing the “political zombies”

Discussions around agile movements cover a wide range of aspects (use of the Internet, message, organization, among others ). In this post I want to take a look at some of its possible achievements. By going through a small sample of writings on Occupy Wall Street, I want to expose some of the subtler results of this type of political action.

By David Shankbone (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Identifying OWS’ achievements is clearly problematic. As Simon Tormey puts it, while “OWS is still in the process of becoming-something” we can also “see the outline of more or less familiar characteristics that might help orientate us towards something that is being greeted as a new departure” (Tormey, 2012)

Nevertheless, OWS often labelled a failure (Ostroy, 2012, Pepitone, 2013). Writing in 2012 Ostroy sums it up as:

“In an election year as significant as this one, the Occupy movement is as good as dead. It will have achieved nothing legislatively, it will have elected no one and, in the end, it has had no material impact on American life. Nothing, that is, if you measure it against all other successful protest movements.” (Ostroy, 2012)

It could be argued that the reason why it has been discarded if because of its reliance on a negative stance and that, having had no specific demands, it ended with no concrete results. However, what underlies such a critique is the presupposition of a “true answer” or a legitimate protest, in other words, “say it in my terms or shut up” (Zizek, 2012).

A different approach would address the movement as something wider than its sheer eventfulness. OWS’ potential for long-term impact has not been entirely discarded, as some academics are hopeful that, to use Castell’s analogy, it has planted the seeds for a future change (Castells, 2013).

Manuel Castells: how modern political movements straddle urban space and cyberspace – video

Indeed, some elements in the movement’s organization connect it with something bigger than the occupation itself such as the refusal of the representative system and the search for different models of political organization (Tormey, 2012). However, in this article, I will focus on the creation of active political identities.

Just looking at how OWS describes itself we find traces of a struggle for meaning and for articulation between a diversity of identities. OWS connected several movements and several democratic demands under one umbrella conception – “we are the 99%”. By using this as a node of articulation, it was able to imagine an adversary. We, the 99%, are fighting against “the richest 1% of people”. By using this essentially empty signifier, the activists established a community unified not based on race, ethnicity, religion or nationality, but on a political identity, the “we” (Dean, 2011).

We must also not dismiss the role played by networked communications in this. Radical politics require “an empowered political agent” whose empowerment is typically reached through articulation with an empowered collective. Coordination and articulation are necessary for the challenge of the ruling hegemony as “any temporary articulations that could be called hegemonic can only be achieved through a process of articulation with others” (Fenton, 2011). In this framework, horizontal networks of communication become essential as they “helped to facilitate the growth of massive, coordinated digital networks of activists” (Dahlgren, 2007).

It could be argued that both the digital and physical aspects of OWS have allowed the mobilization and articulation of political identities. Here, it is interesting to recall John Postill’s description of the 15-M events:

” (…)I later described it as the return of the politically dead (myself included) to Spain’s streets and squares, which were now crowded with ‘political zombies’. Many participants later reported a range of psychosomatic reactions such as goose bumps (carne de gallina) or tears of joy. I felt as if a switch had been turned on, a gestalt switch, and I had now awakened to a new political reality. I was no longer merely a participant observer of the movement, I was the movement. ” (Postill, 2011)

What I am arguing here is that the most relevant outcome of OWS, and one could extrapolate of the other such movements, was its mobilization and articulation of radical identities. Tormey takes a similar view by saying that “those who take part in the event of OWS will never be the same again: they are changed, angered, energised, despondent, angry, alienated, joyous. Those who encounter OWS may display complete indifference, or they may be affected. Somehow. Something might resonate” (Tormey, 2012).

The expectation is that the OWS can take on the same logic as the May 68 protests: whilst being a failure in the short term, this protest established different type of politics for the following decades. It was the basis for identity politics and new social movements. As of now, we can point to some of this identities still being articulated in OWS offshoots such as Occupy Our Homes and Occupy Sandy (Dean, 2012). Its importance, just like OWS’ original event, should not be dismissed yet.

References

Castells, M., 2013. Manuel Castells: how modern political movements straddle urban space and cyberspace – video [Interview] (25 March 2013).

Dahlgren, P., 2007. Civic Identity and Net Activism: The Frame of Radical Democracy. In: L. Dahberg & E. Siapera, eds. Radical Democracy and the Internet: Interrogating Theory and Practice. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 55-72.

Dean, J., 2012. Occupy and UK Uncut: the evolution of activism. The Guardian, 27 December, p. 34.

Dean, J., 2011. Claiming Division, Naming a Wrong. In: A. Taylor & K. Gessen, edits. Occupy: Scenes from Occupied America. London: Verso, pp. 87-92.

Fenton, N., 2011. Multiplicity, Autonomy, New Media and the Networked Politics of New Social Movements. In: L. Dahlberg & S. Phelan, eds. Discourse Theory and Critical Media Politics. Hampshire: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, pp. 178-200.

Ostroy, A., 2012. The Failure of Occupy Wall Street. The Huffington Post.
[Accessed 30 January 2014].

Pepitone, J., 2013. Why Occupy Wall Street fizzled. CNN Money.
[Accessed 30 January 2014].

Tormey, S., 2012. Occupy Wall Street: From Representation to Post-Representation. Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies, Volume 5, pp. 132-136.

Zizek, S., 2012. The Year of Dreaming Dangerously. 1st ed. London: Verso.

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