a moment in constitution social movements

A Moment in the Constitution of Social Movements
G. R. Boynton
University of Iowa

I will recount four moments

February 14, 2011 Pearl Monument became the center of protest in Bahrain

August 19, 2011 #Tell Bashar to go

October 1, 2011 OccupyWallStreet marched across Brooklyn Bridge and became a global movement

February 1, 2013 #Benghazi Twitter Bomb

But first I must say how these are important.

My starting point is the theory of connective action developed by Bennett and Segerberg. In their original article they review earlier theorizing and suggest that changes in the technology of communication have opened new possibilities of social action that were not available before. They spell out what becomes possible with the new means of communication in this paragraph:

Important for our purposes here is the underlying economic logic of digitally mediated social networks as explained most fully by Benkler (2006). He proposes that participation becomes self-motivating as personally expressive content is shared with, and recognized by, others who, in turn, repeat these networked sharing activities. When these interpersonal networks are enabled by technology platforms of various designs that coordinate and scale the networks, the resulting actions can resemble collective action, yet without the same role played by formal organizations or transforming social identifications. In place of content that is distributed and relationships that are brokered by hierarchical organizations, social networking involves co-production and co-distribution, revealing a different economic and psychological logic: co-production and sharing based on personalized expression. (Bennett and Segerberg, 2012, p. 72)

Co-production and co-distribution become possible because of the networks formed using the new technologies of communication. Individuals willingly engage in this activity as "personally expressive content is shared with, and recognized by, others who, in turn, repeat these networked sharing activities." I have worked through how this happens in political communication using Twitter, though I used the term co-motion to integrate the personal communication activity with standard media activity as a new public domain. (Boynton, 2012 and Boynton and Richardson, forthcoming) Twitter is not only a technology for posting messages it is alive with expressive content shared with, recognized by and forwarded by others.

Political communication via Twitter is alive with expressive messages that are widely shared. Recognition of this and understanding how it is self-motivating is an important first step. The next step is examining the types of communication that have this character. I identified the 'news move' and the 'we move' in two analyses. (Boynton, 2011) In this report I will examine a moment of rising awareness by examining the four moments listed above.

Data Collection

The data used in this report were collected using Archivist, which is a desktop program for the Windows operating system. It accesses the Twitter search API with a request for a search term every five minutes and creates a file containing the messages sent in response to the request. Twitter will produce up to 1,500 messages per request. The program adds new tweets to the file it is creating. While only 1,500 messages per 5 minutes is accessible the upper limit for the program is 432,000 tweets per day. In none of the four collections reported here did the number of messages per five minutes reach 1,500 nor did they approach the upper limit per day. These are something very close to the population of messages posted to Twitter using the search terms.

Originally Arab Spring was to be organized by date. The date for Bahrain was February 14, and the hashtag used in the first months of the protest was #Feb14. That was the search term used for the collection. The search term for the Syrian episode was #Tell Bashar2Go. The original hashtag of the Occupy movement was #OccupyWallStreet. That was the search term for the third episode explored here. #Benghazi was the hashtag used for the twitter bomb, and was the search term used to collect the messages posted to Twitter.

It is important to note that the hashtags were used to facilitate sharing. If you were interested in the protest in Bahrain then you searched for #Feb14 and you included the hashtag in the messages you wrote so that others could find them. The core idea of expressive content widely shared was quite explicitly the practice in these cases, and that public practice makes it possible for social scientists to observe the community in action.

The most fundamental methodological point for the report is that it is an effort at identification. It is not an attempt to produce a roster of social movements and show the existence of the moment in each case. I might have done something like that because I have collected messages posted to Twitter about other social movements. For example, the revolt in Wisconsin is a clear case of the organization of a people into a social movement. The four cases are chosen because each reveals a somewhat different facet of the experiences I want to identify.

The Theme

There are elements that the four episodes share. It is what joins them conceptually so they can be examined as social movements or in one case a proto social movement. In each case a we is being constituted against an other. Both we and other are constituted together; they are co-constituted. This is about social change. Actions and attitudes must be changed. And implicit in that is the recognition that the actions and attitudes were acceptable in a past before the social movement. There was no 1% before there was a 99%, for example, just as there was no 99% before there was a1%. They are co-constituted in the movement seeking to bring about change.

I will look at four common elements: 1) the constitution of the we, 2) the constitution of the other, 3) the spreading word, and 4) the ease with which individuals can become organized into motion. Each is in everyone of the moments, but I will use one or two that exhibit the element most clearly.

Bahrain

The new media provide us, as scholars, a new vantage point on revolt. We can observe communication that we have not been able to observe before, and we can use the observations to develop a better understanding of how events like this unfold. I want to take advantage of this to tell their story in their words rather than mine. I will provide only a running commentary. They speak, and then I suggest how this is important.

RT @Ghonim The Power of People is much STRONGER than The People in Power #Bahrain #Feb14

RT @Bahrainiac: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win #bahrain #feb14

The people and their rulers. We have the strength to overturn the rulers. Even if they ignore us we will win.

2/15/2011 RT @Jnoubiyeh: Confirmed Deaths In #Bahrain: 8-year old Hasan Mahdi, 25-year old Mohammad Saade and 27-year old Ali Mushaimi. #Feb14 #Bahrainis #Manama

That does not mean it is easy. Rulers do not go voluntarily. There is likely to be blood shed and death along the way. But if they persevere the numbers are overwhelming.

2/16/2011 10:27 PM RT @RshRsho: RT @nadooi_wish: The protests were saying: "With soul, with blood, we live for Bahrain" And they were attacked by the army? #Bahrain #Feb14

"We live for Bahrain."

2/27/2011 7:35 AM Female speaker "I am here, I will not go anywhere. I will fight and my weapon is peace" #bahrain #feb14

2/26/2011 1:46 PM RT @maryamalkhawaja: "if it wasn't for the martyrs we wud not be here today, they have freed the detainees and wil free the rest" #martyrssquare #bahrain #feb14

If you step out and the revolution is a success you will be a hero. Very likely a dead hero, a martyr, since those who lead are the ones most likely to feel the wrath of the rulers.

2/26/2011 3:49 PM RT @Bahrainiac: 40% Of Bahrain's Entire Population Attends Latest Protest http://wp.me/p1jYBG-1eD #Bahrain #feb14

2/27/2011 11:26 AM RT @maryamalkhawaja: Chanting "no Sunni no Shias, but a nation demanding freedom" #martyrssquare #bahrain #feb14

To overwhelm the rulers a community of action must come into play. There must be the sense that you do not have to look over your shoulder to see if someone is following. You are not divided. You are acting together.

2/16/2011 7:31 AM RT @maryamalkhawaja: News tht gov thugs are gathering ppl for pro gov rally to bring them to "create disturbances, but we will meet them with roses" cont. #feb14

2/15/2011 10:13 PM RT @aslanmedia: Take a closer look at where the "#Egypt effect" is spreading. http://ow.ly/3X9MO #jan25 #feb14 #feb12

And when you act together you can win. "We will meet them with roses." And that is where the "#Egypt effect" is important. If they could walk together and win so may we.

This is the story of the first days of protest in Bahrain as they told it. A community living for Bahrain. Rising up together. It is an uprising that has been twarted, but that has not conceded defeat. Even two years later they continue to protest, and the army continues to beat and imprison them.

To understand how this story unfolded I collected Twitter messages containing the hashtag #Feb14 almost from the beginning.

The number of tweets was small the first two days. Then it jumped to over 35,000 for each of the next two days. It declined from there and was then averaging about 3,500 a day. It is a large collection with 153,309 tweets between the 15th and the 28th. For a population of 1.2 million this is a substantial outpouring.

Much of the discussion of the new media and these revolts has centered on two uses. One, the ability to quickly and easily organize a people into a movement, which is illustrated by the next two tweets.

2/15/2011 11:57 PM RT @AJELive: Anti-government demonstrators in #Bahrain to stage fresh protests in around 30mins from Pearl roundabout: http://aje.me/hNUCaH #Feb14

2/15/2011 10:48 PM RT @RedhaHaji: Loud speaker recital of Holy Quran.people r sweeping and picking up debre. More lively and active #bahrain #feb14 #lulu trafic slw bt mvng

Two, demonstrating one's plight to the rest of the world.

2/15/2011 11:53 PM RT @Nabeelrajab: More photos from Bahrain protests and you are free to use them http://goo.gl/G0X6l #bahrain #feb14

2/16/2011 10:42 PM RT @Warchadi: Please spread this video #bahrain police attacking peaceful protesters #lulu http://t.co/awFggim #feb14

Videos have regularly been uploaded to YouTube and Twitpic has been a favorite site for photographs.

Both are very much present in the Twitter messages coming out of Bahrain.

However, I want to emphasize a third use. I want to point out the use of Twitter messages to constitute a community that will act together in the face of force from those who they would overthrow.

RT @[user name]

You may have noticed that each of the Twitter messages I quoted began, after date and time, with RT @[user name]. This is the standard form of retweeting, and retweeting is the standard 'we move' in Twitter communication. I read a message I like, I agree with, I want others to see and I retweet it. It is sent to my followers as an attributed quotation. It implicitly says: we know this, we feel this, we will act this. It is the joining of the original messenger and me and my followers.

The 'we' is constituted in the follower relationship that Twitter provides. Any individual can follow any other individual -- where following means receiving the messages the other person writes. So people choose to follow Twitter users whose messages they want to read. They are putting themselves into a common messaging space.

This characterization of the relationship is surely less true for the rock stars of the Twitter world than it is for most others. The rock stars are rock stars. Justin Bieber is, as of March 2013, number one with 35.3 million followers. The only political rock star is Barack Obama in fifth place with 27.8 million followers, and the numbers increase daily. They are rock stars. You do not so much want to read what they write -- especially since you are pretty sure they do not write themselves -- as you want to be in touch, to be in their sphere. That is what it means to be a fan.

But most follower relationships are not about fandom. They are about sharing an interest in what is being tweeted.

Retweeting is constituting community in this follow space. But most of the Twitter-verse is not about retweeting. There were 25 billion messages sent in 2010 [Siegler Dec. 13, 2010]. Only six percent of those 25 billion were retweets [Evans Sept 30, 2010]. Since these number change over time the late 2010 numbers are the appropriate ones for comparison. Retweeting and constituting a community of shared interest is only a tiny fraction of the communication going on using Twitter. They are mostly busy doing other things.

What about #Feb14? What is the incidence of retweeting in the tweeting about Bahrain as they rise against their rulers? Two-thirds of the Twitter messages are retweets. The range from day to day is 63% to 79%. The darker line is the number of tweets and the lighter line is the number that are retweets. But as the figure shows there is not much variation from day to day in the percentage that are retweets.

In this case everything is being retweeted. Messages to help organize the protests are retweeted. Messages to appeal to the world outside Bahrain are retweeted. Messages of joy are retweeted. Messages of grief are retweeted. It is not the content of the message that determines retweet versus not retweet.

Everyone shares in the full range of activities and emotions of the revolt. It is constituting a community that is believing together, that is feeling together and that is acting together. Join me in -- and every aspect of the protests follow after join me.

This is, of course, an interpretation. 'Constituting a community' is not the subject of the messages. Constituting the community is in the style of communication, in the retweeting.

A fuller development of this and the other movements organizing themselves at this time is available (Boynton, 2011)

#Benghazi twitter bomb

Bahrain was a few days. #Benghazi twitter bomb was a few hours. The episode I will report happened on February 1, 2013 between 9:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. on February 2. The number of messages recorded was 1548. The four hours were full of constituting the other and self conscious use of Twitter as action.

A small American compound in Benghazi Libya was attacked on September 11, 2012. The American ambassador was there for a brief visit and he and his information officer were killed along with two guards. It was a surprise attack, and in the beginning it was not clear what had transpired. There were various stories explaining the events, though eventually the attack was understood as an islamist attack aimed at the U.S.

The attack was September 11, 2012. The #Benghazi twitter bomb was February 1, 2013. It was a long running feud between the Obama administration and Republicans who were led by Republican Senators.

The point here is to note how the we is constituted in the action of constituting the other.

khalifallah 2/1/2013 10:25 PM We must keep the spirit of #Benghazi alive one tweet at a time!!! #TheCowardinChief #TCOT #TGDN #PJNET#Teaparty #CCOT

This tweet, which is repeated many times, brings the two together. We must keep the spirit alive one tweet at a time; we have a responsibility. And a leader who is characterized as #TheCowardinChief. We must act, and Twitter is the vehicle for our action. We must act against a president who failed them and us in this event.

The other is identified as two: a president who failed, and a conspiracy that is covering up the failure. The most retweeted message was

I'd like to respect the President but I'm a soldier. He left my brothers to die in #Benghazi then lied to their kids and ...

He failed them; he left them to die and then he lied about it. The next most retweeted was

""You wanted us to track down those responsible for the #Benghazi murders? Mr. Obama, you are under arrest."" #tcot #tgdn # ..."

Obama was responsible for the murders.

We know this is implausible. The attack occurred in an out of the way place. It was over before anyone in Washington D.C. could have heard about it -- let alone the president. But that is not relevant here. This 'we' know it was his failure. So

""Saddam Hussein is not the only Hussein who's responsible for the killing of his own people!!"" #Benghazi #TCOT #TGDN #T ..."

he is responsible for killing his own people.

And the ultimate sin

A dead SEAL slumped over a dry, blood stained machine gun in #benghazi . Obama parties at a fund raiser in Las Vegas. That s ..."

The president was at a fund raiser party while the heroes of this event were being killed.

#Benghazi Always remember 9/11/2012 Our service-people showed amazing bravery and duty; our elected officials showed cowardice; deceit

Note this is five months after the event. But every detail is reconstructed demonstrating the responsibility of the president. Our elected officials showed cowardice.

The only reason this is not fully revealed is because of cover-up.

#Benghazi COVER-UP! WARNING DON'T B part of it! @RepJoBonner @RepMarthaRoby @RepMikeRogersAL @Robert_Aderholt @RepMoBrooks @BachusAL06

Coverup is included in 125 of the tweets. Members of congress are 'warned' to not be part of it. And the coverup is traced to

#BENGHAZI #BenghaziGate #4DeadinBenghazi C'mon #POTUS come clean, #Ratbastard. Where r survivors? Y'd u say NO? Where were u when they died?

Where are the survivors? They are the ones who could set the record straight. Where are the survivors is in 440 of the 1,500 tweets.

We have a president who is a coward and responsible for killing the heroes of Benghazi. And we have a responsibility. That responsibility is centered in the #Benghazi twitter bomb. It is what we can do.

#Benghazi Twitter Bomb starts at 7 PST/10 EST. Instructions at http://t.co/6yaiTkxp - Please Share; RT - #tcot #sot ...

#BENGHAZI TWITTER*BOMB in 3 HOURS! L * E * T * S-- G * E * T --R * E * A * D * Y--T * O-- R * U * M * B * L * E ! @iRe ...

Look at how many times #Benghazi was mentioned since we started the Twitter Bomb at 7pm tonight http://t.co/egqvBpSz. Ke ...

The twitter bomb is organized via Twitter. It will start at 7 PST/10 EST is announced to the world. Let us get ready to rumble! We are the people who will rumble.

These were the encouraging messages posted and retweeted/shared during the event.

#Benghazi Twitter Bomb Is Going On Right Now! We're Tweeting GOP Reps + Media. Instructions at ➜ http://t.co/xVLKCn0A Jo ...

KEEP COMMENTING ON ANY OF THE TWEETS on #BENGHAZI..We reached out to so many leaders and get your comments heard! @coff33lo ...

WOO HOO! KEEP TRENDING #BENGHAZI @iResistAll @Mhurley01 @MMangoz @LiberateTheUSA @Kathy_Amidon @Discoveringme40

It's going on right now. Keep the comments coming as we reach out to so many leaders. LiberateTheUSA!

And what 'we' accomplished.

#Benghazi #/tag showed a huge incline in its use tonight thanks to U. We now know what 2 do 2 really make an impact. Can w ...

@Mhurley01 @MMangoz @LiberateTheUSA @coff33loveit @Kathy_Amidon @Discoveringme40 Look what #Benghazi Twitter Bomb did! h ...

Thanks for helping with the #Benghazi Twitter Bomb, everyone. Got over 500 Tweets per hr. We'll post to http://t.co/xVLK ..."

And one more time.

@coff33loveit Thanks! We'll do the #Benghazi bomb again next week!

There is both responsibility and accomplishment for 'us' in the twitter bomb, and in the sharing by retweeting, which was 59% of the messages. In the tweets identifying the depravity of the political leadership and the conspiracy with which they cover up we become a we. It is in the act of communicating, it is in the act of sharing that the we emerges.

#TellBashar2Go

The date for Syrian Arab Spring was March 15. That was when it was to start. The protests were met with killing resistance. Assad and his government were having none of the protests. Protests would be crushed. But they weren't crushed.

#TellBashar2Go, August 19, 2011, was a moment when the protest became revolt. It was no longer enough to protest asking for improvements. The improvements must start with the end of the Assad regime. And this is where it started.

GotFreedomSY: EVERY1! OUR NEW HASHTAG IS #TellBashar2Go! PLEASE RT THIS TWEET BUT DON'T START TWEETING THE HASHTAG UNTIL OUR EVENT STARTS IN 2 HRS! #Syria

At 13:40 the word was -- our new hashtag is #TellBashar2Go, but don't push it for two hours. They did not wait a full two hours. At 14:58 the word was

@essamz Worldwide twitter campaign 4 #Syria starts now.. Use hash tag #TellBashar2Go

RT @Nora0315: OK EVERYONE! TWITTER CAMPAIGN HAS OFFICIALLY BEGUN. FOR THE NEXT 2 HOURS PLEASE ADD #TellBashar2Go TO ALL YOUR TWEETS! PLEASE RT! #Syria

The figure shows the resulting Twitter cascade.

The first hour there were only 366 messages, but it exploded to just under and just over 6,000 messages at 15:00 and 16:00 [Syrian time]. It dropped to 2,000 at 17:00 and then dropped to a few hundred per hour for the rest of the day. The number of messages containing #TellBashar2Go for the day was 16,066. While it continued to be tweeted the following day it never rose to more than 100 per hour. It was a brief spike in the larger stream of messages about Syria.

One of the early messages mentioned trending

curioustip 8/19/2011 15:28:00 pm RT @haloefekti: OK. #Syria Campaign has started. Let's put #TellBashar2Go to your tweets next 2 hours and send it to be a trending topic worldwide

And in only a few minutes they had made it

eemasaurusrex 8/19/2011 15:39:00 pm OMGGGGGG THIS IS SOOOOOOO FREAKING COOOL!!!!! #TellBashar2Go is trending worldwideeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #Syria #ThankYouGod

A trending topic worldwide -- we made it. This is "SOOOOOOOO FREAKING COOOOL!!!!!" 'We' accomplished what we set out to do. Bashar and the world know this is the moment. This is the moment that protest becomes revolt. Bashar must go. We announce the moment to the world.

The first hour was organizational. It was letting people know that #TellBashar2Go was about to start. This organizational work was done by 366 messages. How do 366 messages inspire the spike of 16,000 messages?

Every one of the 366 messages was available to some number of followers. I counted all of the followers of the people posting messages that contained #TellBashar2Go between 13:42 and 14:59. One hundred and twelve persons posted a message. Their followers numbered 55,015. From 112 people the 'word' went out to 55,015. In one hour 55,015 people had access to a message calling on them to post a message containing the hashtag.

The people calling on their followers did not stop with a single post. It was 112 people posting 366 messages. Messages were sent repeatedly to call on followers to tweet #TellBashar2Go. If you count the number of potential accesses to the messages -- number of followers times the number of messages sent -- then accessible messages equals 111,958. On average followers received two messages asking them to participate in the moment.

The organizational activity was 112 people posting 366 messages. I will compare this to Twitter messages about the 2013 Italian election to notice how unusual this form of posting is. The Italian election is used because it produced an outcome that seems not to bode well for the political economy of the country. In a time when concerted action was thought to be needed the result was a divided government with a question mark in the form of a movement politician whose actions in governing would be unknown. It was a period of uncertainty, and that produced a large stream of Twitter communication. Between February 26, the day after the election, and March 3 there were 476,793 messages posted to Twitter captured by the following search terms.

Search Term	Number Tweets	Individuals Posting	Tweet per person
Berlusconi	118,311	99,689	1.19
Bersani	138,449	96,544	1.43
Grillo	239,014	179,981	1.33
Elezioni2013	50,107	38,762	1.29

The question mark, Beppe Grillo, was most frequently mentioned. But the point for this analysis is the range of 1.19 tweets per person to 1.43 tweets per person over six days. The people organizing #TellBashar2Go were very busy compared to this with 112 people posting 366 messages for 3.27 messages apiece in one hour.

Like #Benghazi it was a Twitter moment. It was planned on Twitter. It needed many people to participate to be a success. And it was interpreted as success in both cases. It was 'we' acting together to send a message. #TellBashar2Go was different in the message sent. It was a moment that signaled a change for the movement. Protest was replaced by rebellion.

Brooklyn Bridge

The march across the Brooklyn Bridge was a turning point for #OccupyWallStreet. It was the moment #Occupy became a global movement.

The first day of protest was September 17, 2011 and was called a day of rage. The hashtag used was #DayOfRage. It was a small event, and the number of Twitter messages containing #DayOfRage was 3,162. But it did not catch on as the number of messages using the hashtag quickly fell to the teens per day.

Over the next ten days the identity changed. They became #OccupyWallStreet, and the numbers grew. As the month came to a end there were 55K tweets mentioning #OccupyWallStreet on the 29th and 73K on the 30th. But it was October 1 when they marched across Brooklyn Bridge that the number of tweets soared. That it was the march is clear when you look at the distribution of messages by hour.

The figure tracks the number of tweets mentioning #OccupyWallStreet by hour. It starts at midnight, and in all three cases there was a decline during the late night, and an increase as the day dawned.

The three are in roughly the same range until 15:00. At that point there was a huge jump in messaging on October 1. It continues up with 16:00 and 17:00 the peak for the day with just over 16,000 messages each hour. It falls after 17:00, but it never falls even close to the level of messaging on the 29th and 30th.

So what happened between 15:00 and 16:00 to produce the jump?

15:09 amyrnbsn WooHoo! Go Brooklyn! Go #OccupyWallStreet! RT @jopauca: Brooklyn bridge now belongs to #OccupyWallSt #OccupyWallStreet http://t.co/EGgd7S9s

And at 15:18

15:18 ty_ushka They are arresting marchers who are on the road #occupywallstreet

The police acted. The marchers were crossing Brooklyn bridge in very large numbers. And the police arrested them -- also in very large numbers. According to the New York Times and CBS News approximately 700 were arrested.

But it was more than a great increase in numbers. It was #OccupyWallStreet going global. I do not have location for the tweets, but one of the retweeted messages suggests what was happening.

#OccupyWallStreet is trending everywhere on Twitter, except in the United States http://t.co/uzm5Rckx"

To understand how it could be trending everywhere on Twitter except the United States you need to understand 'trending' from the Twitter point of view. Trending does not mean a large number of tweets. If that was required the 16,000 a day for #TellBashar2Go would not have been trending. Instead trending is operationalized by Twitter as a sudden spike. #OccupyWallStreet was already a big number in the U.S., but everywhere else there was a sudden spike of messages mentioning the movement. #OccupyWallStreet was going global. As reports and photographs of the march and the arrests were appearing via Twitter worldwide it became a global phenomenon.

The constitution of the we and the other was clear in the tweets. As in the other cases retweeting was important in the messaging. Retweeting by date is reported in the table.

9/29	9/30	10/1	10/2	10/3	10/4	10/5	10/6	10/7	10/8
65.6%	64.3%	69.8%	65.0%	59.5%	58.2%	63.9%	55.85	57.0%	58.1%

Retweeting was exceedingly high. This is the same time when retweeting for all Twitter messages was in the 6% range. And it was especially high on the first. "Personally expressive content is shared with, and recognized by, others who, in turn, repeat these networked sharing activities" was exceedingly high for the entire ten days.

Identification of the we and who is the other is clear from the retweets. The most frequently retweeted message on the first was

I love #OccupyWallStreet As John said, "One hero cannot do it. Each one of us have to be heroes." And you are. Thank you. love, yoko

We are the heroes, and it would have been difficult to find a better imprimatur than that.

Fundamental to #DayOfRage and #OccupyWallStreet was the sensibility captured by 99% and 1%. The 1% have been 'taking it all' for three decades. The final blow was the illegal actions leading to the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. At 10:28 p.m. on October 1 @TheNewDeal posted this message.

0 Bankers Were Arrested After Purposely Crashing Our Economy. Nearly 1,000 Have Been Arrested for Speaking Up About it. #OccupyWallStreet

It was repeated 382 times that evening. The next day, the 2nd, it was repeated 4,215 times. On the 3rd 1278 times, on the 4th 826 times, on the 5th 560 times, on the 6th 75 times, on the 7th 332 times, and on the 8th 270 times. To understand how extraordinary that pattern is it can be compared with the results of a study of all Twitter messages in the fall of 2010. (Sysomos.com, 2010) At that time only 6% of Twitter messages were retweeted. They also found that 92.4% of retweets occurred in the first hour, 1.6% in the second hour, and 1 percent in the third hour. This phrase reverberated through the Twitter messaging of the protestors in quite an extraordinary fashion. It epitomized how they thought about what had and what was happening.

And suddenly there was #Occupy everywhere. On the 29th of September the call went out: "We need a map/timeline of all occupations #occupationwallstreet #occupyAtlanta #occupychi, #occupyla #ocupydenver #occupyboston AmericanFall" Protests were constituting themselves in one city after another. #Occupy--- had become sufficiently widespread that a central listing was needed. And later that morning "Move spreads across US, introducing OccupyTogether.org." There was a website acting as a central repository of information about #OccupyWallStreet becoming #Occupy[everywhere]. On October the 4th the website listed 270 sites of #Occupy---. By the 7th the number of sites listed had grown to 1030.

#Occupy--- had become global. Asia, Africa, Europe, South America and all over North America groups took up the cause. And what is telling here is the identification with #OccupyWallStreet by adopting a consistent pattern of identification. It was #OccupyAtlanta, #OccupyChi, #OccupyBoston, and it moved across the world identifying the local protests with the original. It became #OccupyTogether. It became an identity that they could share across the globe. And the number doubled again after the seventh.

The #Occupy movement was always about the we and the other. On October 1 it went global as they marched across the bridge, were arrested and in their actions served as a model for #OccupyTogether -- everywhere.

Conclusion

The four moments are instances of "personally expressive content is shared with, and recognized by, others who, in turn, repeat these networked sharing activities" and more.

Each illustrates how the new media of communication has made organizing movement easier than ever before.

Central to each is the identification of a we confronting an other.

I believe this second element is necessary for movements. The main reason for believing that is "personally expressive content is shared with, and recognized by, others who, in turn, repeat these networked sharing activities" is everywhere in political communication via Twitter. In Twitter messages that are part of the communication which is Presidential debates or the State of the Union Address or in arguments about Obamacare or gun control they all have that character. The easiest way to demonstrate this is with the use of retweets. Retweeting rarely falls below forty percent in political communication via Twitter.

I conclude that "personally expressive content is shared with, and recognized by, others who, in turn, repeat these networked sharing activities" is characteristic of all human communication. Those are the features that drive communication whether between lovers or scholars.

What gives us social movements is the we standing over against the other.

References

Bennett, W. Lance and Alexandra Segerberg (2012) The Logic of Connective Action, Information, Communication & Society, pp. 739-768.

Boynton, G. R. (2012) Voice and the Public Domain Becomes Co-Motion

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