Towards a Conceptualization of Casual Protest Participation: Parsing a Case from the Save Roşia Montanǎ Campaign

East European Politics and Societies

Volumn 28, Issue 2, 2014, Pages 386-410

  Mercea, Dan ^a  

^a CITY UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

collective identity; mobilization; participation; protest; social network sites

Indexed keywords

EID: 84899558611     PISSN: 08883254     EISSN: 15338371     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0888325413519672     Document Type: Review

References (148)

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60. See also S. González-Bailón, J. Borge-Holthoefer, and Y. Moreno, "Broadcasters and Hidden Influentials in Online Protest Diffusion, " American Behavioral Scientist 57 (2013): 943-65. These authors showed how ordinary Twitter users formed an early and extensive contingent of protesters who were instrumental to the diffusion of contention in the Arab Spring, los Indignados, and the Occupy protests.
61. M. Lim, Framing Bouazizi: 'White Lies', Hybrid Network and Collective/Connective Action in the 2010-11 Tunisian Uprising. Journalism (2013): 921-41.
62. Juris "Reflections on #Occupy Everywhere, " 267-68.
63. Tufekci and Wilson, "Social Media and the Decision to Participate in Political Protest, " 363-79.
64. Tufekci and Wilson, "Social Media and the Decision to Participate in Political Protest, " 363-79.
65. W. El Hamamsy, "BB= Blackberry or Big Brother: Digital Media and the Egyptian Revolution, " Journal of Postcolonial Writing 47 (2011): 454-66.
66. Valenzula et al., "The Social Media Basis of Youth Protest Behavior, " 307.
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69. Tufekci and Wilson, "Social media and the decision to participate in political protest, " 363-39.
70. Y. Theocharis, "The Wealth of (Occupation) Networks? Communication Patterns and Information Distribution in a Twitter Protest Network, " Journal of Information Technology and Politics 10 (2013): 35-56.
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72. Kaplan and Haenlein, "The Early Bird Catches the News, " 107.
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74. Diani, "Social Movement Networks Virtual and Real, " 386-401.
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80. Bennett and Segerberg, "The Logic of Connective Action, " 739-68.
81. For a theoretical revisitation of classical collective action theory that takes into account the spread of new media, see Flanagin et al., "Modelling the Structure of Collective Action, " 29-54.
82. An account of a collective identity expressed as a shared experience of collective action with new media applications is provided by K. McDonald, "From Solidarity to Fluidarity: Social Movements Beyond 'Collective Identity'-The Case of Globalization Conflicts, " Social Movement Studies 1 (2002): 109-28.
83. Diani, "Social Movement Networks Virtual and Real, " 386-401.
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87. See R. J. Dalton, "Cognitive Mobilization and Partisan Dealignment in Advanced Industrial Societies, " The Journal of Politics 46 (1984): 264-84.
88. Juris "Reflections on #Occupy Everywhere, " 260.
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90. J. Verhulst and S. Walgrave, "The First Time Is the Hardest, " 475.
91. J. Verhulst and S. Walgrave, "The First Time Is the Hardest, " 475.
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97. For a consideration of protest participation in East-Central European countries other than Romania see K. Vráblíková, "How Context Matters? Mobilization, Political Opportunity Structures and Non-Electoral Political Participation in Old and New Democracies, " Comparative Political Studies 47 (2014).
98. Verhulst and Walgrave, "The First Time Is the Hardest, " 455-84.
99. See also C. Saunders, M. Grasso, C. Olcese, E. Rainsford, and C. Rootes, "Explaining Differential Protest Participation: Novices, Returners, Repeaters and Stalwarts, " Mobilization 17 (2012): 263-80.
100. Membership in volunteer organizations in Western and some non-Western democracies from Latin America and South-East Asia has been examined in P. Norris, "Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activism, " 195-96.
101. Badescu et al., "Civil Society Development and Democratic Values, " 322.
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104. D. Deletant Ceausescu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965-89 (London: Hurst, 2006).
105. M. S. Andersen, "Ecological Modernization or Subversion? The Effect of Europeanization on Eastern Europe, " American Behavioral Scientist 45 (2002): 1394-1416.
106. A. Sloat, "The Rebirth of Civil Society: The Growth of Women's NGOs in Central and Eastern Europe, " European Journal of Women's Studies 12 (2005): 437-52.
107. L. Botcheva, "Focus and Effectiveness of Environmental Activism in Eastern Europe: A Comparative Study of Environmental Movements in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. " The Journal of Environmental Development 5 (1996): 292-308.
108. Badescu et al., "Civil Society Development and Democratic Values, " 322.
109. Badescu et al., "Civil Society Development and Democratic Values, " 324-29.
110. E. Nicholson of Winterbourne, "Civil Society and the Media in Romania, " in The EU and Romania: Accession and Beyond, ed. David Phinnemore, 64-78 (London: Federal Trust for Education and Research, 2006).
111. Parau, "Impaling Dracula, " 121.
112. The Romanian Resource Center for Public Participation together with the Babeş-Bolyai University conducted a survey in August-September 2012 on a representative, multistage, stratified sample of 1,100 individuals older than age eighteen years with an error margin of ±3%. Respondents were asked if they were members of sports, religious, environmental, animal rights, pensioners', charity, cultural, and professional or any other volunteer organizations.
113. A. Melucci, Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society, 59-60 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989).
114. D. Mercea, "Communicating Offline Protest Online: Mapping Changes in Mobilization, Identity-Building and Organisation", unpublished doctoral thesis (York: University of York, UK, 2010).
115. J. Street, J., S. Hague and H. Savigny, "Playing to the Crowd: The Role of Music and Musicians in Political Participation, " British Journal of Politics and International Relations 10 (2008): 276.
116. Keira, member of the FânFest Coordination Team interviewed by the author in Cluj, Romania, 10 August 2012.
117. Odette, member of the FânFest Coordination Team interviewed by the author in Cluj, Romania, 3 August 2007.
118. Keira, member of the FânFest Coordination Team interviewed by the author in Cluj, Romania, 10 August 2012. The festival nonetheless received some mainstream media coverage in a special edition of a nationwide freely distributed monthly magazine and in a broad-circulation weekly. News items about it were featured in regional public radio and television broadcasts for Central and North-Western Romania.
119. See K. Seashore Louis, "Multisite/Multimethod Studies: An Introduction, " American Behavioral Scientist 26 (1982): 6-22.
120. T. R. Lindlof and B. C. Taylor, Qualitative Communication Research Methods, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002), 242.
121. A. Bryman, Quantity and Quality in Social Research (London: Routledge, 2001), 91.
122. L. W. Neuman, Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 5th ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2003), 213.
123. The interview item on participation was modeled after the example of L. Mosca, "A Double-Faced Medium? The Challenges and Opportunities of the Internet for Social Movements, " in Net-working/ Networking: Citizen Initiated Internet Politics, ed. T. Hayhtio and J. Rinne (Tampere: Tampere University Press, 2008), 41-73.
124. B. Gillham, Developing a Questionnaire (London: Continuum, 2000).
125. D. Mercea, "Digital Prefigurative Participation", 153-169.
126. The heuristic procedures were modeled after K. A. Goss, "Rethinking the Political Participation Paradigm, " Women and Politics 25 (2004): 83-118.
127. and S. Walgrave and J. Verhulst, "Protest surveying. Testing the feasibility and reliability of an innovative methodological approach to political protest, " http:// www.protestsurvey.eu/index.php?page=publications (accessed 10 December 2010).
128. H. F. Weisberg, J. A. Krosnick, and B. D. Bowen, An Introduction to Survey Research, Polling and Data Analysis, 3rd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996), 121.
129. Verhulst and Walgrave, "The First Time Is the Hardest, " 455-84.
130. Saunders et al., "Explaining Differential Protest Participation, " 263-80.
131. L. Mosca, "A Double-Faced Medium?, " 41-73.
132. Tufekci and Wilson, "Social Media and the Decision to Participate in Political Protest, " 363-79.
133. McAdam, "Recruitment to High-Risk Activism, " 64-90.
134. The general level of organizational membership was measured with the question "Are you a member of a non-governmental organization?"
135. Verhulst and Walgrave, "The First Time Is the Hardest, " 455-84.
136. Verhulst and Walgrave, "The First Time Is the Hardest, " 455-84.
137. S. Menard, Applied Logistic Regression Analysis, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002).
138. Peter and Carly, participants at FânFest. Interviewed by the author in Roşia Montanǎ, 18 August 2012.
139. Jane, participant at FânFest, interviewed by the author in Roşia Montanǎ, 18 August 2012.
140. Respondents were asked if they used Facebook, Google+, or Twitter to encourage their contacts to go to FânFest.
141. or alternatively, if they had been encouraged by their contacts on Facebook, Google+, or Twitter to attend the festival.
142. Drawing on examples from T. Brunsting and S. Postmes's "Collective Action in the Age of the Internet: Mass Communication and Online Mobilization, " Social Science Computer Review 20 (2002): 294.
143. Verhulst and Walgrave, "The First Time Is the Hardest, " 455-84.
144. Jeff, participant at FânFest, interviewed by the author in Roşia Montanǎ, 18 August 2012.
145. An illustrative study is Vráblíková, "How Context Matters?"
146. For a relevant illustration, see A. Kaun, Being a Young Citizen in Estonia: An Exploration of Young People's Civic and Media Experiences (Tartu, Estonia: University of Tartu, 2013).
147. A. Segerberg and W. L. Bennett, "Social Media and the Organization of Collective Action: Using Twitter to Explore the Ecologies of Two Climate Change Protests, " The Communication Review 14 (2011): 197-215.
148. Saunders et al., "Explaining Differential Protest Participation, " 275.