The Occupy Wall Street Movement is the name given to a protest against the financial institutions and the government policies regulating them. The official date for when the protest began is September 2011, in New York City’s FiDi (Financial District). The movement succeeded in garnering global attention and sparked similar movements throughout the country and the world (Occupy.org, n.p.). The issue at the heart of the movement was the greed that fueled financial workers, and it brought up the issue of the 99% and the 1%. The issue at play was a huge income inequality between the richest 1% of Americans and the rest of them. This is a not just a problem, but also a growing problem since income inequality has been steadily growing since the 1970s. Unlike similar movements in the past, Occupy Wall Street was called a “leaderless movement.” The media praised the role of new media, mostly Twitter, as being the social tool that fuelled the movement (Gladwell, 43), but after the movement it was speculated that the relative ineffectiveness of the movement was due to the new media tools that sparked and fueled it.
The enforcement branch of government forced the movement out of Zuccotti Park on November, 15th 2011—while the movement continued in a smaller form after this, this effectively ended the growth and hope that the movement would lead to lasting change. One thing that the movement did succeed in accomplishing is introducing the concept of the 99% and the 1% to the general population. A Guardian reporter, Naomi Wolf uncovered documents that the FBI, DHS and the Joint Terrorism Task force had closely monitored the movement even thought it was a peaceful movement (Wolf, n.p.).
But though the media loved the story of new media such as Twitter as playing a crucial role in energizing and organizing the movement, researchers after the fact have wondered if this version of reality was not concocted by the media. Malcolm Gladwell writes in his article “Small Change” that role of Twitter in the Occupy Movement, and in other movements such as the Arab Spring, was thoroughly exaggerated. Gladwell breaks down different social movements, such the Civil Rights Movement, was able to achieve success because what united the protesters was a strong-tie bond. The Occupy Movement had notably less success than the Civil Rights Movement, and one of the reasons for this may have been because it relied on the weak-tie platform of Twitter to organize itself.
The Occupy Movement was not a success, but neither was it a failure. As stated, it introduced the concepts of income inequality to the general population. Since it was a “leaderless revolution” it was less organized. Gladwell points out in his article that the Civil Rights Movement had been meticulously organized. It caused people to encourage others to join through their strong tie connection to them. With Twitter fueling the Occupy Movement, the movement’s foundation was based upon the weak-tie connection of Twitter users. This proved effective in gathering a lot of people to take a stand for what they believed in, but it did not allow the movement to grow until the point of causing lasting and drastic social change. Like the Arab Spring, the hope surrounding the potential of the movement was never fully realized.
Works Cited
Freeman , Richard. "Distribution Matters." UN. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2014. <http://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2006/wp26_2006.pdf>.’
"Upcoming free events at Miami University on October 20 in Oxford, Ohio and Antioch College on October 23 in Yellow Springs, Ohio." Occupy Wall Street. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2014. <http://occupywallst.org/>.
Wolf, Naomi . "Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy." The Guardian . N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy>.
