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DRAFT: REV. 10/2015 Please do not distribute without permission!

“We are the 99%”: The Occupy Movement’s Challenge to Existing Power Structures

Maksim Kokushkin

Abstract It is not uncommon to conceive of the Occupy Movement as a powerful civic protest that failed to mobilize politically. The literature on #Occupy is limited to: a) academic accounts of how the movement fits existing theories about social movements; and b) activist accounts telling #Occupy’s story and supporting its contributions. Traditional social movement theories are inadequate, because they are deeply invested in 20th century political efficacy agendas or because they focus on specific identity-related issues without a thorough political analysis. On the other hand, activist and supporter accounts of #Occupy stories are empirically rich, but fail to explore the broader implications of the movement and its relationship with modern capitalism and democracy. Hence, neither approach offers a systematic analysis of how #Occupy changes the social movement landscape of the 21st century. This article argues that such portrayals leave out the deliberate refusal of #Occupy to enter the existing power structures. To reveal the movement’s deeply political nature, this article uses a communicative action framework to analyze statistically representative samples of posts from #Occupy’s blog and its counter-blog. The analysis applies a fuzzy-sets logic to the qualitative data coded and examined with the software package ATLAS.ti. The resulting evidence demonstrates that unlike social movements that seek to integrate into a capitalist political economy, #Occupy engages in communicative action aimed at challenging the very premises of capitalist power structures. Hence, future research should investigate #Occupy’s legacy for collective action in the 21st century and for potential democratic futures beyond modernity.

Keywords: Social Movements; Occupy Movement; Capitalism; Power; Communicative Action; Strategic Action; The 99%.

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Introduction

Occupy Wall Street emerged in 2011 symbolically and physically occupying Zuccotti

Park in the heart of the financial district of downtown New York (The Occupy Solidarity

Network 2014). The movement spread across the US and other countries during 2011 and

2012 before dissolving into a more passive protest. While the movement is commonly

described as a crucial catalyst in changing the conversation about wealth and inequality,

it is also commonly critiqued for its inability to produce a sustained mobilization effort

(Gitlin 2014, O'Shea 2014).

Contrary to the analyses focusing on the movement’s failure to produce lasting

organizational structures, this article argues that the Occupy movement represents a

qualitatively new type of social movement. Rather than failing to enter existing power

structures, the movement’s main charge is to challenge those structures. With its multiple

branches and presences, physical and virtual, #Occupy1 represents more than the group

from Zuccotti Park or any other similar physical occupation site. In fact, the movement is

worth examining, because it engages in prefigurative politics through purposeful

contradictory tactics and messages (Pickerill and Krinsky 2012). In addition, the

movement contains the ability to aggregate large masses of very diverse participants in

and beyond the physical protest sites (Juris 2012).

#Occupy’s critique is manifested through the refusal to engage the state and enter

capitalist power structures. This article argues that movement bypasses dominant

discourses by engaging in communicative action. The argument is advanced theoretically

and empirically. First, the article discusses the inadequacies of the relevant literatures.

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Then, the movement is analyzed through its Internet presence, the blog “We Are The 99

Percent.” Shortened here to “The 99%,” the blog is contrasted with its counter-blog, “We

Are The 53 Percent” or “The 53%”. The data suggest that “The 53%” employs strategic

action geared toward achieving narrow political goals. While the counter-movement’s

behavior is consistent with the literature, neither the social movement theories nor the

studies of #Occupy fully capture the movement’s contribution.

#Occupy And The Social Movements Literature

Traditional theories of social movements are grounded in collective action from the 19th

and 20th centuries. To justify the need for a deep analysis, this section outlines the

inadequacies of the traditional theories regarding #Occupy. The theories, their key

features and flaws relative to #Occupy are sketched in Table 1. The inadequacies of each

theoretical approach can be traced to a set of assumptions about what characterizes a

social movement. Because the very existence of #Occupy challenges each theory’s

definition of a social movement, it is not reasonable to expect that the movement would

be given full consideration by any one theory.

Table 1 about here

Table 1: Social Movement Theories and #Occupy

Theory Key Examples*

Description* Flaws

1 Mass Society Hoffer, 1951;

Kornhauser,

1959

Fringe groups come

together

#Occupy is not a

fringe group

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2 Deprivation Davies, 1962;

Gurr, 1970

Lack of good/service

gives purpose to SM

#Occupy focuses

on more than one

good/service

3 Political

Opportunity

Tarrow, 1998; Insurgent

consciousness,

organizational

strength, and political

opportunities

#Occupy is not

interested in

political

opportunities

4 Resource

Mobilization

McCarthy &

Zald, 1973;

1977

Pulling resources

leads to

success/failure

#Occupy is

neither success

nor failure

*Source: Suzanne Staggenborg, Social Movements (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 12-28.

On the one hand, mass society theory and deprivation theory are not applicable to

#Occupy, because of their limited scopes. At the same time, both theories need a limited

scope to exist. Mass society theory relies on the exclusion of people with extreme views

from mainstream politics and culture (Buechler 2013). Accordingly, this theory is

applicable to extremist movements that allow far right or far left groups to seek sympathy

and membership from socially isolated people. While expressing powerlessness,

#Occupy cannot be limited to socially isolated people. As demonstrated later in this

paper, its broad appeal is in an expansive “we”-majority.

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Similarly, deprivation theory fails to match the encompassing nature of #Occupy.

Whether a perceived deprivation refers to the lack of a good/service or a broader injustice

(Gurney and Tierney 1982, Klandermans and Oegema 1987), the analysis of this paper

shows that #Occupy’s grievances go to the very core of contemporary capitalism rather

than something narrow and specific that needs fixing. Instead of reflecting individual

issues aligned with specific political cleavages, the critique of #Occupy points to a

broken system.

Another set of theories, political process and resource mobilization, both start from the

assumption that the purpose of a social movement is to participate in political decision-

making. Both theories are then evaluative in the sense that they are interested in what

makes a social movement successful, i.e. gain maximum political representation, or

unsuccessful, i.e. fail to be represented in political structures. Resource mobilization, for

example, uses the ability of a movement to produce an influential formal organization as

litmus for its success or failure (McCarthy and Zald 1977, Klandermans 1984, Zurcher

and Snow 1990).

Political process theory takes the litmus further by postulating that, once an organization

is formed, it needs to exert influence on behalf of its beneficiaries by taking advantage of

the available political opportunities (McAdam 1999, 39-40). Movements and

countermovements mobilize based on political opportunities and influence existing

political opportunities (Meyer and Staggenborg 1996). Applying this framework to

#Occupy would explain the movement’s supposed failure in terms of its inability to gain

political representation in the way that its countermovement, The Tea Party, did. What is

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lost in this analysis is that The Tea Party is a traditional countermovement, whereas

#Occupy is not.

Overcoming some of the limitations of traditional social movement theories by

expanding the definition of a social movement, the research on cultural movements

reclaims the value of collective identity and consciousness (Touraine 1985, Taylor and

Whittier 1999). Structural and organizational concerns are thus not the only ones that

determine whether a formation qualifies as a social movement. Cultural or identity-

oriented movements can thus be viewed as #Occupy’s predecessors, because they adopt

various forms of direct democracy and loosely coordinated informal organizations

(Cohen 1985, 667, Polletta 2002, 1-25). In this respect, the parallels with #Occupy’s

tactics are undeniable. However, identity-oriented movements lack the comprehensive

critique of democracy, economy and state, advanced by #Occupy.

The #Occupy Literature

The limitations of social movement theories are not compensated by the social movement

literature that focuses on #Occupy. The scholarly work that has been published about

#Occupy can be grouped in two broad categories. First, there are the scholars of social

movements who sympathize with #Occupy, but are interested in how the movement

reflects or changes existing theories (e.g. Leach 2013, Milkman, Lewis, and Luce 2013,

Piven 2013, Lupo 2014). For instance, Leach (2013) focuses on #Occupy’s structure and

how it reflects the tension between efficiency and consensus. She argues that #Occupy is

a part of a new wave of social movements whose focus is on strategy and practice, rather

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than substance. In this context, it makes sense that #Occupy employs anarchist

procedures in making decisions, but has a difficult time synthesizing what it “wants.”

Gitlin (Gitlin 2013, 228), on the other hand, critiques #Occupy’s decision making

procedures citing “process fetishism”. In #Occupy’s focus on horizontalist rituals, Gitlin

sees indifference to specific accomplishments, which makes the movement unappealing

to the majority of Americans. While acknowledging the digital mark on #Occupy’s

identity, Gitlin argues that like any other social movement #Occupy’s activities need to

be organized in ways that lead to specific results. Thus, #Occupy is no different than

previous social movements and it should be studied and analyzed within the existing

social movement scholarship.

The second category of work includes students of #Occupy who are supportive of the

movement and may have participated in it. These authors tend to be focused on aspects of

#Occupy that they find exciting. Their observations are astute and focused, but their

overall analyses are superficial. For example, Nielsen (Gitlin 2012, Manilov 2013,

Maharawal 2013, Nielsen 2013, Rushkoff 2013, Wengronowitz 2013) focuses on the

aspects of #Occupy that reflect the new digital culture and the influences of that culture

on the social movement without connections to social movement theory. Maharawal

(2013) on the other hand, is interested in how the anti-oppressive practices adopted by

#Occupy might contribute to the inclusion of historically marginalized groups in the

movement, but again without a broader social movements context. While drawing

attention to specific contributions of #Occupy gives justice to the movement’s

prominence, the focus is typically directed inside the movement.

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In addition to literature directly supportive of aspects of #Occupy from within the

movement, there is a body of texts that present reactions by prominent public or

academic figures to #Occupy. “The Occupy Handbook” edited by Janet Byrne (2013) is

the best example of such texts. The group of essay authors includes a long list of

economists, sociologists, journalists, political scientists, and numerous others. The

common thread that connects the authors seems to be their sympathy for #Occupy and

somewhat left-leaning political beliefs expressed through the sympathy for #Occupy. At

the same time, the main reason the essays by all these authors are in the same volume,

other than the prominence of the authors, is that they have something to say to #Occupy.

Even though the essays are very limited in their analytical scopes and even though the

range of aspects of the movement they react to is tremendous2. Overall, these essays

illustrate the power of #Occupy to engage a wide range of people in conversations about

the issues the movement problematizes.

Communicative and strategic action

I have argued so far that #Occupy falls outside of the focus of mainstream social

movement theories, while the literature on #Occupy is not sufficiently theoretical. Some

authors recognize that gap and point out that #Occupy’s nature requires that the

movement is assessed and theorized from within and from the outside (Byrne and Wells

2012, Pickerill and Krinsky 2012). Others, emphasize the importance telling #Occupy’s

story insofar as it is incorporated in a broader cross-national and cross-historical narrative

about protest movements and their political achievements (Polletta 2014). However,

Habermasian analysis is yet to be applied to #Occupy, thirty years since Melucci

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(Pickerill and Krinsky 2012) identified Habermas as one of the theorists who connects

modern social conflict and postindustrial capitalism.

The sections that follow connect a social movement that critiques the structures of

modernity and capitalism with the philosophical critique of modernity and capitalism and

the political processes they involve. In that respect, it would make sense to: a)

investigate the messaging and appeal of #Occupy to entities and individuals excluded

from the political process, as pointed out by Juris et al. (2012); and b) conduct such

investigations using frameworks based on the critique of modern capitalist structures. The

Habermasian concept of communicative action critique, laid out below, offers a

methodological approach to conducting that analysis.

In his revision of Marxian evolutionary theory, Habermas moves away from linear

accounts of social change and the idea that a democracy free from oppression is both

logical and possible. Further, in contrast with Marx, Habermas allows the possibility that

capitalism, rather than communism, could be the result of fully developed modernity

(1984), an arrangement where the separation of culture, society and personality leads to

an ongoing conflict between democratic principles and the actual workings of political

systems (Ingram, 316). The analysis presented here draws on discourse that illustrates

how that conflict unfolds.

Within the discursive presence of that conflict, two types of social action interact, one –

communicative action – on the side of a broader democratic dialogue and one – strategic

action – on the side of a political system. The two types of social action are

operationalized for the purposes of this project. The analysis presented in this article

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places communicative and strategic action in the context of movements’ relationships

with power structures without engaging in comprehensive linguistic analysis. Instead, I

examine Habermas’s (Ingram 2010, 312-316) discussion of communicative and strategic

action in order to use a set of analytical tools and apply those tools to the data.

Habermas (1984) specifies that operationalizing communicative and strategic action is

possible. He claims that the theoretical concepts can be applied to specific actions.

Furthermore, he argues that “under suitable conditions, these attitudes should be

identifiable on the basis of the intuitive knowledge of the participants themselves”

(1984). Hence, studying testimonies of participants in the two blogs should put a

researcher in a position to identify blog posts as engaging in communicative or strategic

action.

At the same time, I rely on more than the researcher’s intuitive knowledge of the

participants. Habermas provides the tools for advancing beyond intuition by using

Austin’s (Habermas 1984, 286), How to Do Things with Words, framework of

locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts (1975). Accordingly, locutionary acts

focus on recognizing a particular social arrangement, illocutionary acts constitute an

action in themselves, while perlocutoinary acts are directed at affecting another party.

Communicative action is associated with illocutionary acts, because in those acts the

speaker says something and performs an action while doing that, e.g. building a broad

consensus and understanding. On the other hand, strategic action is associated with

perlocutionary acts, because in those acts are the speaker focuses on producing an effect

on his or her audience:

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Thus I count as communicative action those linguistically mediated interactions

in which all participants pursue illocutionary aims, and only illocutionary aims,

with their mediating acts of communication. On the other hand, I regard as

linguistically mediated strategic action those interactions in which at least one of

the participants wants with his speech acts to produce perlocutionary effects on

his opposite number (Habermas 1984, 288-289).

The measures used in this here thus follow Habermas’s logic in distinguishing between

illocutionary and perlocutionary aims while analyzing the two blogs.

Hypotheses

This article engages in two levels of analysis and comparison between the two blogs: 1)

formal and 2) substantive. On the formal level, I have two goals: a) verifying that The

99% blog is in fact the online presence of #Occupy, as suggested in the literature; and b)

establishing parallels and contrasts between The 99% and The 53% based on the logic of

movement-countermovement dynamics. In the case of The 53%, I start from the premise

that the countermovement is set up in opposition to the main movement (Habermas 1984,

295) in order to protect the socio-economic position of its constituents from the demands

of the social movement (Lo 1982, 118).

On the substantive level, my goals are to: a) establish whether “The 99 Percent” engage

in communicative or strategic action and b) establish whether “The 53 Percent” engage in

communicative or strategic action. To achieve those goals, I employ two sets of working

hypotheses corresponding to the formal and the substantive levels of comparison. The

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hypotheses reflecting the formal level of analysis include expectations informed by the

#Occupy literature reviewed earlier in the article.

Table 2 about here

Table 2: Formal Hypotheses Designation Statement of formal hypothesis FH1 Because of #Occupy’s focus on inclusion and representation of

historically excluded groups, “The 99 Percent” is more diverse than “The 53 Percent”

FH1a If “The 99 Percent” blog is more diverse, then it will include a wide range of ethnic, racial, and national groups.

FH1b If “The 99 Percent” blog is more diverse, then it will include a wide range of gender identities.

FH1c If “The 99 Percent” blog is more diverse, then it will include a wide range of social class identities.

FH2 Because of #Occupy’s appeal to the masses, “The 99 Percent” has more posts and has lasted longer than “The 53 Percent”.

FH2a The total number of posts in “The 99 Percent” exceeds the total number of posts in “The 53 Percent”.

FH2b The time span between the first and the last post in “The 99 Percent” is greater than the time span between the first and the last post in “The 53 Percent”.

FH3 Because of #Occupy’s critique of the business class and upper classes, “The 99 Percent” has a higher percentage of low and middle income people relative to “The 53 Percent”.

FH3a There are no high-income people on “The 99 Percent”. FH3b There are no low-income people on “The 53 Percent”. FH3c The average income of a participant in “The 99 Percent” is lower

than the average income of a participant on “The 53 Percent.

The substantive hypotheses below explore different dimensions of illocutionary and

perlocutionary acts in order to classify the posts (and consequently the blogs) as

communicative or strategic action. Using Austin’s “How To Do Things With Words,”

Habermas (p. 288-289) distinguishes between illocutionary and perlocutionary acts by

establishing what the speaker focuses on. In the case of illocutionary acts the speech act

itself constitutes action intended by the speaker. On the other hand, in a perlocutionary

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act, the speaker is focused on the effect that his or her speech would produce on the

hearer. Both illocutionary and perlocutionary acts are contrasted with locutionary ones

where the speech does not go beyond saying something.

Table 3 about here

Table 3: Substantive Hypotheses Designation Statement of substantive hypothesis SH1 Because of #Occupy’s focus on building understanding and

consensus, the whole of The 99% engages in communicative action. SH1a Strict Habermas criterion: The blog uses only illocutionary speech

acts. SH1b Strict Habermas criterion: The 99% does not engage in

perlocutionary speech acts. SH2 Because of its counter-movement nature, the whole of The 53%

engages in strategic action. The 53% employ perlocutionary acts and produce speech that is perlocutionary, even if illocutionary speech is present.

SH2a Strict Habermas criterion: The counterblog’s dominant speech act is thus perlocutionary.

SH2b Strict Habermas criterion: The 53% may employ illocutionary speech acts.

SH3 Amended SH1: While the presence of perlocutionary acts in The 99% is possible, individual posts employ mostly illocutionary acts and the overall speech produces by individual posts is illocutionary.

Data

This paper analyzes representative samples of posts from two blogs: 1)

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/, referred to as The 99% and 2)

http://the53.tumblr.com/, referred to as The 53%). According to its description, The 99%

blog was started by people involved in the #Occupy movement. On the other hand, The

53% is a counterblog initiated by conservative personality Erick Ericson to represent the

views of those who reportedly pay taxes (Fang 2011). The 99% blog was active from

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August 23, 2011 – October 14, 2013, while The 53% blog was active from October 5,

2011 – February 10, 2012.

Both statistical samples were constructed through a random selection of blog pages to

achieve a confidence level of 95% and confidence interval of 3%. The 99% sample

includes 54 randomly selected pages and 782 posts (n=782) from an estimated total of

3,345 posts (N=3,345). The 53% sample includes 38 randomly selected pages and 347

blog entries (n=347) from an estimated total of 530 blog posts.

Analysis

The analysis below follows the logic of formal and substantive comparison introduced

earlier. First, the formal comparison portion establishes the differences between the two

blogs in the context of the relevant hypotheses. Then, the substantive comparison

subsection focuses on the differences between how the two blogs communicate their

ideas.

Characteristics of the Blogs

As detailed in Table 2, the demographic composition of the two blogs is quite different.

Most posts from The 99% are authored by women, young people under 30 and people

with low reported incomes. On the other hand, the typical author on The 53% is a man

over 30 with high reported income. While a majority of posts across the two blogs are

authored by whites, The 99% includes more participants who can be identified as non-

white than The 53%. Combined with a comparison in terms of absolute numbers,

approximately 3,345 posts in The 99% against approximately 530 posts in The 53%,

racial and ethnic diversity is greater among The 99% authors.

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Table 4 about here

Table 4: Demographic comparison of the two blogs

The 99% The 53%

70% women, 30% men 35% women, 65% men

86% white, 14% non-white 91% white, 9% non-white

66% under 30, 34% over 30 39% under 30, 61% over 30

67% employed, 45% full-time 97% employed, 89% full-time

61% with income below $25,000 59% with income above $100,000

FH1, FH2 and FH3 should thus be confirmed as The 99% blog is demographically more

diverse, includes a greater number of posts and has lasted longer than The 53% blog.

More importantly, the formal differences between the two blogs can also be used to

understand the how the standpoints3 of the participants in the two blogs differ. In terms of

social locations, the two blogs overlap very little, which justifies substantive hypotheses

that focus on differences in how members communicate through the two blogs.

Based on the standpoints established by the formal comparison of the blogs, one could

also generalize that members of The 99% are more likely to be politically left-leaning.

On the other hand, those in The 53% are closer to the right end of the spectrum.

Extrapolating from the post-2012-election analysis by Pew Research (Johnson 1999),

authors from The 99% are more likely to align with the Democratic Party, whereas those

from The 53% are probably closer to the Republican Party (Tarrow 2011). While political

party identification is not central to this article’s analysis, it establishes a continuity

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between the standpoints of the people posting on each blog and the types of discourse

they engage in. The next two sections detail and illustrate these types of discourse.

Perlocutionary Speech Acts

As formulated earlier, the main substantive research question is whether The 99% and

The 53% engage in different types action and thus different types of speech acts. If The

99% blog represents #Occupy’s attempt at building consensus and understanding, the

blog should be deeply engaged in communicative action through illocutionary speech

acts (SH1). The opposite would be true of The 53% blog (SH2), because of its inception

as a countermovement response to #Occupy and The 99%. The 53% would then be

primarily engaged in strategic action through perlocutionary acts.

Working with SH1 and its sub-hypotheses proved to be a challenge. The idea that

communicative speech acts pursue “only illocutionary aims” (2012) sets a different

standard for communicative action and for strategic action. SH1a and SH1b reflect that

standard narrowly and assume a Boolean relationship – “either or” – where

communicative action and strategic action are crisp opposites. Such a strict interpretation

of Habermas requires that where illocutionary aims are equated with illocutionary speech

acts. By the logic of such a strict interpretation, the presence of even one perlocutionary

speech act in a post would define the post’s aim as perlocutionary, which would trigger

that one perlocutionary post would define the whole blog as purusing perlocutionary

aims.

It is evident that a narrow interpretation would set a virtually impossible standard for

communicative action and immediately lead to the rejection of SH1a, SH1b and SH1.

However, one could reasonably extend Habermas’ (1984, 286-295) notion that deep

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knowledge of the participants is necessary to establish the presence of communicative

action. Such an extension is reflected in the amended version of SH1 – SH3. Within that

extension an individual may contain some perlocutionary speech acts, as long as the

whole post’s aim is illocutionary. Similarly, H3 allows that The 99% may include

individual perlocutionary posts, but engage in communicative action as a whole. In

practice, perlocutionary speech acts are present to different extents in both blogs, rather

than present in one and absent in the other one.

To deal with that complexity engendered in SH3, the analysis here uses a fuzzy-sets

approach (see Ragin 2008) that takes advantage of the normalized coocurrence index (C-

coefficient) produced by ATLAS.ti4. The logic of fuzzy sets allows the evaluation of the

degrees to which posts in The 99% and The 53% engage in communicative and strategic

action thus enabling nuanced conclusions from the hypothesized relationships.

Specifically, the analysis presented here takes advantage of Ragin’s (2008, 30-33; 94-97)

continuous and six-value fuzzy sets to establish the significance of engagement in

communicative and strategic action. Hence, in the analysis below, C-coefficient values

above .6 are interpreted as significant, whereas values below .2 as not significant.

Table 4 contains the C-coefficients and co-occurrences of perlocutionary speech acts5 in

the two samples. Accordingly, perlocutionary speech acts are strongly associated with

The 53% Blog. A C-coefficient value of .63 indicates significant overlap between The

53% and the use of perlocutionary speech toward The 99%. On the other hand,

perlocutionary speech acts are weekly associated with The 99% blog, which is indicated

by the C-coefficient value of .15. Given that the purpose of perlocutionary speech acts is

to produce an effect on the hearer, one should not expect to see an overlap between a

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group of speakers and an in-group they identify with. Hence, the C-coefficients of 0 for

Perlocutionary toward the 1% and The 53% and .02 for Perlocutionary toward the 99%

and The 99% in Table 4.

Table 5 about here

Table 5: Co-occurrence Index (C-Coefficient), number of co-occurrences and ATLAS.ti-derived level of intensity for both samples. Codes C-

Coefficient for The 53% posts

Number of co-occurrences with The 53% posts

Level of intensity for The 53% posts††

C-Coefficient for The 99% posts

Number of co-occurrences with The 99% posts

Level of intensity for The 53% posts††

The 53% entries (control)† 0.96 366 10 0 0 0 The 99% entries (control)† 0 0 0 0.94 782 10 Perlocutionary toward the 1% 0 1 0 0.15* 123 2 Perlocutionary toward the 99% 0.63 258 7 0.02 23 0 Focus on individual circumstances 0.53* 1031 6 0.73 1432 8 Focus on structural conditions 0.12 141 2 0.7 700 8 * The C-coefficient value is flagged with a yellow circle by ATLAS.ti as one that is potentially much lower than the actual significance of the co-occurrence. † The code used to identify a blog entry is used as a control code in this case. Due to the nature of the coding, each person’s contribution is registered in two ways: as a “post” and as an “entry”. The blog post identifier appears only once per person. Each “post” code is unique thus allowing an accurate count of all individual participants. On the other hand, the “entry” identifier may appear more than once per person, if a person’s post is split between two pages in the pdf printout of the web page. Hence, two or more “entry” identifiers may be associated with an individual participant. Based on the actual coding process and experience, the expected C-coefficients for “post” and “entry” within each blog should be close to 1, but not precisely 1, because some “entry” codes are not associated with “post” codes. Within the same function, the “entry” identifier from one blog should not co-occur with a “post” identifier from the other blog thus setting the respective C-coefficients at 0. †† ATLAS.ti uses gradient color-coding to indicate the level of intensity of each C-coefficient value. The gradient ranges between light green for high intensity and dark green for low intensity. To help with the calibration of the fuzzy sets, that color-coding is transferred into ten intensity levels. An intensity value of 1 thus indicates virtually no overlap between the two sets. On the other hand, a value of 10 indicates a virtually complete overlap between the two sets. A value of 0 indicates that there is absolutely no overlap between the two sets.

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Further, The 99% blog contains 123 occurrences of speech acts challenging the opposing

side6, while The 53% contains 258 such occurrences. These challenges can be direct or

indirect. For instance, some post from The 99% directly indicate their target7 as The 1%,

“The 1% took away our: -Democracy -Pride -Hope. Let’s take it back” or “Hey1%.We

playedbyyourrules.[…]Nowwe’rebarelymakingit.”Speechactsliketheseare

consideredtobeperlocutionary,becausetheyaimatproducinganeffectuponthe

one-percenterswhoreadsthem.

Similarly,althoughnotaddressingahearer/readerdirectly,speechactscanstillbe

perlocutionary:“Peopleareforcedtopaytensofthousandsofdollarsinmedical

billsorfacedisabilityordeath,whilethesuperrichlivecomfortablyasaresultof

oursystemwhichfavorsandcaterstothem”or“You want me to work, then tell the

government to stop denying me the things I need in order to get back to work.” In

statements like those, the “you” may not be directly identified as The 1%, but it is clear

that the speech act aims at producing an effect on The 1%.

On the other hand, perlocutionary speech acts by The 53% target The 99% and #Occupy.

For instance, a lengthy post that details the challenges that the author has overcome and

the service he has provided to his country along with addressing #Occupy directly. The

user from The 53% concludes, “Quit whining and bitching, get off your ass and go earn

your way through life,” thus not directly identifying #Occupy, even though that is the

clear target target. Another user directly challenges #Occupy, “You don’t like your job –

but don’t look down on mine. I don’t share your opinion – so don’t speak for me.

OCCUPY WALL STREET, you do NOT speak for me.”

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On the surface, both blogs feature a number of posts that aim at producing an effect on

specific hearers outside of the respective movement, which would disprove SH1a, but

confirm SH2b. Still, the difference in quantity and nature of perlocutionary speech acts in

the two blogs suggests the lack of crisp sets assumed by SH1 and SH2. Instead, the

existing fuzzy sets reflect the fact that in The 99%, perlocutionary speech acts are much

fewer and overall not representative of the blog. In addition, as illustrated by the

representative quotes above, the perlocutionary aims pursued in the two blogs are

different. The 53% mention The 99% and #Occupy mainly to tell them off, while The

99% refer to The 1% mainly to make a broader points about fairness and democratic

governance.

Hence, using the logic of fuzzy sets and the evidence from the ATLAS.ti C-coefficients,

one could generalize that strategic action is not definitional for The 99%. On the other

hand, strategic action seems to be the focus of The 53%. Still, to completely reject SH1

and confirm SH2, the analysis proceeds with an investigation of the quantity and nature

of the illocutionary speech acts employed by the two blogs. A thorough conclusion

regarding SH3 also requires that the use of illocutionary speech acts is given the

necessary attention.

Illocutionary Speech Acts

Unlike the perlocutionary hypotheses, the hypotheses associated with the blogs’ use of

illocutionary speech acts required the creation of composite “super” codes using many

individual codes associated with the posters’ attempts to share, problematize, offer

solutions or, generally, create mutual understanding between author and audience. For

analytical purposes, codes were grouped based on whether the poster was drawing

21

attention to broader structural issues or whether the poster was making a more personal,

individual appeal. Both super-codes include only individual codes aim to persuade, but

do not address or invoke an audience, i.e. are not perlocutionary. The structural focus

super-code includes 29 individual codes, while the individual focus super-code includes

47 individual codes. For instance, the most frequent code included in the structural focus

super-code is “usamess” (308 mentions), which indicates that the author has made a

statement about something that is wrong with the way the U.S. works. On the other side,

the most frequent code included in the individual focus super-code is “hrdwrk” (167

mentions), which is associated with statements about the authors’ work ethic and its

connection to the author’s success in life.

Table 4 summarizes the results from the co-occurrence analysis of the two super-codes

for each sample. In some cases, the number of occurrences exceeds the number of posts,

because a post may include multiple participating codes and thus multiple super-code

occurrences per post. The results indicate a very strong association between the two types

of illocutionary speech acts and The 99% blog with C-coefficient values of .73 and .7 for

individual and structural focus respectively. At the same time, only individual-focus

illocutionary speech acts are strongly associated with The 53% blog.

Applying a fuzzy-sets framework to the results in Table 5, one could argue that The 53%

employ illocutionary speech acts, but do not engage in communicative action. First, the

C-coefficient value of .53 is significantly lower than the values for The 99%. Second,

The 53% seem to be invested in creating mutual understanding between authors and

audience only on the level of individual experiences and issues. The association between

the structural focus super-code and The 53% is fairly week at .12. It is thus very unlikely

22

that The 53% point to structural issues and equally likely and unlikely that the posts try to

create mutual understanding on an individual level. Treating each set of data as fuzzy

here means that one allows for partial overlaps between individual sets thus accounting

for the causal complexity in the data.

The text of a post from The 53% can serve as an example of an author who uses

illocutionary speech acts without pointing to broader social structures and overall

engaging in strategic action, i.e. action not designed to foster mutual understanding on

multiple levels. The author, who appears to be white and female, wears a red t-shirt and

hods a notebook with the following handwritten text:

I work 1 job. It may not seem like much, but I work that job 98 hours a week. For

those of you with no sense of arithmetic, that’s 14 hours a day, 7 days a week.

NO, it is not some fancy desk job. I spend most of my time on my feet,

pretending to be happy. BUT I DON’T MIND. I know I earned it through my

hard work. SUCK IT UP YOU WHINERS! I am the 53%. (From December 6,

2011)

Short, typed, text follows the image, “The phrase my Dad told me as a child, which

makes me a 53er today: ‘Wish in one hand and **** in the other and see which one fills

up first.’ ”

This post is representative of The 53%’s use illocutionary speech acts in that those acts

are overwhelmed by perlocutionary acts that engage in strategic action. For instance, the

author above employs illocutionary speech acts by pointing to the individual-level values

of hard work and perseverance. While doing that, the author does not recognize that

structural conditions may have contributed to her socio-economic status. In the end, the

23

post is defined by the perlocutionary speech acts that insult and devalue the experiences

of the author’s target, members of The 99% and #Occupy.

The nature of the posts from The 99% is very different. They tend to invoke personal

narratives and point to structural issues thus connecting micro and macro issues and

trying to convince, get on board, rather than insult. In both cases, the strong C-

coefficients suggest that painting a complex picture of one’s experiences and social

position is a crucial part of posting on the blog. The post below is by a person whose face

is hidden, but appears to be white and female. She holds a notebook with two handwritten

pages of text. Below that is typed text with content somewhat overlapping, but is not

identical to the handwritten note:

My job that only pays me $30,000/year REQUIRES a college degree per the

state. I am a QDDP and work at a company that provides care for individuals

with developmental disabilities. We are responsible for every aspect of many of

these people’s lives, from their finances to feeding, dressing, and bathing some. I

am glad my job helps people but no one in my field is paid for the actual amount

of work they do. Many of our caregivers work multiple jobs because a direct

service worker is lucky if they can earn $10/hour. The individuals we care for

live on much, much less. They get $674 in SS benefits. It is cold and many of

them have heating bills of nearly $200. Fortunately the company I work for can

help them pay their rent. I have had to take some to the food pantries because

their food stamps didn’t cover all their food for the month. Many assistance

programs here are under-financed and can’t help anyone else.

The 1% think we are lazy. I would like them to try living like this just for a week

or a day. Corporations make huge profits, don’t pay taxes, and aren’t creating

24

more or better-paying jobs. We are struggling to pay our bills while working 60

hours a week. We are the 99%. (From December 10, 2011)

A fairly typical post from The 99%, the author connects her experiences with those of

people around her and with broader structural issues. Although the post uses a

perlocutionary speech act, “The 1% think we are lazy. I would like them to try living like

this just for a week or a day.”, the overall intention is not perlocutionary. The post lays

out the author’s analysis of economic arrangements that she considers to be unfair and in

need of change. Hence, the post participates in linguistically mediated interactions that

contribute to a broader democratic dialogue. By pursuing illocutionary aims then the post

participates in communicative action.

Again, on the surface, both blogs feature a number of posts that seem to use in the same

type of speech acts, which would disprove SH1b and SH1 and confirm SH2a and SH2.

SH3 is then necessary, because it accounts for the difference in quantity and nature of

illocutionary speech acts across the two blogs. In terms of numbers, The 99%’s use of

illocutionary speech acts is extensive, while that of The 53% is limited at best. In terms of

content, the representative quotes above illustrate the dominant role of illocutionary

speech in The 99% and the subordinate role of illocutionary speech in The 53%.

It is then reasonable to generalize that communicative action is definitional for The 99%,

but not for The 53%. Similarly, strategic action is definitional for The 53%, but not for

The 99%. SH2 and SH3 should thus be confirmed, concluding that the presence of

different types of individual speech acts alone does not determine whether the action as a

whole is communicative or strategic.

Rather, what matters is the dominance of one type of speech acts over other both

quantitatively and qualitatively. The heavy use of perlocutionary speech in the end of a

25

post is thus qualitatively different from one or two instances of perlocutionary speech in a

post’s body. Similarly, a post that is permeated by illocutionary speech acts is judged to

have different aims than one that includes single illocutionary speech acts surrounded by

perlocutionary speech. In this context, the data verify the empirical observations of social

movement scholars like Leach (2013) who recognize #Occupy’s focus on practice, but

accuse the movement of being unable to specify what it wants. As demonstrated here,

engaging in communicative action by definition excludes specific wants and goals.

The analysis presented above thus offers an interpretation of #Occupy’s outreach beyond

any set of politically achievable goals. The discursive strategies used by the movement

parallel that outreach in the search for consensus over the deep structural issues of

contemporary capitalism. Further, the movement’s attempt to embody dissensus is

illustrated by the heavy emphasis on uncovering the mutually constitutive ways in which

a majority of the public is excluded from effective political participation. Again, political

participation is not understood only in terms of achievable political agendas. More

prominently, it is understood in terms of proper democratic participation and

representation.

Power, Structure and #Occupy

Up to this point, I have demonstrated that the nature of movement requires that social

movement theory and the literature on #Occupy be combined and amended in order to

reflect its past, current and potential significance. On the one hand, social movement

scholars need to allow the possibility that the existing theories are either inadequate or

inapplicable in a 21st century context. On the other hand, #Occupy scholars should

recognize that there is a value to studying the movement beyond the movement itself.

26

This article offered a strategy to conceptualize #Occupy in a way that challenges both the

existing literature on social movements and the descriptive accounts of the presence of

#Occupy.

The movement’s use of communicative action thus makes it distinctly unique, which

means that its perceived failures should continue to be examined expansively. Some of

that work has already started outlining the connections between #Occupy and deeper

power structures. For example, Flacks (2013) stresses the lack of clear goals and the

lateral decision-making processes allowed #Occupy to dramatize structural power

arrangements. As a signifier of global class struggle, Flacks argues, #Occupy has the

potential to inspire a new global search for participatory democracy. While stated without

additional analysis, these ideas about #Occupy define its prominence beyond an ecology

of social movements and beyond its existence as a social movement organization.

Further, #Occupy’s communicative action outreach requires connectedness qualitatively

different from previous movements. In this respect, Manuel Castells offers one of the

most insightful and substantiated analyses of #Occupy. Connecting #Occupy with his

theories of the network society, Castells (2012) offers a conceptualization that places the

movement in a group of networked movements in the digital age. Unlike traditional

social movements, #Occupy thus relies on multiple forms of networking both online and

offline. Drawing on a variety of ways to network, that sets up the movement as local and,

at the same time, global; a leaderless movement, and one that can be extremely self-

reflexive. Hence, the fact that it is a networked movement makes #Occupy different from

traditional social movements and reflects the broader transition to network society.

27

Like other social movement scholars Castells compares and contrasts #Occupy with other

movements and theories about them. Unlike other social movement scholars, he

recognizes that #Occupy is not, although it could be, a public opinion movement

affecting elections (Castells 2012, 228). He concurs with Tarrow (2011) that by not being

programmatic, i.e. focusing on one single issue, #Occupy is a movement that doesn’t

serve a particular constituency. The overall purpose of #Occupy is thus described as

“changing the values of society” (Castells 2012, 227), a fundamentally political endeavor.

Consistent with the idea that #Occupy dramatizes existing structural arrangements

(Flacks 2013), then #Occupy’s message is in the process (Castells 2012, 185-188). The

absence of clear demands, its leaderlessness, and its inability to form traditional social

movement organizations, all result from the fact that #Occupy is invested in creating and

developing a new utopia of networked democracy. Therefore, the project that results in

real consequences from this new utopia is the project that networked movements, and

specifically #Occupy, are pursuing. #Occupy’s focus on changing people’s minds is then

explained by Castells in the following way:

Indeed, when societies fail in managing their structural crises by the

existing institutions, change can only take place out of the system by a

transformation of power relations that starts in people’s minds and

develops in the form of networks built by the projects of new actors

constituting themselves as subjects of the new history in the making

(Castells 2012, 228)

28

Looping this way of reasoning back to social movement theories, those theories can be

perfectly adequate in analyzing movements that belong in the old history. However, if a

new history is emerging, then an adequate way of theorizing its social movements should

emerge too. Both Flacks (2013) and Castells (2012) argue that #Occupy does not fit in

the established political processes. These observations potentially qualify #Occupy as a

true political agent, one that is not bound by the actual political process. The latter

reasoning illustrates Rancière’s (2010) argument that politics is based on dissensus,

where the political process is not directed toward enacting and solving conflicts between

competing agents. Instead, Rancière claims that the role of politics is to show the gap

between those who are on the stage and those who are not.

In this case, #Occupy could be seen as a representative of those who are excluded from

political participation. The movement’s obsession with performativity, rather than

traditional political mobilization, could be also be viewed as participation in Rancièrian

politics that extend beyond the governmental, military, economic, religious and academic

institutions of modernity (Rancière and Corcoran 2010, 80). If #Occupy is not trying to

appeal to the established institutions of modernity, it would be unreasonable to expect a

deep understanding of or support for #Occupy to come from the established structures

within those institutions.

Conclusion

Empirically, this article has established that The 99% and thus #Occupy engage in

communicative action by constructing a discourse that connects personal experiences and

structural issues without committing to a specific set of solutions. The purpose of that

communicative action is to reveal and problematize the issues of modern capitalism,

29

rather than amend the system in the short run. In fact, in the absence of an alternative to

capitalism in developed modernity, offering specific solutions would only mask the

severe conflict between political process and democratic principles outlined by Habermas

(Ingram 2010, 312-316).

Following Rancière’s (2010, 37-38) reasoning then, the fact that The 99% and The 53%

do not engage in the same type of action is an indication that #Occupy’s investment is in

non-participation in the political process. On the other hand, formations like the Tea

Party are heavily invested in strategic action, i.e. active participation in the political

process. Hence, by revealing the structural exclusion of large groups of people from the

political process, #Occupy creates a narrative of dissensus and participates in true

politics.

The main point of this article has been that #Occupy should not be discussed, analyzed

and researched as the social movements before it. Leftist or not, the literature that does

that fits into the dominant political process by declaring the death, inefficacy and

disorganization of #Occupy. Instead, I would call for a reconfiguration of theoretical

thinking about social movements that allows further and deeper analyses of #Occupy’s

footprint.

The structural exclusion and democratic issues raised by the movement are currently

echoed by civil rights movements (e.g. #BlackLivesMatter), fourth-wave feminist

projects (e.g. FEMEN.org), current transgender activism (e.g. TheTaskForce.org) and

even national government action (e.g. Greece, January-July 2015). Such analyses would

investigate how #Occupy’s communicative action can serve as the backdrop against

30

which various types of strategic action in the 21st century form and develop. Furthermore,

such analyses could inform theorizing about democratic futures beyond modernity.

31

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Endnotes

1 The movement is referred to as #Occupy with the hashtag symbol used to acknowledge

the importance of the movement’s embeddedness in social media and Internet culture.

2 The sixty-six essays cover topics ranging from specific tax policy inspired by #Occupy

to broader changes in the political economy caused by #Occupy.

3 Standpoint here is defined as “historically shared, group-based experiences” (Collins

1997, 375). For detailed discussions of standpoint theories, see Harding (2004) and

[citation omitted].

4 The C-coefficients are somewhat analogous to statistical correlation coefficients (Muhr

2009, Contreras 2011). Accordingly, C-coefficients range between 0 and 1, with values

close to 1 indicating a strong association between codes and values close to 0 indicating a

weak association between codes.

5 Each composite code includes two individual codes for perlocutionary speech: direct

mention of a group and indirect mention of a group.

6 It should be noted that for The 99%, the opposing side is the 1%, whereas for The 53%,

the opposing side is The 99%. This is consistent with the dynamics of a movement and a

countermovement discussed earlier.

7 Quotes and quote selections from the blogs are provided with no changes to

punctuation, capitalization or spelling. Only paragraph marks are removed when quotes

are included inside the article’s individual paragraphs. Grammatical and spelling errors

are not marked with “sic”, because I think that such marking would shift attention away

from the actual message, especially for quotes with multiple spelling and/or grammar

errors.