Raising and Sustaining Public Attention: Tea Party and Occupy Protest Mobilization and Agenda Setting

• In Event: 242 - Regular Session. Media and Social Movements

Abstract

Social movements affect influence when they set the political agenda for others, including elected officials, mainstream media, and major institutions. Using an original dataset, we examine the success of the recent Tea Party and Occupy movements in getting their issues on Presidential, Congressional, media, and public agendas. Both movements were successful in drawing public attention to the issues of their concern, but Tea Party issues received sustained attention after the peak of mobilization had passed, whereas most Occupy issues did not. The Tea Party’s deliberate strategy for influencing change, driven by organizational formalization and insider tactics, likely propelled the sustained attention to their issues. In addition, we discover strong correlation between the governmental, media, and public agendas indicating interdependency across sources during the agenda setting process.

Authors

• Megan E. Brooker, University of California-Irvine

• David S. Meyer, University of California-Irvine