Occupy is not a place

Abstract

In this article, I compare the origins and early development of the Occupy movement with that of the Spanish 15M, the Indignados or ‘outraged’, movement. How movements are integrated into longer lived global networks has been insufficiently studied. The ‘hyperlink’ can serve as a material representation of more durable affiliations between entities with a shared collective identity, in this case, activist Web sites, reflecting underlying network structures. Combining qualitative analysis of movement identities and narratives with analysis of hyperlinking patterns provides a more holistic understanding of the interrelations between the 15M and Occupy movements. I argue that the similarities in the structural hyperlinked network properties of the 15M and Occupy movements and their transnational interlinkages can be explained in part by commonalities in the two movements’ collective identities and dominant narratives.