Protest Activity Research Articles

Synthesizing the Global English‐Language Abortion Narrative: A Comparative Analysis of Media Discourse*

Abortion is one of the most politically divisive topics currently being discussed in the media. No study has yet attempted to make cross‐national comparisons assessing the nuances associated with various views on abortion in the English public press. Using an original hand‐coded sample of over 800 English‐language newspaper articles from 41 countries that mentioned abortion, we examine how country‐level influences and newspaper characteristics shape newspaper portrayals of abortion. Our three‐level hierarchical models find that democracy and the freedom it engenders increase the likelihood that newspapers discuss laws, policies, and government claimsmakers when abortion is mentioned. When abortion is legal, newspapers are less likely to mention social movements and protest activities, possibly because the issue may be more settled. We also provide previously untapped insight into the role that a country's religious culture and level of economic development play. Surprisingly, religion and economics have relatively little influence in shaping abortion discussions.

Right up their street? News media framing of the protest activities of far-right movement parties

AbstractFar-right parties have increasingly emphasised their movement-like characteristics as a novel mobilisation strategy. Existing studies of these so-called ‘far-right movement parties’ have concentrated on their internal organisation and communications to understand how they mediate between a movement and party identity through their own actions. Yet research is lacking on how this identity is constructed and presented by the news media: a crucial interface between institutional politics and public opinion. This paper pursues this enquiry with a comparative analysis of the newspaper coverage of two prominent cases—the German AfD and UKIP—and asks how coverage of their increasing involvement in protests has varied cross-nationally and evolved over time. The analysis reveals the relative salience of the protest activities of the far-right, along with the associated social movement actors, issues and frames used in the reporting. It shows that far-right party protest receives a low level of attention and tends to be accompanied by delegitimising framing, particularly when associated (extremist) movements are also present. In both cases analysed, a critical juncture generated increasing attention to far-right party protest, but also more delegitimising frames. The study provides new insights into the structures and processes which influence how the media has responded to the new far-right ‘movement party’ form in Europe, with implications for our understanding of contemporary far-right mobilisation strategies.

Baptists from Romania and the Revolution of December 1989

The Revolution of December 1989 had a significant impact on, and played a special role in, Romanian society, both through the overthrow of totalitarianism and the events that followed. Starting with these aspects, this study aims to explore this event, highlighting the role played by Christians and the Baptist churches in particular. From the desire for freedom, including religious freedom, to concrete actions of protest, emotional support, or discourses expounding the role of God in these events, I observe a strong desire for change, followed by involvement in society on social, educational, or political levels.

Transformation of Value Orientations of Russian Youth: on the Issue of Stability of Russia Against the Background of Confrontation with the Countries of the World of the West

Relevance. The ongoing confrontation between Russia and Western countries makes the study of the role of youth and youth public organizations in the stability of the socio-political and social development of our country more and more relevant. Taking into account the ongoing events, it is necessary to consider the process of transforming the value orientations of modern Russian youth and its impact on the stability of our country and the activities of youth public organizations.The purpose – to carry out a comparative analysis of the value orientations of Soviet/Russian youth and the trends of their development since the end of the XX century to the present and their impact on the stability of Russia against the background of confrontation with the countries of the Western world.Objectives: analyze the historical orientation of the value orientations of young people in the late USSR; carry out an analysis of the value orientations of the youth of the new Russia (1991-2000); consider the consequences of the transformation of value orientations of young people for the stability of Russia (2000-2023).Methodology. We used data from Rosstat on demography, secondary analysis of data on the results of research by the WCIOM Sociological Service (1992-2023), the Center for Labor Research of the Higher School of Economics (HSE) on youth issues, analysis of scientific materials published in scientific journals, historical documents of the period under study, methods of comparison and analogy.Results. Since the 80s of the XX century, the value orientations of domestic youth have been transformed towards the Western cult of consumption, which was the basis for various negative manifestations, participation in the destructive protest activities of individual youth public organizations. The situation began to change in the early 2000s, when more and more young people began to think about the need to restore traditional moral norms and values. The coronavirus pandemic and a special military operation in Ukraine had a particularly serious impact on the transformation of the value orientations of modern youth.Conclusions. The transformation of the value orientations of modern Russian youth towards a return to traditional values is a positive factor for the stability of the development of our country.

ПРОТЕСТАНТСКОЕ СЛУЖЕНИЕ В ГОДЫ ПЕРВОЙ МИРОВОЙ ВОЙНЫ: ШПИОНОМАНИЯ VS ХРИСТИАЕСКОЕ БЛАГОЧЕСТИЕ

В статье рассматриваются особенности отношения властных структур к представителям неправославных христианских конфессий в годы Первой мировой войны. На территории Российской империи к началу XX в. проживало около 2 млн. этнических немцев, как подданных Германской, так и Российской империй. Обычно они сохраняли верность своей конфессии. Немецкое население, прежде всего мужчины от 17 до 45 лет, в условиях мирового конфликта активно подвергалось депортациям и интернированию. Лютеранские пасторы, их жены, паства Москвы, Риги, Ревеля, оказывали материальную и духовную поддержку как высланному немецкому населению, так и военнопленным. Однако их деятельность вызывала подозрения у департамента полиции Российской империи, а в общественное мнение активно внедрялась мысль, что помощь оказывается только этническим немцам и австрийцам и не распространяется на военнопленных славянского происхождения. Протестантские общины утверждали: они помогают всем неимущим без различия подданства и вероисповедания. Главный упрек МВД: благотворительность – всего лишь повод создать организацию для осуществления шпионской деятельности. Ключевая фигура в донесениях полиции – пастор Вальтер, а также Евангелический полевой лазарет Москвы, через который шла помощь. С этим пастором были связаны все протестантские проповедники, проявлявшие христианское благочестие в отношении ближнего. В результате проведенного расследования деятельность пастора Вальтера и его коллег была квалифицирована как антирусский и антигосударственный заговор, его фигуранты подверглись высылке, что свидетельствует о приоритете принципов национальной безопасности и принижении роли гуманитарных инициатив. The article examines the peculiarities of the attitude of power structures towards representatives of non-Orthodox Christian denominations during the First World War. On the territory of the Russian Empire by the beginning of the 20thcentury were around two millions ethnic Germans remained faithful to their confession who were both subjects of the German Empire and the Russian Empire. The German people, primarily men from 17 to 45 years old, were often targets of deportations and internment in the context of the global conflict. The Lutheran pastors, their wives, and the flock of Moscow, Riga, and Revel provided material and spiritual support to the deported Germans, as well as the prisoners of war. However, their activities aroused suspicion among the police department of the Russian Empire, and the idea actively introduced into public opinion that only ethnic Germans and Austrians received the assistance and it did not extend to prisoners of war of Slavic origin. Protestant communities claimed that they helped all the poor without distinction of nationality or religion. The main reproach of the Ministry of Internal Affairs: this charity is just an excuse to create an espionage organization. The key figure in the police reports is Pastor Walter, and the Moscow Evangelical Field Hospital, through which the help has been sent. All Protestant preachers who showed Christian piety towards the fellow creatures were associated with this pastor. As result of the investigation, the activities of Pastor Walter and his colleagues were qualified as an expression of anti-Russian and anti-state plot, its participants were deported, which indicates the priority of the principles of national security and the downplaying of the role of humanitarian initiatives.

Student obstruction at Moscow University in the second third of the 19th century as a form of protest activity

The object of the study is the phenomenon of student obstruction at the Moscow University of the XIX century as a form of student protest against lecturers who caused dissatisfaction. The subject of the study is the reasons for student protests against professors, reasons for demarche, as well as the results and consequences of obstruction for the teachers, the most active students as well as the organization of the educational process and ways of student management by the university authorities. In addition, within the framework of this article, based on official sources, memoir literature and archival documents, an attempt is made to reconstruct the mechanics of student protest itself using the example of two of the most high-profile and significant cases in the history of Moscow University of the specified period, namely the "stories" with professors Malov and Varnek. The research methodology is classical for works on social history: It is based on the fundamental principle of historicism and a number of traditional methods for historical science (historical-genetic, historical-typological, comparative). The novelty of the research lies in the fact that in the Russian literature there have been practically no attempts to study the phenomenon of student obstruction at the pre-reform Moscow University. A special contribution of the author of the work is the study of the topic of student protests in the context of the formation of a student corporation with its inherent ethics, an unspoken set of rules, special ways of defending their rights in conflicts with teachers and university authorities. The author of the study also concludes that the university leadership in this era was generally quite lenient towards cases of obstruction and protests against teachers, although after the "Varnek's story" the university authorities treated the instigators and participants of the protest more strictly than the initiators of the obstruction against Professor Malov in the 1830s.

EXPLORING COVID-19 AND SOCIAL CONFLICT IN AFRICA: NIGERIA AS A CASE STUDY


 There are many dimensions to conflict in Africa. It depends on the nature of the underlying demography, heterogeneity, and historical context of the state’s social and political problems. The impact of the coronavirus has greatly affected the socioeconomic structure and governance system in Africa, leading to social conflicts. Moreover, the social conflict led to deaths, job losses, and human capital reductions, resulting in economic catastrophes in South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia, among others. In Nigeria, the government was unable to cushion the impact of Covid-19, frustrated by the issues of poverty and inequality, wherein the masses were pounded with hunger and insecurity; a corrupt policing system precipitated the social unrest in 2020. Nigeria’s social issues, coupled with the shock of Covid-19, cumulated into protest actions, looting, and police brutality. The government’s inadequate response to the political crisis and state of unrest greatly influenced the public’s belief and outlook on social concerns. The research postulates the following question: how did the social conflict in Africa and Nigeria become overheated during Covid-19? The paper adopts a qualitative method that explores existing literature and media sources on social conflicts and Covid-19 in Africa and Nigeria. The study anchors its theoretical framework on the fragile state theory. The paper concludes that Nigeria’s weakened socioeconomic structure met with the shock of the horror of Covid-19, which sparked social conflict in the country.

The Influence of Social Media Instagram on Generation Z's Political Participation

In 2023, political contents are easily accessible on social media accounts. In this regard, a social media account called @pinterpolitik has the potential to influence generation z in political participation. Political participation has various elements such as electoral participation, consumer participation, party activity, protest activity and contact activity. The present study analyzed the influence of @pinterpolitik on generation z's political participation. This research uses quantitative methods with a descriptive approach. The results of this study found that social media accounts have a positive effect on political participation. The results show that the Instagram account @pinterpolitik influences he political participation of generation z. This high respondent achievement is on the indicator of electoral participation. Even though it has a high respondent achievement, this research has only reached the electoral stage, not to the stage of voting and coming to the polling station location. However, this research has the disadvantage of not being too specific about generation z's political participation and the @pinterpolitik account that influences generation z's political participation.

Движущие силы, способствующие распространению экстремизма в Российской Федерации и основные направления по их противодействию

Every year, extremist manifestations have a significant impact on the desta-bilization of the social and political situation, both in individual constituent entities of the Russian Federation and in our country as a whole. For this reason, in this work, the thief analyzes the causal complex that influences the development of extremist illegal activities, including those affecting the state of national security of our country. In the course of the study, it was established that the main driving force contributing to the spread of negative radical beliefs and extremist movements are factors caused by the processes of information influence of Western special services, which fuel protest activity and separatist views in Russian society. Also, the active spread of extremist manifestations in our country is facilitated by the presence of diffuse internal causes and conditions. During the study, the author proposed measures aimed at preventing the criminal acts under consideration. In the law enforcement sphere, it is proposed to focus on improving measures related to coordinating the activities of all entities involved in the fight against extremism, including divisions of territorial bodies serving border areas. It is important to improve state migration policy in order to reduce extremist manifestations. The scientific community should intensify research work in this area, since it requires additional comprehensive scientific research into the essence and content, subjects and objects, as well as the goals and objectives of countering extremist manifestations. The research has convincingly proven that the provisions set out in this work can improve the further implementation of measures aimed at countering extremism. The conclusions made by the author will help prevent extremist manifestations and minimize the harm from these criminal acts.

Renovation in St. Petersburg as a field of power-civil relations: Approaches to analysis

The article is focused on the analysis of the reaction of the population of St. Peters burg as a field of power-civic relations. A comprehensive approach is used, including both the tools of sociology of social movements and the model of citizens’ behavior in the space of normative coordinates. Attention is paid to the inconsistency of the adopted legislation. Emphasis is placed on the use of digital platforms to coordinate protest activity and protect their personal space.

State Violence and Pains of Punishment: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in Belarus in the Aftermath of the 2020 Protests

Abstract State violence against Belarusian women involved in protest activities after the fraudulent presidential election in 2020 and onward has been unprecedented in the country’s history. Women’s activism has challenged the patriarchal authoritarian regime, which was ill-prepared to deal with women. However, after a short period of adaptation by the repressive institutions, women became their “special clients.” With reference to gender-sensitive academic research, we investigate diverse forms of state violence against women and analyze how they perceive their experiences of incarceration for political reasons. This article is based on available datasets, a series of nine semi-structured interviews, and insights from participant observation. The research reveals that Belarusian women incarcerated for political reasons fall under the “demanding clients” category: they comprehensively challenge the state-sponsored brutal patriarchy and expect the repressive apparatus to meet their specific needs. These women experience multidimensional physical discomfort and psychological pressure, including targeted offensive and dehumanizing elements. At the same time, incarcerated women do not feel ostracized by society; they share the feeling that their “crimes” are supported by civil society, and they endure the pains of punishment as targeted violence from a state fighting cynically for its own survival.

GOING OFFLINE OR STAYING ONLINE? IDENTITY AND STIGMA AS (DE)MOTIVATORS FOR MOBILIZATION IN RADICAL RIGHT MOVEMENTS

While the radical right is relatively successful on social media, only a fraction of its supporters become activists offline. Why do some individuals become offline activists in radical right organizations, while others prefer to limit their support to online spaces? Following an inductive analysis of interviews with activists and supporters of a radical right organization, this study points to the importance of going beyond classical explanations for activism by focusing on the impact of, and relationship between, group identification and stigma for mobilization. It shows that activists who identify with the organization and consider it stigmatized are motivated to participate in protest actions to speak out in front of this perceived injustice. By contrast, supporters who question the organization's legitimacy in the face of stigma engage with the organization on social media and are motivated by a desire to keep a low profile and to avoid being openly associated with stigmatized actors.

Долгосрочное влияние силы репрессий в онлайн- и офлайн-среде на численность участников поствыборных протестов (Кросс-страновое эмпирическое исследование)

Although the relationship between state coercive measures and protests has long been studied in Political Science, there are a number of gaps in the modern research studies about the impact of repressions on street protest activity. A serious flaw in these studies is their focus on the influence of repressions on the existing protest campaigns, with little attention to their long-term implications. The impact of repressions on the scale of protest and number of protesters, as well as the role of the Internet as a factor mediating the impact of state sanctions on protests, is understudied. The article attempts to bridge these gaps. The author has first examined theoretical arguments in support of three possible forms of correlation between the severity of repressions and street protest activity — negative, positive, and parabolic (n-shaped), after which he tests relevant hypotheses on a sample of country cases that share the same trigger for protest — suspicions of electoral fraud. To test these hypotheses, the author utilized data on the maximum strength of repressions against civil society organizations, participants in protests and authors of anti-government messages on the Internet in the pre-electoral years, as well as data on protests in the first week following the elections. The study confirmed the influence of repressions on future protest activity. At the same time, the relationship between the severity of repressions and the number of protest participants in the long term has a quadratic n-shaped form: at low and high levels of repression, the number of protesters is minimal, at medium — it is maximal. As for the impact of the Internet, it was not detected on data on repression in the offline environment, but it was revealed on data on the strength of sanctions for political activity on the Web: if the share of Internet users in a country is low, repressions decrease the number of protest participants; if it is high, repressions of medium strength correspond to the maximum number of protesters.

Psychology of the Network Crowd as a Subject of Political Extremism

The purpose of the article is to describe the psychological characteristics of the network crowd and their use to disseminate the ideology of political extremism, as well as to propose recommendations on countering these technologies. Opening the resources of foreign social networks for its citizens, Russia has become a hostage to unspoken rules. The problem with stopping the wave of extremist content demonstrates a serious threat to ensuring information sovereignty and emphasizes the relevance and significance of studying this problem. The methods of interdisciplinary theoretical analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization and conceptualization of the scientific ideas of the use of the psychological effects of the crowd in the network space, the content of the analysis of the posts of participants in telegram channels during protest actions were used. The article develops an author’s approach to understanding the phenomenon of the network crowd as a specific hybrid that has arisen on the basis of social networks, embodying elements of an organized nucleus and spontaneous periphery. The idea of the mechanism of control of an organized network crowd as a function from the composition of the content to create emotional resonance, the activities of groups that disperse information on social networks and infection leaders, involving participants in social networks with their emotional response, is justified. Conclusions are drawn about the conditions under which the network crowd turns into a threat. Recommendations are proposed to counteract the indication of participants in social networks by the ideology of extremism.

Before the Court and in the Press: Newspaper Coverage of Creationism and School Prayer Movements' Legal Framing

During the last century, social movement organizations have mobilized around what role religion should play in school. These struggles have focused on teaching creationism and evolution in the science classroom and the appropriateness of school prayer and Bible reading in public schools. Court cases like Scopes and Engel are infamous in American history, while others are much less well-known. This project explores media coverage of social movements that do not engage in typical protest activity and instead choose to operate in more institutional contexts. This paper will begin by presenting the coverage patterns of each movement across the twentieth century, illustrating how the media's focus is primarily influenced by movements either initiating legal action, being compelled to appear in court, or reacting to judicial proceedings. Next, it will present a typology of coverage that these legal-based movements received. A movement's legal framing is carried in and through the media, and sometimes, the framing is all that is reflected in media attention, making this type of reporting so attractive to movement organizations. The legal constraints over framing and legitimate actors account for some of the media exposure, which was likely to be equitable in tone and quantity to both the creationism and school prayer movements. To understand media coverage of social movements, scholars must begin to account for the cycles and patterns of coverage likely to occur when a movement ends up in court.

More than keyboard heroes? #ichoosefish, disaster framing, and environmental protests in Vietnam

This paper investigates the role of social media in mobilizing environmentalism amid authoritarian restrictions, focusing on the Vietnam coastal pollution of 2016. It contributes to current academic debates by showing how elements that are apparently mundane and irrelevant become the stage for political action within social media. We examined the interface of connective actions (social media activism) – collective actions (protests) and the role of food symbolism in translating digital activism into physical resistance that bridges the distance between rural and urban areas. Data were collected from Facebook and Twitter, as well as semi-structured interviews, policy documents, and national newspapers and broadcasts. Food symbolism, exemplified by #ichoosefish, helped personalize grievances and materialize protest actions amid the government’s countermeasures. The results further show that by using social media, especially Facebook, the activists managed to rationalize their political engagement in a non-participatory context and mobilize protests during political restrictions by arguing that their ‘apolitical’ actions were motivated by food-based grievances associated with personal, environmentalist and nationalist concerns. Food symbolism is thus essential in transitioning from connective actions to collective actions.

By Any Means Necessary? How Black and White Americans Evaluate Protest Tactics in Response to a Police Killing

Abstract The majority of protests in support of racial justice are peaceful. However, since the racial reckoning of 2020, there has been debate about when and how exposure to violent or disruptive protest activities can shift public opinion towards a social movement. Using the Black Lives Matter Movement as a lens, we design a survey experiment to test the causal effects of different protest tactics on support for protesters and the movement itself among Black and white Americans. We include a control condition with no protest and manipulate the level of disruption in each treatment condition, ranging from a simple march in response to the police killing of an unarmed Black man to a protest in which participants set fire to an empty police headquarters. We use OLS regressions to estimate average treatment effects. Overall, we find that both Blacks and whites react negatively to more disruptive protests but whites tend to react more negatively than Blacks. Conversely, we also find that whites overall report more confidence in the ability of Black Lives Matter to facilitate racial equality after exposure to a protest, even when that protest employs disruptive tactics. We also test for the moderating effects of racial identity and racial resentment. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for the broader literature on social movements and public opinion.

Platform-based diffusion-proofing: Digitally mediated discursive practice and China’s prevention of protest spillover during Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Bill Movement

Based on the example of mainland China’s online diffusion-proofing practices against Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Bill Movement, we identify a platform-based tactic of diffusion-proofing. We argue that this tactic manifested the orchestration of top-down statist governance and bottom-up grassroots practices, as well as within-border and cross-border discursive dynamics. Facilitated by the technical affordances of social media platforms, a faction of netizens both from mainland China and Hong Kong followed the state and its agents online to co-construct discourses for preventing the potential spillover of the Movement to mainland China. We further suggest that this tactic was enabled by the hybridization of both technical logic and discursive logic. The platform affordances, especially different types of hashtags, allowed the state and its agents to practice digitally mediated discursive production, reacting to the momentum of the Movement. As a result, a discourse was constructed, which delegitimatized protest actions and ignited nationalistic sentiment for the purpose of diffusion-proofing.

НЕПОВИНОВЕНИЕ ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛЯМ АДМИНИСТРАЦИИ ИСПРАВИТЕЛЬНОГО УЧРЕЖДЕНИЯ: ПРАВОВАЯ ПРИРОДА И ОТГРАНИЧЕНИЕ ОТ ПРЕСТУПЛЕНИЙ

The article examines the legal category of “disobedience to representatives of the administration of a correctional institution.” Group disobedience in the form of strikes, refusal to eat, and acts of autoaggression is analyzed. The article reveals the legal nature and role of the organizer of mass protest actions in places of detention, the causal relationship between the actions of the organizers and the behavior of active participants in malicious violations of punishment. A distinction is made between crimes and disciplinary offenses in the form of organizing groups of convicts aimed at disobeying the administration of a correctional institution and participating in such groups. It is concluded that in any form of legal disobedience there should be no violence or threat of its use, otherwise the illegal behavior of a person can be qualified as disorganization of the activities of institutions that ensure isolation from society.

Why did the “world of the 1960s” disappear? About the reasons for the decline of the youth protest movement in late 60s of the XX century in the countries of Western Europe and the USA

The article is about the reasons of the decline of the Western European and USA youth protest movement in late 60s of the 20th century. According to the authors, the main reasons for the decline of the Movement are: the spontaneity of the protests, the absents of the joint coordination of actions, mistrust political institutions, the narrowness and limitations of ideas and slogans). The change of attitude towards the youth by the government circles and public of the Western countries in the early 1970s played an important role in the minimization of protest activity. As the result of it was the development of a fundamentally new youth policy based on the “whip and gingerbread” method: on the one hand, there was a strengthening of the repressions against riots participants, and on the other hand, the involvement of youths representative into political, state, business and public institutions with the aim of integration began protest activists in public life. Finally, the new trends in the social and political development of the Western countries in early 1970s become the significant factor in the decline of the protest movement. Such trends included changes in economic, political and cultural interactions in countries of Western Europe and USA, in particular the deterioration of the economic situation, as well as the extension of the social elite at the expense of students and graduates of technical and economic faculties. Finally, the new trends in the social and political development of the Western countries in early 1970s becаme the significant factor in the decline of the protest movement, in particular the deterioration of the economic situation, as well as the expansion of the social elite at the expense of students and graduates of technical and economic faculties. This contributed to the further erosion of the social base of the protests and the focus of youth on their careers.