We compare activist-based internet data with four other media sources—Lexis NexisAcademic Universe, The Seattle Times, Global Newsbank, and The New York Times—ontheir coverage of the local, national, and international protests that accompanied the WorldTrade Organization’s (WTO) Third Ministerial Conference in Seattle, Washington in late1999. Using the Media Sensitivity-Protest Intensity Model of event reporting, we find thatactivist-based web sites report a greater number of transnational protest events at the local,national, and international level. We also find that activist-based websites are less positivelyinfluenced by the intensity properties of protest events. In the age of globalization, researchon transnational movements should therefore combine conventional media sources andactivist-based web sources.
Publications
2003
Almeida, Paul D, and Mark Lichbach. 2003. “To the Internet, From the Internet: Comparative Media Coverage of Transnational Protests.” Mobilization 8(3):249–272.
2002
Almeida, Paul D. 2002. “Los Movimientos Populares contra Las Politicas de Austeridad Económica en América Latina entre 1996 Y 2001.” Realidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales Y Humanidades (86):177–189.
1998
Almeida, Paul. 1998. “The Network for Environmental and Economic Justice in the Southwest.” Pp. 159-87 in The Struggle for Ecological Democracy: Environmental Justice Movements in the United States, edited by D. Faber. New York: Guilford.
Almeida, Paul, and Linda Brewster Stearns. 1998. “Political Opportunities and Local Grassroots Environmental Movements.” Social Problems 45(1):37–60.
This paper examines the Minamata mercury victims’ grassroots movement. Our analysis demonstrates the value of using a political opportunity framework to understand local grassroot environmental movement (LGEM) outcomes. We explain the variation over time in a LGEM’s ability to achieve successful outcomes across different political environments. Specifically, we show that the success of the Minamata LGEM hinged on its ability to employ nontraditional and institutionally disruptive tactics during a period of expanded political opportunities.