Chapter 35 Exercises

Conceptual Exercises

Exercise 35.1: Three Theories, One Movement Choose a contemporary social movement (climate, gun control, immigration reform, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, labor organizing) and apply all three theoretical frameworks in a structured analysis: - Resource mobilization: What resources does the movement have? Who provides funding, organizational infrastructure, and leadership? What resources does it lack? - Political opportunity structure: What features of the current political environment enable or constrain the movement? Has the opportunity structure changed recently? - Framing: What diagnostic frame does the movement use? What competing prognostic frames exist within the movement? How resonant is the motivational frame with different audience segments?

Write a 500-word synthesis that assesses which framework provides the most explanatory leverage for this specific case.

Exercise 35.2: PEA Coding Practice Below are three hypothetical news article descriptions. For each, apply PEA methodology to code: date, location, organizer(s), estimated size, claims, tactics, response, and data quality/confidence level:

  1. "About two dozen neighbors gathered outside City Hall Tuesday to oppose the proposed rezoning of the Elm Street corridor. The group, organized through a neighborhood Facebook page, displayed handmade signs and listened to speeches by three community members. No officials responded."

  2. "An estimated 15,000 marchers filled downtown streets Saturday in what organizers called the state's largest climate march. The march was coordinated by six environmental organizations. Three protesters were arrested for blocking traffic."

  3. "Workers at the Amazon distribution facility walked off the job for two hours Wednesday, demanding a $22 minimum wage. The company said 120 workers participated; union organizers claimed 400. Local police monitored but made no arrests."

For each event, identify what data you cannot reliably code from this description and what additional sources you would want.

Exercise 35.3: Coverage Bias Identification Consider a hypothetical protest dataset built from five major national newspapers over a ten-year period. List at least eight specific categories of protest that you would expect to be systematically underrepresented in this dataset, and for each, explain the specific mechanism producing the underrepresentation (news value, geographic bias, source access, etc.).

Analytical Exercises

Exercise 35.4: Network Structure Analysis Consider two hypothetical activist networks: - Network A: 500 nodes, 3 high-betweenness "hubs" connecting otherwise separate clusters, average degree of 4 - Network B: 500 nodes, no clear hubs, dense connections within 15 clusters with sparse inter-cluster connections, average degree of 6

For each network: - Describe how information would flow during a rapidly developing situation requiring coordinated response - Describe the network's vulnerability to targeted disruption (arrest of key leaders, platform deplatforming) - Describe the network's capacity for reaching new recruits beyond its existing membership - Which network would you predict has greater long-term organizing capacity? Justify your answer using the theoretical frameworks from this chapter.

Exercise 35.5: Frame Analysis Analyze the following three different framings of housing cost increases: 1. "The housing crisis is caused by corporate landlords and private equity firms buying up housing stock and extracting wealth from communities." 2. "The housing crisis is caused by NIMBYism and zoning regulations that prevent new supply from matching demand." 3. "The housing crisis is a symptom of financialized capitalism's commodification of a basic human necessity."

For each framing: - Identify the diagnostic claim (what's the problem, who's responsible?) - Identify the prognostic implication (what solution does the framing suggest?) - Assess resonance with different potential movement constituencies - Assess the potential for coalition-building across different groups based on frame compatibility

Exercise 35.6: Comparing Datasets The same protest event — a 500-person march protesting police brutality in a mid-sized city — might or might not appear in four different datasets: GDELT, ACLED, Crowd Counting Consortium, and ODA's multi-source system. For each dataset, estimate the probability that this event would be captured, and explain the specific coverage mechanisms that determine inclusion or exclusion. What does this exercise reveal about the relationship between "protest activity" and "protest data"?

Applied Research Exercise

Exercise 35.7: Designing a Protest Study You have been hired by a foundation to study whether the pandemic-era shift to online organizing has reduced long-term activist retention (the "slacktivism" hypothesis) or enhanced it by lowering barriers to participation. Design a research study that: - Specifies your research question precisely - Identifies the comparison you need to make (what would refute the slacktivism hypothesis vs. confirm it?) - Specifies your data sources, acknowledging coverage bias - Describes your analytical strategy - Identifies at least three major threats to the validity of your findings

Your design should be realistic about data constraints and explicitly address the methodological challenges discussed in this chapter.

Reflection Questions

  1. Sam Harding argues that what gets counted in protest data reflects the priorities of the researchers and organizations that collect it, not just "what happened." Do you agree? What institutional changes might produce more representative protest data?

  2. The comparison between BLM's 2020 protest wave (rapid, large, viral) and the civil rights movement (built over decades of organizational work) raises the question of whether contemporary movements can achieve durable change. What would you look for in the data to assess whether a movement's impact is durable vs. episodic?

  3. If you were Sam Harding, how would you handle a request from a law enforcement agency for ODA's protest data? What conditions, if any, would make sharing that data appropriate?