The Circulation of Anti-Austerit y Protest BART CAMMAERTS The Circulation of Anti-Austerity Protest Bart Cammaerts The Circulation of Anti-Austerity Protest Bart Cammaerts LSE London, UK ISBN 978-3-319-70122-6 ISBN 978-3-319-70123-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70123-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017960193 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Cover illustration: Bowornsak Jhanpet / EyeEm Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Acknowledgements Writing this book was a long journey with many challenges and difficult moments It was an ambitious project and its outcome is not perfect, just like life itself Many people—loved ones, friends, and colleagues—helped me in this endeavour In particular I wish to express my gratitude to my ex-partner Steph Newell for her relentless support and the productive discussions we had; and to Manon for being my loving daughter I also want to thank Lance Bennett, Nick Couldry, Lillie Chouliaraki, Ellen Helsper, Sonia Livingstone, Peter Lunt, Robin Mansell and Shani Orgad for reading chapters and providing insightful comments, constructive feedback and helpful suggestions—in doing so they improved the book enormously I also thank the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript, as well as participants in seminars and workshops where I have presented my work in recent times; all your critiques, comments and suggestions have also contributed to making the book into what it has become I am also thankful to the LSE, as well as the Department of Media and Communications, for their financial support (Research Infrastructure and Investment Funds—RIIF) to fund the survey and the focus groups Finally, I am also incredibly grateful to Ariel Shangguan, Yuanyuan Liu and Kullanit Nitiwarangkul for their help with the content analysis, and to Brooks DeCillia for his help with the statistical analysis v Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Situating the Circulation of Protest 9 3 The Production of Anti-Austerity Discourses and Frames 39 4 The Self-Mediation Practices of the Anti-Austerity Movement 69 5 The Media Representation of the Anti-Austerity Movement 101 6 The Reception of Anti-Austerity Discourses and Frames 135 7 Conclusion: Closing the Circuit 163 Bibliography 191 Index 213 vii List of Figures Fig 1.1 Fig 2.1 Fig 3.1 Fig 4.1 Fig 4.2 Fig 4.3 Fig 4.4 Fig 4.5 Fig 5.1 Fig 5.2 Fig 5.3 Fig 5.4 Fig 5.5 Fig 5.6 UK Uncut protest outside Vodafone, Church Street, Liverpool, 12 December 2010 The Circuit of Protest 28 Public debt as a percentage of GDP for a selection of EU countries (2007–2014) Source: http://www.eurostat.eu46 UK Uncut ‘ready to print’ pamphlet directed at Vodaphone employees79 Front page of first edition of The Occupied Times of London, 26 October 2011 80 Situationist May ’68 Slogan in Parliament Square, London, December 2010 86 The use of Google Maps by student protesters to avoid being kettled by the police (November 2011) 91 Logos of the three cases 95 Overall tone of the articles towards student protesters Source: Own data (p