Social media and social movements: connections between Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter in New York City

Worsening inequality, lack of representation, and the increasing role of communications all shaped the context of the 2010s. Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and Black Lives Matter (BLM) shared this historical moment. The primary objective of my dissertation here is to examine the how OWS and BLM in NYC were organized. To this end, I describe social media use byparticipants. I show how OWS embraced prefigurative politics and a tactical media approach. I challenge the dominant scholarship on social movements and propose instead adopting societies in movement as a framework for social action. OWS moved through social media, creating what I term a participatory movement. I show how similar cultural practices continued in BLM in NYC.