Protest logics and the mediation opportunity structure

TLDR

The article develops a conceptual framework linking the political opportunity structure and protest logics with mediation to explain how media and communication shape social movements. The framework identifies mediation opportunities through mainstream media representation, movements becoming the media, counter‑spinning, and media practices that constitute protest itself. The study shows that mediation opportunities are diverse, instrumental, and material to movements, that activists increasingly recognize and adapt to them, and that the extent of these opportunities depends on the protest logic employed.

Abstract

This article aims to bridge a gap between social movement studies and media and communication studies. A conceptual framework is presented that integrates the political opportunity structure approach and the logics of contentious action with the concept of mediation. The author argues that mediation opportunity structure is a fruitful concept to encompass a wide variety of ways in which media and communication are relevant to protest and social movements. It refers to mainstream media representations of protest and movements, to movements ‘becoming the media’ and counter-spinning, as well as to media and communication practices that constitute protest and resistance in their own right. The manifold articulations of mediation illustrate that media and communication are not merely relevant to the symbolic and discursive realms in which social movements operate, but that they are also instrumental and material to realizing their immediate goals. Activists are becoming more aware and conscious of the mediation opportunity structure, through their lay-knowledge of how the mainstream media and technologies operate, partially adapting to them or appropriating them. The nature and degree of mediation opportunities for activists and the structural constraints impeding the opportunities varies according to the type of protest logic that is being used.