Are They Not Worthy? How Partisan Political Blogs Legitimize the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street

Abstract

Social movements struggle to gain acceptance as legitimate actors so that they can raise money, recruit members, and convince politicians to meet their demands. We know little, however, about how this legitimacy is granted by various political authorities, in part because legitimacy is often poorly operationalized. To operationalize legitimacy, I revise Charles Tilly's () classic concept of WUNC displays (i.e., public presentations of worthiness, unity, numbers, commitment) to assess how political authorities legitimize social movements. I analyze original data on the coverage the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street received from 20 elite political blogs during a critical event early in each movement's development. I find that liberal and conservative blogs both use the same aspects of worthiness (and not unity, numbers, or commitment) to endorse their preferred movement but different aspects of unworthiness to denounce the movement they opposed. Conservative outlets were more partisan on both accounts. This suggests that these blogs' shared status as distinctly partisan political outsiders produces a similar, but not identical, relationship with social movements. While both sets of blogs legitimize and delegitimize a movement based on its specific strengths and weaknesses, conservative blogs act more as a partisan bullhorn and liberal blogs act more as a forum for debate.

Worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment: Strengthening qualitative corpus methods in the critical discourse analysis of protest press coverage

“…Overall, Wouters and Walgrave (2015) show WUNC displays are used by journalists to shape protest coverage, and both Wouters and Walgrave (2017) and Freelon et al (2018) emphasise the influence high levels of WUNC can have on decision makers and policy formation. In addition, these studies expand the scope of worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment, and their original experimental designs yield valuable results that operationalise WUNC as a replicable sociological framework (see also Laschever, 2017; Wouters, 2019).…”

“…These sentiments are also evident in extract 8, where the verbal process ‘warned’ and verbiage ‘fightback’ suggest the protesters are resistant to attack. Furthermore, protesters pursuing a 270-mile march implies readiness to persevere as they are travelling long distances in pursuit of their cause (Laschever, 2017: 367).…”

Activists and Non-Activists: Differential Activist Identification in the Tea Party and Occupy Movements

“…In 2009, nationwide Tax Day protests boosted Tea Party participation and reinforced for millions of conservative Americans that they were not alone in their fears of socialism, economic collapse, and fiscal debauchery (Rohlinger & Klein, 2014). Tea Party groups provided a place for politicos and concerned citizens alike to participate in a national conversation through online venues such as political blogs (Laschever, 2017;Rohlinger et al, 2015). Locally, conservative organizations accommodated the national energy of the TPM and assisted in organizing a Tax Day protest for April 15 th , 2009.…”

William A. Gamson and His Legacy for Academia and Social Movements

“…By reducing the time periods examined, researchers were able to extend and diversify the outlets they sampled. This innovation allowed comparisons of partisan media, including blogs, for example, magazines, and websites (Laschever 2017).…”