OWS Protests Inspire Digital Defense

Photographs and footage of police pepper-spraying students in California were widely shared on the internet last week, elevating the Occupy Wall Street movement to top billing on both blogs and YouTube.

The Occupy protests have been a subject of internet chatter since they began in mid-September, some weeks ranking high on YouTube, some weeks on Twitter and others on blogs. Much of the discussion surrounding the protests has been in support of the protestors, oftentimes sharing and commenting on footage or photographs taken by people at the protests themselves; in other words, not as much direct, live tweeting or commentary from the protests themselves as support from others outside the events. The first Occupy story to make the Index came the week of September 26-30. The video of a protester in New York getting pepper-sprayed was a top story on both Twitter and YouTube. From there, the Occupy protests rose to the top in at least one new media sector almost every week, with users sometimes voicing disgust at how police were acting, talking about the goals of the movement, or complaining about how the press was covering the protests. Some have voiced disagreement with the Occupy movement, but they have continued to be just a small minority of the commentators overall. For the week of November 21-25, the online discussion of the Occupy protests focused on the same subject that ignited online conversation back in September: Pepper-spraying seemingly non-threatening protesters, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.