Origin Stories

Occupy Wall Street

Anne Ginsberg

Media Advocacy in the Global Public Sphere

Professor McEwan

March 21, 2012

The past year has seen a wave of popular protests across international boundaries, political

systems, and social classes. In New York City, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest captured the

attention of national and international mass media, documenting the mass occupation and days of protest

from Zuccotti Park. OWS was broadcasting a live feed on the internet, using the technology to maximize

the potential of the voices on the ground for all the public—and media—to see. The media attention it has

attracted has sought to explain the uprisings and their place in today’s social and political landscape.

“Unprecedented political legitimacy” is how Martin Shaw describes the 2003 anti-war protests

against the invasion of Iraq in cities all over the world in Global Activism, Global Media. (de Jong, 135)

With the U.S. and U.K. leading the way to pre-emptive strike against the majority of the United Nations,

many protestors around the world were on the same side as their governments. To some extent, this is

also true for the Occupy Wall Street and protests around the world which emerged at time of a global

financial crisis resulting from the build-up of neoliberal policies and the collusion of public and private

finance. Popular outrage at the government for allowing banks to deceive public institutions and citizens

for profit and then building them back with public money, while the general public faced the economic

consequences of foreclosure, unemployment and shrinking credit had legitimacy. In the same year, the

deposing of Western ally and dictator President Hosni Mubarak by protestors at Tahrir Square in Cairo in

Egypt, had legitimacy. The widening gap in wealth and the unaccountability of corporations was covered

in the national media debate over bank bonuses, pyramid schemes, insider trading scandals, and the

bankruptcy of cities with “toxic” assets in Wall Street. The devastating economic effects were felt around

the world and the feeling of disenfranchisement was uniting people as an undivided “99%.”

Since Day 1 of the occupation of Wall Street on September 17, 2011, the media has attempted to

frame and contextualize the ongoing event. In this paper I will examine two articles which attempt to

explain the origins story of Occupy Wall Street. The article, “How Occupy Wall Street Really Got

Started,” written in October of 2011 was published in Mother Jones, a San Francisco-based non-profit

magazine established in 1976 and named after an early twentieth century workers-rights activist, focuses

on social justice issues. In November 2011, the article “Pre-Occupied: The origins and future of Occupy

Wall Street” came out in the intellectual and liberal elite New Yorker magazine, established in 1925 with

corporate backing and now owned by New York’s Condé Nast, publisher of several widely read

magazines. Given the fact that OWS is critical of corporate power, the nonprofit versus corporate

funding of the two magazines is relevant to the way they frame the movement. Both writers use reporting

techniques of domestication identified by the authors of Global Media Spectacle: News War Over Hong

Kong to explain the cause, context, constituents and evolution of OWS. Globalization has sharpened the

disparity of the center and periphery while also highlighting the interdependence of nations. (Lee, 42)

The simultaneous division within nations and solidarity without nations is key aspect of the movement.

The inherent paradox of this condition lies in the fact that globalization and capitalism is both the cause of

the protestors’ grievances and at the same time provides the basis of their solidarity and facilitates

organization across barriers. Equally prominent as the issue of globalization is the application of

horizontal organization and direct democracy, known as the general assembly, which is a common feature

in the global occupations. The two magazine articles weigh in on the effect and effectiveness of this

model which shapes the story frame. In the New Yorker, the anti-capitalist sentiment of the general

assembly and OWS is a call for “the end of life as we know it,” while in Mother Jones it is about

“changing the world.”

The New Yorker

Brought to you by Adbusters

“If anyone could claim responsibility for the Zuccotti situation, it was [Kalle] Lasn,” (Schwartz)

In “Pre-Occupied,” Mattathias Schwartz argues that the sensational poster created by Adbusters,

an anti-capitalist magazine based in Vancouver, Canada, with two-thirds of its readership is based in the

U.S., and circulated as an internet meme in July of 2011 via e-mail and social media, galvanized

protesters to occupy Wall Street. (Revkin) The poster included a provocative image of a ballerina

balancing on the back of the Charging Bull—the bronze statue located in Bowling Green Park since 1989

and the iconic mascot of the financial district—as well as the internet meme #OCCUPYWALLSTREET

and start date September 17, 2011. Although Adbusters is a nonprofit, its founder, Kalle Lasn, is a

successful veteran of the advertising world and its international reputation of “culture-jamming”

campaigns and portfolio of visually captivating inversions of the advertising language, establish the

magazine’s caché in the intellectual and avant-garde world of the New Yorker. Lasn’s career in the

advertising business took place before the internet boom during the Creative Revolution. That experience

is evident in the Adbusters style, which exploits the language of advertising while at the same time

subverting its message. In this way, Adbusters delivers its anti-capitalist message in a complex format,

with layers of meaning—a product that the elites at the New Yorker can appreciate the way they

appreciate the irony of post-modern art. Schwartz’s argument that this poster which uses visual language

of advertising was the starting point of the movement only serves to reinforce the traditional function of

advertisements and the sophisticated skill behind them. Schwartz establishes Lasn’s credentials—stating

his academic degree and “expertise”, his past career in advertising which rewarded him financially, and

the devotion to his ideals that drove him to found Adbusters in 1989. The author approvingly describes it

as “by far the best-looking” radical magazine with a “signature style”. In The Chaos Scenario, Bob

Garfield contrasts the draw of hip, culturally-relevant advertisements from the Creative Revolution that

started in the 1960s with the “post-advertising age” conditions of the content and user-driven media of

today—the internet. (Garfield 43) Adbusters’ internet meme combines the subverted print ad style with

the demands of today, digitizing and circulating it using social media channels Twitter and Reddit.

Lasn’s counterpart in inventing the internet meme is Micah White, senior editor of the magazine based in

Berkeley, California. At twenty-nine years old, White is a part of the internet generation, and is described

as translating the founder’s concepts into today’s internet media. Schwartz’s telling of the story

emphasizes the endurance of what Garfield would describe as an antiquated belief in the power of

compelling ideas and artistry of advertising to inspire recipients. By referencing advertising and social

media and claiming them to be the genesis of OWS, Schwartz suggests a corporate-consumer or leader-

follower relationship and identifies its leaders—a contradiction in the principles of OWS—and thusly

defines the movement as a timely trend.

The New York City General Assembly

The author notes that the two felt OWS needed a single demand, referencing the protestors in

Cairo who presented the ultimatum that they would occupy until President Mubarak resigned. When no

demands were forthcoming from New York City General Assembly (NYCGA), the collective voice of the

protestors who were now occupying Zuccotti Park, Adbusters suggested answers to their own question

asked on the poster: “What is our one demand?” They propose the demand be written in the form of a

letter to President Obama. This tactic operates within and according to the vertical representational

democracy, appealing to the authority of the President to act with conscience, not building that

consciousness from the bottom up, the method of general assembly. Instead, the NYCGA came out with

the “Declaration of the Occupation,” which Schwartz argues includes no demands but presents their

“world view.” According to the author, Lasn and his staff in Vancouver, and White, in Berkeley, created

and directed OWS without ever travelling to the site and attending a general assembly meeting. Now that

the center of gravity had shifted from West to East, and from concept to action, the goals they had at the

outset were now out of their hands.

The Occupiers

Schwartz uses reporting strategies of news domestication in describing this transition and the

future of OWS. Throughout the story, the author quotes Lasn and White, the people behind well-known

magazine Abusters which has a celebrity status in radical journals (“big names”); interviews individuals

he has identified as the most active at OWS(“relevant people”); and quotes participants at a General

Assembly meeting (“street people”). (Lee, 37) Telling the story with these voices, Schwartz puts a

human face on OWS—a strategy for the audience to better understand the message in personal terms as

well as strategy for the author to convey an event still in progress without knowing the outcome. (40)

While Schwartz relies on these voices to make sense of what is happening, he is selective in whose voices

he includes. The Mother Jones article reports that a fundamental component of the movement is that it is

global—yet aside from Lasn, only one of the people mentioned in the story are identified as foreign-born

or based (London) and only two of the nine subjects connect their participation to international protests.

This isolates OWS as a national phenomenon with international protests mentioned only in the case of

Egypt, as a source of inspiration, and later in the story other international cities are mentioned as

followers of OWS in the October 15th Global Day of Action. The “indignados” protest movement which

commenced on May 15, 2011 before the Adbusters internet meme came out and is noted as for

implementing the General Assembly model in cities all over Spain is excluded entirely.

(takethesquare.net) In his choice of sources and order of events, the author’s depiction of OWS is U.S.-

centric.

Direct Democracy is Anarchy

Three out of the nine subjects are labeled anarchists. The author references anarchy twelve times

throughout the story, and democracy once—notably it is when quoting directly from the “Declaration of

Occupation”. There is no mention of anarchy in the “Declaration of Occupation”. (nycga.net) The

author’s usage of anarchy is stereotypical, another reporting strategy of news domestication. (Lee, 37) It

is used to describe behavior that is “dangerous,” “rude,” “unsanitary,” vandalistic, and to describe the

inefficacy of the open, horizontal system that is the general assembly. The author describes an NYCGA

meeting he observed in which a participant is disruptive, mumbling and shouting back at the facilitator.

He concludes that the NYCGA is fundamentally flawed, true accessibility and equality allows the loudest

and most unreasonable voices to dominate. The inclusion of anarchy is not entirely irrelevant, as it

eschews all forms of authority which is also part of the foundation of the general assembly. However,

Schwartz clearly employs it in its stereotypical usage which conveys that chaos ensues without the power

of the enlightened to silence those who interfere with their business.

The Frame

The author attempts to discredit the principles of the general assembly model by describing the

challenges of enacting it within the limited circumstances of the street as proof of its impracticality.

Additionally, he identifies the people he sees as leaders as another example of contradiction. Schwartz

explains the OWS phenomenon as far from revolutionary but rather a trend sharing qualities of a larger

theme of the information age: “…horizontalism seems made for this moment. It relies on people forming

loose connections quickly—something that modern technology excels at.” In criticizing the principles of

general assembly and giving examples of vandalism and disorderliness of protestors and excluding acts of

violence committed by city authorities—although the footage had been widely reported in mass media,

excluding the social causes motivating protestors suffering from the effects of the financial, and cutting it

off from concurrent global protests (save Egypt), the story is frames OWS as a marginal and questions its

integrity.

Mother Jones

The New York City General Assembly

Without that worldly group that met at 16 Beaver and later created the New York City General Assembly,

there might not have been an Occupy Wall Street as we know it today. (Kroll)

Published ahead of the New Yorker article, the article in Mother Jones swiftly debunks the notion

that the Adbusters internet meme was the beginning of OWS, and locates the original epicenter at an

artist’s space at 16 Beaver Street, New York City. It was there, “months before” the Zuccotti Park

occupation, that New Yorkers met with activists from around the world—including Egypt, Spain, Japan

and Greece—to form the New York City General Assembly. Writer Andy Kroll claims that rather than a

direct response to the Adbusters call, the group, which started with about 30 people, found motivation and

resources in each other and formed ideas through many long discussions. The author explains they

coordinated with the Adbusters internet meme to ride the buzz it had created. Kroll’s version frames the

origins story as starting from the principles of the general assembly before it became one—and sharply

contrasts Schwartz’s depiction of a movement conceived and directed by two minds and one compelling

idea from the other side of the country.

International Exchange

The international context of OWS—the common social causes and use of general assembly

principles—is a part of its origins story largely untold in the New Yorker article. Martin Shaw

distinguishes the explanation of social movements from locating them within their “immediate political

context” to “the larger contexts of contemporary world politics” (de Jong, 134) which is a necessary part

of the picture in the era of globalization. Spanish couple Begonia S.C. and Luis M.C. participated in the

May 15—“15-M movement”—in Spain, and proposed the group use the general assembly model as they

had done at 15-M. Schwartz, introduces the decision to organize a general assembly at OWS as chosen

by a “group of anarchists” and refers to its past use in the civil rights movement. (Schwartz 5) Since the

Spring of 2011, the Spanish had been cultivating their own style of general assembly, and had created a

“how-to” guide translated into several languages and freely available on the internet called “How to cook

a pacific #revolution.” (Kroll 2) Kroll points out that it is not only popular in Spanish cities but smaller

neighborhoods had used it as an organizing tool for local issues such as stopping housing evictions and

immigrant raids. According to the 15-M website, general assembly actions in Spain have stopped 47 bank

foreclosures. (European Revolution) If no other measure of success can prove the efficacy of the general

assembly, the scale of change achieved in Egypt through the same organizing principles of open access,

direct democracy and nonviolence, is a prime example of its power. Wael Ghonim, the activist behind

the protest-organizing pages on Facebook in Egypt, writes in his memoir that through these pages the

actions at Tahrir Square were planned and debated in the same way that direct democracy functions.

(Ghonim, 84) The equality and solidarity it promoted motivated participants to protest together on the

ground, an action which under the authoritarian regime, which spied on, tortured and killed citizens who

opposed it, endangered their lives. Their actions led President Mubarak, who held office for 30 years, to

finally step down on February 11, 2011. Kroll remarks that the dialogue and knowledge-sharing of the

international group that became the NYCGA rallied them into action and connected the OWS movement

to the protests in Egypt and Spain. In Kroll’s story, it can be concluded that rather than the Adbusters

internet meme being the heart of OWS, the general assembly is the meme it originated with and central to

its identity. The significance of this difference is its elevation of offline social interaction and its

dedication to making the commons a reality and keeping it relevant and accessible in the real-life public

domain. The value and need for it is felt so deeply that people are willing to face the endless challenges

and complexities of an inclusive and egalitarian movement within a political and economic system

operating on precisely the opposite principles.

The Occupiers

Like Schwartz, Kroll uses the domestication strategy of relating the story through people to

convey the message of a movement in progress. However, he limits these sources to interviews with

those he identifies as relevant by virtue of their participation in the pre-NYCGA meetings. In total, Kroll

includes five voices, and four-fifths are from countries with active protest movements—Spain, Greece

and Egypt. The author’s selection of interviewees supports his argument that OWS is a product of

international collaboration. Just as Schwartz’s U.S.-slanted (7 out of 9) selection of sources is supports

U.S.-centric story frame, the international-slant in Kroll’s selection supports his international-centric story

frame. Kroll writes that the 16 Beaver Street group included about 30 people, without knowing any

details of the group demographics, selecting a handful of participants, the majority of whom are from

other countries and were active in protest movements that used the general assembly, suggests a level of

international collaboration that may or may not be accurate. The fact that it supports his framing the same

way that Schwartz’s selected sources support a contrary frame, suggests that both story frames are bias.

Autonomy

‘The people are not here for the American economic crisis. They’re here for the crisis of the world.’

– Begonia (Kroll)

In his explanation of a general assembly, Kroll cites Greek artist and 16 Beaver Street participant,

Georgia Sagri, who express frustration with an early general assembly in the financial district that had

devolved into a debate about choosing a demand for the protest. Kroll explains through Sagri that “labels

and affiliations don’t matter” in a general assembly. The author mentions no political ideologies, his one

focus on any political belief being the general assembly method of protest and its principles of equal

power, decision-making by consensus, and direct democracy.

Conclusion

The general assembly organization at Occupy Wall Street exemplifies a prefigurative movement,

by “creating the future in their present social relationships.” (Sitrin, 4) In whatever time and place it is

attempted in opposition, it is subject to the interpretation of present economic, political and social order.

Wall Street is the polar opposite of the anti-capitalist and nonhierarchical principles of the NYCGA,

which defies and disproves assumptions capitalism claims of human nature by refusing individual power

and fighting for equality. It is a participatory method, where knowledge is gained through active

participation, which is a challenge for traditional media reporting of inactive observation and selective

interviews.

Works Cited

de Jong, Wilma, Martin Shaw, and Neil Stammers, eds. Global Activism, Global Media. London: Pluto Press, 2005.

European Revolution. “Three months of struggle: an overview of the #15M movement and the

#SpanishRevolution,” Take the Square. Web. 10 Aug 2011. <http://takethesquare.net/2011/08/20/three-

months-of-struggle-an-overview-of-the-15m movement-and-the-spanishrevolution/>

Garfield, Bob. Chapter 2, The Post Advertising Age. Chaos Scenario. <http://thechaosscenario.net/>

Ghonim, Wael. Revolution 2.0, The Power of the People is Greater Than the People in Power. New York:

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.

Kroll, Andy. “How Occupy Wall Street Really Got Started,” Mother Jones. 17 Oct 2011.

<http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-international-origins>

Lee, Chin-Chuan, Joseph Man Chan, Zhongdang Pan, and Clement Y.K. Global Media Spectacle, News War Over

Hong Kong. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.

<www.nycga.net>

Revkin, Andrew C. “A fresh Advertising Pitch: Buy Nothing,” Dot Earth Blog, The New York Times. 8 Nov 2007.

<http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/a-fresh-advertising-pitch-buy nothing/>

Schwartz, Mattathias. “Pre-Occupied, The origins and future of Occupy Wall Street,” The New Yorker. 28 Nov

2011. <http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/28/111128fa_fact_schwartz>

Sitrin, Marina, ed. Horizontalism, Voices of Popular Power in Argentina. Oakland: AK Press, 2006.