Cataloging Protest

Newspapers, Nexis Uni, or Twitter

Bibliographic Data

ID6209911
AuthorsLinda Johnson Wood (0000-0002-8333-8052, Lesley Wood is an Associate Professor of Sociology at York University. Dyllan Goldstein is Adjunct Faculty, Emergency Management Program, Justice Institute of British Columbia. Lesley Wood can be reached at the Department of Sociology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto Ontario M3J 1P3 or at [email protected].), Lesley Wood (0000-0002-9139-1507, York University, corresponding author), Lesley J Wood, Dyllan Goldstein (Lesley Wood is an Associate Professor of Sociology at York University. Dyllan Goldstein is Adjunct Faculty, Emergency Management Program, Justice Institute of British Columbia. Lesley Wood can be reached at the Department of Sociology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto Ontario M3J 1P3 or at [email protected]., corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume28
Issue3
Pages343-358
Publication date2023-09-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMobilization An International Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1086-671X • E-ISSN: 1938-1514
PublisherMobilization Journal (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.17813/1086-671x-28-3-343
OpenAlexW4386956013
LanguageEN
Citations received2

What is the best source for tracking protest activity? Newspaper sources remain dominant, but other options are tempting. This article compares three differently sourced catalogs of protest events in Toronto from July 15 to September 15, 2020. The widely discussed Movement for Black Lives and housing justice cycles of protest are visible in all three catalogs, but apart from this, the field of protest they reveal is very different. While the coverage by the newspaper with the largest circulation, the Toronto Star, shows Toronto protest as state-centered, domestic, and progressive, other catalogs that include television, radio, and social media content reveal a more diverse, fragmented, and globalized protest field. Catalogs sourced from Nexis Uni and Twitter show the significant presence of diasporic protest. These observations suggest new limits to relying on mainstream newspapers for representing the full array of protest activity. We recommend that, moving forward, researchers experiment with media aggregators to incorporate sources such as television coverage and social media into their research while remaining aware of the additional challenges such data generate

Mainstream · Media studies · Newspaper · Political science · Social media · Sociology · Law · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · Social Media and Politics

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