Occupy Initial Research- Ashley Dustin

In my initial research of Occupy US, I learned the history and general timeline of the movement. I was surprised to learn that it originated with the Arab Spring; I previously wasn't aware that the two movements were aligned. Although Occupy is no longer at it's peak, it is still a large, international movement and very present online. There are live streams, videos, articles, radio podcasts and so on to appeal to as many people's media tastes as possible. Further, there are community engage groups for discussion.

Additionally, there was an article of someone who lived in the Occupy camps for a few months on Wired. She wrote about the death of Occupy and how Occupy's media was largely responsible. They didn't tell the truth about what was going on in the camps, therefore killing the movement. Interestingly, this author focused on the search for community within Occupy...she claimed most people in on the movement were looking for a place where they belonged. This ties into our class perfectly. An international movement (Benedict Anderson), largely online (Rheingold), but still has the element of meeting face to face that Tonnies found to be so important.