Jonathan Cable - Protest Campaigns, Media and Political Opportunities

Protest, Media and Culture

Series Editors: Ruth Sanz Sabido is Lecturer in Media and Communications at Canterbury Christ Church University; Stuart Price is Professor of Media and Political Discourse and chair of the Media Discourse Group at De Montfort University

Protest, Media and Culture series publishes edited collections and monographs dedicated to the study and analysis of an irrepressible phenomenon: the worldwide resurgence of social, cultural, political, and economic discontent.

Titles in this Series

Sites of Protest , edited by Stuart Price and Ruth Sanz Sabido

Protest Campaigns , Media and Political Opportunities , Jonathan Cable

Songs of Protest: A Companion , edited by Aileen Dillane, Martin J Power, Eoin Devereux, Amanda Haynes (forthcoming)

Protest Campaigns, Media and Political Opportunities

Jonathan Cable

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Copyright 2016 by Jonathan Cable

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: HB 978-1-7834-8850-6

PB 978-1-7834-8851-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

ISBN 9781783488506 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 9781783488513 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN 9781783488520 (electronic)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Thank you to everyone who has helped, advised, or contributed to my research in any way. There are bound to be people I will forget to thank, so I apologise in advance. Thank you to all of the people who have ever expressed an interest in my work, spoken to me about it, debated with me, and encouraged me to explore different ideas and themes; this has been invaluable. Thanks.

Special thanks go to Professor Stuart Price (De Montfort University Leicester) and Dr. Ruth Sanz Sabido (Canterbury Christ Church University), the editors, for granting me the opportunity to write this book, and to everyone at Rowman & Littlefield International for their help in putting this all together.

I am truly indebted and grateful to Professor Simon Cottle (Cardiff University) for being my supervisor during the thesis, which forms the fundamental basis of this book. His advice and direction was unbelievably valuable, especially his commitment to both me and the research in its final lap, providing me with time and priceless comments and guidance.

I should like to extend my special thanks and gratitude to all of the interviewees from the Save the Vulcan, Plane Stupid, and G20Meltdown campaigns, who gave up their valuable time to speak to me. Their contributions helped immensely. Extra special thanks go to the Save the Vulcan group that granted me access to the inner workings of their campaign. They afforded me the opportunity to see active campaigning first hand and on the front line.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Bob Franklin whose political communication module on my MA was the inspiration for following an academic path, and for his generosity and friendship ever since. I should also like to thank the staff in the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies for any interest they have shown in my research, and for the regular conversations in the corridor.

A special thank you goes to Dr. Darren Kelsey (Newcastle University) and his continued friendship; his constant source of banter about everything from football to politics, and for our regular conversations where we put the world to rights.

To Rachel, my wife, go my most heartfelt thanks; her continuous support, inspiration, and project management skills have helped immeasurably, and in more ways than she will ever know. To Charlie, my son, for being the most amazing little boy a dad could ever wish for. The cats Shaun and Ed for generally getting in the way while I was trying to write!

This would not have been possible without the continuing support of my mother, Jacqui, thank you.

This book is dedicated to the loving memory of my father, David Cable, who is not here to see me accomplish this, but I know would be very proud.

Thank you all.

Protest Groups and Contentious Politics

Now more than ever, there is a great focus on social movements and protest groups all around the world such as Occupy in New York or the Arab Spring across the Middle East and North Africa. Just in the United Kingdom since the Labour government were ousted from office in 2010, we have seen a wide spectrum of people taking action and different issues protested: against austerity, tax evasion and avoidance by UK Uncut, protests by trade unions, local anti-fracking protests, student fees protests, junior doctors on strike, demonstrations against the government sell-off of the United Kingdoms forests, continued direct action against aviation expansion, and hacktivist collective Anonymous actions against scientology. With this in mind, this book makes a number of significant contributions to social movement studies. It focuses on a range of different areas of research from the somewhat neglected area of community campaigning to the much more academically visible environmental protests and mass demonstrations. Each group can be considered as local, national, or transnational and thereby provides broad perspectives of approach to politically contentious issues. It examines how the campaign objectives and decision-making processes behind a groups media and protest tactics, and how these choices impact on media and political opportunities. This book draws upon many different areas such as from social movement studies and political science to media studies and political communication. In doing so, the old assumptions that positive media and political acceptance are a sign of success are addressed and looked at more from the protester perspective and their own particular aims and goals.

To gain a broader understanding of the factors influencing protest groups, three different case studies have been presented. The groups chosen protested on different issues, used a variety of protest and media tactics, and reside within different media and political contexts. The groups selected included the Save the Vulcan campaign, Plane Stupid, and G20Meltdown. The Save the Vulcan campaign was a community-based group protesting over the proposed demolition of a Victorian-era pub. Plane Stupid is an environmental direct action group protesting against the expansion of the aviation industry and the United Kingdoms airports, and linked the growth of airports to climate change. They used non-violent symbolic direct action to attract media coverage and publicise their messages, and aimed to prompt debate around airport expansion, but they were not concerned with political and media acceptance. The third and final group was G20Meltdown, who held a mass demonstration against the Group of 20 summit (G20) in London on the 1 April 2009. G20Meltdown was an umbrella network of up to 60 groups, and primarily protested about climate change, war, land borders/homelessness, and financial crimes. They were less orientated towards actively courting the media compared to the other two groups, and only used one protest event to highlight their messages. More about these groups, why they were chosen, and what they did will be discussed later in this chapter and throughout the book. The different modes of communication employed by each group, and the reactions of the press and dominant institutions mean that this book offers a deeper understanding of the processes that shape collective action.