Sciences Advances<\/a>, titled \u201cThe science of contemporary street protest: New efforts in the United States,\u201d Pressman and his colleagues outline the challenges and limitations associated with studying protests scientifically on a large scale.<\/p>\nAs an example of the scholars\u2019 concerns, the frequency and widening geographic scope of recent protests throughout the country such as the 2017 Women\u2019s March and the recent Youth Climate Strikes makes it difficult to gather event data and conduct crowd surveys for demonstrations happening simultaneously in different regions and cities, according to the researchers.<\/p>\n
\u201cParticipating in protests and demonstrations is an important form of political participation throughout the world,\u201d says sociologist Dana R. Fisher, of the University of Maryland, lead author for the paper. \u201cIf scholars are to understand the meaning of these events for politics, greater collective effort is needed to scale-up and standardize the way we study them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The authors say forming teams of scholars and developing a methodology for conducting crowd surveys across a range of protest sites would create more robust data and more comprehensive answers to crucial questions, such as: Who is protesting? How often? What messages are they trying to send? How do protests connect, if at all, to other political activities?<\/p>\n
The paper also advocates for adding in-depth interviews and ethnography to current forms of protest research in order to provide a more complete portrait of the state of protest and activism in America.<\/p>\n
Pressman has collaborated in recent years with several of the paper\u2019s co-authors at The Crowd Counting Consortium, which collects publicly available data on political crowds reported in the United States, including marches, protests, strikes, demonstrations and other actions. The Crowd Counting Consortium grew out of Pressman\u2019s work with paper co-author Erica Chenoweth of Harvard University. The pair has regularly written with other colleagues about crowd protests for \u201cThe Monkey Cage,\u201d an independent site where scholars analyze political news hosted on the website of The Washington Post.<\/p>\n
In July, for example, the \u201cLights for Liberty\u201d protests around the country opposing treatment of migrants along the southern border included support from faith communities in pro-Trump areas, and Pressman notes gaining early insight about the protest participants can provide insight into varied concerns about an issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho organizes events can affect the kinds of arguments they use to try to advance their issue or concern,\u201d he says. \u201cA faith community, a political organization, or a student group may come at the same issue from different vantage points.\u201d<\/p>\n
The scholars also suggest that data about protests should be made available in \u201cnear real time,\u201d which Pressman says would allow news organizations to have an additional source for data on the size, location, and patterns of protests, while providing activists with an indication of how effective their movement was playing out, or if it was not advancing.<\/p>\n
Pressman adds that a wide range of disciplines could also benefit from improved data including political science and sociology, as well as fields such as criminal justice, public policy, and U.S. history.<\/p>\n
Co-authors on the Science Advances paper also include Kenneth Andrews and Neal Caren from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Michael Heaney from the University of Glasgow in Scotland; and independent scholars Tommy Leung and Nathan Perkins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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