CAREER: The Diffusion of Collective Protest in the U.S., 1950-1996

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This is a study of the diffusion of social protest in the United States. Using news media reports, this project will attempt to gather and code data on all protest events in the United States between 1950 and 1996 associated with all social movements that took place during this critical period. Additionally, it will gather a number of important independent variables associated with the different movements in this period. The ultimate goal is to compile a data set which will be comparable with one that was recently completed in Germany (at the Wissenshaftzentrum by Friedhelm Neidhardt and colleagues) which includes protest event data and associated covariates for the identical time period.This research is theoretically informed by general questions about the diffusion of social phenomena. Social movement scholars have noted that social movements are not bounded entities; rather, protest tactics, frames, organizations, ideologies, and symbols often diffuse between different social movements. Recent advances in the statistical modeling of diffusion in an event history framework allow for the testing of hypotheses about the diffusion between social movements in this period, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and Germany.Data collection will focus on the identification and coding of protest events reported in four daily newspapers. Both a coding mechanism and a codebook detailing coding instructions have already been devised and tested. Both of these are comparable to the German counterparts. In addition, a list of independent variables, and potential sources and techniques for gathering them, was compiled. Using advances in the collection of event data from newspapers and in the measurement of bias of this method, this research will allow for a careful examination of diffusion processes in social movements. Questions about within-movement, between-movement, and between-country diffusion will ultimately be addressed. Additionally, these data will allow researchers to fully exploit advances in the statistical modeling of diffusion in an event history framework.This award is made under the Faculty Early Career Development rubric. In addition to supporting scientifically meritorious research on a central sociological question, it will also provide innovative educational experiences for students of the social sciences.