Reaching Beyond the Net: Political Circuits and Participation in Toronto's G20 Protests

Abstract

Using a survey of 359 participants in the 2010 protests against the G20 in Toronto, this paper examines the effects and effectiveness of the different communication media in informing diverse participants about the protest. It finds that the communication networks that surrounded the G20 summit protest in Toronto in 2010 were dense and interconnected. Drawing on Tilly's ‘political circuits’, the survey shows that activists at the core of these networks used a combination of online and offline modes of communication, while those outside of that core were reliant on fewer channels of information about the protests. These included people of colour, people who are not part of student networks, less educated people and people less involved in existing social movements. Using logistic regression models, we demonstrate that the digital divide may be less important than the structure and means of communication that make up the political circuits of a movement. Based on these models, we argue that communication modes such as social networking sites and the mainstream media may be important tools for bridging the gap between core and peripheral participants.

Keywords:

• G20
• outreach
• communication
• political circuits
• ICT use
• social movements

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of David Spina for editorial and research assistance.

Notes

1. Interestingly, the first website (Resist G20 Toronto) promoting the convergence was set up by a few people based outside the city, with some in Oakville. The organizers of this site were not connected to the organizers in Toronto—and there were some intense concerns among TCMN organizers about the other sites' representation of the summit protests.

2. We must sincerely thank Rachel Kutz-Flamenbaum and Suzanne Staggenborg for their survey and the data from the Pittsburgh G20 Research Project.

3. Social movements included in the calculation of the movement index are the animal rights, the environmental, civil rights, gay and lesbian rights, global justice, human rights, labour, peace and women's rights movements.

4. Reference categories were selected to achieve meaningful contrasts and to ensure that a large number of respondents were included in reference categories to minimize standard errors.

5. All models were a good fit of the observed data as tested by the Hosemer and Lemonshow goodness-of-fit statistic. As such, the proposed models satisfactorily represented relationships within the data.

6. Odds ratios are presented in Table 2. Coefficients greater than 1 in magnitude indicate a positive and stronger effect, while coefficients less than 1 in magnitude indicate a negative effect. A value of 1, no effect, indicates that the odds of learning about the demonstrations through a particular mode of communications is equal to the odds of not hearing about the event through that mode of communication.

7. While this may appear to be a small effect in magnitude, the odds ratio expresses the effect on y with a one unit change in movement involvement since this predictor is specified as a continuous variable.

8. Also worth considering is the impact of alternative and activist produced media, which could be measured discretely, especially considering the work of Kidd (2003) suggesting that these media sources are effective in supporting movement organizing and mobilization.