Protests and the Media: A Critical Event Studies Exploration into the Future of Protest (Routledge Critical Event Studies Research Series.)

This insightful volume critically explores activist events in their scale and their capacity to attract media attention through a critical event studies lens, offering new perspectives on protests and social movement.

This book conceives events of dissent as the public manifestation of counter-narratives that articulate advocacy for policy change. It focuses on the material and virtual manifestation of protest events and the media response to them, associated with three active social movements – Reclaim These Streets, Extinction Rebellion, and Black Lives Matter. In doing so, the text sheds light on how different political orientations within the media articulate the representation of events of dissent manifest by these groups, and how this results in significantly different opinion-forming statements on the issues behind those movements, as well as how this reflects mediated assessment of the responses of politicians, the public, and emergency service responses to protest events. Furthermore, it will explore the role of the Internet in the organisation of protest events and their part in the formation of networks of resistance, enabling the roll out of events with a global reach – demonstrated, more recently, by protests across many European cities against the war in Ukraine.

This timely and significant book will appeal to scholars of and those interested in events tourism, protest, political communication, and media, amongst others.

Giedre Kubiliute was drawn to Event Management studies due to her belief that events can be emotive and transformative experiences. Giedre grew up in Lithuania at the time of The Singing Revolution, The Baltic Way, and The January Events, which formed her view of protests and dissent as crucial catalysts for positive societal change. Recent world events presented a perfect opportunity to follow her passion and align her studies with further research into the subject of protests.

Ian R. Lamond is Senior Lecturer in Events at Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom. His research interests include the conceptual foundations of critical event studies, creative forms of dissent, critical spatiality in social and cultural theory, and events that mark the end of life.