Acts of Dissent: New Developments in the Study of Protest [Hardcover]

This edited volume makes a useful addition to the literature on protest.A useful volume on methods for analyzing protest events, chiefly but not exclusively treating the question of data sources, especially commercial mass media.Acts of Dissent is a timely review of methodological questions, with intriguing applications to protests in states ranging from the former Soviet Union to South Africa. . . . The organizers/editors of the volume . . . have successfully invigorated international scholarly networks . . . the diversity of applications has called forth a variety of solutions.Although living conditions have improved throughout history, protest, at least in the last few decades, seems to have increased to the point of becoming a normal phenomenon in modern societies. Contributors to this volume examine how and why this is the case and argue that although problems such as poverty, hunger, and violations of democratic rights may have been reduced in advanced Western societies, a variety of other problems and opportunities have emerged and multiplied the reasons and possibilities for protest.Although living conditions have improved throughout history, protest, at least in the last few decades, seems to have increased to the point of becoming a normal phenomenon in modern societies. Contributors to this volume examine how and why this is the case and argue that although problems such as poverty, hunger, and violations of democratic rights may have been reduced in advanced Western societies, a variety of other problems and opportunities have emerged and multiplied the reasons and possibilities for protest. Acts of Dissent: New Developments in the Study of Protest examines some of those problems, progressing from methodological issues, to discussions of the part that the mass media plays in protest, finally to several case studies of protests in different contexts.Chapter 1 Introduction: Protest as a Subject of Empirical Research Part 2 Methodological Issues Chapter 3 Slƒ½