On April 15, a series of protests were held across the country against President Obama's budget measures and economic recovery policies. More specifically, these protests were regionally organized, thematic demonstrations modeled - loosely, at best - on the Boston Tea Party predating the American Revolution.
In 1773, colonials in Massachusetts were angered by the British Parliament's Tea Act. Among other things, they viewed it as an affront to their constitutional right to only be taxed by their elected representatives. They protested the Tea Act by taking three shiploads of tea that Boston's Royal Governor Thomas Hutchison refused to return to Britain and dumping them into Boston Harbor.
The various tea-themed activities during the protests of this past April were largely symbolic, a misread historical metaphor used as a shared rallying point. Most of the actual protesting was done via speech and sign and other normal demonstration fare rather than through the destruction of actual tea.
This year's Tea Party-Goers had two advantages that the colonists lacked in organizing their protests: online organizing and Fox News. How much each contributed to attendance at the day's events is a matter for debate.
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Michael Williams' campaign manager Corbin Casteel thinks of social networks in terms of coalitions. "As I see how they relate to politics, social media applications are simply another coalition, an arena where people congregate and have a conversation. Campaigns have grassroots coalitions, student coalitions, small business coalitions, law enforcement coalitions, and so on. Social media coalitions are no different. It's up to individual campaigns to decide if they are willing or able to engage these coalitions in a conversation."
The Tea Party coalition was at least partially organized via social media. "We could not have been so successful at organizing, planning, publicizing and responding to attendees without our social media applications," says Felicia Cravens, lead organizer for the Houston Tea Party Society. "Many of our social media contacts spread our message to their contacts that also did the same, creating a multiplier effect. We rely heavily on social media, and even train people in how to use various applications. As we plan future events, we expect social media to help us get our message and actions out on a far grander scale."
Josh Parker, assistant lead organizer for the Houston Tea Party Society, elaborates on how the leadership structure formed up from social networks. "We were able to find our initial team through Facebook and Twitter, and later scouted out more people through Facebook who seemed interested. Facebook was what really helped us advertise the event as well. We have a Facebook group with over 3,300 people on it we can use to get the word out. People are able to advertise us on message boards on their own and invite [users of those other message boards] to the Facebook groups or events. If something looks like a good idea, other people will direct them to it."
The core organizational structure of the group also varies. Julia Hayden, media spokesperson for the San Antonio Tea Party group, described a fairly organic organizational experience in San Antonio, the event which saw a live broadcast from the Alamo by Fox News' Glenn Beck. "There is no centralized Texas Tea Party group, offering institutional aid to regional gathering," wrote Hayden via email. "No shared lists, talking points, etc. We came up with our own talking points, analysis and assessments, such as they are."
Not even something like a common or shared t-shirt logo? "No, not even a logo design, although I would say that across the nation, everyone is pretty hepped on the Gadsden banner, which is kind of a unifying element. This is the incredible thing about the Tea Parties - every one of them grew organically, from the ground up."
Hayden also discussed the after-action of the Tea Party groups. "...[t]hey are still growing; they may yet morph into a statewide and national organization, but they are at this point a pretty loose confederation. There are points of similarity not because of some grand top-down strategy - but because people all over the country have pretty much the same concerns, have pretty much the same vocabulary and frames of references."
Hayden's experience in San Antonio differed widely from what happened in Houston. In response to the same exact question I asked of Julia - What sort of guidance, if any, did you receive from a state or national tea party organization? This could be any kind of institutional or infrastructural support, from shared lists and talking points to simple things like t-shirt logos - Cravens and Parker described a much more centralized, top-down environment.
"We participated in all the national conference calls, used the talking points from the national group to help perfect our message, and sought advice for various difficulties," said Cravens. "Most everything else we learned locally as we went. The greatest benefit from the national organization was the listing on the website."
Parker agreed on the utility of online resources provided by the national Tea Party organization. "Yes, the directory of all the tea parties was a big help! It also helped us keep in touch with what other tea parties are doing. There is also a mailing list so you can read the mood of other organizers."
This differs from a common perception of the Tea Party protests as spontaneous and fully organic populist movements. "There was no major funding or established organization behind the tea parties. It was just every day Americans who wanted their voices to be heard," Casteel said, describing something close to what Hayden says happened in San Antonio (and, ostensibly, in other locales) but something totally different than what occurred in Houston (and, ostensibly, other locales). The centralized organization of the Tea Party protests was unevenly applied by the state and national organizations, willfully ignored as a matter of message, or not universally known to all local organizations.
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This organizational dissonance does not discount the utility gleaned from social media tools by the various local Tea Party chapters, but that utility does not quantify social media as the primary organizing force. Many media figures, politicos, and pundits cited the Tax Day Tea Parties as an example of conservatives finally using technology effectively to organize, and a journey through the numerous websites and Facebook sites that each city and regional group in Texas used certainly supports that idea.
Social media was one aspect of the organizing done in putting on the Tax Day protests, at least to varying degrees of success. One thing that isn't clear is how effective those online organizing efforts were in generating event attendance as opposed to attendance driven by the generous coverage Fox News contributed to the event in the weeks leading up to April 15th.
I asked Parker to make his best guess and assign percentages to various factors contributing to attendance at the Houston Tax Day Tea Party. He figures 20 percent of the attendance was due to the coverage by Fox News while attributing 20 percent to social media, 20 percent to personal peer networks and word of mouth, and 20 percent to use of the official organizational websites, including the national TaxDayTeaParty.com.
Could the argument be made that a great deal of the Tea Party participation is attributable to Fox News' coverage, along with advertisements run in heavy rotation for the events before they happened?
"The mainstream media had no choice but to cover them," says Casteel. "Any time something like this gets publicity, it's likely to boost attendance. But that doesn't discount the fact that the movement was a great example of how powerful new media technologies can be, even if used by every day Americans. It doesn't take money or power. It just takes motivation and organization. And it wasn't just Fox News discussing the tea parties prior to the events. The parties dominated the news cycle for days."
I'm inclined to agree with Casteel on that last point - I saw plenty of news coverage about the impending protests on news outlets other than Fox News, despite the claims by many Fox News anchors that the mainstream media was unfairly ignoring them. And Fox News certainly wasn't ignoring them - it seemed to be a focus for the network in the days prior to April 15.
This is my perception of things, though, and if I am trying to make any point at all here it is that perception does not equal quantifiable data. For that, I turned to Media Matters for America. Media Matters styles itself as "a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." I would not purport that Media Matters is a non-partisan organization, and this gives you an idea of the lens through which they view the world.
That being said, Media Matters is quite adept at producing quantifiable information and research - strict numbers that are what they are and speak for themselves. Media Matters tracked the advertisements for the Tax Day Tea Party protests aired on Fox News and found that "from April 6 to April 15, Fox News aired at least 107 commercial promotions for their coverage of the April 15 tea parties. The majority of all the ads - 58 - ran on April 14 and 15."
This figure included only commercials aired during first-run programs and did not include commercials aired during rebroadcasts of shows. This figure also does not include the expense or time devoted to the protests by the four Fox News hosts that attended Tea Parties in person, nor does it catalogue the in-show mentions of protests.
As I previously stated, Glenn Beck attended the protest in San Antonio. What follows is the transcription of the 10-second ad Fox News ran to advertise Beck's attendance of that event:
ANNOUNCER: Taking a stand at the Alamo: Citizens revolt against more taxes and demand change now. Plus, Ted Nugent fires back at the government. Glenn is live at the tea party in Texas.
From the 30-second advertisement promoting Fox News coverage of the Tea Parties, run 49 times:
ANNOUNCER: April 15th, all across the country, Americans are making their voices heard.
In California, Texas, Georgia, Washington, D.C., citizens are standing up, saying "no" to more taxes and demanding real economic solutions.
April 15th: As tea parties sweep the nation on tax day, we're there with total fair and balanced network coverage -- live. What is the fate of our nation? We report. You decide.
No matter how you feel about Fox News, the fact that they made a large, in-kind contribution to the Tax Day Tea Party effort is incontrovertible. I called a media spokesperson for the network in an attempt to figure out how much the ad spots would normally cost - this is just a small part of the contribution, but it was the one that I figured would have a readily available price tag - and I was rebuffed.
The media spokesperson, who answered the phone saying his name was Mark, told me plainly that he would not disclose the advertising rates.
"Can I have your last name, so I can attribute the refusal?" I asked.
"You can just say that someone in media relations refused to comment."
"But I can't use your name?" I asked.
"I would rather you didn't." And that was that.
And so, while I would very much like to quantify some data about the Tea Party protests and those that attended them, I cannot. I am unable to directly attribute a percentage of the attendance of these events to the Fox News coverage, although I know the financial commitment Fox News made to promoting the protests was considerable and, considering the demographic and ideological overlap of people that A) watch Fox News and B) attended the protests, I argue that the coverage contributed to the attendance in a significant way.
I also intended to determine the contribution of social media and online organizing to the attendance of the protests, but that is similarly difficult to figure. Julia Hayden in San Antonio told me that the local organization received 9,000 RSVP's via their website and that an overflow area meant for use should more than 9,000 people show up had to be activated. The San Antonio organization's estimates, found on their website theythinkyouarestupid.com, place attendance at around 20,000. The San Antonio Express-News published an estimate from the San Antonio park police that placed the number closer to 5,000. Crowd estimations, as a rule, are dicey propositions, but the protest at least drew a sizable crowd for a Wednesday afternoon.
That being said, I also know from speaking to Julia that things really took off for the local group after Glenn Beck played a YouTube video about their organization and the protest on his show - she described it as "the tipping point." This sort of thing makes assumption and assertion plausible but precise quantification very difficult.
Glenn Beck's involvement probably garnered more attendees in San Antonio than anything else, but the vehicle used was, in fact, an element of social media - a homemade video clip featuring Metallica's "Don't Tread On Me" and the group's basic anti-Washington message coupled with historical allusions to the Boston Tea Party and the Alamo.
Julia told me the video had generated some interest on YouTube and then, on March 27th, Beck played it on his show, saying he'd seen it that morning. While a big chunk of the protest's attendance must be attributed to Beck's particular attentions and star power, I would be remiss to ignore the role that social media played in getting him there, even though in airing the video and taking an active role in the event, Beck actively transferred the information from social to mass media.
I know from talking to various local organizers that the integration with the state and national Tea Party organizations varied greatly, from top-down involvement and direction in Houston to more or less zero contact in San Antonio. I would know more than that, but it was also my experience that some organizers and local organizations share the same reticence to talk to media of my ilk that can sometimes be found among conservatives and Republicans or, in another recent case involving me, a certain unnamed Fox News spokesperson.
I sent interview requests to several local organizations all over the state. I heard back from San Antonio and Houston, obviously, and I also heard back from Austin. A woman named Judy answered my request to the Austin group for an interview and agreed to it. After sending her an initial starter set of basic organizational questions - the same set I sent to San Antonio and Houston, I received an email from her, reproduced here in part:
from Judy
to Josh Berthume
date Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 6:20 AM
subject Re: Interview Request
Jonathan,
This is the interview. It's a bit left ...
If you don't mind working on this with [name removed], it would be a great help...
Thanks, Judy
I was familiar with a Tea Party figure named Jonathan, specifically Jonathan Moss, listed as the Texas State Coordinator on TaxDayTeaParty.com, the national Tea Party organization's website. Moss had also agreed to answer some questions when I sent him a separate request, but I never heard from him after the above misdirected forward. I replied to Judy, asking her to point out what specific questions about the organization seemed "a bit left." I received no answer.
In observing a Tax Day Tea Party protest first hand in Denton, Texas, I noticed a great variance in message at the event. There were plenty of signs and shirts with slogans against government spending increases and tax increases, but demonstrators also voiced support for Texas secession and made proud proclamations concerning social issues with no fiscal base. For example: various signs accused Obama of being both a socialist and a fascist, which are two very different things.
Using the social media tools these groups utilized in organizing themselves, one can peek through photo galleries and video clips and see that this uneven message foundation was common. That fact of instability, in some ways, causes the organizational discrepancies to make sense. This is, as Hayden described it, a 'loose confederation' of people that are frustrated about a great many and various things.
In one final phone call to Hayden, I asked her if social media carried an encouragement factor as they'd put together their activities, and she said yes. "It makes it easier, you know? It makes it easier for us to find each other, to find people that are of a like mind."
In this case, both the social media tools and the mass media exposure from Fox News worked together to bring together thousands of people that were - in the broadest, most general sense - of a like mind. I don't believe the narrative of the perfect and wholly organic digital uprising because it is not only unquantifiable but it is also obviously false. The Tea Party protests did however show a glimmer of something yet to come, even if the hard attendance numbers were significantly juiced by Fox News.
Progressives cannot hold complete dominance of online organizing forever, just as no modern political organizing tool or technique has remained the exclusive purview of one party or another. The user-friendly nature of the new social media tools has done more to draw the curtain on the era of Democratic technological dominance than any major advance or retreat by either side. Conservatives are still a long way from matching the tools, talent, and efficiency that progressives have thus far brought to bear in online organizing, but something is certainly happening out there. The 2010 election cycle will be a benchmark of progress for candidates, campaigns, and parties alike. The real winners will be those that can adapt and integrate, and do it fast.
