Resisting representation/representing resistance: 'Anti-globalization' activism in popular media discourse

This research considers the rise of grassroots activism and critiques of neoliberalism that have popularly come to be known as the "anti-globalization" movement and asks how the public is invited to understand these practices of resistance. The project seeks to examine how the "problem" of globalization is defined for a popular audience and what, according to mainstream media accounts, it means to be "anti"-globalization. I analyze print media coverage of anti-globalization activism during the period between the November 1999 protests at the World Trade Organization Summit in Seattle, Washington and the demonstrations at the Group of Eight Summit in Genoa, Italy in July 2001. A close reading of these texts reveals the various strategies by which the idea of an "anti-globalization movement" has been constructed in mainstream American press coverage and how resistance to globalization is implicitly or explicitly defined in popular media discourse. The analysis is presented in two parts: First, I illustrate the ways that globalization---both as a process and a problematic---is defined in the media texts examined for this study, highlighting some of the key issues in the globalization debate as defined in the coverage, as well as the strategies and solutions suggested to address these issues. Second, I illustrate how anti-globalization activism is defined in media coverage of anti-globalization activism, with attention to who participates, what forms the basis of the coalitions that make up the anti-globalization movement, what types of issues activists raise, how these issues are communicated to the public, and how the movement's chosen tactics reinforce or undermine their critiques.