Measuring Event Diffusion Momentum (EDM): Applications in Social Movement Research
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Methodological Advances in Research on Social Movements, Conflict, and Change
ISBN: 978-1-80117-887-7, eISBN: 978-1-80117-886-0
Publication date: 12 July 2023
Abstract
Measuring the diffusion of protests, or more generally, the diffusion of events, is an ongoing task in social sciences. This paper proposes an inter-event approach to study what types of protests tend to diffuse or decline. We develop a standardized, five-step procedure to measure what we define as “event diffusion momentum” (EDM): (1) employ event-based data containing information on the time, location, and features of each protest; (2) define the temporal and spatial ranges of interest; (3) for each observation, count the number of events before and after it within the defined ranges; (4) predict the numbers of post-event and pre-event protests with appropriate count models; (5) calculate the ratios of predicted values for each predictor and confidence intervals using the delta method. The ratio is the EDM. Applying this method to Dynamics of Collective Action (DoCA) data, we identify several micro- and macro-level factors associated with protest diffusion in the United States, 1960–1995. We conclude with the implications and generalizability of the proposed method.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Michael Biggs, Robert Brym, Hank Johnston, Yang Su, Hongwei Xu, Han Zhang, and Dingxin Zhao for their help and advice in early stages of this project. Particular gratitude goes to the editors, Tom Maher and Eric Schoon, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments which significantly improved our work.
Citation
Zhang, T.H. and Cai, T. (2023), "Measuring Event Diffusion Momentum (EDM): Applications in Social Movement Research
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023 Tony Huiquan Zhang and Tianji Cai. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited