Data files (work in progress):

Coded Data as of 28 May 2006 (downloads as an Excel file - 612k)

Zip Code Data as of 28 May 2006 (downloads as an Excel file - 1M)

Coded Data with Zip Code Information as of 28 May 2006 (downloads as an Excel file - 1M)

Darin's Estimated Probability Sheet - Pr of being a repeat protester (downloads as a Word file)

Presentations:

UCLA Political Science Speaker Series 07 June 2006 (downloads as a zipped Powerpoint file - 16.6M)

Working Drafts:

Working title: The Different Movers in a Social Movement: The May 1 rallies in Los Angeles

Current Abstract: This paper studies participation in social movements using survey data collected during the May 1st immigration reform rallies in Los Angeles, California in 2006. The May Day rallies in Los Angeles were part of a nationwide movement to bring attention to immigration reform in the United States. The paper questions several claims made in the media regarding participation in the May 1st rallies and presents ideas on the characteristic differences between first-time and repeat protesters. In particular, we find that hearing about the event through an organization typifies repeat protest activity; first-time protesters typically came to the rally with a large group of friends and family; new protesters were more likely to be Spanish speakers than English speakers; radio played a large role in informing protestors, including English-speakers; rally participants were geographically clustered; new protesters were similar to others in terms of their costs of participation; and Spanish speakers came in larger groups.

Draft to be uploaded 15 December 2006.

Some Descriptive Statistics

Michael Stone's Initial Findings

Logistic regression outcomes both aggregate and by location

Regression outcomes both aggregate and by location

Darin's Initial Findings 

(The word document of Darin's Findings including crosstabs can be downloaded here. 105k)

Language 

First off, the Festival of Books sample includes a rather small Spanish speaking population – 3.5% of surveys were filled out in Spanish and 13.8% of those attending speak Spanish at home.  Across the three protest sites, there is a considerable difference between daytime events (Downtown/MacArthur Park) and the evening event (La Brea).  Of all the surveys collected Downtown 60.1% were filled out in Spanish and 66.5% of those collected from MacArthur Park were filled out in Spanish, whereas only 47.7% of those from La Brea were filled out in Spanish.  Furthermore, Spanish is more frequently spoken at home by those attending the Downtown (80.8%) and MacArthur Park (84.9%) events than by those attending the La Brea site (66.7%).  Consequently, English is more frequently spoken at home by survey respondents at La Brea (64.4%) than by those surveyed Downtown (44.0%) and at MacArthur Park (40.7%).  Other languages were more frequent at La Brea (6.8%) than Downtown (3.9%) and MacArthur Park (2.3%).  Finally, bilingual respondents are fairly evenly distributed – 30% of Downtown responds, 28.8% of MacArthur Park respondents and 33.3% of La Brea respondents.

How Did You Hear About This Event? 

Survey respondents were asked “How did you hear about the event?”  TV and Radio clearly dominated responses at all three protest locations.  55.7% of respondents Downtown hear about the event through TV, 60.4% at MacArthur Park and 61.4% at Labrea.  Spanish language news media dominated the daytime events more than the evening events – 83.3% Downtown and 78.9% at MacArthur Park heard about the event through Spanish language media compared to just 66.7% at LaBrea.  56.0% of respondents Downtown, 59% at MacArthur Park and 58.3% at La Brea heard about the event through the Radio.  Spanish language radio stations were more important Downtown (66.7%) and at MacArthur Park (81%) than at La Brea (44.4%).  

The third and fourth most important sources of information were newspapers and friends.  Newspapers were important for about a third of the protesters at each event site – 33.9% Downtown, 32.0% at MacArthur Park and 38.6 at La Brea.  Newspaper language was only identified by 30 protesters across the three sites, but this appears to be somewhat evenly spread between both Spanish and English news sources – 60% Spanish Downtown, 50% at MacArthur Park and 60% at LaBrea.  Friends were mentioned nearly as often as newspapers – 31.6% Downtown, 35.7% at MacArthur Park and 39.4% at La Brea.
 

In fifth place came family which was important for approximately 27% of participants at all protest sites. The Internet ranked sixth among sources of information.  This indicator is very interesting because it exhibits a distinct pattern that we have not yet seen.  The Internet is mentioned by 15.6% of those Downtown, 18.8% at MacArthur Park and 28.8% at La Brea.   The same pattern reappears for the eighth ranked category phone, where 4.9% of those surveyed downtown found the internet important compared to 7.3% at MacArthur Park and 9.1% at La Brea. Thus, different forms of communication may have served each location, or the phone and Internet may have served as a mean of recruiting people as they day progressed.  And finally, we jump back to the seventh most important indicator, organizations, which were important sources of information for around 15% of protesters at all locations.

Where Else Would You Have Been?

The majority of survey respondents Downtown (61.6%) and at MacArthur Park (53.5%) would have been at work if they did not choose to attend the protest, compared to just 35.6% of those attending the event at La Brea.  People who would have spent Monday, May 1st at home were less prevalent at the Downtown rally (21.8%), then at the MacArthur Park march (30.0%) or at the La Brea celebration (50.8%).  School children represented approximately 15% of respondents at all locations.  Finally, only 8 out of 876 people surveyed at the protest would have been engaging in “recreation” if they had not chosen to attend.   As a contrast, 92.2% of the Festival of Books crowd would have been at home or engaging in some other type of recreation.

Gender and Age 

Our survey sampled slightly more men than women at all the protest events – 54.3% Downtown, 53.8% at MacArthur Park and 52.5% at La Brea.  For purposes of contrast, 60.3% of Festival of Books respondents were female.  About half of our sample at all three protest sites are between 18 – 34 years of age, and approximately 75% of all protesters at each site are between 18 – 51 years of age.  Approximately 15% of respondents at each site are above 52 years of age and 8 – 10% below 18.  The age variation is fairly constant across all events. 

Number of People

Around one-third of protesters at all events were in groups of 9+.  Comparatively only a few people at each event came alone (20 people in total across all protest events).

First Time 

All survey respondents were asked “Is this your first time at an event like this?”  There is only minor variation across protest sites – 52.0% said yes at the Downtown rally, 48.8% at MacArthur Park and 56.3% at La Brea compared to 67.9% for the Festival of Books. Thus, on an aggregate level information about previous protest experience does not differentiate the various crowds.

In summary, we are already seeing the La Brea event as having a distinctly different sample composition than Downtown and MacArthur Park.