shadows-streets-book

Walkout Warriors 67participation through social media and SMS, as we saw in the Basta Dobbscampaign. At its most powerful, transmedia organizing engages mediamakersacross many platforms in generating a shared narrative about themovement while providing concrete actions and entry points for diverseaudiences. However, some organizations in the immigrant rights movementcontinue to operate with a firewall between their participatory mediapractice, if they have one, and their formal communication strategy. Communicationstrategy is often still based on top-down PR tactics designedfor a time when English-language mass media were the only game in town.The following chapter explores this dynamic more closely. Through a casestudy of the 2007 “ MacArthur Park melee, ” in which the Los Angeles PoliceDepartment brutally attacked a crowd of immigrant rights protesters, wewill focus on the tensions between acting as a spokesperson for the movementand becoming an amplifier for voices from the movement base.