Civil Awareness: A Comparison of the 2011 Occupy Wall Street Movement in the Uniteted States and the 2008 Mad Cow Disease Protests in Korea

The Occupy Wall Street protest that swept the United States in 2011 and the mad cow disease protests that embroiled Seoul in 2008 seemingly occurred in different political and cultural contexts concerning different issues. In fact, although the details of these two protests differ, the protests are similar in that the initial protest took on a larger symbolic significance that captured the imagination of other groups and encapsulated some essential truth about society.  Both the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States and mad cow disease protests in Korea demonstrated how spontaneous protests can strike a chord with the larger population and create a powerful dialog between the protesters and the public wherein the protesters articulate a theme resonant for the larger population and have immense impact on groups at a distance from the original protest. The very successful performance of protests as intense fusion between protesters and the public display similarities in a broader sense symbolically, and these similarities emerge in the motives of individual actors and shared inner meanings of the respective protests. It is worthwhile examining the motivations of these two different protests, the ways the discourses were made up among protesters, and interpreted in the mass media, and how the general public responded. The comparison of the two cases offers insights into the process by which a small group can create movement that transfers to other groups that do not share the same interests, discussing how the themes were articulated and how meanings are created beyond a national level.