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Media of Contention: The Triggers of Protest Mobilization in Web-Based Social Networks

Conflict political events such as "Arab Spring", "Occupy" actions, Russian political protests during the electoral cycle of 2011-2012 show that social networks become increasingly important in contemporary political process in a broader context. Digital media are used by range of political actors as arenas for mobilization of the real-world political action. However most of the recent research in this area use quantitative analysis with panel or cross-sectional data. This is quite reasonable as modern technologies give social scientists the opportunity to collect and process big data, but at the same time such research strategies lead to methodological trap. In this paper we argue that more case-studies focusing on the micro-level activity may provide us with the comprehensive understanding of the exact linkages between communication in social media and people's actions in real world. We assume that process tracing tools may enrich the explanatory power of media and political studies in this area as it will upgrade inferential leverage that is often lacking in quantitative approach. In order to test process tracing method we focus on two conflict events that occurred in different institutional, media and cultural settings. These are Biryulevo bashing in October 2013 (Moscow, Russian Federation) and Ferguson unrest in August -- December 2014 (Missouri, USA). While testing the method we are focusing on the online mobilization techniques and triggers that shape offline protest actions. Our key findings prove the idea that latent societal contention is the key factor for intense conflict discussion in the social media, and thus it triggers the offline actions very quickly.