The economic crisis of 2007/2008 constitutes a moment of rupture not only for the financial markets, but also in terms of political engagement. In reaction to the crisis thousands took to the streets and squares in order to express their critique of the current political and economic system. The critical juncture also highlighted the role of media technologies for political organization and participation, which is reflected in comments on protests related to the financial crisis often over-emphasizing digital social media. This chapter provides an alternative way of engaging with crisis-related protest that moves beyond notions such as networked protests and connected action. Instead the chapter suggests reinvigorating more traditional methods of narrative analysis and critical hermeneutics in order to make sense of representations of protest mobilizations in reaction to the financial crisis. The financial crisis and protest that emerged in response serve as backdrop in order to further the theoretical argument about what role narrative mediation plays in the construction of social reality.

Europe Faces Europe examines Eastern European perspectives on European identity. The contributors to this volume map narratives of Europe rooted in Eastern Europe, examining their relationship to philosophy, journalism, social movements, literary texts, visual art, and popular music. Moving the debate and research on European identity beyond the geographical power center, the essays explore how Europeanness is conceived of in the dynamic region of Eastern Europe. Offering a fresh take on European identity, Europe Faces Europe comes at an important time, when Eastern Europe and European identity are in an important and vibrant phase of transition.

The Occupy movement, which started with a group of activists in New York, soon grew into a global movement with protesters gathering and occupying public spaces worldwide. This article provides a critical discourse analysis and examines the representation of the global as well as local expressions of the Occupy movement in Latvian and Swedish major newspapers. It shifts the lens from the financial centres to the European periphery and asks how the movement is recontextualized in Latvia and Sweden. In the analysis four main discursive strategies are identified and discussed comparatively for the two countries; nomination, predication, perspectivation and mitigation. Although the discursive strategies in both contexts are similar, the recontextualization in Latvia and Sweden reflects the distinct historical and cultural circumstance in which the mediation of the Occupy movement emerged.