ABSTRACT
Across the world, the Internet and new social media are widely used for the public expression of individual grievances and discontent. But there is a long way from expressing discontent to contention. Thirty years ago, Charles Tilly (1978, 275) defined a contentious gathering as “an occasion in which ten or more persons outside the government gather in the same place and make a visible claim which, if realized, would affect the interests of some specific person(s) or group(s) outside their own number.” If we admit that, in the digital age, contention can occur online, Tilly’s definition poses several problems: where is the “same place”? Do the participants have to be “outside the government”? And, who would be the “specific persons or groups”?
