We compare activist-based internet data with four other media sources—Lexis Nexis
Academic Universe, The Seattle Times, Global Newsbank, and The New York Times—on
their coverage of the local, national, and international protests that accompanied the World
Trade Organization’s (WTO) Third Ministerial Conference in Seattle, Washington in late
1999. Using the Media Sensitivity-Protest Intensity Model of event reporting, we find that
activist-based web sites report a greater number of transnational protest events at the local,
national, and international level. We also find that activist-based websites are less positively
influenced by the intensity properties of protest events. In the age of globalization, research
on transnational movements should therefore combine conventional media sources and
activist-based web sources.

This paper examines the Minamata mercury victims' grassroots movement. Our analysis demonstrates the value of using a political opportunity framework to understand local grassroot environmental movement (LGEM) outcomes. We explain the variation over time in a LGEM's ability to achieve successful outcomes across different political environments. Specifically, we show that the success of the Minamata LGEM hinged on its ability to employ nontraditional and institutionally disruptive tactics during a period of expanded political opportunities.