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Occupy Temecula 1 of 143 in State

The local movement is part of a massive statewide movement, a UC Riverside study shows.

Occupy Temecula is one of 143 similar demonstrations taking place in California, a UC Riverside study shows.

The university's Transnational Social Movements Research Working Group, staffed by sociology professor Christopher Chase-Dunn and graduate student Michaela Curran-Strange, found that towns large and small in the Golden State have seen Occupy movements spring up in the last two months.

Occupy Temecula started last month, and since demonstrations at the , including a and to support a pantry.

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The working group's study, titled "Diffusion of the Occupy Movement in California," identified 143 occupations that are roughly evenly divided between Northern and Southern California.

The researchers used social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to locate movements, some of which began within days of the mother of them all -- Occupy Wall Street.

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"When you think about the fact that Occupy Wall Street states on their website that they began on Sept. 17, that's pretty impressive that West Coast towns -- some of them medium and small -- picked up on it almost immediately," Curran-Strange said.

Occupy camps have cropped up in several other Riverside County locations, including Riverside, Idyllwild and the Coachella Valley.

Social media sites dedicated to the protests claim hundreds, if not thousands, of subscribers. According to the study, the town of Arcata, a Northern California coastal community with 17,000 residents, has around 3,000 subscribers on a Facebook page established by occupiers and their supporters.

The researchers noted that activists have a hodgepodge of broad and narrow social concerns, calling for bank reform, halting foreclosures, supporting organized labor and hiking taxes on the wealthy.

The growth of the occupations reflects the "depth of frustration that people feel about the recession and the austerity measures that have been taken by authorities," the researchers said.

They added that the recent interruption that occupiers caused during a protest at the Port of Oakland shows "this movement has broad support and is capable of powerful collective action."

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