Street academics

"The metaphor moved into the Western mainstream media in the late 1980s. Prior to 1987, American journalists always referred to "Arab public opinion" rather than the street. The metaphor caught on when the first Palestinian Intifada broke into the news. Usage intensified during the original invasion of Iraq in 1990, and then again after 9/11. By 2006, journalists were using the street metaphor in the majority of their descriptions of popular sentiment in the Arab world, according to Regier and Khalidi's research."


http://www.slate.com/id/2283169/