Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times " (Megan Boler (Ed.)) (original) (raw)
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Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, M. Boler (2008)
2008
"In an age of proliferating media and news sources, who has the power to define reality? When the dominant media declared the existence of WMDs in Iraq, did that make it a fact? Today, the "social web" (sometimes known as Web 2.0, groupware, or the participatory Web)—epitomized by blogs, viral videos, and YouTube—creates new pathways for truths to emerge and makes possible new tactics for media activism. In Digital Media and Democracy, leading scholars in media and communication studies, media activists, journalists, and artists explore the contradiction at the heart of the relationship between truth and power today: the fact that the radical democratization of knowledge and multiplication of sources and voices made possible by digital media coexists with the blatant falsification of information by political and corporate powers. The book maps a new digital media landscape that features citizen journalism, The Daily Show, blogging, and alternative media. The contributors discuss broad questions of media and politics, offer nuanced analyses of change in journalism, and undertake detailed examinations of the use of Web-based media in shaping political and social movements. The chapters include not only essays by noted media scholars but also interviews with such journalists and media activists as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Media Matters host Robert McChesney, and Hassan Ibrahim of Al Jazeera. Contributors and Interviewees: Shaina Anand, Chris Atton, Megan Boler, Axel Bruns, Jodi Dean, Ron J. Deibert, Deepa Fernandes, Amy Goodman, Brian Holmes, Hassan Ibrahim, Geert Lovink, Nathalie Magnan, Robert McChesney, Graham Meikle, Susan D. Moeller, Alessandra Renzi, Ricardo Rosas, Andréa Schmidt, Trebor Scholz, D. Travers Scott, R. Sophie Statzel, Stephen Turpin. About the Editor Megan Boler is a Professor in Theory and Policy Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto and a graduate of the History of Consciouness Program, University of California, Santa Cruz. Her other books include Feeling Power: Emotions and Education and Democratic Dialogue in Education: Troubling Speech, Disturbing Silence. Her essays are published in such journals as New Media and Society, Cultural Studies, and Women's Studies Quarterly."
Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times
Information, Communication & Society, 2009
ISBN 0262026422. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality," explains an unnamed Bush administration official. This quote sets the tone for a new edited collection reflecting on the role of the media in constructing reality. The lack of a "truth" does not quell the public demand for one, as Boler aptly points out in her introduction: "The desire and longing for truth expressed by the public demands for media accountability is in tension with the coexisting recognition of the slipperiness of meaning" (p. 7). Media, then, in all their forms, become a central battleground for forging meaning and shaping reality. "Media are the most powerful institutions on earth," Amy Goodman of Democracy Now claims, "more powerful than any bomb, more powerful than any missile" (p. 199). This series of interviews and articles explores how incumbent powers and media activists compete to produce and reproduce their versions of reality through the media. The contributors use the format to discuss the tenuous relationship between media and democracy and the changing role of the news media, as well as to present examples of tactical media. The resulting collection provides an excellent introduction to the current, troubling media landscape and its tactical opportunities. Times are dark indeed. The book's subtitle, "Tactics in Hard Times," gives a nod to the book's context: the twilight of the Bush administration. Boler does not shy away from reflecting on this monolithic media landscape. The awareness of the problematics of the media sustains a highly reflexive discussion of the challenges for media activism when media are tools of both oppression and resistance. Ronald J. Deibert documents the increasing sophistication of state and corporate control over the circulation of Internet content. This closing of democratic fissures corresponds with the adoption of tactical media campaigns by counterdemocratic forces. Stormfront, as R. Sophie Statzel explains in her chapter, has created a counterpublic space online for White supremacists to share and cultivate racism. The success of the group points to
“Paradigms in Digital Activism”
Öz: Dijital iletişim teknolojileri toplumsal muhalefetin çeşitlenmesini ve küreselleşmesini sağlayan başlıca araçlardır. Günümüzde sosyal hareketler sosyal ağlar üzerinde ortaya çıkmakta, örgütlenmekte ve eyleme geçmektedir. Bu yazıda, dijital aktivizm üzerine yapılan akademik çalışmalar ve bilimsel araştırmalarda kullanılan kuramsal çerçeveler ve geliştirilen gerekçeler irdelenmekte ve internet--demokrasi ilişkisini açıklamak için yeni bir paradigmaya ihtiyaç duyulduğu ileri sürülmektedir. Anahtar kelimeler: demokrasi, dijital aktivizm, sosyal hareketler, yeni medya, kamusal alan Abstract: Digital communication technologies are the primary means of diversification and globalization of social opposition. Today, social movements are emerging, organized and move to action on social networks. In this paper, theoretical frameworks used in scientific research on digital activism and arguments developed are being examined and it is suggested that a new paradigm is required in order to explain the relationship between the Internet and democracy.
2013
"Reclaiming the Media: Technology, Tactics and Subversion Abstract: This chapter will explore how technological advances in communication networks open up new platforms for democratic debates. Technological advances in communication come to blur the boundaries between journalists and citizen journalists, political discourse and social movements, and definitions of democracy. Drawing on the UK radical environmental activism movements, as a case study, this chapter will show how new technologies have enabled activists to bypass traditional media practices. New Social movements made from environmental activists collectives, can produce their own websites , news reports and adapt old tactics through new technology. The result is a narrowing of the inequality in democratic debates. Smart Phones, Tablets and the World Wide Web provide a new platform for a wider range of voices, which were once limited to top-down political and media discourse. However, the web and technological as with any new tools of communication can only decrease inequalities if correctly applied. This chapter will therefore examine the positive and negative sides of new forms of communication. As Morozov notes, the internet is not a saviour, but just one means of changing political, religious and cultural discourse "
Digital activism: After the hype
New Media & Society
Research on digital activism has gained traction in recent years. At the same time, it remains a diverse and open field that lacks a coherent mode of inquiry. For the better or worse, digital activism remains a fuzzy term. In this introduction to a special issue on digital activism, we review current attempts to periodize and historicize digital activism. Although there is growing body of research on digitial activism, many contributions remain limited through their ahistorical approach and the digital universalism that they imply. Based on the contributions to the special issue, we argue for studying digital activisms in a way that traverses a two-dimensional axis of digital technologies and activist practices, striking the balance between context and media-specificity.
Digital Media and Internet activism: Understanding issues of Access and Agency
Since the mid 1990's the digital space has become a prevailing medium for individuals and groups to engage with numerous issues such as; public policies, political participation (for instance, supporting ones favourite causes or political candidates), expression of solidarity with the politics of marginalised communities, promotion of a social message corporate activism, religious activism, fundraising, and so forth. As suggested by Manuel Castells in his book titled The Rise of the Network Society, most recent forms of political participation are based on the usage of numerous on-line communication tools. This alludes us to an expansive spread of networked, digital information and communication technologies .Our present times are characterised by heightened digitalisation and spacetime compression, attributed to the very nature of networked societies. This paper attempts to understand the notion of a digital public sphere as an active part of a civil society, which advocates change and justice-be it at a small scale level or large scale. The paper looks at two digital sites movements-one being a blog 1 and other an interactive website in a space as vast the internet, to understand the theme of media activism, community and solidarity networks via digital tools.
he Routledge Companion to Media and Activism,, 2018
Introduction and outline Discourses on algorithms are increasingly populating the media and pervading public conversations. Newspapers are filled with stories on how algorithmic power is impacting our choices in the realms of politics, journalism, music, sport, research, and healthcare. The recent inclusion of the term in the influential “Digital Keywords” volume (Peters 2016) also signals a growing interest in the concept and its consequences within various fields and strands of research in the academia, and especially within media studies. As Gillespie (2016) has pointed out, the term appears in recent scholarship not only as a noun but also increasingly as an adjective, in relation to issues of identity, culture, ideology, accountability, governance, imaginary and regulation. In this chapter, I focus on the changes that algorithmic power is bringing to the realm of politics and the transformations of digital activism. The chapter begins with a brief outline of the significance of algorithms in digital politics. Then, it focuses on two diverse conceptions and manifestations of algorithmic power in politics (algorithm as propaganda/repression and algorithm as appropriation/ resistance) that emerge from the explorations of two case studies.
Digital Movements: Challenging Contradictions in Intersectional Media and Social Movements
In this paper, I critically analyze four key conceptual frames for understanding contemporary autonomous digital media movements—translocal organizing, transmedia mobilizations, intersectionality, and the political economy of autonomous media. I argue that intersectionality theory is fundamental to our understanding of the online and offline actions of contemporary digital movements, and we must therefore critically analyze and account for the ways in which social movement and media activists use intersectionality in their organizing and media work. Further we must better understand how activists themselves articulate and attempt to mitigate and shift the political economies, organizational structures, media affordances, and economic exigencies of intersectional autonomous media. While these intersectional media commitments and practices are not without their challenges—complex challenges and contradictions that will be explored below—I nonetheless contend that they have been key to the success of many current social movements at the forefront of social change today. Finally I argue that the integration of intersectional politics with new technological affordances and innovations has created a key framework—intersectional technopolitics—for understanding the hybridity of digital media and social movements as part of our contemporary technosocial assemblage.
Social Movements in the Age of Digital Media
2019
In this graduate-level independent study, we will explore the increasing digital mediation of social movements over the last two decades. How has this shift impacted users and the communities they build, corporate platforms and their business models, and governments and their relationships with dissent? Organized around three keywords—publics, platforms, and infrastructure—we will pay special attention to the digital mediation of social movements in the Middle East and North Africa, with a focus on the unusual geographic and political position of Turkey. We’ll particularly examine how the increasing digital mediation of social movements in Turkey has interacted in complex ways with major national political shifts over the same twenty years.