Creative Dissent Memes and the Bernie Sanders Campaign.docx (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Communication, 2017
Drawing on interviews with leaders of the effort to promote the 2016 Bernie Sanders U.S. presidential candidacy on social media, this study contrasts the structure and content of various organizational networks to map the hybrid ecosystem of the contemporary digital campaign. While the "official" Sanders organization built applications to transform supporters into a tightly controlled distribution network for its social media messaging, this was complemented by "unofficial" grassroots networks that circulated more informal and culturally oriented appeals. The latter are classified according to the models of organizationally enabled and self-organized connective action in digital social movements, with structural differences in oversight and moderation that suggest varying levels of creative autonomy for citizens and reputational risk for the associated campaigns.
Tamara: The Journal of Critical Organization Inquiry, 2012
Political Campaigns Social Media Collective Behavior The growing role of the Internet social networking sites (SNS) has served as a flash point for debate about the democratization of information, particularly in light of their perceived roles in the 2008 presidential election. This horizontal sharing of information undoubtedly facilitated the revival of the youth vote and volunteerism in many ways mimicking traditional grassroots approaches. While the role of the Internet SNS in mobilization efforts and information-sharing cannot be overstated, its effectiveness in creating a new ―public sphere,‖ or transforming traditional electoral campaign strategies and communicative practices must be closely examined before generalizations about the democratization of media can be confirmed. In the aftermath of the election, theorists were quick to simplistically identify the use of social networking sites as key to this electoral shift. In this paper we attempt to advance contemporary theoriz...
Social media and activist communication
While the rise of social media has made activists much less dependent on television and mainstream newspapers, this certainly does not mean that activists have more control over the media environments in which they operate. Media power has neither been transferred to the public, nor to activists for that matter; instead, power has partly shifted to the technological mechanisms and algorithmic selections operated by large social media corporations (Facebook, Twitter, Google). Through such technological shaping, social media greatly enhance the news-oriented character of activist communication, shifting the focus away from protest issues towards the spectacular, newsworthy, and ‘conflictual’ aspects of protest. Simultaneously, social platforms not only allow users to engage in personal networks but also steer them towards such connections. While personal networks and viral processes of content dissemination can generate strong sentiments of togetherness, they are antithetical to community formation.
Social Media and Social Networking in Political Campaigns/Movements
Encyclopedia of Social Network Analysis and Mining
Social media Web-based platforms that allow users to (1) create and maintain a public, private, or semiprivate profile within a given domain; (2) acquire, share, and post content available only to themselves or with other users; and (3) manage a list of connections with other users. Social networking sites Web-based platforms that allow users to (1) create and maintain a public, private, or semiprivate profile within a given domain; (2) manage a list of connections with other users; and (3) acquire, share, and post information with other users. Political campaigns An organized effort to influence the decisions and feelings of a given constituency with the ultimate aim of influencing policy or policy making for a government. Political movements A group of people that work together to influence policy or public sentiment about a given issue/topic or series of issues/ topics with the ultimate goal of facilitating legal and policy changes. Definition Social networking sites and social media are now important parts of political campaigns/movements that are used to organize, orient, and engage volunteers, supporters, and voters.
How Image-Based Social Media Websites Support Social Movements
Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2017
The Internet has disrupted the traditional progression of social movements. We explore common characteristics of image-based activism on Instagram by qualitatively analyzing 300 Instagram posts from three social movements: Black Lives Matter, the battle against defunding Planned Parenthood, and the backlash against the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act. We found that common types of images emerged among the three social movements, indicating a possible underlying pattern in social movement content posted on Instagram. Users also engage in workarounds to leverage Instagram toward a collective goal, going beyond the features offered by the platform to communicate their message. These findings have implications for future work studying social movement theories online.
The last two election years, (2008 and 2012), in the United States (US), social media has played an important role in the presidential elections. Social media experts have marveled at the extent to which President Obama and his campaign team used social media to promote and generate interest among young students and adults alike during the 2008 and 2012 election campaigns. The social media activities of the Obama team transformed politics into a whole new category and changed the dynamics of politics challenging the status quo. In the 2008 and 2012 US presidential elections, we realized that traditional campaigns in the form of rallies and town hall meetings were no longer enough to win elections. In order to win elections, garner support and spread information, politicians will now need to combine new media as well as some of the traditional campaign tactics to win elections. This paper will look at the role social media played in the US presidential elections in 2008 and 2012 and still playing in politics. The paper will also look at the role and effects of social media in the near future on politics and elections as a whole.
The following research deals with the relationship between social media and modern day activism. As our means to network virtually have begun to grow so too have our platforms for voicing our opinions. In this scenario social media such as ‘Twitter’ and Facebook have become important forums for one to not just sustain a protest activity but also inform and organize activism around a cause. Tweets relating to Occupy Wall Street and the Nirbhaya Rape case , both causes which generated headlines and widespread activism have been analyzed on the basis of the nature of their content, using pre-defined codes . Another crucial aspect to this is if people just voice out their opinion like a slacktivist giving birth to the notion of armchair activism or are they engaged on ground as well. In both cases it has been found to be true. In addition to that the tweets in case of both Occupy Wall Street and the Nirbhaya rape case had political as well as emotional content. Therefore an attempt has been made to analyze the role of social media in contemporary protest culture and the scope of it as well. The scope of this research is that it can help readers in determining how and why social media is influential as a tool for modern day activists. Earlier it was banners and posters, which helped activists, organize a crowd for a certain cause. However now, with social media at their disposal it hasn’t only increased their reach, but has disciplined and enhanced their functioning to ensure visibility and influence for a given cause. Keywords: social media and activism, modern day activism, Occupy Wall Street, Nirbhaya rape case and social media
Occupy Online: How Cute Old Men and Malcolm X Recruited 400,000 US Users to OWS on Facebook
2012
What attracted so many supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement to the movement's Facebook pages? Using a database of 1500 Facebook Occupy group pages, we analyze the types of posts that recruit new users. In the case of the Occupy movement, the success of recruiting over 400,000 users to Facebook was driven by user-created content produced in a medium that encourages contributions and sharing to an existing set of dense networks of potential movement sympathizers. We find that the posts that are most successful at recruiting active Facebook engagement utilize existing forms of communication, such as sharing pictures and status updates. We also find that posts that use confrontational messages and messages about solidarity appear most often in the top posts. Our findings suggest that online social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter provide a powerful tool for movements to rapidly spread information and reach broad audiences. In addition, we offer some analysis of the impact of these findings for social movements that hope to utilize Facebook.
Segun Charles, 2024
In Modern democracies, political hopefuls are no longer required to have a political background with concepts of political philosophies and how they shape the political stance a party intends to adopt along the right-center-left political spectrum. Politics today is done by a Tweet on Twitter or a post on Facebook. A team of social communication experts analyze voters' reaction and engagement to define the political agenda of parties. The call for continuous virtual engagements of the electorate is reducing the political discourse and might erode political sensitivity to the active grassroots participation of citizens, which is the core foundation of a sound democratic state.