The Political Power of Social Media Revisited (original) (raw)
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Social Media in Sociopolitical Processes
International Review of Management and Marketing, 2015
The article focuses on the role of social media in sociopolitical processes; in particular, the use of such resources in mobilization technologies and their impact on the protest campaigns are reviewed. Social media change the shape and channels of devilering political information to citizens, they have their own alternative mechanisms of forming information on the agenda, and, as a platform of civil journalism, by definition take an active part in the mediatization of sociopolitical processes both at the national level and in solving global problems. In the meantime, such participation has both positive and negative connotations. The author analyzes political, cultural, sociological sources and information network resources that allow to identify the nature and essence of web 2.0. journalism. Keywords: social media, social networks, new media, web 2.0. journalism, Facebook, Twitter, Internet, information technology. JEL Classifications: O38; O33; Z13
Can Social Media Incite Political Mobilization?
Uprisings depend on whether oppressed people are able to group among existing social networks where people communicate naturally and regularly. Traditionally, social networks were formed around places of worship, universities, schools, workplaces or recreational meeting points. In the digital age, social media play that role of getting people to meet on a daily basis. While the meeting is virtual, it provides the same function. This paper examines scholarly literature which supports and that which challenges the role of social media in political action. The paper presents cases of mobilization movements in various countries in the last decade, concluding from actual experiences, that social media can be a catalyst for political collective action.
Revolution 2.0? The Role of Digital Media in Political Mobilisation and Protest
Global Trends 2013. Peace - Development - Environment
Since the 1990s, the rapid diffusion of new electronic communications ("new media") and technological advancements in this field have changed the role of these media in society. This trend also impacts on the opportunities for political mobilisation and protest. Unlike the traditional mass communications, with newspapers and TV as lead media, the use of the Internet via computers and mobile phones facilitates individualised mass communication, allowing user-generated content to be shared with a virtual community. In this way, users can bypass governments and the mainstream media, in their established roles as conceptual, commercial and organisational gate-keepers and agenda-setters, and use the World Wide Web to transcend the local and, indeed, the national public spheres. With reference inter alia to the upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East, this article demonstrates that the opportunities afforded by the digital media, especially new social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, etc., should, nonetheless, not be overestimated, and that besides having a potentially democratising and emancipatory effect, these new media harbour a number of risks and potential for misuse.
Emerging Role of Social Media in Political Activism: Perceptions and Practices
Social media is a tool that allows people to create and share different ideas, information and pictures/videos. It is an online way of communication to develop interaction and collaboration among people. Thus, social media might be changing the attitude and behavior of youth. It also spreads awareness among people by creating different online pages and accounts for sharing their agendas and information via these mediums. Role of social media in building the public perception is being analyzed. The study also examines the role of Facebook and Twitter in influencing political activism. It also intends to assess the level of empowerment due to awareness through social media. Survey method was used as a strategy to collect primary data. This study will enable us to understand the emerging role of social media in political activism and significant role of the online social media in political change.
(Social) Media isn’t the message, networked people are: calls for protest through social media
Observatorio (OBS*)
In recent years, protests took the streets of cities around the world. Among the mobilizing factors were the perceptions of injustice, democratization demands, and, in the case of liberal democracies, waves of discontentment characterized by a mix of demands for better public services and changes in the discredited democratic institutions. This paper discusses social media usage in mobilization for demonstrations around the world, and how such use configures a paradigmatic example of how communication occurs in network societies. In order to frame the discussion, social media appropriation for the purposes of political participation is examined through a survey applied online in 17 countries. The ways in which social media domestication by a myriad of social actors occurred and institutional responses to demonstrations developed, it is argued that, in the network society, networked people, and no longer the media, are the message.
Review Essay: Social Media, Politics and Protest
2016
Books reviewed: Lina Dencik and Oliver Leistert (eds), Critical Perspectives on Social Media and Protest: Between Control and Emancipation. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Daniel Trottier and Christian Fuchs (eds), Social Media, Politics and the State: Protests, Revolutions, Riots, Crime and Policing in the Age of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2015. Julie Uldam and Anne Vestergaard (eds), Civic Engagement and Social Media: Political Participation Beyond Protest. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Social Media: The Power of Changing Political Landscape
The growing popularity of social media have play another dominant role in changing the lives of our society – changing the political and democracy landscape. Regardless it is conservative, liberal or centrism thoughts, social media users have make use the social media platform to seek more information, which leads to greater involvement into political discussion (Zúñiga, Molyneux and Zheng, 2014, as cited from Shah et. al., 2005; and Kwak et. al., 2010). Compared with traditional media, such as printed media, radio and television, which are costly to produced and disseminate the message to the public at large. The inconsistency of spreading the words from politicians to the people might occur as the production cycle for traditional media are time consuming (Zúñiga, Molyneux and Zheng, 2014, as cited from Best & Krueger, 2005). In relation to the Arab Spring, which started in 2010, Social media plays part of the role in spreading the awareness in political movement. People in Arab Countries had embraced this change of internet community, which results the high penetration of the internet, increased social media activity and increasing numbers of smartphone users in the cities and its sub-urban areas (Dewey et. al., 2012)
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 2016
The rapid development and widespread and increasing use of Social Networking sites is arguably one the most significant developments in contemporary human communication over the past two decades. Indeed, perhaps comparable only to development of mobile communication technologies, social networking may well be one of the most important and visible forms of human interaction since the invention of the Internet. In this paper, we examine and highlight the enormous potential of these fairly recent technological developments and highlight opportunities they present to humankind as platforms for democratic and participatory communication and governance-especially in grassroots social movements activism. While doing so, we use cases to show the important potential and actual contributions that social media hold out and represent for democratic communication. The paper also casts a critical look at the potential risks and examines proven and theoretical shortcomings and challenges that these new advances in human communication may pose or represent for society, and identify cybercrime, cyber bullying, their effects on human physical and emotional health, their impact on productivity and other workplace complications, and potential societal disorder and dysfunction of certain social norms among the list of concerns that we suggest require further reflection and redress. The paper concludes by depicting social media as a potentially useful tool from which much social and societal capital can be derived; but also draws attention to their many problematic aspects that make them seem like doubleedged swordwith enormous opportunities and benefits on the one hand, and risks and threats, on the other, depending primarily on the uses to which they are put. Global, regional and national initiatives should be taken to maximize the benefits of social media while minimizing, or at least containing the threats through incorporation of independent but limited guidelines and regulations that would safeguard people's freedoms and rights while protecting users from abuses and adverse effects often inherent in new developments.