#ica13: Political Communication and "The Outraged Young"

The International Communication Association (ICA) is in London this week. The NPCU's James Sloam took part in a pre-conference workshop on The Political Communication of Young People through Social Media. The workshop was organised by Brian D. Loader (University of York, UK), Ariadne Vromen (University of Sydney, Australia) and Michael Xenos (University of Wisconsin at Madison, USA). Participants included W. Lance Bennett & Alexandra Segerberg talking about connective action, Liesbet van Zoonen on Islam and virtual battlegrounds, and Stephen Coleman on the Youth Amplified project.

Here is a summary of James's paper. For the full paper email him on James.Sloam@rhul.ac.uk.

‘“The Outraged Young”: Young Europeans, Civic Engagement and the Social Media in a Time of Crisis’

James Sloam (Royal Holloway University of London)

In almost all established democracies engagement in traditional political institutions has declined in recent decades, leading to what some have seen as a crisis in citizenship. This trend is most striking amongst young people, who have become increasingly alienated from mainstream electoral politics in Europe. At the same time, young Europeans have become increasingly marginalised by and from public policy since the onset of the global financial crisis: from worsening levels of child poverty, to spiralling youth unemployment, to cuts in youth services and education budgets, to increased university tuition fees. Nevertheless, there is overwhelming evidence to show that young people are not apathetic about ‘politics’ – they have their own views and engage in democracy in a wide variety of ways relevant to their everyday lives. In this context, the rise and proliferation of protest politics amongst young Europeans is hardly surprising. Indeed, youth activism has become a major feature of the European political landscape: from the Occupy movement against the excesses of global capitalism, to mass demonstrations of the ‘outraged young’ (the ‘indignados’) against political corruption and youth unemployment, to growth in support for ‘pirate parties’ in defence of individual freedom. This paper will examine the role that the social media has played in the development of these protest movements across the continent.

#Geziparki: The Role of Social Media in Turkey's Protest Movement

NPCU PhD student Billur Aslan's thoughts on the role of social media in Turkey's protest movement have been published by the Annenberg School's Center for Global Communication Studies. Billur will take part this July in the Annenberg-Oxford summer school, along with emerging young activists, journalists and scholars. We re-post Billur's argument below, thanks to CGCS. 

6

The Gezi Park protests of May and June 2013 appeared as an unexpected and extraordinary face of Turkish youth, a generation largely raised during a period absent of widespread protests. While the older generation witnessed a bloody era of Turkey through the 1970s, a 1980 military coup ensured prolonged de-politicization of Turkish society by banning political activists from engaging in political activities for 15 years. Moreover, 30,000 political activists were forced to leave the country and about 500 death sentences were pronounced (Pfannkuch, 2013). Therefore, the generation born after 1980 were educated to be reticent when it came to politics. Even the young Turks themselves were surprised by the active presence and commitment of their peers in the protests, which began as a small group of 50 people claiming their public park and grew into wider anti-government protests.

Undeniably, increased authoritarian rule of the government and repression of alternative political voices contributed to the rise of the recent protests. Yet, what particularly differentiated the Gezi Park uprisings and mobilized the young dissidents was the silence of the conventional media, which led to the utilization of social media in a variety of roles.

Information

While the conventional media in Turkey lost its critical and objective standing, social media became a crucial source for young Turks to learn breaking and unreported news. This informative role of social media was particularly noticeable when the Gezi Park protests began to grow on Friday, March 31st. While the TV channels opted to remain silent on the growing protests and showed cooking or competitive reality shows instead, social media was full of shared images and posts from the Gezi Park protests (The Occupy Gezi page on Facebook and #direngezi on Twitter were the main information channels of the protests). As people could not watch the protests on television, they became active on these social platforms and tweeted, posted images on Facebook or shared their videos on Youtube in order to inform others and ask for help.

Social media, once more, reminded us how many journalists are among us. As everyone turned their attention to social media, users competed with each other to post their comments and to determine the narrative of the protests, becoming journalists themselves and expressing their grievances in these new platforms.

Motivation

Given that 70 % of the Turkish population is under 35, Turkey ranked the 4th largest in global usage of Facebookand 8th in use of Twitter (Voice of America, 2011). The large presence of young Turks on social media platforms, which are forums for “personalized communication” and can bring a “connective power to movements” (Bennett et al., 2011), allowed young people to influence and motivate each other.

A second motivating factor was the distribution of photos on social media that demonstrated a disproportional use of force by police. A blog opened for protesters enabled them to report any excessive use of force by police. Photos of their peers resisting water cannons and tear gas on Workers Day (May 1st 2013) and during Gezi Park protests, led young people to take to the streets.

Organization

Most individuals who joined the demonstrations were not members of any political or social organization. However, social media allowed these previously non-activist youth to easily connect with each other and learn to organise an uprising. The Occupy Gezi Protest in London, organized by a small group of Turkish youth, was a great example of the speed of social media in creating connections among individuals. In one day, the group’sFacebook page reached 3,653 members encouraging individuals in London to protest in support of those in Turkey.

Within Turkey, dissidents used social media to access information about the current situation in specific areas of the city where protests were planned. Additionally, individuals spread phone numbers of lawyers and doctors available to aid protesters over Facebook, leveraging the power of social media to ensure the safety of the protesters.

International Solidarity

Social media spread news of the protests internationally and was used by Turkish individuals abroad to organize events in their own country in support of protesters. International interest in the events in Turkey is also demonstrated by the international media reports of the protests, notable in light of the silence within conventional Turkish media. For example, one of the most popular videos of the protests came from the BBC.

Although it would be a mistake to claim that social media have completely replaced the role of conventional media, the Gezi Park protests once again demonstrated the growing importance of social media in politics and its potential for awakening and unifying a young population. In a speech on the Gezi Parkı protests, Erdogan said: “Social media is the worst menace to society’. As networked movements spread all around the world and topple governments, one might question whether it is a menace to society or to authorities.

//Billur Aslan

Reference List:

Amani, A, 2012, “Turkey’s Democratic Short Fall: Is Prime Minister Erdoğan the Main Problem?”, OpenDemocracy, viewed in: 02.06.2013, Available at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/aslan-amani/turkeys-democratic-shortfall-is-prime-minister-erdogan-main-problem

Bennet, L, Segerberg, A, 2013, The Logic of Connective Action, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Jones, D,  2012, Turkey Embraces Social Media, Voice of America, 26 April, viewed in: 02.03.2012, Available at:http://www.voanews.com/content/turkey-embraces-social-media-149236475/370184.html

Pfannkuch, K, 2013, “Turkey’s Apolitical Generation”, Your Middle East, 29 April, viewed in:02.06.2013, Available at: http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/features/turkeys-apolitical-generation_13834

Papacharissi, Z, Oliveira, M, 2011, The Rythme of News Storytelling on Twitter, World Association for Public Opinion Research Conference, September, Amsterdam

James Dennis in Political Studies Review on Papacharissi and Carpentier

Political Studies Review has published two book reviews by James Dennis, PhD student at the NCPU. James takes on two important recent books in our field. Click here to read his review of Zizi Papacharissi's A Private Sphere: Democracy in a Digital Age (Cambridge: Polity, 2010). And click here to read his review of Nico Carpentier's Media and Participation: A Site of Ideological-Democratic Struggle (Bristol: Intellect, 2011).

Towards Two-Screen Literacy - NPCU talk to OFCOM

The UK's media regulator, OFCOM, will today hold a launch event for their new Adults Media Use and Attitudes Report (summary and pdf here). The event will highlight key findings from the report, including: 

-          Older users are driving continued use of social networking

-          Smartphone growth continues alongside increasing mobile phone affinity 

-          Password security remains a challenge for many

-          There is an increased belief that internet content is regulated

-          Measuring critical understanding and digital literacy

Ben O'Loughlin and Nick Anstead will present Towards Two-Screen Literacy, their latest thoughts on the manner in which people watch television while commenting in real-time on what they're watching through their laptop or mobile device. Ben and Nick have published several papers explaining the repertoires of engagement audiences-cum-users put into practice during political events, one focused on BBC Question Time and another on the 2010 UK General Election.

 

Ben O'Loughlin to speak at 2013 Milton Wolf Seminar, Vienna

The Diplomatic Academy of ViennaMilton Wolf Seminar 2013

Diplomatic Maneuvers and Journalistic Coverage in a Time of Reset, Pivot and Rebalance

 

Vienna, Austria, April 16 – 18, 2013

Ben O'Loughlin will lead off discussion of strategic narratives at the 2013 Milton Wolf Seminar hosted by the Diplomatic Academy, Vienna and co-organised with the Annenberg School for Communication and the American Austrian Foundation. This closed event features discussion between diplomats, journalists and scholars over three intense days. The first Milton Wolf Seminar was held in 2001.

The 2013 Milton Wolf seminar addresses the critical role of diplomats and journalists in shaping the outcomes of what we call global geopolitical pivots. Pivots in this case refer to emergent geopolitical shifts around which multiple stakeholders – from major powers, to multilateral organizations, to bloggers working in isolation – seek to provide input on the most appropriate outcomes. As Zbigniew Brzezinski defined them, "Geopolitical pivots are the states whose importance is derived not from their power and motivation but rather from their sensitive location and from the consequences of their potentially vulnerable condition for the behavior of geo-strategic players.”

 

Examples of contemporary global pivots that will be considered in this year’s Seminar include: the ultimate resolution of the Arab Spring countries, the shifts in geopolitical approaches to Syria, calls for regime change in Iran, and the intense Western attention to reform movements and government change in Burma (Myanmar).

 

In each of these cases, different state and non-state actors have put forward competing narratives advocating particular outcomes. These narratives are circulated, among other mechanisms, through political speeches, in the press, and via the internet. This year’s Seminar will explore the critical role of this narrative construction in shaping diplomatic outcomes. How do diplomats, journalists, and other stakeholders seek to advocate for particular outcomes, and to what effect? Conversely, how do these geopolitical pivots or shifts affect on-going narratives of democratization, shifts from authoritarian regimes, and the role of media and communications in diplomacy?

Media, War & Conflict Fifth Anniversary Conference - final programme

Media, War & Conflict Fifth Anniversary Conference

11-12 April 2013

Royal Holloway, University of London

*** PROGRAMME AVAILABLE - CLICK HERE****

Media, War & Conflict’s fifth anniversary conference will be held on 11-12 April 2013 at Royal Holloway, University of London. The conference is open to scholars, journalists, military practitioners and activists from around the world, and features 88 papers from 25 countries.

Keynote speakers:

  • Jamie Shea, NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges
  • Barbie Zelizer, Raymond Williams Professor of Communication, University of Pennsylvania
  • Cees Hamelink, Emeritus Professor of International Communication at the University of Amsterdam and Emeritus Professor for Media, Religion and Culture at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

The journal was first published in April 2008, bringing together international scholars and journalists from the fields of political science, history, and communication, and military, NGO and journalist practitioners. The aim was to map the shifting arena of war, conflict and terrorism in an increasingly mediated age, and to explore cultural, political and technological transformations in media-military relations, journalistic practices and digital media, and their impact on policy, publics, and outcomes of warfare. The fifth anniversary conference offers the chance to showcase the best research in this field while also taking stock of how the field has developed and identifying the emerging challenges we face.

Papers cover a range of topics, including:

  • Contemporary and historical war reporting
  • Changing forms of credibility, legitimacy and authority
  • Media ethics in the coverage of conflict
  • The role of citizen-users and social media in conflict
  • Terrorism, media and publics
  • Intelligence operations and media
  • Digital and cyber warfare
  • Media and conflict prevention, peacekeeping and post-conflict scenarios
  • Photo and video journalism in wartime
  • War and conflict in popular culture
  • The power of the visual and other modalities
  • Commemoration and memorialisation of war and conflict

If you wish to attend the conference, please register here.

If you have any questions regarding registration, travel, visas, accommodation or other practical matters please contact Caroline Shedden at Caroline.Shedden@rhul.ac.uk. If you have any questions about  presentations or the conference programme please contact Ben O’Loughlin atBen.OLoughlin@rhul.ac.uk.

James Dennis at PSA: Welcome to the Afterparty

The NPCU’s James Dennis will present this week at the Political Studies Association (PSA) Annual International Conference, ‘The Party’s Over?’, in Cardiff. Full details of his paper below. 

Tuesday 26th Match, 14:00-15:30

Panel title: Media and Politics 2: Technology and Development

Function Room B

Welcome to the Afterparty: 38 Degrees, Social Media and the Rise of New Repertoires of Political Engagement

This paper will examine the role of emerging, digitally-focused organisations in facilitating political engagement through their use of social media. A case study has been conducted of the British advocacy group 38 Degrees and their national campaign against corporate sponsors for the London 2012 Olympics benefitting from a tax-break, and local campaigns lobbying Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) to adopt constitutional amendments. 

Building on the theoretical contributions of Bennett and Segerberg, Chadwick, and Papacharissi, this paper will argue that low-threshold interactions conducted online are not ineffective and narcissistic acts of slacktivism, but integral components within a scaled continuum of participation. The paper will illustrate the evolving perception of what constitutes political involvement, formed as a result of the convergence of the public and private, and decline of a static, collective political consciousness. This has been replaced by a more reflexive, individually-defined notion of political identity. Maximising personal efficacy has become a priority and subsequently individuals are being driven from traditional structures of participation to new territories. The digitally-networked platforms employed by 38 Degrees provide the optimum space for engagement with these personalised political issues.

O'Loughlin to speak at Glasgow conference on Memory, History and Conflict

Borges' AlephOn 18-19 March the University of Glasgow is hosting a conference on Memory, History & Conflict. Ben O'Loughlin has been invited to present a paper, Images of the World, Images of Conflict. The abstract is below. At the time of writing, a few places are left at the conference for the 18th - register for free here. 

Images of the World, Images of Conflict

In the short story Pascale's Sphere Borges wrote, “universal history is the history of a few metaphors.” The history of world politics certainly seems marked by a few recurring concepts and metaphors: the universal and the particular, the inside and the outside, the balance of power, and the ideal of symmetry and actuality of chaos. Across eras, these concepts have shaped the image of world politics held by leaders, citizens and scholars. Such concepts are abstract but become visualized through diplomacy, war and cartography and through the lived experience of world affairs. For critical scholars of International Relations, these concepts and the images they translate into are responsible for conflict, for they become concrete in the states, borders and security dilemmas that propel us from conflict to conflict. It follows that there is a relationship between “the image of world politics” and actual visual images of world politics; between abstract, conceptual understandings of the ontology and mechanics of International Relations and the horrific news and events we witness every day. Borges concludes his story, ‘Perhaps universal history is the history of the various intonations of a few metaphors.’ If so, we are doomed to variations on the same bleak events and the practice of international relations is ultimately tragic, as many of its founders believed.