The growth of social networking sites (SNS), like Facebook, has caused many to rethink how we understand political activism and citizen engagement. In 2010, 43% of Internet users reported using social networking sites "several times a day," a sizeable increase from 2009 where only 34% reported using social networking at the same rate (Pew 2010). Research on digital activism has emphasized the use of websites, listservs, and other forums by formal organizations to raise awareness for their specific causes (McCaughey and Ayers 2003; Van de Donk 2004). Information communication technologies (ICT's) have been regarded as particularly effective tools in mobilizing disparate, resource-poor counter-spheres in collective off-line activity (Van de Donk 2004). In recent years, scholars have moved away from viewing information communication technologies (ICT's) as simply a tool for formal activist organizations. Breindl (2010) argues that on-line digital activism has largely been examined through a classic "social movement paradigm." She calls for scholarship that looks at how the meaning and structure of activism has been transformed by ICT's. One key way it has been transformed is by allowing for small scale, many-to-many forms of politically oriented communication, what I conceptualize as a new term: microactivism. Examples include the formation of political Facebook groups, re-tweeting of articles of political interest and sharing politically relevant videos on YouTube. These acts reflect micro-level intentions and are not necessarily geared towards mobilization like more traditional forms of digital activism. This microactivism has helped bring about a radical reformulation of the political arena. One major change that emerges from the ease of many-to-many communication brought about by SMS is the reduced incentive to join social movements (Earl and Schussman 2003). These new applications encourage movement entrepreneurs (Garrett 2006) not affiliated with formal social movements but interested in fomenting social change. The ease with which individuals can create content and connect with one another to share content is viewed by others as a harbinger of a more democratic and egalitarian society (Benkler 2006, Jenkins 2007, Shirky 2010). Salter (2005) argues that sites like SNS' provide new radical public spheres that provide additional spaces for voice cultivation and political citizenship formation. More importantly, in his view information technologies help shift political discourse to more informal venues that are less subject to elite control (Dahlberg 2004). Social critics like Morozov (2009) suggest, however, that microactivism might do more harm than good. Morozov (2009) refers to the ease with which individuals can create and join communities of interest as slacktivism. He suggests that this ease of membership
Recent work has applied the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to examine narrative strategies in policy debates on social media platforms. We contribute to the literature by applying the NPF to fracking policy debates in New York using well‐established Natural Language Processing tools, including sentiment analysis. We combine this computational approach with a qualitative hand‐coding of pro‐ and antifracking Twitter influentials. This approach allows us to consider a much larger corpus of tweets over a much longer time frame than has been done thus far. We adapt and test NPF propositions related to the use of the devil/angel shift strategies before and after a major state‐wide policy change, that is, a state‐wide moratorium on high volume hydraulic fracturing or fracking. Overall, we find evidence for the use of the devil shift narrative strategy by the pro‐fracking coalition aimed at the Governor prior to the moratorium. After the moratorium, the relative percentage of Tweets containing devil shift sentiments decreases as the pro‐fracking coalition generally downshifts in its use of angel shift language without a corresponding increase in devil shift language, whereas, conversely, the anti‐fracking coalition generally downshifts in its use of devil shift language without a general increase in angel shift language. When we shifted our analysis to Tweets containing fracking and the Governor, we found a similar postban decrease in devil shift language among anti‐fracking users. Our findings offer lessons for using computational tools in the NPF as an approach to expand analytic ability and for the operationalization of concepts such as narrative strategies and policy entrepreneurs.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to apply Connolly’s (2003) concept of agonistic respect to develop a typology of agonistic/antagonistic discourses on Twitter. To develop the typology, this study examines 2,236 Tweets containing the hashtag #guncontrol and uses NodeXL (Smith et al., 2010) to create a network map from which the 75 most influential accounts are derived. Using constant-comparative analysis (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), the authors identify seven categories of discourse style based on Connoly’s (2001) notion of ressentiment and “good faith presentations” of opposing arguments: furtive/secretive, cravenly opportunistic, willfully ignorant, irrational sentimental, misunderstanding/misguided, contingently wrong and reciprocal inquiry. The typology provides a useful and unique way to operationalize agonistic democratic theory and serves as the possible basis for training a machine learning classifier to detect antagonistic discourses on social media platforms. Design/methodology/approach To determine the level of agonism on Twitter, the authors examine tweets that employed the hashtag #guncontrol on March 12, 2018, one month after the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14. The authors used the NodeXL excel add-on to collect and map 2,236 tweets. Using grounded theory/constant-comparative analysis (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), the authors develop a typology of seven types of discourses ordered from most antagonistic to most agonistic using Connolly’s (1993) concept of agonistic respect. Findings After examining the top 75 most shared tweets and using constant-comparative analysis to look for patterns of similarity and dissimilarity, the authors identified seven different ways in which individuals present their opponents’ value positions on Twitter on the issue of gun control. The authors were guided by agonistic theory in the authors’ inquiry. The authors looked at how Twitter users expressed their opponent’s faith/value positions, how pluralistic the discourse space was in the comment threads and how much the “talk” was likely to elicit ressentiment from adversaries. Research limitations/implications Because the authors intended to engage in theory building, the authors limited the analysis to a selected number of tweets on one particularly salient topic, on one day. The intent of this was to allow for a close reading of the tweets in that specific network for the purposes of creating a useful typology that can be applied to a broader range of cases/issues/platforms. Practical implications The authors hope that typology could serve as a potential starting point for Twitter to think about how it could design its algorithms toward agonistic talk. The typology could be used as a classification scheme to differentiate agonistic from antagonistic threads. An algorithm could be trained to spot threads overwhelmingly populated by antagonistic discourse and instructed to insert posts from other threads that represent agonistic responses like “contingently wrong” or “reciprocal inquiry.” While generous presentations or deeper, more nuanced presentations of the opponent’s value position are not a panacea, they could serve to change the orientation by which users engage with policy issues. Social implications Social media platforms like Twitter have up to now been left alone to make markets and establish profitability off of public sphere conversations. The result has been a lack of attention to how discourse on these platforms affects users mental well-being, community health and democratic viability. Recently, Twitter’s CEO has indicated a need to rethink the ways in which it promotes “healthy discourse.” The utilitarian presumption that, left to our own devices, we will trial and error our way to the collective good does not account for the importance of others in refining one’s preferences, arguments and world views. Without an “other” to vet ideas and lead us toward becoming wiser, we are left with a Wyly antagonism that moves discourse further and further away from agonistic respect and toward antagonistic virtual struggle. Platforms that allow antagonistic talk that breeds ressentiment run the risk of irrevocably damaging democracy through poisoning its public sphere. Originality/value This paper is unique in providing a typology/framework for thinking about the types of “political talk” that exists on Twitter. By using agonistic political theory as a framework, the authors are able to establish some guiding principles for “good political talk” that acknowledges the incommensurability of value positions on issues like gun control. The typology’s emphasis on agonistic respect, ressentiment and generosity in the presentation of alternative value positions provides a starting point from which to map and catalog discourse on Twitter more generally and offers a normative model for changing algorithmic design.
A number of scholars have noted a digital skill divide among racial and ethnic groups in the United States (e.g. Hargittai, 2002). The ability to leverage information communication technologies (ICTs) in productive ways has been linked to greater levels of prodemocratic attitudes and behaviors (Horrigan, Wellman, & Rainie, 2006; Valenzuela, Park, & Kee, 2009; Vitak et al., 2011). However, no work to date has explored how this relationship between digital skills and political behavior is mediated by racial and ethnic identity. Using an ordered logistic regression to analyze a 2010 PEW data set of social media use, we test the proposition that proficiency in digital skills enhances generalized trust among Latinos and African Americans. We find that the acquisition of digital skills is associated with generalized trust for African Americans but not for Latinos or Anglo-Americans. Our work suggests that ICTs in general and digital skills in particular might provide a distinct pathway to enhance generalized trust for African Americans, a key precondition for civic engagement for historically marginalized groups in the U.S. society. We discuss the implications of this research for enhancing generalized trust among historically marginalized groups in the United States.
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