How the Internet Shapes Collective Actions

Schumann, Sandy

doi:10.1057/9781137440006

Cited by 9 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Social movements frequently use social media for collective action, and existing research has explored how social media use can mobilize activism (e.g., Kende, van Zomeren, Ujhelyi, & Lantos, ; McGarty, Thomas, Lala, Smith, & Bliuc, ; Schumann, ; Schumann & Klein, ; Spears & Postmes, ; Thomas et al ., ). However, social media activity can fulfil diverse social change functions and scant research has examined its rhetorical functions for social movements, such as how social media may be used strategically to deploy and manage social identities within contested social movements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whose tweets? The rhetorical functions of social media use in developing the Black Lives Matter movement

Wilkins

Livingstone

Levine

2019

British J Social Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research on collective action frequently characterizes social media as a tool for mobilization. However, social media activity can fulfil a variety of different functions for social change. In particular, the rhetorical functions of social media use by social movements are not well understood. We address this shortfall by analysing the rhetorical functions of Twitter use during an early stage of the Black Lives Matter social movement. We examine how activists used Twitter to balance competing aims for social change, such as growing the movement beyond disadvantaged‐group members, while preventing appropriation or dilution of their message by advantaged‐group ‘allies’. We find that although Twitter users promote different, and often competing, definitions of the issues that the movement represents, rhetorical strategies are used to advance inclusive definitions that focus on racism. When activists address alternative definitions of movement actors and issues, representations of Otherness are used to characterize the proponents of these definitions as in opposition to the movement. Finally, we find that one way of resolving the tension between growing the movement and promoting disadvantaged‐group control is by using identity and technology resources to explicitly define (1) how different groups can be movement advocates, and (2) action strategies for social change.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whose tweets? The rhetorical functions of social media use in developing the Black Lives Matter movement

Wilkins

Livingstone

Levine

2019

British J Social Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A prospect that web-based border 'slacktivisim' (where a limited time is dedicated to important social issues, with little or no effect) will fail to yield social change is tangible, as migration and mobility narratives are driven by powerful political and economic forces. Network social movements can and indeed do fall short of expectations-as witnessed in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street or KONY 2012 movements (see Schumann, 2015). Finally, one of the key conundrums is that there is no consensus in the literature on the potential of technology in fostering social change and democracy, as smartphones and social media are neo-liberal and commercial platforms, and as such are increasingly governed (see Dean, 2009;Milan, 2013).…”

Section: Theorizing the Technology-migration Nexus And Its Role In Trmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Stealing the fire’, 2.0 style? Technology, the pursuit of mobility, social memory and de-securitization of migration

Milivojevic

2018

Theoretical Criminology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Technology challenges social, economic and political borders. This article analyses the role smartphones and social media play in constructing social memory (and consciousness) of bordering practices, examining predominant accounts of migration, de-securitizing and re-humanizing mobility and attaining freedom of movement. Using the case study of the Western Balkans as one of the main transit routes in Europe and building on Stefania Milan’s ‘stealing the fire’ theory, this article investigates transformation of borders from below, as migrants reclaim technology to enable safe passage and create counter-narratives of migration. They do so by contributing to the ‘digital knowledge commons’—a collaborative body of knowledge that can shift restrictive migration policies. The article highlights the importance of studying the technology–mobility nexus, and greater theoretical engagement vis-à-vis the use of technology as a tool for social change, as migration continues to play a pivotal role in political and public debates across the globe.

show abstract

“…Even if Weinberger (2010) remarks that the millionth link in the result list of Google is (only) a million times harder to find than the first one, in practice, that link is impossible to find. Even if many other claims of the balkanisation of Internet can be criticised of being exaggerated (Schumann, 2014), there is no question that information is far from being evenly available.…”

Section: Knowing About Knowingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Affective capitalism of knowing and the society of search engine

Huvila

2016

AJIM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose: This article discusses the affective premises and economics of the influence of search engines on knowing and informing in the contemporary society. Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual discussion of affective the premises and framings of the capitalist economics of knowing is presented. Findings:The main proposition of this text is that the exploitation of affects is entwined in the competing market and emancipatory discourses and counterdiscourses both as intentional interventions, and perhaps even more significantly, as unintentional influences that shape the ways of knowing in the peripheries of the regime that shape cultural constellations of their own. Affective capitalism bounds and frames our ways of knowing in ways that are difficult to anticipate and read even from the context of the regime itself. Originality/value: In the relatively extensive discussion on the role of affects in the contemporary capitalism, influence of affects on knowing and their relation to search engine use has received little explicit attention so far.

show abstract

How the Internet Shapes Collective Actions

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Whose tweets? The rhetorical functions of social media use in developing the Black Lives Matter movement

Whose tweets? The rhetorical functions of social media use in developing the Black Lives Matter movement

‘Stealing the fire’, 2.0 style? Technology, the pursuit of mobility, social memory and de-securitization of migration

Affective capitalism of knowing and the society of search engine

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About