Resistance: Active and Creative Political Protest Strategies

Abstract

Resistance to U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies on gender equality, health care, race relations, the environment, and immigration has been large, widespread, and persistent. Following President Trump’s election, millions of people across the United States protested, creatively using slogans, signs, costumes, chants, and songs. Others engaged in resistance with online videos, songs, memes, and hashtags. By employing the communicative informatics model, we examine the relationship between online communication and the creative and active audience involved in U.S. political resistance in 2017.

The Volatility of Collective Action: Theoretical Analysis and Empirical Data

“…The DIME model. Secci, & Gallant, 2018). The form of the innovative actions put forward after failure may be directed by spillover from other behavioral identities of the collective actors, as we have discussed above.…”

Introduction: Contemporary Counter-Movements in the Age of Brexit and Trump

“…Further initiatives to protest the Trump administration include Black Lives Matter, Indivisible, Earth Day, the March for Science, and airport immigration rallies. Each one of these initiatives made significant use of social media to facilitate both online and offline activism (Boone et al, 2017). The Indivisible Movement borrowed tactics of the Tea Party to mobilize grassroots support as Benita Roth (2018) describes in this issue (see also Deckman, 2017).…”

“…In the United States, a variety of protest groups formed immediately after Trump won the presidency, and 1 day after the poorly attended inauguration of the 45th president of the United States, about 4 million women and men participated in the Women’s March on Washington (WMW) and other women’s marches in the United States. This protest – the largest in the history of the United States – was accompanied by many similar protests around the world (Boone et al, 2017). The WMW has been both lauded for the ability to mobilize those who previously did not participate in activism and seeking to include a diverse range of participants across gender, class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality, but it has also been criticized for failing to be truly inclusive.…”

“…The evaluation of WMW appears to be shaped by various factors including personal experience – some local marches seemed more inclusive (Doan, 2017) than others (Rose-Redwood and Rose-Redwood, 2017), the positionality of the observer (Boothroyd et al, 2017; Burke et al, 2017; Doan, 2017; Falola and West Ohueri, 2017; Gökarıksel and Smith, 2017; Moss and Maddrell, 2017; Rose-Redwood and Rose-Redwood, 2017), and whether the focus was on the early or later stages of the organization of the event. What started out as a Facebook group calling for a ‘Million Women March’ that went viral (Boone et al, 2017: 5) soon led to criticism of the appropriation of the name of a protest of and for women and the lack of racial diversity among the organizers (Gökarıksel and Smith, 2017: 632). Subsequently, the protest event was renamed invoking the famous civil rights march on Washington in 1963 and conscious and successful efforts were made to include prominent activists representing a wide range of communities and emphasizing diversity (Boone et al, 2017: 5).…”

Political Boycott – Theoretical Characteristic by the Example of Activity of Parliamentary Opposition During Crisis in the Sejm (16.12.2016–12.01.2017)

“…Co więcej, negatywny odbiór społeczny omawianych zdarzeń sprzyjał wzrostowi poparcia dla działań opozycji parlamentarnej (por. Boone, Secci, Gallant, 2017). Konkludując, ostatecznie doszło do utrwalenia pozycji rządzących kosztem opozycji a konflikt po raz kolejny nie był "katalizatorem porozumienia" (Golec, 2002, s. 18).…”