The battle over meaning: Digitally mediated processes of cultural trauma and repair in the wake of hurricane Katrina

Ostertag, Stephen F.; Ortiz, David

doi:10.1057/ajcs.2013.4

Cited by 23 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Due to the way in which the respective fields of study have developed (as noted above), most of this research focuses on how Internet use affects civic engagement, and/or contentious and noncontentious collective action, separately. We discuss this at length elsewhere (Ostertag and Ortiz 2013). This count reflects the numbers of blogs written by individual, independent writers whose blogs were centered around political and public affairs topics (i.e., excluding those based on sports, hobbies, personal, or family issues).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Katrina Bloggers and the Development of Collective Civic Action

Ortiz

Ostertag

2014

Sociological Perspectives

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Scholarship on collective civic action helps link collective-level contentious actions and individual-level civic engagement. Using longitudinal data from a group of New Orleans residents who started blogging in the wake of hurricane Katrina, we highlight the digitally mediated social processes linking individual civic engagement with collective civic actions. Through a developmental approach, we analyze the progression from individual blogging to the creation of social networks, the formation of a community of "Katrina bloggers," and their engagement on a range of offline collective civic actions. We argue that the Web serves as a "virtual" mobilizing structure, enabling individuals with shared concerns to organize across time and space, without the need of copresence or preexisting formal ties, networks, or organizations. Our analysis provides insights into the development of virtual communities and social movements formed around collective identities and processes of collective efficacy that highlight the dynamics of contention in civil society.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Katrina Bloggers and the Development of Collective Civic Action

Ortiz

Ostertag

2014

Sociological Perspectives

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“…Our research design and data allow us to observe the following: In the context of hurricane Katrina many residents of the city found it difficult to find trustworthy news and information. They were particularly angered by the national news accounts that were ripe with inaccuracies and images of hopelessness and despair, and with the way authority figures on all levels of government (though in the long‐run, primarily the city) were handling the recovery efforts (Ostertag and Ortiz ). Some with the means and know‐how went online in search for more trustworthy and insightful news and information and to vent their frustrations.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As one of our interviewees, Loki , noted, it provides an opportunity to witness significant change at a perfect time given the saturation of digital media among our sample population . Further, our participants took to blogging and organized offline because they were furious with the state of affairs at the time (Ostertag and Ortiz ). As such, we believe that our data show how people can use digital media to communicate and organize when they share significant grievances, are sufficiently motivated, and interact to create a network of people with shared goals.…”

Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“Katrina Bloggers Activate!”: The Long‐Term Effects of Digital Media on Civic Participation

Ostertag

Ortiz

2014

Sociological Inquiry

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There is a lively debate on the relationship between digital media and civic participation. Some scholars argue that digital media adversely affect civic participation, others that the effect of digital media on civic participation is negligible, and still others claim that digital media strengthens civic participation. Yet, most of this research is based on cross-sectional methodologies, treats digital media as a uniform entity, and overlooks new civic formations that better resonate with current social and technological environments. We address these criticisms with a retrospective case study of blogging in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Through in-depth interviews, supplemental survey data, analysis of blog posts, and field notes, we show how a number of New Orleans' residents used blogs to organize and take part in a variety of civic actions in the months and years after hurricane Katrina. We discuss the implications of these findings for current debates on the relationship between digital media and civic participation.

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“…They necessarily have the media legitimacy, know‐how, and networks to disseminate the story and keep it alive by posting links, new articles, and interacting with citizen spectators on new media platforms like Twitter. In the end, carrier agents through these processes are able to transform a politician's utterance into a meaning‐laden event that disrupts the politician's message and defuses their attempt at a performative whole (Ostertag and Ortiz ; Sztompka ).…”

Section: Carrier Agents and The Rhetoric Of Exclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Authenticity and Carrier Agents: The Social Construction of Political Gaffes

Sheinheit

Bogard²

2016

Sociological Forum

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Political campaigns require constant performance from politicians. This presents ample opportunity for the occurrence of political gaffes. While it is not surprising that political gaffes can have a major impact on political campaigns, the process by which a gaffe is transformed into a meaning-laden defining campaign event is underanalyzed. To address this, we analyze and reconstruct the media trajectory of three instances, two involving Senate candidates (George Allen and Todd Akin) and one a presidential candidate (Mitt Romney), in which gaffes were constructed into meaning-laden events. We find that constructing a political gaffe as a meaning-laden event is a deeply social process. Our research highlights the impact of sousveillance (surveillance from below) and the difficulty that political performers have maintaining consistent "authentic" performances. Recounting the trajectories of these three gaffes allows for a detailing of the diverse methods by which the hybrid media system was effectively mobilized by "carrier agents" (actors with narrative capacity and media know-how). Further, we find that these gaffes proved particularly salient because they were interpreted as embodying an authentic representation of the candidate while simultaneously violating emergent norms of inclusive democratic public discourse.

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The battle over meaning: Digitally mediated processes of cultural trauma and repair in the wake of hurricane Katrina

Cited by 23 publications

References 37 publications

Katrina Bloggers and the Development of Collective Civic Action

Katrina Bloggers and the Development of Collective Civic Action

“Katrina Bloggers Activate!”: The Long‐Term Effects of Digital Media on Civic Participation

Authenticity and Carrier Agents: The Social Construction of Political Gaffes

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