Social Media and Social Movements: the transformation of communication patterns.

273 Pages·2017·2.66 MB·English

by  Barış Çoban

1
Social Media and Social
Movements

Social Media and Social
Movements
The Transformation
of Communication Patterns
Edited by
Barış Çoban
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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ISBN: 978-1-4985-2930-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
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Contents
Social Media R/evolution: An Introduction vii
Barış Çoban
1 Commune, the Web, and the Anarchist Thought
of Mikhail Bakunin 1
Chiara Livia Bernardi
2 New Media and Empowerment in the Indignados’
Movement: “If you want that no one else decides for you,
so that no one else speaks for you” 19
Tommaso Gravante and Alice Poma
3 Occupy Nigeria Movement, Organized Labor Unions,
and Oil-Subsidy Struggle: An Analysis of Processes
in Media(ted) “Revolution” and its Demise 37
Kudus Oluwatoyin Adebayo
4 The Internet and Democracy in Arab Spring Morocco:
Opportunities and Challenges 57
Abderrahim Chalfaouat
5 Occupy Movements, Alternative New Media, and Utopia:
The Gezi Resistance and Activist Citizen Journalism 73
Barış Çoban
6 Social Media and Social Change: The 2011 Campaign
for Stopping the Massacre of the Danube Delta Wild Horses 97
Dana Florentina Nicolae
v
vi Contents
7 Active or Passive Citizen: The Influence of New
Media Over Local Communities’ Participation 109
Ilona Biernacka-Ligieza
8 Youth Vote and Web 2.0 Political Engagement: Can Facebook
Increase the Propensity of Young Citizens to Vote? 131
Alan Steinberg
9 Weblogs: Revolutionary Media? 151
Simona Stano
10 The Transformation of Leisure in the Digital Age 165
Ana Viñals Blanco
11 Virtual Voyeurism and the Capitalization of
Individuality on Facebook 181
Shahriar Kabir
12 Are Google’s Executives Liable for Uploaded Videos?:
Italian Case 193
Anna Rita Popoli
13 Social Media in Education: Main Sources for Inclusion
and Collaborative Learning 209
Magda Pischetola
14 Social Media: Transformation of Education 229
Carolina Duek and Gastón Tourn
Index 247
About the Editor and Contributors 249
Social Media R/evolution
An Introduction
Barış Çoban
In contrast with other media revolutions, social media revolution is the one
revolution which builds and shows itself over the streets. Although the evolu-
tion of social media has occurred in an intrasystem process, the revolutionary
transformation in the use of social media has done so in an antisystemic way.
The evolution of media proceeds in the context of developments in the field
of informatics and technology, namely capitalistic relationships; therefore,
revolutionary struggle goes on the basis of the creation of class conflicts and/
or independent/autonomous social spheres. The struggle against the power in
the field of media is being carried on by different means and methods. Social
media revolution is one of the most important determinants of the struggle
of carrying another world of today’s beyond possible and the struggle of
actualizing it. Accordingly, it’s not possible to think of many social move-
ments of the day without social media, or rather “alternative/activist new
media” (Lievrouw 2011). Today’s revolutions cannot be described only as
social media revolutions: Traditional revolutionary forms of struggle, social
movement methods and uses of traditional media are still utilized effectively,
however, social media has become centralized in proclamation, organization,
mobilization, and maintenance of revolutionary social activity by creating
ample opportunities that other media tools have never held. Although the
movements occuring in the local base had global impact starting with the
Iranian Green Revolution (2009) and continuing with Arab Spring (2011),
Spanish Indignados (Outraged) movement (2011), Occupy Wall Street
(2011), Gezi Resistance (2013), afterwards, they organized, made themselves
heard, mobilized, and gained recognition with an internationalist solidarity.
These social media-based social movements built “temporary autonomous
zones” on the basis of local occupy movements that included and transcended
the antiglobalization movement and they established their own “dual powers
vii
viii Social Media R/evolution
which are not ‘the powers.’” The movements that organize horizontally and
create their own centers and participatory networks around this center built
“hybrid-network society” (Amor et al. 2013, 4) or “hybrid public sphere” that
consists of a mix of both the social media network and the network they cre-
ated in their living space: “Egyptian activists are still trying to find a balance
between the use of social media and local street campaigning. In so doing,
they are creating a hybrid of the two, a mediated public space, as signalled
by the appearance of Twitter hashtags as graffiti tags on the walls of Cairo”
(Gerbaudo 2012, 74). Social media is a must for hybrid-network society in
the formation process of a new political culture horizontally based on partici-
pation and pluralism. From micro to macro, social media plays a central role
in the building and actualization of a new culture, politics, and lifestyle in a
number of living spaces.
In the description of Castells, network society is a social structure that
depends on the networks operating over information and communication
technologies (2005, 7). When referring to the network society, social rela-
tionships operating in the basis of economy, politics, and culture are men-
tioned in fact: These relationships have a dynamic structure that consistently
changes and transforms; however, the historical processes this structure has
been through could also be mentioned. In this view “information age” makes
a reference to a process in which economy, politics, culture, and all social
thought and practices accordingly go through a reformation restructured over
these networks. The power is also organized in the shape of a network and,
trying to encapsulate the whole society, this network, works to keep the soci-
ety connected to itself over communication networks. In opposition to the
power networks’ effort of establishing hegemony on the society, opponent
movements create their own antinetworks and go into a struggle rendering
the networks of the power noneffective or nonfunctional: “By engaging in
the production of mass media messages, and by developing autonomous Net-
works of horizontal communication, citizens of the Information Age become
able to invent new programs for their lives with their suffering, fears, dreams
and hopes. They build their projects by sharing their experience. They sub-
vert the practice of communication as usual by occuping the medium and
creating the message” (Castells 2012, 9). The power of the opponent move-
ments lies in their success in creating a network; the creation of a social net-
work in the traditional sense was actualized in the basis of developing theirs
against the strategies and tactics of the power and establishing their own
communication networks against the networks of power in this process. It’s
also possible to read this process as a struggle between networks. Today, with
the change of all network structures and new communication networks that
have been created in parallel with this change, the struggle forms between
networks had to transform. The antinetwork has become an international
Social Media R/evolution ix
and effective power in contrast with the globalization of the network of the
power. Rebuilding and use of antinetwork starting with the antiglobalism
movement goes into a new phase with Arab Spring. In this process, anti-
network has become a more effective power than ever before. The creation
of social movements with a rather effective organization and mobilization
power has become possible with the emergence of the structure of traditional
network and digital network in this process. As Negri and Hardt (2012, 90)
state in different parts of the world, occupy movements put down roots on
their individual conditions, took many things from each other’s practice, and
transformed them within the process as well; taking each other’s slogans,
but attributing new meanings to them, and most importantly, regarding
themselves as part of a project. A powerful social network was created in the
process in which the street actions link with each other in both local places
and the international field over social media, with each practice interacting
with the other, including and transcending it. The hybrid structure of this
network does not exclude the street, although it locates the social media in
the center. This new hybrid-network society became possible with the reflec-
tion of the network created over social media in the street. Social media
activism turned out to be able to become an effective power when it reached
out to the streets and squares. The fact that any opposition which remained
close in the discursive field had no power to transform real life and that the
actual transformation would be realized with actions was also recalled in this
process: “The encampments and occupations of 2011 have rediscovered this
truth of communication. Facebook, Twitter, the Internet, and other kinds of
communications mechanisms are useful, but nothing can replace the being
together of bodies and the corporeal communication that is the basis of col-
lective political intelligence and action” (Hardt and Negri 2012, 21). While
Castells defines Arab insurrections as the spontaneous processes of mobiliza-
tion which occurred by the calls from Internet and wireless communication
technologies by depending on both digital and face-to-face social networks
preexisting in the society (2012, 102), he introduces the characteristic of this
hybrid network. A movement that does not occur in the streets has no chance
to be successful against the state. The street is the only medium where all
the oppressed who cannot use the opportunities of social media can express
themselves; for this reason, the mobilization of the struggle against power
that starts on the basis of social media has to be maintained in different ways
in the street. In this process, traditional forms of struggle and communica-
tion strategies are also used, and hybrid networks of power in which the
opportunities of social media and traditional media cooperate are created. It
was observed that social media and traditional media were hybridly used at
different levels and forms in all of the street actions before and after Arab
Spring (Gerbaudo 2012; Castells 2012).