Disability activism in the new media ecology: campaigning strategies in the digital era

This article examines the changing nature of disability activism through the influence of social media. As disabled people in the United Kingdom have been subjected to acute austerity, this has coincided with a new era of disability activism channelled through increased social media participation. Drawing on the analysis of one group’s online activities and a qualitative content analysis of disability protest coverage in traditional news media during the 2012 Paralympic Games, this article positions this shift in the broader framework of ‘new media ecology’. We explore how emerging structures of disability activism have begun to offer a more visible profile to challenge government policy and negative stereotypes of disabled people. This highlights the usefulness of campaigning strategies for generating favourable news coverage for disability protest.     

WAR PROGRAMMING: The Propaganda Project and the Iraq War

The invasion of Iraq was justified to the American people by a sophisticated propaganda campaign that reflected a think tank's vision for a new foreign policy. One objective of this article is to set forth a theoretical argument for analyzing modern propaganda campaigns as a feature of mass-mediated discourse crafted by think tanks and highly organized claims makers. We propose that the current structure of policy and critique is now institutionalized and formatted as War Programming, which connects criticism within a narrative sequence, including critiques and reflections about journalistic failings. The scope of the action is so immense that it precludes and preempts its critique. The second objective is to show how the rationale for the invasion was developed as a "public conspiracy" over a decade by the members of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). The third aim of this article is to describe and clarify why the PNAC plans for Iraq and an imperialist foreign policy received very little news media coverage. Qualitative content analysis of news materials suggests that the news sources and media shared a logic and perspective about "timely and entertaining news." The PNAC plan was not publicized by the major news media because it fell outside the focus of the Bush administration's propaganda campaign to demonize Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein, who was held to be responsible for attacks on the United States. The implications of such a well-organized propaganda campaign for future news coverage of war are discussed.     

Protest Records,Data Validity,and the Mexican Media: Development and Assessment of a Keyword Search Protocol

While considerable attention has been focused in recent years on questions of selection and coverage biases in media-derived protest data, little has been said about the procedures used to sample media records and scant attention has been paid to non-English-language news sources. This article outlines a Spanish-language keyword search protocol for finding protest event articles, and systematically evaluates it in terms of search validity and efficiency using a two-year dataset constructed from a full-text article search of the Mexican national news agency Noticias de Mexico. Results suggest that this protocol generates data with a high degree of search validity with respect to locating reports of conventional protest event forms, but is problematic with respect to the identification of unconventional protest forms. The significance of these findings for the broader investigation of media-derived protest data is discussed, and directions for future research are outlined.     

A movement divided: SlutWalks,protest repertoires and the privilege of nudity

The use of the corporeal female body in social protest has a long and complex history, particularly in anti-gender based violence movements. From early 20th Century suffragists in international coalitions circulating images of women protesters withered by hunger strikes to the more contemporary staging of nude protest by groups like FEMEN, women’s bodies have certainly functioned as powerful symbols. But such repertoires have also been controversial within the movement, as conceptualizations, norms and security surrounding female bodies can vary so much depending on culture and socioeconomic status. This paper uses the 2011–2014 SlutWalk movement to explore the use of female bodies in mobilizations staged by actors across those differences. It investigates the varying degrees of privilege associated with the choice – or choicelessness – protestors encounter when collectively considering effective repertoires. As the discourse unfolded around Slutwalk and who had the ‘right’ or ‘privilege’ to practice nudity as a protest repertoire, it illuminated deep divisions within anti-sexual violence and feminist activism. I argue this created important opportunities for the movement to integrate analysis of structural inequalities beyond gender, particularly in attempts to improve processes of deliberation.     

Demonstrating in the internet age: a test of Castells’ theory

ABSTRACT

Some social movements researchers argue that the Internet globalises protest and equalises cross-national inequalities in opportunities for activism. Critics warn against such techno-optimism, highlighting continued individual-level inequalities and country-level variation in protest participation. In this paper, we operationalise Manuel Castells’ theory of social movement development to test the extent to which contemporary demonstrators share the characteristics of global activists. We also examine how country-level economic and political institutions affect levels of protest and moderate the relationship between individual-level predictors and activism. We find support for Castells’ contention that use of online media is a significant predictor of protest. However, we also find that having a sense of global connectedness does not significantly affect one’s likelihood of engaging in demonstrations. Protest participation continues to be stratified by traditional markers of social privilege including education and gender. Moreover, national political and economic contexts have independent effects on protest and moderate how individual-level political and economic grievances affect civic engagement.     

Local press meets transnational activism: news dynamics in an anti‐WTO protest

Transnational protests often involve a cross‐cultural encounter between “foreign” protesters and the local media and public, whose repertoires of contentious practices and discourses may differ. Examining how transnational and local actors interact in these events is one way to understand the significance and impact of transnational activism. At the same time, local media coverage of transnational protests can also be analyzed as such a cross‐cultural encounter. Following these premises, this article examines Hong Kong media coverage of the transnational protests during the World Trade Organization's 6th Ministerial Conference, which was held in the city in December 2005. The analysis focuses particularly on how this non‐routine news event provided the conditions for a more reflective interactive dynamics between the protesters and journalists, which contributed to emergence of media discourses negotiating and redefining the existing cultural understanding of protest actions. However, the case study also shows the limits regarding how far the redefinition and negotiation can go. Theoretical implications of the analysis are discussed.     

Gone Fishin': A Framing Analysis of the Fight Over a Small Town's City Seal

This study is a framing analysis of regional and national newspaper, Internet, and Associated Press news coverage of a legal dispute over the inclusion of a fish symbol on the city seal in the small town of Republic, Missouri. Analysis of news articles revealed 4 frames. First, news reports framed the dispute as trivial. Second, news accounts framed the plaintiff in the lawsuit against the city as a religious outsider because of her Wiccan beliefs. Third, news accounts framed the dispute in terms of grassroots support for the fish symbol and outside meddlers who opposed the fish symbol. The fourth frame cast the dispute in terms of a battle or holy war.     

Coverage of Marikana: war and conflict and the case for Peace Journalism

Different narratives around the Marikana massacre of August 16, 2012 have emerged in the South African news media with regard to what actually happened, what the underlying causes of the strikes were, and who is to blame. Criticism has been levelled against the mainstream news media with regard to embedded journalism, sensationalised coverage and polarisation of views and stakeholders. For this article, an analysis of news articles on Marikana published in the mainstream South African news media has been conducted. This analysis confirms many of the findings of earlier research and I argue that the form of reporting evident in these findings conforms to what has been labelled “war journalism.” I argue that the coverage of Marikana could have been improved by adopting “Peace Journalism” as a model for reporting.     

Hybrid social and news media protest events: from #MarchinMarch to #BusttheBudget in Australia

Public protest events are now both social media and news media events. They are deeply entangled, with news media actors – such as journalists or news organisations – directly participating in the protest by tweeting about the event using the protest hashtag; and social media actors sharing news items published online by professional news agencies. Protesters have always deployed tactics to engage the media and use news media agencies’ resources to amplify their reach, with the dual aim of mobilising new supporters and adding their voice to public, mediatised debate. When protest moves between a physical space and a virtual space, the interactions between protesters and media stop being asynchronous or post hoc and turn instantaneous. In this new media-protest ecosystem, traditional media are still relevant sources of information and legitimacy, yet this dynamic is increasingly underpinned by a hybrid interdependency between traditional news and social media sources. In this paper we focus on an anti-austerity government movement that arose in Australia in early 2014 and was mobilised as a series of social media driven, connective action protest events. We show that there is a complex symbiotic interdependency between the movement and the traditional media for recognition and amplification of initial protest events, but that over time as media interest wanes, the movements’ network becomes disconnected and momentum is lost. This suggests that the active role traditional media play in protest events is being underestimated in the current research agenda on connective action.     

Gendering Resistance: Multiple Faces of the Kurdish Women's Struggle

The article explores the Kurdish women's movement in Turkey by bridging two forms of resistance: those of guerrilla women fighters and of activist women. Based on my extensive ethnographic and archival research, I ask how women under conditions of war engage in different modes of resistance. In what ways does the “heroic resistance” of guerrilla women resonate with and/or contradict the everyday, “ordinary” struggles of activist women? The potent image of the Kurdish guerrilla woman that emerged in the early 1990s is constitutive of many other modes of political subjectivities, even among women who do not or cannot become guerrillas. One of those subjectivities is that of the activist woman. My analysis suggests that women's activism opens up a middle ground of action between “heroic” and “ordinary” resistance by reconciling revolutionary politics with everyday activism around gender‐based violence, democracy, and human rights. Although both revolutionary movement participants and scholars of revolutionary resistance often contrast the “ordinary” with the realm of armed resistance, this article challenges this dichotomy. I take the two realms of resistance—the ordinary and the heroic—as the core constituents of revolutionary resistance, and I reconsider the gendered interplay between them.     

The saga of the Crown Pilot: framing,reframing, and reconsideration

In 1996, Nabisco discontinued production of its longest running product, the Crown Pilot cracker. This move prompted public protest and subsequently garnered widespread media attention. Based on the sustained news coverage and a barrage of telephone calls, e-mails, and letters, Nabisco eventually relented and resumed production of the Crown Pilot.This case study focuses upon the “frames” used in the media coverage to help audiences interpret news stories about the Crown Pilot situation. The research attempts to explain how the public relations efforts of both the protesters and Nabisco influenced the framing. Because framing choices are among the most critical strategic decisions in the public relations process, the study has ramifications for public relations researchers interested in the concept and practitioners concerned with publicizing a variety of issues.     

MOTIVATIONAL FRAMING AND EFFICACY MAINTENANCE: Animal Rights Activists' Use Of Four Fortifying Strategies

While a great deal of research has documented the role of perceived efficacy in the decision to participate in collective action, less attention has been paid to these perceptions beyond the onset of protest activity. This article uses qualitative data from fieldwork with members of an animal rights group engaged in four different protest campaigns to examine activists' sense of their accomplishments in the context of ongoing activism. Despite feeling quite pessimistic about their chances for success in some of the campaigns, these activists strove to evaluate their efforts positively, using a number of "fortifying strategies" to identify and celebrate their successes—even in the face of apparent defeat. These findings suggest that perceived efficacy is necessary not only for initial participation in protest but must also be maintained for longterm activism.     

‘So few of us and so many of them’

Public protest against the Persian Gulf War in 1990–1 was only part of the story of US American women's resistance to war in general and to that war specifically. Although the gendering of war is seldom discussed outside feminist scholarship, the events of 11 September 2001 and its aftermath as well as all events and processes having to do with war are gendered events and processes. Both women and men participate in war in various ways, some of which, particularly in the case of women, are either not noticed, are deliberately ignored or made invisible. In this essay, the stories of some women who protested the Persian Gulf War are represented alongside questions that their narratives prompted about what constitutes anti-war work, and what the ramifications of such work are in the present international context.     

LGBT Religious Activism: Predicting State Variations in the Number of Metropolitan Community Churches, 1974–2000

Armstrong and Bernstein (2008) critique the emphasis movement scholars place upon activism within the formal political sphere, proposing, instead, a multi‐institutional approach which argues that protest can occur within any social institution and that the desired outcomes of activism can include cultural outcomes. The goal of this article is to expand the range of social movement targets studied through an examination of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activism within the institution of religion. In the United States, religion, particularly Christianity, is used as the primary justification for defining same‐sex sexuality as undesirable and denying LGBT individuals full citizenship. The LGBT community challenges these traditional Christian definitions of same‐sex sexuality in numerous ways, including through the creation of LGBT‐affirming congregations. I examine the development and spread of congregations affiliated with the United Federation of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), an LGBT‐affirmative denomination, across all 50 states from 1974 to 2000. Drawing upon organizational ecology, resource mobilization, political opportunity, and theories of religious switching, I find that the distribution of UFMCC congregations challenges the usefulness of traditional explanations for activism.     

Local Rites and Body Politics

The growing awareness of violence against women has resulted in endorsement of various international codes and conventions relating to physical, psychological and sexual violence. Female genital mutilation is one form of violence against women that has polarized people within and across national borders. Here, I explore its popular representation, consider how activism against genital mutilation has been confounded by sex and race and how activism to eradicate the practice is understood by immigrant women in Australia. In doing this, I draw on research conducted with women immigrants to Australia from north Africa (the Sahel areas) and the Middle East, from countries where female genital mutilation is most common. These women are often frustrated by what they see as contradictions in hospital policy and practice that arise in response to their requests to be reinfibulated after childbirth. I tease out the dilemmas that emerge when refusal is contrasted with other permissible practices of the body, such as hymen reconstruction, and given the commodification of bodies and related issues of age and agency, the individual and the community. The perceived discrepancies suggest to these African women that rights discourse is discriminatory, racist and informed by sensational portrayals of traditional practices. I question the ethics, values and rights that inform public discourse about sexual and reproductive rights, when women’s rights and values are so discrepant from our own ideals.     

I Was a Teenage Vegan: Motivation and Maintenance of Lifestyle Movements

Recent research has pointed to the rise of socially conscious consumption and of lifestyle movements or social movements that focus on changing one's everyday lifestyle choices as a form of protest. Much of this research addresses how adults maintain socially conscious consumption practices. Using interviews with youths who are vegan—strict vegetarians who exclude all animal products from their diet and lifestyle—I isolate the factors influencing recruitment into and retention of veganism as a lifestyle movement. I show that initial recruitment requires learning, reflection, and identity work, and that subsequent retention requires two factors: social support from friends and family, and cultural tools that provide the skills and motivation to maintain lifestyle activism. I also show how participation in the punk subculture further facilitated these processes. This work contributes to studies of youth subcultures and social movements by showing how the two intersect in lifestyle movement activism.     

Adding time to social movement diffusion

ABSTRACT

There is now a substantial literature on the diffusion of protest events, tactics, identities, and frames between locations and among movements. This paper asks how the patterns identified in this literature may change as the time scale of diffusion extends across single cycles of protest and beyond the life spans of individual activists. I focus especially on two types of differences: the changing weight of relational and non-relational channels of diffusion; and ways in which, over longer stretches of time, the mediation of diffusion by formal organizations, institutions, and public history works to filter the influence of past activism.     

Network centrality and social movement media coverage: A two-mode network analytic approach

This article examines the relationship between structural location (namely, degree centrality) and news media coverage. Our central hypothesis is that the network centrality of social movement actors is positively associated with the prevalence of actors being cited in the print news media. This paper uses two-mode data from a communication network of environmentalists in British Columbia, and examines the relationship between their structural location and the frequency by which they are cited in newsprint media with regard to particular frames (about forest conservation, environmental protest, and related issues). We asked a sample of social movement participants about their ties to a target list of relatively high profile actors (environmental activists). We turned the resulting network matrix into a bipartite graph that examined the relationships amongst the target actors vis a vis the respondents. Next we calculated point in-degree for the target actors. For the target actors we also have data from a representative sample of 957 print news articles about forestry and conservation of old growth forests in British Columbia. We compare the effects of network centrality of the target actor versus several attributes of the target actors (gender, level of radicalism, leadership status) on the amount of media coverage that each of the target actors receives. We find that network centrality is associated with media coverage controlling for actor attributes. We discuss theoretical implications of this research. Finally, we also discuss the methodological pros and cons of using a “target name roster” to construct two-mode data on social movement activists.     

THEORIZING THE FORM OF MEDIA COVERAGE OVER TIME

Because the media plays a critical role in cross‐cultural communication, bias in the portrayal of particular cultures is an important issue. In this article, we use the form of newspaper articles over time to arbitrate between two competing theories of media coverage: Is the media primarily driven by self‐interest, that is, the need to sell newspapers, or is it driven primarily by the same principled ideas that fuel international activism? Analyzing international newspaper articles on female genital cutting from 1978 to 1998, we find a close correspondence to international activism. Tracing the strategies of “transnational advocacy networks,’ most articles are primarily devoted to leverage and accountability themes. Further, the ultimate decrease in articles on female genital cutting was not preceded by a decrease in articles designed to shock readers but rather by a peak in stories that emphasized the accountability of governments to eradicate female genital cutting. Over time, perhaps as the appropriateness of action became more taken for granted, there were fewer news stories on proposed solutions but relatively more news stories on success and implementation.     

Casting the 2000 U.S. Presidential Primaries

This article examines the 2000 U.S. presidential primaries as a case study in "casting" by early journalistic and polling choices. Casting is a strong series of candidate expectations expressed by news organizations early in campaigns. Often casting choices are based significantly on early polls (and campaign cash), and sometimes they can become self-fulfilling prophecies as campaign coverage and elections move forward.

The author argues that casting occurs in regularly scheduled and significant news stories. The news choices fulfill both organizational needs and the routines of dramatic storytelling. The researcher examined polls and news coverage in the primary season from January 1 until March 14, 2000. News coverage was determined by daily keyword searches on Lexis-Nexis for each of nine candidates. The researcher tracked not only overall news coverage, but also news attention per polling point. Casting was clear: Al Gore and George W. Bush as extensively-covered front runners, a "serious candidates" field covered more extensively than their initial poll numbers would seem to justify, and nearly invisible "immediate also-rans."