Media, Protests and Social Movements

Question 1

what is Mario Diani’s definition of a social movement?

Answer 1

a social movement is a network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups or organisations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict on the basis of a shared collective identity.

Question 2

give some characteristics of social movements

Answer 2

• collective organised efforts at social change

- engaging in a conflictual issue with a powerful opponent not one off events

Question 3

give 2 examples of social movements

Answer 3

• the labour movement - campaign for legislative change such as the 8 hour day and social reforms
• the US civil rights movement - aimed to end racial segregation and discrimination against black americans

Question 4

give a quote from Malcolm X about media

Answer 4

“if you’re not careful the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

Question 5

new social movements are aware that the ‘whole world is watching’ they are very media conscious. what does Melucci say about them?

Answer 5

they move between periods of disability and are submerged networks

Question 6

what is dissemination?

Answer 6

spreading an issue to get it into popular discourse

Question 7

what did Della and Dioni say protest is concerned with?

Answer 7

building support

Question 8

what is mobilisation?

Answer 8

use of the media to gain support and some sort of recruitment

Question 9

what is Goffman’s definition of frames?

Answer 9

frames are schemes of interpretation that allow us to identify and label events.
frames depends somewhat on the media but media frames and activist frames are very different

Question 10

what does the activist Watson say about how social movements can use the media to expose themselves and their message?

Answer 10

“the more dramatic you can make it, the more controversial it is, the more publicity you will get.”

Question 11

why, according to Porta, does media tend not to be interested in protests?

Answer 11

there tends not to be any social capital to benefit journalists

Question 12

according to Wouters, what makes a protest newsworthy?

Answer 12

the site of demonstrations

Question 13

what are the three things that media dedicated space to social movement activities are based on?

Answer 13

• visibility (issue already prominent in other media)
• responses by key actors
• legitimacy - according to Koopman’s the degree of perceived support

Question 14

Who talks about the change in the threshold of newsworthiness for social protests? he says that in todays society social movements have to do more outrageous things to attract media coverage….

Answer 14

Gitlin

“a picket line might have been news in 1965; it took tear gas and bloodied heads to make headlines in 1968.”

Question 15

what does Habermas say the public sphere is?

Answer 15

a social space where private citizens gather as a public body in order to form public opinion. there is an emphasis on rational speech and suspicion of emotion and images

Question 16

Who says that the most important public discussions take place via screens and that TV and internet have transformed the social world in a constant current of images and words?

Answer 16

Deluca

Question 17

what do Bolton and Grusin say about the public screen being a sign of hypermediation?

Answer 17

it is a space where representation is conceived of not as a window onto the world but rather as windowed itself, with windows that open on to other representations.

Question 18

explain Baudrillards simulacra

Answer 18

in post modern society our culture has become so reliant on models and maps that we have lost all contact with the real world that preceded the map. reality itself has begun to merely imitate the model which now precedes and determines the real world

Question 19

in DeBord’s society of the spectacle there is a tendency to…

Answer 19

.. emphasis images not words, emotion not reason, speed not reflection

Question 20

what does Peeples say and why is this not necessarily the case?

Answer 20

that the public recognises that most, and the most important public discussions take place via screens - tv, computers and newspapers. although this isn’t necessarily the case, the media shows it to be important and so chooses the events which people become aware of and agree that those are the ‘important events’

Question 21

what does Dennis say about citizen journalism?

Answer 21

it is a form of reportage that blends on-the-ground citizen news collecting - analysing and disseminating, with a form of participatory surveillance

Question 22

give an example of something that made citizen journalism a big thing

Answer 22

camcorders in the 1990’s and smart phones more recently

Question 23

what is sousveillience ? give an example

Answer 23

looking up from below - recording from below e.g. police beating of rodney king sparking riots in 1992 LA.

Question 24

what does the fact that media today allows live streaming and recording mean for social movements?

Answer 24

• the spread word of things that would never make it into mainstream media
• activist videos are used in court on both sides

Question 25

who called citizen journalism post-journalism?

Answer 25

Altheide and Snow

Question 26

how can citizen journalism be linked to Chomsky’s filters?

Answer 26

there is no need for an advertising filter since citizen journalism with use of social media doesn’t rely on advertising

Question 27

explain Gerbaudo’s Facebook and twitter revolutions

Answer 27

he disagrees with techno-optimism - the idea that social media is liberating. he argues networks can’t organise strategically. useless information and comical pieces are mixed in with more serious citizen journalism. he also says that the fetishisation of social media shows no understanding of collective action or what people actually do