Media, Protests and Social Movements Flashcards
what is Mario Diani’s definition of a social movement?
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.
give some characteristics of social movements
- collective organised efforts at social change
- engaging in a conflictual issue with a powerful opponent not one off events
give 2 examples of social movements
- 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
give a quote from Malcolm X about media
“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.”
new social movements are aware that the ‘whole world is watching’ they are very media conscious. what does Melucci say about them?
they move between periods of disability and are submerged networks
what is dissemination?
spreading an issue to get it into popular discourse
what did Della and Dioni say protest is concerned with?
building support
what is mobilisation?
use of the media to gain support and some sort of recruitment
what is Goffman’s definition of frames?
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
what does the activist Watson say about how social movements can use the media to expose themselves and their message?
“the more dramatic you can make it, the more controversial it is, the more publicity you will get.”
why, according to Porta, does media tend not to be interested in protests?
there tends not to be any social capital to benefit journalists
according to Wouters, what makes a protest newsworthy?
the site of demonstrations
what are the three things that media dedicated space to social movement activities are based on?
- visibility (issue already prominent in other media)
- responses by key actors
- legitimacy - according to Koopman’s the degree of perceived support
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….
Gitlin
“a picket line might have been news in 1965; it took tear gas and bloodied heads to make headlines in 1968.”
what does Habermas say the public sphere is?
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
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?
Deluca
what do Bolton and Grusin say about the public screen being a sign of hypermediation?
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.
explain Baudrillards simulacra
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
in DeBord’s society of the spectacle there is a tendency to…
.. emphasis images not words, emotion not reason, speed not reflection
what does Peeples say and why is this not necessarily the case?
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’
what does Dennis say about citizen journalism?
it is a form of reportage that blends on-the-ground citizen news collecting - analysing and disseminating, with a form of participatory surveillance
give an example of something that made citizen journalism a big thing
camcorders in the 1990’s and smart phones more recently
what is sousveillience ? give an example
looking up from below - recording from below e.g. police beating of rodney king sparking riots in 1992 LA.
what does the fact that media today allows live streaming and recording mean for social movements?
- the spread word of things that would never make it into mainstream media
- activist videos are used in court on both sides
