Evan Mawarire’s #ThisFlag as Tactical Lyric: The Role of Digital Speech in Imagining a Networked Zimbabwean Nation

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 238-257
Author(s):  
Susanna L. Sacks
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Protest Movement ◽  
Colonial Resistance ◽  
Robert Mugabe ◽  
Grounded Action

Abstract:Evan Mawarire’s poetic video “This Flag,” first posted on Facebook on April 20, 2016, mobilized an international protest movement against then-president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe between April and September of 2016. In the video, Mawarire built on the poetics of anti-colonial resistance and nationalization to create a rallying cry. The piece’s remediation through the hashtag channel #ThisFlag created rhetorical links between digital organizing and grounded action. This literary perspective on contemporary discussions of social media and collective identity formation shows how the poetic elements of the video enabled Mawarire’s claim to spread and motivate a grounded movement.

Social Media and Identity

2019 ◽  
pp. 1365-1386
Author(s):  
Erika Melonashi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Identity Development ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Media And Identity

The present chapter aims to explore the relationship between social media and identity by reviewing theoretical frameworks as well as empirical studies on the topic. Considering the complexity of the concept of identity, a multidisciplinary theoretical approach is provided, including Psychological Theories, Sociological Theories and Communication Theories. These theories are revisited in the context of online identity formation and communication through social media. Different aspects of identity such as gender identity, professional identity, political identity etc., are discussed and illustrated through empirical studies in the field. Moreover, the role of social media as a factor that might either promote or hinder identity development is also discussed (e.g., phenomena such as cyber-bulling and internet addiction). Finally recommendations and suggestions for future research are provided, including the need for multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks to the investigation of the relationships between social media and identity.

Upvoting extremism: Collective identity formation and the extreme right on Reddit

2020 ◽  
pp. 146144482095812
Author(s):  
Tiana Gaudette ◽  
Ryan Scrivens ◽  
Garth Davies ◽  
Richard Frank
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Extreme Right ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
Aggregation Site ◽  
Social News

Since the advent of the Internet, right-wing extremists and those who subscribe to extreme right views have exploited online platforms to build a collective identity among the like-minded. Research in this area has largely focused on extremists’ use of websites, forums, and mainstream social media sites, but overlooked in this research has been an exploration of the popular social news aggregation site Reddit. The current study explores the role of Reddit’s unique voting algorithm in facilitating “othering” discourse and, by extension, collective identity formation among members of a notoriously hateful subreddit community, r/The_Donald. The results of the thematic analysis indicate that those who post extreme-right content on r/The_Donald use Reddit’s voting algorithm as a tool to mobilize like-minded members by promoting extreme discourses against two prominent out-groups: Muslims and the Left. Overall, r/The_Donald’s “sense of community” facilitates identity work among its members by creating an environment wherein extreme right views are continuously validated.

scholarly journals The symbol of social media in contemporary protest: Twitter and the Gezi Park movement

2020 ◽  
pp. 135485652093374
Author(s):  
Olu Jenzen ◽  
Itir Erhart ◽  
Hande Eslen-Ziya ◽  
Umut Korkut ◽  
Aidan McGarry
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Information Sharing ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Visual Analysis ◽  
Main Emphasis ◽  
Media Practices

This article explores how Twitter has emerged as a signifier of contemporary protest. Using the concept of ‘social media imaginaries’, a derivative of the broader field of ‘media imaginaries’, our analysis seeks to offer new insights into activists’ relation to and conceptualisation of social media and how it shapes their digital media practices. Extending the concept of media imaginaries to include analysis of protestors’ use of aesthetics, it aims to unpick how a particular ‘social media imaginary’ is constructed and informs their collective identity. Using the Gezi Park protest of 2013 as a case study, it illustrates how social media became a symbolic part of the protest movement by providing the visualised possibility of imagining the movement. In previous research, the main emphasis has been given to the functionality of social media as a means of information sharing and a tool for protest organisation. This article seeks to redress this by directing our attention to the role of visual communication in online protest expressions and thus also illustrates the role of visual analysis in social movement studies.

scholarly journals Identity Crisis: The Agency of Instagram in Schools of Architecture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Smith ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
Prospective Student ◽  
Representational Practice ◽  
Contemporary Architecture

The focus of this paper addresses themes of neoliberalism, university commercialization and marketing, architecture school identity formation as a representational practice through social media, and the role of image curation and its production in contemporary architecture. This paper emerged after hearing the phrase ‘buyer’s motive,’ which explained what schools needed to consider for attracting students to their programs at a conference by Ruffalo Noel Levtiz on recruitment, marketing, and retention in higher education in the United States. The use of the word, ‘buyer’, instead of ‘student’, or ‘prospective student’, or ‘learner’ seemingly transformed the production of engaged education to its passive consumption.

scholarly journals A Consideration of the Relationship Between Music and Collective Identity: From the Viewpoint of Cultural Psychology of Music

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Đorđević
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Cultural Artifact ◽  
Social Trends ◽  
Identity Processes ◽  
Psychology Of Music ◽  
The Relationship

The aim of the present study lies in an effort of converging anthropological, ethnomusicological and psychological approach to the relationship between music and collective identity. Music is considered a socio-cultural artifact, which mediates the processes of collective identity construction, and whose function in such process can be multiple. In order to understand the ways in which it is sutured into (in)formal processes of collective (self)identification, we propose simultaneous consideration of various dimensions: cultural, social, political, psychological. Although there already has been interdisciplinary research of the role of music in the emergence of identity, we advocate for a more complementary approach, by a consideration of the psychological accounts, adjusted to the needs of ethno-anthropological analysis. As the most comprehensive theoretical approach, we propose cultural psychology of music. Future empirical research on specific identity processes mediation by music as cultural artifact, should include the analysis of intersecting local and global social trends, aspects of musicological analysis, specificities of psychological development of identity, the role of socio-political strategies of identity formation, and, last but not least, cultural specificity of the community in focus of the research. We find the complexity of the phenomenon in focus to be obligatory for the complexity of the theoretical and methodological approach.

scholarly journals The Role of Humour in the Process of Collective Identity Formation in Autonomous Social Movement Groups in Contemporary Madrid

2007 ◽  
Vol 52 (S15) ◽  
pp. 243-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Flesher Fominaya
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Charismatic Leadership ◽  
Vertical Movement ◽  
Marginal Group ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Movement Organizations

This article draws on ethnographic research to analyse the role of humour in the process of collective identity formation within autonomous anti-capitalist groups in Madrid. Autonomous groups embrace the principles of horizontality, openness, diversity, participatory democracy, self-organization, and direct action, so defining themselves in contradistinction to more “vertical” movement organizations of the institutional left. The process of collective-identity formation involves both generating a sense of internal cohesion, and projecting an alternative identity. Autonomous groups in Madrid face a double challenge, for they must integrate ideologically heterogeneous activists, and they must define themselves as being alternatives to the much more consolidated groups of the institutional left. I shall analyse the different ways in which humour is used to address both those challenges: to sustain groups over time, to defuse tensions and try to resolve conflict, for myth-making, and to integrate marginal group members. I will also discuss the role humour plays in charismatic leadership and its use in the projection of an alternative political identity in direct actions. Finally, I will discuss the contested nature of humour as a political tool in the context of the Madrid network.

scholarly journals Collaboration and identity formation in strategic interorganizational partnerships: An exploration of swift identity processes

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Ungureanu ◽  
Fabiola Bertolotti ◽  
Elisa Mattarelli ◽  
Francesca Bellesia
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Regional Innovation ◽  
Identity Processes ◽  
Material Artifacts

We investigate how collective identity formation processes interplay with collaboration practices in an inter-organizational partnership promoting regional innovation. We found that initial collaboration challenges are dealt with by setting up an early “swift identity” which is associated with material artifacts to increase its strength and stability (“swift identity reification”). However, as the partnership evolves, the reified identity becomes misaligned with partners’ underdeveloped collaboration practices. To ensure realignment, new attempts at reification are performed, as partners buy time for learning how to collaborate. Our findings contribute to extant identity research by proposing alternative (i.e. “swift” and “reified”) mechanisms of identity formation in contexts characterized by both heterogeneity challenges and integration imperatives. They also integrate the debate about the role of identity formation in the evolution of interorganizational partnerships. For both literatures, we highlight the important role of materiality.

Role of Social Media and Emotion in South Korea’s Presidential Impeachment Protests

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (01) ◽  
pp. 1950002 ◽  
Author(s):  
HEE MIN ◽  
SEONGYI YUN
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Organizational Form ◽  
Collective Actions

Previous studies have shown that social media is effective in large-scale mobilization, facilitating leaderless and more flexible forms of resistance. However, some scholars argue that this type of mobilization suffers from a lack of organizational form and collective identity. This paper shows that social media-centered networks can in fact promote collective actions powerful enough to challenge a corrupt president. We also prove the role of emotions in collective actions. Using an empirical analysis of the 2016 Presidential Impeachment Protests surrounding “Choi Soon-sil Gate,” we first demonstrate the effects of social media activities on participation in collective actions. Next, we explore the effects of anger on social media activities and participation. In short, this study reveals a new angle on social media’s influence in mobilizing collective actions by analyzing the effect of emotions on participation. In this process, social media activities are escalated by emotional outbreaks, and participation then increases throughout a given collective action.

From national identity to state legitimacy: Mobilizing digitally networked publics in eastern Ukraine

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-279
Author(s):  
Olga Boichak ◽  
Sam Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
National Identity ◽  
New Media ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
City Population ◽  
Peace And Conflict ◽  
Networked Publics

Social media enable broad and diverse publics to mobilize around a shared collective identity. In this article, the authors use social movement literature and studies of peace and conflict to foreground the role of platform-mediated communication in creating a national identity in a fragile state. We argue that, by affording activists with a possibility of public, yet anonymous interactions, social media may play a crucial role in conferring state legitimacy during a violent conflict. Investigating the case of Mariupol, Ukraine, where a small group of citizens employed social media to support and legitimize the Ukrainian state among the city population, the authors illuminate the use of new media affordances to construct a national identity among digitally networked publics, mobilizing support for a threatened state.

scholarly journals Pratiche mediali, social media e influencers nella formazione e nell’espressione identitaria dei bambini: una ricerca esplorativa

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-46
Author(s):  
Elena Pacetti ◽  
Alessandro Soriani
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Emilia Romagna Region ◽  
Teachers And Parents ◽  
New Research ◽  
Educational Path

With the spread of social media, we witnessed the multiplication of web’s figures such as influencers and content creators. The pupils in the last years of primary schools (9-11 years old), engaged in a complex task of defining their own identity, are strongly exposed to entertainment contents conveyed by social networks and online video platforms. The present exploratory study, which involved 173 students from a primary school in Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy), aims to investigate the role of social media and influencers in the formation and expression of the identities of children, highlighting a universe little known and only superficially explored by teachers and adults with educational roles. The contribution has the twofold objective of: investigating children’s practices related to social networks (in particular those based on video content such as YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat) to offer an overview of the situation in an age group increasingly targeted by these social networks; making a reflection on how much the figures of content creators and influencers play a role in the identity formation of children in 4th and 5th year of primary school. The results lead to new research questions and educational path to make teachers and parents more aware of this issue.

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