scholarly journals Social Protest

Communication ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Loya ◽  
Doug McLeod
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Rapid Evolution ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
The Impact

Social protest is a form of political expression that seeks to bring about social or political change by influencing the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of the public or the policies of an organization or institution. Protests often take the form of overt public displays, demonstrations, and civil disobedience, but may also include covert activities such as petitions, boycotts/buycotts, lobbying, and various online activities. Protest activities motivated by both individual rewards (including a variety of personal benefits and gratifications) and collective incentives (benefits that are realized by a large class of individuals that does not necessarily include all individual protesters). Most protests represent the collective interests and issues of activist groups, coalitions, or social movements that challenge mainstream institutions. In the process, they serve a number of important democratic functions, including providing opportunities for participation and expression for individuals, and as a potential engine of social change for communities and nations. Communication is central to the success of a protest group by facilitating information exchange, mobilization, coordination, integration, identity formation, and many other essential functions. Researchers from communication, political science, and sociology fields contributed to this literature and investigated a variety of types of protests—antiwar, environmental, racial, civil rights, and gender to name a few. Research examines the content of news coverage of social protest, as well as its antecedents and consequences. Research on protest news content is a lot more plentiful than research on the effects of such content. Such research not only has revealed the limits of traditional mass media coverage, but also offers hope in the form of optimism regarding the benefits of new digital communication technologies. In the ten years since this article was originally published, communication research continues to explore diverse social protest contexts and emphasizes the impact of social media even more than before. While researchers share common theoretical backgrounds in classic social movement research, the rapidly evolving media landscape invites discussion on the ability of classic theories to adequately explain highly mediated contemporary protests. For example, protest coverage may be shifting away from episodic framing to thematic framing as news analysis and opinion-laden journalism supplant traditional hard news forms. The ascendance of partisan media and the emergence of social media bots may be increasing public susceptibility to misinformation and manipulation. Finally, protests in the modern age are more chaotic, less predictable, and increasingly global. At the time of writing, protests are occurring all around the world in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the police killing of George Floyd, suggesting the potential for social protest to sway public perceptions and effect significant social change. Given the unprecedented frequency and scale of social protests around the globe and the rapid evolution of media systems in the digital age, theory and research on media and social protest may look very different over the course of the next decade.

scholarly journals Social Media and the New Newsreel

Media-N ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-18
Author(s):  
Erica Levin
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Digital Videos ◽  
Social Body ◽  
Political Dissent ◽  
Experimental Media ◽  
Historical Moment

The online circulation of raw footage from live streams, cell phones, and police dash-cams has fueled much political dissent in recent years, from Occupy Wall Street to the protests surrounding the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and others. This essay looks at experimental moving image works made in response to these contemporary dynamics of protest. It offers a comparative analysis of short digital videos by Jem Cohen and Alex Johnson, both of whom embrace the newsreel as a radical genre, making direct reference to earlier generations of filmmakers who did the same. Cohen’s Gravity Hill Newsreels (2011) offer a series of immersive observational studies of the Occupy demonstrations and Zuccotti Park encampment. In a more directly referential mode, Johnson’s Now! Again! (2014) appropriates Santiago Alvarez’s Now! (1965), a Cuban newsreel made by animating photographs depicting the civil rights struggle. Johnston juxtaposes this imagery with media coverage of protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Michael Brown in August 2014. Fifty years ago, radical filmmakers of Alvarez’s generation urged newsreel audiences to recognize themselves as a social body, sharing a stake in the struggles depicted on screen. Today, the currency of “newsreel” as a political mode of experimental media is less certain. Although the experimental videos at issue here could be read as nostalgic for conditions of cinematic exhibition long since eclipsed by the dominance of social media, I argue instead that they engage the current mediation of political unrest in order to explore the indeterminacy of the social body to which it gives rise. Calling attention to rifts in the visual field and the seams that bind one historical moment to another, these works are guided by a desire to grasp the historicity of newsreel as a form enlisted to play a participatory role in social protest. In each case, newsreel provides new forms for responding to urgent events that cut against the temporality and visual codes of social media, opening up new space to share the world differently.

Lawyers as Activists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Dorf ◽  
Michael S. Chu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Court Action ◽  
The Government ◽  
Trump Administration

Lawyers played a key role in challenging the Trump administration’s Travel Ban on entry into the United States of nationals from various majority-Muslim nations. Responding to calls from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which were amplified by social media, lawyers responded to the Travel Ban’s chaotic rollout by providing assistance to foreign travelers at airports. Their efforts led to initial court victories, which in turn led the government to soften the Ban somewhat in two superseding executive actions. The lawyers’ work also contributed to the broader resistance to the Trump administration by dramatizing its bigotry, callousness, cruelty, and lawlessness. The efficacy of the lawyers’ resistance to the Travel Ban shows that, contrary to strong claims about the limits of court action, litigation can promote social change. General lessons about lawyer activism in ordinary times are difficult to draw, however, because of the extraordinary threat Trump poses to civil rights and the rule of law.

Just Like Leaves in the Wind? Exploring the Effect of the Interplay of Media Coverage and Personal Characteristics on Issue Salience

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agatha Kratz ◽  
Harald Schoen
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Panel Data ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Issue Salience ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
The Impact

This chapter explores the effect of the interplay of personal characteristics and news coverage on issue salience during the 2009 to 2015 period and during the election campaign in 2013. We selected four topics that played a considerable role during this period: the labor market, pensions and healthcare, immigration, and the financial crisis. The evidence from pooled cross-sectional data and panel data supports the notion that news coverage affects citizens’ issue salience. For obtrusive issues, news coverage does not play as large a role as for rather remote topics like the financial crisis and immigration. The results also lend credence to the idea that political predilections and other individual differences are related to issue salience and constrain the impact of news coverage on voters’ issue salience. However, the evidence for the interplay of individual differences and media coverage proved mild at best.

scholarly journals CONQUERING MEDIA COVERAGE: The use of battle metaphors in hospital foundation communications and it's impact on news coverage

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Hospital Staff ◽  
Fiscal Year ◽  
Public Action ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Patient Families ◽  
The Media ◽  
Setting Theory ◽  
The Impact

Battle terminology such as “fight,” “conquer,” and “hero” and imagery that compares doctors and patients to superheroes, soldiers and athletes have become increasingly prevalent in hospital foundation communications. The use of these metaphors has been highly controversial. While some audiences have praised foundation campaigns that use this type of messaging for emphasizing the strength of patients and hospital staff, encouraging patient families, and motivating patients to be resilient, others argue that these campaigns marginalize those who are unable to overcome their health conditions, positioning them as failures or losers. While the use of battle metaphors in hospital communications has been a heated topic in online discussion, little is known about the impact of this language on the media coverage and financial support that they generate for hospitals. This paper presents a multimodal discourse analysis of the communications of six hospital foundations in Toronto, Canada followed by a quantitative and sentiment analysis of the media coverage each foundation has received within the last fiscal year. The aim of this paper is to determine if there is a relationship between the use of battle metaphors in hospital foundation communications and the amount and sentiment of media coverage. According to agenda setting theory, media coverage has a palpable impact on public action. Therefore, the findings of this research may assist hospital foundations in developing useful communications practices they can employ to increase media exposure and, consequently, attract more donations to support their institutions.

scholarly journals The Influence of YouTube Beauty Vloggers on Indonesian Consumers’ Purchase Intention of Local Cosmetic Products

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 100
Author(s):  
Jui-Lung Chen ◽  
Apritika Dermawan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Purchase Intention ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Marketing Tool ◽  
Willingness To Purchase ◽  
The Impact

Social media are web-based technology and social platform that involve social, personal and technological factors, which have triggered the development and evolution of website-based communities. Moreover, relevant web-based applications have also become the mainstream media for value creation and information exchange. The proliferation, convenience, and immediacy of social media have attracted many enterprises to adopt social media as a marketing tool. Among them, Electronic Word-of-Mouth (E-WoM), used mostly by vloggers (video bloggers), enables its users to review products and express their opinions on social media. Therefore, E-WoM has gradually become an important source of information for consumers, which influences their purchasing decisions. YouTube, a video sharing platform affiliated with Google, is a popular social media with tons of users. One of its most appealing and popular communities is Beauty Blogger, where beauty vloggers create and upload videos about beauty products. This study explored the impact of YouTube beauty vlogger on the attitude of Indonesian women towards locally made cosmetics and their willingness to purchase them. Based on the research results, relevant conclusions and recommendations were proposed which can be used as a reference for future research and practical applications.

The Web of Hate: Fragmentation of Media Authority and its Link to Right-Wing Populism and Cyber Islamophobia

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-243
Author(s):  
Zeynep Aydin ◽  
◽  
Albrecht Fuess ◽  
Thijl Sunier ◽  
Araceli González Vázquez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Terror Attacks ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Blowing Up ◽  
Echo Chamber ◽  
Right Wing Populism

The twenty-first century has been marked strongly with two extremely significant developments, firstly the increase in international terror attacks and secondly the evolution of media and information consumption based on technological advancements. These phenomena together have led to the figurative and literal blowing up of mass media coverage, but, increasingly and more importantly, social media traffic. This shift in information consumption by the general public, especially after terror attacks, is leading to a fragmentation of authority that traditional media gained after years of being the monopoly of verified information exchange. The increased usage and wide accessibility of social media is allowing more people to feel connected globally after terror attacks and is leading to the creation of mediascapes by defining in-groups of like-minded people against Islam, as a common enemy, which leads to a drastic increase in online hate against Islam and Muslims. Digital mediascapes therefore have the ability to unify participants around an “us” that is specifically against the “other” that is labeled as an enemy. Islamophobia thus has become a useful tool for right-wing populists not only to gather a large following online but for right-wing parties to assemble electors in several European nation-states. This, in turn, can provoke the escalation of right-wing populism where people, who are experiencing the echo chamber first hand or those perceiving the viral developments from outside, can become easy prey for political influence. Therefore, social media groups, hashtags and sites can be seen as the feeding ground for right-wing populist political parties. Keywords: Echo-chamber, Islamophobia, cyberspace, social media, right-wing populism.

Who is Setting Emotions? A Comparative Study on Emotion Diffusion in Social Media among Public, Government and Media during the COVID-19 Pandemic in China (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuhuan Zhou ◽  
Yi Wang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Time Point

BACKGROUND During the COVID-19 outbreak, social media served as the main platform for information exchange, through which the Chinese government, media and public would spread information. At the same time, a variety of emotions interweave, and the public emotions would also be affected by the government and media. OBJECTIVE This study aims to investigate the types, trends and relationships of emotional diffusion in Chinese social media among the public, the government and the media under the pandemic of COVID-19 (December 30,2019, to July 1,2020) . METHODS In this paper, Python 3.7.0 and its data crawling framework Scrapy 1.5.1 are used to write a web crawler program to search for super topics related to COVID-19 on Sina Weibo platform of different keywords . Then, we used emotional lexicon to analyze the types and trends of the public, government and media emotions on social media. Finally cross-lagged regression was applied to build the relationships of different subjects’ emotions. RESULTS The highlights of our study are threefold: (1) The public, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic in China; (2) Emotional diffusion shows a certain change over time, and negative emotions are obvious in the initial phase of the pandemic, with the development of the pandemic, positive emotions surpass negative emotions and remain stable. (3)The impact among the three main emotions with the period as the time point is weak, while the impact of emotion with the day as the time point is relatively obvious. The emotions of the public and the government impact each other, and the media emotions can guide the public emotions. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study of comparing pubic, government and media emotions on the social media during COVID-19 pandemic in China. The pubic, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the pandemic. And the government and the media have better effect on short-term emotional guidance. Therefore, when the pandemic suddenly occurs, the government and the media should intervene in time to solve problems and conflicts and diffuse positive and neutral emotions. In this regard, the government and the media can play important roles through social media in the major outbreaks. At the theoretical level, this paper takes China's epidemic environment and social media as the background to provide one of the explanatory perspectives for the spread of emotions on social media. At the some time, because of this special background, it can provide comparison and reference for the research on internet emotions in other countries.

Corruption in the Public Eye

2014 ◽  
pp. 258-272
Author(s):  
Elitza Katzarova
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Negotiation Strategy ◽  
The Public ◽  
First Case ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Analytical Tools

What role is there for publicity in the global anti-corruption debate? This chapter introduces the concepts of “transparency” and “publicity” as analytical tools that account for differentiated channels through which the availability of information can induce social change. Two case studies provide insights into the role of traditional media in comparison to new social media. The first case analyzes the role of Western news coverage during the negotiations of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in the mid-1990s and the threat of publicity as a negotiation strategy. The second case investigates the role of social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube in the success of the anti-corruption strike carried out by Indian social activist Anna Hazare in 2011. By introducing and further applying the conceptual toolkit of “transparency” and “publicity” to both cases, this chapter argues that transparency requires publicity or in the case of the OECD negotiations—the threat of publicity—in order for the anti-corruption campaign to be successful. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ramifications for transparency and publicity as tools for social change.

Explaining Public Support for the Use of Military Force: The Impact of Reference Point Framing and Prospective Decision Making

2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Héctor Perla
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Support ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis article examines the determinants of public support for the use of military force. It puts forward a Framing Theory of Policy Objectives (FTPO), which contends that public support for military engagements depends on the public's perception of the policy's objective. However, it is difficult for the public to judge a policy's objective because they cannot directly observe a policy's true intention and influential political actors offer competing frames to define it. This framing contestation, carried out through the media, sets the public's decision-making reference point and determines whether the policy is perceived as seeking to avoid losses or to achieve gains. The FTPO predicts that support will increase when the public perceives policies as seeking to prevent losses and decrease when the public judges policies to be seeking gains. I operationalize and test the theory using content analysis of national news coverage and opinion polls of U.S. intervention in Central America during the 1980s. These framing effects are found to hold regardless of positive or negative valence of media coverage.

scholarly journals The Green Revolution: Social Change through Social Media

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 146-152
Author(s):  
Veena Tripathi ◽  
Dhriti Bhattacharjee
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Corporate Sustainability ◽  
Green Revolution ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Parent Organization ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

The advent of the internet changed the way we communicate forever. It became such a potent force that it was recommended as a nominee for Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year.” The world became euphoric about how this technology was changing the way we think. The changes were being brought about by people and that they were the change agents. It is required to understand the key concepts behind the emergence of social change through social media and their support in creating sustainability. This paper will report a study of five Indian social campaigns, right from their birth to the phase where they were no longer within the control of their parent organization but became a movement in their own rights. It is an exploratory study aimed at understanding the way social media works and how private organizations can also bring about a public change. The study will cover social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and organizational blogs. The variables will be drawn from the corporate sustainability reports, social media venues, working papers and other research studies. These factors and variables can be correlated to sustainability through which the objective to analyse the impact of social change through social media can be achieved. With sustainability becoming a mandate for big companies in India, this study will help in understanding how social media can play a decisive role in their sustainability policies. Int. J. Soc. Sc. Manage. Vol. 3, Issue-3: 146-152

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