Sport, Twitter Hashtags, and the Public Sphere: A Qualitative Test of the Phenomenon Through a Curt Schilling Case Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 389-400
Author(s):  
Brendan O’Hallarn ◽  
Stephen L. Shapiro ◽  
Marion E. Hambrick ◽  
D.E. Wittkower ◽  
Lynn Ridinger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
Negative Behaviors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Qualitative Test ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Ideal

Popular social media platforms have faced recent criticism because of the tendency for users to exhibit strongly negative behaviors, threatening the open, prodemocratic discourse that proponents believe was made possible when social media sites first gained widespread adoption a decade ago. A conceptual model suggests that the microblogging site Twitter, and especially sport-themed debate through hashtags, can still realize these ideals. Analyzing a dataset of tweets about the firing of former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling by ESPN on April 20, 2016, as well as a qualitative questionnaire given to the users of the hashtag, this study attempted to ascertain how closely the discourse comes to realizing the ideal of the Habermasian public sphere. The findings demonstrate that although users draw value from participation in the discussion, they are less inclined to desire interaction with other hashtag users, particularly those who disagree with them. This suggests that Twitter hashtags provide an open forum that approaches the participatory requirement of the public sphere, but the lack of back-and-forth engagement suggests the medium is not ideal for the generation of deliberative public opinion.

scholarly journals Social Media Strategies of Right-Wing Movements - The Radicalization of Pegida

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carsten Schwemmer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Exogenous Shocks ◽  
User Activity ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper investigates how right-wing movements strategically utilize social media for communication with supporters. I argue that movements seek to maximize user activity on social media platforms for increasing on-site mobilization. To examine what factors affect social media activity and how right-wing movements strategically adjust their content, I analyze the German right-wing movement Pegida, which uses Facebook for spreading its anti-Islam agenda and promoting events in the Internet. Data from Pegida’s Facebook page are combined with news reports over a period of 18 months to measure activity on Facebook and in the public sphere simultaneously. Results of quantitative text and time series analysis show that the quantity of posts by Pegida does not increase user activity, but it is the content of posts that matters. Moreover, findings highlight a strong connection between Facebook activities and the public sphere. In times of decreasing public attention, the movement changes its social media strategy in response to exogenous shocks and resorts increasingly to radical mobilization methods.

scholarly journals To Whom Do Politicians Talk and Listen? : Mapping Swiss Politicians’ Public Sphere on Twitter

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-202
Author(s):  
Tobias R. Keller
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Public ◽  
Automated Content Analysis ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Media ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Mps I ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

Abstract Politicians use social media platforms such as Twitter to connect with the public. However, it remains largely unknown who constitutes the public sphere to whom politicians actually connect, talk, and listen. Focusing on the Twitter network of all Swiss MPs, I identified 129,063 Twitter users with whom politicians connected (i.e., their follower‐followee network) or with whom they interacted (e.g., [were] replied to or retweeted). I qualitatively analyzed top connected, talking, and listening MPs, and conducted a semi-automated content analysis of the Twitter users to classify them (N = 70.589). Politicians’ audience consists primarily of ordinary citizens, who also react most often to the politicians’ messages. However, politicians listen more often to actors close to politics and the media than to ordinary citizens. Thus, politicians navigate between engaging with everyone without losing control over the communication situation and address key multipliers such journalist to get their messages out.

scholarly journals HOW SOCIAL MEDIA AFFORDS POPULIST POLITICS: REMARKS ON LIMINALITY BASED ON THE BRAZILIAN CASE

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 404-427
Author(s):  
Leticia Cesarino
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Online Ethnography ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
And Linguistics

ABSTRACT In the past decade or so, populism and social media have been outstanding issues both in academia and the public sphere. At this point, evidence from multiple countries suggest that perceived parallels between the dynamics of social media and the mechanics of populist discourse may be more than just incidental, relating to a shared structural field. This article suggests one possible path towards making sense of how the dynamics of social media and the mechanics of populist mobilization have co-produced each other in the last decade or so. Navigating the interface between anthropology and linguistics, it takes key aspects of Victor Turner’s notion of liminality to suggest some of the ways in which social media’s anti-structural affordances may help lay a foundation for the contemporary flourishing of populist discourse: markers of social structure are suspended; communitas is formed; the culture core is addressed; mimesis and anti-structural inversions are performed; subjects become influenceable. I elaborate on this claim based on Brazilian materials, drawn from online ethnography on pro-Bolsonaro WhatsApp groups and other platforms such as Twitter and Facebook since 2018.

Père Trump

October ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 159 ◽  
pp. 3-6
Author(s):  
Hal Foster
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Fourth Estate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Higher Power ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Public Sphere

In the face of Trumpism and its peculiar mix of the buffoonish and the lethal, Foster suggests that we “pump up” past theoretical concepts by raising them to a higher degree. Social media, for example, could thereby be considered the “fifth estate,” a force that outdoes the “fourth estate” of journalistic media and thereby evacuates the last residues of the public sphere that, over fifty years ago, Jürgen Habermas associated with the advent of print culture. Peter Sloterdijk's notion of cynical reason, too, must be raised to a higher power in order to comprehend the Trumpist mentality; perhaps in this post-truth era, we should speak instead of “noncynical unreason”? And while the concept of the “primal father” is so outrageous that it cannot be inflated, Foster argues, it is one that we must grapple with in the face of a figure who, like Freud's figure, embodies the law and simultaneously performs its transgression.

Public Service Media and Social TV: Bridging or Expanding Gaps in Participation?

2015 ◽  
Vol 154 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathon Hutchinson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Tv ◽  
Content Consumption ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Cultural Intermediaries ◽  
The Public Sphere

The public service media (PSM) remit requires the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) to provide for minorities while fostering national culture and the public sphere. Social media platforms and projects – specifically ‘social TV’ – have enabled greater participation in ABC content consumption and creation; they provide opportunities for social participation in collaborative cultural production. However it can be argued that, instead of deconstructing boundaries, social media platforms may in fact reconstruct participation barriers within PSM production processes. This article explores ABC co-creation between Twitter and the # 7DaysLater television program, a narrative-based comedy program that engaged its audience through social media to produce its weekly program. The article demonstrates why the ABC should engage with social media platforms to collaboratively produce content, with # 7DaysLater providing an innovative example, but suggests skilled cultural intermediaries with experience in community facilitation should carry out the process.

Shaping Digital Democracy in the United States

2014 ◽  
pp. 213-231
Author(s):  
Rachel Baarda ◽  
Rocci Luppicini
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Networking Site ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Public Sphere

Ethical challenges that technology poses to the different spheres of society are a core focus within the field of technoethics. Over the last few years, scholars have begun to explore the ethical implications of new digital technologies and social media, particularly in the realms of society and politics. A qualitative case study was conducted on Barack Obama's campaign social networking site, my.barackobama.com, in order to investigate the ways in which the website uses or misuses digital technology to create a healthy participatory democracy. For an analysis of ethical and non-ethical ways to promote participatory democracy online, the study included theoretical perspectives such as the role of the public sphere in a participatory democracy and the effects of political marketing on the public sphere. The case study included a content analysis of the website and interviews with members of groups on the site. The study's results are explored in this chapter.

Social Media as Alternative Public Sphere for Citizen Participation and Protest in National Politics in Zimbabwe

2018 ◽  
pp. 17-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Collen Sabao ◽  
Tendai Owen Chikara
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Impact

The chapter examines and discusses the role and communicative potential of social media based platforms in citizen political participation and protests in Zimbabwe specifically focusing on the #thisflag movement on Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp. #thisflag is a social media-based platform that rose to challenge the Zimbabwean government over the political and economic decay as well as rampant corruption characterising the country contemporarily. While a new phenomenon to Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean politics, the impact and communicative potential of social media as an alternative public sphere was recently tested in nationwide protest stayaway organised through the Facebook and Twitter movement under the #thisflag handle/brand. This chapter discusses the manners in which such social media platforms impact national politics in Zimbabwe as well as globally, specifically looking at the #thisflag movement as a case study.

Digital Humour, Gag Laws, and the Liberal Security State

2017 ◽  
pp. 204-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Bessant
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Political Dissent ◽  
The Public ◽  
On Line ◽  
Artistic Work ◽  
The Public Sphere

This chapter presents a case study of Facu Diaz, a Spanish satirist whose on-line ridicule of the Spanish government created a political furor that brought him before the courts. The chapter engages the problem of the criminalization of political dissent by liberal states in the digital age. The case highlights how digital media is now being used to create content for satire, as well as to replicate and infiltrate more traditional political and media forums, changing many traditional forms of political practice. The case [points to some of the central problems inherent in liberalism which may give reason to curb the enthusiasm of those who think that new digital media creates fresh opportunities for augmenting the ‘public sphere'. It is argued that liberalism as a political theory and ethos, tends to be blind to non-traditional political expressions like satire and other artistic work. In addition, the expansion of security laws in many countries suggests, liberalism's ostensible commitment to freedom needs to be reframed by recalling its historical preoccupation with security.

Social Media as Alternative Public Sphere for Citizen Participation and Protest in National Politics in Zimbabwe

2020 ◽  
pp. 772-786
Author(s):  
Collen Sabao ◽  
Tendai Owen Chikara
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Impact

The chapter examines and discusses the role and communicative potential of social media based platforms in citizen political participation and protests in Zimbabwe specifically focusing on the #thisflag movement on Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp. #thisflag is a social media-based platform that rose to challenge the Zimbabwean government over the political and economic decay as well as rampant corruption characterising the country contemporarily. While a new phenomenon to Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean politics, the impact and communicative potential of social media as an alternative public sphere was recently tested in nationwide protest stayaway organised through the Facebook and Twitter movement under the #thisflag handle/brand. This chapter discusses the manners in which such social media platforms impact national politics in Zimbabwe as well as globally, specifically looking at the #thisflag movement as a case study.

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