scholarly journals Exploring narrative linearity between Twitter and the news: Echoes of the Arab Spring in Brazil

2021 ◽  
pp. 095792652110232
Author(s):  
Helton Levy ◽  
Dan Mercea

This article explores the use of narrative theory as an analytical framework to investigate the extent to which popular hashtags and the news can develop into intersecting stories. It juxtaposes the case of hashtag-based reports seen during the Arab Spring to understand the coverage of notorious political episodes in Brazil. Namely, the 2016 impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and the 2018 election of Jair Bolsonaro. Here, narrative linearity emerges as a tool to observe the borrowing of Twitter hashtags in several journalistic pieces. It is contended that the linearity of authorship, narration and representation of time appears as a satisfactory pathway to trace the development of hashtags into popular news stories. Results suggested that hashtags can significantly follow narratives and agendas in journalism but differing from their original social media context.

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harel Chorev

This essay argues that social media played an important role in the Arab Spring and contributed to a change in the political culture of some of those countries that have gone through regime-change through 2011-2012. The article further posits that the contribution of social media was mainly instrumental, not causal, and that the main reasons behind the Arab Spring were problems generated by regional, local and global trends, affecting each country differently.  


Author(s):  
Madhavi Sunder

What role can social media play in helping to bring forth social revolutions, inciting change not in government or laws but in social attitudes and real world behaviors? Social change relates not only to regime change but to change in people’s way of thinking. In this chapter, I argue that social media during the Arab Spring was used as more than a mere coordination tool promoting efficient street demonstrations. Bloggers and Facebook users employed these technologies in many of the same ways that the printing press was employed during the Enlightenment period—to upend traditional authorities, to engender popular participation in debates over governance and values, and to foster care and empathy for fellow citizens. Contrary to popular perception, the Arab Spring demonstrates how today’s technological tools can go the next mile and transform not just politics but societies themselves. In the particular context of religious democracies, through examples, the chapter explores how nonstate actors are helping to influence constitutionalism and other lawmaking in Muslim majority states by using technologies to elaborate plural normative and legal options, thus undermining fundamentalist stranglehold on social and legal authority.


2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 114-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leila DeVriese

AbstractBecause social media is playing an irrefutable role in the Arab Spring uprisings the central question in this article is to what extent Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in general, and social media in specific, are contributing to the democratization of the public sphere and shifting the monopoly on agenda setting in the Arab Gulf, particularly in the case of Bahrain? How will these technologies continue to shape contentious politics in the Middle East and will their utility for democratizing and expanding the public sphere persist in the aftermath of the Arab Spring? Or will the increasing liberalization of media and freedom of expression that had preceded the Arab Spring experience a repressive backlash as authoritarian states attempt to clamp down on social and traditional media—or even harness them for their own purposes as seen by Facebook intimidation campaigns against activists in Bahrain last Spring. Finally—using the lens of social movement theory—what repertoires of contention and political opportunity structures will pro-democracy activists use to keep their campaigns alive? Activists in the Gulf have not only incorporated the ICTs into their repertoire, but have also changed substantially what counts as activism, what counts as community, collective identity, democratic space, public sphere, and political strategy. Ironically this new technology has succeeded in reviving and expanding the practice of discursive dialog that had once characterized traditional tribal politics in the Arabian Peninsula.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 811-819
Author(s):  
Badrul Mohamed ◽  
Mohammad Agus Yusoff ◽  
Zawiyah Mohd Zain ◽  
Dori Efendi

Social media has phenomenally replaced the traditional media. Blogs have transformed news reporting; YouTube has reinvented talent sourcing; and the trinity (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) have revolutionary changed the rules of the game of regime change. Enabling commoners to be producers and its interactiveness are the two most important characteristics that grant the ordinary citizens to be extra-ordinary. From Tinseltown to Alexandria, the roles of social media has been unstoppably growing. The world political events in the recent times, particularly the Arab Spring have shown a strong correlation between social media and democratization. Malaysias political experience in recent years, in particular the 12th General Election (GE-12) in 2008 is comparable to the Arab Spring in view of the alluring role of social media and its gladiatorial impacts in politics. The failure of Barisan Nasional (BN or National Front, the only ruling party since independence) to retain its customary two-third majority in GE-12 is a proof of peoples growing desire to enjoy democracy that among others offer free and fair elections, good-governance, and social justice which are dissimilar to existing communalism and strong government. At a glance, GE-13 in 2013 produced similar results as GE-12 which displayed fortification of democracy among citizens. In contrast, further analyses toward the details of GE-13 surfaced the revival of communalism and autoritarinism which have shown signs of decay in GE-12. Thus, this article explores the conflictual roles of social media which (has been functioning as an ideal public sphere) when the ruling party together with the state machinery invade the sphere of social media to satisfy their political agenda. This investigation showcases the anarchic sphere in social media is not only capable in catalyzing democratization, but also undermining democracy by propagating political Balkanization that propels disjointed feelings among multi-racial citizens.


Politik ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jørgen Ørstrøm Møller

Wikileaks did not reveal much we did not know about U.S. foreign policy already. e true revelations were – as many had suspected – that some foreign leaders pursue a di erent foreign policy agenda than the of- cial one. Sources providing information to foreign diplomats will be more prudent from now on. e main impact is a new type of diplomacy bypassing leaders to communicate directly with the people – increasing people’s power and highlighting the growing importance of civic society and the social media. e ability to intensively monitor social media also brings a markedly better understanding of the domestic context of foreign countries. Events surrounding the Arab spring bears testament to this. 


ICR Journal ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 532-537
Author(s):  
Christoph Marcinkowski

Since December 2010, the ‘Arab Spring’ has featured techniques of civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches and rallies, as well as the use of the new social media to organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and censorship. In the case of Tunisia, Egypt, and - most dramatically - Libya, the protests have actually led to the departure of long-established regimes, whereas the situation in Syria and Bahrain remains unsettled to date.


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