Game-Assisted Social Activism: Game Literacy in Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Movement

2022 ◽  
pp. 155541202110618
Author(s):  
Holin Lin ◽  
Chuen-Tsai Sun
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Online Forums ◽  
Symbolic Meanings ◽  
Mass Protest ◽  
Movement Activities ◽  
Gaming Literacy

This paper describes the appropriation of video game culture for discursive use during the 2019–20 Hong Kong anti-extradition movement, with participants relying on game argot for mass protest communication and mobilization purposes, and employing game frameworks (especially from MMORPGs) for organizing protest actions. Data from online forums are used to present examples of video game rhetoric and narratives in protest-related online discourses, to speculate on their symbolic meanings, and to examine ways that borrowed aspects of game culture influenced movement activities. After describing ways that game culture spilled over into social movements, we highlight examples of gaming literacy during dynamic protest situations. Our evidence indicates that the combination of game culture and online gaming literacy strengthened activist toolkits and intensified the “be water” nature of a social movement that many describe as leaderless.

Social movement studies in post-3.11 Japan: A sociological analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 026858092110053
Author(s):  
Naoto Higuchi
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Japanese Society ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Approaches To Studying ◽  
Social Protests ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mass Protest

Between the decline of mass protests in the 1970s and the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear meltdown in the 2010s, which resulted in the resurgence of mass demonstrations, social movements were widely regarded as uncommon in Japan. In this essay, the author reviews Japan’s social movement studies in the last decade, focusing on the influence of the lack of mass protest since the 1970s on scholarly interests. The essay examines the following four topics: (1) slow responses to the resurgence of mass demonstrations in post-3.11 Japan, (2) quick responses to the rise of the radical right movement, (3) the emergence of cynical approaches to studying social movements, and (4) the redemption of the history of Japan’s postwar social movements. Despite some twists and turns, we can see how social protests are a perpetual element of Japanese society that sociologists study as a common phenomenon.

Rape Consciousness

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-68
Author(s):  
Robin E. Field
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
First Person ◽  
Consciousness Raising ◽  
Maya Angelou ◽  
Autobiographical Accounts

The new understanding of the victim’s psyche in rape fiction is derived from the literature of the anti-rape movement and autobiographical accounts of sexual assault. The rhetoric of this 1970s social movement, particularly the persuasive language of polemical nonfiction and the first-person narration in testimonies and autobiographies, inspired rape fiction. The use of sociopolitical theories and newly discovered facts about sexual assault informed the themes and plots of the first rape novels, and autobiographies and testimonies provided a bridge between the galvanizing rhetoric of social activism and subsequent fiction. The diverse texts that contributed to the emergence of the rape novel—from the transcripts of the consciousness-raising sessions of radical feminists to the memoirs of Maya Angelou and Billie Holiday—highlight the primacy of social movements to this new genre.

Meaning by Doing: The Making of Endurance Activism on the 1986 Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-185
Author(s):  
Dain TePoel
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Physical Challenges

This article offers a consideration of physical activity within the contexts of social movement philosophies, decision making, strategies, and tactics through an examination of the 1986 Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament. Drawing from interviews with twenty activists on the Great Peace March, the author argues that physicality and endurance actions—literally, but also symbolically—signify particular meanings of movement for social movements, such as persistence, focus, and determination, to stretch sociopolitical limits and boundaries. Participants endeavor to accomplish difficult physical challenges and maintain the solidarity of their communities to analogize the coming into existence of equally extraordinary visions of social or political transformation. Physical and symbolic expressions of what the author terms “endurance activism” sustained the marchers’ vision of community and the survival of their organization. The article encourages sport historians to use a wider framework to interpret the links between physical activity, social activism, and oppositional movements.

Practicing Social Activism through Problem-Based Learning

2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leontina M. Hormel
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Problem Based Learning ◽  
Transformative Education ◽  
Group Project ◽  
Class Project ◽  
The Creation

This article proposes a problem-based group project that encourages students to make connections between classroom and community. The project fosters transformative education; social activism becomes more tangible to students who learn to strategize around social issues. The following discussion highlights the goals and process of teaching with an assignment that simulates the creation of a social movement and describes examples of student actions in introductory social movements courses. The class project forges creative and effective social activism.

Space in a Social Movement: A Case Study of Occupy Central in Hong Kong in 2014

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu Wang ◽  
Yu Ye ◽  
Chris King-chi Chan
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Physical Nature ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Social ◽  
Occupy Central

Few studies have examined the role of space in social movements. The existing studies have primarily emphasized the physical nature of space (e.g., space as distance) and overlooked other attributes of space, such as space as the materialization of power relations and space as lived experience. In this article, we explore the role of space in social movements based on a case study of the Occupy Central in Hong Kong in 2014. During the protest, the organizers occupied and reconfigured the campuses and mobilized the participants both through and in space. We find that the campus space helped stimulate the feelings and emotions of the students and increased their enthusiasm to participate in the demonstration. The participants were then sent from the campuses (mobilization spaces) to the demonstration spaces where they occupied and transformed the urban public spaces into private spaces, thus leading to contention over and of space with the state powers. Our findings reveal that the campus space is an important resource that organizers can use for mobilization. We also find that the special features of a campus, including aggregation, networks, isolation, and homogeneity, can facilitate the formation of social movements. We argue that the three attributes of space interact with one another in facilitating the social movement. Thus, our findings suggest that space acts as not only the vessel of struggle but also a useful tool and a target of struggle.

scholarly journals Marketing, art and voices of dissent

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgios Patsiaouras ◽  
Anastasia Veneti ◽  
William Green
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Marketing Theory ◽  
Audience Engagement ◽  
Protest Art ◽  
Arts Marketing

Limited research exists around the interrelationships between protest camps and marketing practices. In this article, we focus on the 2014 Hong Kong protest camps as a context where artistic work was innovatively developed and imaginatively promoted to draw global attention. Collecting and analysing empirical data from the Umbrella Movement, our findings explore the interrelationships between arts marketing technologies and the creativity and artistic expression of the protest camps so as to inform, update and rethink arts marketing theory itself. We discuss how protesters used public space to employ inventive methods of audience engagement, participation and co-creation of artwork, together with media art projects which aimed not only to promote their collective aims but also to educate and inform citizens. While some studies have already examined the function of arts marketing beyond traditional and established artistic institutions, our findings offer novel insights into the promotional techniques of protest art within the occupied space of a social movement. Finally, we suggest avenues for future research around the artwork of social movements that could highlight creative and political aspects of (arts) marketing theory.

scholarly journals The researcher as cognitive activist and the mutually useful conversation

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassie Earl
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
Political Education ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Research Interview ◽  
Social Use ◽  
Movement Activities

This autoethnagraphic article argues that in the study of political education, especially learning through social movement activities, the knowledge produced by the research will be of greater social use if researchers position themselves as ‘cognitive activists’. This is because, the article argues, the researcher needs to work in solidarity with social movements for socially just change in order to reconnect academic knowledge work to the wider struggles for social change. The article thinks through the implications and ideas around this framing of research work and positionality. It then goes on to examine in detail one of the techniques for taking this position – that of the mutually useful conversation frame of the research interview – exploring why this thinking came about and how this framing of the interview is politically necessary for the cognitive activism proposed.

Theorizing Meaning Construction in Social Movements: Symbolic Structures and Interpretation during the Irish Land War, 1879–1882

1997 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne E. Kane
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Movement Analysis ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Symbolic Systems ◽  
Land War ◽  
Symbolic Meanings ◽  
The Face

Though the process of meaning construction is widely recognized to be a crucial factor in the mobilization, unfolding, and outcomes of social movements, the conditions and mechanisms that allow meaning construction and cultural transformation are often misconceptualized and/or underanalyzed. Following a “tool kit” perspective on culture, dominant social movement theory locates meaning only as it is embodied in concrete social practices. Meaning construction from this perspective is a matter of manipulating static symbols and meaning to achieve goals. I argue instead that meaning is located in the structure of culture, and that the condition and mechanism of meaning construction and transformation are, respectively, the metaphoric nature of symbolic systems, and individual and collective interpretation of those systems in the face of concrete events. This theory is demonstrated by analyzing, through textual anlaysis, meaning construction during the Irish Land War, 1879–1882, showing how diverse social groups constructed new and emergent symbolic meanings and how transformed collective understandings contributed to specific, yet unpredictable, political action and movement outcomes. The theoretical model and empirical case demonstrates that social movement analysis must examine the metaphoric logic of symbolic systems and the interpretive process by which people construct meaning in order to fully explain the role of culture in social movements, the agency of movement participants, and the contingency of the course and outcomes of social movements.

Die Bewegung für Klimagerechtigkeit und Energiedemokratie in Deutschland.

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (184) ◽  
pp. 403-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik Sander
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Movement Analysis ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
Historical Materialist

This article argues that social movement research must be renewed by a historical-materialist perspective to be able to understand the emergence and effects of the relatively new climate justice movement in Germany. The previous research on NGOs and social movements in climate politics is presented and the recent development of the climate justice movement in Germany is illustrated. In a final step two cases of climate movement campaigns are explained by means of the historical-materialist movement analysis proposed by the author.

Gerakan Sosial Melalui Sosio Drama Berbasis Kearifan Lokal Untuk Meningkatkan Nasionalisme Daerah Pedalaman

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Ahmad Sudi Pratikno ◽  
Dewi Nurmasita
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Rural Area ◽  
Secondary Students ◽  
Research Subjects ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Descriptive Method

Social movement is an effort to provide benefits to others. However, within the context of cultivating the character, research on social movement through socio-drama based on local wisdom is very limited. This study aims to examine the increasing character of nationalism through social movements in the form of socio-drama. Research subjects were elementary and secondary students residing in rural area. This research used qualitative and descriptive method. Data collection techniques were documentations, observations, and interviews. The results showed that the increased character of nationalism only arise when playing socio-drama only, they would return to the previous character. Cultivating the character values need a long time, so the change of character did not necessarily happen.

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