In Blogospheres: Comprehending Sociopolitical Implications

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-289
Author(s):  
Dev Nath Pathak ◽  
Chayanika Priyam

This article will focus on the ‘blogosphere’ in India as an emerging forum for critical readings of social and political events and issues. By concentrating on the blogosphere, read as a morphology of horizontal societal communication enabled through a network of blogs and social media sites on the internet, we have tried to offer a glimpse into the kind of issues and interactions that various groups and communities are engaging with and the scope for such online activism to usher in social transformation. For this study, we have limited our discussion to a close reading of contents on blogs as one confronts the positions and critiques offered by individuals and groups and gets a sense of the local concerns articulated in the blog entries. Our concern in this article is to fathom the potential of blogs in transformative politics and mass mobilisation, namely civic engagement against the framework of an emerging public sphere on the Internet by analysing case studies of select blogs, primarily—Kafila, an academic-activist blog, Youth Ki Awaaz (YKA ), a students’ blog and Round Table India, a Dalit blog.

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muzayyin Ahyar ◽  
Alfitri Alfitri

The great Islamic mass rally which well known as “Aksi Bela Islam (Defending Islam action) 212” in Indonesia has always been claimed as the triumph of Islamic activism. This action continue to be voiced through social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so forth with the jargon “ 212 spirit “. The voluminous actions of “Aksi Bela Islam 212” sound like an authoritative propaganda jargon which are exhaled to spread the Islamic identity through the internet. Along with the proliferation of online Islamic activism, some major questions emerge about: (1) whether online religious discourse is an authoritative source that gives Muslim society an authority in religious propaganda; (2) to what extent the proliferation of online Islamic activism has shaped the new Islamic propaganda authority? The objective of this article is to examine the discourse of Islamic activism in the online public sphere which makes the internet and online social media as a new vehicle in the transformation of traditional-modern Islamic propaganda authority for technologically literate generation. The article highlights some transformations of traditional religious propaganda authority to the new one which appropriated with the technological advancement. Using political sociology approach, this article will maps an Islamic online activism, which is termed as Islamic clicktivism, and its relation to the religious propaganda authority. The finding of this article reveals that Islamic clicktivism can be an authoritative method in shaping religious and political discourses. Finally, this article argues that Islamic social movement in the millennial age – especially in the post 212 movement – has consistency to play a role in political contestation through the Islamic clicktivism. Gerakan aksi masal Islam yang dikenal dengan Aksi Bela Islam di Indonesia selalu diklaim sebagai kemenangan aktivisme Islam. Menyusul Aksi Bela Islam dalam ranah gerakan sosial, wacana serupa juga disuarakan melalui gerakan aktivisme secara daring yang disebarkan melalui berbagai media social seperti Facebook, Twitter dan Istagram dengan jargo “spirit 212”. Aksi berjilid-jilid dari Aksi Bela Islam ini terdengan seakan menjadi jargon propaganda otoritatif yang dihembuskan untuk menyebarkan identitas Islam melalui internet. Seiring dengan fenomena proliferasi gerakan-gerakan Islam daring tersebut, beberapa pertanyaan muncul: pertama, apakah diskursus keagamaan daring menjadi sumber otoritatif yang memberikan otoritas kepada masyarkat Muslim dalam hal propaganda agama? Kedua, sejauh mana proliferasi aktivisme Islam daring membentuk otoritas propaganda keagamaan baru? Sasaran dari artikel ini adalah menguji wacana aktivisme Islam di ruang public daring yang menjadikan internet dan media social daring sebagai kendaraan baru dalam transformasi otoritas propaganda keagamaan dari tradisional ke modern bagi kalangan melek milenial yang melek teknologi. Artikel ini menyoroti beberapa trasnformasi propaganda keagamaan tradisional menuju modern yang disesuaikan dengan perkembangan teknologi. Dengan menggunakan pendekatan sosiologi-politik, artikel ini memetakan aktivisme Islam daring, yang diistilahkan dengan Islamic clicktivism, dan hubungannnya dengan otoritas propaganda keagamaan. Temuan artikel ini menunjukkan bahwa kliktifisme Islam dapat menjadi metode otoritatif dalam membentuk wacana keagamaan dan politik sekaligus. Pada akhirnya artikel ini menegaskan bahwa gerakan social Islam di era milenial – khususnya pasca gerakan 212 –secara konsisten mengambil peran dalam kontestasi politik identitas dengan menggunakan kliktifisme Islam.


2021 ◽  
pp. 089976402199944
Author(s):  
Jaclyn Piatak ◽  
Ian Mikkelsen

People increasingly engage in politics on social media, but does online engagement translate to offline engagement? Research is mixed with some suggesting how one uses the internet maters. We examine how political engagement on social media corresponds to offline engagement. Using data following the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, we find the more politically engaged people are on social media, the more likely they are to engage offline across measures of engagement—formal and informal volunteering, attending local meetings, donating to and working for political campaigns, and voting. Findings offer important nuances across types of civic engagement and generations. Although online engagement corresponds to greater engagement offline in the community and may help narrow generational gaps, this should not be the only means to promote civic participation to ensure all have a voice and an opportunity to help, mobilize, and engage.


Author(s):  
Jarice Hanson ◽  
Alina Hogea

The Internet has often been heralded as a tool for e-governance and public action because of its ubiquity, accessibility, and the ability for users to participate in online expressions of opinion. In this chapter we discuss the potential for the Internet to function as a public space for facilitating civic engagement. While we draw from the seminal work of Jurgen Habermas to identify the preconditions for the functioning of a “public sphere,” we address four distinctly different approaches to the discussion of the Internet’s role as an effective tool for deliberative democracy by highlighting the contributions of scholars and practitioners who engaged in a dialog on the topic at a symposium held at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 25, 2010.


Author(s):  
Zubair Nabi

The Internet has become the new battle ground between authoritarian regimes and ordinary individuals who want unimpeded access to information. The immense popularity of online activism and citizen journalism enabled by social media has instigated state level players to partially or completely block access to the Internet. In return, individuals and organizations have been employing various anti-censorship tools to circumvent these restrictions. In this paper, we claim that censorship is futile as not only has it been ineffective in restricting access, it has also had the side effect of popularising blocked content. Using data from Alexa Web rankings, Google Trends, and YouTube Statistics, we quantify the ineffectiveness of state level censorship in Pakistan and Turkey and highlight the emergence of the Streisand Effect. We hope that our findings will, a) prove to governments and other players the futility of their actions, and b) aid citizens around the world in using legal measures to counteract censorship by showing its ineffectiveness.


SAGE Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824401987787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Süleyman Ahmet Menteş

The Internet has changed the ways and conditions of activism. Especially over the last three decades, online activism has been prevalently used for sharing information, connecting people, and mobilizing crowds to express their discontent. The Internet is often referred to as a new form of public sphere, which demonstrates many distinctive and advantageous features compared with traditional types of public spheres. By following public sphere theory, this study examines online activism in the context of environmental activism and aims to understand the potential of the Internet within online activism practices. The studied website “Save the Floodplain Forest” ( www.longozukoru.org ) is an environmentalist activist platform dedicated to saving the Iğneada floodplain forest. The study employed the five-dimensional content analysis scale developed by Kavada to evaluate and analyze the campaign website. The results exhibit inadequacies and point out the potential rooms for improvement for the campaign website.


Author(s):  
Debashis ‘Deb' Aikat

The world's largest democracy with a population of over 1.27 billion people, India is home to a burgeoning media landscape that encompasses a motley mix of traditional and contemporary media. Drawing from the theoretical framework of the networked public sphere, this extensive case study focuses on the role of social media in India's media landscape. Results indicate that new social media entities complement traditional media forms to inform, educate, connect, and entertain people from diverse social, ethnic, religious, and cultural origins. The author concludes that social media enable Indian citizens to actively deliberate issues and ideas, increase their civic engagement and citizen participation, and thus enrich India's democratic society.


Author(s):  
Regina E. Rauxloh

This chapter explores the role of social media in the creation of myths and public beliefs about justice and law. Using the case study of the YouTube clip Kony 2012 the author identifies a number of myths and public beliefs this video creates and sustains, looking at three principal myths, namely the myths regarding the background and facts of the armed conflict and the current situation in Uganda, the myths regarding possible military and legal solutions and last but not least the myth surrounding the effectiveness of online activism itself. Rauxloh argues that the portrayal of a very long and complex conflict as simply a war of good versus evil and the presented solution of the “mighty West” helping the “helpless Africa” perpetuates dangerous stereotypes which are in direct contradiction to the aims of international criminal justice in general and the International Criminal Court in particular. It is also argued that one of the most damaging myths is the notion of the internet as the freely accessible democratic forum which opens up the power of voice to everybody. Rauxloh warns that social media have an unprecedented potential for creating, spreading and perpetuating myths and public beliefs.


2019 ◽  
pp. 212-227
Author(s):  
Bradshaw Samantha ◽  
Howard Philip N.

The Internet and social media were originally viewed as democratizing technologies that would lead to a more vibrant digital public sphere. Following the outcomes of the 2016 US Presidential Election and the UK Brexit referendum, however, social media platforms have faced increasing criticism for allowing fake news, disinformation campaigns, and hate speech to spread. But how much bad information was spread? What can be done to address the problem? This chapter examines how social media algorithms and computational propaganda are reshaping public life. The authors explore how modern citizens are especially susceptible to computational propaganda, due not only to the prevalence of disinformation, but also to a political psychology that is often called “elective affinity” or “selective exposure.” The authors use their findings to discuss the responsibilities of both users and platforms for protecting the digital public sphere.


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 287-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiago Lima Quintanilha

This article locates Portugal in the discussion on the transition from a normative public sphere (Habermas, 1968/1989, 1998) to a new networked public sphere (Benkler, 2006), powered by the internet, global networked society and participative and interactive cultures. We use data from the public participation module of the 2018 Digital news report published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, which surveyed a representative sample of the Portuguese population. The results point to the existence and appropriation of many forms of public participation in cyberspace. Users share news, comment on news, take part in online votes, etc., on press websites and social media. Nonetheless, the collected data point to a type of online public participation that determines the slow constitution and consolidation of a new networked public sphere in Portugal.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-76
Author(s):  
Nurul Hasfi ◽  
Turnomo Rahardjo

Many researches view the internet as a  virtual public sphere or forum potential that provides a space for minority groups to voice their opinions.  This article identifies the role of social media in creating political public sphere for voters with disabilities in Indonesia during Presidential Election in 2019. By applying the normative values provided by Public Sphere Theory and Sphere Public Subaltern Theory, this article determines various potentials as well as stumbling blocks of the internet as a virtual public sphere for internet users.  Virtual ethnography method is used to determine the identity of virtual communities of disabled people on three most active social media platforms in Indonesia, namely Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Virtual Ethnography enables researchers to conduct an online observation on virtual communities three months prior to  the 2019 Presidential Election. The data findings help the researchers draw conclusion  that social media has technically advocated the endeavor of the disabled people’s political rights equality, proven by the existence of disabled people’s virtual communities and the narratives of struggle for their political rights equality. However, the data has shown an inadequacy of disabled people’s virtual community to create dynamic inter-activities between its members  as this community has not been able to reflect a public sphere that is able to build public opinion  which  effectively influences public policy.


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