scholarly journals Social media power for protest in Indonesia: The Yogyakarta’s #gejayanmemanggil case study

Author(s):  
Ariza Fuadi

Hashtag #GejayanMemanggil (Gejayan is Calling) became a trending topic on social media one day before the protest against several problematic laws, and the bills that were going to be passed. At that time, activists had successfully circulated the issues to the public through social media. As a result, at least 5000 protesters had joined in the protest in Yogyakarta. This phenomenon showed activeness of Indonesia’s civil society in the movement by involving digital media technologies. The author argued that social media allows the citizens, either communal or individual, to disseminate the issue and encourage others to join the protest in such short notice. This article aims to describe the role of social media and the impact of mobilisation through social media through the hashtag #GejayanMemanggil in the Yogyakarta movement. The qualitative method was employed to examine the phenomenon of the protests and to describe the role of social media. The data in this study was taken from online news, the official account of the movement, and blog posts. The results indicated that social media has the potential to trigger Indonesians to express their willingness and participate in activism.

Tripodos ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (47) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Rachel E. Khan

From a century to a decade ago, the news media played a crucial role in providing the public with valuable in­formation, especially during a crisis. However, the advent of social media has brought about a change in ac­cess and distribution of the news and this may have resulted in less effec­tive health communication during this global coronavirus pandemic. These days, social media can have a great­er public reach and therefore, be the best tool to disseminate information. At the same time, there is the ques­tion of whether the important or trivial information is being shared. The aim of this paper is to explore the role of social media in providing the public with important information during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Using Great Britain as a case study, the research analysed the kind of content on the coronavirus that had gone vi­ral in online news sources in the Unit­ed Kingdom to determine whether the information that was being shared contributed or not to effective health communication. Keywords: news, viral news, online media, journalism, crisis communica­tion, coronavirus.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 189
Author(s):  
Shaimma El Naggar

<p>Over the past few decades, televangelism has emerged as one important media phenomenon, inter alia, among Muslim communities. As a phenomenon, televangelism is interesting in many respects; it is a manifestation of the phenomenon of "info-tainment" as televangelists integrate entertainment features such as sound effects and music in their sermons. It is also a manifestation of the rise of the celebrity culture as televangelists have become 'media celebrities' with thousands of hundreds of fans and followers on social media networks.</p><p> </p><p>Thematically, this study is divided into two main sections. First. I delineate the characteristics of televangelism as a novel form of religious expression in which televangelists adopt a modern style and use colloquial language; and in which televangelists present religion as a source of individual change. I have argued that these features seem to have granted televangelists popularity particularly among Muslim youth who view televangelism as a new form of religious expression that is modern in appearance and relevant to their everyday lives.</p><p>The study has further highlighted the importance of digital media technologies in popularizing televangelists' programmes and sermons. Drawing on two case studies of popular televangelists, namely Amr Khaled and Hamza Yusuf, the study has shown that televangelists draw on a plethora of digital media tools to extend the visibility of their programmes including websites and social media networks. The study has found that televangelists' fans play an important role in popularizing televangelists' programmes. Moreover, the study relates televangelism to the rise of digital Islam. The study has argued that digitization and the increase of literacy rates have changed the structure of religious authority in the twenty first century, giving rise to new voices that are competing for authority. </p><p>Having provided an explanatory framework for the phenomenon of televangelism, the study moves in the second section to critique televangelism as an 'info-tainment' phenomenon.</p>Drawing on Carrette and King's <em>Selling Spirituality, </em>one issue that the study raises is the extent to which televangelism fits into the modern form of 'spiritualities'. Rather than being a critical reflection of the consumer culture, modern spiritualities seem to 'smooth out' resistance to the hegemony of capitalism and consumerism. I have proposed that it is through a content-related analysis of televangelists' sermons that one can get a nuanced understanding of how the discourses of particular televangelists can possibly relate to dominant (capitalist) ideologies, how structures of power are represented in their discourses and what their texts may reveal about the socio-historical contexts of Muslims in the twenty first century.


2019 ◽  
pp. 100-122
Author(s):  
Francis L. F. Lee

This chapter reviews the relationship between the media and the Umbrella Movement. The mainstream media, aided by digital media outlets and platforms, play the important role of the public monitor in times of major social conflicts, even though the Hong Kong media do so in an environment where partial censorship exists. The impact of digital media in largescale protest movements is similarly multifaceted and contradictory. Digital media empower social protests by promoting oppositional discourses, facilitating mobilization, and contributing to the emergence of connective action. However, they also introduce and exacerbate forces of decentralization that present challenges to movement leaders. Meanwhile, during and after the Umbrella Movement, one can also see how the state has become more proactive in online political communication, thus trying to undermine the oppositional character of the Internet in Hong Kong.


2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1343-1359
Author(s):  
Anthony Ridge-Newman

In Britain, by 2015, Web 2.0 had become a more widely accepted and established mode of civic engagement of which political e-participation became an observable extension. However, in the run-up to 2010, social media were newer, less understood and largely associated with younger generations. These changes present questions about how wider technocultural developments impacted political engagement between the 2010 and 2015 UK general elections. This article aims to go some way in examining this question with a theoretical focus on the role of Facebook as a driver of change in political organisation. Using the British Conservative Party as a case study, the article analyses and compares events, observations and shifting power relations associated with digital technology and organisational change observed over two election cycles spanning from 2005 to 2015. A focal aim is to examine changes in Conservative Party campaigns and organisation in order to contribute to wider debates about the impact of digital technology in changing the organisation and activities of actors, like political parties and political participants, in democratic contexts. The article concludes that a complex combination of internal and external, technological and human, and grassroots and centralised factors played roles in changing the Conservative Party.


Author(s):  
Olu Jenzen ◽  
Itir Erhart ◽  
Hande Eslen-Ziya ◽  
Umut Korkut ◽  
Aidan McGarry

This article explores how Twitter has emerged as a signifier of contemporary protest. Using the concept of ‘social media imaginaries’, a derivative of the broader field of ‘media imaginaries’, our analysis seeks to offer new insights into activists’ relation to and conceptualisation of social media and how it shapes their digital media practices. Extending the concept of media imaginaries to include analysis of protestors’ use of aesthetics, it aims to unpick how a particular ‘social media imaginary’ is constructed and informs their collective identity. Using the Gezi Park protest of 2013 as a case study, it illustrates how social media became a symbolic part of the protest movement by providing the visualised possibility of imagining the movement. In previous research, the main emphasis has been given to the functionality of social media as a means of information sharing and a tool for protest organisation. This article seeks to redress this by directing our attention to the role of visual communication in online protest expressions and thus also illustrates the role of visual analysis in social movement studies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Mutsvairo ◽  
Helge Rønning

The purpose of this issue of Media Culture and Society is to discuss the possible role of social media in the struggle for democracy, against authoritarianism, and over hidden power structures. The articles included in this volume are meant to offer empirical interventions to beliefs, some of them unproven, on whether the emergence of new media technologies has driven Africa towards democratic change. Papers in this Special Issue cover a wide variety of African countries delving deep into comparative studies of participatory citizens’ media on the continent. This introduction is an attempt to offer an explanation on African democratisation and authoritarianism before conceptualising the role of social media in political processes with the backing of current case study dispatches in Africa, demonstrating the dilemmas of digital disparities in promoting or denting democratisation in Africa.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512093041
Author(s):  
Julian M. Mueller-Herbst ◽  
Michael A. Xenos ◽  
Dietram A. Scheufele ◽  
Dominique Brossard

Spreading issue awareness about increasingly interdisciplinary scientific discoveries faces progressively larger communication challenges due to the complexity, innovation pace, and broad applicability of these innovations. Traditionally, the public relies on legacy media for information and discussion of science topics. In face of a changing information landscape, however, legacy media struggle with decreasing funding for their science desks, and science journalists turn to more specialized outlets, often online. Given these developments, it is important to understand which platforms besides legacy media serve as facilitators of science issue awareness. In this study, we analyzed the impact of social media on the awareness of gene editing. We used a representative survey administered by professional survey firm YouGov between December 2016 and January 2017, yielding a final sample of 1,600 US adults with a 41.7% response rate. The regression analysis findings suggest that social media is a significant avenue through which awareness of gene editing, and subsequently other scientific issues, is spread. Using the example of Facebook, we were able to demonstrate that how, rather than if, one uses social media is the determining factor in spreading issue awareness. Awareness was positively predicted by the length of social media sessions and network heterogeneity, while pure amount of sessions actually negatively predicted awareness. Legacy media remain an important predictor of gene editing awareness. These results demonstrate that social media functions as an important information space for science issues and should receive individual attention along with legacy media outlets when examining science communication.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Natalie Liverant

<p>Tweet Carefully, Museums presents an in-depth case study of audiences and a museum using social media in the current Web 2.0 age. It explores online protest and controversy over an event held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) in 2015. This dissertation addresses a current gap in the literature centred on public use of social media as a platform to engage in museum-centred debate and discussion. At the moment, literature discussing new technologies in museums focuses heavily on an institution-to-audiences model. While this is indeed useful information, there is another aspect of digital media that has been largely neglected. In their case study, Gronemann et al. observed that overall, museums distanced themselves from discursive co-construction in their Facebook posts. The lack of engagement with audience can have adverse effects as social media grows in its popularity to mobilise the public in the name of social justice. “Western” museums, many of which have a history of fostering colonial narratives, can also be perceived as authoritative institutions. Museums need to engage more conscientiously with their online audiences. Unconsidered or insensitive engagement over social media may have adverse effects on institutions.  Kimono Wednesdays was an event where the public was invited to try on kimono in Gallery 255 at the MFA. The MFA advertised the event on a few social media platforms. On Facebook, the advertisement drew the harshest criticisms from a section of the Asian-American community. The sensational attention on Facebook grew quickly into physical protest inside Gallery 255. This case study analyses a sample of the dialogic posts, comments, and replies left on Facebook during the protests. It also analyses a symposium organised by the MFA, Kimono Wednesdays: A Conversation, where a panel made up of academics, museum staff, and a protester discussed the various concepts and perceptions of the museum’s controversial advertising and event.  This case study demonstrates that social media is a double-edged sword for museums, as it is a useful tool, but presents uncomfortable challenges. The key findings from this study show how content on the internet can be misinterpreted and how implicit bias can occur from any institution. As museums embrace Web 2.0 applications, they too must become more aware of their online presence and set in place methods of dialogic co-construction so as to better understand and communicate with the diversifying cultures that surround them.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Jones ◽  
Natasha Dowey ◽  
Rebecca Williams ◽  
Lewis Holloway

&lt;p&gt;During a volcanic crisis, effective communication between volcano observatories, local government, civil defence authorities, the media and the public is crucial in ensuring the safe management of the situation. A breakdown in this chain of communication may lead to unsafe behaviours, mistrust of authorities, economic impacts, anxiety, or at worst, fatalities (see Williams and Krippner, 2019). Over the past 100 years, various stakeholders have made progress in volcanic crisis communication, but the 21st century presents significant challenges (Fearnley et al. 2017). The world in which we communicate has changed rapidly in recent years; information from official bodies can be posted, shared, translated, re-interpreted and disseminated rapidly via online news outlets and social media. Widespread use of the internet means crises communications must now be fast paced and sustained, pushing the limits of those working in internal communication (Driedger et al., 2008). The modern drive of journalism to create different angles and interesting &amp;#8216;stories&amp;#8217; can lead to conflicting comments from multiple sources, which could cause public doubt about how well a hazard is being monitored and managed (McGuire et al, 2009). This project aims to better understand how the &amp;#8216;translation&amp;#8217; of press releases by the mainstream media impacts the behaviours and perceptions of the local and global community during a volcanic crisis. To achieve this aim, the project will focus on two research questions:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;1. How is the language used in volcanic crisis press releases variably &amp;#8216;translated&amp;#8217; into mainstream media?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. How is this language viewed and interpreted by the general public, and what impact does it have on perceptions of volcanic hazards, risk and uncertainty?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This project will use two methodologies. Firstly, press releases and their associated media be analysed to assess how information becomes translated and adapted. The communication of volcanic crisis information will be categorised and compared across different countries, languages, types of volcanism, and types of media, using recent case studies (e.g. Hawaii 2018 and Agung 2017). The second stage will investigate the impact of the translation/adaption of press releases by various media channels on public perceptions. Two focus groups will be carried out to provide a comparison; one group will read materials from the original press release and the other from social media/news articles. Both groups will then answer the same set of questions, allowing for critical comparison. This research will develop understanding of the power of modern communication to influence the public during volcanic crises. It will provide insights into how press releases are translated, with the potential to provide important learnings for the organisations that create and distribute them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;References Bird et al. (2012) Australian Journal of Emergency Management. (1) Driedger et al. (2008) USGS Professional Paper 1750. Fearnley et al. (2017) https://doi.org/10.1007/11157_2017_28 McGuire et al. (2009) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2009.02.019 Williams and Krippner (2019) https://doi.org/10.30909/vol.01.02.i-viii&lt;/p&gt;


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Abdullah ◽  
Kurdistan Saeed ◽  
Kanaan Abdullah

This study examines the nature of the relationship between journalists and politicians in the age of media entrepreneurship, with emphasis on the factors and challenges faced by both media entrepreneurs and politicians while using digital media. This study relies on an inductive approach through using the qualitative method, this involves conducting interviews (N: 41) with journalists to discover whether they work in traditional media organizations or/and own and manage digital media enterprises, it also brings to lights new information about politicians, especially those who have media inclinations. This study reveals that digital media provide journalists with opportunities to achieve professional and financial independence. However, their work in the context of Iraqi scope does not go beyond spreading propaganda and promoting various agenda of political parties and politicians. In terms of the content of media entrepreneurship, this study unveils anonymous social media which are affiliated with/ or supported by politicians which work as piracy for trolling political opponents and activists. It is assumed that such social media have serious repercussions for freedom and privacy. This worries activists and journalists that they are unable to express their opinions freely for fear of being attacked by anonymous social media working on behalf of politicians. Therefore, the ethics of social media and their ownership seems to be a major concern in the Iraqi political media space, and it should be taken into consideration in future research.


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