scholarly journals Introduction: Probing the System: Feminist Complications of Automated Technologies, Flows, and Practices of Everyday Life

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Gardner ◽  
Sarah Kember
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Systems Of Care ◽  
Special Section ◽  
The Political ◽  
Design Specifications ◽  
Cultural Codes ◽  
Technology Platforms ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
Care News ◽  
Health Social Media

This Special Section presents diverse scholarly voices examining the silenced, underexposed, intersectional forces that fortify science and technology platforms in their work to automate public abidance. The articles probe, from diverse global locations and perspectives, the contemporary work of various “platforms,” understood broadly as technology and software, health, social media, and policy platforms. The articles probe these systems and platforms with attention to the assumptions and practices embedded in their algorithms, protocols, design specifications, and communications, and, in turn, the political, cultural, governance, and mediated practices they make possible. The research studies and practice-based work herein expose the complex and shifting sociopolitical codes and contexts that condition technology, artificial intelligence (AI), surveillance, health, social media, and state platforms that support systems of care, news, communication, and governance. These exposures show how platform craftiness works differently in different spaces to privilege and damage, often with ghostly obscurity. Attentive to how platforms operate in complex contemporary viral modes, the section seeks to locate and expose these traces, draped in what communication scholars Sangeet Kumar and Radhika Parameswaran (2018, 345) refer to as “chameleon cultural codes” that, in changing and transforming into unrecognizable forms, feed global imaginaries.

Occupy Movement, Religion and Social Formations

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
Matt Sheedy
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Occupy Movement ◽  
Political Opportunity Structures

The Occupy movement was an unprecedented social formation that spread to approximate 82 countries around the globe in the fall of 2011 via social media through the use of myths, symbols and rituals that were performed in public space and quickly drew widespread mainstream attention. In this paper I argue that the movement offers a unique instance of how discourse functions in the construction of society and I show how the shared discourses of Occupy were taken-up and shaped in relation to the political opportunity structures and interests of those involved based on my own fieldwork at Occupy Winnipeg. I also argue that the Occupy movement provides an example of how we might substantively attempt to classify “religion” by looking at how it embodied certain metaphysical claims while contrasting it with the beliefs and practices of more conventionally defined “religious” communities.

Citizens, Elites, and Social Media Methodological Challenges and Opportunities in the Study of Persuasion and Mobilization

2019 ◽  
pp. 1036-1058
Author(s):  
Philip Habel ◽  
Yannis Theocharis
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Media Data

In the last decade, big data, and social media in particular, have seen increased popularity among citizens, organizations, politicians, and other elites—which in turn has created new and promising avenues for scholars studying long-standing questions of communication flows and influence. Studies of social media play a prominent role in our evolving understanding of the supply and demand sides of the political process, including the novel strategies adopted by elites to persuade and mobilize publics, as well as the ways in which citizens react, interact with elites and others, and utilize platforms to persuade audiences. While recognizing some challenges, this chapter speaks to the myriad of opportunities that social media data afford for evaluating questions of mobilization and persuasion, ultimately bringing us closer to a more complete understanding Lasswell’s (1948) famous maxim: “who, says what, in which channel, to whom, [and] with what effect.”

Political Knowledge and Misinformation in the Era of Social Media: Evidence From the 2015 UK Election

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Kevin Munger ◽  
Patrick J. Egan ◽  
Jonathan Nagler ◽  
Jonathan Ronen ◽  
Joshua Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
News Media ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Political Information ◽  
The Political ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
Media Platform

Abstract Does social media educate voters, or mislead them? This study measures changes in political knowledge among a panel of voters surveyed during the 2015 UK general election campaign while monitoring the political information to which they were exposed on the Twitter social media platform. The study's panel design permits identification of the effect of information exposure on changes in political knowledge. Twitter use led to higher levels of knowledge about politics and public affairs, as information from news media improved knowledge of politically relevant facts, and messages sent by political parties increased knowledge of party platforms. But in a troubling demonstration of campaigns' ability to manipulate knowledge, messages from the parties also shifted voters' assessments of the economy and immigration in directions favorable to the parties' platforms, leaving some voters with beliefs further from the truth at the end of the campaign than they were at its beginning.

scholarly journals Returning urban political elites to the research agenda: the case of the Southern Low Countries (c. 1350 – c. 1550)

Urban History ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 568-588
Author(s):  
Frederik Buylaert ◽  
Jelten Baguet ◽  
Janna Everaert
Keyword(s):  
Special Section ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
High Turnover ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis article provides a comparative analysis of four large towns in the Southern Low Countries between c. 1350 and c. 1550. Combining the data on Ghent, Bruges and Antwerp – each of which is discussed in greater detail in the articles in this special section – with recent research on Bruges, the authors argue against the historiographical trend in which the political history of late medieval towns is supposedly dominated by a trend towards oligarchy. Rather than a closure of the ruling class, the four towns show a high turnover in the social composition of the political elite, and a consistent trend towards aristocracy, in which an increasingly large number of aldermen enjoyed noble status. The intensity of these trends differed from town to town, and was tied to different institutional configurations as well as different economic and political developments in each of the four towns.

When Neglect Isn’t Working Anymore: The Unlikely Success of the Tuxedo Party

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-305
Author(s):  
Keri Cronin ◽  
Tim Fowler ◽  
Douglas Hagar
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Nova Scotia ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Advocacy ◽  
Stray Cats ◽  
Advocacy Campaigns

Abstract In 2012, Tuxedo Stan, a domestic long-hair cat, “ran for mayor” of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and a year later Stan’s brother, Earl Grey, “ran for premier” of Nova Scotia. What separated Stan and Earl Grey (who ran under the banner of the Tuxedo Party) from other politically minded felines was that the Tuxedo Party campaigns were not stunt or joke campaigns. While the cats could obviously not take office, the two campaigns were nonetheless political advocacy campaigns, with a clearly articulated message to make life better for feral and stray cats. This paper argues that the Tuxedo Party successfully elevated the issue onto the political agenda through their savvy mix of social media, and the use of positive imagery of cats in their campaigns.

CULTURAL INTERACTION BETWEEN SAFAVID IRAN AND OTTOMAN TURKEY IN 16TH CENTURY

2020 ◽  
pp. 136-148
Author(s):  
I. A. Averianov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Interaction ◽  
Cultural Codes ◽  
Religious Worldview ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sufi Order ◽  
Main Support

Сoming to power of the Safavids Sufi dynasty in Iran (in the person of Shah Ismail I) in 1501 caused noticeable transformations in the political, social, cultural and religious life of the Near and Middle East. This dynasty used the semi-nomadic tribes of the Oguz Turks (‘Kyzylbash’) as its main support, which it managed to unite under the auspices of military Sufi order of Safaviyya. However, the culture of the Safavid state was dominated by a high style associated with the classical era of the Persian cultural area (‘Greater Iran’) of the 10th–15th centuries. The Iranian-Turkic synthesis that emerged in previous centuries received a new form with the adoption by the Safavids of Twelver Shiism as an official religious worldview. This put the neighboring Ottoman state in a difficult position, as it had to borrow cultural codes from ‘heretics’. Nevertheless, the Ottomans could not refuse cultural interaction with the Safavids, since they did not have any other cultural landmark in that era. This phenomenon led to a number of collisions in the biographies of certain cultural figures who had to choose between commonwealth with an ‘ideological enemy’ or rivalry, for the sake of which they often had to hide their personal convictions and lead a ‘double life’. The fates of many people, from the crown princes to ordinary nomads, were broken or acquired a tragic turn during the Ottoman-Safavid conflict of ‘spiritual paths’. However, many other poets, painters, Sufis sometimes managed to transform this external opposition into the symbolism of religious and cultural synthesis. In scholarly literature, many works explore certain aspects of the culture of the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid state separately, but there are almost no works considering the synthesis of cultures of these two largest Muslim states. Meanwhile, the author argues, that understanding the interaction and synthesis of the Ottoman and Safavid cultures in the 16th century is a key moment for the cultural history of the Islamic world. The article aims to outline the main points of this cultural synthesis, to trace their dependence on the ideology of the two states and to identify the personality traits of a ‘cultured person’ that contributed to the harmonization of the culture of two ideologically irreconcilable, but culturally complementary empires. A comparative study of this kind is supported by Ottoman sources. In the future, the author will continue this research, including the sources reflecting the perception of the Ottoman cultural heritage by the Safavids.

Public Response to Online Public Debate in the 2020 Regional Head Election of Ponorogo Regency

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1340-1350
Author(s):  
Alifa Chandra Kumara ◽  
Dian Suluh Kusuma Dewi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mass Gathering ◽  
Public Response ◽  
Analysis Techniques ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Cross Tabulation

This year, regional head elections were held in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic so that social media can be used as a means of online campaigns to reduce mass gathering. This research was conducted to see the response of the Ponorogo community in participating in online public debates and to assess people's political participation by analyzing public comments on public debate shows on YouTube and Facebook. The data is processed using the Nvivo12 plus application by using cross tabulation data analysis techniques with manual coding then the results of the data obtained are described and analyzed in accordance with the theory of response and political participation. The data obtained on Facebook and YouTube were 772 responses with details of 357 responses on Facebook and 415 responses on YouTube. The responses given are in the form of positive, negative, and neutral responses. The process of obtaining data on public response is in accordance with the S-O-R response theory (Stimulus, Organism, Response) and the stage of response formation, as well as the political participation of the Ponorogo community is high enough to see the debate shows but the level of activeness in giving responses is less active.

scholarly journals Medicated bodies: Mental distress, social media and affect

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 549-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Tucker ◽  
Lewis Goodings
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Mental Distress ◽  
The Body ◽  
Psychiatric Medication ◽  
Social Media Site ◽  
Health Social Media ◽  
Care Practices ◽  
The Impact

Social media are increasingly being recruited into care practices in mental health. This article analyses how a major new mental health social media site ( www.elefriends.org.uk ) is used when trying to manage the impact of psychiatric medication on the body. Drawing on Henri Bergson’s concept of affection, analysis shows that Elefriends is used at particular moments of reconfiguration (e.g. change in dosage and/or medication), periods of self-experimentation (when people tailor their regimen by altering prescriptions or ceasing medication) and when dealing with a present bodily concern (showing how members have a direct, immediate relationship with the site). In addition, the analysis illustrates how users have to structure their communication to try to avoid ‘triggering’ distress in others. The article concludes by pointing to the need to focus on the multiple emerging relationships between bodies and social media in mental health, due to the ways the latter are becoming increasingly prominent technologies through which to experience the body when distressed.

scholarly journals The Transformation of the Crimean Tatars’ Institutions and Discourses After 2014

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-66
Author(s):  
Elmira Muratova
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Great Support ◽  
The Face ◽  
Traditional Institutions ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
Crimean Tatar

Abstract The article deals with the transformation of the Crimean Tatars’ institutions and discourses after the 2014 conflict around Crimea. It shows the change in the balance of power of traditional institutions such as Mejlis and Muftiyat, which for many years represented secular and religious components of Crimean Tatars’ ethnic identity. It tells how the Mejlis was dismissed from the political stage in Crimea, while the Muftiyat has enjoyed a great support by new authorities. This transformation and threats to societal security inevitably led to reassessment of previous views and goals of the main actors in the Crimean Tatar community and the formation of new institutions with hybrid composition and discourse. The article focuses on organization such as ‘Crimean solidarity,’ which was formed in 2016 as a reaction to authorities’ pressure over the Crimean Tatars. Using discourse analysis of statements of activists of this organization and content analysis of social media, the author presents the main topics of its discourse and types of activity. She shows how the traditional Islamic discourse of activists of this organization has been transformed by the incorporation of the main concepts of secular discourse developed by the Mejlis. The author argues that the appearance of ‘Crimean solidarity’ indicates the blurring of lines between secular and religious, and ethnic and Islamic in the Crimean Tatar society. It shows how people with different backgrounds and agendas manage to leave their differences aside to support each other in the face of a common threat.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document