scholarly journals “Making Sense”

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Brunner
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Building Block ◽  
Alternative Media ◽  
International Media ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Aesthetics Of Resistance ◽  
Gilbert Simondon

This article engages with the activities of the alternative international media centre FC/MC which was established and operated during the 2017 G20-summit in Hamburg. Rather than following established narratives on alternative media or mobilising discourses on aesthetics of resistance in the arts, the specific operational logics of affective and preemptive politics of perception define the main scope of developing what is termed “activist sense” and the emergence of potential “aesthetic counterpowers” as part and parcel of an affective politics of perception. Drawing on the conception of affect in social media studies and on the notions of field and information in the works of Gilbert Simondon, the FC/MC will be analysed as a building block in the overall infrastructure of affective resistance against dominant and platform-based narratives of violence and threat amplified by mainstream media. Through a field-based conception of affect and perception, the question of “making-sense” takes on a pervasive yet potentially more inclusive and activating dimension of future forms of media-infused modes of resistance.

scholarly journals Understanding factors and barriers to alternative media development in emerging economies: Learning from the Check Global project

First Monday ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome Turner ◽  
Dima Saber
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Literacy ◽  
Alternative Media ◽  
Development Project ◽  
Operational Experience ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Narratives

Check Global is a journalism and digital literacy development project (2019–2021) supporting countries and regions affected by conflict or state controls. In such contexts, expectations are set high for alternative journalism to accurately counter mainstream media narratives, controlled as they often are by the state; this article presents factors to be taken into consideration as a starting point for better understanding the challenges involved in developing journalism, e.g., through funded training initiatives. The article draws on interviews with prominent alternative and independent media outlets (some of them Check Global partners) from India, Latin America, Egypt and Lebanon, who therefore have operational experience of these issues. By viewing digital and social media through an anti-determinist lens, we challenge assumptions — especially prevalent following the 2011 Arab uprisings — that ‘open access’ and social media platforms can easily provide solutions to media plurality concerns. We explore factors such as the role of technology in alternative media, but also the main barriers faced by alternative media projects and outlets. This article therefore opens up a more honest discussion about the nature of alternative media projects in such contexts, and the ways in which digital literacy projects such as Check Global could support them.

scholarly journals Young diaspora Somali women's navigation of intersectional identities in online social media spaces

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samira Warsame
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Women Artists ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Classroom Space ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Online Spaces ◽  
Somali Women ◽  
Black Muslim ◽  
The Voice

Using Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality, this research examines how young Somali women have used the arts to challenge negative mainstream media discourse regarding the Black, Muslim and Somali identities. This research, similar to Crichlow's work on narrative sharing in the classroom space being used to amplify the voice of the oppressed and the marginalized, finds that young Somali women are using the arts interact with their intersectional identities and share them in online spaces. Social media has provided room for them to use and amplify their own voices which inevitably challenges negative representations promoted by mainstream media outlets while interacting with their intersectional identities. Using 6 Somali women from the arts communities in two of the major Somali-populated cities in the West; Toronto, Canada, and Minneapolis, USA, this work explores how young Somali women artists have been able to critically and creatively shape a more nuanced discourse about their identities. Keywords: Diaspora youth, Black AND Muslim, Somali women, arts-based inquiry, belonging, social media, narrative sharing, resiliency.

scholarly journals Making sense of democratic institutions intertextually: Communication on social media as a civic literacy event preceding collective action

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Mercea
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Civic Learning ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Self Organisation ◽  
Civic Literacy

Communication on social media preceding coordinated street demonstrations is assayed for evidence of practice-based informal civic learning about conventional politics and mainstream media. This is done to offset a mounting interest in activist self-organisation and self-reflexivity with a scrutiny of networked communication as a civic literacy event. The article proposes that scepticism and criticality directed at media and political institutions provide fertile justification for their challenge, thereby rendering intertextual informal learning an expedient to collective action.

scholarly journals Brazilian Blogosfera Progressista: Digital Vanguards in Dark Times

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 219-235
Author(s):  
Eleonora De Magalhães Carvalho ◽  
Afonso Albuquerque ◽  
Marcelo Alves Santos Júnior
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Alternative Media

This article explores the Brazilian Blogosfera Progressista (Progressive Blogosphere, hereafter BP), a leftist political communication initiative aiming to conciliate an institutionalized model of organization with a networked model of action. Despite the disparity of resources existing between them, BP proved able to counter effectively the mainstream media’s political framings, thanks to wise networking strategies, which explored the communicative opportunities offered by social media. The Centro de Estudos de Mídia Alternativa Barão de Itararé – Barão de Itararé Alternative Media Studies Center – is an essential piece in this schema, as it works as a coordinating agency for BP members and trains new participants. Our article intends to discuss this and other characteristics of BP as a group, and the challenges it faces at the present, after the rise of Jair Bolsonaro to Brazil’s presidency.

scholarly journals Mediation and Alternative Media, or Relocating the Centre of Media and Communication Studies

2002 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Couldry
Keyword(s):  
Digital Divide ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Alternative Media ◽  
Symbolic Power ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Symbolic Resources ◽  
Media Institutions ◽  
Media And Communication

Alternative media should not be marginal, but central, to the developing agenda of media and communication studies, because they challenge the massive concentration of ‘symbolic power’ (Bourdieu) in mainstream media institutions and the resulting ‘exclusion’ of most people ‘from the power of naming’ (Melucci). Precisely because alternative media organisations, in relative terms, lack symbolic resources, their activities tend to be largely invisible, but that is no reason why, as ‘weapons of the weak’ (Scott), they should be ignored. With some exceptions, media studies has neglected alternative media for too long, and neglected also the inequalities of symbolic power in which media institutions themselves are involved. But now there is less excuse for that neglect. When the ‘digital divide’ and the atrophy of representative democracy are hotly debated not only by academics but also by policy-makers, media studies should listen to those who are not prepared to accept their exclusion from the power of naming; they are citizens with something important to contribute to debates about democracy, and in paying more attention to them, media studies can make an important link between its own agenda and urgent agendas in political theory and democratic debate.

Indian elections 2014: The ‘alternative’ and ‘critical’ online

2016 ◽  
Vol 159 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-128
Author(s):  
Maya Ranganathan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
New Media ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Alternative Media ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Chief Minister ◽  
Bharatiya Janata Party ◽  
Media Space ◽  
Critical Media

The Indian national election in 2014 marked the emergence of social media as a significant site of political campaigning. The sweeping of the polls by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by the party’s prime ministerial candidate, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who employed social media extensively in his campaign, has drawn further attention to the hitherto ‘alternative media’ space. ‘Alternative media’ has been positioned and studied in relation to mainstream media. This article illustrates the ways in which the perceptions of mainstream media in a liberalised economy contoured the ‘alternative media’ space, limiting its potential to lead to radical and transformative processes of communication. In the process, the article interrogates the online space occupied by political parties and activists in the context of theoretical understandings of ‘alternative’ and ‘critical’ media. The article flags the need for, and the significance of, sustained study of the emerging new media space to understand the process of reconstitution of the Indian public space.

scholarly journals REVIEW: Carving a niche for minority language media studies not so easy

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 247
Author(s):  
Philippa Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Creative Industries ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Technological Advancement ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Mainstream Media

Book review of: Social Media and Minority Languages: Convergence and the Creative Industries, edited by Elin Haf Gruffydd Jones and Enrique Uribe-Jongbloed. Bristol, UK: Multilinguial Matters, 2013, 267pp. ISBN 9781847699046Whenever a new field of research emerges a lot of shuffling and sorting of knowledge is required to establish a niche, to define its boundaries, to encourage acknowledgement of the area and to stimulate debate concerning the application of various methodologies and theoretical frameworks. This is the case with Social Media and Minority Languages: Convergence and the Creative Industries. The catalyst for the book’s production, as implied by the title, is the technological advancement of social media, the resulting convergence of media in the digital age, and perhaps most importantly the positive and negative effects these have on minority or minoritised languages. Yet in reviewing its 17 chapters by more than 30 authors, it is clear the overall objective appears to be strongly focused on the reinforcement of Minority Language Media (MLM) as a field of study distinct from mainstream media studies because of its specific concern with ‘how media can be used to help languages’ (p. 255).

scholarly journals Young diaspora Somali women's navigation of intersectional identities in online social media spaces

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samira Warsame
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Women Artists ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Classroom Space ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Online Spaces ◽  
Somali Women ◽  
Black Muslim ◽  
The Voice

Using Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality, this research examines how young Somali women have used the arts to challenge negative mainstream media discourse regarding the Black, Muslim and Somali identities. This research, similar to Crichlow's work on narrative sharing in the classroom space being used to amplify the voice of the oppressed and the marginalized, finds that young Somali women are using the arts interact with their intersectional identities and share them in online spaces. Social media has provided room for them to use and amplify their own voices which inevitably challenges negative representations promoted by mainstream media outlets while interacting with their intersectional identities. Using 6 Somali women from the arts communities in two of the major Somali-populated cities in the West; Toronto, Canada, and Minneapolis, USA, this work explores how young Somali women artists have been able to critically and creatively shape a more nuanced discourse about their identities. Keywords: Diaspora youth, Black AND Muslim, Somali women, arts-based inquiry, belonging, social media, narrative sharing, resiliency.

Social media bots as active disseminators of COVID-19 news (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi ◽  
Vishal Shukla
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Total Sample ◽  
Breaking News ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Credible Information ◽  
Mixed Approach ◽  
Standard Terms ◽  
Official Sources

BACKGROUND In this study, we examined the activities of automated social media accounts or bots that tweet or retweet referencing #COVID-19 and #COVID19. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study is to identify bot accounts to understand the nature of messages sent by them on COVID-19. Social media bots have been widely discussed in academic literature as some kind of moral panic mostly in relation to spreading controversial and politically polarized messages or in connection to problematic health bots (Broniatowski et al., 2018; Allem & Ferrara, 2018). The findings of this study, however, show that bots that reference COVID-19 mostly mention mainstream media and credible health sources while spreading breaking news on the pandemic or urging people to stay at home. These results align with previous research on the possible benefits, advantages, or possibilities afforded by the use of health chatbots (Brandtzaeg & Følstad, 2018; Skjuve & Brandtzæg, 2018; Kretzschmar et al., 2019; Greer et al., 2019). METHODS We used a mixed approach mostly comprised of several digital methods in this study. First, we collected 50,811,299 tweets and retweets referencing #COVID-19 and #COVID19 for a period of over two months from February 12 until April 18, 2020. We focused on these two hashtags because they are standard terms used by WHO and other official sources. From a total sample of over 50 million tweets, we used a mixed method to extract more than 185,000 messages posted by 127 bots. RESULTS Unlike the literature on health bots that associate them with anti-social activities, our findings show that the majority of these bots tweet, retweet and mention mainstream media outlets and credible official sources, promote health protection and telemedicine, and disseminate breaking news on the number of casualties and deaths caused by COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS Despite that some literature on social media bots highlight the controversial and anti-social nature of automated accounts, the findings of this study show that the majority of bots spread news on and awareness of COVID-19 risks while citing and referencing mainstream media outlets and credible health sources. We argue that there might be financial incentives behind designing some of these bots. However and if monitored and updated with credible information by health agencies themselves, we believe that bots can be useful during health crises due to their efficiency and speed in spreading valuable information, some of which is crucial for public health. CLINICALTRIAL N/A

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