Taking Back Civic Space: Nonviolent Protests and Pushbacks against Autocratic Restrictions in Thailand

The year of 2020 witnessed the eruption of Thailand’s largest and longest-lasting mass demonstrations since the 2014 military putsch. Despite threats of crackdown, protesters leveraged a host of innovative nonviolent actions to reclaim political space that the regime had previously squeezed. This article sheds light on key mechanisms that underpin nonviolent actions’ ability to push back against a trend of shrinking space. We argue that the logic of nonviolent action, tactical and digital creativity, and counteracting repression operates in tandem. First, specific forms of nonviolent action carved out space for popular protest and increased public participation in it despite regime hindrances. Second, particularly tactical and digital creativity sustained this mass participation by reversing some effects of repression. Third, nonviolent responses to this repression encouraged further anti-regime mobilization. We conclude our analysis with some caveats. The Thai case shows that keeping regained space can be difficult.

Spectatorship, Control, and Collective Groups

It is axiomatic that the Roman emperor attempted to control the city populace through an ideology of ‘bread and circuses’ (free grain and public entertainment). Yet a riot during a food crisis in 189 ce, which began in the circus and spread to the streets, shows that spectators could be the agents of political interaction at public spectacles rather than merely passive participants, that public spectacles could be organizing events for the non-elite population. It has been argued that crowds in order to form require a ‘notion of legitimation’. Indeed, the crowd at this riot was engendered in part through the long-standing conventions of spectatorship at Roman public spectacles, including 1) public spectacles as venues for popular protest and interactions with the emperor; 2) the custom of arranged seating, including claques, factions, and trade guilds (collegia); 3) common forms of spectator response, such as acclamations.

News Processing of the Popular Movement Issues in the Dijlah Channel: An Analytic Study of the News Bulletins for the Period 25 Oct. 2019-25 Jan. 2020

This study analyses news bulletins in Iraqi satellite channels on the popular movement that has started on 25 Oct. 2019. This is considered one of the most important issues on the Iraqi field. It has been highlighted by Iraqi, Arab and even international satellite channel. The main aims of the study are to identify the most important issues of the popular movement that have been processed in the studied channels and the styles used in the processing of these issues. The aims reflect the questions the researcher raises to solve the academic problem. The study has reached a number of conclusions, the most important of which are the following 1.Dijlah satellite channel allocated a lot of time to cover the popular movement issues in its news bulletins It dealt with all the events that took place in the popular protest. 2.Dijlah concentrated on the elements of excitement by processing the news during the news bulletins. created dramatically effective scenes in the bulletins to attract the attention of the followers. 3. The researcher found out that in their particular ways of processing the popular movement new. news processing, processing –t .v-, Popular movement, Dijlah channels

Humour and satire in everyday life in 1920s Soviet society

In the Soviet society of the 1920s, humour and satire existed on two levels: official and unofficial. They have rather diverse forms. At the official level, there were, first of all, satirical articles, humoresques, and cartoons in the newspapers. Newspapers were an integral part of Soviet everyday life. Secondly, there were the performances of propaganda teams (the «Blue Blouse» in particular). These performances took place at any venues: in working clubs and village halls, on the factory floors, in different offices. The repertoire of propaganda teams always included satirical couplets directed against «internal and external enemies». At the unofficial level, there were witty-ditties, funny couplets, and anecdotes. They have various contents: from everyday and romantic issues to political problems. Therefore, at this level humour and satire expressed a critical attitude to the government and popular protest. At each level, humour and satire had their own goals and fulfilled various functions: from ideological to relaxational.

Populism and Protest

The essay considers populism in the present moment in relation to Black Lives Matter as a popular protest movement. Popular protest movements demand that government change; populism in the present moment seeks to act extra-governmentally, and to this end relies on violence in the face of peace protest movement. This violence demonstrates the white patriarchalism of contemporary populism. I argue that peaceful, popular protest is an important tool to resist white patriarchal populist authoritarianism.