Mediated Digital Activism: A Critical Assessment of Opportunities, Promises and Problems of Social Media Uses in Contemporary Grassroots Movements

Baruck Opiyo 1 *, Ülfet Kutoğlu Kuruç 1
More Detail
1 Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus
* Corresponding Author
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, Volume 6, Issue December 2016 - Special Issue, pp. 121-148. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/5646
OPEN ACCESS   2178 Views   1727 Downloads   Published online: 01 Dec 2016
Download Full Text (PDF)

ABSTRACT

The rapid development and widespread and increasing use of Social Networking sites is arguably one the most significant developments in contemporary human communication over the past two decades. Indeed, perhaps comparable only to development of mobile communication technologies, social networking may well be one of the most important and visible forms of human interaction since the invention of the Internet. In this paper, we examine and highlight the enormous potential of these fairly recent technological developments and highlight opportunities they present to humankind as platforms for democratic and participatory communication and governance - especially in grassroots social movements activism. While doing so, we use cases to show the important potential and actual contributions that social media hold out and represent for democratic communication. The paper also casts a critical look at the potential risks and examines proven and theoretical shortcomings and challenges that these new advances in human communication may pose or represent for society, and identify cybercrime, cyber bullying, their effects on human physical and emotional health, their impact on productivity and other workplace complications, and potential societal disorder and dysfunction of certain social norms among the list of concerns that we suggest require further reflection and redress. The paper concludes by depicting social media as a potentially useful tool from which much social and societal capital can be derived; but also draws attention to their many problematic aspects that make them seem like double-edged sword – with enormous opportunities and benefits on the one hand, and risks and threats, on the other, depending primarily on the uses to which they are put. Global, regional and national initiatives should be taken to maximize the benefits of social media while minimizing, or at least containing the threats through incorporation of independent but limited guidelines and regulations that would safeguard people’s freedoms and rights while protecting users from abuses and adverse effects often inherent in new developments.
Keywords: social media, cyber-democracy, cybercrime, social media activism, conflict, participatory democracy, conflict sensitive journalism, social media literacy

CITATION

Opiyo, B., & Kutoğlu Kuruç, Ü. (2016). Mediated Digital Activism: A Critical Assessment of Opportunities, Promises and Problems of Social Media Uses in Contemporary Grassroots Movements. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 6(December 2016 - Special Issue), 121-148. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/5646

REFERENCES

  • Bahador, B. (2015). “The media and deconstruction of the enemy image”, in Communication and Peace Mapping-an emerging field edited by Hoffmann and Hawkins; Routledge.
  • Barlow, J.P. (1996). “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyperspace.” http://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/Joh_Perry_Barlow/barlow_0296.declaration.txt.
  • Blackman, R. (2003). Peace-building within our communities, Tearfund 2003, retrieved from http://tilz.tearfund.org/media/Files/TILZ/Publications/ROOTS/English/Peace-building/Peace_E.pdf
  • Brewer, P. R., Graf, J., G., and Willnat, L. (2003) “Priming or Framing: Media Influence on Attitudes Toward Foreign Countries”. International Communication Gazette, 65 (6): 493-508.
  • Briones, R.L., Kuch, B., Liu, B.F., and Jin, Y. (2011). Keeping up with the digital age: How the American Red Cross uses social media to build relationships. Public Relations Review, 37: 37-43.
  • Bratic, V. (2006). “Media effects during conflict: Evaluating media contributions to peace building”. conflict & communication online, vol. 5, No.1.
  • Bratic, V. (2015). Beyond Journalism: expanding the use of media in peacebuilding, in Communication and Peace-Mapping an emerging field edited by Hoffmann and Hawkins; Routledge.
  • Brewer, R., Graf, J. and Willnat, L. (2003). Priming or Framing: Media Influence on Attitudes Toward Foreign Countries. International Communication Gazette, 65 (6): 493-508.
  • Cardoso G. & Neto, P. P. “Mass media driven mobilization and online protest-ICTs and the pro-East Timor movement in Portugal”, in Cyberprotest-New Media, Citizens and Social Movements, edited by Wim Van De Donk, Brian D. Loader, Paul G. Nixon and Dieter Rucht, Routledge, Taylor and Francis e-library, 2005.
  • Caroll, W.K. & Hackett R.A. (2006). “Democratic media activism through the lens of social movement theory” . Media, Culture and Society, Sage Publications, retriewed from http://mcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/83
  • Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell).
  • Castells, M. (2009). Communication Power (New York: Oxford University Press).
  • Castells, M. (2011). Interview posted on http://globalsociology.com/2011/02/07/the- sociology-elders-on-the-socialmovements-in-tunisia-and-egypt/ (accessed 25 June 2011).
  • Charlotte, A. “Why Turkey Bans News about Terror Bombings, The World Post, 17 Feb. 2016, retrieved from: www. Huffingtonpost.com/entry/turkey-media-blackout-istanbul-bombing_us_56957080e4b086bc1cd5a364
  • Debies-Carl, J.S. (2015). Print Is Dead: The Promise and Peril of Online Media for Subcultural Resistance. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 44(6): 679-708.
  • Delvin, K. (2016). Trump would be ‘coward’ to snub Scotland mosques, in USA TODAY. Retrieved from: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/06/10/donald-trump-scotland-coward/85684514/
  • Delvin, K. (2016). Scottish Muslim leaders invite ‘ignorant’ Trump to visit mosque, in USA TODAY. Retrieved from: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/06/08/scottish-muslim-leaders-invite-ignorant-trump-to-visit-mosque/85587828/
  • Dercon, S. and Gutierrez-Romero, R. (2012). “Triggers and Characteristics of the 2007 Kenyan Electoral Violence.” World Development, Vol. 40, 4: 731-744. Retrieved December 8, 2015 from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X11002373. Earl, J., and Kimport, K. (2011). Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Gladwell, M. (2010). “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted,” The New Yorker, 4 October 2010.http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
  • Graham, M.W. (2014). Government communication in the digital age: Social media’s effect on local government public relations. Public Relations Inquiry, 3(3): 361-376.
  • Grunig, J.E. (1992). Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  • Grunig, J.E., and Hunt, T. (1984). Managing public relations. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
  • Habermas, J. (1987) The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston, MA: Beacon-Press.
  • Hanson, R. E. (2011). Mass Communication Living in a Media World, CQ Press, a division of SAGE.
  • Hoffmann, Julia (2015). Confronting the conundrum of hate speech. In Communication and Peace Mapping an emerging field edited by Hoffmann and Hawkins by Routledge.
  • Hovland, C. I., Lumsdaine C. I., and Sheffield F. D. (1949) Experiments on Mass Communication. Princeton: Priceton University Press.
  • Howard, R. (2002). AN OPERATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR MEDIA AND PEACEBUILDING, Vancouver: IMPACS – Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society. Howard, P. N. (2011). The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information technology and Political Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press). http://www.ihrb.org/news/digital-dangers-case-study-safaricom.html
  • http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/06/20/kenya-citizen-media-in-a-time-of-crisis/ http://www.dw.de/social-media-become-kenyas-new-battleground/a-16687870
  • Ishiai, T. (2013, July 14). Media planted the seeds for Arab Spring uprisings. Retrieved May 8, 2014, from The Asahi Shimbun: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/opinion/AJ201307140034
  • Iyenger, S., and Kinder, D. (1987). News that Matters. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
  • Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Weigel, M., Clinton, K., and Robinson, A.J. (2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education of the 21st Century. Chicago: The MacArthur Foundation.
  • Joseph, S. (2012) “Social Media, Political Change and Human Rights” Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, volume 35, Issue 1, http: //lawdigitalcommons. bc.edu/icrl/vol35/iss 1/3
  • Kahn, R., and Kellner, D. (2004). “New Media and Internet Activism: From the ‘Battle of Seattle’ to blogging.” New Media & Society, 6 (I), 87-95.
  • Kahn, R., and Kellner, D. (2003). “Internet Subcultures and Oppositional Politics.” In Post-subcultures Reader, edited by D. Muggleton and R. Weinzierl, 299-313. Oxford: Berg.
  • Kassim, S. (2012, July 3). Twitter Revolution: How the Arab Spring Was Helped By Social Media. Retrieved May 8, 2014, from Mic Network Inc.: http://www.policymic.com/articles/10642/twitter-revolution-how-the-arab-spring-was-helped-by-social-media
  • Kenyan electoral violcence. Retrieved from: http://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/workingpapers/pdfs/2010-12text.pdf, on November 9, 2014. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29831262
  • Kuruç, K. U., and Opiyo, B. (November, 2014). “Mediated Activism: Prepondering the ‘Activist’ Use of Social Media in pursuit of Global Peace and Justice”, conference paper, Fourth International Conference in Communication and Media Studies: If You Wish Peace, Care for Justice.
  • Katz, E. and Lazarsfled P. F. (1955). Personal Influence, The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications. New York: The Free Press.
  • Khondker, H.H. (2011). “Role of the New Media in the Arab Spring”. Globalizations, 8, 5; 675-679.
  • Klapper, J. T. (1960). The Effects of Mass Communication,Glencoe:Free Press.
  • Leary, T. (1994). Chaos and Cyberculture. Berkeley: Ronin
  • Lievrouw, L. A. (2011). Alternative and Activist New Media. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
  • Lindsey, R. A. (2013, July 29). What the Arab Spring Tells Us About the Future of Social Media in Revolutionary Movements. Retrieved May 7, 2014, from Small Wars Journal: http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/what-the-arab-spring-tells-us-about-the-future-of-social-media-in-revolutionary-movements
  • Lynch, J. (2007).Peace Journalism and its discontents, Conflict and Communication Online, vol.6, No.2.
  • McCarthy, J. D., McPhail, C., and Smith, J. (1996). ‘‘Images of Protest: Dimensions of Selection Bias in Media Coverage of Washington Demonstrations, 1982 and 1991.’’ American Sociological Review 61(3):478–99.
  • McChesney, R.W. (2008). The Political Economy of Media. New York, NY: Monthly Review
  • McNair, B. (2011). An Introduction to Political Communication (5th ed.). London and New York, NY: Routledge.
  • McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1972). The Agenda Setting Function of Mass
  • Media. The Public Opinion Quarterly- JSTOR, 36(2), 176-187. Retrieved October 23, 2014, from http://www.unc.edu/~fbaum/teaching/PLSC541_Fall06/McCombs%20and%20Shaw%20POQ%201972.pdf
  • Melucci, A. (1989). Nomads of the Present. London: Hutchinson Radius.
  • Melucci, A. (1996) Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Noelle-Neumann, E. (1984). The spiral of silence: Public Opinion-Our social skin. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
  • Obholzer, L., and Daniel, W.T. (2016). An online electoral connection? How electoral systems condition representatives’ social media use. European Union Politics, 0(0): 1-21.
  • O'Donnell, C. (2011, September 12). New study quantifies use of social media in Arab Spring. Retrieved May 8, 2014, from University of Washington Web site: http://www.washington.edu/news/2011/09/12/new-study-quantifies-use-of-social-media-in-arab-spring/
  • Pfeifle, M. (2012, June 14). Changing the Face(book) of Social Activism. Retrieved May 8, 2014, from The Huffington Post Website : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-pfeifle/social-media-political-activism_b_1594287.html
  • Price, M. E., and Stremlau, N. A. (2009). Media, Elections and Political Violence in Eastern Africa: Towards a Comparative Framework. Annenberg-Oxford Occasional Paper in Communications Policy Research. Online, accessed April 2, 2014, available at: http://global.asc.upenn.edu/fileLibrary/PDFs/PostelectionViolencereport.pdf.
  • Ray, L. (1993) Rethinking Critical Theory. London: SAGE.
  • Reuben, R. C. (2009). The Impact of News Coverage on Conflict: Toward Greater Understanding, Marquette University, Law School.45, 93(1), retrieved from http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol93/is1/8 or http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4926&context=mulr
  • Ricardo, Q. D., interview with Zygmunt Bauman, El Pais (in English) newspaper, “Social media are trap” 25 ene 2016, retriewed from: http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/19/in english/ 1453208692_424660.html
  • Ritter, D., and Treschel, A. (2011). “Revolutionary Cells: On the Role of Texts, Tweets and Status Updates in Non-Violent Revolutions”. Working Paper Presented at the conference on Internet, Voting and Democracy, Laguna Beach, California.
  • Ross, K., and Burger, T. (2014). Face to face(book): Social media, political campaigning and the unbearable lightness of being there. Political Science, 66(1): 46-62.
  • Ross, K., Fountaine, S., and Comrie, M. (2015). Facing up to Facebook: politicians, publics and the social media(ted) turn in New Zealand. Media, Culture & Society, 37(2): 251-269.
  • Severin, W. J. and James W. Tankard (1992) Communication Theories: Origins, Methods, Uses of Mass Media, 3rd edition, White Plains: Longman.
  • Tahir, B. A. (2009). Practical Guide: Tips for Conflict reporting. Islamabad: Termedia-
  • The Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict (HIIK) (Several authors). (2013). Conflict Barometer: Global distribution of conflicts. Heidelberg, Germany. retrieved from: https://hiik.de/de/downloads/data/downloads_2013/ConflictBarometer2013.pdf The New Internationalist. (December 10, 2010). World development book case study: the role of social networking in the Arab Spring. Retrieved from: newint.org/books/reference/world-development/cWorld Development book case study: the role of social networking in the Arab Springase-studies/social-networking-in-the-arab-spring/
  • Tsekeris, C. (2009). Blogging as Revolutionary Politics. Research Journal of Social Sciences, 4: 51-54.
  • Turkle, S. (1997). Life on Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York, NY: Touchstone
  • UNESCO. 1945. “The UNESCO Constıtutıon.” UNESCO, November 16. Online, accessed April 22, 2014, available at: www. Unesco.org/new/en/unesco/about-us/who-we-are/history/constitution/. United Nations. (1948). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved from: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
  • Yıldızalp, M. (2016). “Yanlış Sosyal Medya Paylaşımları Teröre Hizmet Eder”, Ankara (AA), 23 March 2016, retrieved from: aa.com.tr/tr/turkiye/yanliş-sosyal-medya-paylaşımları-teröre-hizmet-eder/542351