Tag Archives: technology

Technology, Media and Social Movements

Flesher Fominaya & Gillan (2018) Technology, Media and Movements. Book cover.This book offers an interdisciplinary set of contributions from leading scholars, and explores the complex relationship between media, technology and social movements. It provides a valuable resource for scholars and students working in this rapidly developing field.
Providing theoretical engagement with contemporary debates in the field of social movements and new media, the book also includes a theoretical overview of central contemporary debates, a re-evaluation of theories of social movement communication, and a critical overview of media ecology and media approaches in social movement scholarship. The theoretical contributions are also developed though empirical case studies from around the world, including the use of Facebook in student protests in the UK, the way power operates in Anonymous, the “politics of mundanity” in China, the emotional dynamics on Twitter of India’s Nirbhaya protest, and analysis of Twitter networks in the transnational feminist campaign ‘Take Back The Tech!’. This book was originally published as a special issue of Social Movement Studies.

This book was first published as a special issue of Social Movement Studies. Full details and ebook purchase available via Routledge.

Cite: Flesher Fominaya, Cristina & Kevin Gillan, eds. 2018. Technology, Media and Social Movements. London: Routledge.

Infographic: SMS in review

SMS 2017 Review - infographic screen grabMy latest hacky hobby project relates to my editorial work at Social Movement Studies. I’ve been exploring other ways of presenting the excellent content we publish in the journal, and trying to give a sense of the over coherence of the journal’s development. My initial attempts in this direction are presented in an infographic reviewing SMS 2017 content. (Now updated for a review of 2018.) Lessons learned from this exercise:

  • The Scopus database is a good source for downloadable data. I found the API rather complex though (especially given licensing issues for different datasets), so haven’t ventured into making a more dynamic website for this.
  • The Google Maps javascript API really does make it rather straightforward to present custom markers on a map. I found it useful to borrow this Overlapping Marker Spidifier to deal with multiple markers on single locations.
  • Jason Davies’ word cloud generator does a marvellous job of layout, although I ended up recoding the resulting svg by hand to make it interactive.

Navigating the Technology-Media-Movements Complex

Flesher Fominaya, Cristina and Kevin Gillan. 2017. ‘Navigating the Technology-Media-Movements Complex’. Social Movement Studies 16(4):383–402.
Abstract: In this article we develop the notion of the technology-media-movements complex (TMMC) as a field-definition statement for ongoing inquiry into the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in social and political movements. We consider the definitions and boundaries of the TMMC, arguing particularly for a historically rooted conception of technological development that allows better integration of the different intellectual traditions that are currently focused on the same set of empirical phenomena. We then delineate two recurrent debates in the literature highlighting their contributions to emerging knowledge. The first debate concerns the divide between scholars who privilege media technologies, and see them as driving forces of movement dynamics, and those who privilege media practices over affordances. The second debate broadly opposes theorists who believe in the emancipatory potential of ICTs and those who highlight the ways they are used to repress social movements and grassroots mobilization. By mapping positions in these debates to the TMMC we identify and provide direction to three broad research areas which demand further consideration: (i) questions of power and agency in social movements; (ii) the relationships between, on the one hand, social movements and technology and media as politics (i.e. cyberpolitics and technopolitics), and on the other, the quotidian and ubiquitous use of digital tools in a digital age; and (iii) the significance of digital divides that cut across and beyond social movements, particularly in the way such divisions may overlay existing power relations in movements. In conclusion, we delineate six challenges for profitable further research on the TMMC.
An open access version will be available once copyright allows, via University of Manchester.

Special Issue: Technology, Media and Social Movements.

Published in 2017 as Social Movement Studies 16(4). Editors: Cristina Flesher Fominaya and Kevin Gillan.

Table of Contents:

You’re not digital natives, you’re settlers

First posted at Medium.

Oh no — I’ve just come across the phrase ‘digital immigrant’ in opposition to ‘digital native’. The implication is that those born into the internet age are naturals at navigating its byways and cultural mores. I don’t think the term ‘digital immigrant’ is supposed to bring the foul right-wing political discourses of migration into play — but even if you  Continue reading You’re not digital natives, you’re settlers

Party organizational change and ICTs: The growth of a virtual grassroots?

Gibson, Rachel K., Kevin Gillan, Fabienne Greffet, Benjamin J. Lee, and Stephen Ward. 2013. ‘Party Organizational Change and ICTs: The Growth of a Virtual Grassroots?New Media & Society 15(1):31–51.

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between unofficial party blogs and official party sources in the UK using a mixed-method approach. Specifically we combine interview data with content analysis, user surveys and usage data, and finally hyperlink analysis to profile the emergence, popularity, audience and online prominence of four major party blogs since 2005. The core question posed is how far the blogs are challenging parties as the focal point for member activism and offering an alternative public ‘voice’. The findings show blogs occupy an important alternative critical space for party debate, particularly outside elections. They are not mobilizing tools, however, being used by the grassroots largely for information-gathering and discussion purposes.

The authoritative final version is available via SAGE.

The open access version of this paper is available here: Gibson-etal-2013-NMS-AAM