1,720,982 research outputs found
Protest and Democracy. How Movement Parties, Social Movements and Active Citizens Are Reshaping Europe
No full textThis book offers an interdisciplinary analysis of the interplay between protest and institutions during an era of multiple crises in Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Romania and the UK. Focusing on the interaction between citizens, social movements and movement parties, and questions of democratic quality related to participation, competition and responsiveness, it considers the role of traditional and social media when connecting institutional and non-institutional arenas. Building on insights from political science, sociology and communication studies, it combines an original cross-national survey, interviews, media analysis, document analysis, statistical analytical techniques, critical discourse analysis, social network analysis, and natural language processing, in a comparative perspective
Protest and democracy: how movement parties, social movements and active citizens are reshaping Europe
No full textOnline Participation: New Forms of Civic and Political Engagement or Just New Opportunities for Networked Individualism
No full textThis paper discusses the findings of a qualitative study aimed at investigating Italian youth’s political uses of the web in relation to their civic cultures, that is shared systems of meaning, values, knowledge, spaces and practices through which young citizens construct collective identities that support or inhibit their political engagement (Dahlgren 2009). Rather than studying internet-based practices in isolation from the offline and from other media consumption practices, the use of the internet as a tool for political information and political participation is here contextualised both in young people crossmedia diets and in the context of their daily lives and their social networks. It is deemed that the development of web 2.0 and social media potentially expands the opportunities for civic engagement and may represent a remedy for youth disaffection, but studies of the role of the internet in promoting political engagement among young people are divided in their conclusions. The findings suggest that online participation needs to be contextualized in youth’s political socialization and media consumption practices, and that different civic cultures engage in different online activities and forms of participation. On the one hand web 2.0 under certain conditions seems effective in mobilizing participation, at least by those already interested. At the same time, online participation is an outcome of broader social changes, such as the emergence of new patterns of sociality – networked individualism (Castells 2001) and networked collectivism (Baym 2010) - and new citizenship practices
Protest and democracy
No full textThis introductory chapter presents the rationale and structure of the book. It refers to the central goal of the book, namely to investigate the ways in which interactions between citizens, social movements and a specific breed of political party – the so-called movement parties – influence democratic quality in times of crisis as during the recent years in Europe. The chapter also gives more information on the research project ProDem (“Protest and Democracy – How Movement Parties, Social Movements and Active Citizens Are Reshaping Europe”), financed by the Volkswagen Foundation which is the basis of this book.The research objectives are formulated, and the innovative character of the project is underlined. Furthermore, the structure of the book is introduced, and the collaboration activities with stakeholders are described
Protest communication ecologies
Full text linkThe flurry of protests since the turn of the decade has sustained a growth area in the social sciences. The diversity of approaches to the various facets and concerns raised by the collective action of aggrieved groups the world over impresses through multidisciplinarity and the wealth of insights it has generated. This introduction to a special issue of the international journal Information, Communication and Society is an invitation to recover conceptual instruments — such as the ecological trope — that have fallen out of fashion in media and communication studies. We account for their fall from grace and explicate the rationale for seeking to reinsert them into the empirical terrain of interlocking media, communication practices and protest which we aim to both capture with theory and adopt as a starting point for further analytical innovation
Changing strategies, shifting responses: how movement parties and the traditional media interact
No full textMovement parties have significantly disrupted conventional media dynamics through innovative communication strategies and the strategic exploitation of digital technologies. However, the existing literature has overlooked the interactions between these parties and traditional media outlets, despite the substantial political influence which the latter continue to wield. This chapter aims to fill this gap by examining the evolving relationship between movement parties and traditional media outlets across four European countries. Through qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with movement party representatives and journalists, the chapter reveals dynamic interactions shaped by the characteristic traits of movement parties. As these parties mature politically and become more institutionalised, their interactions with traditional media undergo significant transformations. Our analysis identifies two primary features shared by movement parties which contribute to similarities in their relations with the media: informal organisational structures and a reliance on digital media. Despite significant ideological variation among the parties analysed, the chapter highlights commonalities in their approaches and resulting media relations
POVERTY IN THE NEWS
No full textThis article provides a framing analysis of mainstream press coverage of poverty (offline and online) in Canada and the UK, and compares mainstream news coverage to coverage on alternative news sites. The research questions the extent to which, and how, coverage of children and immigrants presents contemporary constructions of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving poor’. It is argued that rationalizing and individualizing frames dominate coverage of poverty and immigration. The author suggests that the significance of the dominance of these frames is their ability to privilege and embed market-based approaches to poverty and immigration. An analysis of alternative news content reveals the extent to which social justice frames, the very frames that counter market-based approaches, are absent from mainstream news coverage. Overall, these results indicate that challenging problematic representations and approaches to poverty will require changing representations, an expansion of coverage that runs counter to news norms, and structural investments
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