Italian Political Science Society / Società Italiana di Scienza Politica (SISP)
Congress 2011 - Palermo, 8-10 September
Panel on
Social Media and Social Mobilizations:
Mediating Revolution and Resistance in the Arab World
Jointly organized by
Political Participation and Social Movements Section
(Dr. Lorenzo Mosca, University of Rome 3)
and
Political Communication Section
(Working group on International Communication:
Dr. Claudia Padovani, University of Padova)
Call for paper
The Arab world has experienced in the past months an awakening of free expression that is helping breaking down the stranglehold of state power and state-sponsored media and information monopolies in several countries. After Tunisia and Egypt, from Morocco to Bahrain, the Arab world is now witnessing increasing citizens’ engagement in the streets and on the internet. Social networks contribute to inform, coordinate, organize, mobilize, create communities; they also increase transparency, and seek to hold governments accountable as web sites, blogs, online videos, and other digital platforms can quickly become tools for freedom of association, and access to information.
This situation is transforming observers’ and people’s perception of social networks and their potential in fostering political action, particularly in undemocratic regimes; it is also questioning state capacity to control, censor and impose its logic and order on the population; finally it opens the space to reconsider how journalistic practices, both nationally and in the global context, are being transformed by variety of modes, channels and voices that can be heard and listened to.
Government authorities in the region also have waged widespread crackdowns on bloggers, journalists and civic actors. Hundreds of activists, writers, and journalists have faced repercussions because of their online activities. Governments’ reactions to social media have given rise to a never-ending battle in the blogosphere as any means is used to bypass government firewalls only to have those efforts meet further government blocking. The tension between civic use of small media and government counter-activities still remains to be fully investigated.
Furthermore, though the days of government-sponsored or politically allied newspapers holding monopoly have been eclipsed by the advent and adoption of social media, the growing availability of the technologies and the increasing desire to communicate are faced with quite diverse situations from country to country in terms of internet penetration and access throughout the region (ranging from 2% Yemen and 6% Lybia to 21-34% Egypt and Tunisia and 88% Bahrein). The numbers invite to more articulated reflection on the diversity of media available, and the diversity of use which reflects different social and economic contexts. Different levels of access and use of social media probably entails the presence of “brokers” and “opinion leaders” (i.e. hackers and bloggers) which diffuse ideas and innovations within the overall population. National contexts matter in explaining different dynamics of social media adoption and social mobilizations. Both
single case-studies as well as comparative research can provide insights to illuminate such issues. In an always more “global” and integrated communication system, national and international interplays determine peculiar public sphere configurations and dynamics of opinion. The transnational dimension as well as national-international interplay should then be addressed in order to understand what is their role in giving visibility, sustaining and providing resources to domestic mobilizations.
Moreover, in understanding social transformation and revolutionary movements, the mix of face-to-face interaction and use of contemporary media - social networks, mobile telephony, email – should be given adequate attention; thus online and offline realms have to be addressed and considered as the two faces of the same coin. A tendency to technologist reductionism is a limit to understanding: only by fully acknowledging the interplay of socio-cultural elements with mediating tools, and by looking at the several resources that contribute to construct political action - cognitive definition of aims and objectives, active relation between the subjects, emotional involvement and redefinition of symbolic systems (Melucci 1996) – we can begin to understand social change and the ways in which it is being shaped in any specific context.
Finally, political transformations depend on social actors’ capacity to foster, confront and resist change (Lukes 2007). This implies a redefinition of the notion of power in society, inviting multi-dimensional approaches towards a better understanding of the visible, hidden and invisible faces of power, while acknowledging the relevance of soft as well as ‘smart power’ (Nye 2011): the combination of hard and soft power sources that are being played out in revolutionary contexts.
In order to address these many issues, paper proposals are invited --through focusing on single case-studies or by comparing different countries-- to address aspects such as:
§ Social appropriation of digital media: either limited to an elite of “opinion leaders” or widespread among the overall population.
§ Strategies of mediated mobilization: small media as fulfilling different functions in mobilization processes
§ Empowering citizens through online/offline interaction: the interplay between social and mediated exchanges
§ What media for what message? Articulating discourses through different media
§ Big media and small voices: mainstream media making use of peoples’ words
§ Role of Western media and interplay between domestic and international communication in the making of revolutionary processes
§ Making voices heard: transforming journalism through citizens’ practice
§ Overcoming censorship: adapting technologies for freedom and countering state control
§ Communicative, network and smart power: insights from empirical research.
Proposals (either in Italian or English) should be sent, by June 15, to:
Lorenzo Mosca – lorenzo.mosca@???
Claudia Padovani – claupad67@???
Acceptance will be communicated by July 10.
_______________________________________
Lorenzo Mosca
Università degli Studi Roma Tre
Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia
Dipartimento Comunicazione e Spettacolo
Via Ostiense n. 139 - 00154 Roma
Tel. ufficio: 06 5733 4051
http://www.dicospe.com/default.asp
