This article aims to shed more light on the potentials and limitations of social media as a tool for activists. It does this by focusing on the use of one particular social media platform — Twitter ...— during one specific period of a certain uprising: the first 24 hours of protests in Libya during the Arab Spring in 2011. Even though this study is thus limited, it represents an important step in the direction of analyzing what actually happens when social media is put to use in relation to concrete events. The identified social network patterns, as well as the content of the posts, resonate with what Enzensberger (1970) calls “emancipatory use of media”: The architecture is decentralized, network connections are distributed, and mobilization and self-organization is going on. It must be realized however, that seeds of such emancipatory use does not necessarily preclude “repressive use of media”.
This article explores the rapidly developing field of Critical AI Studies and its relation to issues of class and capitalism through a hybrid approach based on distant reading of a newly collected ...corpus of 300 full-text scientific articles, the creation of which is itself a first attempt at properly delineating the field. We find that words related to issues of class are predominantly but not exclusively confined to a set of studies that make up their own distinct subfield of Critical AI Studies, in contrast to, e.g., issues of race and gender, which are more broadly present in the corpus.
The use of hashtags has become an effective tool for activists to mobilize public support. This study explores whether, and in what ways, such hashtags have been adopted by politicians in power. ...Conducting a systematic, cross-national analysis, we examine how politicians use, what we call, activism-related hashtags. Using data from the Twitter Parliamentarian Database, we analyze the hashtagging practices of politicians in 10 countries: Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The analysis explores what types of hashtags politicians use, and to what extent these tags are activism-related. We also analyze what activist causes hashtags used by politicians are related to, to better understand what causes are the most palatable to politicians. We further analyze qualitatively how the activism-related hashtags are used by the politicians. Through a combination of thematic analysis and frame analysis, we find that, in relation to the wide range of hashtags that politicians use, activism-related hashtags constitute a limited share. Our analysis also indicates that although politicians do indeed use activism-related hashtags, this can be for many different reasons and purposes, beyond merely supporting the cause or position of the original activist initiative. We find that politicians may join in with the key contention behind the hashtag, renegotiate the meaning of the hashtag to be able to align party-political ideologies with it, or engage with it by questioning or subverting it.
This study looks at how terror attacks are rendered discursively meaningful on social media through the concurrent use and reiteration of terror hashtags, which were created following previous ...incidents of terror. The article focuses on 12 terror attacks in Europe in 2015-2017 and their relating hashtags on Twitter, to see how various combinations of these were reused and co-articulated in tweets posted in relation to subsequent attacks. Through social network analysis of co-occurring hashtags in about 3 million tweets, in combination with close readings of a smaller sample, this study aims to analyze both the networks of hashtags in relation to terror attacks as well as the discursive process of hashtag co-articulation. The study shows that the patterns by which attack hashtags are reused and co-articulated depend on both temporal and contextual differences.
We focused in this study on how the private experience of pain is made public through online discourse by sufferers of endometriosis.
Empirically, we analyse two highly active endometriosis ...communities on the online social platform Reddit. Drawing on a mixed-methods design, we leverage large-scale social data, and a combination of computational and interpretive approaches for text analysis to study the role and shape of interactions relating to ‘pain’ for the formation of epistemic community online around endometriosis. The dataset, consisting of 70,817 forum posts and comments, was collected in May of 2021.
Our study shows how pain becomes meaningful for endometriosis sufferers in relation to a multidimensional discursive space of words and concepts that are used to express it. Pain was frequently disguised, underplayed or hidden altogether, from fears of misunderstanding, medical dismissal, and embarrassment.
Clearly, peer validation can be found in the relative anonymity of Reddit discussions. While the experience of pain is individual and subjective, when communities share similar experiences this reinforces patient ownership of the pain, which in turn supports the epistemic authority of the patient collective.
A detailed understanding of how and why pain is discussed in online spaces has much to contribute more broadly to discussions of experiential collective knowledge production among individuals with endometriosis and other chronic illnesses.
•The private experience of endometriosis pain can be made public via online discourse.•Pain was expressed through a multidimensional discursive space of words and concepts.•The pain was commonly described as unbearable but often disguised or underplayed.•Online peer validation can reinforce patient ownership of the pain.•Peer-validation, in turn, supports the epistemic authority of the patient collective.
Information increasingly flows from smart online knowledge systems, based on ‘collective intelligence’, and to the more traditional form of knowledge production that takes place within academia. ...Looking specifically at the case of Wikipedia, and at how it is employed in scholarly research, this study contributes new knowledge about the potential role of user-generated information in science and innovation. This is done using a dataset collected from the Scopus research database, which is processed with a combination of bibliometric techniques and qualitative analysis. Results show that there has been a significant increase in the use of Wikipedia as a reference within all areas of science and scholarship. Wikipedia is used to a larger extent within areas like Computer Science, Mathematics, Social Sciences and Arts and Humanities, than in Natural Sciences, Medicine and Psychology. Wikipedia is used as a source for a variety of knowledge and information as a replacement for traditional reference works. A thematic qualitative analysis showed that Wikipedia knowledge is recontextualised in different ways when it is incorporated into scholarly discourse. In general, one can identify two forms of framing where one is unmodalised, and the other is modalised. The unmodalised uses include referring to Wikipedia as a complement or example, as a repository, and as an unproblematic source of information. The modalised use is characterised by the invocation of various markers that emphasise – in different ways – that Wikipedia can not be automatically trusted. It has not yet achieved full legitimacy as a source.
This article analyses the challenges faced by the #MeToo campaign, during its first weeks of existence on Twitter. These included the challenges of maintaining its frame, and making a consistent ...impact in a complex and volatile media landscape. This mixed‐methods study draws on a data set of four million tweets accessed through Twitter's public data interface. It addresses the following research questions: To what degree did the #MeToo campaign on Twitter have a clear focus, and was it able to maintain it? How did the tone of the campaign on Twitter change over time, in terms of the positivity or negativity of expressed sentiments? To what extent were tweets simply reiterated, or instead made the subject of customization and active debate? The article finds that #MeToo quickly started to lose its momentum after the initial and explosive impact, with noise, antagonism, and sloganization increasingly weighing down and diluting the campaign. However, a cross‐platform perspective is needed to grasp a full picture of how hashtag activism functions; including the #MeToo campaign.
本文分析了“Me Too”运动在推特上兴起的前几周所面临的挑战。挑战包括维持模式和在复杂且不稳定的媒体格局中产生持续影响。本文利用一项通过推特公共数据界面获取的四百万条推文数据集，以多种方法进行了混合研究。本文处理了以下研究问题：“Me too”运动在多大程度上具备明确的焦点，这个焦点能否通过该运动维持下去？就所表达的情绪积极性或消极性而言，这场推特运动的基调如何随时间推移而发生改变? 推文在多大程度上仅仅是被转发而已，或是让个人化的主题变为活跃辩论？本文发现，“Me Too”运动在实现初次轰动性影响后便开始失去动力，伴随其中的有垃圾信息、敌对情绪和口号化，这些日益明显地减弱了这场运动。然而，需要从跨平台的视角出发，以清晰理解话题标签式的激进主义的运作方式，“Me Too”运动也不例外。
Este artículo analiza los desafíos que enfrentó la campaña #MeToo durante sus primeras semanas de existencia en Twitter. Estos incluían los desafíos de mantener su marco y hacer un impacto constante en un entorno de medios complejo y volátil. Este estudio de métodos mixtos se basa en un conjunto de datos de cuatro millones de tweets a los que se accede a través de la interfaz pública de datos de Twitter. Se abordan las siguientes preguntas de investigación: ¿En qué medida la campaña #MeToo en Twitter tuvo un enfoque claro y fue capaz de mantenerlo? ¿Cómo cambió el tono de la campaña en Twitter con el tiempo, en términos de la positividad o negatividad de los sentimientos expresados? ¿Hasta qué punto los tweets simplemente se reiteraron, o en su lugar se convirtieron en tema de personalización y debate activo? El artículo encuentra que #MeToo rápidamente comenzó a perder su impulso después del impacto inicial y explosivo, con ruido, antagonismo y eslogan que pesan y diluyen cada vez más la campaña. Sin embargo, se necesita una perspectiva multiplataforma para obtener una imagen completa de cómo funciona el activismo de hashtag; Incluyendo la campaña #MeToo.
The sub scene, an online community for creating and distributing subtitle files for pirated movies and TV series, is a culture wherein the knowledge of a number of contributors is pooled. I describe ...the cultural and social protocols that shape the sub scene, with a focus on the linguistic and social exchange that characterizes this particular networked public. Analysis of the linguistic exchange shows that the sub scene is about networked collaboration, but one under a relatively strict social code. The analysis of the social exchange is structured according to Quentin Jones's definition of a virtual settlement. There is a minimum level of interactivity, as well as a variety of communicators, on the sub scene. It can also be described as a virtual common public place where computer-mediated interaction takes place, both in the form of coordination networks and of expert/user networks. Furthermore, it has a minimum level of sustained membership. The culture of the sub scene simultaneously bears characteristics of socialized and alienated cyberculture, which should not be perceived as a contradiction. The development of Internet culture is always happening within the full complexity of society as a whole, and the interplay between unity and discord must be seen as the basis for the social integration of any group.
From early discussions of the disruptive potential of computer technologies for archaeological applications, to the present era of digital archaeology as the technical underpinning of modern ...archaeological practice, we have continued to debate the potential impacts of digital communication and digital capture and storage on our knowledge, profession and communications. The increased use of digital tools and methods for archaeological research and dissemination, as well as what Roosevelt (2015) has referred to as the shift to the digital paradigm within archaeological practice, leads us to suggest that the impact of this paradigm shift requires careful and critical examination. This article will examine the edges of the disciplines of archaeology and sociology, where we aim to advance our understanding of the relationship between digital technologies and archaeological knowledge from a uniquely social perspective, using the theoretical approaches of both classic and modern sociologists. The application of this lens of sociology to digital archaeology equips us to understand how archaeology and archaeological practice is situated in a social world, which is especially relevant in the Global West, where digital technology is ubiquitous. Through a critical consideration of the complexity of use of digital technologies within digital archaeology, we can begin to shift our focus away from the character and method of tools and workflow, to the background of intellectual power and influence.
The 22 May 2017 bombing of the Manchester Arena, which killed 22 and injured over 800 more, triggered a massive public response leading to, among other things, improvised memorials, spontaneous ...vigils, dedicated hashtags, and viral videos. Within this response, the memetic reinvigoration and, subsequently, brand adoption of one of Manchester's oldest civic symbols - the worker bee - was clearly discernible. In this article, we explore how the spread of the bee after the bombing contributed to a politics of post-terror togetherness. Conceptualising memes as 'more or less digital', we 'follow' the bee across bodies, streets and social media platforms via the analysis of approximately 53,000 Instagram images. We show how the initial memeification of the bee carried with it grassroots expressions of togetherness while the subsequent use of the bee in official city branding strategies created and obfuscated various political tensions.
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