Gabi has done a nice job summarizing last week’s blog posts from the networked social movements seminar, which this week was focused on collective identity processes. Cross posting for the civic media crowd (or read the original post here):
The People’s Mic: Dancing Between Collective and Personal Identities? – Amy
Here, Amy calls out Occupy’s “people’s mic” as an “embodied experience” of
Polletta and Jasper’s “cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a
broader community, category, practice, or institution.” She cites
Richard Kim’s assertion that the use of the tool in a horizontally
organized group helps simplify messages and strengthen the collective
identity as a whole. I was struck by Amy’s story about speaking with
those in the Occupy movement who did not like using people’s
mic. Interesting how a mechanism that seems to represent a movement can
quickly turn into a cause of disassociation. Amy finishes up her post
with questions about the “recurring dialectic dance” between collective
and individual identity.
Reclaiming and using pejorative identities – Molly
Using her ongoing research on the portrayal of hacktivism in the media as a
reference point, Molly chews over the benefits and risks associated with
the way hacktivist groups self-identify. On the one hand, the “media
metaphor” allows groups such as Anonymous and LulzSec to manipulate
their image in the minds of the public as well as recruit effectively.
On the other hand, “word reclamation” (embracing the pejorative for the
purpose of self-identification) is a double edged sword, one that may
end up problematic for the group.
Collective Identity Reflections – Vic
“Art is a cultural building block,” notes Vic, citing a YouTube video of a
13 year old Iranian girl singing a song from popular Western culture.
She then asks about crediting artists whose work becomes symbolism for
social movement collective identity, such as Alan Moore and David
Lloyd’s Guy Fawkes mask illustration, which has become pervasive in the
Anonymous (and, to a lesser extent, Occupy) movement. Finally, Vic
wonders if collective identity theory doesn’t do enough to understand
its effect on the individuals within.
Book Review: The Power of Identity (Manuel Castells) – David
David provides a thorough summary of Manuel Castells’ “interesting and
complex effort to develop a new understanding of how groups and
individuals are interrelated through various mediums of communication.”
With anecdotal tidbits from his own experiences, David is able to
illustrate a number of observations made by Castells throughout his
study of identity within social movements across the globe and
throughout history. David finishes off his summary noting that it’s
worthwhile to think about some of the more recent technological
considerations and how they might affect Castells’ thesis.
Floating Ideas: The Great Depression and the Occupy Movement – Nathalie
In thinking about her final project for the semester, Nathalie brings to
light some of the interesting similarities between the various protest
movements surrounding The Great Depression and Occupy. She considers
comparing and contrasting media utilization and resource mobilization
between then and now, as well as the political, economic, and societal
reasons for both movements to come to be.
Proposal: Civic Media in China – Huan
Huan’s final project proposal asks about social movement media strategies in
China. Taking into considerations how movements in “democratic”
countries use the media, she wonders if the adversarial nature of the
way these movements attract media attention would work in a nation such
as China, where a complex media system inspires movements to change the
way they are framed based on the sector of society about which they are
making a comment. She cites land disputes and human rights as examples
of movements which require different strategies.