Billur Aslan to present at Sites of Protest conference

NPCU PhD candidate Billur Aslan is to present her latest research at the Sites of Protest conference at Canterbury Christ Church University on 29 October 2014. Her presentation will draw on her interviews with activists in Syria about the use of ICT in different stages of protest. The abstract of her presentation is below.

The Challenge to Spark Collective Action via ICTs during the Syrian Uprising

ICTs have brought the most dramatic change in protest organisation during the last few decades, replacing the role of the social movement organisations. This has resulted in the emergence of a new style of protest termed “crowd-enabled movements” by Bennett. Crowd-enabled movements are formed by fine-grained networks of individuals in which digital media platforms are the most visible and integrative organizational mechanisms. The Syrian uprising could be classified as a crowd-enabled movement since it was formed by individual activities of the public that activated its own social networks in the absence of social movement organisations. However, in contrast to other crowd-enabled movements, ICTs were not the main organisational hub of Syrian protesters. This research analyses the ignition and mobilisation phases of the Syrian uprising from March 2011 to July 2011, exploring why ICTs could not acquire and develop significant roles in these phases. The analysis draws upon a selection of original interviews with Syrian activists alongside mainstream and social media content analysis. The data collected will reveal that variations in political culture may affect the way in which dissidents utilise the technology. Under the surveillance of an oppressive state culture and an obvious lack of past protest experiences, Syrians first used ICTs within a limited capacity. They formed their uprising with different other offline methods in new sites of protests, in this case the mosques. So far, a substantial number of scholars who have examined the role of the ICTs in the protests share the idea that it is people’s usage of technology - not the technology itself - that can change social processes. This research takes this argument one step further and claim that people’s usage of technology is also a dependent variable that is linked to the political culture in the country.

To contact Billur about her research, email: Billur.Aslan.2009@live.rhul.ac.uk

Sites of Protest is the third event organised by the MeCCSA Social Movements Network since its foundation in 2013. This conference is organised in conjunction with the Canterbury Media Discourse Group at Canterbury Christ Church University. Thanks to Dr Ruth Sanz Sabido for organising it. 

Anstead & O'Loughlin publish Semantic Polling study in JCMC

The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication have published a study by Nick Anstead and Ben O'Loughlin on semantic polling, the use of social media analysis to understand how public opinion forms and shifts. Their article, 'Social Media Analysis and Public Opinion: The 2010 UK General Election', uses interviews with journalists, traditional pollsters and the new breed of semantic polling companies to explain how semantic polling is done, how it is reported by journalists, and the role it played in 2010. The main argument of that this more granular, close to real-time analysis offers an alternative to the post-1936 Gallupian polling model that only aims to understand which party will win elections. Semantic polling allows us to understand the social dynamics of public opinion. In concluding, the authors take steps towards a new theory of public opinion.

The authors very much welcome feedback and comments.

JCMC is ranked 3rd in Google Scholar rankings for Communication and 6th in ISI rankings [subscription required].

Obama's UN Resolution on Foreign Fighters may stem the flow of recruits to ISIS, but what to do about those already fighting amongst them?

Akil Awan writes for The National Interest on how we might deal with foreign fighters, returning home after fighting in Syria and Iraq with outfits like ISIS:

What Happens When ISIS Comes Home?

This week, President Barack Obama chaired a special meeting of the UN Security Council in which member states passed a resolution establishing an international legal framework to help prevent the recruitment and transport of would-be foreign fighters from joining terrorist groups. As expected, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2148 on Foreign Terrorist Fighters passed unanimously.

Hardly surprising, considering the alacrity and sheer audacity with which ISIS continues to expand in Syria and Iraq, drawing foreigners from every corner of the globe, willing to fight and die for its nascent Caliphate. Indeed, some estimates place the number of foreign fighters within ISIS at around 12,000 individuals, originating from no less than eighty-one different countries; a truly globalized mobilization on an epic scale.

As realization gradually dawns upon the international community of the grave consequences for both state and society, should citizens decide to take up arms with brutal and extreme outfits like ISIS, many countries have scrambled to instate strategies for dealing with not just the recruitment of fighters, but also the inevitable influx of returnees once the conflict is over.

Fighters returning from the front lines, brutalized by the ravages of war and potentially suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, may prove incapable of easily slipping back into their respective host societies. More ominously, some will also have engaged in horrific sectarian violence or egregious human-rights violations that have become hallmarks of the conflict.

The social media accounts of some Western Jihadists, tweeting images of grisly executions and “selfies” with severed heads, or the prominence of individuals like Jihadi John, the Briton who was shown brutally beheading American and British hostages, is testament to the barbarity many fighters have not just been immersed within, but have positively relished. Naturally, these revelations will prove all the more troubling, should these men choose to return home. Indeed, a small minority may have already brought violence back with them, as the recent example of Mehdi Nemmouche clearly shows; Nemmouche spent more than a year fighting in Syria and is now the prime suspect in an anti-Semitic attack on a Jewish museum in Belgium that left four people dead in May.

How then, should states deal with their errant sons, who choose to return home once the conflict has lost its glamour and appeal?

Read on here

The problematic symbiosis between media, terrorism, and State abuse of power

Akil Awan has a new piece at The Conversation on the recent unfettered media coverage of Isalmic State beheadings, and how this is linked to a deeply problematic symbiotic relationship between media, terrorism, and state abuse of power:

"The well-known US security expert, Brian Jenkins, famously declared in 1974, that “terrorism is theatre”. And over the last few weeks, the brutal videotaped beheadings of British and American hostages by Islamic State militants have proved the prescience of his statement with horrifying clarity.

We are now accustomed to images in our papers and on our screens of IS murders but we should consider the role we play when we look at the pictures or watch the videos. Every time we engage with the spectacle, we are contributing to the problem.

Scholars have long recognised that terrorism is actually better understood if it is viewed – at least in the first instance – as communication rather than violence.

In essence, the relative success or failure of a terrorist act cannot be measured by the number of casualties inflicted or the level of financial damage incurred, but can really only be gauged by how much attention it gets. The act needs to secure front-page headlines, airtime and iconic images. Ultimately, it needs to engender fear or curiosity in an audience. By these measures, the abhorrent executions of James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and David Haine were spectacular propaganda successes for IS.

The videos are meticulously staged. The sinister, balaclava wearing, archetypal villain, “Jihadi John”, insouciantly wields a hunting knife beside a helpless hostage wearing an orange Guantanamo-style jumpsuit. All the while, he provides lucid and articulate explanations for this horrendous act in a characteristic London accent. The whole scene will no doubt be indelibly seared onto the mind of anyone who watches it.

And why wouldn’t it be? Most major news outlets have, in an astounding display of servile compliance, featured these images prominently, be it on the front page or in prime-time breaking news. Each has further reinforced the notion that these events were the most important, most newsworthy, most worthy of our attention and moral outrage, happening anywhere in the world.

And of course, that is the very purpose for the existence of this sort of act in the first place. Videos like these are produced to present harrowing, shocking, egregious violence that is then starkly juxtaposed against a cogent, coherent justification. We are so shocked and angered by what we see that we sit up and pay attention to the content of the message.

So if this is so patently clear to many of us, why do the media continue to display this predictable Pavlovian response to terrorism?"

Read on here

The normalization of #RT?

Ben O'Loughlin has a new column in the Global Policy journal exploring the function of Russia's international broadcaster RT, previously Russia Today:

Incredulity doesn’t kill curiosity; it encourages it. Though distrustful of logical chains of ideas, I loved the polyphony of ideas. As long as you don’t believe in them, the collision of two ideas – both false – can create a pleasing interval, a kind of diabolus in musica. I had no respect for some ideas people were willing to stake their lives on, but two or three ideas that I did not respect might still make a nice melody.
                                   Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum, Vintage: London, p. 95.

Modern politics has always entailed a degree of credulity on the part of policymakers and citizens. We cannot directly experience most political events. We rely on journalism to tell us what is happening, while recognizing those representations are necessarily imperfect. We hope that all journalists try their best, otherwise we cannot be informed and think, vote and act responsibly. In journalists we put our trust and faith. When journalists mislead, intentionally or through error, outrage follows. They have broken the pact. But what happens when a global news organisation promotes incredulity towards journalism and world events? Will audiences succumb to an entirely playful attitude to the truth and see the political ideas and events for beauty they create together rather than their correspondence to reality, akin to the playfulness Italian novelist Umberto Eco suggests? Will Russia’s international broadcaster RT – previously Russia Today – succeed in undercutting the evidentiary basis of political discussion and reduce world affairs to nice melodies that do not take us to events on the ground but that we find curious nevertheless? Or, instead, could RT be dragged into a more mainstream, less radical form of news? Could RT be just another normal media outlet?

Read on here.

Strategic Narratives - out in paperback

Routledge in New York have released the paperback version of Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order by Alister Miskimmon, Ben O'Loughlin and Laura Roselle. You can order a copy here. 

Endorsements:

"In today’s media-rich environment, projecting a narrative is at the heart of a nation’s foreign policy, particularly its public diplomacy. Many actors and institutions are involved in constructing these narratives, and Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle present perceptive analysis of how this process works. Strategic Narratives is invaluable reading for those wanting to understand modern diplomacy."

—Philip Seib, University of Southern California 

"This fascinating book is both theoretically and empirically rich. The authors demonstrate how strategic narratives are used to persuade and interpret, how they may be contested or formed as uncontested, and how they shape the interactions of diverse actors in the international environment. They illustrate these dynamics in relation to cases as diverse as the 'Rise of China' narrative in the U.S., the 'David and Goliath' narrative in Israel, and the anti-whaling narratives of activists in the 1960s. A must read for students and practitioners who want to understand public diplomacy in the media age." 

—K.M. Fierke, University of St. Andrews

Media, Israel and Conflict - new special issue

Following events in Israel and Gaza this summer, the journal Media, War & Conflict has published a virtual special issue, available for free here. The editors selected reseach articles from the past and present that offer some analytical insight for those trying to make sense of the recent conflict. It is difficult for peer-reviewed scientific journals to respond to ongoing events, but we hope readers will gain for comparing media strategies in 2014 with those of past conflicts.

New Journal Article on Journalism and the Snowden Leak by Andrew Chadwick and Simon Collister

Update September 2: This article has now published in the IJoC. Click here to download.

Andrew Chadwick and Simon Collister have a new article out that examines the mediation of the Snowden leak. It will be published by the International Journal of Communication in the early autumn.

The paper is being presented at the APSA Political Communication Section Preconference in Washington, DC next week. Abstract and full PDF below.

Andrew Chadwick and Simon Collister “Boundary-Drawing Power and the Renewal of Professional News Organizations: The Case of the Guardian and the Edward Snowden NSA Leak” International Journal of Communication 8, 2014.

Abstract

We argue that the Edward Snowden NSA leak of 2013 was an important punctuating phase in the evolution of political journalism and political communication, as media systems continue to adapt to the incursion of digital media logics. We show how the leak’s mediation reveals professional news organizations’ evolving power in an increasingly congested, complex, and polycentric hybrid media system where the number of news actors has radically increased. We identify the practices through which the Guardian reconfigured and renewed its power and which enabled it to lay bare highly significant aspects of state power and surveillance. This involved exercising a form of strategic, if still contingent, control over the information and communication environments within which the Snowden story developed. This was based upon a range of practices encapsulated by a concept we introduce: boundary-drawing power.

Download the full paper here.

O'Loughlin speaking at Streets To Screens symposium, Goldsmiths

Ben O'Loughlin is one of the speakers at the symposium Streets to Screens: Mediating Conflict Through Digital Networks on 7th November 2014 at Goldsmiths, University of London. The symposium is on the topic of mediating conflict through digital networks

• What role do networked eyewitnesses, activists and citizen journalists play in conflict communication today? 
• What are the challenges faced by those mediating conflict online?
• In what ways are social media content produced within the zone of conflict shaping the coverage produced by news organisations?
• What are the implications of these forms of reportage for eyewitnesses, activists, citizen journalists, perpetrators, NGOs, journalists, news media, audiences and global publics?

Speakers Include

Andrew Hoskins, University of Glasgow

Ben O'Loughlin, Royal Holloway

Sam Gregory, WITNESS

Liam Stack, New York Times

Claire Wardle, UNHCR

Stuart Allan, Cardiff University

Malachy Browne, Storyful

Lilie Chouliaraki, LSE

Tickets are FREE but registration is required. For more information please visit: 

http://www.york.ac.uk/sociology/about/news-and-events/department/2014/streets-to-screens/

For more information, please contact Holly Steel at has502@york.ac.uk

Soft power panel at CRESC Annual Conference - Power, Culture and Social Framing

Ben O'Loughlin is part of a panel kicking off this year's CRESC Annual Conference in Manchester on 3rd September 2015. The panel, Soft Power and its Critiques, also features Marie Gillespie and Robin Brown, two experts on international communication and public diplomacy.

The aim of this panel is to offer a range of critical perspectives on contemporary conceptions of soft power as well as questioning how soft power strategies are applied in practice:

• How are users 'engaged' by soft power initiatives?
• To what extent is soft power a global concept?
• How do governments attempt to harness and use soft power?
• How has British soft power evolved from an analogue to a digital world?

The panel addresses the following critical questions:

What’s new about soft power? How does it differ from older forms of 'cultural imperialism'?

Why are European powers disinvesting in media/public diplomacy and soft power initiatives at a time when rising powers are investing? Are the kinds of values that have featured prominently in western soft power strategies (tolerance, pluralism, cultural diversity, impartiality) losing some of their leverage?

Is soft power just another stage in the advance of Public Relations as the art form for politics par excellence? What does ‘power’ look like beyond the nation state? How are soft power strategies affected by the rise of transnational and supranational communities beyond the nation on one hand, and of multiple diasporas within nation states on the other hand?

If we wish to attend, please register here.

O'Loughlin is former Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on Soft Power, which published its final report earlier this year, while Gillespie has just published a new report examining how the BBC World Service and British Council are using digital media to fulfil their cultural diplomacy functions. Robin Brown is completing a new comparative history of public diplomacy.